Sue Ridout

Beating Yourself Up Is Not the Same as Being Accountable Keir Starmer has discovered a new defence. Not ignorance, which the vetting documents destroyed. Not deception, which the paper trail contradicts. Something softer and harder to prosecute. He beats himself up. He dwells on it. He is, he assures us, his own harshest critic. Accountability has consequences. It involves the surrender of something: office, authority, the power to make the next mistake. Self-flagellation on a podcast involves none of those things. It is the political equivalent of a public apology that asks the wronged party to comfort the wrongdoer. Starmer is not accepting consequences. He is asking for sympathy while retaining everything. Consider what he is actually saying. That no external criticism can match the severity of his internal verdict. That he has, in effect, already punished himself more harshly than anyone else could. The logical implication is that further accountability is therefore unnecessary. He has handled it. Internally. In his own head. The matter is closed. That is not accountability. It's theatre. It is not closed. A man with a known, documented relationship with a convicted paedophile was placed in Britain's most sensitive diplomatic post. The vetting file flagged the risk in writing. The national security adviser said the process was weirdly rushed. The chief of staff who drove the appointment has resigned. The phone containing the key messages has disappeared. A police investigation was filed under the wrong address and closed. A disgraced peer was paid £75,000 of public money to stop him talking. Starmer did not stumble into this. He signed off on it. He knew about the Epstein connection. He chose to proceed. That is not a mistake in the ordinary sense of the word. A mistake is what happens when you act without sufficient information. Starmer had the information. The vetting document existed. The warnings were made. The decision to override them was deliberate. He invokes his twenty years fighting violence against women and girls as context for the error, as if a long record of good work provides a credit account against which bad decisions can be offset. But that record does not bear the weight he places on it. As Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer presided over a Crown Prosecution Service that failed to prosecute grooming gangs operating openly in towns across the north of England. Girls were being abused on an industrial scale. The institution he led looked the other way. He has never offered a satisfactory account of why. A man whose professional legacy includes that failure is not well placed to invoke the protection of women and girls as a shield against scrutiny. The victims of Jeffrey Epstein did not receive an apology from a man beating himself up on a podcast. They received one more reminder that the powerful operate by different rules. That the standard applied to them is internal, private and self-assessed. That the harshest critic of Keir Starmer is, conveniently, Keir Starmer, and that he has already delivered his verdict and found the sentence acceptable. A Prime Minister who knowingly placed a compromised figure at the heart of Britain's most important diplomatic relationship, then watched the evidence trail go cold, then told the country he feels really bad about it, has not met the threshold that public office demands. He has met the threshold that self-preservation requires. Those are not the same thing. And the country knows the difference. "It is the political equivalent of a public apology that asks the wronged party to comfort the wrongdoer. Starmer is not accepting consequences. He is asking for sympathy while retaining everything."

@Suffragent_ So the recent Iftar in Trafalgar Square was all about ‘peace’ and ‘diversity’, but the Met classified this beautiful Christian carol service in last Christmas as a ‘protest’? 🤔 If he’s so into ‘diversity’, why didn’t Sadiq Khan join us? 🤷‍♀️

Turnout Day 🥳🤩😅🐄❤️ One of the most magical days of the year 💪 #farming

Lambing time is my favourite time of year on the farm. It’s long hours, late nights and early mornings, but it shows the very best of our farming community. Dedication, resilience and real hard work, whatever the weather. Farmers don’t switch off, they get on with it. We owe them far more respect and support than they currently get.

@A_J_Snowden @sharrond62 @KemiBadenoch So much for Prime Minister Questions! No answers, just deflection. It’s frustrating that he will not answer after being asked multiple times and has not been made to answer. Makes a mockery of the session and a waste of everyone’s time. Time for him to be held to account!

What is Starmer scared of? What is he hiding on Mandleson? I’m sick of listening to Starmer’s pre-scripted drivel masquerading as answers at #PMQs We know the answer to the question @KemiBadenoch asked him 6 times, he just doesn’t want to say it. So I called him out for it.

At what point is a government held to account for not spending their tax payers money on things that improve the lives (or roads even) of the actual tax payer?

Brilliant.

"Who here would do their day job at a price where they cannot afford to feed their family? And then be told diversify to survive"💸☝️ Alan Hughes @ #BattleFest 2025 "Ploughing on? The state of British farming"🧑‍🌾🔥 👇

Ed Miliband has suggested that pubs should serve warmer beer to cut high energy costs. We’re governed by morons. A competent Energy Secretary who isn’t a Net Zero fanatic would drill in the North Sea. Instead we have this psychopath.

Farmers are taking the government to court today over the family farm tax. They have my full support.

I should be on the farm today planting barley or spreading fertiliser, but instead we’re at the High Court for a Judicial Review where we’ll ask the Court to step in and declare that the Chancellor’s decision not to consult properly over IHT changes with the public was unlawful.

@DavidWebbTweet Cutting fuel duty and hence the VAT on total fuel costs would significantly reduce transport costs, the price of goods and food. Can’t they see that this alone would boost the economy? Unbelievably dim

Most petrol and diesel is used either for work or to get to work. That's a tax on having a job. Just cut fuel taxes you fucking idiot.

In 63 seconds, Ireland's new President, and her first ST. Patrick's Day message she sends out a message to humiliate Ireland with woke nonense. In 63 seconds She calls SAINT Patrick, Patrick four times. In turn ignoring Ireland's Catholic historical traditions. Refuses to wear green, opting for black instead like a funeral. And espouses a historically innacurate version of events comparing St Patrick to a migrant (he was a slave!) to create a modern day socialist propaganda speech. Disgraceful.

"Vegan leather" is plastic. "Vegan wool" is plastic. "Vegan fur" is plastic. Every wash cycle releases microplastics into the water. Every year it degrades slightly and releases more. At end of life it will sit in landfill for four hundred years or end up in the ocean. The sheep, meanwhile, grows a new coat every year, requires it removed, and produces a fibre that has been biodegradable since the Neolithic. But yes. The sheep is the environmental problem. The sheep, standing in the Lake District in the rain, growing renewable fibre from grass. The sheep.

Dear Prime Minister & Energy Secretary, We hope this finds you warm. Not metaphorically warm — actually warm. As in, central heating on without having to remortgage the house. Because out here in the wilds of Ordinary Britain™, we’ve developed a new hobby: staring at the thermostat like it’s a slot machine. Will it go up? Will it bankrupt us? Who knows. Spin again. Now, forgive us simple folk, but we’re slightly confused. We’re sat on North Sea oil and gas. It’s there. Under the sea. Not imaginary. Not theoretical. Not powered by positive thinking and recycled conference lanyards. And yet the national strategy appears to be: 1.Don’t drill it. 2.Import it. 3.Pay more for it. 4.Look surprised when bills explode. It’s a bold plan. Very avant-garde. Almost performance art. Meanwhile, every time fuel prices twitch, petrol stations react like someone’s shouted “fire” in a theatre. Prices up faster than a minister’s expenses claim. Oddly, they never drop with the same Olympic enthusiasm. Must be gravity working differently in Britain. We’re told another wind farm will fix it. Another turbine. Another “long-term strategy.” Now don’t get us wrong — wind is lovely. Very breezy. Excellent for drying washing. But when it’s minus three and the grid’s wobbling like a jelly at a church raffle, we’d quite like something a bit more… reliable. Energy policy shouldn’t feel like we’re betting the house on a weather app. Here’s the uncomfortable bit: ordinary people are cutting back. Pensioners choosing between heating and eating. Families watching fuel costs creep up while wages politely stay seated. And from Westminster we get speeches. Targets. Pledges. Strongly worded enthusiasm. We don’t need enthusiasm. We need affordable energy. Preferably sourced from the resources we already have. It’s not radical. It’s not extremist. It’s not anti-planet to acknowledge that until storage technology catches up and renewables can carry the load alone, turning off domestic supply while importing foreign supply at a premium is… financially acrobatic. The North Sea isn’t a moral failing. It’s an asset. Using it sensibly while transitioning responsibly isn’t betrayal. It’s common sense. Ordinary taxpayers aren’t asking for miracles. We’re just asking not to be collateral damage in a PowerPoint presentation. So here’s a humble suggestion: Warm homes first. Affordable fuel first. Energy security first. Then — by all means — save the world. Yours in mild hypothermia and rising direct debits, The People Who Actually Pay The Bills

Dave bought Keith at the Exeter autumn sale in 2024. He nearly didn't. Keith was in a pen of five Anglo-Nubian billies, all healthy, all well-grown, and Dave had been looking for a browser for the east ditch problem for two months. He'd narrowed it to two of the five. Then the auctioneer's assistant opened the pen gate briefly to move the animals to the ring. In the four seconds the gate was open, the billy at the back of the pen, not one of Dave's two, walked to the gate, studied the latch mechanism from a distance of about eight inches, reached forward, and put his nose on it. The assistant closed the gate. The billy looked at where the latch had been. Then he looked at the ring. Then he looked back at the latch. Dave changed his mind. He mentioned this to the farmer from Crediton who was selling. The farmer from Crediton looked at Dave with the expression of a man about to say something important. "He opened the last four," the Crediton farmer said. "Every gate I had. I've just had the yard re-latched. He did the house gate in May." Dave: "The house gate?" Crediton farmer: "He was in the kitchen. He didn't eat anything. He just stood there." Dave looked at Keith. Keith was studying the gate latch again. Dave bought him. Keith has been on Dave's farm for fourteen months. Keith has opened every gate on the farm. The east ditch is clear. Dave's net outcome column has a tick on every row since entry 17. The kitchen, so far, has not been breached. Dave has checked the kitchen latch. Dave checks the kitchen latch every morning. Dave checks it twice.

"We're wasting food on cattle that could feed billions of people." Gerald eats the following, in a standard week on a British beef farm: Grass. Fresh in summer, preserved as silage or hay in winter. This grass grew on land that cannot be cropped. Clover. Nitrogen-fixing. No synthetic fertiliser required where clover is present. Gerald eats the clover and deposits the nitrogen back into the soil in his manure. Hedge browsings. Hawthorn, hazel, field maple. Things a combine harvester has never and will never express an interest in. In winter, possibly: a modest quantity of brewers' grains: the spent barley from beer production that cannot be eaten by humans and would otherwise go to landfill or anaerobic digestion. Possibly some beet pulp: the fibrous residue from sugar processing. Indigestible to humans. Gerald converts it. Possibly some distillers' grains from whisky production. A by-product of an industry, converted to beef. The thought experiment is: what else do you do with this? The grass: you cannot eat it. You cannot process it into human food. You can leave it to grow, set seed, and decompose. The silage: same. The brewers' grains: landfill, biogas, or Gerald. The beet pulp: same. The hedgerow: same. Gerald is not competing with you for resources. Gerald is processing your waste, your margins, your by-products, and your non-arable land into beef and manure. The question is not "why are we feeding Gerald?" The question is "what were you planning to do with all of this without Gerald?"

@CaptSpringbok Brilliant! @WelshRugbyUnion ❤️

Rhys Carré when he saw the tryline!

@SamaHoole @1GarethWynJones you should follow this page, it’s brilliant! Bore da i chi!

We put the land use argument to Keith. Keith. You are occupying agricultural land that could, theoretically, be used to grow crops. How do you respond? Keith stopped chewing. He looked at the field. The field is on a 30-degree slope in Devon. The topsoil is clay. The drainage is complicated. No tractor has successfully operated in the lower section without becoming a story people tell in the village pub. Keith looked at us. Keith, do you believe this field could produce food crops without you on it? Keith walked to the lower section of the field. He ate a thistle. He stepped on a bramble runner and ate that too. He looked at the clay in the corner where it waterlogged every winter and produced nothing except rushes, which Keith also ate. Are you saying the field is only productive because you're on it? Keith looked at us with the expression of an animal that has grasped the argument entirely and found the question slightly beneath him. He then left through the gate he had opened by himself. He was in the road for nine minutes. He ate a passing cyclist's energy bar. We are not including this in the land use efficiency report.