The Ragged Trousered Bollardiste.

@matthewcashmore Hey, guess start, you were on the telly.

I keep being stopped and being told I was on the telly... so I went looking - and indeed I was!

@elonmusk Nazis put their arms in the air, therefore all people who put their arms in the air are Nazis.

Hitler was a socialist, therefore all socialists are Hitler

@worstall @markchristie Jeez, you'll be moaning about the fact government forced you to have seat belts next.

How in buggery did this happen? "Ed Miliband will phase out the sale of condenser tumble dryers and promote heat-pump alternatives" The government took the powers to decide how we dry our T-shirts? Jeebus. Whatever happened to the idea of a self-organising and liberal society?

@elonmusk Try harder Elon, I'm sure you can get a few more women up the duff.

Troubling

@joemichalczuk and look what happened. Do you seriously want to put your health in the hands of the same type of people?

@joemichalczuk into the hands of private companies who make profits and pay dividends at the tax payers expense (PPP anyone?) Privatised health insurance will do nothing to fix it. It would be more companies, wanting more profit to pay more dividends. We privatised water, electricity and rail

A shower screen shattered all over my wife this week. Over the next 72 hours, the NHS got almost everything wrong. A cautionary tale of a system that is broken (with the usual caveat that everyone working in it is doing their best) 👇 I called an ambulance. All good at first: “It’s on its way.” Ten minutes later: “Actually, there are no ambulances for hours - can you get her to hospital?” So I loaded my bleeding wife into the car, along with the kids and the dog, and drove to A&E. Ten hours later, she came home - having given up after not even being offered a plaster. The next morning, we called our GP: “Any chance she could see a nurse?” “No - as the ambulance referred her to hospital, we can’t see her.” So I went to the pharmacy and bought a first aid kit. Because apparently that’s where we are now - me and a pack of plasters, in one of the richest countries in the world. This morning, still in pain, still untreated, and with a ballooning foot, we went to an urgent treatment centre. At first, smooth. She was seen in under two hours. X-ray done. “Nasty cut, but nothing broken.” Relief. Two hours later, the phone rang. It was the hospital. “Sorry - we got that completely wrong. Your foot is broken and the wound needs antibiotics.” If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable. And the truth is - anyone who uses the system has a story like this. We need to stop clinging to an idealised version of the NHS and have a grown-up conversation about how to fix it. Free healthcare for all should remain a principle - but pretending the current model works isn’t helping anyone. Almost every other developed country combines public healthcare with some level of private provision - and all deliver better outcomes as a result. Yet in the UK, even suggesting that tends to get shut down before the conversation starts. That’s not protecting the NHS. It’s protecting a cult. We don’t need ideology. We need honesty about what works. We need a brilliant NHS in practice for all of us - not one we’re told to revere while it quietly crumbles, and where anyone who speaks up is dismissed or discredited. When are we going to get serious about the things that actually matter - and have the difficult national conversations needed to fix them? We don’t need to abandon the NHS. We need to be honest about fixing it. We shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders. We have to be better. We need to vote for real change.

@iealondon goodlawproject.org/case/mps-launc…

@iealondon "The IEA is considered a significant but partisan political actor rather than a neutral, academic research body. Its work is best used as a source for understanding libertarian and free-market perspectives rather than objective, non-partisan economic analysis."

🇬🇧 We asked Brits where the UK ranks vs US states in income per person. Average answer: 7th. Wealthier than 43 states. The reality: 51st. Dead last. Below Mississippi. Below Arkansas. Below every single US state. 🧵

@SunnyM_UK @policylaila Well that'll stop @antmiddleton in his tracks then...

@policylaila He's a terrible mayor. Only UK citizens and council tax payers should be able to vote in local elections.

“Misinformation” is now just code for censorship. Khan spent a decade making London dangerous. Now he wants to make it illegal to say so. He’s not trying to make London safer he’s trying to make it look safer. He’s asking government to censor what people can post about crime in London. He wants to silence the truth. That is textbook authoritarianism. Free speech is not a problem to be managed. It’s a right to be defended. Any politician who thinks censorship matters more than fixing the reality has no business running this city.

Quote it instead, I find that works for me.

@globalfireforum @policylaila Wasn't Boris Mayor of London for that period? Oh yes, so he was. So not a lot Sadiq Khan could have done really. Why not go back to tweeting about fire safety.

@policylaila Anyone who lives and works in London over the past 20, 10, 5yrs will have been victims of crime or witness to crime #LawlessLondon its a crime epidemic & some serious imported crimes are manifesting #Acidattacks is one matrix the mayor would like to sweep under the carpet.