Simon Goldsworthy 🙂

@afneil @British_Airways They’ll also be losing their silver short haul frequent flyers. I took 16 flights with BA short haul this year and I’m still short of keeping my silver card by 2,000 tier points. I’ve also taken my family of 4 long haul twice but don’t get any of their points. Next year no BA

A case study in how @British_Airways, by setting impossibly high tier point hurdles, is going to lose a lot of money/big paying customers. Planning my next trip to NYC in Spring. Normally I’d do business Nice-London on BA, return first class London-NYC-London and business London-Nice, fitting in a few working days in London there and back. All up the fares would come to around £5,000 for flights in second half of April. A lot of money — especially since it comes out of my pocket. Nobody picks up my expenses. But at my age I like to travel in comfort. And I like the BA crews. However now that the tier point hurdle is too high for renewing guest list status for all but perpetual travellers, why bother planning a schedule round BA flights? I’ve booked Nice-NYC-Nice first class return on Delta for just over €3,000. No brainer, really. Direct flight, almost half the price. And @British_Airways will lose £5,000. Plus much more if this now becomes my regular NYC schedule. I can’t tell you the number of people I know now doing similar flight schedule planning which simply removes BA from the planning, when it used to be at the centre. And, yes, I know it’s most definitely a first-world problem! But BA makes most of its money from passengers flying first/business. With fewer of us the fares of premium/economy passengers will rise. Well done @British_Airways. How to stuff loyal, high-paying customers of longstanding for no good reason whatsoever. Hi @Delta. Thanks for reserving me seat 1A both ways! Can’t wait.

@LanceForman @KemiBadenoch Good point well made Lance. Hope all well with you.

@KemiBadenoch What about fracking? We have enough shale gas under our feet to write off our entire national debt!

Keir Starmer is deliberately running down Britain’s oil and gas industry. Conservatives will end the ban on new Oil and Gas licences and unleash all of our potential from the North Sea.

@jk_rowling Love it. Wish I’d known you were there earlier I would have come and said hello.

Really hope go big or go home is still a thing.

I'm on a sun lounger by a pool right now so it's bizarre to learn that I am apparently I'm one of the people being blamed for hundreds of thugs taking to the streets 1,300 miles away in Britain. So here's my response: Yes, there are genuinely far right racist thugs who are using the Southport stabbings as an excuse for rioting. There are also plenty of louts who just fancy a good summer's night bust-up and an excuse for looting. But there are also many millions more people - of all races, creeds and classes - who would never dream of throwing a brick or setting a police van on fire but who share SOME (not all) of the concerns of those thugs and louts. Those millions don't want to "send all immigrants home", they don't care what colour skin someone has or what religion they follow.  But they DO care about their country, their communities and their nation's culture. They DO care when the political elites import millions of people from very different cultures who fail to integrate and assimilate, or even learn the English language.  And they DO care when they are told they're racist for stating incontrovertible facts about that mass immigration such as the impact it has had on access to housing, public services, school places, GP appointments and, yes, their own wages. And especially when the elites condemning them keep extolling the joys of multiculturalism while ensuring their own families are protected from those impacts.  They DO care when they're lumped in with hooligans sporting swastika tattoos simply for voting for Brexit to reassert our national sovereignty and ability to control our borders. And they DO care when the political elites go on to blatantly ignore their concerns and put rocket boosters on immigration levels to record levels. Most of all, millions of British people care about that fundamental British value of "fair play". They expect everyone to be treated equally - and especially when it comes to law enforcement. The two-tier treatment of different ethnic and religious communities - and different political causes - by our overly politicised police over the past few years is now so blatant, it's laughable for the media and political elites to continue to try to gaslight an entire nation by denying it.  So, yes, we should all 100% condemn the violent thugs who go out looking to attack their fellow Brits or anyone they perceive to be an immigrant or the police officers put onto the front line to keep the peace. (As I've done many times on my radio show.) We should all 100% condemn those who seek to exploit the legitimate concerns of millions of ordinary people to further their bigoted and divisive agendas. (As I've also done many times on my radio show.) But don't blame the people who've been warning that justifiable fear and anger among millions of ordinary British people about the fast-changing impact of mass immigration could turn Britain into a tinderbox.  The people first and foremost to blame are the thugs on the streets, of course. But a share of the blame for stirring up these demons must also go to those politicians and commentariat elites who pushed for mass uncontrolled immigration, celebrated differences rather than encouraged integration; who divided people into their religious and ethnic groups rather than promoting unifying British cultural values and beliefs; the people who shouted "racist" and "fascist" at anyone who raised legitimate concerns over the past 20 years, instead of actually tackling the problems that were clearly brewing. They slowly and deliberately prepared the bonfire over the past 20 years while voters warned them again and again that this would end in tears.  And now they pretend to be surprised when bad actors come along and strike the match to start the flames burning.  So they can chase their "likes" on here with their blame games, but it just won't wash anymore.  Anyway, I'm off for a swim.

@GrantSRivers any update?

Problems on the #DartfordCrossing again?! #A13 London-bound is backed up to Grays junction. You’ve guess it, #Thurrock is a glorified car park once again! 🤦🏼‍♂️

@SW_Help can you install Starlink on your trains so we can get decent internet?

@StarkNakedBrief Oh for goodness sake. Like he’s going to organise a pandemic vaccine drive for £5k.

@NiceAirportFR the only airport where the scan tech is going backwards. New rules mean not only laptops and iPads but also cables, plugs, and headphones have to be put in the trays? After doing that I had nothing left in my hand luggage so what’s the point of the scan?

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉 Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them. In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex. For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors. It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment. If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it. #ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland 11/X

@boatint That’s a lot of wood

The 65.2m motor yacht Double Down has been sold with John Wood of Seawood Yachts representing the buyer and James Greenwood and Michael Mahan of Worth Avenue Yachts representing the seller... boatinternational.com/yacht-market-i…

Leopard 🐆 😳

@sixtwofourtwo @HKhaliqueLoonat @TimesSport Hasn’t dated all that well when less than 24 hours they beat Palace 5-0….

Excellent analysis from @HKhaliqueLoonat here on the issues associated with Arsenal’s approach play this season (for @timessport) thetimes.co.uk/article/21259c…

@Lord_Sugar Also agree with him. That’s a first for me too.

Would not usually agree with Nigel. But this was well said.

M25/A3 Roadworks. They’ve resorted to making fake workers, presumably so they can say they’re going flat out #brokenbritain

@gunnerblog @Churchill Name one large organisation, public or private, which does NOT have atrocious customer service. They’re all diabolical now. It’s the new normal.

Hey just want to give a quick shoutout to @churchill insurance, their customer service is truly atrocious 👍

These are brand new houses in Stamford - it can be done

⁦@VirginAtlantic⁩ there is my iPad. The one I left on your plane. Why can’t you get it for me when I paid you to fly with you and left it in your seat on your plane?

@VirginAtlantic this is the epitome of dead hand customer service. left my iPad in the seat pocket of one of your planes, VS6 from Miami. I can see it still on the plane on the find my iPhone app but your baggage people keep telling me to contact Heathrow lost property. Why???

A few yards and 50 years apart. Two approaches to designing a high street in Leicester right next to each other. The collapse in civic pride, ambition & delivery is profound and goes far beyond changing technology or economic pressures.