Stuart Mitchell

Door to door sales cat was dressed smartly. Loses point for poor finance options and insistence on paying in fish 9/10 @thecatreviewer

@thinkdefence Who? Name names if you want a discussion in good faith. If not well…

There is a lot to consider with this. Many people on here, whose opinions are normally highly valuable, have turned into frothing loons with orange man bad blinkers.

Banknote boys.

I am in favour of animals being on bank notes so long as the animals in question are all just pics of my cats. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@afneil These cock-sure proclamations of everything wrong are easy now, but hindsight is 20/20, very few can hand on heart say they demanded greater defence spending in the midst of the financial crisis, the austerity years or even on the eve of 2022. Defence spending doesn’t win votes.

@afneil Source: #defence-expenditure-by-commodity-block" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">gov.uk/government/sta…

My monologue from today’s The Times at One with ANDREW NEIL @TimesRadio Britain’s response, so far, to the outbreak of hostilities in the Gulf has been characterised by a mixture of irrelevance and embarrassment. We’ve even managed to fall out with our most important ally. Our other allies don’t seem to think much of us either.  More important, the US-Israeli onslaught on Iran has revealed for all to see just how hollowed out our armed forces have become under successive governments.  It is nothing short of a national scandal and the whole political class is complicit — Labour, Conservative and even the Lib Dems, given they were part of that 2010-15 coalition with the Tories when defence spending was slashed 22% in real terms.  We now see the price of such short-sighted folly  War has broken out in the Middle East but we don’t have a single warship in the Mediterranean, the Gulf or the Red Sea to protect our interests or keep open sea lanes vital to our commercial well-being.  Nor did our military planners think to move assets in advance of hostilities, even though the US-Israeli action was well-telegraphed. Their political masters are too ignorant of military matters to ask why not. Now there’s a scramble to catch up, only to discover the cupboard is bare.  We remain the 4th or 5th biggest military spenders on the globe. The MoD has an annual budget of over £60 billion. Yet we have precious little to show for it. A pathetically small army. A navy with far too few warships — and most of them laid up. An airforce without sufficient fighter jets.  Naturally the MoD is not short of civil servants. Over 55,000 of them, whose hallmark has been to preside over expensive procurement programmes that invariably run way over budget, deliver years late and, in many cases, produce stuff that doesn’t work. Just look at the shambles of the Ajax armoured personnel carrier.  Nor is there any shortage of top brass. We have more admirals than warships, more generals than brigades, more air commodores than squadrons. We may be seriously short of soldiers, sailors and pilots. But the officers’ mess is still packed.  The scandal has been long in the making. We’re struggling to send one Type-45 destroyer to defend our bases in Cyprus. We only have six. There were supposed to be 12 but the Blair-Brown government put the kybosh on that.  Of the six we do have, only two are currently operational. And only just.  What about our new and expensive aircraft carriers, meant to be symbols of Britain’s ability to project global power. Yes, you’ve guessed it — they’re in dock for various reasons too and can’t be deployed.  The Keystone Cops could do a better job of running our military than the MoD.  Our nuclear-powered Astute submarines are in an even worse shape. We have only five — with two more on the way. Four are currently out of commission. The one still working is in Australia. None of the geniuses at the MoD thought to recall it even as the drums of war beat louder in the Gulf.

@AVFCOfficial So long and thanks for all the memes.

Aston Villa can confirm that Donyell Malen has joined Roma for an undisclosed fee. Everyone at Aston Villa would like to thank Donyell for his service to the club and wish him all the very best in his future career.

@AndyAitcheson @BO3673 He and I have gone to Villa together for years. You can think what you like about his other areas of work but I’ll tell you right now he’s a proper fan.

@BO3673 Just an innocent fan, interviewed in a normal working class pub in Birmingham.

Just a random fan

A great team goal UTV #AVFC Meme by Sandy

Villa nail five wins in a row meaning we can all get our hair cut…

“I had read Hemingway and Remarque for years. I thought they knew everything about war. But they didn’t know mine.” “When I came back from the front and saw my bookshelf, I felt like a fool,” wrote 25y old Ukrainian soldier and author Artur Dron in UP. 1/

@RichardAyoade How’s the dove from above getting on?

I’m about to interview Bob Mortimer. Does anyone have anything they’d like to ask him?

@AVFCSupport I’m no longer getting the option to download the ticket to my Apple wallet. I only have QR. Why is this? I haven’t changed anything!?

How to use tickets on matchday - App ticket When you arrive at the stadium, access your ticket via the official Aston Villa app and hold your phone, screen facing towards the reader, against the barcode scanner at the bottom of the turnstile reader. Please note, each ticket is single-use and cannot be transferred after entering the stadium. NFC ticket When you arrive at the stadium, access your ticket via Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, and hold your phone, screen facing towards you, against the contactless reader at the top of the turnstile reader. Please make sure your phone isn't locked when you hold it against the reader, if you have any problems, you may just need unlock your phone and try again. Please note, each ticket is single-use and cannot be transferred after entering the stadium. #AVFC

@JE_Maleta @Mr_Andrew_Fox That’s Dr Bitchell to you and no. I’m a government civil servant and will not be commenting on that subject. Great to know you’re up for constructive dialogue. Very adult 👌🏻

This will be a good one! At 6.30pm UK time today, esteemed military historian @SBTMitchell and I will be discussing what Ukraine teaches us about the future of warfare in the 21st century, including what I saw on the front lines. Sign up here: henryjacksonsociety.org/event/war-in-t…

Really sorry to those of you who signed up to this. It seems the tech gremlins beat us this time and we couldn’t get the attendees into the meeting. (That or were very unpopular!) Stay tuned for a rescheduled event coming soon!

There's still time to join Major (Ret.) @Mr_Andrew_Fox and Dr @SBTMitchell as they discuss the lessons the Russia-Ukraine war teaches us about warfare in the 21st century RSVP: henryjacksonsociety.org/event/war-in-t…

On Tuesday we're hosting a conversation between @Mr_Andrew_Fox and @SBTMitchell to discuss our forthcoming report examining the evolution of 21st century warfare. RSVP: henryjacksonsociety.org/event/war-in-t…

Interesting on the worrying ‘confidence’ of AI. There seems to be a kind of built in ‘wisdom of masses’ assumption that the more times something is repeated in the ‘data set’ the truer it is, which of course, isn’t how history works.

@VulcanVilla @wilts_villafan (Possibly Paywalled?), nytimes.com/athletic/65783… Aston Villa’s transfer window: Martinez’s ‘move’, Emery’s financial frustration, final-day impetus

@SBTMitchell @wilts_villafan Link to article mate?

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