Willson

@HLTCO They were winning. Why was he up?!

Look at the scenes. LOOK AT THEM. Football is the greatest sport on earth.

sydney has 48 spots for viewing their fireworks, 39 of which are free entry

But the top 1% of UK taxpayers now pay 33% of all income tax

Everyone screaming tax the rich, but let that sink in 

That’s just 500,000 people contributing £93.8 BILLION in the 2024 tax year A £150k earner pays £53,460 in tax A £25k earner pays £2,486 It takes 21 people on £25k to contribute what one person on £150k does So when Labour talk about ‘making the rich pay their fair share’, they already are Keep hammering high earners, entrepreneurs & business owners, & they’ll KEEP leaving Dubai, Monaco, Portugal are all rolling out the red carpet And the budget looks like it will only get worse 

The UK doesn’t need higher taxes, it needs spending wastage cut, better incentives to build & invest & a full cultural shift AWAY from the politics of envy

@Peston Great summary

A group of business leaders were last night telling me that they and their customers were postponing investment and spending decisions because of uncertainties caused by the long wait for the budget. Some of that uncertainty was dispelled this morning by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in an unusual pre-budget speech to journalists in Downing Street. The nutshell of what she said was that there is a hole in the public finances that is much bigger than she expected in the spring, that it’s not her fault (I’ll come back to that), and that she will do what’s in the national interest to fill the hole, not what’s politically expedient. She said two other things that are highly significant: that her priorities are bringing down interest rates for people and the government; and that her other priority is bringing down inflation. What does this all mean? First, she needs to find around £35bn in additional taxes - because the OBR’s productivity and growth downgrade will see forecast tax revenues evaporate to the tune of more than £20bn, and at least another £15bn needs to be found to cover stymied welfare savings, higher government interest payments and an increase in the fiscal cushion or “headroom”. To digress a moment, do take note of this newfound prudence, which is designed to reassure bond investors and end the stigma that the British government pays more to borrow than any comparable government. Second, she no longer feels constrained by the promises in her manifesto not to increase taxes on “working people” (the implication of her answer to my question) because she can’t raise that much money efficiently without increasing VAT or the basic rate of income tax. A VAT rise is out of the question because it would lead to higher inflation and interest rates (see above). So pretty much everyone, except those on the lowest incomes, needs to prepare to pay more income tax, from both a probable 2p increase in the basic rate and the freezing of the tax thresholds for another couple of years. So far, so painful. But although all of that flows from speech, it’s not why she gave the speech. Her motive was that she wanted to demonstrate that there has been what lawyers would call a “material adverse change” in economic conditions, and therefore that no right thinking person would expect her to honour Labour’s manifesto promises not to increase the rates of the big taxes on people and businesses. Did she succeed? Well, she came across as anxious, which is hardly surprising given that breaking a manifesto pledge, especially on tax, is a big deal. And she was on firmest ground when she talked about the headwinds caused by Trump’s tariffs, the stickiness of UK inflation and the exceptional vulnerability of the UK’s public finances. Where there is more dispute is her contention that she can’t be blamed for the OBR’s growth and productivity downgrade. This has two parts to it. It would be absurd to blame her for the UK’s lousy productivity over the long term, because that is largely the fault of the previous Tory government’s lamentable stewardship. Where she and the Treasury are at fault however is that she should have pre-empted the downgrade as soon as she came into government, and certainly at the last budget, because the OBR’s excessive optimism was obvious and widely discussed. In other words, as she herself conceded, there is nothing new about the UK’s most serious economic frailty, that the amount of income generated by each of us on average from our stock of capital is growing too slowly to support any meaningful rise in living standards. She may have inherited this problem. But it was glaringly obvious even before Labour won the election. For Chancellor and Prime Minister to imply this is new news is a bit daft. But now that they do know about it, most of you will presumably hope they do something to fix it!

@RachelReevesMP If productivity is down and the welfare bill is up it’s telling you people have no incentive to work. Increasing taxes further will make it worse.

The Budget this month will focus squarely on the priorities of the British people: cutting waiting lists, cutting the national debt and cutting the cost of living. Today I will set out the choices our country faces and the values that will guide my decisions.

@Peston If productivity is down and the welfare bill is up it’s telling you people have no incentive to work. Increasing taxes further will make it worse.

Reeves: “years of economic mismanagement have limited our economic potential”

@t_blom Spot on

If government ministers can’t even keep track of the regulations, maybe it’s a sign the UK has too many of them?

President Trump says he won’t he won’t mount tougher sanctions against Russia until Europe stops buying Russian oil and gas. Here are the facts: In 2024, the European Union imported 54 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia, accounting for 19% of its total gas imports. For oil, the EU imported 13 million tonnes, representing 3% of its total oil imports, all of it to Slovakia and Hungary which continue to import Russian crude oil due to exemptions from an EU ban. The value of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports in the first half of 2025 was €4.48 billion, up from €3.47 billion in the same period of 2024. Overall, EU imports of Russian fossil fuels in 2024 totaled €21.9 billion, a 6% drop in value but only a 1% drop in volume compared to the previous year. These figures don’t include refined oil imports from India, the oil Russian in origin.

23 September 2025. I can’t send or receive a text message at home in Essex but they want me to believe they live streamed the moon landing in 1969. Fuck off.

What no-one is saying on #BBCBreakfast is that when we were in the EU, we could return asylum seekers to the first EU country they had arrived in. With Brexit, Britain lost that right.

@RupertLowe10 100%

This football regulator nonsense in Parliament sums up so much of what is wrong with our politics. I’ve listened to these gnomes drone on about the game, when quite frankly they know absolutely sod all about it. Nothing. Yet here they are, confidently redesigning the sport like they’ve just stepped off the touchline at Wembley - most think offside is the name of some new mad gender identity. Regardless of whether you like my politics or not, I do know a bit about football - I was a Premier League chairman for years. Established an incredibly successful academy, built the stadium and took Southampton to a cup final. Was I consulted in any meaningful way about this new regulator? Of course not. They’d rather listen to these career politicians who only venture outside of the M25 for stag dos and skiing holidays. Never worked in football. Never even had a real job. But yes, great. Of course, they are qualified to meddle around in one of the few remaining success stories we have left. Let’s listen to them. I’d rather have pigeons legislating. At least there’s a random chance they might get it right, rather than this lot. Let’s keep the state as far away from football as possible. Just leave it alone. It works, exactly because the government has been kept away from it. I despise Westminster so very much. Common sense is like kryptonite in that place. Honestly, we are governed by arrogant, incompetent fools. It is a wildly dangerous combination.

📽️ Why is Britain's national debt soaring? In short: everything from govt splurging to the pensions triple lock to net zero and more besides. 👇Here's my 7 min primer on the terrors lurking beneath the UK public finances. Warning: the final chart is genuinely quite scary...

23.7m in the UK claim at least one benefit, 9.9m of whom are working age. How can this not need urgent overhaul @UKLabour ? penalising hard working Brits and reducing what’s available for those who actually need benefits. It’s not sustainable and driving voters to @reformparty_uk

@JonathanPieNews Very well said

I’ve said this before and it’s depressing to have to say it again, but it’s possible to have legitimate concerns about the impact high levels of immigration has on our services, and NOT be a massive racist. If you think otherwise, you are the reason Reform is doing so well.

@Ryanair What about charging for slippers ?

normalise passengers keeping their shoes on for the whole flight

@jamescolgan26 7

What's the margin Rory has to be leading by for men in the 30-45 demo to sleep comfortably tonight?

@SkySportsGolf @Sir_NickFaldo What is the hardest regulation shot ?

If you could ask Sir Nick Faldo one question about Augusta what would it be? 🤔

Adolescence episode 3 is without doubt the greatest episode of any series ever #Adolescence

Trump is wrong on Ukraine but right on Europe. It is not America’s role to provide security guarantees for Europe so Europe can fund its welfare states. Europe should ensure Russia loses the war by funding its own security. It will require serious conversations and compromises.

Lord Sugar, "The biggest disaster in my lifetime was us leaving the European Union" "The full ramifications of us not being in the EU are starting to take it's toll" "If I was Prime Minister, I would be coming along on my bended knees asking to be let back in" "It's all to do with trade, free trade, small traders can't ship abroad now, it's complicated. It's a terrible situation" "How do we get out of it? Get back in the EU"