Owen Thomson

If the UK was US state it would rank 1st in life expectancy 1st in state with lowest Homicide rate 1st in avg years in school 2nd in lowest drugs deaths 3rd in minimum wage 9th in HDI 10th in lowest obesity But.. 51st in GDP PC Yet again GDP per capita doesn't equal qol.

Rolls-Royce welcomes landmark contract with UK Government for delivery of Small Modular Reactors bit.ly/47QIY08

🚨 BREAKING:Macron is TROLLING Trump at epic level 🔥 Macron: "When we are serious, we do not say the opposite of what we said the day before. Perhaps we should not speak every day." 😂 x.com/_InfoGram_/sta…

BREAKING : This is Belt Treatment 🔥 Journalist –– Trump targeted you again with personal remarks. Do you have anything to say? 🇫🇷 Macron –– 🔥"We are talking about war, civilians dying, economies suffering. What I heard is neither serious nor worthy of response. A world leader can't use language he is speaking" Much needed call out

Not often I agree with stumbler but he’s bang on the money 💰 14 years of Tory sell out have left the nations defences hollowed out and Jenkins has the cheek to say he’s had 18 months to sort it out 😅

BREAKING: Close up footage of Iranian strike on Dubai hotel.

Two major milestones on one landmark day in Rosyth. Yesterday, we celebrated the Steel Cut of HMS Bulldog and the Rollout of HMS Active, marking significant progress across the Type 31 programme. Watch the highlights from the day:

This is quite something to witness. HMS Active, the second of the Inspiration Class Type 31 Frigates, ventures out to meet the public for the first time from Babcock's Rosyth facility. It's the pinnacle of Scottish shipbuilding, marine engineering and craftsmanship

In the UK the PM who is not mentioned in the Epstein files is fighting for his future because he appointed someone who is mentioned. Meanwhile, in the US, the person who is mentioned 38,000 times, and who sends out racist memes, is still President...

About the only thing I’ll ever agree with this man on…

Torness Nuclear Power Station is Scotland's largest and most reliable clean power asset. Last year, it provided almost a fifth of Scotland's power. Here's the porblem: New nuclear is banned in Scotland. And in 2030, Torness will begin decommissioning. Investment in nuclear is surging globally, but Scotland is set to miss out. That's why it's essential to back Scotland for Nuclear Energy - a new coalition campaigning to lift the ban. For energy security, the environment, and jobs, it is time for get Scotland building nuclear again. newnuclearenergy.scot

A reminder. Dominic Cummings was right on the money all those years ago when he forensically analysed why a particular type of person from a particular type of job or career went into politics, and why some didn’t. ‘Incisive’ isn’t the word.

@trafficscotland @SETrunkRoads It’s only taken you an hour to get that message out…

NEW ❗️⌚️08:35 🗺️#A720 Millerhill ⚠️The #A720 is currently restricted westbound between Millerhill and Swanston due to a broken down vehicle ⏱️Heavy congestion as a result. Delays approx. 49 minutes currently 🚗Extra travel time is advised 📣Updates to follow @SETrunkRoads

British politicians who want 3-4% GDP on defence, you will likely never get a better chance than this, at least in your lifetime. The iron is white hot. Strike it.

The Brit went to America, walked out to no music in some camo shorts, broke the opponents jaw, got the $200 million, and went home 😂

By equating the European Union with the Third Reich—a regime responsible for systematic genocide, concentration camps, and World War II—Elon Musk not only trivializes the unspeakable horrors of National Socialism but also devalues ​​any serious debate about regulation and democracy. It's like comparing a speed limit to the Gestapo: absurd, tasteless, and intellectually bankrupt. The EU is not a totalitarian monstrosity but an alliance of 27 democracies that emerged after the horrors of the 20th century—including the Holocaust unleashed by Germany—to ensure peace, prosperity, and human rights. Billions of euros are invested in climate protection, social welfare systems, and civil liberties, while Musk's X (formerly Twitter) has degenerated into a digital madhouse under his leadership: hate speech flourishes, fake news runs rampant, and journalists are silenced. Who is the censor here? Musk, who portrays himself as a freedom fighter while taking legal action in Europe for ignoring EU laws like the Digital Services Act—laws designed to combat the very kind of propaganda he now promotes—is making a comparison that is not only historically inaccurate but cynical. It ignores the fact that the EU was built from the ruins of the Third Reich to make such dictatorships impossible forever. Musk, a billionaire who benefits from US subsidies and grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, should focus on his own hubris. Instead of resorting to cheap provocations to grab attention, he could build a spaceship that doesn't explode—or at least a tweet that doesn't cross the line of good taste. Such pronouncements don't make him a hero; they make him a populist jester. It's time he stopped instrumentalizing history and learned what respect for victims truly means.

I don't understand why, as a young, hardworking father with two children, a massive mortgage and few savings, I'm being asked to pay significantly higher taxes to subsidise a triple-locked pension and a bloating welfare bill. Seriously unfair.

Why did HS2 spend £100m on a tunnel to protect bats from passing trains? Why did Hinkley Point C spend £700m on a system to stop fish being killed by the plant's water intakes? Why do nuclear projects pause work for months on end to avoid creating noise that would disturb nearby nesting birds? The answer is the Habitats Regulations: a set of laws that says you literally cannot kill or, in some cases, even disturb certain animals. They might not even be endangered in Britain! These rules mean that you are in a world where certain individual animals are treated as being nearly infinitely valuable. While they may sound trivial – for years I rolled my eyes at complaints about newt surveys – because they are so unyielding they are, in fact, one of the primary barriers to major infrastructure projects in Britain. The lobby groups that exist to protect them *do not* care about nature. If they did they would leap at the prospect of spending, say, £10m on creating habitats for bats instead of 10x that on a bat tunnel. They use nature as a pretext to obstruct development per se.

Ever wondered where your tax money actually goes? 💷 @BBCNews broke it down by imagining we each handed the Government £100. Here’s how that £100 was spent in 2023–24: £22 → NHS £6 → Defence £10 → Education £10 → Debt interest £11.40 → State pensions £4.15 → Working-age welfare (PIP, Universal Credit, health support) £0.50 → Asylum system £0.70 → Overseas aid What strikes me most is this: immigration dominates headlines and public debate, consistently ranking as one of the nation’s top concerns — yet the asylum system accounts for just 0.5% of public spending. A reminder that sometimes the loudest issues aren’t the largest ones. #Budget2026

Britain needs nuclear power. Our nuclear projects are the most expensive in the world and among the slowest. Regulators and industry are paralysed by risk aversion. This can change. For Britain to prosper, it must. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister appointed me to lead a Taskforce to set out a path to getting affordable, fast nuclear power Britain. Our final report today sets out 47 recommendations, among them: - Creating a one-stop shop for nuclear approvals, to end the regulatory merry-go-round that delays projects at the moment. - Simplifying environmental rules to avoid extreme outcomes like Hinkley Point C spending £700m on systems to protect one salmon every ten years, while enhancing nuclear's impact on nature. - Limiting the ability of spurious legal challenges to delay nuclear projects, which adds huge cost and delay throughout the supply chain. - Approving fleets of reactors, so that Britain’s nuclear industry can benefit from certainty and economies of scale. - Directing regulators to factor in cost to their behaviour, and changing their culture to allow building cheaply, quickly and safely. - Changing the culture of the nuclear industry to end gold-plating and focus on efficient, safe delivery. If the government adopts our report in full, it will send a signal to investors that it is serious about pro-growth reform and taking on vested interests for the public good. A thriving British nuclear industry producing abundant, affordable energy would be good for jobs, good for manufacturing, good for the climate, and good for the cost of living. And it could enable Britain to become an AI and technology superpower. Britain can be a world leader in this new Industrial Revolution, but only if it has the energy to power it. Our report is bold, but balanced. Our recommendations, taken together and properly implemented, will forge a clear path for stronger economic growth through improved productivity and innovation. This is a prize worth fighting for. gov.uk/government/pub…