Huw Burford-Taylor

@thecraftybeggar @AudreySuffolk I see. "Punching down" means that failures to pay tax by Reform politicians are fair game, but failures to pay tax by Mr Polanski are not. Nice rule.

@maiamindel lol "Don't be ridiculous, we are not wearing black to mourn Queen Anne who died 310 years ago, as that would be stupid. We are actually wearing black to mourn Charles II, who died 340 years ago."

Clarity required here. UK gilt yields were already very high because the bond markets don't like Starmer's high tax, low growth policies. They are going higher because they think his replacement will be even worse.

This is why a one month course in how markets work should be compulsory for all incoming MPs. Don't have to pass an exam (that would not be inclusive...) but should surely be forced to at least sit thro some sessions explaining the basics.

I try not to get into debates about policy, but as a former bond trader, when you see a quote like this flash up on your terminal, it might as well say “we want to sit down and negotiate with gravity” This is a helpful thread👇

🧵Hamas admitted in a new "martyr" notice that Ahmad Salah was an artillery commander and "NURSE" at Nasser Hospital—exactly where many Israeli hostages said they were held. He is the EIGHTH hospital worker outed as a combatant, confirming use of hospitals as command centers 1/

@London__Smoke @sigourneybeaver This has been my general experience. Those of us right leaning tend to regard those on the left at worst in a patronisingly misguided way, whereas the left hate the Tories with the fire of a thousand suns. The old cliché has it right, the right seek converts, the left traitors.

@sigourneybeaver As a rugby, cricket, boxing fan who likes steak and ale and sounds like Stephen Fry playing General Melchett and distrusts philosophy, it's just nice to be home with the Tories where I probably belong. And it's interesting how easy it was as a complete stranger. "Oh hullo!" Etc.

This doesn't come as any surprise if you've spent any time around hippies.

@John_Stepek Greens easily the most unpleasant. Conservatives easily the nicest. I think two abusive tweets across several months. Can’t wait to find out what the Lib Dems are like. I hear they’re total animals.

When I reported on Zahawi I got a handful of abusive messages. When he apologised & it turned out I was right, they all stopped. But Polanski? Wild levels of abuse, which just ramped up when Polanski apologised & it turned out I was right. Does the Green Party have a problem?

There simply isn’t fiscal room to borrow more, but leadership candidates are about to go around saying the complete opposite. Labour MPs and party members are about to get extremely frustrated — and the public even more disillusioned with politicians being dishonest.

This from Dan Hodges’ latest very interesting; Starmer putting himself before party *and* country.

A while ago, I watched the infamous 47-minute video documenting the atrocities of October 7th — the one not made publicly available, to protect the privacy of the victims. The worst part of this video is not what it displays, but who is displaying it: the perpetrators themselves. Gleefully. Sadistically. Unabashedly. Most of the footage was filmed by Hamas terrorists on their GoPro bodycams, some also by ordinary Gazan civilians on their cellphones. Even the Nazis tried to cover up their atrocities, but Hamas brags about theirs for the entire world to see. The killers are euphoric throughout the massacre, and their relentless, ecstatic cries of "Allahu Akbar" (punctuated by the occasional "Kill the Jew!") are simply nauseating. Some images are seared into my memory forever. I will never forget the two boys in their underwear — one with his eye socket hanging out of his face — asking his brother whether he thinks they're going to die, while the Hamas monster who had just thrown a grenade in their saferoom helps himself to a drink from their fridge, taking a casual break from the slaughter. Neither will I ever forget the terrorists playing football with a severed head. Or the Thai migrant worker whose head is viciously hacked off with a garden hoe — another "Zionist colonizer" getting what he deserved, right?quillette.substack.com/p/what-did-you… Or the throngs of Gazans crowding around pickup trucks loaded with the mutilated corpses of Jewish women, filming and spitting on the bodies. Or the woman in Kibbutz Mefalsim, crouching and begging in vain for mercy. There is some evidence of sexual violence in the video — the charred corpse of a young woman with her legs splayed and her genitals exposed — but not much. Apparently even Hamas draws a line somewhere: they are not as proud of raping Jewish women as they are of murdering them. Or, more likely, they simply didn't want to embarrass the delicate sensibilities of their legions of useful idiots in the West. But yes — there was rape. Not "rape" in scare quotes, as the apologists would have it, but sadistic, murderous sexual violence, documented in a new damning new report by The Civil Commission, an independent Israeli women's rights NGO. (video summary here: youtube.com/watch?v=K7fJuz…) Across its 180 pages, the report describes "a recurring pattern of rape and gang rape; sexual torture; mutilation; targeted shooting to the face, head and genital area; forced nudity; binding and restraint; genital burning; objects inserted into intimate areas; post-mortem sexual humiliation; and execution during or after sexual assault." And it was premeditated and organized. The terrorists crossing into Israel carried printed Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks with handy expressions like "take off your pants," "lie down," "spread your legs," and "don't make trouble." I wonder why they expected to need those particular phrases? I know one thing: no civilized country on earth would tolerate the existence of an organization like Hamas on its border after October 7th. Not one. This includes every self-righteous Westerner currently lecturing Israel from thousands of kilometres away, without an inch of skin in the game. dailymail.com/news/article-1…

After reading this, it’s a miracle of restraint that Israel didn’t just nuke Gaza off the face of the Earth in response to what happened on October 7th.

Nigel Farage faces questions over failure to declare use of donor’s helicopter. What will he blame this time? He didn't declare £5m gift from Thailand-based billionaire. His participation in in the House of Commons is low. May be he has memory lapses. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

I’m astonished that even Labour’s coup against their leader is turning into a shambolic, embarrassing farce full of dithering, timidity, U-turns, and broken promises. So unlike them!

Walk into your bank and say that their demands for mortgage payments will have to fall in line with your agenda of buying more takeaways each month. See how they react.

There’s a bunch of houseboat dwellers unlucky enough to have been moored at the same marina as Zack Polanski who are about to get whopping retrospective tax bills. Catching strays from Dan Neidle is a newly discovered category of bad luck isn’t it

I’ve written and researched the whole seven front war since 7th October. It has been my whole professional life. I’ve written many papers and have just finished my book. I have written both positive and negative critiques of the war. All of that feels irrelevant in this context. The most meaningful thing I have done since 7th October is bear witness and relay the horrors done that day. I have seen part of the sexual crime evidence in this report (above and beyond the 47 minute reel) and it remains the most horrific thing I have seen in my life. Nothing Israel has done in Gaza comes remotely close to the horrors of 7th October. The Gaza war and 7th October don’t deserve to be in the same conversation when it comes to atrocity. No comparison. The rapes are the thing Hamas and their supporters are most scared of being exposed to the world. Every time I have written about what I have seen, 5x the usual amount of bots descend upon my replies. Abuse and outright denial. Now, the evidence I have seen, and more, is out there. When Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting human animals in Hamas, he was absolutely correct. Read it for yourself: civilc.org/silenced-no-mo…

THE RETIRED LAWYER WHO DID PARLIAMENT'S JOB AND WON A JOURNALISM AWARD FOR IT Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) retired at 49 from Clifford Chance, one of the world's most powerful law firms, where he spent nearly 25 years as head of tax. Most people in that position go quiet and enjoy the garden. Neidle started a non-profit think tank and spent his retirement doing what journalists, regulators, and parliament couldn't be bothered to do. In July 2022, he published detailed analysis showing that Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) had used an offshore structure to avoid approximately £3.7 million in capital gains tax on his YouGov stake. Then he showed Zahawi had lied about it. Zahawi's lawyers at Osborne Clarke sent him threatening letters marked "confidential" and "not for publication," demanding he retract the allegations within 24 hours or face defamation action. They told him it would be "improper" and a "serious matter" to publish the letters. Neidle published the letters. He also published more detailed analysis. Then he referred the lawyers to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. @TheSun then revealed Zahawi had secretly settled with HMRC for the exact amount Neidle estimated, plus a 30% penalty. Total: nearly £5 million. Rishi Sunak sacked Zahawi in January 2023 after an investigation found he had breached the Ministerial Code by failing to disclose he was being investigated by HMRC while serving as Chancellor. Neidle won Investigation of the Year at the British Journalism Awards 2023. He is not a journalist. The SRA referred Osborne Clarke partner Ashley Hurst to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, marking the first time a solicitor had been referred to the SDT for abusive tactics in libel litigation. In December 2024, the Tribunal found Hurst guilty of misconduct and fined him £50,000. A retired tax lawyer spotted what a sitting Chancellor was hiding, refused to be silenced by his legal team, was proved right in every detail, won a journalism award, and then got the silencing lawyer sanctioned. Zahawi got a pension. Neidle got a prize. The lawyer got a fine. The public got to watch. This is what accountability looks like when institutions won't do it themselves. Sources: @guardian @BBCNews @FT @TheSun @PressGazette |

Nice, isn’t it? The abject chaos…