Ruprecht

@OC 11. And proud owner of a completed Mexico 86 sticker album. The final sticker being some Uruguain dude who i paid a £1 for off some little shit and selotaped in.

HOW MANY WORLD CUPS OLD ARE YOU? From the first one you watched I’m 12 World Cup old My first World Cup I watched was the 1982 World Cup in Spain. I was 9. Still remember being sat on the floor of our little front room, dad in his chair behind me, and seeing Bryan Robson score in the first 27 seconds of our opening game Against France! Think Paul Mariner scored next 12th world cup, Come on England x

Imagine if England win the World Cup in America in the same month America celebrates its 250th anniversary of sending us packing…. and President Trump has to give us the trophy. I may need to dust down my red coat.

@larisamlbrown Not really. In the grand scheme of things, nobody gives a shiney rats arse what Mark Rutte thinks.

Awkward meeting ahead for Dan Jarvis tomorrow. Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, said on Wednesday that he expected member states to “present clear, concrete and credible plans” to be spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, and “ideally well ahead of the agreed timeline” thetimes.com/article/f76df2…

@DPJHodges @Ads__pb Mbappe is the only other player is this conversation and if one of them is a big part of winning the World Cup then that’s the big ballon in the bag and bragging rights for best player in the world right now.

@Ads__pb He was fantastic. He’s not the best striker in the world though.

Tuchel. Balls of Germanic steel with those substitutions. Under Southgate no way we score the fourth goal.

@modernhistory Maradona is iconic. Ronaldinho is the only competition football wise.

Who is the greatest football player in history? Maradona or Messi?

@modernhistory Maradona.

@alexmassie Outside of London.

Scotland is the most privileged part of the United Kingdom. This is disagreeable because it removes all grounds for reasonable grievance and whining. Nevertheless, the truth is that the Union is organised to serve Scotland first. And best. thetimes.com/article/06f12c…

@GreggC_CC @laura_lou_44 Ah ok. Sold a dud all those years ago! Still he played 1st class rugby.

@Eight8Ace @laura_lou_44 He played for Queensland against a touring France team, but not Australia.

How is Alf on Home & Away still alive? I swear he was like 60 odd 30 years ago 😳

@GarbageHuman24 Neigh way!

She’s 27

@James_WE_Smith Closing down wellbeck was a shit idea for a start.

Hydration break.

It’s a strange kind of expectation. I’m fully aware it could go tits up but that is still the what I think is par for this team. I’ve been through the ringer so many times perhaps it’s more indifference. I actually enjoy watching the other teams more and happy to accept that if we’re good enough we’ll win. Right up until it might be possible. Ie. The semis.

@ma32550 @Eight8Ace @MartinKnight_ You’re kidding - this is England!!! I don’t know anyone who’s expecting that!

What’s missing? No England flags on cars. One day before our first match little palpable excitement for the World Cup. Have we fallen out of love with football? Do we think we will be embarrassed? Are people scared to display national fervour? Are flags too expensive?

@TheGriftReport Excellent. Just needs a brain transplant and she’s good to go!

Has Angela Rayner has had a full makeover to make herself look more "Prime ministerial" for the upcoming leadership challenge?

I recently wrote to @CommonsSpeaker to complain about the way ministers and the PM fail to answer questions put to them in the House The specific example I cited was on 2 June when @ClaireCoutinho asked @Ed_Miliband who was responsible for making sure there's no blackout in the UK and what would happen to them if there was He replied to say she was scaremongering, expressed sorrow she no longer supports net zero and made some irrelevant comment about green jobs Today I received the attached response from the Speaker's office basically saying it's not up to them to evaluate the accuracy of answers and that they do not have "the authority to require Ministers to give proper answers to questions" While technically correct, the Speaker can absolutely notice when no substantive answer has been given and remind the minister of their duties to Parliament More broadly their reply exposes the accountability gap. Parliament has a rule or expectation that answers should address the question, but it has very limited machinery to enforce that in real time The practical sanction is political: MPs, the Opposition, select committees, the media, and ultimately the House itself. If the House wanted the Speaker to have stronger powers, the House would need to grant them, probably through changes to Standing Orders or procedure So we need to lobby our MPs to raise this with the Procedure Committee

@larisamlbrown Cutting reserve days? Lol

EXC: Dan Jarvis faces having to make "very significant cuts" inside the MoD if he cannot get more money. - Options on the table last week included reducing investment in drones and artificial intelligence, cutting reserve days, and cutting exercises - the £13.5 bn offer included £3.5 bn made up of contingency money in the MoD put aside for crises  - Number 10 has not ruled out more money for Jarvis thetimes.com/article/94a849…

@AngelaBelcamino Cause dispite being full of utter chods, the user numbers are low and even lower for the age range being targeted.

Explain it to me like I’m 5: Why is Bluesky exempt from the UK’s social media ban?

Your phone charger can electrocute a toddler who pokes a fork into the socket. The British plug cannot. That difference comes from a 1947 engineering project that refused every shortcut and turned a household plug into one of the most deliberately safe objects ever mass-produced. Britain published BS 1363 in 1947, built for the post-war housing boom. The country was wiring millions of new homes at once and needed one standard that would work safely for everyone. They picked the most paranoid option available. The earth pin (the large top prong) is longer than the other two. When you push a British plug in, the earth pin goes in first. Inside the socket, it presses a lever that opens two metal shutters covering the live and neutral slots. A fork pushed into an empty British socket hits only shutters. The shutters block it. The two conducting pins are also coated in plastic for their lower half. A plug halfway out of the wall is still safe to touch. You would have to pull it completely clear before any live metal is exposed. Inside every plug is its own fuse. UK homes wire their sockets in a loop called a ring circuit, which runs at 32 amps, enough to melt a lamp's cord if the cord fails. So each plug carries a fuse matched to the appliance: 3 amps for a lamp, 13 for a kettle. When something goes wrong in your appliance's wiring, only that plug's fuse blows. The standard US plug (flat two-pin or three-pin) has none of the pin coating and no individual fuse. American building codes began requiring shuttered outlets in new construction in 2008, decades after Britain made shutters standard. Even those newer shuttered versions lack pin coating and plug-level fuses. Britain's plug is bulky because a fuse, a shutter mechanism, insulated pins, and three contact prongs all need room. The plug looks the way it does because safety engineers refused to sacrifice any of those features to make it smaller, and that decision is now 79 years old.

@SarahForRuncorn Oh dear

Our Prime Minister has never been to visit our Special Forces HQ to show his support for the outstanding work they do… What does that say about his commitment to the defence of our country?