Richard James

@timspencer1 @owenjonesjourno Good advice

@owenjonesjourno @JL03MOO Don't listen to people with a mullet Owen!

This is insane. No one can look at this and claim Trevor Phillips, aka Peter Mandelson's best friend, is impartial. He clearly saw Zack Polanski as a political opponent and acted accordingly.

@nav7634 @moving_charlie It’s was a tremendous performance from Dan

@charlietheshep @Glinner @LozzaFox The brilliant @DanielPriestley

@Glinner @LozzaFox Who was the person Gary was debating with? Is right on every point (including the end point re compaines ‘pretending to be elsewhere to avoid taxes(. Asking as would like to hear more from him

What happens when a vibes economist meets the real thing.

@FlashheartV2 Sounds epic. Bet they hated it 🥴

@wearetherace Aston Martin just confident that they’ll come good tweaking round the edges, nothing major required

🤯 The number of car upgrades each team has brought to the Miami GP: McLaren - 7 Mercedes - 2 Red Bull - 7 Ferrari - 11 Williams - 7 Racing Bulls - 6 Aston Martin - 0 Haas - 1 Audi - 2 Alpine - 6 Cadillac - 9

@jo_bartosch @Transgendertrd Excellent article, and one that will add to the growing cultural shift away from this temporary madness.

Latest! ‘Rattley might as well mark his territory by pissing in the laboratory fume cupboard. He is clearly a man who enjoys pushing boundaries and, thanks to the taboo on kink-shaming and the institutional fear of ‘transphobia’, he has been indulged.’ spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why…

@JohnRentoul More equally poor 👌

Wealth is more equally distributed in Britain than in Sweden, Germany or the Netherlands – UBS Global Wealth Report 2025 ubs.com/global/en/weal…

@RestIsPolitics Isn’t that the “you can grow concrete” guy?

📺 Watch here: youtu.be/NUHJb96m5ec 🎧Listen here: lnk.to/LeadingTW

🚨NEW EPISODE: Leading🚨 President Aleksandar Vučić joins @RoryStewartUK and @campbellclaret to discuss Serbia’s place on the global stage. How does he balance relations with Russia, China and the EU? What happens if EU enlargement stalls and could the US step in? And can Serbia join without recognising Kosovo’s independence? Link in the replies👇

@GuidoFawkes Seems….. reasonable?

Mahmood Spends £1600 on Furniture & Fittings for Her Private Office order-order.com/2026/04/23/mah…

@cjsnowdon Is the suggestion that he’s using in his cup of tea/beverage of choice… or gulping it down straight from the bottle like I used to get told off for when I was a child?

Peter Hitchens, milk snatcher?

@NwMuseumNwUDont @bushontheradio Quizteama Aguilera

@bushontheradio A few I’ve played for: Quizlamic Jihad Quizly Bears Quiz Quiztopherson Governor Quiz Quiztie Vidkun Quiz-ling I once got quizzy in a Burger King bathroom The Quiztery Machine Risky Quizness Masters of Quizness Quizzy Gillespie Quizzy Lifting Pops Thin Quizzy Quizzy Bordon

What's the best PUB QUIZ TEAM NAME you've ever heard?

@FlashheartV2 I know what you mean. I was always a bit sniffy about Moss, but the “tailored” shirts with a cut away collar I got from there about two years ago have absolutely great. Good value, look decent and last ages.

@campbellclaret @jk_rowling Weak, weak, weak

@jk_rowling Thank you for listening

Mmmm. Bit weird 👇🏻 but hey ho … for all those claiming we won’t listen to people who share @jk_rowling views we have in the past asked @jk_rowling who said no. She is a leading voice and therefore we would happily talk to her on LEADING. Previous attempts have been rebuffed.

@FlashheartV2 Happy birthday to Mikey and Ash

@MattP1Tommy Same as everyone else: Texas, Vegas, Miami

What’s your order? 🧐🏁

@LeeHurstComic If you’re interested in orange, speak to @JustStop_Oil

Hi Peeps. Do any of you have experience of staining concrete paving stones a different colour?

@ATRightMovies Did it fuck

An early version of THE LION KING had a much darker ending where Scar kills Simba on Pride Rock, then stands gloating as the fire he caused rises up and burns him to death, which Disney changed as too grim for the final film.

@MountainMarmee @KingBobIIV My thoughts exactly. Sadly.

@KingBobIIV I don’t say this lightly, but this crime with this level of evidence deserves the death penalty.

He'll be out in 7, and then claim he can't be deported because of his crime, and he'll claim he can't work in the uk because of his criminal record. So a man that has just raped a 2 year old British child will now be rewarded with a lifetime citizenship and be housed, fed and clothed until he dies.

One of the hardest conversations to have in this country is about pensions and welfare spending. It’s because the moment you raise them, people assume you’re attacking pensioners or the vulnerable. So let me be clear before I go any further. This isn’t an argument against supporting people who need it. It’s a question about whether the system that provides that support can survive in its current form. Because if it can’t, the people who depend on it the most are the ones who get hurt first. That’s why this conversation matters. Now the numbers… The government raises roughly £1.2 trillion a year in total receipts. Here’s where it comes from. £329 billion from income tax. £200 billion from National Insurance. £214 billion from VAT. £105 billion from corporation tax. £50 billion from council tax. Plus fuel duty, stamp duty, alcohol and tobacco duties, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and everything else. The welfare bill is £333 billion. Every penny raised from income tax, the single largest source of government revenue, doesn’t cover it. The welfare bill is larger than income tax receipts. Combine income tax and National Insurance and you get roughly £529 billion. Welfare takes £333 billion of that. Debt interest takes another £114 billion. That’s £447 billion gone before a single pound goes to the NHS, schools, police, defence, roads, or anything else. Those two items alone consume 85% of everything raised through income tax and NI combined. Everything else the government does has to be funded from VAT, corporation tax, council tax, and every other levy. And here’s the thing people don’t always connect. You pay those too. VAT is 20% on almost everything you buy. Employer National Insurance, just raised to 15%, gets passed on through higher prices and lower wages. Corporation tax gets passed on through the cost of goods and services. Council tax comes straight out of your household budget. Fuel duty, insurance premium tax, alcohol duty, tobacco duty. It all comes back to you. The tax burden is at its highest level since the 1940s. Income tax thresholds have been frozen since 2021, dragging millions more people into higher tax brackets without anyone voting for a tax rise. There are now 39 million income tax payers, up from 33 million just four years ago. Six million more people paying income tax. And it’s still not enough. Welfare spending rose by £18 billion this year alone. The two biggest drivers are the triple lock on pensions, which has added £21 billion since 2019, and disability and incapacity benefits, which have added £24 billion in the same period. Both rising faster than the economy that funds them. The two-child benefit cap was just lifted at a cost of £3 billion a year. Whether you think that’s the right call or not, it’s another £3 billion added to a bill that already exceeds total income tax receipts. And that’s the pattern. Every individual spending commitment has a justification. The total is unsustainable. And anyone who tries to talk about the total gets dragged into an argument about the individual line items. None of this is an argument for pulling support from people who need it. It’s an argument for being honest about whether the current system can continue to provide it. Because right now, it can’t. Everyone who’s looked at the numbers honestly knows it can’t. The OBR knows it. The IFS knows it. The Treasury knows it. The cruellest thing we can do is pretend it’s all fine and let people plan their lives around promises that won’t be kept. The woman relying on her state pension at 67. The carer who needs the system to be there. The disabled person who depends on support that’s already under political pressure. They deserve honesty more than anyone. But we can’t get to honesty because the conversation gets shut down before it starts. And the people who benefit most from that silence aren’t the vulnerable. It’s the politicians who’d rather nobody looked at the numbers too closely.