Dave Etheridge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

@jdpoc @jovanforclacton Looks like he’s run through an Oxfam shop covered in glue … And knock it off with the faux kinship with the people of Clacton. Since 2016, you lot have derided them as gammony knuckle-draggers - now suddenly you want something from them they’re ‘good ole boys’? We see you.

Whoop-de-doo … roughly £1.50 to £2 off a £200 day out! Hang out the bunting, boys & girls - the economy’s saved 🙄! So parents nationwide are supposed to fall to their knees in gratitude at this colossal discount are they? What’re you doing to ease the cost of living on those of us who don’t have children? And don’t go giving me any old shit about cutting my energy bills at the time of year when I’m using less anyway - the ‘bread & circuses’ routine doesn’t work with me, sonny Jim.

Blackpool is ready for a huge summer and following the Chancellor’s announcement of the Great British Summer Savings scheme I asked her to come and see it for herself. 🗼 In a real boost for families and for our tourism sector, from 25 June to 1 September, VAT will be cut from 20% to 5% on children’s meals in restaurants, children’s tickets for cinemas, theatres and concerts and entry to attractions including theme parks, museums, zoos, soft play centres and adventure parks. 🎢 (1/3)

Stephen Morgan, you’re embarrassing yourself. You post about slashing VAT on theme parks, cinemas and kids’ meals so families can “enjoy the things that make life worth living.” Let’s be honest. You’re offering people £1.50–£2 off a £200 day out while your government is racking up hundreds of billions in debt and taxing working families into the ground. This isn’t helping families. This is pathetic spin. A desperate attempt to distract from the fact that under Labour, life is getting more expensive, not cheaper. You’re not making life worth living. You’re just making the decline slightly less noticeable for one afternoon. Pathetic.

@RichardBurgon I hate Blair almost as much as I hate Starmer, but - for all his colossal faults - he’s got you rabble completely sussed …

Tony Blair has nothing to offer Labour in 2026. His neoliberalism, backing of endless wars and acceptance of inequality are exactly what Labour must break from if it wants to rebuild support and defeat the far-right.

Tony Blair has just said the quiet part out loud. Starmer’s problem is not “communication”. It is not “values”. It is not that voters are too stupid to understand Labour’s achievements. It is that there is no serious plan. That is devastating because it comes from the only Labour leader in modern history who actually understood how to win, govern, reform and dominate the centre ground. Blair is saying Starmer has retreated into the old Labour comfort zone: higher taxes, more regulation, more spending, more excuses, and no credible growth strategy to pay for any of it. This matters because Starmer sold himself as the adult in the room. The forensic lawyer. The serious administrator. The man who would restore competence after chaos. Now Blair is effectively saying: there is no strategy, no reforming mission, no economic engine, and no second-term argument. If even Tony Blair can see Labour has become a tax-and-welfare machine with no growth model, why should the country pretend otherwise?

I’d say this could be filed under a ‘Freudian slip’, as on current evidence, it looks like Restore are going to effectively hand it to Burnham. We all want the Right to return to power, but let’s be brutally honest, Restore aren’t going to win this by-election, nor are they going to win the next general election. They are at the same formative, ‘protest party’ stage that the Brexit Party or UKIP were ten years ago. We’re already having to fight against tactical voting and if we don’t sort it out, this bickering is going to hand every vote for the foreseeable future either to Labour, or perhaps worse a rainbow alliance of the left with Labour as the largest party. And nobody in their right mind wants that … although I’m starting to think Rupert Lowe does on current evidence.

Bloody hell. Sarah Pochin says by-election is a ‘two horse race between Labour and RESTORE BRITAIN’. 🇬🇧 😳 The right is now at war and the lefties are already partying.

@richmondpete @MatthewStadlen So you think rubbish piling up in the streets & corpses going unburied prior to 1979, plus an outgoing Labour flunky leaving a memo saying “Good luck - there’s no money left” in 2010 doesn’t equate to the country being on its arse?

@dave_etheridge @MatthewStadlen Probably a BOT. Nobody could be this thick and live through the last Tory government!

So just to sum up. Labour win a 174 seat majority under Keir Starmer and return to power after almost a decade and a half. They find governing challenging against the backdrop of struggling public services and low growth, and make unforced errors (winter fuel, Mandelson etc). Social media conspiracies, led by Elon Musk, contribute to a toxic political climate. Nigel Farage, the architect-in-chief of Brexit (which made things harder than they needed to be) pops up with his divisive rhetoric and poorly thought through policies and… Labour MPs, egged on by the media, panic. If Andy Burnham, a man without a plan, wins a staged by-election, he likely becomes Prime Minister. He then either calls a general election and loses Labour its hard fought majority, or struggles through for a couple of years before Farage is better “prepared” to move into Number 10. Stupid doesn’t cover it.

@HerrGalloway @MatthewStadlen Nope - were you dropped on your head as a child? See how this works?

@dave_etheridge @MatthewStadlen Been kicked in a head by a horse, Dave?

‘Bread and circuses’ as a patronising sop to those who voted against Labour in the local elections. What’s particularly insulting is that: 1) you’re trumpeting this paltry discount as some kind of bargain of the century 2) you actually expect the electorate to be so easily bought off by this gimmick Nobody gives a flying f*** that they get a couple of quid off a visit to Alton Towers. Nobody gives a f*** that their energy bills are cheaper at a time of the year when they’re using less - and presently, in the middle of a heatwave. They DO give a f*** that you are taking more from their salaries. They DO give a f*** that it costs them more to put petrol in the car - and that you’re now coming after those that did what was requested and bought an EV. They DO give a f*** that putting food in the cupboard and heating their homes costs them more because of Milliband’s Net Zero insanity. And you expect everyone to fall to their knees in gratitude because they get a few quid off a trip to the zoo?

The Chancellor has announced the Great British Summer Savings Scheme, cutting VAT from 20% to 5% on tickets for fairs, theme parks, zoos, museums and more. Also applies to children’s meals in restaurants and cafés. Read more here: gov.uk/government/new…

Yawn … still trotting out that little cliché ten years down the line, are we? Get a new grift FFS. Fully aware of what I voted for, thanks - which is why I voted Leave and would do so every time - so stick your patronising little put-downs and assumptions where the sun doesn’t shine.

@dave_etheridge @JeremyVineOn5 @theJeremyVine Another Dave that didn’t know what he voted for!🤦‍♂️ Hear it all down the pub do we Dave 🤷‍♂️⁉️

"Go back and have the euro." "This clinging to the pound, it's English Empire." 📞 Ross from Glasgow says Brexit should never have happened, and replacing the Pound with the Euro is rightfully leaving Britain's colonial past behind. @theJeremyVine | #JeremyVine

@millymoo97 @donmcgowan I studied History and am fully aware of what a communist is and what the policy of communism leads to, thanks. Now fuck off.

@dave_etheridge @donmcgowan You don't know what a Communist is, maybe you should have paid more attention to your teachers 🤔

That educated people won't vote for the far-right? Not quite the slam dunk you were hoping for, Dan.

@JeremyVineOn5 @MarieBell626390 I wouldn’t wipe my arse on that Mickey Mouse currency, let alone spend it

Would you swap the pound for the Euro in order to rejoin the EU? It's a condition demanded by an EU chief after Labour challengers Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham put a return to the bloc back on the agenda. Is scrapping sterling a price worth paying?

I’ve always said that one of the things I’m most grateful for is that my birthday meant that I turned 11 at the beginning of the 1980s. An utterly awesome decade to be a teenager - fantastic music and for gaming nerds like me, getting my hands on a BBC Micro at home and at school 🤓. Add to that having summer jobs during the school holidays - my first taste of disposable income, meaning I was no longer reliant on my parents’ dubious taste when it came to my clothes 🤣! I’ll always remember the end of my first week in such a job - my then boss handed me a cheque for 90 quid … suddenly I thought I was Rockefeller!

Just so you know. We weren’t glued to phones because there weren’t any. We had one house phone, usually in the hall, with a cable stretched halfway up the stairs for privacy. We didn’t have the internet. Then when we finally did, it screamed at us through a dial-up modem while tying up the phone line. We didn’t have Spotify. We sat by the radio with our finger hovering over the record button waiting for our favourite song. We didn’t have Netflix. We had three TV channels, and one of them shut down at night. We didn’t have Amazon deliveries turning up every day. If you wanted something, you went into town for it. We didn’t have social media followers. We had actual mates knocking on the door asking if you were coming out. We grew up with BMX and Chopper bikes, cassette tapes, Commodore 64s, BBC Micros, fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, and parents telling us to “be home before dark.” Most families weren’t rich. Far from it. But people generally had pride, resilience, manners and a sense of community. People disagreed politically without hating each other. Neighbours knew each other. Kids played outside. Teachers were respected. Police had authority. Life wasn’t perfect by any means. But many of us wouldn’t swap growing up in the 70s and 80s for anything. Yes. I’m early Gen X. Just so you know.

@Kevin_Maguire So you’re trying to conflate a football match with that joyous moment in 2016 when we cut ourselves free of Nanny’s apron-strings, just because you didn’t like the result? You sad, desperate little man.

Sunderland in Europe a decade after that Brexit vote. Reform local councillors must be sheepish.

@ToonDazza Hell yeah - particularly the fluent sarcasm and zero tolerance of stupidity 👊🏻

Simply the best. Give Me a shout if you’re a fellow Gen X……

Straight out of the globalist playbook. Push the masses - tiny piece by tiny piece - to breaking point, then when it kicks off, use it as the excuse to bring in the martial law and crackdowns these dictators have been desperate to implement for years. Covid was the first little test of what the masses will put up with.

Is it just me… or are governments around the world starting to act like they’re testing the limits of public patience? Because from the outside, it almost looks like they’re pushing things further… and watching to see what people will accept next. At what point does pressure turn into pushback? Genuine question — where do you think this is heading?

There's never cash in my S&S ISA for more than the 24 hour period when my monthly direct debit goes in and then gets invested the following day - during which the interest I receive amounts to the princely sum of 4 pence! Any dividends are automatically reinvested. Totally 'hands-off', but that's the way I prefer it. Does she really want 22% of that 4p? Is it worth the aggro/paperwork? Unless they get the investing platform to deduct it, like they do with stamp duty? If we had a rational government I wouldn't need to do it, but if this is the way she wants to play it, I'll sell all my shares in dividend-paying UK companies and dump the whole proceeds into tracker ETFs - the latter already form the biggest part of my portfolio anyway. If I can [legally] avoid it, these thieves aren't getting a fucking penny out of my ISA while I live and breathe.

Rachel Reeves has found a way to punish people for investing. That is the absurdity at the heart of this reported ISA raid. The Government says it wants savers to move away from cash and into stocks and shares. Fine. So imagine someone does exactly that. They open a stocks and shares ISA. They buy dividend-paying companies. They build an income stream over years. They receive dividends into the ISA. They wait patiently for the right valuation before reinvesting. That is not tax avoidance. That is investing. Serious income investors do not instantly throw every dividend back into the market the second it lands. They wait. They compare opportunities. They build cash. They look for weakness. They reinvest when the price is attractive. That is discipline. Now Reeves reportedly wants a 22pc charge on interest earned from cash held inside a stocks and shares ISA, under “anti-circumvention” rules. In other words, the Government tells you to invest, then treats the natural cash management process inside investing as suspicious. It is economically illiterate. Cash inside a stocks and shares ISA is not necessarily someone “dodging” a cash ISA cap. It can be dividend income waiting to be redeployed. It can be proceeds from a sale waiting for a better entry point. It can be dry powder before results season, a correction, a rights issue, or a market panic. That is how actual investors behave. But Labour sees a cash balance and assumes it must be punished. This is the problem with politicians designing tax rules around headlines rather than reality. They do not understand investing. They understand optics. They want to say they are pushing Britain into equities. But the policy says something else: invest, receive income, manage risk, wait for value, and we may still come after you. That is not pro-investment. That is anti-investor.

There’s an alternative word for the UK’s looming Red Heat Alert: it’s “Summer”