Elizabeth Bangs -No accountability? No democracy.

I wrote a piece on the old Turkish proverb (not) that has been a thread running right through my year from January and still ongoing: elizabethbangs.wordpress.com/2022/12/31/whe…

@AndyBurnhamGM You'd never admit what you're up to.

From now on, I will be posting a campaign update around teatime every day to let you know where I’m up to. Here’s the first one - hope you find it interesting. Enjoy the evening sun everyone!

So just to sum up. Labour win a 174 seat majority under Keir Starmer and return to power after almost a decade and a half. They find governing challenging against the backdrop of struggling public services and low growth, and make unforced errors (winter fuel, Mandelson etc). Social media conspiracies, led by Elon Musk, contribute to a toxic political climate. Nigel Farage, the architect-in-chief of Brexit (which made things harder than they needed to be) pops up with his divisive rhetoric and poorly thought through policies and… Labour MPs, egged on by the media, panic. If Andy Burnham, a man without a plan, wins a staged by-election, he likely becomes Prime Minister. He then either calls a general election and loses Labour its hard fought majority, or struggles through for a couple of years before Farage is better “prepared” to move into Number 10. Stupid doesn’t cover it.

@reggiedunlopno4 @RichardGCorbett @RAMJAC3 I see. You have either memory problems or integrity problems. Either way, you're clearly part of the problem and not in any way part of the solution. Reply with some dumbass shit if you like, but I'm muting you so you'll be whistling into the air.

@ElizabethBangs @RichardGCorbett @RAMJAC3 Nope the Norway option was suggested merely as a stop gap during negotiations. Leaving the EU always meant leaving the EU

“Respecting” the result of a referendum held 10 years ago, when it’s increasingly clear that it was won on the basis of a pack of lies and that Brexit is doing massive damage to Britain’s economy, status & influence in the world, is a total abdication of responsibility.

Agree

@reggiedunlopno4 @RichardGCorbett @RAMJAC3 Before the ref we were told, variously, Leave didn't mean leaving the single market, the Norway solution was possible, and nothing about our rights and freedoms would change. There was NO majority for any one solution. In fact, the biggest vote for a *known* outcome was Remain!

@ElizabethBangs @RichardGCorbett @RAMJAC3 Hard and Soft Brexit as concepts didn’t exist, until after the referendum. And they were created by the Libdums. Because they were desperate to keep us as attached to the EU as possible, as the never wanted to leave Before that there was just leaving or not

“Come together” as in block the ability of those Labour members who believe this is a pointless waste of taxpayer and Party resources to respond. 🤦🏻 How bloody inclusive of you. #egotrip

Our best player, @Keir_Starmer, is on the pitch everyday. Burnham is on the B team.

But how did the need to defeat Reform in Makerfield arise Lucy? Is turning off Replies part of the strategy to bring everyone together?

Why would I 'come together' with people I believe are trying to do harm to the government I voted for less than two years ago and who have done good things: Kept us out of war Improved: Renters' rights Min wage Mental health workers Cut NHS waiting 30 hours child care. Treachery?

@carolecadwalla @thenerve_news Farage fluffers in the MSM will claim it's purely coincidental. And I expect his support will simply follow the Trump loop here: He didn't do it. Ok, he did do it, but it's not illegal. Ok it's illegal, but everyone does it. Why are you still talking about this, nobody cares...

@carolecadwalla @thenerve_news And worth noting that on 22 October he also told Phoebe Seers, Reuters' UK Finance Correspondent, he was “not aware” of crypto businesses funding his party. He had also been paid £50,000 from crypto firms in the month before. bylinetimes.com/2026/05/22/nig…

Here’s just one detail from @thenerve_news #HarborneReceipts timeline. On the *exact same day* Christopher Harborne gives Reform £3m, Nigel Farage says Reform will lift cap on stablecoin ownership. Where does Christopher Harborne’s money come from, you ask? Stablecoins!

Too on point not to share. This is great, but too bad the Orange Felon’s enablers won’t let him see it. This Australian's reply to #Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect. "Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage. You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail. Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates. Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you. And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again. And you're calling Greenland poorly run? Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no. 'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years. And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess. So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth." - Tony Locke

I never stop being amazed by them. Launching their “Birdhouse” — a strategic-class missile worth around $100 million, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead — at a garage complex in the Kyiv region. Let’s calculate how much this night cost them. One “Oreshnik” — roughly $100 million. Around ninety cruise and ballistic missiles: Kh-101s, Kalibrs, Iskander-Ks — at an average price of about $8 million each — that’s another roughly $720 million. Six hundred Shahed drones at $50,000 each — another $30 million. Plus fuel, launch platforms, maintenance, reconnaissance. Total: around $850 million for a single night. Nearly a billion dollars. And what did they get for that billion? They hit garages in Bila Tserkva. Destroyed the “Kvadrat” shopping mall. Set the roof of a dormitory on fire in Darnytskyi district. Blew apart an entrance section of a five-story apartment building in Shevchenkivskyi district. Hit a market. A supermarket. A construction hypermarket in Obolon. Dropped debris onto the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium. Two sleeping civilians killed. Fifty-six wounded, including children. Is this their strategic result for a billion dollars? This is their “special operation.” This is their “greatness.” They cannot move forward on the battlefield. Cannot seize a single truly significant settlement. Cannot defeat the army of a country they promised to capture in three days four years ago. And in convulsions, in agony, in powerless rage, they strike residential neighborhoods at night — museums, markets, shops, garages. Impotent on the battlefield, compensating for their failure with the number of munitions fired at sleeping civilians. Blind evil and helplessness at the same time. Monsters. Simply monsters. Rabid, paranoid lunatics with a nuclear button. I have no other words left for them.

Look, it's perfectly simple. I wasn't going to become an MP, then I was given £5 million and I coincidentally decided to run for Parliament. I then bought a house for £1.4m cash after saying I was "skint" and my girlfriend bought a house for £885,000 with money she didn't have and which I originally said I had bought. The gift was totally unconditional, as well as being for security and then it was a reward for Brexit. Nobody should have known about it, but the Russians hacked my phone, according to 'counter-espionage experts' who don't exist. See?

@nw_nicholas Yeah he seems to be good.

Do we like Darren Jones?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you … EXCUSE No. 4 - The Russian Connection

@IanPowderham @NotNoodles666 He actually gained many votes like mine. People who don’t usually vote Labour but were impressed by him. I could never have voted Corbyn and will not vote Labour again if this coup should succeed. MSM say SKS is unpopular for their own ends.

@andrew_behan @horatioharry @andy4makerfield Doesn't sound like he wants to risk unpopularity. But as PM he'll have to. Funnily enough, you can't please all of the people all of the time. In fact, to get things done, you've got to severely displease some of the people. Often, the loudest.

I can honestly say that over the last 10 years whilst out campaigning in local elections, mayoral elections or General Elections all over Greater Manchester. If you mention that you’ve got @andy4makerfield out with you. People’s faces genuinely light up and the response is good.