Rodge

@WelshLabour Absolutely, a new chapter is certainly required which doesn't include @WelshLabour anywhere near the seat of government! 27 years is long enough for any political party to bring about tangible improvements for its people! @10DowningStreet @BBCPolitics @BBCWales @WelshGovernment

This week, vote for a new chapter for Wales, with fairness you can feel. Vote Welsh Labour this Thursday 🌹

@WelshLabour Labour have run Wales uninterrupted since 1999. A new chapter? - worst NHS in the UK - longest waiting lists in the UK - lowest wages in the UK - highest unemployment in the UK - highest child poverty in the UK - lowest education attainment in the UK

@WelshLabour The visual representation of abject @WelshLabour failure over a prolonged period of time (27 years)! Why would the public vote for more of the same inept government 🤔!

Fairness you can feel - or a step backwards. The decision is yours. Vote Welsh Labour on Thursday.

@JackWDart Desperate and delusional! 🙄

I came to Basildon to speak to residents about how they feel in the run up to the local elections. They had one message: Reform must not win.

@PhilMyers53 Definitely truthful, showing the dire state of @UKLabour today which will be reinforced on Thursday once the results of the local government elections are known! 🙄🙄🙄

Every newspaper headline is anti Starmer? Coincidence or coordination? You decide 𝙊𝙣 7𝙩𝙝 𝙈𝙖𝙮 #𝙑𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙇𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙧

Under Labour Britain’s navy is being quietly dismantled, at the worst possible time. The @Conservatives would take the money Keir Starmer wants to waste on the insane Chagos surrender, and use that to build Royal Navy ships faster👇

@afneil @TimesRadio @JohnHealey_MP do you agree with this situational analysis of the current @RoyalNavy?🤔 @10DowningStreet @KemiBadenoch @EdwardJDavey @Reuters @AP @BBCNewsnight @BBCPolitics @GMB @UKParliament @NATO @thetimes @TheEconomist @NickFerrariLBC @PrivateEyeNews @DailyMirror @Peston

My monologue from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil @TimesRadio ROYAL NAVY RIP While US destroyers duke it out with Iranian navy fast boats over the Strait of Hormuz, we learned yesterday that the Royal Navy’s HMS Iron Duke, a Type 23 frigate, was being withdrawn from active service, despite a recent £100m five-year refit, which suggests that was largely a waste of money.  More important, it underlines the stark reality that we no longer have a functioning navy.  That’s right. The country of Rule Britannia, which once had the most powerful navy in the world, capable of protecting an empire which covered a quarter of the globe, no longer has a navy worthy of the name.   For the factual basis of what I’m about to say, I am indebted to Britsky, who posts important naval data on X and has become the reliable go-to source for information on our disappearing Navy.  HMS Iron Duke joins another ageing Type 23, HMS Richmond, in retirement. Leaving the Royal Navy with just five frigates to monitor Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic and other Russian activity in the Channel.  Even that doesn’t reveal the full, desperate picture. Of the five frigates still supposedly available for service, one, HMS Kent, has been almost 750 days in refit and is not available for service. HMS Portland and HMS St Albans have also been laid up for some time.  Only HMS Somerset is currently deployed and HMS Sutherland could be, pretty quickly. So the Royal Navy can call on the immediate services of only two of the five frigates we have, all dating from the 1990s.  What about the more powerful Type 45 destroyers? Sad to relate the picture is even bleaker. There are only six. One, HMS Dragon, has been deployed to the East Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, though that took some time.  Another, HMS Daring, has been in refit for 3,260 days and still not available for duty. HMS Defender has been out of action for over 1,000 days, HMS Diamond for just under 700 days. HMS Dauntless is in maintenance. Other than Dragon, out of our six destroyers, only HMS Duncan could be deployed quickly.  What about our hugely expensive, powerful Astute class submarines? Better you don’t ask. We have only five — and only one, HMS Anson, is on active service somewhere in the Indian Ocean.  The other four — Astute, Ambush, Artful and Audacious — have been laid up for a total of 4,000 days. That’s right 4,000 days. HMS Ambush alone has been inactive for 1,400 days. It’s currently laid up on the River Clyde.  So the currently deployable, conventional Royal Navy, excluding the ancient, creaking subs carrying our nuclear deterrent, amounts to two frigates, two destroyers and one sub. That’s not a navy for a maritime nation. That’s a joke.  Yes, we have two big aircraft carriers too. They also seem to spend a lot of time in maintenance, which is where they are at the moment. But both could currently be deployed pretty quickly, which is an improvement. But we don’t have the frigates or destroyers to form a carrier fleet. So they can only be used in concert with better equipped allies.  We might be short of fighting ships. But we’re not short of admirals. We currently have around 30 rear admirals or above, which works out around four per deployable ship. That’s admirals. Not captains.  None, of course, of this bloated top brass has been held accountable for the near disappearance of our naval power. Nor have any Tory politicians who for 14 years presided over our navy’s degradation. Nor is the current Labour government in any apparent hurry to put matters right. Our airforce and army are in no great shapes either. But it is the state of our non-navy, an integral, vital part of our island history, which is the real national scandal.  And, as is so often the case in modern Britain, nobody is held to account. Nobody forced to carry the can. Nobody making it their mission to put it right. And that is the real national disgrace.

@JoStevensLabour @WelshLabour @becky_gittins Jo, why should the tax payers take on what has always been a parental responsibility🤔! I realise a contentious view as I have no desire to disadvantage innocent children but neither should ordinary taxpayers be burdened further at a time of high taxation! @AP @Reuters @thetimes

Our two Labour Governments are creating tens of thousands of jobs and lifting nearly 70,000 children out of poverty across Wales. Plaid Cymru’s plans would take us backwards, raising taxes and cutting child poverty budgets. Vote @WelshLabour on Thursday 7th May🌹

@CamdenLabour I'm afraid he's lost the trust of the public through catastrophic misjudgements over #Mandleson which will come to define his inept Premiership unfortunately! 🙁

It was great to welcome Prime Minister and local MP Sir Keir Starmer to hear about how Labour are delivering for Camden.

@PhilMyers53 That's @UKLabour for you, a very thin veneer of respectability when misinformation is pointed out to them!😂😂😂 @10DowningStreet @Reuters @AP @BBCNewsnight @BBCPolitics

My Dad fought fascism in WW2. He then went on to fight Mosley's Black Shirts in Hoxton, London Why on earth would I want to vote for them? Decent people will #VoteLabour

“Every vote for me and Scottish Labour in this election is not an endorsement of Keir Starmer.” @SophyRidgeSky challenges Scottish Labour leader @AnasSarwar on whether he still believes leadership in Downing Street must change.

🚨 BREAKING: The plot to remove Keir Starmer has officially begun. A group of Labour MPs are currently preparing an open letter demanding a timetable for his resignation following Thursday's expected local election bloodbath. His premiership is collapsing in real time. 🧵👇

@WelshLabour No not after 27 years of abject #WelshLabour failure, time is long overdue for political change I feel! 🤔

We’ve got a plan. It’s working. Don’t change course now. Vote Welsh Labour on Thursday.

@PhilMyers53 @Keir_Starmer Of course he will be Prime Minister until first thing on Friday morning 🌄! 😂😂😂 If you look at the odds on Skybet there not great!

I need to remind the foolhardy On Thursday in England,these are ■ LOCAL ELECTIONS ■ And @Keir_Starmer will STILL be Prime Minister 403 Labour 8 Reform of which 4 are #ExCons

@RebCallaghan_ @Keir_Starmer Unfortunately Rebecca he has set the tone for the whole @UKLabour family in which local councillors will feel the wrath of negative public opinion 😕! And that's quite an achievement after only 18 months in power and does a disservice to people like yourself unfortunately. 🤔

@RodgeDodge @Keir_Starmer Not sure why Starmer would have anything to do with local council elections.

Muggy Bank Holiday Monday out in Droylsden West delivering leaflets to Labour pledge households and reminding residents to get out and vote this Thursday. 🌹🗳️ Every vote matters. #VoteLabour #DroylsdenWest

@JohnSlinger Loyal to the end, reminds me of all dictators subordinates desperate to keep the dream alive!🙄 Read the room John @Keir_Starmer has lost the trust of the public! @@TrevorPTweets @NickFerrariLBC @bbclaurak @AP @Reuters @BethRigby @DailyMirror @GBNEWS @lewis_goodall @ChrisMasonBBC

Odd for a pollster to give a political opinion that PM will be ‘forced out.’ Was there a poll of Labour MPs to get this conclusion? I think the answer is no & no he won’t be forced out. Maybe media have a narrative that sells clicks/papers/gets viewers? independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

@wesstreeting Aren't you #MANDELSON mate? 🤔

Our Government made the boosting the mental health workforce a key manifesto pledge This week, we met our goal of 8500 extra staff, 3 years early In a few days, the health service is on the ballot in elections across our country. Vote to continue the progress, Vote Labour 🌹

@RidgeandFrost @SophyRidgeSky Sophie, I love the questioning so entertaining watching a government minister squirming! 😂

"She has a role to play." @SophyRidgeSky asks Housing Secretary Steve Reed if he would like to see Angela Rayner back in Cabinet.

@KernowQ Not according to Skybet, the odds aren't great! 😂😂😂😂😂

Wonderful to have a respectable PM again. Starmer is PM and will lead into the election more than 3 years away.