Simon Thomson

The UK full new state pension is £11,973 a year. The poverty line for a single adult is around £14,500. You'll work 50 years paying into a system that, by its own definition, retires you straight into poverty.

St George was born in Turkey and is the patron saint of Palestine St George never visited England St George represnts much of Europe, the middle east and Africa If St George came here today, Reform UK would deport him Happy St George’s day

£32,000 a year. Graduate job. What it actually comes to: Gross: £2,667 a month. Income tax: £324 National insurance: £225 Student loan Plan 2: £35 Pension (4% auto-enrol): £107 Take home: £1,976. Rent in any UK city worth living in: £1,200. Council tax, gas, electric, water, internet: £420. Train or petrol to get to work: £250. Bills alone eat £1,870 of it. Leaves you £106 a month for food, clothes, socialising and any kind of life. This is what a 'good graduate job' looks like in 2026 after 3 years at uni and £50K of student debt. How did we let them sell this to us?

A British school dinner in 1975 was cooked on-site, from whole ingredients, by a dinner lady who knew, without consulting a nutritional database, what a growing child needed to eat. The dinner was: roast beef, gravy from the drippings, boiled potatoes, cabbage, and sponge pudding with custard made from eggs and milk. Or shepherd's pie from real mince. Or liver and onions. Or fish on Friday, battered and fried in beef dripping. In a single sitting: haem iron from the meat, calcium from the custard, B12 from the liver, vitamin A from the gravy fat, vitamin D from the eggs, zinc from the beef, omega-3 from the fish, collagen from the gravy, complete protein from every component, and roughly 800 calories dense enough to carry a child through an afternoon of running around a playground in January. Then the system changed. In the 1980s and 1990s, local authority catering was outsourced. On-site kitchens closed. Dinner ladies were made redundant. Central production kitchens began manufacturing meals reheated in convection ovens. The roast beef became a turkey twizzler. The shepherd's pie became a pre-formed disc of processed potato and reconstituted meat product. The liver disappeared entirely. The fish was coated in breadcrumbs and fried in vegetable oil. The custard was made from powder, water, and yellow colouring. The sponge pudding was replaced by a yoghurt tube. Jamie Oliver's 2005 campaign filmed children who could not identify a tomato. Kitchens where the only equipment was a deep fryer and a microwave. Menus that contained less nutritional value in a full week than the 1975 dinner contained in a single sitting. The government pledged reform. But the on-site kitchen did not come back. The dinner lady did not come back. The roast beef and the liver and the custard made from eggs did not come back. The 1975 dinner lady, who had no nutritional qualification and had never heard of a DIAAS score, was producing, at approximately 30p per serving, a meal that contained more bioavailable nutrition than anything the modern system produces at three times the cost. She has been replaced by a supply chain. The supply chain is more expensive. The children are less well fed. The dinner lady knew what she was doing. Nobody asked her.

UK quietly regains position as the world’s 5th largest economy, per IMF. 1. 🇺🇸 United States ~ $32.38 trillion 2. 🇨🇳 China ~ $20.85 trillion 3. 🇩🇪 Germany ~ $5.45 trillion 4. 🇯🇵 Japan ~ $4.38 trillion 5. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom ~ $4.26 trillion ⬆️ 6. 🇮🇳 India ~ $4.15 trillion ⬇️ 7. 🇫🇷 France ~ $3.6 trillion 8. 🇮🇹 Italy ~ $2.74 trillion 9. 🇷🇺 Russia ~ $2.66 trillion 10. 🇧🇷 Brazil ~ $2.64 trillion

He backed Brexit - Britain now rejects it… He backed Orban - Hungary rejected him… He backed Trump - the world is repulsed by him… He backed Putin - the world hates him.

@PeterStefanovi2 It’s up there with “did you threaten to overrule him?”

Jeez. I know government ministers sometimes dance around questions but this is crazy

Congratulations @MagyarPeterMP on your election victory. This is an historic moment, not only for Hungary, but for European democracy. I look forward to working with you for the security and prosperity of both our countries.

What fantastic news from Hungary. Proof that if you stand up to it right wing kleptocratic populist authoritarianism can be beaten. Orban will now flee somewhere with his wealth. But this is more than a bad night for him. It is a bad night for Putin who as in Moldova spent a fortune trying to rig it. It is a bad night for Trump. It is a bad night for Vance and Rubio who believed that their mere presence in Budapest would swing the vote Orban’s way. They helped Magyar! . It is a bad night for Farage the AfD and Le Pen because it shows that when their brand of politics is exposed to serious opposition and scrutiny it collapses. Magyar is far from the perfect leader but my God he deserves all the congratulations coming his way for ousting Orban and showing how it can be done. He now has the tough job of dismantling the corrupt systems and bodies installed over 16 years. The people of Hungary deserve our thanks for showing these people can be beaten. And Zelensky now deserves far greater support from Europe.

So many young girls have found their new role model.

Don’t forget to return REFORM leaflets to this address. It costs them £2.50 a pop

Thank you to the following people for making sure people my age cannot enjoy an opportunity like this: Nigel Farage Michael Gove Boris Johnson Dominic Cummings David Frost David Cameron

@ScottishSiberia No. It’s the student loans company not allowing students who are studying at weekends to qualify for loans, which have to be paid back at excessive interest rates. The system is not working for all students, universities or taxpayers

@simontthomson I mean, this issue wasn't the student loans companies fault, it was the universities who gave the wrong information to them

The student loans company isn’t fit for purpose. The system of student loans is failing, saddling many with debt they’ll never pay off and with excessive interest rates. Time to overhaul the system and replace it with a graduation tax. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Absolutely fantastic initiative

Absolutely vital initiative- well done @SadiqKhan

@Checkfish @FOM_BLOG Yes, it was, and delighted my young daughter finally got to see the Gills win in 4 visits to Priestfield over 3 seasons! And there’s the crux of the issue. For some reason, over the last 3 seasons, we only seem to be able to play well in the sunshine!

Well played Gills. A much better performance in the sunshine. UTG