Sandy Taylor

@CallumLyon £1700 per month is 60-70% more than the state pension. Doing anything more than surviving on minimum wage is the expectation. The next step is to get promoted or change job to get something better.

How the fuck are single people earning minimum wage or close to minimum wage in the UK actually supposed to survive on their own? The numbers just don't add up anymore. A full-time 37.5-hour week (40 hours but most employers give unpaid breaks) leaves you with roughly £1,700 a month after tax, National Insurance and pension. Now take away around £800 for rent if you can even find somewhere that cheap, about £120 for council tax, roughly £350 on bills, then another £70 a week just to keep food in the fridge. Once the basics are covered, there's barely anything left. No money for saving. No money for emergencies. No money to actually enjoy life. People keep saying "minimum wage is going up," but it still isn't enough to cover the cost of simply existing on your own.

@SusanCowell You are a fool. Bowel cancer can be easily identified using this kit

This arrived today, didn’t ask for it, have no intention of using it, how much bloody money are the NHS wasting on this??? 😡

@HJB_News__ An interesting appointment if true. Can she manage the budgeting? Can she refuse the demands for surgery which is not life threatening or necessary?

Andy Burnham is to appoint Angela Rayner as new Health Secretary.

@AllisonPearson I’m sorry was that true of Rishi Sunak? Wasn’t he the guy who came second to Truss but was eventually installed as PM?

Anyone else think Andy Burnham being installed as Prime Minister on Monday is deeply weird and unsettling? At least when the Tories pulled this handover stunt there were multiple hustings and people got to know the candidates. This has a banana republic feel. Not British.

@NeilTheRobin1 @RNLI Yes

Would you give to the @RNLI when they are taxiing the illegals in.

@TheBritLad So this is what policy looks like. What a farce.

🚨NEW: Suella Braverman MP announces that if Reform UK is elected, every school in Britain will be required to fly the British flag.

@BlokeOnWheels You also have a situation where the elderly who are having to still work are incapable particularly in the industrial sector. They will end up being dismissed on capability grounds.

The problem with forcing older people to work longer is that you end up with a situation whereby younger people can't get jobs because the jobs they would have had are currently being held by older people who would have retired in previous generations.

@pritipatel Thatcher was an asset stripper. She sold off water, energy and fossil fuels and made this country the poor nation we are today.

Margaret Thatcher was an international stateswoman and a political giant who freed Britain from Labour’s economic tyranny of endless strikes, exchange controls, energy blackouts, and the Winter of Discontent. She turned Britain around into a country to be proud of. She brought down inflation, controlled public spending, encouraged entrepreneurship, and got people into work. She enabled millions of people to buy their own homes, increased social mobility, helped to end the Cold War, and secured the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. She had conviction, courage, and global stature. Burnham is just another Labour class warrior, caretaking the same old Labour circus with people who spend all their time fighting each other while destroying the fabric of our great country because they have no plan to govern Britain. dailymail.com/news/article-1…

@AmericaRecharge Aren’t we supposed to be dissolving the second chamber and making it an elected office?

🇬🇧 Keir Starmer has awarded Sadiq Khan a peerage, paving the way for Lord Sadiq Khan.🇬🇧🇬🇧 Do you support this decision? 🤔👇 🅰️ YES ✅ 🅱️ NO ❌

@Askrigg_lad Agreed. Just to be sure will all our industries be forced to make British Steel their default supplier?

I’m not usually in favour of nationalisation, but bringing British Steel into public ownership is a VERY sensible step. Supplying steel for our building industry, our car industry and our railways is essential for our country’s economy. We must never again rely on a rogue State like China for our steel supplies.

@JackieVinc34028 @Michael77680093 How many people would accept a position in the House of Lords if it was unpaid? That includes no expenses. The thinking would be that they should give something back. How many go to the Lords being of poor means. Baroness Lawrence is one of a few I can think of.

@Michael77680093 But we can afford to give everyone in the House of Lords c£300 PER DAY expenses???

Good morning 🌅 all. It appears some people are saying ‘we can’t afford the triple lock’ for pensioners. Well in that case we also can’t afford gold plated pensions for civil servants. What do you think?

@JackieVinc34028 @Michael77680093 No we can’t afford that either

@stuey_beef It’s not the triple lock that is the problem is it? It’s the final salary public sector worker pensions.

Retired public sector workers were handed a record £56bn in “gold‑plated” pensions in 2025‑26 – roughly £2,000 torn out of the pocket of every household in the country. Not for schools, not for hospitals, not for policing or defence – for a guaranteed income stream to people who no longer work, under schemes that were never properly funded and never honestly explained to the public. The political class calls this “rewarding service”. What it actually rewards is being on the inside when the deal was written: final‑salary, inflation‑proofed pensions backed by the Treasury, completely insulated from the economic reality facing everyone else. Millions of younger private‑sector workers with fragile defined‑contribution pots, insecure work and no hope of retiring at 60 are being ordered to bankroll comfortable retirements for a state‑sector aristocracy who were promised more than the country ever put aside in cash. This isn’t some accident of history. Governments of all colours signed cheques they knew future taxpayers would have to cash, then buried the true scale of the obligation. Labour now sits on that broken model, refuses to reform it, and pretends the only answer is “tax the rich” – while quietly taxing the young, the renting and the working poor to maintain deals they never voted for and will never receive themselves.

@Jenny_1884 The theory is you need to spend to accumulate. Yes £35B is a staggering amount of money but the increase in GDP should offset that…… eventually

If the UK rejoins the EU like Andy Burnham wants then it will cost us a staggering £35billion a year but they begrudge paying the Triple Lock Pension for pensioners as they say they can’t afford it. How come they manage to find money when they want to 🤔

@LindaPears87262 Here’s hoping

Has anyone stopped to think, if Spain beat Argentina, Trump has to give the World Cup trophy to Spain. In light of Trump's views about Spain I think that would be brilliant & very funny. 🤣

@CrossAndCaptial It shouldn’t be means tested. It is already tested based on contributions made through working life.

To those who say the state pension should be means tested, tell me at what point? Lifetime earnings or available income at pension age? Because here is my issue. I am sensible with my money, I want a 2m portfolio by retirement age. As well as my private pension which should, at current projections, pay 35k a year when I retire. But I earn modest money. 50k per year. Let's say we have another person, who earned 2 X what I earn throughout our lives. But this person pissed it up a wall. Just spent and spent and spent. 4 holidays a year whilst I have 1. 1200 a month car and I drive an honda civic. This person retires without a pot to piss in. I ain't having it where he gets a state pension and I don't. So I'm up for means testing it based on lifetime income. Not on available pension

@premnsikka This has to stop. If I’m understanding things correctly Thames Water is/has effectively gone bust. Time to call in an insolvency practitioner to administrate the company. That would stop the bonuses

Thames Water increased its bonus payouts to £4.1m for senior managers. It has £19.7bn debt, fleeces customers, dumps sewage in rivers, loses billions of litres of water to leaky pipes. But bosses rewarded .. for what? Govt/Ofwat do nothing. theguardian.com/business/2026/…

@PunishedRWR Your sacrifice comes with time to plan and prepare. Any further sacrifices that might be asked of me and my generation are past our ability to do anything about. We will just have to continue dealing with the ever increasing food and travel costs with our limited budget.

I accept that a higher state pension age is necessary However, what I dont like is how younger generations have to make all the sacrifices whilst Boomers still get triple lock and evade making any sacrifices Sacrifices should be shared across generations

@davidkurten The conclusion or affirmation of this statement is that you can buy extra years to cover gaps in your NIC years

The state pension is not a benefit. It is one side of a verbal contract stated thousands of times by successive governments that if you pay National Insurance over your working life you will receive a state pension when you retire.

@RichardAngwin If it was untrue then Trump would be sueing.

What do you say to Speaker Johnson ??