Socially Distant Phil

@FinanceTiger State pension is not welfare

🇬🇧 Sooner or later, we’ll have to confront the uncomfortable reality of whether our state pension system is affordable. It already consumes about 50% of total welfare spending. Although there are areas where reforms could help people return to work like getting people with anxiety and ADHD off benefits, the pension triple lock itself is becoming harder to justify financially. Naturally, those earning above the income tax threshold will return some of it through taxation, up to 45% in some cases, but this alone might solve the problem. We will need to get our finances in order, fast. And if there is no growth, then this problem will just grow over time. Thoughts? 📰 Daily Telegraph Chart

@ArthurAssendune @parody82247 @AzeemIbrahim Interesting, if they had family members already in the UK then why not get on a ferry in Calais and come across legitimately, why cross by small boat?

@parody82247 @AzeemIbrahim Knuckle dragger Gullis tried this tack. It didn't end well. youtu.be/bf725n9KILA?si…

The UK signed yet another three-year, £662 million deal with France to “curb” small boat crossings. This is complete waste of tax payers money and has no chance of success. My piece in @TheScotsman 1/4 scotsman.com/news/opinion/c…

@ZoeJardiniere Nobody is escaping war in France or Belgium for instance, and claiming asylum from Egypt. Australia does not allow migrants with no paperwork direct access to the country, they are kept offshore until deems not a risk and the right to claim access to the country.

Even if you have no sympathy for young men escaping war, factually speaking there are pregnant women, toddlers, unaccompanied kids etc making this crossing. This 100% everyone must go bullshit just doesn’t stand up to reality. It’s dehumanising invective, nothing more.

@petermaurice22 @ZoeJardiniere Yes like go through regular ports of entry with passports, permission to be here, and what exactly you intend to do to ‘benefit’ the country, no pun intended, is it too much for someone who has paid tax for over 40 years not to get an NHS dental appointment but they can?

@ZoeJardiniere Its just vile hatred. Lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, lack of empathy. I dont want anyone risking lives , especially after leaving countries of war and displacement . Provide safe routes. That cuts out the smugglers. Then asylum decisions can be made humanely.

@HJB_News__ There is another way, as seen in Australia

Apparently this is footage on French beaches last night of migrants boarding boats to get over to the UK. Was the £662 million spent a few days ago to stop this money well spent?

@FinanceTiger They, the government have killed the market, pathetic lenders pulling deals from the market for no reason, they’ve got us by the balls and just want to keep squeezing, no one wants 1 bed flats, they want 2 beds at least so they can share costs, so we will end up back in 1930’s

🚨 The UK property market is incredibly challenging. Personally, I’ve never ever seen it like this!First-time buyers can’t afford it and retirees can’t downsize. Leaseholders are trapped too and begging to be freed. It almost seems the Prime Minister doesn’t care. Why ? 🤔

@juliandc We bought a new build in 2023, the site contains 123 houses that took 3 years to complete, ours didn’t qualify for developer installation of panels but the last phase did, so those who bought last got a set of panels, nice ones mounted in line with the tiles.

@Junkcom It’s a v good point. One wonders if they will with new regs requiring solar. Or perhaps not 🫤

Excellent solar day. 24.85kWh from my 14 year old 4kW system. Good. Didn’t bother the grid between 6:30am to 7pm. Heated h/w & EVs for free. What’s not to like 👍

@dailybritainonx Nope, not for me, blown it with the ridiculous house building program, none of the parties, especially the greens look any better at the moment, greens with crazy policies, Reform likely to make the NHS privatised with a US style system that would perpetuate sickness

She grew up in Stockport, left school at 16 pregnant, worked as a carer, became a union organiser and rose to be Deputy Prime Minister. She is the bookmakers' 6/4 favourite to be the next Labour leader. She is ferociously effective at PMQs, has genuine roots in working-class communities, and connects with voters that Starmer visibly struggles with. Is she the future Labour needs?

@stuey_beef Yes, definitely feels like a strange myopic country where on the one hand we lose heritage companies like Denby this week and on the other hand pay out £4 billion quid of the people money to deal with illegal migration, and I cannot get an appointment for NHS dentists

It genuinely feels like we now live in two different countries. In one Britain, people drag themselves to work, pay eye‑watering taxes, National Insurance, council tax, energy bills, travel costs – and still stare at their bank balance wondering how they’re going to afford new shoes for the kids. In the other Britain, a growing army are parked on benefits with rising sickness and disability claims, pulling in combined payments that can beat a full‑time wage and then stacking extra perks, from cut‑price bills to leisure and lifestyle discounts, on top. The same government that says it is “cash‑strapped” and “tough choices” for services somehow finds endless billions for a welfare system its own Prime Minister now calls “unsustainable, indefensible and unfair” – but the only people expected to swallow it are the workers footing the bill. We pay. They benefit. That’s the deal. And it is ripping any sense of basic solidarity to shreds.

@TheNorfolkLion Blame the people who leave their rubbish in overflowing bins, common sense would say take it home like normal people, it’s not more bins you need, it common sense an discipline

They blame everyone else but themselves for why there’s rubbish everywhere and why they live in a shithole. It’s a cultural thing.

@juliandc That’s impressive, I don’t have that much roof space and the one I do have is not ideal for placement, it’s interesting to me how developers don’t think about that when designing new builds, have a roof that faces the correct way

@Junkcom 16 in total. Two strings of 8 on an SMA Sunnyboy 4000-TL20 inverter.

@DesmondSwayne Where does the money come from to pay your MP pension?

Many 10s, 20s & 30s already believe the Government simply won't have the money left to pay them a state pension We must do right by our children and grandchildren and return state pensions to normal growth, so they still have a viable state to inherit telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions…

@BMM1882 Australia has a different take, something like this would be a start than trying to integrate unknown people into communities

It’s increasingly difficult to keep track of crimes committed by illegal migrants - the news is so saturated with stories that it’s hard to follow. Even the BBC, our national public service broadcaster, which has long seemed reluctant to investigate these matters, has begun reporting on the serious problems associated with our immigration crisis. We all know that rapes and sexual assaults committed by asylum seekers living in hotels have become alarmingly frequent. In a single week before Christmas last year alone, sixteen such cases were recorded. Sixteen rapes. One week. All committed by asylum seekers living in hotels. I’m currently reading some of the several posts I’ve just retweeted, and one question keeps coming to mind: why are any of these men here? Why do our political class (and those who run cover for them, including large sections of the legacy media) take no issue with the presence of such sadistic, depraved, low-IQ, third world savages - including, it seems, the literal Mouth of Sauron - into our beloved Britain? Here are screenshots of some of those posts, since I can’t quote tweet them all. The Somali murderer. The Egyptian/Iranian gang rapists, one of whom is a murderer on the run from his homeland, all three now appealing their deportation at the taxpayer’s expense. The Iraqi Grindr rapist. When does it end?

@DanielJHannan Yes it is the definition of something strange, however as we left the EU we forfeited the right to use the Dublin agreement, returning those who come here to their original port of origin and countries that were part of that agreement

We must be mad, literally mad. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.

@blaiklockBP Looks like a petition to me, not law

Muslims who use their living rooms as places to pray are EXEMPT FROM COUNCIL TAX Another Muslim wheeze. How many houses does this cover ?

@ANDIBABY8 Apparently it’s only three months, one year would be completely unworkable

Under the new renters rights act. If you give notice because you want to sell, and the sale falls through - you cannot rent it again for a year. How is this going to help the housing shortage? Landlords pay tax on rental income too. I see another black hole appearing!

@Fox_Claire @cllranderson Asylum, from what exactly were they running from, just awful

Every aspect of this story is stomach-churning. Two of perptrators met on a small boat, and 3rd teamed up with them in Asylum hotel. Details of the rape itself are bad enough; their attitudes to rape victim, whose abuse was filmed, just so gross.

@NiohBerg The crazy thing about these cases is why Egyptian nationals would feel the need to bypass legitimate routes into the UK, and then we find out one of them was convicted murderer so would never has been allowed to set foot in the country in the first place, but was free to be here.

Three illegal immigrants have been found guilty of gang raping a British woman on a beach in Brighton. They brutally raped her while filming and calling her a "Dirty b****". At one point, one of the rapists grabbed hold of her face, forced open her mouth and spat in it while encouraging his friends to do the same. The victim said: "I was begging them to stop and they wouldn't. Every time I close my eyes I can see them laughing at me. They thought it was funny. My skin crawls because of what they did. They're evil and they've ruined my life." She may never recover from this trauma. This is what the British government has done to the women of this country. There needs to be a reckoning.

@Essex_CC I’ve had the misfortune this week of having to attempt to drive on the road through Sturmer, as a council you should hang your heads in shame at the despicable condition of the road surface, did you have a highways office bet on how long you could leave it like this?