Alcopopbob

@BurnsideWasTosh He didn’t; mp’s aren’t vetted.

How the hell did Starmer get through Developed Vetting?

@cynicalbobby Football managers have to explain themselves to the media…. Not many senior officers seem to want to do that…. The media and their commentators fill an information void forces themselves create; get out there and defend your commanders or apologise. Don’t hide…

Another “expert” who is pre-supposing the extent of the evidence and making a judgement based upon that assumption. Some senior cops must wish they were football managers. You get less experts in the stand in football! telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/1…

@BettyBoochichi2 You’d think tasers were manufactured by Gillette, the frequency ‘new’ models get produced and forces spend 100’s K replacing the old ones…

Notts Police officers will soon be patrolling the county equipped with a new & improved Taser to help protect the public The rollout of the Taser 10 was approved in Oct last year after comprehensive assessment by the HO, the NPCC & the College of Policing nottinghamshire.police.uk/news/nottingha…

@jessicaelgot We don’t.

Extraordinary that we apparently live in a world where the prime minister just isn't told that his pick for US ambassador had failed security vetting

@DPJHodges Loads of people fail DV….. for all sorts of reasons…

One thing people need to be aware of. It's almost unheard of for someone to actually fail DV. Never mind someone as high profile as Peter Mandelson. Whatever the Red Flag was, it had to be major.

@ShippersUnbound @DavidVidecette None of which will be raised on principle, all of which will be based on a cold calculation of impact / opportunity for their own career advancement.

Most opposition calls for prime ministers to resign are political theatre. This time there are serious questions to answer. The thing to watch for will be Labour voices raised against him

@cynicalbobby There’s a range of tactical options that could be incrementally increased without going straight to code 1. Doesn’t feel propotionate to the level of disorder and now guaranteed to produce a larger crowd as we head into the weekend no doubt attracting some looking for a ruck.

A summary of events in Surrey. Police established there would be a large protest. In previous similar protests things were thrown at Police. Police dressed for things being thrown at them. The public said this was an over reaction and not justified. Then they threw things at the police.

@PippaCrerar Nobody believes this.

BREAKING: Downing Street says that neither Keir Starmer nor David Lammy knew that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting - and lays blame with Foreign Office official for overruling the decision.

@adamboultonTABB Only lies in Parliament count then?

Yes this is a lie by Starmer - but not in parliament.

@technopopulist Except nobody believes what she says will happen, will actually happen. The BBC (pleasant surprise) have merely made visible an inconvenient truth that political parties know is happening on mass but prefer to look the other way… let’s see the prosecutions…

Shabana Mahmood is pretty solid, in my view. A lot of parliamentary Labour probably can’t stand her, which, to my mind, is a point in her favour.

@PaulEmbery And yet we’re militarily dependent on the US for our own protection and that of Europe. It’s whether they still see us as an ally that we ought to be worried about….

In just four months, the percentage of Britons who see the US as an ally has slumped from 60% to 38%. Trump's increasingly aggressive and erratic behaviour is damaging the national populist brand across the world (and almost certainly affected election results in Canada, Australia and Hungary). Sensible right-of-centre politicians and activists should cut him loose (as Giorgia Meloni is currently doing).

@BettyBoochichi2 Unless staff are prepared to strike nothing will change. Concerted control room staff going on strike across all forces, or the credible threat of, only way to leverage concessions from this Government.

Following consultation with members, the trade union side of the Police Staff Council (PSC), involving UNISON, Unite and GMB, has submitted a joint pay claim on behalf of police staff members in England and Wales. UNISON believes the claim is justified because police staff pay has only risen by 41.1% over the 14 years since 2011, whereas if police pay had risen by the RPI measure of the cost of living, it would be 79.8% higher at the end of 2025, than in 2011.This means police staff have had a 27.4% real terms cut in average pay over this period. The unions’ pay claim seeks to begin the process of restoring this lost earning power. Low pay can’t stay: And it’s an ongoing problem in the police service: the real living wage rate for 2026 is £13.45/hour, which equates to an annual salary of £25,947. To achieve this as a minimum hourly rate for police staff would require the deletion of pay points 9,10 & 11. Police Scotland has already introduced a minimum hourly rate exceeding £15 an hour for its police staff, which should be replicated across England and Wales. Overtime rates stuck in 1996: Police staff who earn more than pay point 24 (£35,772) are not eligible to earn overtime at premium rates. The overtime bar was set back in 1996, and no longer reflects the fact that many operational police staff now earn overtime salaries above the overtime bar. As police sergeants are eligible for overtime at premium rates, UNISON’s claim calls for the abolition of the overtime bar for police staff. What happens next? Pay talks will take place later this summer after the Police Staff Council employers’ side has consulted over the claim with police forces, and police and crime commissioners/elected mayors. More information on the talks will be published in due course. Link to the article: unison.org.uk/news/article/2…

@WillCalverleyUK @seledka_vodka If you take away the right to strike from a group of workers, what protections should be put in place to ensure future pay rises are fair and Governments don’t take advantage of their inability to take industrial action?

The armed forces can’t strike, and neither should doctors. This is a great policy.

@PolitlcsUK @LucyGoBag With who? With what influence? With what leverage? An empty vessel cosplaying an ‘extra’ on the world stage; an utter irrelevance.

🚨 NEW: Keir Starmer is travelling to the Middle East today to hold talks on reopening the Strait of Hormuz

@Conservatives @seledka_vodka Over past 15 years, mainly under Tory Government. Doctors pay +73% Teachers +52% MP’s +50% Nurses +42% Police +35% Why would anyone give up the right to strike when you take advantage of those that can’t and award them the lowest pay rises?

Soldiers can’t strike. The police can’t strike. Neither should doctors. The next Conservative government will ban these strikes, for good.

@JJSharpers There’s a reason junior doctors pay has increased by 28.9% in three years. If you can’t strike, all you can do is ask nicely and continue to be ignored. Did you expect anything different?

And as our representative body, what are you doing about this other than posting on X?

@KemiBadenoch 2011, around when your Government cut police budgets by 20% and reduced 10k officers? Before you went on to decimate pay and conditions, introduce useless PCC’s, empower the awful college of policing and IOPC? Most law enforcement problems lead directly back to your party.

Children smashing up shops in broad daylight, stealing and even filming themselves doing it as if it were a game, is a much bigger problem than is being recognised. This is a total collapse of consequences. To those making snide comments about race or black kids - you do not see scenes like this in Lagos or Nairobi. Not because the children there are different, but because actions have consequences. There are clear boundaries. Parents, communities, and the authorities do not wring their hands or look the other way. Here, we have created a culture where too many young people believe they can do what they like and nothing will happen. That is the problem. And we should be honest about where that leads. If a child loots a shop today, films it for social media, and faces no real consequence, they are going to do much worse tomorrow. This is why under my leadership Conservatives are focusing on ENFORCEMENT, not just making more and more rules. Our Take Back Our Streets Campaign is about getting 10,000 more police officers, immediate justice and immediate punishment. But let’s be honest, this is not just a policing issue. It is a failure of authority at every level. Parents need to know where their children are and what they are doing. Discipline should start at home, not in a courtroom. We have also weakened the system around them. Deterrence is the backbone of criminal justice. Labour have changed the law so anyone receiving a sentence under 12 months will automatically walk free, instead receiving a suspended sentence. When people believe offences like this will not lead to meaningful punishment, we should not be surprised when more of it happens. You get more of what you tolerate. It’s not like we haven’t been here before. In 2011, when riots spread, the Conservative response was swift and visible. People saw consequences. And behaviour rapidly changed. That is what is missing now. This all comes down to fairness. Law-abiding people should not feel like fools while gangs smash and grab without consequence. The sad truth is the communities most damaged by this behaviour are often the very ones these young people come from. Only one approach will fix this: clear rules, real consequences, and the confidence to enforce them. It’s time to Take Back Our Streets and bring back a culture of enforcement.

@PaulEmbery Would you rather he hadn’t?

Trump blinked. His reputation will not recover from this. As with his climbdown over Greenland, he has almost certainly won no significant concessions. "Art of the deal", my foot. I have never seen such shambolic incompetence from a world leader. I've known parish councillors with a better understanding of statecraft.

@redrumlisa On balance, free speech trumps you being offended. Shouldn’t obstruct or prevent people going about their day, but people should broadly be able to do what they like otherwise.

#Newsnight The constant debate about people praying in the street can be solved by having a secular State where no one can pray in the street. I'm an atheist all praying in the street offends me. Theres places you go and pray to your god go in there.

@DPJHodges @drchrisnewton Starmers gone Quantum! Whereas a coin toss can be either heads or tails, in Quantum mechanics a particle can be the equivalent of heads, tails or any % of the two simultaneously all at the same time. Starmers simply adopted a quantum rather than Newtonian foreign policy.

OK, on this - if it’s true - then Trump has a legitimate reason to be critical. If Keir Starmer stalled him, then briefed he was rebuffing him, then tried to climb back on the fence at the press conference that’s not leadership. If we’re not sending the ships just say so.