Robin Baker

@David__Osland Ownership is a total distraction . Government took 12.5% of the sale price of oil on royalties and over 95% of the profits in tax. The real scandal is what happened to the over £400 billion successive governments collected. It should have gone into a sovereign wealth fund,

Somebody needs to remind Kemi Badenoch that the state no longer has control over North Sea oil and gas exploration, because her heroine Thatcher privatised Tony Benn's British National Oil Corporation

@SophieP25397 We had all these rights for hundreds of years before the ECHR was signed after WW2. The ECHR added nothing to our then existing freedoms

The ECHR isn’t Brussels it's the basic human rights treaty Britain helped write after WW2. Which of these do you want to give up? • The right to a fair trial? • No punishment without law? • Freedom of thought, religion, and expression? • Protection from discrimination?

@RichardJMurphy We had social housing and rent controls in the 1950’s and 60’s. People like Peter Rachman flourished and social housing like Ronan Point was best avoided.

Rents in the UK are out of control. In London, they now swallow more than 40% of income. Across England, it’s 36%. For millions, life is no longer about living — it’s about paying landlords. This video explains why rent is dragging families and children into poverty, how landlords extract wealth from the poor to enrich the rich, and why rent caps and more public housing are the only way forward. youtu.be/LbJx_ySsIeA?si…

@UniteSharon How about ending the tax breaks given to unions instead?

It's time for a wealth tax on the super-rich and a tax on excess profits. Those who say a wealth tax is too difficult are mistaken. We seem to be able to get workers to pay tax in a matter of weeks, the system is rigged and the country knows it. #WealthTax NOW! independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/…

@David__Osland It was Gordon Brown who did for final salary pensions with his dividend tax, not Thatcher. And secure well paid employment was going down the pan before Thatcher, eg winter of discontent and the strikes under Heath and the chaos of British Leyland

Whey they say 'Thatcher brought about meaningful change', they mean Britain lost secure well-paid employment, social housing, trade union rights, final salary pensions and adequate funding for the NHS, social care and schools.

@worldview08 @BBCWorld So why does America continue to buy its uranium from Russia? Totally dependent on Putin for its most potent military assets?

@BBCWorld Trump is sending a clear message: if you fund aggressors, there’s a price to pay. America comes first no exceptions.

Trump hits India with extra 25% tariff for buying Russian oil bbc.in/40Vqkke

@GreenJennyJones @UKLabour Growing their own food. They must be rich Kulaks and we all know what Lenin thought should be done to them

As a very keen allotment holder I will fight this nonsensical @UKLabour policy with a fury!! Allotments keep us mentally and physically healthy, give us fresh food, inspire us to give our produce away in a gift culture, and are a haven for many ecosystems.

@SketchesbyBoze They were multiethnic but they were not multicultural. You accepted Roman values and Roman laws or else

A great example of how not reading yields historical illiteracy. The Romans were a famously multiethnic people who, in 212 AD, granted citizenship to everyone within their domains. Emperor Septimius Severus was Libyan. The defenders of Western civilization know nothing about it.

@nise_yoshimi I think that Shakespeare demonstrates nationalism in his plays. English/French nationalism was effectively exported by Napoleons armies along with the rights of man.

I think it is an exaggeration to say nationalism didn't exist before the 19th century but on the other hand nothing about the history of 19th century Britain, Italy, Germany, Austria or Turkey makes any sense if the inverse is true

@DanKaszeta They are both bigly so they must be the same

@BretDevereaux For the Romans, it was Romanitas (Romemaness) that mattered more than ethnicity.

This is simply and obviously wrong in easily demonstrable ways, from the expansiveness of Roman citizenship to the incorporation of Persian elites under Alexander and the Seleucids (however poorly) to obvious things like the numbers of Scots in key posts in the British Empire.

@johnredwood Because NI numbers are not linked to photo id and not turned off when people leave the country/die

Everyone working in the UK should have a National Insurance number. Why not enforce that system, a ready made worker ID?

@GreensOrganise @RichardJMurphy If this was really true, there would have been no need for capital controls after WW2. Remember when you had to buy foreign currency from banks which wrote it in you passport to ensure you took less than £500 on holiday

“The wealthy are welcome to leave us…A tiny number might go, but if they do we won’t be worse off.” Capital flight is a myth. Wealth taxes now, whether they like it or not. @RichardJMurphy

@WiganAndrew Why is it that many people seem to think the only health care models are the US model and the UKs NHS. Have they not heard that France, Germany, and the Netherlands all have their own systems and these systems all deliver better outcomes than the NHS.

Imagine taking your child to the hospital. The doctor explains that your child has an illness, but your level of medical care does not cover this illness. This is the American system which Farage would replace the NHS with. It would affect the poorest people of the UK massively.

@kevinolearytv That is only partly true. VAT is a consumer tax but it is charged on both imports from the US and local manufactures, so there is equality of treatment between local and US goods. Trumps tariffs are only charged on foreign goods so there is no equality of treatment.

This is so simple. You go to Europe, you take an American product, you sell it in Italy and they whack a 13 to 15% VAT tax, consumer tax. Then you go to the airport, you get your money back, of which 1% people do. Same in Canada, same in Mexico, England, Switzerland, all the same. All that Trump has done, 'cause we never had consumer taxes in the US, you can't get that through Congress, he calls it a tariff. Reciprocal and kind of the highlight deal right now is the EU. You ship something over here from Europe, you pay the same thing they whack an American product with. It's not that complicated. This is not an ad for Trump. I'm an investor. Something's working here. It's a policy decision. I'm a policy guy. The Europeans have been sucking 15% cash for 40 years out of America and you're unhappy that we're doing the same thing to them? I don't think so. Get over it. Breathe the oxygen and be happy with your portfolio.

@nfergus @JMilei It has taken at least 50 years of failure to bring the Argentinians to the point where they seem so far to be accepting this shock therapy

"The world has never seen a government more radically libertarian than @JMilei's. But the amazing thing is not that it is working economically—Adam Smith would say, 'I told you so.' The true miracle is that Milei’s shock therapy is working politically."

@tempophysio @DarrenAllen47 @sgathach200bc (1) The government uses legislation to stop it being illegal. (2) All you get in return for your NI contributions is an entitlement to a pension. No mention of when you can have it or how much it will be. Just you will get something at some time in the future

@DarrenAllen47 @R_Bkr @sgathach200bc But why is the government allowed to run a Ponzi scheme when they are illegal?

Review this: You pay £2,988/year in National Insurance for 35 years on a median salary of £37,430 (£104,580!) expecting a pension. If the Government claims there's "no money," it means they've spent YOUR cash without permission and failed to plan for YOUR future. #PensionScandal

@MerrynSW Saying ID cards are good idea or a bad idea makes the same error as saying Brexit is a good idea. It is not the card, or the exit from the EU, which can determine that - it is the terms and conditions that determine success or failure.

I very reluctantly agree with this reluctant case for ID cards. The privacy ship has long sailed. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@RupertLowe10 It didn’t deter Dr Crippen

The death penalty should be restored as an option for exceptionally evil criminals, in exceptionally rare circumstances. The ultimate deterrent.