The Fact Compiler - Lord Spike of The Shire

'If I cut tax on visting Alton Towers, more people will go. If I increase the tax on employing people...no, hold on...'

So now we gave to ask where the bollox about HS2 requiring a signalling system that didn't exist come from? The invitation to tender was issued in May 2020 and specified ETCS Level 2 with ATO. By then, this had been running on the Thameslink central core for 2 years. Fishy?

Imagine if they had challenged Rachel Reeves politely, think how gracious and eager to listen she would have been…..

IN plain English: we’re going to send a ton of money to the warmongering Kremlin regime for fuel while refusing further exploitation of our own oil and gas in the North Sea. Brilliant.

@holtona72 @maisie_40013 @Bennybizzle1 @Andym13 @MrDeltic15 @thesatnav89 @WilsonBone @LeicRailAle170 @kingy69beard I’d be tempted to say age, it’s circa 40 years old. But then again, that makes it a spring chicken compared to the rest of the fleet…

@TheFactCompiler @maisie_40013 @Bennybizzle1 @Andym13 @MrDeltic15 @thesatnav89 @WilsonBone @LeicRailAle170 @kingy69beard Any idea why it's due for withdrawal?

#TestTrainTuesday Despite the rather moist conditions i had to call into the local to get this as i've never photted 950001 at Kettering before & i believe she's on borrowed time. 2Q08 Derby RTC to Welwyn Garden City FD. #Colas #MML Thanks to @maisie_40013 for the gen 👍 19/5/26

@fugitiveink @WalkerMarcus Yes please - it would be really helpful!

@WalkerMarcus @TheFactCompiler Thank you very much — If you ever discover what this incredibly desirable book is called, I hope you'll let us all know!

At the Tomb of the Venerable Bede. What better prayer to use than this week’s Collect, that for the Sunday after the Ascension, crafted out of the prayer used by Bede on his deathbed!

@JamesEFoster @UKLabour @jeremycorbyn @wesstreeting I remember. Magic Grandad held Corbynfest for the young people! A party subsidised fun-fest that didn't wash its face at the box-office. Still, a moral victory. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Li…

There was a @UKLabour leader who put young people at the heart of his thinking. His name was @JeremyCorbyn. @WesStreeting is another fraud.

The more you read about the energy crisis the more you realise everyone else, every serious country, is going flat out increasing production, more oil/gas, prioritising domestic production where possible, ripping up policy assumptions, Uniquely, one major country is pressing on in the opposite direction. It would have to be us, wouldn’t it? Banning new oil and gas exploration and fields, by law! It is quite mad. Future historians will be astonished. Like looking back on Tony Benn’s policies in government decades later and thinking how on earth was that allowed to happen?

Hong Kong-owned Greene King has agreed to sell its Old Speckled Hen ale brand to the Spanish owner of Estrella Lager, making it the latest in a series of British beers to be snapped up by overseas buyers.🍻 oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26124450.…

@RDPHistory May 2025. SAS Memorial to those lost in the Sea King loss. Paying respect.

2) Of the 29 men on board, 21 are killed (18 men from the SAS, some fresh from the Pebble Island raid) an Aircrewman, one from the RAF and one Royal Signals: only eight men survive. A tragic loss. Roll of Honour below:

12 likes so far. Somehow the People of God are managing to contain their excitement over the #implementationphase of the Synod on Jargon, Lanyards and Self-Congratulation.

Streeting's star has fallen; Commons near empty. That grand resignation speech was basically a one-man address to Iain Duncan Smith.

Don't show @DavidLammy, he'll be fewmin

🇬🇧 In 1670, 12 Englishmen REFUSED. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿❌ To convict an innocent man. A London judge tried to break them. He locked them in a Newgate cell for 3 weeks. No food. No water. No light. No fire. They held the line. This is the story of Bushel's Case. On 14 August 1670, soldiers raided a Quaker meeting on Gracechurch Street, London. The Conventicle Act of 1664 had banned non-Anglican worship. The soldiers arrested William Penn, a young Quaker preacher, and his older companion William Mead. The charge: unlawful assembly. They were taken to the Old Bailey. 12 London merchants were sworn to judge them. The foreman was a merchant named Edward Bushel. The judge demanded guilty. The jury returned NOT GUILTY. The judge refused the verdict. He sent them back. They returned the same. And again. Three times. The judge fined each juror 40 marks in British pound sterling, or imprisonment. They refused to pay. He sent all 12 to Newgate. 3 weeks. No meat. No drink. No fire. No tobacco. They held the line. Edward Bushel applied for a writ of habeas corpus. The case came before Chief Justice Sir John Vaughan in the Court of Common Pleas. In November 1670, Vaughan ruled: No jury can be punished for its verdict. Ever. The 12 walked free. And every jury after them carried the line that 12 London merchants held in 1670. At the Old Bailey today, their names are carved into the wall. The stones remember. They were Englishmen. They held the line in spite of every opposing force. The British spirit. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ We built the world's freedoms. Charter by charter. Jury by jury. 12 held the line for us. Will you help hold the line for the next generation? 👇🙏 👉 proudofus.co.uk/support 👈 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

@CultureCrave @TechCrunch

EXCLUSIVE with @EllenAMilligan: UK government officials are blaming each other for the extraordinary situation that has seen Britain loosen sanctions on Russian oil. The EU will NOT waive sanctions. It means the UK has departed from the EU’s approach and now has looser sanctions on refined Russian oil products than Europe. UK officials privately concede it weakens the Britain’s case for its G7 allies to maintain and bolster sanctions against Russia. One says it’s the fault of Keir Starmer and No10 for not taking the lead on measures sooner to prepare for limitations on jet supply. One says Ed Miliband’s restrictions on expanding energy supply have left the UK in a more vulnerable position. The sanctions waiver highlights how Britain has become more reliant on fuel imports than other major European nations. Others say the Treasury and Foreign Office have wavered at the first sign of strain. The Foreign Office is unable to explain its position this morning and remarkably DESNZ is declining to comment. Foreign Affairs Committee chair Emily Thornberry says the people of Ukraine have been "very let down" by the decision to relax sanctions. “They don’t understand, given that we promised that we would stop this loophole in October, and we still haven’t done it. In fact, it seems to have got worse," Thornberry tells the BBC. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…