🌎Clifford Slapper

Bowie Songs One by Clifford Slapper & Friends – David Bowie's songs arranged for piano & voice – now out, worldwide, on iTunes, Amazon etc

This shameless lying bastard has a lot to answer for. The false claim that Britain is a 'high tax, high welfare' country is a myth pushed by free-market extremists. Matthew Elliott, now Baron Elliott of Mickle Fell, is one of the UK's most prominent right-wing political strategists and lobbyists. His cynical manipulative ideological extremism has caused untold harm to Britain and to ordinary British people. He founded #TuftonStreet's TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) in 2004, Big Brother Watch in 2009, and Business for Britain, which evolved into the Vote Leave campaign. He served as chief executive of Vote Leave during the 2016 EU referendum and previously directed the successful NOtoAV campaign in 2011. In 2024, he was elevated to the House of Lords on insane conspiracy theorist Liz Truss's resignation honours list, and he now leads the Jobs Foundation while remaining active in Conservative circles and the upper chamber. Elliott is a key figure in importing American-style astroturf lobbying and dark-money techniques into British politics. His organisations, particularly those clustered around #55TuftonStreet, have operated with limited transparency on funding sources, allowing wealthy donors, including corporate and libertarian interests, to exert outsized influence on policy without proper scrutiny. The TPA has consistently declined to disclose most of its donors, fuelling accusations that it functions as a front for ideologically aligned backers rather than a genuine grassroots voice. The infamous £350 million a week for the #NHS claim on the Vote Leave battle bus has been widely condemned as misleading, given the complexities of the UK's EU budget contributions and rebate. In 2018, the Electoral Commission ruled that Vote Leave breached spending limits through improper coordination with the separate BeLeave group, resulting in a £61,000 fine and a police referral. Although Elliott has denied personal wrongdoing and courts later questioned aspects of the Commission's interpretation, the episode is often cited as evidence that the official Leave side stretched or violated electoral rules to secure victory. Earlier charity-related issues have also drawn scrutiny. Elliott established the Political and Economic Research Trust in 2006 as an educational charity, but investigations by the Charity Commission in 2011 and 2015 highlighted inadequate controls over grants to non-charitable political entities, including Business for Britain. One £50,000 grant for an anti-EU report was ordered to be repaid. When his peerage nomination was announced, opponents, including Liberal Democrat figures, urged the House of Lords Appointments Commission to block it on propriety grounds linked to these funding arrangements, though he was ultimately cleared and took his seat. Elliott is strongly linked to climate-sceptic networks and fossil-fuel interests, with his work framing EU environmental regulations as overreach. His early involvement in the Conservative Friends of Russia group, including a Moscow trip, has been raised in discussions of pre-Brexit Tory-Russia ties, though he distanced himself from further participation. Links to US libertarian figures, such as those in the Koch network and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, which inspired his UK efforts, reinforce perceptions of him as an importer of aggressive, low-tax, deregulatory campaigning. Elliott is a highly effective operator who has prioritised ideological wins and personal advancement over transparency, factual rigour, and democratic standards. His successes in referendums and sustained influence on Conservative thinking, especially during the Truss era, come at the cost of diminished public trust through opaque networks, rule-bending, and misleading messaging. The recurring themes of financial opacity, electoral controversies, misleading misinformation using decontextualised cherry-picked often incomplete data, and ideological networking dominate his career.

This lunatic needs a strait-jacket… Is anyone going to stop him, or are we just going to let him bring the whole world down with him?

Finkelstein reveals: Iran and every other Middle Eastern state agreed to a weapons of mass destruction free zone. The only country blocking it? Israel. The only one refusing to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Also Israel. So who's really blocking peace in the Middle East? The answer is clear.

🚨 WATCH: Keir Starmer’s calls with Donald Trump are mocked in the launch of Saturday Night Live UK #SNLUK

Candace “The difference between me and you is that I have the courage to take the risks and ask the questions. You wait until it becomes popular, and then you change your mind.” Piers Morgan explained in one paragraph.

.@faizashaheen: "Theres a big gap between the [govt] rhetoric we're hearing & the reality.. we are allowing the US to load their planes with bombs on UK bases & they are bombing Iran. This defensive/offensive doesn't play out in reality, the govt think they can play the public.."

"The UK is claiming its.. given the US permission to only do these defensive strikes, so called, but when you ask for detail on how they police that, they refuse to give any comment.." Phil Miller from @declassifiedUK talking to @novaramedia

An indignant Laura Kuenssberg asks Communities Secretary Steve Reed. "why would Israel say something that is not true." Give me strength, where do you even start with this? #BBCLauraK

Is #bbclaurak interrogating the govt minister over why the UK govt is allowing the US to use British military bases to bomb Iran right now? Nah. Laura wants to know if Iran could bomb London. Because hypothetical bombs are more important that actual bombs, I guess.

I wish some establishment media types would comment on this exchange. That they haven’t is maybe the biggest tell of all about how the media works.

Powerful interview with Zack Polanski where he talks about his Jewish heritage and is proud to be Jewish At the same time is critical of Israel saying they've engaged in a genocide against the Palestinians Zack Polanski repeatedly knocks back Nick Robinson who tries to trip him up

Steve Reed: "The UK is not going to be drawn into this war and we will do what we need to do to de-escalate it" Has the UK govt called on the US & Israel to stop bombing Iran? No, they have not. Instead they're helping the US to bomb Iran. Reed is treating us like fools.

#trevorphillips repeating the lie that Starmer has kept us out of the war on Iran & framing the story as potential Iranian aggression. Meanwhile US bombers are taking off from the UK to bomb Iran and destroy their ability retaliate against an unprovoked & illegal war.

@RaggedTP Do you understand any difference at all between the words "Jewish" and "Zionist"? It seems not. And yet I am one of many thousands of Jewish people who are passionately anti-Zionist - & I oppose the capitalist system & all its nationalisms. You should re-read Tressell, mate!

Jewish 'Hope Not Hate' activist Liron Velleman walked free yesterday after getting a suspended sentence for multiple child sex offences. His Dad flew in from Israel to support his son and take him for a celebratory drink afterwards.

@MarinaPurkiss @JeremyVineOn5 Here, @JeremyVineOn5 This is EXACTLY what you are doing. x.com/voiceofrabbis/…

@BladeoftheS When will the media address the billionaires, and say to them: "If you continue to rob your workforces - the 99.9% of the population - of most of the fruits of their labour, they'll end your system of exploitation and you won't have them any more" ?

"If you tax billionaires you won't have billionaires anymore." Threatening us with a good time, again.

This has been going on for years, including under right-wing governments and mayors. The real question is: why the obsession with, and backlash to, it now? Why the faux outrage and pretend shock? And why no complaints about, say, Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square?

Prof Marandi just casually dismantles every know-nothing British regime journalist that dares interview him He is on permanent beast mode

@mrsDugskullery Her pompous insincerity is nothing short of repulsive, as she witters on about the thousands of deaths she and her cronies are about to cause. Pure evil, all of them, as they serve the god of $$$ even if it means the ultimate apocalypse.

Have you heard the fake anguish on her? 🙄 Come off it Yvette... you nasty little warmonger. We saw just how big a liar you are over Palestine protestors. You're not fooling anyone.