Steve Hartley

@KemiBadenoch He also said he would end the war in Ukraine in days. Since when do you use a moron as your champion?

The Prime Minister should listen to what the President actually said. The Chagos deal is an “act of great stupidity” and a sign of “great weakness”. But we didn’t need President Trump to say that. I’ve been saying it for a year.

@TheBritLad Yet the likes of reform want to leave echr which gives citizens a legal right to free speech. Go figure!

Keir Starmer sat in the Oval Office and said: “We’ve had free speech in the UK for a very, very long time, and it will last for a very, very long time.” Since then, police have arrested over 12,000 people for social media posts. That’s not free speech. That’s authoritarianism.

@KemiBadenoch Why should he not have a fair trial in the UK? Those calling for deportation before being charged with an offence and going before a judge are as bad as other dictators. If he is guilty of an offence, he should get his just punishment. Isn't that the British way?

Two things can be true at the same time. First, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, the former prisoner, should have received a free and fair trial in Egypt. The long years of detention, the suffering of his family, and the lack of due process are not things any democracy should be comfortable with. There ends my sympathy.   There is a second truth. The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent.   They were also anti-British, which begs the question how officials rubber-stamped this application without escalating to then Home Secretary.   The Home Secretary should now look at all possible options, including whether his citizenship can be revoked and he can be removed from Britain.   British citizenship is more than a passport. It means subscribing to our values. Our country is our home not a hotel. But let’s ask ourselves how this mad situation occurred.   Celebrities campaigned for his release as Western politicians, various media outlets, and human rights organisations helped sanitise El-Fattah’s story. I was only aware of his case in passing when discussed in parliament and on the news.   El-Fattah was always presented as a symbol of democratic resistance. It’s now clear from the comments which emerged that many who were supporting him had brushed aside his own published political views, including explicit endorsements of violence.   Those views were not obscure in those circles. They were serious enough to cost him a major European human rights award years ago.   It is one thing to work for someone’s release from prison if they’ve been treated unfairly as previous governments did. It is quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero.   The British government did not just work quietly for his release, it rushed to celebrate it: our Prime Minister expressed ‘delight’.   This rush to moral posturing has consequences. Firstly, it risks validating the narrative of Western unseriousness. Middle Eastern authorities have repeatedly expressed concerns about the kid gloves with which the West treats extremists who are not allowed to operate within their borders.   There is a deeper problem here which I have spoken and written about frequently.   Too many people now enter Parliament to act as activists and campaigners, not as legislators. This is not about doing the work of a Foreign Secretary on consular cases, or about campaigning for real human rights victims like Jimmy Lai, it is about those who prioritise virtue-signalling over due-diligence.   Those who push colleagues to act quickly, publicly, and emotionally, without doing the hard work of scrutiny that governing actually requires. It is why we have Prime Minister and Home Secretary who signed letters to stop the deportation of foreign rapists and murderers.   That culture in our parliament has consequences. Yes, it is mostly on the left, but let’s be honest, all parties indulge in this nonsense, including on occasion the Conservatives. I recall senior figures in Reform UK, including David Jones, at the time a Tory MP, leading the charge for El-Fattah’s release in Parliament.   It is inconceivable that no one saw Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s published statements over the years. Ten years ago, some people may have dismissed comments advocating the killing of Jews as offensive but unserious, or merely loose talk. After 7 October 2023, that excuse no longer exists. We now live in a very different world.   Since October 7, we have seen a sharp rise in the intimidation and terrorising of Jewish communities. We have seen antisemitic rhetoric translate into real-world harm with violence and murder in Manchester, in Bondi Beach, and elsewhere. In that context, calls for violence against Jews cannot be brushed aside.

@ZiaYusufUK @grok is it legal to deny worker a pension yhey have paid into?

The British state is recklessly endangering our women and girls. Reform is announcing a new policy to hold those responsible to account 👇

@Dune9 @robprogressive Because everyone worried about food prices has a cheeseboard after a chicken dinner, with Parma ham wrapping. Reality check? Spam fritters and beans was my 'skint' dinner.

@G0FUW @robprogressive Presumably the chicken breast is to be wrapped in the parma ham and perhaps the cheddar is for the cheese board.

£9 for a chicken breast
£20 for Parma Ham (not the most expensive) 
£5 for Cheddar cheese (locked in a security box) £34 quid for 3 items Just to make a f*cking chicken dinner Costs in the U.K. are WAY out of control

@JonathanPieNews How anyone can see the current Labour Party as communist is beyond me. Can't say I ever envisaged Mr Fox in UK armed forces let alone in the Russian trenches in Ukraine. Or did he mean like a keyboard warrior?

I totally get that most people think Starmer is complete cunt. I'm pretty much with you. But the below is utterly disgraceful. You'd rather join a violent corrupt dictator in an attempt to depose a democratically elected British politician. You are no patriot. Appalling.

@KemiBadenoch Look at your own record in office, and think if you are making sense. The Tories did nothing to solve the problems they caused.

We’re stuck in Labour’s advent calendar of misery. ⬇️ Growth down ⬆️ Unemployment up 🥼 Doctors striking again 🇺🇸 US tech deal collapsed …and there’s more bad news to come. 🫣 Britain needs the Conservatives to sort out this mess and get the country working again.

@RupertLowe10 Absolute tosh. Civil servants will be working up to the wire with no company funded parties or Christmas bonuses. I have worked as a civil servant, and as a self employed sole trader. The rewards are totally different but hard work is needed and done everywhere.

Out and about on a Saturday morning, seeing window cleaners up first thing getting on with the job. Plumbers and electricians starting work. Cafe owners, opening for a busy day. Publicans, preparing for the weekend Christmas rush. Such a brutal contrast to the army of jumped-up little civil servants and politicians in Whitehall who have already clocked off the Christmas - the ones who implement the tax, devise the nonsense regulations, make the life of small business owners absolute hell. They don't care about dividend tax rises, or VAT thresholds, or IR35, or mountains of bullshit HR rules. They don't understand, they don't care. Comfortable work environments, absolutely zero accountability, total job security, great pensions, no targets. Nobody EVER gets fired. The out of office reply in regular use, of course. Work from home a few days a week. Maybe head in for drinks once a week, but that's at a stretch. Don't even try and contact them past 15.00 on a Thursday. These busy little bureaucrats have embedded themselves into the system, building it so that their own pompous role seems irreplaceable. Honestly we need to drag these people into the real world. The world of Saturday morning work. Weekend work. ANY WORK. Freeloaders gliding through life on the back of productive Britain. I'm with the cafe owner. The publican. The window cleaner. The plumber. The electrician. THEY deserve our respect and our gratitude. They're the ones who make this country work, not the pretentious empire-building desk-jockey in central London. A total reset is required.

@ZiaYusufUK No wonder Reform want peerages then!

The House of Lords is now nothing more than a refuge for the corrupt and the incompetent.

@SarahForRuncorn I used to work in uk prisons and the sex offender units were full of white British males. Is it OK for them to offend?

Two Afghan migrants have been jailed for the rape of a 15 year old girl after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on their identities and backgrounds. It is becoming an all too familiar story, and the public are entitled to straight, swift answers about who is behind these attacks.

@RachelA1892 A post that shows how dumb some people are. Go read British history and see what happens when monarchs try to dissolve parliament. A true patriot would know that.

I have never known a more deceitful and unpopular government. They are driving forward massive changes with no mandate such as ending trial by jury. Surely the time is fast approaching when our King must step forward on behalf of his people and dissolve this rotten parliament.

@Mofoman360 Didn't go well last time a monarch tried to do that. As a patriot, well versed in British history, you should know that, so seems you are just trying to whip up illogical anger, or you are fake news.

Give me a big thumbs up if you think King Charles SHOULD dissolve the Labour Party so we can have a general election NOW!!!

@ClaireCoutinho Trouble is, that is not my experience, so your rant looks like just that. Nothing like the last government nearly bankrupting thousands of young voters who are still paying more on mortgages than before. Look in the mirror read recent history books, like the last election result

Labour say they’ve helped you with the cost of living. But their political choices mean: Food shop UP £300 📈 Rent UP £700 📈 Energy bills UP £200 📈 Taxes UP ££££ 📈 Don’t believe their £150 energy bill con. They are a walking talking cost of living crisis.

@KemiBadenoch And you think posting crap like this makes you look like a future PM? Try living on benefits yourself and then maybe you will see how ludicrous your soundbites are.

Working families will now be £18,000 worse off than those on benefits. This is a moral, economic and political failure. Reeves said her budget for benefits was about fairness. It wasn’t, it was about her and the PM’s survival. We need to get people into work; not incentivise them out of it. Only the @Conservatives will get Britain working again.

@TRobinsonNewEra She was jailed for a criminal offence that she pleaded guilty to. Her child is not being denied schooling, only the change to a different school. I feel sorry for the child but her mother is the author of her own destiny.

If jailing the young mother, Lucy Connolly, for a deleted social media post, wasn't enough, her children are now being prevented from schooling because of her "political views"! Activist "teachers", the same as activist judges, need removed from all institutions!

@SandyofSuffolk @StevenWilson777 Oh yes it has. Income is income. Reform will stop those only getting state pension from being taxed by getting rid of the tripple lock. Keep people poor so they don't pay tax, whilst the rich toffs in charge rake it in. How's the Reform manifesto promises looking? Gone?

@StevenWilson777 The state pension has never been taxable. Never. Ever.

Rachel from Accounts is going to freeze the tax thresholds until 2030 today. Bringing one million more people into paying tax, including the low paid and people on just the state pension. Bet you wish you'd voted Reform now don't you.

@BROKENBRITAIN0 Wethersfield was a defence police base decades since it was used by USAF.

🚨 THERE IS A FOREIGN ARMY ON BRITISH SOIL 🇬🇧 This is footage from RAF Weathersfield, which is currently housing MIGRANT MEN❗️ Not WOMEN, not CHILDREN, 100s of unknown foreign illegal MEN in AN ARMY BASE, all paid to live for FREE BY YOU ⚠️

And after the second successful workshop. Brilliant work by all of the youngsters and the mentor team. @theRSGB @theRSGByouth @hamyota @bletchleypark

All set up ready for the RCF sponsored build a radio workshops with @theRSGB @bletchleypark