GavanB

@LauraTrottMP Can you not see the bigger point? That flying Ukranian flags everywhere gives licence to radical islamists demanding to fly Palestinian & Iranian flags in a country that has ZERO cultural assimilation with those countries.

Reform’s attitude towards Ukraine and Russia demonstrates why people should be worried about voting reform in a general election.

@JamesCleverly Great idea. Essex isn't in Ukraine, at least not yet. But.... I bet they are doing things on the "other side" of the spectrum too.

One of the first decisions made by Essex Reform was to remove the Ukrainian flag from County Council HQ. Let that sink in. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@bagshaw2112 A "wol". AA Milne #MagicEye

What do you see ?? #magiceye #stereoscope !!. Who will be #firstin and #topten . PLEASE PUT #magiceye in your replies to be in the #topten goodluck please repost so others can play along 🙏 JUST A BIT OF FUN 🤩 #Saturday

RESIGNATION LETTER TO @AndyBurnhamGM Following my comments yesterday in the media around the huge failures in my opinion of part 4 of @AndyBurnhamGM independent review in Manchester, I am sharing my resignation letter sent to him and his deputy last January 2024, as I have been approached by numerous news outlets for more information. I share it below in full. I always try to give credit where credit is due, and I will remain eternally grateful to @AndyBurnhamGM for instigating the Independent reviews into Op Augusta in Manchester and Op Span in Rochdale. They both confirmed without doubt that all I had said was true and that has been incredibly important to me and survivors as we tried to make sense of all that happened. The final part of the process however was meant to be an “ Assurance Review” and it was meant to deliver assurances that CURRENT practises in @gmpolice regarding their treatment of vulnerable victims of sexual abuse were now fit for purpose, based on current evidence. Instead what happened in this 4th part of the review was not honest, transparent, or in any way fit for purpose in my opinion. It’s a complex subject matter and there’s an awful lot to cover, but this letter below which I sent to @AndyBurnhamGM last January explains some of it, especially why I and @TMOFCharity resigned from a process in stage 4 that was little more than a tick box exercise. Even the two independent professionals who had carried out the previous 3 parts resigned, unwilling to put their names to something they knew was not in fact wanting to speak the truth. What I saw in Mr Burnham and @gmpolice was a willingness to say there had been huge “failures in the past” but when looking at action around failures still going on today, there truly was no “duty of candour” on display! Instead they turned away. Again. Once again the voices of those victims and survivors whose voices SHOULD have been front and centre of this report were totally silenced and blocked out of the “Assurance review” making it worthless. The establishment again “marking its own homework”. Just Like in @IICSAVSCP the 7 year statutory national enquiry for which we are currently taking this government to a Judicial Review, like in Oldham and in so many other cases throughout the country over the last 3 decades. So there is a willingness to admit past failures as that can no longer be denied, but there’s still a huge avoidance of addressing what’s still going wrong today. In other words continuing to turn away when what our country (and victims) need is a hard scrutiny at the problems TODAY, based on real life experiences of survivors and not a cover up yet again from those at the top of our PUBLIC institutions whose duty it is to act in my opinion. Our public servants, must begin to show courage, integrity, honesty, and bravery, something we have not seen in decades. And that’s has to change!!

@CatharineHoey @DavidLammy Because they vote Labour. Simples.

@DavidLammy So why haven’t you turned on the hate marchers in the Pro Palestine demonstration many of whom are intimidating and demonising Jewish people

The Unite the Kingdom march organisers are spreading hatred and division. They do not reflect the Britain I’m proud of. Peaceful protest is a fundamental right and one I will always protect. But if protest turns violent, we will act swiftly, with extra court capacity in place.

The words of someone still wondering why Labour lost so many council seats, and why Starmer is the most hated PM in history, bar none.

@Keir_Starmer You chunter all the time. You are the most divisive PM, with the most monotonous voice, this country has ever had. Have you condidered for one moment that it is your fault, because of your policies, that these marches happen?

Today the voices of division will be loud. They don't speak for the country I know, one that belongs to all of us. That's our Britain. A Britain worth fighting for. lbc.co.uk/article/keir-s…

@bagshaw2112 ⚓️ #MagicEye

what do you see in 3D ??… #magiceye #stereoscope !!. Who will be #firstin and #topten . PLEASE PUT #magiceye in your replies to be in the #topten goodluck please repost so others can play along 🙏 JUST A BIT OF FUN 🤩 #Thursday

@Trisha121153 @AngelaRayner @RachelReevesMP 🤣😅🤣😅. I guess she thought it was stylish. It was paid for by Lord Alli wasn't it? So, probably expensive. How aposite to say "someone saw her coming!" 😳

@gavan1734 @AngelaRayner I can still see the horrendous green trouser suit! 🤣😂🤣 And @RachelReevesMP had on a similar one in pink for the Kings speech. With the money they get, surely they could dress well! 😂

I welcome HMRC’s conclusion, which has cleared me of any wrongdoing. I have been exonerated by HMRC of the accusation that I deliberately sought to avoid tax. When purchasing a home of my own with a mortgage, I did not own any other property and had no personal financial interest in the court-instructed trust set up to manage my son’s financial award. I was advised by experts that I should pay stamp duty at the standard rate. I set out to pay the correct amount of tax. I took reasonable care and acted in good faith, based on the expert advice I received, and HMRC has accepted this. I have always sought to act with integrity, and I believe politicians should be held to high standards - that is why I resigned from government and cooperated fully with HMRC.  I wanted to ensure that I paid every penny that I owed, and have done so. I am relieved that my family can now move on - and that I can get on with my job.

If You Demanded Answers From Farage, Demand The Same From Rayner The standard of accountability cannot change depending on which party is under scrutiny. If it does, it means nothing. That principle applies this morning with particular force to two stories running simultaneously that the political class would prefer to keep separate. Nigel Farage is under formal investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the Electoral Commission over an undeclared £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand based billionaire operating under a Thai alias named in the Panama Papers who has given £22 million in total to Farage and his parties. The investigations were triggered because the gift was not declared within the mandatory window for new MPs. Farage maintains it was a personal unconditional gift for his security. The regulators have decided the question warrants formal examination. That is the system working as it should. The same standard should now be applied to Angela Rayner. Rayner has received £150,000 in total from Refrigeration House Limited across three separate payments, in December 2025, February 2026 and March 2026, all described as towards staffing costs and declared on the parliamentary register. The company's director Paul Jordon told the New Statesman it was a local family business set up in 1965. Companies House tells a different story. Refrigeration House Limited, company number 15999252, was incorporated on 4 October 2024. Its stated nature of business is not refrigeration. It is SIC code 64305, activities of property unit trusts. Its share capital is £1. Its first accounts are not yet due. A company incorporated fourteen months ago with £1 of capital, whose stated business activity has nothing to do with refrigeration, has donated £150,000 to a senior politician's office while its director publicly describes it as a sixty year old family business. Those facts are documented and on the public record. They raise questions that are identical in character to the questions being asked about Harborne. Who controls this company. Why was it incorporated in October 2024. Why does its business classification not match its stated purpose. And why has its director publicly misrepresented its age to a national magazine. HMRC has also cleared Rayner of wrongdoing over her stamp duty affairs without charging a penalty that independent tax experts describe as the legally correct outcome. Tax Policy Associates states it cannot understand why no penalty was charged given that Rayner was explicitly advised twice to obtain specialist tax advice and did not do so. The regulator reached a conclusion that independent experts consider legally incorrect without explaining why. Two politicians. Two sets of documented questions about money. One under formal investigation. One cleared without explanation by a regulator whose decision independent experts cannot account for. The voters who delivered their verdict on May 7 were tired of a political class that applies rules selectively and answers questions only when forced. They voted for accountability. Accountability means the same questions get asked of everyone. Farage is answering to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the Electoral Commission. The questions around Rayner and Refrigeration House Limited deserve the same scrutiny. Not because the answers are predetermined. Because the standard has to mean something. "Two politicians. Two sets of documented questions about money. One under formal investigation. One cleared without explanation"

@JChimirie66677 @GraceRo95193774 @AngelaRayner Companies House tells us that Refrigeration House Ltd. was incorporated on 4th Oct 2024 with £1 in paid up share capital to Paul Edward Jordan, of Oldham, born in 1966. It has not posted accounts & has extended its accounting period. This is all publicly available information.

@AngelaRayner, a few questions your statement does not answer. Tax Policy Associates, one of the most respected independent tax bodies in the country, states it cannot understand why HMRC decided not to charge a penalty. Both of your advisers explicitly told you to obtain specialist tax advice before completing the transaction. You did not obtain it. Independent experts say a penalty of approximately 20 percent was the likely and legally correct outcome under Schedule 24 of the Finance Act 2007. HMRC reached a different conclusion without explaining why. Do you believe HMRC reached the correct conclusion and if so can you explain why two independent expert bodies disagree? You state you had no personal financial interest in the trust set up for your son. The trust was funded in part by NHS compensation money awarded for your son's care. You sold your remaining stake in your Ashton constituency home to that trust for £162,500 in January 2025 and used those proceeds as a deposit on an £800,000 flat in Hove. How do you define no personal financial interest in that transaction? A £50,000 donation to the Office of Angela Rayner Limited from Refrigeration House Limited arrived on 24 March 2026, described as towards staffing costs and declared on the parliamentary register. Weeks later you paid the £40,000 stamp duty bill. Who owns Refrigeration House Limited, what is their connection to you, and was any part of that donation used directly or indirectly to meet the stamp duty liability? You say politicians should be held to high standards. The questions above are what high standards look like in practice. They deserve answers.

@NotFarLeftAtAll @sw18780774 As Friedrich Nietzsche said: "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you".

Angela Rayner: “I have been exonerated and have always acted with INTEGRITY” Anyone believe her

@DavidGHFrost @sarahandrews77 True.

Whatever the local circumstances, it can never be right surely for Tories to prop up a Green council and a 'rainbow coalition'. Unless she wants to damage the Tory brand still further, Kemi surely has to get her councillors to pull out or else terminate their party membership.

@KarlTurnerMP Keir's desk is the clearest in the country. Nothing ever lands on it!

Angie acted with honesty, transparency and took full responsibility. That’s a lot more than most in our politics. McSweeney briefed against her. That’s been common place. And it never landed on Keir’s desk. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

@JChimirie66677 @geekgoddess2024 The similarities with the mid 70s are too real: the unions are rampant and the cost of doing business is too high. What odds on a 3 day week & a winter of discontent. A bigger problem is the lack of Big Beasts to rescue things - where is the next Mrs T when you need her?

Callaghan's Ghost. Labour is Walking the Same Road. Britain's government borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 1998. Morgan Stanley has told its clients the economy will flatline for the rest of the year. Asset managers are advising clients to avoid long-dated gilts. The pound is falling. And the Labour Party is consumed by a leadership contest that the bond market is watching with undisguised alarm. These are not separate stories. They are one story. The war in Iran has delivered an £11 billion blow to Rachel Reeves's fiscal headroom, slashing it in half. Conveniently, Iran arrived at exactly the right moment for the Chancellor: a ready-made alibi for a position that was already untenable. Unemployment is forecast to rise from 4.9% to 5.5%. Families will be no better off at the end of this year than they were at the start of last year. Living standards, frozen. Growth, gone. Against that backdrop, the gilt market is not pricing in recovery. It is pricing in what comes next. The trap is structural and there is no exit. If Starmer survives, markets see a weakened prime minister held hostage by his left flank, forced to loosen spending to buy loyalty. Gilt yields rise. If Starmer falls and Burnham or Rayner takes the keys, markets price in higher borrowing and a harder left turn. Gilt yields rise further. There is no combination on the Labour benches that the bond market greets with confidence. The verdict has already been delivered. Morgan Stanley's chief UK economist Bruna Skarica is explicit: there is limited scope for additional borrowing given what she calls binding market constraints. The more likely pressure valve is corporate tax hikes. Higher taxes into a flatlining economy is not a growth strategy. It is a contraction signal. Investment decisions get made before the tax even lands. The numbers are stark. The 30-year gilt yield is close to its highest level in 28 years. Every quarter-point rise in borrowing costs adds approximately £2.5 billion to annual debt servicing. Britain is already carrying the highest government borrowing costs in the G7. The arithmetic does not improve with a change of leader. It worsens with instability, and instability is now the only certainty on offer. Labour has been here before. In 1976, James Callaghan's government went cap in hand to the IMF, accepting humiliating spending cuts as the price of market confidence it had forfeited. The lesson was never fully learned. What is happening now is slower and more diffuse than 1976, but the underlying logic is identical: a Labour government that spent beyond what bond markets would tolerate, then lost control of the story when the consequences arrived. A new Labour leader arriving in Number 10 will inherit a fiscal trap with no exits: bond market discipline on one side, a restless parliamentary party demanding spending on the other, and an economy already in the forecasters' freezer. The temptation will be to reach for the same emergency language Reeves has used throughout. Markets have already discounted that language. They are waiting to see whether the new occupant has a credible story. The early evidence, from gilt yields, from sterling, from the parade of asset managers advising clients to look elsewhere, is that they have made their judgment in advance. Britain is not facing a single catastrophic event that can be identified, blamed and reversed. It is facing a slow-motion crisis with no circuit-breaker: no credible borrower, no credible story, and no political figure in the governing party with the standing to change the market's judgment. The bill has arrived. Nobody in Labour can pay it. "In 1976, James Callaghan's government went cap in hand to the IMF, accepting humiliating spending cuts as the price of market confidence it had forfeited."

Let me help you. Thinking you are total fools is not contingent on getting rid of Starmer. We already think you are total fools.

@bphillipsonMP @bedford_colleen Free? Where do you think the money to pay for the "breakfasts" comes from? Labour has no appreciation that it's OUR money you're spending. Sorry, I meant wasting.

Enjoyed Kemi’s quip about free breakfast clubs being a defining legacy of this Labour government. When the Tories deride breakfast clubs, it shows how out of touch they still are. A £450 saving is a lot for working families. Easing the morning rush makes a big difference.

@Peston They are (or in McSweeney's case, were) dependent on Starmer for their income.

The praetorian guard around the prime minister, who have been urging him not to quit, are the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the attorney general Richard Hermer, the Housing Secretary Steve Reed and - no longer on the payroll - Morgan McSweeney. Or so a minister tells me. I asked Downing St for a comment. None forthcoming

@jeremycorbyn Go to Palestine then, and campaign or march there.

I have written to Mark Rowley, the Met Police Commissioner, urging him to retract his baseless claims about our demonstrations for Palestine. Our marches are made of people of all faiths and none — and we will never stop campaigning until Palestine is free.