Clive 🇬🇧🇺🇦🇮🇱

A reminder, Andy, of the Thatcher era: •⁠ ⁠Income tax: 83% → 40% •⁠ ⁠Basic rate: 33% → 25% •⁠ ⁠Inflation: 21.9% peak (1980) → 2.4% (1986) •⁠ ⁠Days lost to strikes: 29.5 million (1979) → 1.9 million (1990) •⁠ ⁠Real pay for the average earner: up by a third

Afghans are over TWENTY times more likely to commit sex crimes than Brits. I asked David Lammy to publish all sex offences data by nationality and immigration status. After two months of stalling, he said no. What does he not want the public to know?

Oh Bridget, do stop. The official Key Stage 2 results do NOT show that reading, writing, spelling, punctuation, grammar, maths and science have “all improved”. Reading - unchanged. Science- unchanged Maths- up 1% point Writing -up 1% point Grammar, punctuation and spelling - up 1% point Only 63% of children met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, up from 62% but still below the 65% before the pandemic. And attainment in every subject except reading remains below pre Covid levels. Also ... these are Year 6 children who started primary school in 2019. You arrived in July 2024, after most of their primary education had already taken place. so er... claiming their results as a Labour achievement is false. “everything is improving under Labour” is spin and not an honest account of the figures.

@ewins_gary Agreed 100%.

@clivohambo That's why leaving Wharton at home was a huge mistake...technically the best centre mid we have...passes on the half turn/slide rule balls etc and most of all keeps possession.....

Kane is getting a lot of flak across social media. Unfairly I'd say. Kane relies on service be that from crosses or balls drilled in from the wings. Further to that, there was no creativity through the middle, no defence-splitting pass for Kane to latch on to. England's goal came from Argentina's failure to deal with such a pass - from Kane. Bellingham was fouled nearly every time he tried to run with the ball and pathetic refereeing saw Paredes and Simeone get away with murder early on. Overall our wing play was very poor and Rogers was a gamble. I don't subscribe to the tactic of playing a right-footed left winger and a left-footed right winger. The temptation to cut in is too great so what happens? No cross and we end up losing the ball. 12% possession after we scored was hero or zero tactics for Tuchel. We simply aren't good enough and our talent pool, as good as it is, is not world class.

At times like this I think it must be very nice not to be interested in sport….. you can never be disappointed. It’s the hope that kills you.

@kelvmackenzie @grok Is this true?

This is a shocker. A mother of three from Gaza who came to the UK as a refugee has just won a human rights challenge to bring in 18, yes18, of her relatives - both parents, a brother, his wife and four children, a sister and her four children and another sister, her husband and their three children. None of them speak English and the mother only has room to house her parents with the rest taking up social housing away from British families. Not to mention the the cost of the 18 filling our schools and NHS clinics. Plus the signal it gives tens of thousands of Palestinian families that the UK courts are an easy touch and they should head here. Another bloody awful and costly decision by our courts. Labour won’t do anything about it as they look on the people as Labour voters of the future.

@Nolberto099 @PaulEmbery *inability.

@Nolberto099 @PaulEmbery This was obviously a Tuchel tactic and it failed miserably. Playing out from the back may well be problematic too given our ability to hold the ball but at least mix it up a bit.

From Anthony Gordon’s goal in the 55th minute to the end of the match, England had just 12% possession. There cannot have been another game where England were so utterly dominated for such a lengthy period. Totally on Tuchel. The defeat was entirely self-inflicted.

Daft comment. Kane relies on service be that from crosses or balls drilled in from the wings. Further to that, there was no creativity through the middle, no defence-splitting pass for Kane to latch on to. England's goal came from Argentina's failure to deal with such a pass - from Kane. Bellingham was fouled nearly every time he tried to run with the ball and pathetic refereeing saw Paredes and Simeone get away with murder early on. Overall our wing play was very poor and Rogers was a gamble. I don't subscribe to the tactic of playing a right-footed left winger and a left-footed right winger. The temptation to cut in is too great so what happens? No cross and we end up losing the ball. 12% possession after we scored was hero or zero for Tuchel. We simply aren't good enough and our talent pool, as good as it is, is not world class.

@PaulEmbery Tutchell is no better than Southgate, Kane was poor against Norway and was even worse tonight, we need a new captain, preferably a defender.

@sandieshoes @KemiBadenoch All One Nation Tories need to be axed together with any others still crying in their corn flakes over Brexit. With so few MP's, there's no better time to purge the dross. Also let's not forget the so-called grandees - the dinosaurs sitting on their piles in their country piles.

Tory MP Simon Hoare has described his own political ideology during parliamentary debates, stating, “I happen to be a broad church, one nation, moderate Conservative” So he’s a wishy washy Liberal. @KemiBadenoch He needs to be on your hit list. I know you don’t support this proposal. And that you oppose both the fiscal devolution plans and the cross-party group that produced them.

Made me laugh.

Djed Spence vs Norway: • 34 minutes played • 1 shot on target • 12/14 accurate passes • 31 touches • 3 touches in opp box • 100% successful dribbles • 4 clearances • 2 interceptions • 2 recoveries Great cameo, Djed. 🦁

What a lovely woman. @UKLabour's Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls from July 2024 to May 2026

@adamboultonTABB Keep digging Boulton...

And one from a reporter who knew her for decades.

@don_levin86762 @gkingsventures The Bridges at Toko-Ri is a favourite of mine, I've seen it many times. A cast to die for: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney, Earl Holliman & Charles McGraw.

@gkingsventures Patton, Midway, sands of Iwo Jima, Bridges of Toko Ri, Away All Boats, Guadalcanal Diary, ,

Which war movie do you think everyone should watch at least once in their lifetime?

These people think it's funny to put their feet on the seats on trains 10:18 from Winchester to Waterloo @SW_Help

I will curb my language but that tweet is disgusting. You profess to be an advocate of human rights, and the right to be treated with dignity after death is a basic human right everyone should have, yet you rejoice in her death. Yes, her religion guided her views on equality issues, and I had many disagreements with her, but as a gay man I counted her as a friend, as did many others. She was actually a profoundly kind person. She endorsed my candidacy knowing of my sexuality. She softened her views on equal marriage and told me in 2019 she would not support reversing it. So be ashamed of yourself today, Peter. You do some great work, but in this instance it's you that's the bigot. Bigoted against the dead, and bringing upset to those of us who counted Ann as a friend. Think on that.

@Never_Again2020 @BBC The BBC just can't help themselves.

The @BBC's coverage of Khamenei’s funeral has been so reverential, you'd think a respected statesman had died, not a monster who killed 40,000 of his own citizens, hanged gay men and blinded girls who defied his dress code. Our national broadcaster has lost its moral compass.

@UntoldWarFacts The Mustang P-51 was a good fighter but struggled at higher altitude due to the limitations of its Allison V12 engine. It only acquired its legendary status once paired with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, initially UK-built then licensed to Packard in the US.

This is real gun camera footage from a P-51 Mustang, chasing a German Bf 109 down to the treetops until it goes down in flames. The American pilot flying it, Lt John Kirla, shot down five enemy planes in a single day, becoming an ace in one mission. This footage captures one of his victories over a Bf 109. This is his story.. From Trainee to the Yoxford Boys John Kirla was not a born fighter ace. He was an ordinary young American who had come up through flight training in Texas, graduating at the start of 1944. He learned his trade on trainers, moved up to fighters, and got just 15 hours in the P-51 Mustang before being sent to England as a replacement pilot. He joined the 362nd Fighter Squadron of the 357th Fighter Group, a unit based at Leiston that was already becoming a legend. The 357th was the first group in the Eighth Air Force fully equipped with the Mustang, and it would go on to produce more aces than any other fighter group in the Eighth, including Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson. Kirla was the newest pilot in a squadron already filled with experienced aces. His job was to escort American bombers deep into Germany and protect them from the Luftwaffe. On November 27 1944, he got the day that would define him. Five Victories in One Mission That morning the 357th ran headlong into a massive swarm of German fighters trying to get at the bombers. Kirla's flight dropped their fuel tanks and dived straight into the middle of it. Almost immediately, the fight became a swirling, low-level brawl of Mustangs, Messerschmitts, and Focke-Wulfs twisting across the sky. Kirla picked out his first target and opened fire, and from that moment he did not stop hunting. In his own account, he spotted a Bf 109 that was attacking an American bomber. He went after it, closed to just 30 yards, and when the German threw his fighter into a tight barrel roll straight down toward the ground, Kirla stayed glued to his tail and, in his words, clobbered him all over until he went down. An Ace in a Day He kept finding more. Again and again through that wild, sprawling fight, Kirla latched onto an enemy aircraft and did not let go. At one point he watched a German fighter shoot down one of his fellow Mustang pilots right in front of him, and closed in for revenge. As he described it afterward, he opened fire, saw pieces start to fly off the enemy aircraft, and watched it fall out of the sky like a leaf drifting to the ground. Rather than breaking away and climbing back to safety, Kirla chased his targets down low, following them almost to the ground, the fighters weaving over villages and treetops until the enemy aircraft finally went down. By the time the fight was over, John Kirla had shot down five German aircraft in a single mission. He had become an ace in a day, one of the relatively few American fighter pilots to achieve that in a single mission. The Mustang That Changed the Air War The Mustang was the aircraft that made days like Kirla's possible. The P-51 combined long range, high speed, and deadly firepower, and it could follow the bombers all the way to their targets and fight the German fighters on equal or better terms. By the end of the war, P-51 groups had claimed close to 5,000 enemy aircraft shot down, about half of all American air-to-air kills in the European theater. Kirla's own group, the 357th, became the top-scoring Mustang group in the Eighth Air Force. Flying one of the finest escort fighters of the war, men like Kirla helped turn the tide of the air war over Germany. The gun-camera film rolling every time he pressed the trigger captured it all, including the footage you are watching. John Kirla's Legacy John Kirla flew on to the end of his combat tour and finished the war as a double ace, credited with 11 and a half enemy aircraft destroyed in the air. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his courage in the skies over Europe. He had gone from a trainee with a handful of hours in a Mustang to one of the deadliest fighter pilots in one of the deadliest fighter groups of the war, in the span of a single year. The footage of his Mustang chasing a Bf 109 down to the trees is only a few seconds long. But behind those few seconds is a young American who climbed into a fighter, dove into a swarm of the enemy, and shot down five of them before the day was out. This was the story of John Kirla. I post a story like this every single day. Most people never see them. Follow so you don't miss the next one.