Owen mcwilliams

@andrewwhitty @MerrynSW Maybe you can let Reeves at al know that Employers NI is a tax on workers. They seem to disagree. Also it’s not £400k now v £60k every ten years. It’s more like £400k in say 70 years v £60k every 10 years for the next 70 years.

@MerrynSW Nah he's about right. Of the money his employer puts up to pay him ~60% of that would be tax. Employers NI is also essentially a tax on the worker, tax incidence and all that. Also 6% every ten yrs for 70 yrs argument is BS. Would you prefer 400k today or ~60k every 10 years?

Extraordinary thing here is only partly his total confusion about how income tax and IHT work plus utter ignorance of the trust system. Main bit that threw me is that he doesn't know how NI works. And thinks he has paid way more tax than he has. How does this happen?

@poolhayes93 @Scarletdotty @SecretVC2 @MerrynSW On the one hand you maintain his bonafides are impeccable and the plebs are not allowed to challenge his schtick. At the same time when he incorrectly describes the tax system to make his point you say we should just let it slide. I think the word for that is hypocrisy.

@Scarletdotty @SecretVC2 @MerrynSW Let's pat ourselves on the back for making pedantic technical points re tax legislation but if the wealthiest are allowed to hoard all the wealth, ordinary people become poorer and poorer. Ware your cosy, 'tax legislation doesn't work like that' blanket if you must.

@martynday @Adrian_Hilton No profit making motive so, no, not businesses.

@2x2pedaler @Adrian_Hilton Hardly. Should a business be subject to VAT. These are businesses not charities.

There's something deeply disturbing about the closure of one of the oldest schools in England, which goes back to AD 631, its roll of headmasters to 1114, and numbers Thomas Paine among its former pupils. Our national educational heritage, sacrificed for an ideological tax grab.

@BillV0207 @Adrian_Hilton Reading your comment I am struck by the irony that education has been formally recognised as a charitable object for over four centuries; the school has existed for longer; and both have existed for a lot longer than Income Tax…

@Adrian_Hilton Ironic then that the existence of the school was due to a tax loophole which allowed faux charities to operate what was obviously a poor business model which collapsed when they were treated the same as everyone else.

@martynday @Adrian_Hilton It’s a policy driven by zealotry pure and simple. Labour are taxing the “wrong kind” of education to achieve an ideological aim. I would have a modicum of respect for them if they stopped gas lighting and owned it.

@Adrian_Hilton Wrong. Stop using bad management as an excuse to bash the VAT on schools. Ask claude for a graph on the last 20 years of accounts for that school. It was a dead thing walking in 2017z

@sophiablack042 @lewis_eightysix @SalfordMe2023 It’s reasonable force. Still in possession of the knife he had just used to stab/attempt to stab multiple members of the public. A clear and present danger until disarmed and in handcuffs. But I guess you would prefer a wounded police officer.

@lewis_eightysix @SalfordMe2023 If I had an ex that was a stalker & he tried to attack me with a knife, so my mate used force to knock him to the ground & we then both kicked him in the head multiple times, wed both be arrested.

I completely understand why the police's response to the knife man may be considered excessive by some. But you're wrong. Tasers don't incapacitate, at best they immobilise for up to 5 seconds. You can't take chances with a non compliant armed man who has already used his weapon twice, even more so when you don't know how many weapons he has. He's lucky to be alive, demonising the officers who risked their lives using non lethal force is something exclusive to the UK.

Grateful to Times columnist Giles Coren for putting to the sword a local council pipsqueak for trying to put out of business a restaurant in the middle of nowhere where owner Ruth Hanson does all the kitchen prep herself, the washing up, the bookings, the till, payroll and then cooks it. The restaurant is called Hansom in Bedale, North Yorkshire. To give you an idea of its remoteness it’s 7 miles from Northallerton and 31 miles from York. So, on occasions, her husband Mark, who had a job of his own, gives up his evenings to chauffeur some guests to and from their homes. Coren points out when he reviewed the place last year ( he gave it a glowing recommendation) he had to hitchhike from Northallerton station. No Bedale train, no metro, no Uber hanging around at the corner. Enter Chris Doyle, licensing enforcement officer for N Yorkshire council, who has written to Ruth saying in his view Mark was operating a taxi service and that would require a raft of expensive and time consuming licences. Ruth responded that Mark was her husband, he was unpaid and there was no separate charge for the journey. Doyle said he didn’t care as there was deemed to be a commercial benefit and warned without a licence the council may take legal action. Coren has a great last paragraph; “ Yeah, you sue her, you absolute local heroes. “ You teach Ruth and Mark a lesson for being great at their jobs, for treasuring their customers, for trying to create a little joy and make ends meet in a collapsing world.” PS Thought you’d like to see what a Ruth menus looks like. This is called the Sunday Sharing Feast. Starters. Smoked Leek and Pickled Croque Monsieur Whitby Crab Crumpet Pickled cucumber, Garden herbs. Heritage beetroot, whipped goat’s Curd, Wild Garlic emulsion. Main Course Wensleydale chicken, Apricot and sage Wellington. Honey and mustard mash, buttered spring , cider sauce. Dessert Yorkshire rhubarb and ginger trifle. Cost; £55. With publicity thanks to Coren’s column and this tweet I suspect the queue will be out the door and Mark can have his evenings off again.

Hey @Morrisons I will never buy ONE thing from you ever again unless this guy, trying to stop shoplifting, is reinstated. RETWEET IF YOU AGREE

@RachelReevesMP Is that a helmet or a wig?! Yet another unforced error from Rachel Reeves.

For too long, our country has been exposed to global shocks - and households and businesses have paid the price. We will learn the lessons of the past, and build a Britain that is stronger and more resilient. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…

As Wes Streeting is claiming the Chagos deal is not dead, and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office is continuing to implement the treaty as if it has been ratified, it's time to repost the following. 1982,🏝️Project Chagos begins when Mauritius sets up a select committee to look into the potential vast mineral wealth in the Chagos Archipelago's seabed. 2003, leading international lawyer Sir Ian Brownlie is officially appointed advisor by Mauritius for Chagos. 2009, Brownlie leads a Mauritius delegation in bilateral talks at the Foreign Office in London. 2010, Philippe Sands QC becomes counsel to Mauritius for Chagos after Brownlie dies in a motor accident in Egypt. 2O13, Sands' good friend, Keir Starmer QC, visits Mauritius and discusses the future of the Chagos islands with prime minister Navin Ramgoolam. The meeting ends with the men in agreement. 2015, Ramgoolam is arrested on money-laundering charges. The same year, Starmer is elected to Parliament for first time. 2019, Sands obtains an International Court of Justice ruling (advisory opinion only, and non-binding) that the Chagos islands should be given to Mauritius. Sands uses the ICJ ruling as leverage in the following years in his efforts to persuade the Conservative government to give Chagos to Mauritius. 2020, Starmer becomes Labour Party leader. 2021, Sands receives Mauritius' top honour, The Most Distinguished Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean. 2022, Sands makes an unauthorized entry into the Chagos Archipelago for a flag-raising ceremony. Sands tweets at the time, “It’s morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies." 2023, Sands becomes Mauritius citizen, but retains his British and French citizenships. 🟥In November 2023 David Cameron takes over as Foreign Secretary from James Cleverly, and bins a deal saying, it's not in the national interest, as reported in Hansard. 2024, Starmer becomes UK Prime Minister in July, and overlooks his shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, to appoint his old friend and fellow human-rights lawyer Richard Hermer. But he has to break with tradition by giving Hermer a peerage, so he can sit in the House Of Lords, and be part of the government. In the early months of his premiership, Starmer makes the controversial former Downing Street Chief Of Staff for Tony Blair, Jonathan Powel, his special envoy for Chagos. In early October 2024, just ten weeks after becoming PM, Keir Starmer agrees a deal with Mauritius, despite there having been no mention of Chagos during the election campaign, and the pledge in Labour's manifesto to protect the BOT. Also in October 2024, Powell tells Times Radio in an interview, “These are very tiny islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean where no one actually goes. So I don’t think we should be too worried about losing that bit of territory. We’re probably losing more to tidal erosion in the East Coast than that.” Powell fails to mention the territorial waters and marine protection zone of 64,000 square miles, and Mauritius getting full ownership of all the mineral rights for an area about the size of France In November 2024, Starmer appoints Powell as his National Security Advisor. In December 2024, Starmer makes yet another extremely controversial appointment in Peter "friend of Epstein" Mandelson as his US Ambassador. Powell and Mandelson brief the White House over Chagos, and claim the UK has to give the archipelago to Mauritius because of international law. However, they assure the Americans that their military base on Diego Garcia is unaffected, as the UK has arranged a 99-year lease on the island. Those assurances have now been proven to be worthless. 2025, In January Lord Hermer recuses himself from signing off on the Chagos deal. The AG's office refuse to give details of why. In late February 2025, Mauritius’ former Prime Minister, Pravind Jugnauth, who was in office when Starmer became PM, and was heavily involved in discussions about the Chagos deal before being replaced by Navin Ramgoolam in November, was arrested on money laundering charges after Mauritius' anti-corruption agency said it had seized suitcases of cash and luxury watches in raids on 10 locations, including Jugnauth’s home. In August 2025, Starmer is referred to the statistics' watchdog for misleading claims over the cost of the Chagos deal. Many other claims are made during the year that Starmer had repeatedly "lied" about the true costs of the deal. There are even accusations that Starmer ordered his officials to announce misleadingly low figures.

@dthcxkr9m8 @WWIIpix Damn right they were. Read The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann. It was bloody dangerous for Allied Pilots and no quarter was asked or given.

@WWIIpix Those yankee fighter pilots were so brave, waiting over the German airfields until their opponents were out of ammo and fuel, wheels down, trying to land.

This day in 1945, "day of the great jet massacre", Allied aircraft shot down approx. 31 German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters. The loss proves fatal to the Luftwaffe and the defense of Berlin is abandoned. #WW2

@MikeTappTweets I had to stop for a moment to confirm @MikeTappTweets was not a parody account. But no, he actually is tweeting his delusions.

I couldn’t be more proud to be serving in Keir Starmer’s Government. This is exactly the leadership our country needs in uncertain times. 🇬🇧🇬🇧

@zoomafrika1 How fortunate of Zimbabwe to have lucked into this murderous, kleptomaniac.

Mugabe was a giant. There's no other African politician, you would watch and enjoy listening to than Robert. Zimbabwe remains luckiest to have had such a president.

@bphillipsonMP @ChronicleLive Contraception Bridget. Contraception.

Yesterday in Newcastle, I met with families set to benefit from the scrapping of the two child limit. Parents will have more money in their pockets, children will have better life chances. That’s the difference a Labour government makes. My interview with @ChronicleLive 🎙️

@TheGreenParty @UKTogetherAll What proportion of the population do you consider to be “far right”? What principles do you believe make an individual “far right”?

"If we work together, if we find common ground, if we mobilise, make a plan and stick together - we can defeat the far-right" Hannah Spencer at the @UKTogetherAll march discussing how we defeat the far right in the local and general elections.

@AFpost Excellent news and a job well done.

The missing F-15 pilot evaded capture by climbing an elevated ridge and sending out evac beacons. From that point, multiple aircraft were dispatched, decimating enemy forces all day in an attempt to secure a safe evacuation zone. Upon finally reaching the operator with SF soldiers, two transport aircraft became stuck, at which point the US opted to blow up the two planes and send more transport aircraft to rescue the now trapped SF soldiers and pilot. The planes were stuck at a remote base in Iran. The US suffered zero casualties while eliminating numerous enemies, carrying out a highly complex rescue mission over the course of days. Follow: @AFpost

@ITVNewsPolitics The cost of his virtue signalling is fewer jobs and lost tax revenues which could be used by the Government to help pay for the move to greener energy. Just look at Norway. An utter policy wonker!

'Those people who say new exploration licenses will somehow create huge amounts of energy for us... I mean, they're just wrong' Ed Miliband told ITV News that drilling for oil in the North Sea wouldn't bring down Britain's energy bills

Conclusion to the video below that went viral yesterday. People are beginning to understand what is actually happening. While information from inside Iran is restricted to only regime supporters & affiliates holding white SIM cards to by-pass the digital blackout (now entering its 31st day) hard not to blame people taken in by the ocean of regime narratives and propaganda picked up by western media outlets that currently dominate the airwaves. Like Niaz Abadani here, it’s imperative to keep educating people about what’s happening, and has been happening in Iran the last 47 years, and how this regime represents a real danger to the rest of the world. #IranIsraelUSAWar

@nicolelampert @LibDems A resigning offence. Paddy Ashdown must be turning in his grave.

The @LibDems Mayor of Bath reposted one of the horrendous ‘false flag’ posts about the ambulances being set on fire. In what world is this acceptable?

@HeidiBachram Are the HAMbots even capable of independent critical thought? Rather than following the script on your mobile engage brain.

Blackburn pro-Pals disrupted a university stall for BAE Systems today yelling that they’re killing “millions of people”. This is completely false and totally bonkers.