Tom Bond

@BigBrotherWatch @silkiecarlo Quite, it is abhorrent.

⚠️The Government is proposing a FIVEFOLD increase in Orwellian facial recognition snooping "The idea of a self-policing prison through total surveillance as the model for Britain... How could anyone not get a massive chill down the spine?" - @silkiecarlo

@DanielJHannan @herandrews Hum. Have they actually seen what the Green idiots stand for?! I mean maybe we just need to have them for 5 years and see what the country looks like after that 🤷‍♂️

One for @herandrews…

@CSPolicies @BellaWallerstei @thetimes With what?

@_tbond @BellaWallerstei @thetimes UK state pension is one of the lowest in the western world. How about raising it?

By 2031 the average UK household will be paying £12,266 a year to fund the welfare state (@thetimes). Why bother working at all…

@SatishShah03 @BellaWallerstei @thetimes OK, that's the point about private pension training. The state pension has no investment element to it, thus even with the triple lock it's not great. Bin it, do it properly. Re-invest revenues and cut taxes instead.

@_tbond @BellaWallerstei @thetimes Very few currently on auto enrolment pensions are likely to be eligible for any state benefits beyond state retirement pensions. Majority on auto enrolment are unlikely to have more than £50k in pension pot aka annual pensions of around £200 per month before tax!

@BBCNews @Helen_Whately Should be *any* benefits if a choice, but we have to start somewhere.

Stop families who choose not to work getting unlimited benefits, Tories say bbc.in/4cNw8mi

@elonmusk This is insightful. However, look at *means* of reputational damage & means of spreading activist ideas. What happened this century? The internet. Social media. Algorithms. Easy construction and enforcement of narrative and subsequent marketing. Propaganda. Don't underestimate!

@Keir_Starmer By taxing and pricing them out of the jobs market and making sure that opportunities are removed? Seriously?!

Hope comes from our young people - and I want a country where every young person has the opportunity to get as far as their talents take them.

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet." Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution. Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer. The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss. The wool is then: - Naturally flame-retardant - Naturally antibacterial - Moisture-wicking - Biodegradable - Renewable, annually - Carbon-storing while in use The replacement, in performance fabrics: - Polyester - Polyamide - Acrylic - Polypropylene - All petroleum-derived - All shedding microplastics on every wash - All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce - All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals. A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years. The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic. The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer. The polymer also has not been asked. Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made. Brian is selling it at a loss. The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical. Reject plastic. Wear wool. Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

@TheCheekyMissB @DuncanBannatyne The thing about a civilised society is that doesn’t matter.

@_tbond @DuncanBannatyne Its also inhumane to go around stabbing innocent people and potentially still able to stab the police offers, which he has done previously. He literally just attempted to murder two people so I couldn't care less waht force they use to get the knife off him.

Can’t you see the knife in his hand? He is refusing to drop it.

@BellaWallerstei At least somewhere picturesque, surely??

I’ve already spent a ridiculous amount on dresses for weddings this summer. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE a wedding but it does feel slightly unfair when I’ve already decided if I get married mine will be a registry office situation with zero fanfare…..

@Katie_Lam_MP Agreed!

The Government wants to make it harder for good schools to expand - and could even force them to shrink. This will mean more children trapped in underperforming schools. It's totally wrong to rob the nation's children of opportunity in the name of ideology.

@wakeywhite @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne I think it must go wider. What do we want to happen? the police operate to the constraints given them, and with the budgets. We need a wider conversation. There is huge lack of respect for police, and lawlessness. This is one example and shoplifting explosion another.

@_tbond @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne Yeah well this is the thing. I think we are wise to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. Personally as far as i can tell routinely arming the police would be a disaster for both them and the public but if the police come out and say they need it then ill hear em out

@wakeywhite @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne That is impossible to quantify. However, when we see reports of police having areas where they will not go, and in areas appeasing Muslim communities for fear of violence, the need to wield a bigger stick does start to make an appearance. As ever, you need more detail.

@_tbond @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne What harm do you think is being done by our police not being routinely armed?

@ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne I can't say without knowing what's in the training.

@_tbond @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne I've been retired for 10 years. I no longer have access. Other countries have vastly different policing and culture than ours. Again, what would the repercussions be if it was decided to arm officers with a lower standard of training than now?

@wakeywhite @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne It's not just the USA, almost everyone arms police!

@_tbond @ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne I have no idea how you can look at say USA and think armed police are the way to go. In this situation the only difference is that in USA the crazy guy probably has access to guns and he and more victims are dead

@ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne I approach this from a different perspective than you do. I do know that the landscape around firearm usage would change, were officers routinely armed. Most other countries globally do so, so it can be done. If you want to DM me a copy of the regs I will read it and discuss.

@_tbond @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne Of course there are different weapons lol. So what? You're comparing apples and oranges. Tell me, what do you think the repercussions would be of arming officers who aren't as well trained as others.

@ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne See previous details comment. Broader - a sniper and an infantryman both handle firearms. One has a specialist mission with different firearms and must reacher much higher standards in those disciplines than the other, so they are capable for those specific tasks.

@_tbond @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne Why would they need to be a lesser standard? The specialist departments often get to plan an Op in great detail. The first responder? No planning. Not even necessarily a warning. Their task is even harder.

@ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne OK as someone who hasn't had exposure to that detail I can't comment on standards. However, in general terms, it seems reasonable that someone with a more general role would need a lower standard than someone in a specialist role, but the devil is in the detail.

@_tbond @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne The entire Firearms Course.

@ExInspectorBDS @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne Standard for what, marksmanship?

@_tbond @natbranch @wakeywhite @gidneyboy @DuncanBannatyne The current standard for firearms officers is very high. Many people fail it. Would you lower the standard?