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davidosland.bsky.social
Forty-year veteran of British leftwing politics. Not the opinions of any publication for which I write.
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Labour returned Royal Bank of Scotland to full private ownership last weekend, leaving taxpayers £10.5bn out of pocket. The free market hates nationalisation unless bankers need it.

Give the Elgin marbles back to Greece and before you know it, we'll be giving the royal family back to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg

After the Marks & Spencer cyber attack, I'd like to hear Kemi Badenoch's plans to tackle cyber criminality and the kind of penalties those convicted of such offences could expect under a Conservative government

Kemi Badenoch has allowed Reform to dictate the Tory political agenda. This morning she described them as 'another leftwing party'. This is parallel universe stuff.

It's amazing how the same politicians can describe VAT on public school fees as an attack on aspirational parents and then argue that free school meals for poor kids are a waste of money

It doesn't matter where you stand on the left-right spectrum or what you think about nationalisation in general. The case for taking Thames Water into social ownership should be entirely intelligible to a rational single-cell life form in another galaxy.

Michelle Mone got a new luxury yacht and private jet on the NHS. And most of us can't even get a GP appointment.

Remember when Britain had 3600 Sure Start centres and no baby banks?

God gave us water. The Tories gave us water privatisation.

It doesn't matter where you stand on the left-right spectrum or what you think about nationalisation in general. The case for taking Thames Water into social ownership should be entirely intelligible to a rational single-cell life form in another galaxy.

Water bills up 360% since privatisation. That's all you need to know.

I'm writing an article on the university funding crisis. Can anyone recommend any recent books on the subject? Are any academics ready to be interviewed, on or off the record? Thanks all. #journorequests

Socialists spent the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s arguing against council house sales, privatisation, PFI, austerity and Brexit would damage Britain. Socialists were right on every point.

Anywhere I've ever worked, fiddling your exes is grounds for instant dismissal

This makes him a fare dodger, doesn't it?

Newark MP Robert Jenrick is one of the few politicians who can best be described by an anagram of his constituency's name

Boris Johnson has compared Labour's tax policies to 'an alcoholic reaching for the bottle'

It's actually true that large parts of London are no go areas. For anyone earning under £150,000 a year, that is.

A Reform government will privatise the NHS over my dead body. Maybe literally.

It's obviously true that the NHS is no longer the world's best healthcare system. But there's no reason it can't be again.

I'm waiting for the video of Robert Jenrick chasing tax dodgers - including his former cabinet colleagues - and asking them if they think it's right not pay. But it doesn't seem to have been posted yet.

Notice how The Telegraph says that like it's a bad thing

I'm OK with civil servants working from home. I just don't think MPs should be working from Las Vegas.

They say a wealth tax would hurt 'ordinary working people'. Particularly ordinary working people with over £10m in the bank, I have to admit.

Is Liz Truss right to demand a cut in the minimum wage? With me in the studio to discuss this are an £91,000 a year Tory MP, a £250,000 a year rightwing journalist and a £4,000,000 a year chief executive.

Given that both Boris Johnson and Michael Gove confessed to cocaine use, the co-ordinated string of Tweets from Tory frontbenchers attacking Sadiq Khan's entirely sensible call for cannabis decriminalisation are the height of hypocrisy

Marx's prediction that wages would eventually gravitate towards subsistence levels used to be wildly mocked. But millions of British workers would be starving without food banks and in-work benefits.

Never understood why there's a two-child cap for families on Universal Credit, but not a two-palace cap for families dependent on the Sovereign Grant

If you're going to call a 'national strike', you should at least be aware that a bank holiday Saturday isn't optimum timing

Thatcher called Bin Laden a freedom fighter, Mandela a terrorist, Pinochet a good friend. And Jimmy Savile 'Sir'.

British energy bills are the highest in Europe. British energy company bosses get the highest salaries and bonuses in Europe. Starting to wonder if those two facts are related.

There is no 'white genocide' in South Africa. But 277 black Americans were killed by the police last year.

Only three other European countries restrict child benefit payments by family size, and even then, the limit is three or four kids. Once again, the British welfare state is the least generous across the entire continent.

The obvious question is why aren't state pensions big enough to cover winter fuel bills in the first place, making winter fuel payments entirely unnecessary

The cost of winter fuel payments is £3bn a year. The profits of the big four gas supply giants in 2023 were £65bn. Gosh, what a difficult circle to square.

Four years ago, Boris Johnson introduced legislation authorising torture and murder by the intelligence services. Now he's arguing that Starmer has 'turned Britain into a police state'.

The main point of Brexit was restoring Britain's ability to negotiate its own trade deals. Then Britain negotiates its own trade deals and it's a betrayal of Brexit.

What next for Labour after Starmer's 'island of strangers' speech? | My new article for @labour-hub.bsky.social labourhub.org.uk/2025/05/18/s...

If you can't shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre, you can't tweet 'set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards' in the middle of the Southport riots either

Thames Water insists that the £3m it has dished out to top managers are not bonuses - which are currently illegal for the company - but rather 'retention payments'. So that's alright then?

'Vote Labour, we're a slightly less evil version of Reform UK' is not going to do it for me next time round

If you can't shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre, you can't tweet 'set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards' in the middle of the Southport riots either

I'm taken aback by the sheer volume of erstwhile Starmer supporters now deserting their man. His stock hasn't been this low since the Hartlepool by-election defeat.

Lee Anderson should probably rejoin the Labour Party. There doesn't seem to be any remaining policy differences.

Britain is running out of jail cells because it is locking up tens of thousands of people with drink and drug problems, mental health issues and low educational attainment. Try tackling these issues instead of building more prisons.

The strangers on this island are the people who stash their millions in offshore trust funds. Not our black and Asian friends.

If you live in Dubai to avoid paying UK income tax, you're an economic migrant. Tell me I'm wrong.

The problem with social care is private equity fat cats ripping old people off for £8000 a month. Not minimum wage immigrant workers. Tell me I'm wrong.

If Labour wants to reverse its dismal polling, it should reinstate winter fuel allowance. Not ramp up the immigrant bashing.

When politicians say they are 'championing the interests of the working class' by restricting immigration, ask where they stand on employment rights and the minimum wage