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craggyjim.bsky.social
Older sceptic, European, humanist, hater of injustice and greed
65 posts 278 followers 761 following
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I can't even. How about removing the cap not because of how it plays politically but because it will bring tens of thousands of children out of poverty? Fucking hell. Winning power should be about helping people not running scared of losing power.

"worth reminding ourselves who is in favour of this deal & who is against it. In favour are all of our allies - the US, NATO, Five Eyes, India. Against it - Russia, China, Iran. Surprisingly, the Leader of the Opposition & Nigel Farage are in that column alongside Russia, China & Iran” Keir Starmer

Joseph Boam Deputy Leader of Reform UK in Leicestershire has been given the portfolio of adult social care. Adult social care. Here's his view on depression. Reform UK will likely find a mealy-mouthed way to explain this one.

£5bn disability benefits cut will stop welfare state collapsing, says Kendall. Ridiculous. Benefit cuts = squalor, pressure on public services. Total govt planned spend £1,335bn in 2025-26 £500bn - £1,400bn tax not collected since 2010. Tax the rich. Let people live with dignity.

You hear from the Brexit right (and as it happens, the New European), that Sir Keir is killing Brexit. To the contrary: his deal has made it into a bipartisan project, and as a result, more likely to endure. From the email. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Brilliant idea! Next they’ll invent seatbelts and call them “freedom straps.”

FUN FACT: Nigel Farage's Reform recieved a £250,000 'donation' from an owner of a trading firm which invested over £260 MILLION in fossil fuels. Reform aren't for ordinary people. They're looking out for the WEALTHY elite.

BBC have interviewed this woman as a business spokesperson, she rants about Brexit aspirations being stolen, they forgot to mention she is a Reform spokesperson and was a Brexit party MEP

Brexiters said EU immigrants came here for benefits. The reality was that they contributed more to government funds than they consumed. They had higher rates of employment and better education than their native counterparts. They were a benefit to Britain.

Johnson put a border in the Irish Sea, sold out the fishing industry, all SMEs trading with the EU, our farmers, universities, musicians, young people, scientists, all of us… And now he sits in the mess he made throwing insults at those who are clearing up after him. What a monumental piece of shit.

“Brexit means we can make our own agreements with the EU, as we pick and choose!” - UK chooses to make agreement with EU on a handful of issues. “Brexit Betrayed!”

Reform & trust 📊 New YouGov polling on trust commissioned by @sortitionnow shows people who voted Reform n the 2024 General Election trust citizen assembly members more, and members of parliament less, than other voter groups www.858.org.uk #HouseOfCitizens #UKPolitics

Legitimising far right rhetoric is just doing Farage's job for him. My take in this disastrous political strategy, as a lifelong Labour voter. We need to “take back control”… of The Labour Party. Sack McSweeney and stop this, or step down. youtu.be/k8Z5CYvuptA?...

Thames Water on collision course with govt over exec bonuses. TW with £21bn debt, history of abuses & criminal convictions insists that it will pay bonuses, now calls them “retention payments”. Govt must cancel it's licence, let it go bankrupt, prosecute execs, nationalise. archive.ph/FpLe0

This deserves much closer scrutiny. The Foreign Office’s answers sound pretty evasive - which raises a red flag.

My island of strangers: a poem | Michael Rosen

Anglian Water pleads guilty, fined £1.42m for contaminating water supply. No exec fined. AW already has 128 criminal convictions. Allowed to operate, fleece customers, dump sewage, neglect investment, pay dividends and exec bonuses. End the farce. Must remove profit motive. Nationalise.

Chinese ‘kill switches’ found hidden in US solar farms. “The UK and Europe could also be exposed.” www.thetimes.com/article/b92d...

I agree with Gary

The lavish spending habits of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle have been laid bare. His predecessor John Bercow(who had a passion for the pomp & ceremony) took 10 years to rack up this bill. He did it in two. This is Westminster at it's worst, And we pay for it www.spottednews.com/news/speaker...

We despise immigrants for not putting down roots, even as we make sure that it is impossible for them to do so. We do this because we have no idea what we want. open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

💪"You know, name any water company in England. They're failing." Lois says what we all know - private water in England isn't working for anyone except the water companies. 82% of the public want water in public hands. ⚠️Steve Reed - are you paying attention? #LoisvSteve

Wow - do you know how much of a price tag you're paying for privatisation? @windrushwasp.bsky.social estimate Thames Water is charging 15 times more to upgrade Oxford sewage works than it costs to build one from scratch in public ownership in e.g. US or Denmark 😮

🧐Steve Reed MP took £1786 of hospitality at a football match from a company owned by CK Hutchison, which owns private Northumbrian Water ⁉️So will the Environment Secretary go to a football match with his constituent Lois, who represents the 82% of us who want public ownership?

Day 10 of Lois asking Steve Reed to join her at the football. 5 days to match day!⚽ Steve could bring Thames Water into special administration. But he thinks he knows better. It's time he listened to us. Sign our petition if you think Thames Water belongs in public hands. #LoisvSteve

Day 9 of Lois asking Steve Reed to join her at the football. ⚽ Something stinks about Thames Water's sewage plant upgrade costs. How can it be 15x more expensive than building a new one in other countries? Perhaps Environment Secretary Steve Reed can tell her? #LoisvSteve

"The fact that - on top of everything else - Palantir's NHS offer is just not very good does make one wonder about the source of Wes Streeting's enthusiasm for it. And why the hapless Keir Starmer was dragged along to endorse them by Peter Mandelson." open.substack.com/pub/democrac...

‼️Poll points to Reform landslide on just 29% of votes cast, under the disproportionate results of the first-past-the-post voting system No single party should be able to claim a landslide majority on under 50% of votes It’s time to: #getPRdone #ProportionalRepresentation

🤬 “The U.S. is stepping up its intelligence-gathering efforts regarding Greenland… …drawing America’s spying apparatus into President Trump’s campaign to take over the island, according to two people familiar with the effort.” This is effectively attacking an ally - and Europe.

Imran Hussain (Lab), "No one can deny any longer that Israel is committing war crime after war crime" "Just what will it take for the Government to properly act over Netanyahu’s breaking of every single international norm and rule?" "Why do they refuse to impose widespread sanctions on Israel?"

IPSO raps The Telegraph for repeating Michael Gove's claim that the Muslim Association of Britain is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, but only orders a tiny correction. Yet another example of how press-run IPSO can't be trusted to police itself. Read more: www.hackedoff.org/blog-posts/i...

🚨🌱 The Chancellor is reviewing all public spending from scratch. Please join me in signing the @campaignforthearts.org petition to remind the UK Govt: the arts make our lives happier & our communities stronger. Now is the moment to invest in them. www.campaignforthearts.org/petitions/sp...

🚨🚨For those who believe (and it seems the correct inference imho) that #kremlin was working behind the scenes to orchestrate #brexit (a nation-dividing political event), this story is further evidence substantiating this narrative. 🧵 www.bbc.com/news/article...

Last week’s results shouldn’t come as a shock. Labour promised to tackle the cost of living crisis, but instead they slashed millions of pensioners' winter fuel allowance. It's not too late. Labour can still listen to voters, admit their mistake and win them back.

Thousands of UK companies break the law every day and nobody stops them. Fraud, tax abuse, false accounts…all ignored. Here’s how that neglect is costing us billions – and why no one’s fixing it.

Private equity in healthcare puts patients’ lives in danger, US studies show. Wage/Staff cuts, low investment, profiteering; higher deaths, medical complications, infections and readmissions. No healthcare improvement. Yet UK handing more of the NHS to PE. Healthcare must not be a profit centre.

"Hostility to immigration isn’t the only driver of the Reform vote but it’s a big one. The fact that the party’s recent surge has happened mostly in places where there aren’t many immigrants leads me to suspect that it’s fuelled less by people’s experiences than by lies" archive.ph?run=1&url=ht...

“Nigel Farage ranked 748th of 751 MEPs for attendance, went to 1 of 42 fishery committee meetings & was fined £35K for fiddling his expenses. As an MP he has held no surgeries, skipped 80% of votes and had ten jobs on the side” - More people should know this!

Thames Water Prospective Private Equity Owner KKR Donated $1m to Trump Inauguration. Business model: profiteering, price hikes, low investment, high leverage, asset-stripping, excessive returns. In US KKR group sanctioned 217 times, fined $678m for anti-social practices. Can't address water woes.

We urgently need a company law regulator. A body tasked with standing up for people, employees, taxpayers, & the environment — not just the rich & powerful. A party for this would win huge support, & £6 bn in tax revenue. Prof Richard Murphy reports

Neoliberalism has dominated economics and politics for 45 years, despite being based on nothing more than myths, falsehoods, and fantasies that should have discredited the cult promoting it long ago. youtu.be/uYyalJMXROw?...

NO! WE DON’T WANT SOME HALF-ARSED AGREEMENT WITH THE EU, THAT DELIVERS BUGGER ALL. WE WANT BREXIT UNDONE! Stop pratting about and start by rejoining the SM & CU. These are perilous times. We must unite with Europe. We are vulnerable on our own. We need Europe - Europe needs us!

New post: The mistakes that have led the Conservatives towards annihilation, and Labour copying them mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-... By paroting Farage on asylum/immigration, but failing to change things, the Tory government lost votes to Reform and their more liberal southern heartlands

An absolute masterclass in how the UK media platforms and normalises far right politics. This is how Farage wins.

"A voting system that effectively bins 3/5ths of all votes cast is leading to alienation & distrust, as stated in the party programme before the 2024 election.. The government must set up a National Commission to design a better electoral system for a better democracy" 🌹 @sandyofipswich.bsky.social

Britain’s tariff burden worse than EU British products are subject to higher total US import taxes the European Union new analysis shows www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

In case you missed it ... This is the electoral truth about Brexit that for some reason Labour continues to ignore. #RejoinEU 🇬🇧🇪🇺