Nor Green

This story is so delicious, it's unbelievable. It spanks the Tories so, so hard, albeit inadvertently. But it will take a little explaining, so please have patience and bear with me while I walk you through it. The Telegraph tonight is running a big splash about the first Tory pledge of the GE campaign, namely bringing back compulsory national service. Yes, they want to force all 18-year olds to spend a year in the Army, or devote a weekend a month for a year doing community service chores. (Related aside: they plan to get £1.5 billion of the £2.5 billion a year cost of the programme by gutting the post-Brexit shared prosperity fund, which was meant to replace the loss of EU structural funding. The diametric opposite of levelling up.) Now here's where things get FUN! The Telegraph embeds links within their articles to other "related" Telegraph stories to direct more traffic around their website. (I believe these links are likely inserted automatically, for SEO purposes.) So they have this big piece about national service by Camilla Turner, their Sunday Political Editor. And in it they've linked prominently to the older article that I've screenshot below... Yes. They really have chosen as a representative related story an opinion piece that spells out in no uncertain terms what an utterly idiotic idea bringing back national service would be. ("Yet once again the reintroduction of National Service is being mooted by think tanks, this time as a thinly veiled mechanism for enslaving the young.") It's like a boat-builder deliberately drilling a large hole in their new craft below the waterline, and then launching it. Sunk before it had a chance. But the fun doesn't stop there. There's a second sneaky link lurking in tonight's article too. That one leads to an older piece entitled "Why conscription would leave Britain fighting a losing battle". This second article digs into the economics and jobs aspects of a programme such as national service, and concludes that it's a non-starter. And if the Telegraph weren't so greedy for clicks, we'd never even have seen the articles that blow holes straight through the grand Tory plan! Begin long, slow clap. Link to this evening's article archive.ph/6m5qj Link to the article explaining why it's a terrible, terrible idea archive.ph/M7ZIT Link to the article about constriction being a losing battle archive.ph/hsD8w

Lord Ken Clarke: The Rwanda bill is an extremely dangerous precedent.. so I very much hope there will be a legal challenge, which will enables the Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional, but a better step would be for Parliament not to pass the bill in the 1st place.

@SimonNewton5 @GavinBarwell @DavidGauke @DavidGHFrost It was all about the conservative party ..

@GavinBarwell @DavidGauke @DavidGHFrost It's not always about the Conservative party! Far worse consequences for the country...

Important article by @DavidGHFrost. He says "If voters come to believe Brexit is failing then the Conservative Party will fail too" - the first acceptance from a prominent Brexiteer that if the public conclude Brexit has failed the Conservative Party will have to abandon it

@ZoeJardiniere @sundersays Option 3... Save embarrassment... entrench until time runs out and pass the problem to the next lot...

@sundersays Sadly I’m sure it’s gonna be option 1.

3 outcomes 1. Passes mostly unamended (Lords amends, overturned by Commons, Lords concede) 2. Passes with substantive change (Lords amendment carries a cross-party Commons majority, and/or govt concedes to carry bill). 3. Delay of 1 year as can't agree politico.eu/article/rishi-…

This from ⁦@lewis_goodall⁩ spot on:

@LozzaFox @ABridgen ...customary in international law...

As true today as it was then.

@AberdeenFC Have Aberdeen the audacity to turn out in gold flash...😏😂

Full-time.

@MrGunny1963 Where's yer boy?

Good luck lads!! 👊🏼🟡🟢

@MrGunny1963 @AngusGunn01 @SusanGunnArtist @mimigunn Yeeeaaah...caps for Caithnessians...

Congratulations to @AngusGunn01 for being the most capped Gunn in the family now!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@ZoeJardiniere And cooperate with our neighbours with legal routes, shared responsibilities... and process them...

The ONLY choice in this is how we respond to migration. Do we make the best of it, ensure its benefits are shared equally and make it safe... Or do we carry on with the grandstanding, the drownings, the barges and the bullshit? Forever?

I do not know how to explain to you people that MIGRATION IS HAPPENING ANYWAY. Whether we use its benefits to build the infrstructure we need, or plough that money into more deadly failed deterrence. IT IS HAPPENING ANYWAY. It's literally on your TV every day. DEAL WITH IT.

@juneslater17 The Tories will win because their greatest asset is the split opposition vote. You're last line will ensure it. Is that what you want? The route to your last line is PR.

Just in time..Starmer snuggles up to Macron, infuriating Brexiteers. Sunakers,announces something as exciting as a cure for bunions, so the facade, charade of left and right continues .. The Tories will win simply because their greatest asset is STILL the fear of Labour . It's the Uniparty... One destination lies ahead..whoever is in government,the important thing is to get as many independent/fringe party candidates on those back benches...

Downing Street close to signing off Britain rejoining the EU Horizon science collaboration programme. Sources tell the Times Sunak does not want to hand Labour a good election issue. Interesting bell-weather of changing times. It pays electorally to be pro European.

Misleading. Although EU law (which the UK agreed to) governs the *structure* of excise duties, it sets low minimum duty rates - so the UK could always have made alcohol cheaper while in the EU, by cutting the rates which it charged (which were well above the EU minimum).

Utterly disgusting tweet. Russophobia? That country invaded another and you expect love for that? You think the UK fighting against Hitler in 1940 was Germanophobia? Utterly unfit to own a UK newspaper or be a member of the House of Lords.

So we have to put up with another round of hyperventilating excitement about CPTPP from the Brexit clowns and their comic, the Express. Laughably wild exaggerations from people who routinely lie to us to deny the profound damage they’ve done to our country. A fanfare for failure.

...if they use it .. depends on we use it... it's only as good as how we use it... She and they have no idea how to benefit from this...😏🤭😁

#bbcqt was terrible at so many levels & brought back how profoundly stupid the referendum was. Even now people don’t know what the EU is, how it works or what it provides. Still talking about borders & laws without any development in understanding. And the same men, again. Awful.

Finally. Someone calling a spade a spade h/t @AlexTaylorNews