Ageing like a fine wine that has been left uncorked
Marsden
Joined November 2010
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Michael Sweeney retweeted
Britain - led by ‘do the right thing’ team of PM and Foreign Sec - effectively supported U.N. General Assembly by 144 votes just elected Iran's Islamic Regime to the Committee for Program and Coordination, which shapes priorities on Women’s Rights, Disarmament & Counter-Terrorism.
How by any definition however deluded is this doing the right thing @Ed_Miliband ?
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Not sure anyone has spotted this - @Miatsf tells @BBCJustinR that Clean Power 2030 is now a 'stretch target'. Comes after @AngelaRayner used exactly the same language to describe building 1.5m houses - so that's two really big manifesto promises that are being downgraded.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Iran murdered thousands of their youth earlier this year. In cold blood. They sponsor terrorism all over the Middle East. They chant ‘death to the west’ in controlled schools. But our Foreign Secretary invites them into the UN General Assembly for women’s rights! Ed Miliband you are a total disgrace.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
The British state is far more corrupt than people realise. This is banana republic stuff. spectator.com/article/why-is…
Michael Sweeney retweeted
If Trump had done this we'd have emergency podcasts from The News Agents and The Rest is Politics bemoaning the state of US democracy.
Michigan's Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed confronted @jamesmatthewsky, telling him he wouldn't answer his questions as he wants "zero" votes in the UK.
Watch the heated exchange between the two.
Watch our live coverage of the US midterms➡️ trib.al/BikRSb2
Michael Sweeney retweeted
So let me get this straight...
The same charities that have preciptated a government U-turn are also funded by the government ...
This is how globalism works - sock puppet NGOs presented as independent 'civil society' actors are in fact mouthpieces for the state bureaucracy
Revealed: Charities that called for Mahmood's immigration U-turn received more than £1billion in taxpayers' cash trib.al/ZOIlqE7
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Poundland reduced its headcount by 25% over 4 years, and its staff costs still went up by 8%.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Here's the real story of this Budget, the can being kicked down the road. This Labour government is apparently planning spending cuts on most areas of public service spending of 2.6% per year between 2028-29 and 2031-32.
Pull the other one. It's got bells on.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
An enterprising opposition would UQ this astonishing breach of convention. Lewis says he's a journalist, but no journalist would blab about a pre-briefing hours before the budget is delivered. This man is regarded as some sort of saint, but he seems utterly unaccountable to anyone. Parliament should step in
CONFIRMED. Gas Standing Charges to be scrapped. I've just come out of a meeting with the Chancellor. The gas standing charge will be scrapped in 2027 (my guess, either for 1 Oct price cap or the 1 Jan 28 price cap). Having campaigned against the moral hazard of standing charges for years, I'm pleased.
It's currently £108 a year. That cost will be shifted onto unit rates. We don't know how much yet, but I suspect just under 1p per kwH.
The Chancellor also said he will be talking to Ofgem about how they get rid of the charge on electricity as well, but that is 'trickier' apparently and will take longer.
This is primarily about the price cap standing charges. There will still be an open market, so other firms can offer other forms of prices with or without the standing charge. My suspicion is that once it goes on the price cap, it will tend to be reduced on other tariffs as well.
As for those on fixes: if you get a fix now, the rate of your fix is fixed, so this should not affect it. You will pay what you pay and if it has standing charges they will continue (some asking if they should delay fixing because of this, no if a fix is right for you and will save you money, don't let this change that - this is about the structure of bills, as opposed to the actual costs on bills).
About 60% of people will pay less due to this, 40% more. My guesstimate is the dividing line will be somewhere around 12,500 kilowatt hours of gas (can't know until there is actual pricing). According to a study by Nesta, this switch would leave the majority of people in all income groups under £100,000 better off.
Of course, when this does come in, if we're still in the nightmare that we are right now, there will need to be support put in for vulnerable higher users, who will have to pay more. Though hopefully by then the mid-east will have calmed and energy prices lower.
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That's all long term. The biggest issue in energy right now is that we're expecting a 27% rise in the price cap in January. I asked the Chancellor whether he will be intervening on that. He told me I'd have to wait for the budget, but reading between the lines, yes, there will be an announcement today.
Whether it's an increase in the Warm Home Discount, or whether it's council tax banned, or whether it's done via a payout for people in say council tax bands A-D as a proxy for household income as Rishi Sunak did who knows.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Wonderful news. This means that if we rejoined, we'd have up to £218bn a year extra to spend that we didn't have before! Thing is, I don't recall being that well off while we were members last time, but I'm sure that's just memory playing tricks. Altogether now: 🎶Happy days are here again. . .🎵
The EU fee was about £12.6bn a year, whereas the estimated Brexit loss of output is now roughly £170bn–£230bn a year, with an associated loss of tax revenue of roughly £65bn–£85bn a year. That makes the fee equivalent to only about 5–7% of the estimated annual GDP loss. #BrexSHIT
Michael Sweeney retweeted
The volume of propaganda pumped out by the BBC—even, as we now know, unto the embedding of government staff inside the corporation—is gobsmacking in itself, but it also exposes the fatuousness of people who obsess about GBNews.
BREAKING: BBC forced to take down its education website used by millions after it was found to contain all sorts of devices and articles promoting the Labour Party, leftist politics, as well as ‘extreme views on migration and Net Zero’ (via @DailyMail) dailymail.com/news/article-1…
Michael Sweeney retweeted
An oldie but a goodie. In 1968 a bunch of entitled hippy bastards sent a letter detailing their specious demands to the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford. This was their letter of reply, which speaks to how far the academy has since fallen.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Who knew?
Rock-solid piece: Oliver himself appears in my upcoming "Confidently Wrong" book - as part of a whole network of hacks who use massaged data to terrify people.
HBO's @LastWeekTonight has a long track record of citing social science findings without the appropriate context, massaging them to support whatever point @iamjohnoliver is trying to make.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Huge contrast to Britain in 2024 teapawt.net/visegrad24/status/2112…
BREAKING:
The first rioters and looters have been sentenced in France.
The judges practically refuse to hand out prison sentences:
🔴 Toulouse – Ylan, 18 years old. Throwing a Molotov cocktail at police officer
- Sentence: 12 months suspended + 140 hours of community service + deprivation of voting rights for 3 years.
- Max. sentence: 10 years in prison
🔴 Lille – 3 men, including 2 illegal migrants. Arrested with bags filled with loot from Micromania and Calzedonia stores.
- Sentence: 10 months in prison with custody warrant + 2-year territorial ban (for the 2 undocumented migrants).
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Lille – Father of a family with a crowbar, attempted break-in at a store.
- Sentence: 10 months in prison with custody warrant + 3-year ban on demonstrations.
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Lille – 23-year-old man, launching fireworks at police
- Sentence: 12 months under electronic monitoring + 140 hours of community service.
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Reims – Sahel W., 19 years old. Looting a Carrefour
- Sentence: 105 hours of community service.
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Reims – Hugo M., 20 years old. Looting a Caviar boutique.
- Sentence: 4 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 7 years.
🔴 Rouen – Tunisian delivery driver, looting of a gold buyback shop (16,000€ worth of jewelry in his pockets). Repeat offender.
- Sentence: 8 months in prison with custody warrant + revocation of 6 months suspended from a previous conviction.
- Max. sentence: 14 years
🔴 Rouen – Anthony, homeless. Looting of the Courir boutique. Repeat offender.
- Sentence: 6 months in prison + 6 suspended.
- Max. sentence: 14 years
🔴 Rouen – 26-year-old unemployed man. Looting of Micromania. Repeat offender.
- Sentence: 6 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 14 years
🔴 Rouen – Nicolas, garbage collector, and Zakaria. Throwing projectiles at police and insults.
- Sentence: 12 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Lyon – Mohamed, illegal migrant. Looting of Louis Vuitton boutique (6 wallets, 2 pairs of glasses, one pair of pants, one leather bag, and one fabric bag).
- Sentence: 6 months in prison with custody warrant
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Lyon – Cheima, 30-year-old woman. Looting of JD Sports store
- Sentence: 8 months suspended.
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Lyon – Sophia, 27 years old. Already 9 convictions including thefts. Looting of JD Sports store.
- Sentence: 12 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 14 years
🔴 Lyon – Adam, 19-y-old Swiss national. "Black bloc" from abroad. Arrested leaving a looted Monoprix + resistance
- Sentence: 12 months suspended.
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Perpignan – 20-y-old man, throwing a construction barrier at 2 police officers.
- Sentence: 6 months under electronic monitoring
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Perpignan – 21-y-old man. Throwing objects at police and vandalizing the city. Ski goggles, t-shirt as balaclava, and reinforced gloves.
- Sentence: 10 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 7 years
🔴 Perpignan – 22-y-old Amazon delivery driver, already one prior conviction. Scooter theft after demonstration with face concealment, in a group and break-in
- Sentence: 8 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 10 years
🔴 Limoges – 20-y-old woman. Looting in stores and at City Hall (later destroyed by fire)
- Sentence: 6 months in prison with custody warrant + 18 suspended prob.
- Max. sentence: 12 years
🔴 Pau – 43-y-old man. Throwing objects at police
- Sentence: 6 months under electronic monitoring.
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Nîmes – 24-y-old PE teacher. Throwing objects that injured a police man (3 days of leave).
- Sentence: 18 months suspended prob.
- Max. sentence: 5 years
🔴 Grenoble – 10 people. Looting
Sentences: from 4 months suspended to 8 months served (served for 1 individual already convicted to suspended in June).
Max. sentence: 7 years
Michael Sweeney retweeted
You would have thought less carbon intensive gas compared to imported LNG would be welcomed by environmentalists.
It is economically rational and environmentally sound to supply the UK’s ongoing gas demand through the lowest carbon-emitting sources.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Consider the inanity of the Yookay strategic position now in the Mid East - we're a) joining the global solidarity campaign against Israel in favour of Palestine, while also b) militarily supporting Israel's allies, the Saudis, against the Houthis
Vibes based foreign policy.
UK to deploy jets to defend Saudi Arabia from Houthi attacks bbc.in/47wWLs3
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Who is going to tell him France already has a property-based wealth tax? It's called ‘l’impôt sur la fortune immobilière’ or IFI.
The previous more widely-based one generated peanuts but resulted in wealthy taxpayers fleeing the country, taking their taxable wealth within them. Hence the new emphasis on an ‘immobile’ asset, like your house.
Michael Sweeney retweeted
Billions of pounds lost on a single project because we can’t connect it to the grid for half a decade and have destroyed our capacity to generate reliable electricity.
Exclusive: Microsoft cancels UK data centre deal with Nscale. Comes just as Nscale hopes to pull off a $35 billion IPO telegraph.co.uk/business/202…
Michael Sweeney retweeted
This is Labour's definition of patriotism.
A nation dedicated to self-abasement, restitution, reparations, apology, self-annihilation.
The British Museum, testimony to our commitment to science, knowledge, exploration and humanity at large, is turned into something sordid.
"The British Museum is the largest depository of stolen goods known to man."
Lord Paul Boateng (@UKHouseofLords) on the British Museum and the return of the Ethiopian Tabots, Benin Bronzes and Ashanti gold.
Watch the event in full: bit.ly/4hZmDSe