Conservative. Freedom is hard won and easily lost.
London, England
Joined March 2024
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Simon Jones retweeted
@mgshanks if you call one of the pre imminent power engineers in this country @KathrynPorter26 a climate denier then you just make yourself look stupid. You should perhaps listen to her before the grid collapses and energy gets even more expensive.
Simon Jones retweeted
The Marxist conspiracy stealing our money.
If you want to know more about the charity industrial complex, it is all laid out in my recent cover story for @TheCriticMag - out in shops and online here.
“I have calculated that across the last five published tax years, £2.6 billion of taxpayer funding has gone to 92 charities. These range from Universities UK (£18.8 million, 2021–25) — an advocacy organisation for the university sector — to supporting the BBC’s international development charity BBC Media Action (a £52-million taxpayer injection from 2021–25) and £41 million for the British Refugee Council.”
thecritic.co.uk/issues/novem…
Simon Jones retweeted
I agree with every word of this.
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
Simon Jones retweeted
Update:
In the 27 months since Labour came to power, we've seen;
• Employer National Insurance increased from 13.8% to 15%.
• The employer NI threshold cut from £9,100 to £5,000.
• The freeze on Income Tax and National Insurance thresholds extended to 2031.
• Capital Gains Tax increased from 10% and 20% to 18% and 24%.
• Business Asset Disposal Relief increased from 10% to 14%, then 18% – and now its lifetime limit halved to £500,000.
• Investors’ Relief raised to 18% and its lifetime limit cut from £10 million to £1 million.
• CGT relief on sales to Employee Ownership Trusts halved.
• Carried interest taxation increased and moved into the Income Tax regime.
• Dividend tax rates increased by two percentage points.
• Savings-income tax rates increased by four percentage points.
• Property-income tax rates increased by four percentage points.
• VCT income tax relief cut from 30% to 20%.
• Most unused pension funds brought into the Inheritance Tax net.
• Agricultural and Business Property Relief capped.
• Inheritance Tax thresholds frozen until 2031.
• The non-dom regime replaced with a tougher residence-based system.
• VAT imposed on private school fees.
• Business-rates relief removed from private schools.
• The Stamp Duty surcharge on second homes and buy-to-let raised from 3% to 5%.
• The Furnished Holiday Lettings regime abolished.
• A new annual surcharge on homes worth £2 million or more.
• Pension salary-sacrifice NI relief capped at £2,000 a year.
• The bank surcharge doubled.
• Capital allowances for plant and machinery cut twice.
• Online gaming duty almost doubled.
• The Energy Profits Levy increased and extended, and its investment allowance scrapped.
• Vaping Products Duty brought in and tobacco duties increased above inflation.
• Vehicle Excise Duty increased for many new cars, with electric vehicles brought in.
• A pay-per-mile tax on electric and plug-in hybrid cars legislated for 2028.
• Air Passenger Duty increased.
• Making Tax Digital extended to more landlords and self-employed people.
Together they represent one of the biggest transfers of wealth from households and businesses to the Treasury in decades – with little to show for it in public services.
Whether you're a business owner employing staff, a parent paying school fees, a farmer planning succession, an entrepreneur building wealth or simply someone trying to save for your family’s future...
- You keep less of what you earn.
- You keep less of what you invest.
- You leave less for your family.
Death by a thousand cuts.
Simon Jones retweeted
If even Gina Miller can admit that there is no such thing as just joining the Single Market, then there is hope for them all.
Not surprised by the below as most member countries were unaware that von der Leyen was going to announce this.
I keep saying a Swiss style model is an option we should be putting on the table at the EU/UK negotiations.
FYI - also no such thing as a single market option. We would have to join EFTA then the EEA. And I know from past meeting that EFTA members aren't keen on us joining.
#Brexit
@POLITICOEurope
@politico
Simon Jones retweeted
Does @AngelaRayner realise how misleading this is?
Even if not, good journalists should have figures at hand to correct her & other Govt. ministers trying to imply UK exports to the EU have gone down since Brexit.
In fact total exports to the EU have increased since Brexit.
…
Simon Jones retweeted
The Laffer Curve strikes again. Rachel Reeves’s absurd increases to stamp duty have backfired after tax receipts from property sales above £5m fell by £541m in the 18 months following her 2024 budget when she raised the second-home stamp duty surcharge to 5%.
Data from estate agents Knight Frank show that in the 18 months subsequent to the budget, the number of sales above £5m dropped by 14% from 2,569 to 2,208, when compared with the 18 months before the budget. Of course it is not just the stamp duty that is lost but also the economic activity that accompanies the property transactions.
Reeves has just signed up to the Chartwell Speakers agency to sell speeches for money. Surely for anyone to buy a speech from her is a badge of idiocy?
Simon Jones retweeted
The higher interest rates are caused by Labours financial incompetence so perhaps a windfall tax on Labour MP’s would be a better idea.
Simon Jones retweeted
Let's be honest, every normal person in Britain would have been better off voting for a pile of dog sick & smashing themselves in the face with a frying pan every day for the past 27 months, than experience this rancid excuse of a Labour government.
Simon Jones retweeted
There’s a lot of self-serving spin emanating from the UK government about how virtuous it is re fiscal consolidation.
Here are the facts.
Labour inherited an OBR budget deficit forecast of £87bn (3.1% GDP) for FY2024/25. After R Reeves’ 1st disastrous budget the actual deficit was £153bn (5.2%). Massive jump.
Labour inherited OBR budget deficit of £77bn (2.7%) for FY2025/26. After RR’s disastrous 2nd budget that turned out to be £133bn (4.3%).
So in its first two years it added over £120bn to borrowing/deficit (despite huge increase in taxes).
The OBR forecast it inherited for this FY2026/27 was £69bn (2.3%). It is now forecast to be £116bn (3.3%). That looks like an underestimate. More likely to be closer to £130bn again.
Inherited budget forecast for 2027/28: £51bn (1.6%). Latest forecast: £97bn (2.9%).
Inherited budget forecast for 2028/29: £39bn (1.2%). Latest forecast: £86bn (2.5%).
Far from fiscal consolidation Labour is forecast to borrow an incredible £260bn more over the 5 years from 2024/25 than the forecasts it inherited. Despite the tax rises.
Which will continue. Alone among G7 countries the IMF projects the UK tax burden to rise by 3.7% of GDP 2025-31. The only other country with a rising tax burden is France (0.8%). Italy is static. Rest of G7 have falling tax burden.
And let’s not forget Labour’s so-called ‘fiscal consolidation’ is all backloaded to end-decade. Unlikely to happen. So taxes will have to rise by even more.
Simon Jones retweeted
It's getting embarrassing now... This morning @neso_energy has blown through the intraday interconnector trading limits again and like yesterday the frequency has been above and below the safe operational limits
Margins are perfectly fine so I can only think this is a combination of poor modelling and forecasting and the grid constraints affecting the SE
Yesterday saw record balancing costs of just under £50 million so this isn't just a curiosity, it's chaos that's driving bills higher (balancing costs are part of network costs)
(images from Amira Technologies and LCP Enact)
@Miatsf @mgshanks @AndrewBowie_MP @ClaireCoutinho @harrietc @ColinMoynihanUK @drlukeevans @ashley7fox @TiceRichard @cmackinlay @DavidGHFrost @mattwridley @Iromg @AllisonPearson @MerrynSW @EdConwaySky @afneil @mattotele @jonathan_leake @julietsamuel @energygovuk @ofgem
Simon Jones retweeted
As someone who campaigned stronglyfor us to Leave and had been calling for a referendum for years I find this utterly ridiculous. This is a real attack on decent people all over the country who were absolutely fed up with the UK being subject to the anti democratic EU Commission telling us what to do National borders matter and UK unable to make our own decisions with genuine sovereignty was why I campaigned to Leave. This is a huge insult to millions of British people who certainly were not influenced in their note by ANYONE from Russia. Deliberate lies and disappointing that the Prime Minister has stooped so low All part of trying to get us back in but the British people are not stupid !
Simon Jones retweeted
She summed you up brilliantly today, Reform are drama queens. She has more vision than you have in your little finger.
Simon Jones retweeted
Imagine someone invents a club, where stupid people tell each other how clever they are.
That's the Fabians.
And they run the country.
🤡🤡🤡🇬🇧
Simon Jones retweeted
An MP named Ribeiro-Addy asserts that "black voters" should pressure Andy Burnham to cough up re the reparations malarkey.
She is of Ghanaian descent.
Her forebears were never enslaved.
Mine were.
We are now doing fine & are happy not to be in Africa.
So, it seems, is she.
Scam.
Simon Jones retweeted
Jim Ratcliffe grew up in a council house. He created a business which has paid the salaries of thousands of staff and millions in tax. You, by contrast, come from a comfortable middle class background. Your career has been in politics and think-tanks. He has done more for this country than you are ever likely to. I understand why, as a Labour MP, you seek to demonise “the Right”. But this is reductive shite.
Simon Jones retweeted
Britain is a Christian country, yet this image is a sad reminder that if we do not conserve our own faith and traditions, nobody else will.
For the Archbishop of Canterbury to honour on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, a cleric who praised Bin Laden is a significant lapse.
I’m pleased that Conservative shadow cabinet members @NJ_Timothy @Rebecca_SPaul discovered some of this information and called this out publicly, forcing the church to change its position. Yes, the church might have been ignorant of some facts, but the presence of a woman with a full face veil, covered head to toe, in an outfit widely known as a visible symbol of female oppression should have given pause for thought.
Our Culture and Integration Commission was set up to end this sort of naive belief that all cultures are equal. No other party in British politics is doing this work to protect our culture.
Archbishop of Canterbury withdraws award from Muslim cleric who praised Osama bin Laden bbc.in/4rkzwuj
Simon Jones retweeted
To demand reparations, not from the African countries that took the slaves, but from the nation that ended slavery at immense cost, is not just ungrateful. It is an aggressive act, and we should treat it as such by denying visas to any citizens from the countries involved.
