@AaronBastani Defence spending is like home insurance. It always looks expensive until the day you need it. The world isn’t getting safer, and pretending otherwise won’t make it so.
@floboflo If MI5 were planning arrests, Florence Lox hearing about it on social media would be a bigger national security story than the arrests themselves.
@johnandi According to FBPE logic, before Brexit Britain had secure borders, unlimited housing, cheap energy, thriving public services and no migration problems whatsoever.
@dave43law It’s not the body count that’s driving the reaction. It’s the perception that the incident reflects wider concerns about immigration and public policy. You can disagree with that perception, but pretending it doesn’t exist explains nothing.
@varivarivari@mehercle@Gre3nProphet Alan is right to reject the “only reason” claim. The survival of classical learning was a joint inheritance of monasteries, Byzantine scholars and the Islamic world. Anyone reducing it to a single civilisation is doing ideology, not history.
@louderry Nobody said service guarantees virtue. The point is that Ant Middleton’s decades of military service count for something. His critics seem determined to judge him by his worst moment, while judging their own allies by their best intentions.
@paulmasonnews The real story isn’t Healey’s letter. It’s watching some of Starmer’s loudest cheerleaders realise that governing involves choices, trade-offs and disagreements they spent years pretending didn’t exist.
@PippaCrerar Anonymous Treasury sources. Anonymous briefings. Anonymous claims. If the allegation is serious, put it on the record. Otherwise it looks more like factional briefing than journalism.
@jeremycorbyn “Real security” includes being able to defend the country that provides the housing, schools and NHS.
Scarily, a man who viewed defence as optional came dangerously close to becoming Prime Minister.
@Grapefruit_Juce@KonstantinKisin@AyoCaesar You’ve accidentally made Kisin’s point. For years people like Ash encouraged society to view politics, institutions and outcomes through race and identity. Now others are doing the same, just reaching conclusions she dislikes. Identity politics cuts both ways.
@stellacreasy Serious question: what actual evidence is there that Nigel Farage believes women are “expendable” or unequal?
Not disagreement. Not inference. Not assumption.
Evidence.
@PippaCrerar The interesting part isn’t Farage saying “so what?”
It’s whether journalists like Pippa Crerar apply the same forensic scrutiny to Labour figures with embarrassing historic comments.
Standards that only operate in one political direction aren’t standards at all.
@SholaMos1 When every disagreement becomes evidence of racism, the accusation loses force. A jury considered the evidence, heard the self-defence claim and reached a verdict. Criticise the verdict if you wish, but calling it “Jim Crow justice” requires proof, not assumption.
@PhilMyers53 A mandate isn’t a lifetime achievement award. Governments are judged on delivery. Living standards, migration, crime, housing and growth will determine the verdict—not AI-generated posters and personality cults.
@DPJHodges Ant Middleton served in the Paras, Royal Marines and SBS. Most people couldn’t even pass selection for one of those. By all means challenge what he said, but reducing a lifetime of service to a single conviction says more about you than it does about Middleton.