Nick Taylor

Muhammad Qassem Sawalha, a designated Hamas member, has been living in London council house for decades. The son of Iran’s former supreme leader owns two luxury apartments in West London overlooking the Israeli embassy. But Kanye West is where Keir Starmer draws the line. 🥴

Dear @kanyewest I apologise that the British government are a bunch of cunts. Go grab yourself a dingy and arrive on the Kent coastline. You’ll get a free hotel and Get Out of Jail Free pass. What a bunch of bullshit

The UK government are looking to BAN Kanye West from entering the UK because of his opinions… They’ve just allowed an ex ISIS fighter to visit Number 10 and Buckingham Palace…

@lutzebroom Just waiting for my P11D 😉

Who else is finishing off their tax return this afternoon?

@keithcb49 @Georgekemp_ For good?

@Georgekemp_ I'm back!

This video shows migrants being supported with free driving theory lessons raising serious questions about fairness. Why aren’t our own people given the same support? Why are young people here, including 17-year-olds trying to get on the road, expected to pay while others receive it for free? Why isn’t this kind of support being offered to our youth? 🎥 Credit: @HJB_News__

For a bit, I was involved with instructing what the Royal Air Force generically refers to as Conduct after Capture, and more vaguely and publicly, as Resistance to Interrogation. Those airmen got out for a number of reasons. But from the word go, they will have been taught that you must build your mind before you build your body. Yes, you train. Yes, your legs ache. But they came out because they were highly motivated, the best, they believed they would not ever be left behind, and they were well trained, fit and strong. You don't always come out in one piece because you're the best, but you will be more likely to come out if you’re the strongest. You finish because you keep going, not because you’re the best. The second lesson that will have kept that Colonel going was knowing he would not be left behind, and that his friends and brothers and sisters would die for him because they knew he would die for them. It’s fraternity, it’s community. Physical fitness can often feel like a solo pursuit.. headphones in, ticking off the miles, I’ve been there and it sucked so often, but a healthy body engenders a healthy mind. And it’s also the bonds of fraternity and comradeship that will also keep you going and digging deep - bonds built up by experiencing common hardship, getting rat-arsed at a beer call one Friday together, or focusing on a common goal and holding yourself accountable to a far higher standard than someone on the outside would ever hold you to, or themselves to for that matter. You fight and die for your mates because you know that they would fight and die for you. You do it because you don't want to let the lads down. You show up because someone else is showing up. Bonding creates identity. Shared challenge builds connection. Activity becomes belonging. This is what many civilians don’t understand about service life and veteran mentality. This is why so many service personnel struggle in Civvy Street, because the values that they signed up to and became familiar with, simply do not exist. I read a tweet this morning about our Northern Ireland veterans being persecuted once again, and it made my heart weep. The US spent more effort, resource and human capital in getting those two airmen out than Keir Starmer spent in defending our military personnel and their families at Royal Air Force Akrotiri.

@stevemartincfp Go on then

Three former soldiers will appear at Belfast magistrates court on April 20th. One is charged with a killing that took place in May 1972. He is not accused of acting outside his orders. He is accused of acting within them. The distinction no longer appears to matter. This is the reality behind Labour's Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, a piece of legislation dressed in the language of reconciliation that functions, in practice, as an engine of persecution. The state that sent these men to Northern Ireland, that gave them their orders, that relied on their judgment in circumstances no minister has ever faced, is now the state that funds the machinery pursuing them through the courts half a century later. That is not a technicality. It is the central fact. Taxpayer money flows to the lawyers challenging the actions of soldiers whose actions were sanctioned by the taxpayer. The government calls this justice. General Sir Peter Wall, who commanded the British Army for four years, calls it something without moral backbone. He is right. The operational consequences are already visible. Elite soldiers are leaving the SAS and SBS rather than face the prospect of prosecution decades hence for missions carried out under government orders. The crisis has become sufficiently acute that reservists are being brought into the regular SAS to fill roles vacated by those walking out. Britain's most capable fighting force is being quietly hollowed out by a bill whose architects appear indifferent to the result. Seven former SAS commanders have warned that the legislation is doing the enemy's work, that operational secrets exposed through inquiries give hostile states a narrative of lawless troops. Moscow, Tehran and Beijing do not need to discredit British special forces. Westminster is doing it for them. The asymmetry at the heart of this legislation is not incidental. It is structural. IRA members were released under the Good Friday Agreement. Many destroyed evidence, stayed silent, or received letters guaranteeing they would not be pursued. Soldiers kept records, gave statements, and remained traceable. Decades later, only one group remains available for scrutiny. Not because they are more culpable, but because they are more reachable. The Coagh ambush of June 1991 illustrates the logic perfectly. Three IRA men were stopped by the SAS on their way to murder someone. A coroner ruled the force used was justified. Years later a family challenged that ruling, arguing the soldier should have paused after each shot to consider whether to fire the next one. A judge described that argument as ludicrous and utterly divorced from reality. The challenge continues, funded by legal aid, heard at the Court of Appeal just days ago. No verdict ends the process. The process is the punishment. Keir Starmer has said publicly he is absolutely confident there will be no vexatious prosecutions. Three soldiers will be in a Belfast court in sixteen days. His confidence has not reached them. The government insists its bill provides robust protections for veterans. General Sir Nick Parker, who oversaw the final operations in Northern Ireland, says ministers do not understand the duty of the state to stand by those who serve it. The duty to stand by those who serve is contractual, not sentimental. A soldier who follows orders in a war the state authorised cannot later be offered up as payment for political convenience. What is being constructed here is not a legacy process. It is a permanent legal industry, sustained by public money, targeting the most traceable participants in a conflict the state itself waged. The soldiers kept their records. That is now their liability. A serious country does not behave this way. This one, apparently, does. "Keir Starmer has said publicly he is absolutely confident there will be no vexatious prosecutions. Three soldiers will be in a Belfast court in sixteen days. His confidence has not reached them."

@TonyDBates78 Great though isn’t it!

The only entertainment Arsenal provide is when they lose #arsenal

ANDREW NEIL: We’re being run by a bunch of know-nothing numpties — and the Labour Party should be renamed the Welfare Party mol.im/a/15708293

@NoContextSoton Think you are the one who posted this. How much longer are we going to be living rent free in your heads?

Imagine singing songs about your manager hating 'the scummers' just for him to turn up at St Mary's and take pictures with your fans 😭😭😭

Do not say that you weren’t warned.

#afcb A dream ruined. 25/04/09. Grimsby Town Day. We won and overcame -17 points. 25/04/26 and 17 years later, we were due to play at home to Leeds. But they have just ruined it/us as they did almost 36 years ago (May 5th 1990). The two MoM from the Grimsby game want revenge.

He should have walked. You cannot put your hands on a referee

Look at how differently the police handled young football fans yesterday in comparison to the young looters in Clapham. They remembered how to use the batons again!

🚨 Arsenal’s last two games… 🏆❌ Carabao Cup: lost the final vs Manchester City. 🏆❌ FA Cup: lost quarter finals vs Southampton.

@AgeingCherry Rinse repeat

Fair play #saintsfc South Coast beats North London!!

@paulturner67 Love it!

Am I going too early .. This little lot ain’t happy ..🤣

Football fans have been treated like this since forever. Kettled, filmed, frogmarched down the road and slung into police vans. Mostly when we've been doing sod all wrong. Why are gangs of feral youths steaming shops treated with kid gloves? 🤷‍♀️