Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan) header
Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan) profile picture

#proEU #FBPE. In favour of kindness and rational debate. Mother, wife, daughter and sister. Linguist and novice stitcher. Avid Arsenal fan!

Joined October 2012
Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)Photo by Chris Finlan (@ChrisFinlan)
So you can cut the corner get into clean air and then just take only 5 seconds. Crazy penalty.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Leclerc would rather both Ferraris off the podium, than his teammate beat him to a 1-2. Today was another example.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Charles Leclerc is a selfish short-sighted idiot. And Ferrari are a joke of a team with no sense or authority. Charles should’ve been put in line ages ago. 🤡 #F1
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The new minimum wage is now only a few thousand less than the base salary for newly qualified teachers and nurses, all of whom will be paying off student loans.
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Just three years ago we had doctors on £29,384 per year by the way.
UK new minimum wage: £27,456 per year. Higher-rate tax bracket: £50,270. 1.8x difference. In 1997 there was a 5x difference. Mind boggling.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Back in 2010, the minimum wage was £12,064 and the 'higher earner' band started at £43,875. You only paid 40% tax once you were earning 3.6x the minimum wage. There was clear incentive to progress, learn and aspire for more. As things stand, you now start paying 40% tax once you earn £50,270 which is just 1.83x the minimum wage. If it was the same multiple as 2010, the 'higher earning' band would be £98,841 and everyone below this amount would be paying 20%. Someone on £98,841 is effectively losing out on £9714.20 net per year if the bandings had simply moved in line with previous multiples relative to minimum wage. This is one of the reasons why the middle class is being eroded and why there's a cost of living crisis in the UK.
An increase to £13.20p/h equates to a minimum wage of £27,456, based on a 40 hour week. Once you factor in employers NI and basic pension contributions, the MINIMUM cost to hire a 21 year old for a company would be £31,461. This is before you factor in any overarching business costs like office space, laptops, phone, software, training, support staff, vehicles etc. This is going to be devastating to SME's who cant put together a simple 12 month budget without the goalposts being moved & their margins squeezed. It'll also be catastrophic to youngsters opportunities because businesses will simply not be able to afford to hire them. What's also incredible is that anything above £50,270 is seen as 'high earnings' in the UK and is taxed at 40%! We are governed by financially and economically illiterate morons. This will not end well.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
**EXCLUSIVE** Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak met a senior UK government minister to discuss the UAE’s investments in Britain just days before the club’s guilty verdicts were announced. Al Mubarak asked to meet Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds on 14 September in his capacity as CEO of Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, sources tell Bloomberg. The pair held a private meeting in Downing Street on that date, the people said. Al Mubarak talked about current and future UAE investment in Britain, they said. The conversation covered the full range of the relationship including defence, security, intelligence and trade, they said. Eleven days later, on 25 September, the Athletic reported Man City had been found guilty of breaking Premier League rules. On 29 September, the Premier League confirmed Manchester City had been found guilty of artificially boosting its balance sheet by more than £900 million. The fact of the meeting so close to the verdict will raise further questions about the UK government’s handling of the case. Andy Burnham has faced criticism, including from his own ministers and officials, after he publicly suggested Man City’s Abu Dhabi owners should not be disqualified from running the club because of the investment they bring to Britain. Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Emirati officials have warned the UK government that the severity of the ruling could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale commitments in Britain. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Pep Guardiola inherited a team with De Bruyne, David Silva, Kompany, Sterling and Aguero, and still spent €500m in his first two seasons. For context, in his first 18 months, he spent as much as Arsene Wenger did in 21 years. That’s what £900m of artificial revenue allowed.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Hello @LucyMPowell As MP for Mcr Central which includes Wastelands, is there anything you'd like to share about your little visit to Abu Dhabi & your role cheerleading for @ManCity's corrupt owners in the UAE APPG 👇 Or do we have to wait for it all to come out in the wash? 🤔
UK Education Secretary and #ManCity fan, Lucy Powell: “Can I just say to all those United fans who have been gloating all week - you're still crap and you know you are!”
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Bloomberg warned weeks ago that political pressure would be applied from the UK to the UAE, and it is happening in front of your eyes. This is the very definition of sportswashing and why nation states should not be allowed to own football clubs. Andy Burnham cannot interfere.
Andy Burnham has said he would be “really concerned” to lose Manchester City’s owners as a result of the club being found guilty of more than 100 breaches of Premier League rules | ✍️ @martynziegler, @Lawton_Times, @_pauljoyce thetimes.com/sport/football/…
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Chris Finlan retweeted
🚨🎙️ Gary Neville on UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s comments about Manchester City: “I find those comments absolutely staggering. At a time when Manchester City have just been found guilty of serious financial rule breaches, the Prime Minister is talking about how concerned he would be if their owners left. What message does that send? Are we now at the stage where money, investment and tax revenue matter more than the integrity of football? Because if that is the message coming from the top, then we have a serious problem. You cannot have one set of rules for the smaller clubs and another set of rules for the biggest and wealthiest clubs. If the rules have been broken, they must be dealt with properly. It doesn't matter how much money the owners have brought into Manchester. And let me be very clear — nobody should be influencing the independent process. The courts, regulators and football authorities must be allowed to do their jobs without political pressure. If Manchester City escape meaningful punishment simply because they are economically important, then forget sporting integrity. Every club in England will ask themselves why they should respect the rules. The Premier League cannot become a competition where the bigger your bank account, the safer you are from consequences. That would destroy the credibility of English football. I think the Prime Minister needs to clarify those comments, because right now they sound like he is more worried about losing Manchester City’s owners than protecting the integrity of the Premier League.”
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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer set up the independent Casey Commission on Social Care in 2025, chaired by Baroness Louise Casey, to reform adult social care in England and lay the groundwork for a National Care Service Not Burnham, STARMER @LBC @SkyNews
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This isn’t a race. It’s the dullest parade I’ve ever watched #spanishgp
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Govt agrees that students in England were misled by how student loan terms were explained, but only proposes changing them for the future bit.ly/4cCau3W no compensation for millions whose were misled at barely 18
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The govt response to this report is a disgrace. Admitting that young people were deliberately misled and then doing nothing about it. A shameful betrayal of students who took out loans in good faith and are facing increasing repayments which have little effect on the capital
This is a very disappointing response that does little to help the millions of students already struggling with student loans! My view on the govt's reponse today to the Treasury Committee student loan report... --------------- This is a very disappointing response that does little to help the millions of students already struggling with student loans, after years of degradation of the terms they signed up to, by successive governments. Most urgently, it doesn’t address the coming immoral freeze of the Plan 2 repayment threshold, announced by Rachel Reeves, due to start next April. That will mean all those on Plan 2 loans will effectively pay more each year. I say it’s immoral because it is a negative retrospective change of terms to loan contracts students, often aged 18, signed up to. No commercial firm would ever be allowed to do that. The only slim hope is that as the freeze was announced in a Budget, it has to be undone in a Budget and therefore they are just waiting for the coming one to do that. At the same time, the Government has sadly rejected the Committee’s recommendation that the ‘fairness’ protections that holders of commercial loans get should apply to student loans too - perhaps as it knows some of the ways it behaves would fall foul of those conditions. Most frustrating is that back in 2015, I campaigned for this change, and even worked with current Cabinet Minister, Wes Streeting, then a backbencher, to put an amendment in Parliament (it failed). So, it is incredibly frustrating to see a government he is now a part of reject it. The Government has also rejected shifting the inflation link from RPI to CPI - continuing the unfair pattern that means when the Government raises our costs by inflation it’s often via the higher RPI, but on things where it pays out it’s often linked to the lower CPI measure. Of course, I welcome the small crumbs it has given that at least future students will be told in plain English, before they sign up, that the amount they repay can be altered after the event. But let’s be clear: better information for future students will not fix the existing Plan 2 student loan crisis. The repayment threshold needs to rise, interest needs to fall, maintenance support needs uprating, and the whole system requires a fundamental reset.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
This is a very disappointing response that does little to help the millions of students already struggling with student loans! My view on the govt's reponse today to the Treasury Committee student loan report... --------------- This is a very disappointing response that does little to help the millions of students already struggling with student loans, after years of degradation of the terms they signed up to, by successive governments. Most urgently, it doesn’t address the coming immoral freeze of the Plan 2 repayment threshold, announced by Rachel Reeves, due to start next April. That will mean all those on Plan 2 loans will effectively pay more each year. I say it’s immoral because it is a negative retrospective change of terms to loan contracts students, often aged 18, signed up to. No commercial firm would ever be allowed to do that. The only slim hope is that as the freeze was announced in a Budget, it has to be undone in a Budget and therefore they are just waiting for the coming one to do that. At the same time, the Government has sadly rejected the Committee’s recommendation that the ‘fairness’ protections that holders of commercial loans get should apply to student loans too - perhaps as it knows some of the ways it behaves would fall foul of those conditions. Most frustrating is that back in 2015, I campaigned for this change, and even worked with current Cabinet Minister, Wes Streeting, then a backbencher, to put an amendment in Parliament (it failed). So, it is incredibly frustrating to see a government he is now a part of reject it. The Government has also rejected shifting the inflation link from RPI to CPI - continuing the unfair pattern that means when the Government raises our costs by inflation it’s often via the higher RPI, but on things where it pays out it’s often linked to the lower CPI measure. Of course, I welcome the small crumbs it has given that at least future students will be told in plain English, before they sign up, that the amount they repay can be altered after the event. But let’s be clear: better information for future students will not fix the existing Plan 2 student loan crisis. The repayment threshold needs to rise, interest needs to fall, maintenance support needs uprating, and the whole system requires a fundamental reset.
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Chris Finlan retweeted
Ah Pharmacy First, headache assessments now ??? No details of clinical pathways yet . 30 + years doing this job, assessing headaches is a minefield….but what would i know, “I’m just a GP” Follow the money … always
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Chris Finlan retweeted
For gods sake just fund general practice properly
We've all been there. You wake up feeling unwell, try to get an appointment, and before you know it half the day has disappeared. When you're sick, the last thing you should be worrying about is how you're going to get the help you need. That's why we're expanding Pharmacy First. The idea is simple: Qualified pharmacists can assess patients, dispense medicines and prescribe treatment for a range of common conditions, helping people get care quickly and close to home. So you don’t have to go to hospital, and you don’t need to book a GP appointment. Just walk into your local pharmacy and get the treatment you need right there, right then. These services make a huge difference, especially for older people and those who are vulnerable. That's why we invested a further £340 million in community pharmacies, including to deliver Pharmacy First. Six million consultations have been delivered since the launch of the scheme. GPs and NHS 111 have referred three million people to their local pharmacy. And pharmacists have provided more than three million urgent medicine supplies. We’re making it possible for qualified prescribing pharmacists to treat five more common health conditions this autumn, like migraines and ear infections, so access to treatment is easier than ever. And what we’re announcing today will make it easier to see a GP for those who need it. I know how hard our NHS works, how much pressure staff are under and how tough it can be for people to access the care they need from my time as Health Secretary. And I know things have only got tougher in the last 15 years. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, I saw firsthand how important it is to put more firepower in the frontlines and give people more control over their own lives. Every place and every person matters. So we’ll make sure people can get the care they need, where they need it. That’s what this is all about. Faster treatment. More services. Better care for patients. And less pressure on hospitals and GPs. One less headache for people to worry about.
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Can’t stand Burnham. Can’t stand Badenoch. . Can’t stand the clown Polanski. Can’t stand Ed Davey. What am I supposed to do? Hope a new Party is formed?
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Chris Finlan retweeted
I guess a church that compromises a sense of itself as a sacred space does indeed risk diminishing itself to the status of a landmark. teapawt.net/MayorofLondon/status/2…
Fabric. St Paul’s Cathedral. Name a more iconic duo. Bringing together these two institutions will create a one-of-a-kind experience, pairing world-class music with one of our most special landmarks. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8z…
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