Rachel

There’s nothing either Conservative or Unionist about #Brexit. @Conservatives

@TorstenBell You may recall that 25+ years ago stakeholder pensions were designed to be exactly that - a pension you could take from employer to employer. I had one with X provider, but when, in 2001 I went to work for a Labour MP, the HoC refused to pay into it so I had to open another…

It’s great news that more people are saving for their retirement. But I want to make pension saving as simple and rewarding as possible - dealing with small pots is part of that drive

The good news: far more people are now saving into a pension The less good news: LOADS of small pension pots for those moving employer regularly

@notreallydavid2 @acoolerclimate5 @jammach From Commonwealth countries (which the US is not).

@acoolerclimate5 @jammach In general, they didn't. Their grandparents and great grandparents came here in the sixties.

I was talking to an old female friend last week, who is a teacher at a Glasgow secondary school. The teachers have a massive problem with Pakistani Asian male kids being disrespectful and intimidating to female teachers. This is way beyond back chat, this is pupils as young as S1 and S2 physically and psychologically threatening female teachers, in groups, to the point they don’t want to leave their classrooms alone between lessons. They are scared to complain in case they get labelled racist or incompetent. She gave some examples. It’s really nasty stuff. They also bully and intimidate the Sikh and Chinese kids, play porn on their phones when teachers are out the room and harass female students. These kids are not going to magically transform into well behaved adults … they have come from households and communities that have told them women are inferior to men and they are the chosen of Mohammed and can do whatever they want. Islam is not compatible with modern western civilisation and the harm these kids are doing to themselves and other students now is immense.

@AsgaardSharon @NotThatBigIan Definitely not guns: they would become a target for prisoners.

@NotThatBigIan Guns are needed for officers and mass deportations…The rules are to soft…Jihad taking over…death penalty needs to be used and brought back to law.

Any senior prison official who says today front line officers should not be given personal protective equipment to protect them from knives because 'it's too militaristic' should be sued into oblivion. Or sacked. Or both. The safety of staff trumps woke points for bureaucrats.

@hmd_db That, and ‘why are you filming in your bathroom and why oh why can I see the toilet roll?’!

@DorsetRachel My instant response too!

@flippantphantas @Shrink_at_Large @UKLabour It’s income-based (not contribution-based) ESA which is being migrated to universal credit. citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/unive…

@Shrink_at_Large @UKLabour Does anyone know what I'll be classed as when I transfer fromesa contribution based to UC please? I don't understand all the lcw things..

People on Universal Credit LCWRA are among the poorest and most vulnerable in the country. Not everyone on LCWRA is on PIP—or eligible. Yet proposed cuts could leave them thousands worse off each year. This is unacceptable and discrimination. See you in court @UKLabour.

@HarryBrighouse1 @rcolvile Appears we still have no need of experts.

@DorsetRachel @rcolvile Who cares about the details, Rachel? Why should someone be expected to know anything about a public policy they have an idiotic opinion about?

We did a whole paper on this. The govt’s definition of ‘welfare fraud’ is people actively defrauding the state by making false claims. The public’s definition is ‘people claiming benefits when they could actually work’. I’m with the public.

The owner of this website using his money to undermine both justice and democracy on the other side of the ocean? It’s beyond the red line. See you somewhere over the rainbow. 🌈

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. ‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

@NicholasLissack @Keir_Starmer If people’s homes are ‘freezing’ they should check they are getting all the benefits the law currently entitles them to, then speak to an advice agency to see if they are eligible for any additional grants or vouchers.

Keir Starmer couldn’t care less about the elderly—from winter fuel payments to WASPIs, his indifference is clear. If your home is freezing this winter, if your bank account is running on fumes, if you’re being denied what’s rightfully yours, it’s because of Labour. Shameful.

The first quarter of this century is over. It has been pretty awful. Unless we move in a sensible and coherent postliberal direction, the next quarter will be a global nightmare.

@Patrici89225734 Sell it.

My sons have bought me an Air Fryer for Christmas! Now can anyone tell me what I do with it? This is NOT an advert!

@fifisyms About three weeks too early for masks. They were wiping down the audio guide headsets but it wasn’t anything to do with COVID.

@fifisyms 21 February 2020 to be exact.

@fifisyms This has been a long time coming. I went to Blenheim in early 2020 and immediately spotted Far*ge with the DoM in entrance hall. DoM had terrible judgement as a younger man: seems nothing has changed.

The important thing here is the huge disporportionality. In the general prison population sex offenders make up around 21% of the population. Nearly three times that rate are men who identify as women. This is very significant. No biologically male offender should *ever* be in a female prison.

@MissLauraMarcus Forgot that we also did Harold Pinter at A level. (Comprehensive school, early 1980s)

@DorsetRachel Wow. What a collection

We never did Shakespeare at my school. It’s to my endless regret. I missed so much! All those fabulous quotes he wrote. Never did no Dickens neither, apart from A Christmas Carol. No Middlemarch, no Jane Austen, no Jane Eyre but did Wuthering Heights and Lord Of The Flies. You?

It is with immense pride and a great whoop of joy that the directors of After Breast Cancer Diagnosis (ABCDiagnosis) announce the recognition of their founder, Jo Taylor, in the King's New Year Honours List 2025. Jo, our Founder, is to receive a BEM – British Empire Medal, for services to patient advocacy with the 2 organizations: CIC (Community Interest Company) ABCDiagnosis and the charity METUPUK (which she also founded). Jo was diagnosed nearly 11 years ago with metastatic (secondary) breast cancer, an incurable disease, 7 years after being told she was cured of early stage breast cancer which she developed when she was only 38, on maternity leave with her 5 month-old daughter, and a 20-month-old son. It was a huge shock 7 years later being re-diagnosed with this incurable disease. This personal tragedy has driven Jo’s ambition to support other patients going through the same experience – hence the creation of ABCDiagnosis. Jo has expressed how proud she is for receiving this award for the work that she has done, initially via the ABCDiagnosis website. The site is the only patient-led “one stop shop”, which signposts information and promotes the patient voice. Her regular blogs, also raise awareness of metastatic breast cancer and includes the “red flag signs and symptoms” infographic, which she developed over 8 years ago in response to a lack of understanding and awareness. ABCDiagnosis has since expanded to provide residential motivational retreats which Jo has managed and developed over the last 7 years. More recently ABCDiagnosis created the patient-led Nordic Walking groups around Greater Manchester training over 10 Instructors who now deliver these walks for breast cancer patients. Thousands of patients and their relatives, locally, nationally and world-wide have benefited from ABCDiagnosis. The award also recognises Jo as founder member of METUPUK, the only patient advocacy group in the UK focusing on MBC, which she set up because secondary breast cancer patients were ignored and invisible. They still are, but through METUPUK’s work carried out by amazing volunteers and advocates this is set to change. Jo is determined that metastatic breast cancer patients will be heard, supported and counted whilst alive and not only captured within mortality figures. We wish Jo all the best in the work she continues to undertake on behalf of the breast cancer community despite the difficulties she faces with her own health. We are extremely proud to support her in her endeavours. The Directors of After Breast Cancer Diagnosis