@afneil As Muntu87 says look at the crazed lefty alternatives. Really scarey
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Malcolm Ash
1.5K posts
Official side of the Mandy scandal continues to unravel. Starmer says he only learned about Mandelson flunking his vetting test last Tuesday. Couldn’t tell Parliament til he’d done lots of checking.
But we now know his two most senior civil servants — Cabinet Secretary and Secretary to the Cabinet Office — had known for weeks, had the relevant docs and already done the checking.
So he could have gone to Parliament late Wednesday or anytime Thursday.
The fact he didn’t is the reason, I believe, the story leaked to Guardian on Thursday — whistleblowers feared a cover up to took matters into their own hands.
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@gjquartermaine @afneil Enjoyable reply. But is the Yuan going to appreciate and interdiction off Mallca? No way the US would dare to.
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Well, at least you replied, and with a decent acerbity. Most celebs ignore us lesser mortals. By the way, you are six months older than I am, so a bit of kettle calling there!
What you fail to grasp, Sir, is that the US will (a) impose swingeing tariffs equivalent at least to each barrel delivered, (b) possible physical interdiction at choke points such as Malacca. If you knew anything g about commodity trade (I do, 40 years in it one way or the other) you'd understand that there are half a dozen ways that this oil will not reach China. But you miss the point entirely, which is that if it did, and magically Iran became long in yuan, how do you think they'll spend that? Some chancers may take it, just like some of that floating oil gets re-labelled, but mainly nothing Iran buys gets IN to the country. Blockades work both ways.
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I know you’re elderly but I won’t use that as an excuse for your tweet of extraordinary stupidity. 90% of Iranian oil in tankers already departed from the Gulf is destined for China. None of what you mention will affect them delivering as ‘teapot’ capacity comes free. And yes I very much doubt D Trump has thought any of this through.
G.J.Quartermaine 🏴@gjquartermaine
Damn, dealing with the number of retards on X who dream up reasons for an astonishing Iranian victory is hard work. Elderly journalists are the most tedious. Delivery of oil at sea can be disrupted by sanctions, banking efforts and administrative barriers. A substantial portion of those barrels can be turned from prompt supply into involuntary floating storage: tankers circling or loitering while buyers, banks, and insurers argue about sanctions risk and port access. Some cargos can be physically seized or diverted through interdictions and port‑side enforcement, especially where local governments are cooperative or vulnerable to US pressure. You don't seriously imagine that the US hadn't thought of this? That you were smarter? Good Lord, Mr Neil, have you stopped researching or even thinking?
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@itvnews Reporting piffle. It'll just be another anti Trump woke framing from a representative of the legacy media
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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to reiterate the UK's support for the newly agreed ceasefire between the US and Iran.
He will hold talks with Gulf leaders on “practical efforts” to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
itv.com/news/2026-04-0…
ITV News Political Editor @Peston is travelling with the PM
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@afneil Now the criminal killers in Tehran have a taste of their own terrorist medicine
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Iran has rejected US ceasefire talks after Trump’s ‘wipe out Iranian civilisation’ threats and told mediators (via Pakistan mediators) it will no longer participate in negotiations.
Trump’s 8pm (NYC time) deadline looms.
Andrew Neil@afneil
President Trump threatens to wipe out Iranian civilization if Tehran doesn’t cede to his demands by 8pm New York time (1am London) tonight (Tuesday). “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump writes on his Truth Social platform. Is there anybody, any group capable of staging an intervention in the White House?
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@richardcalhoun They need to acknowledge the damage May and Johnson inflicted with net zero and migration. Then commit the party to complete focus on improving living standards fir workers and the competitiveness of the economy
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The brass neck, she was in the govt that imposed #netzero , she is complicit.
The Tories need eviscerating for their appalling record in govt.
Kemi Badenoch@KemiBadenoch
Drilling the North Sea would boost our national security, our energy security and our financial security. That’s why we have to Get Britain Drilling. Before Labour introduces another bailout for Benefits Street, they should cut energy bills for all. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
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@sharrond62 Net zero, female rights, tax and waste, unemployment, transsexual stupidity, deindustrialisation, stagnant living standards. You must be mad to vote for this lot
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You must be bonkers to keep voting for these people, repeating the same mistakes, especially if you are a woman.
Scottish Express@ScotExpress
Scots can't trust the SNP, especially on women's rights, as John Swinney backs his MSP's claim that men can't be banned from female toilets and changing rooms scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/…
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@PhoebeGostick @sharrond62 @Ofcom Hate us at the center of the trans movement. Your language confirms it. You attack, hate, and Condem. A boy wants to play at being a girl is the storey here.
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@sharrond62 @Ofcom There is no point in trying to discuss things with this hateful ghoul who doesn’t want to affirm trans identities.. Sharron has shown us to have no heart. Hope you can find it one day Sharron 🙏 good luck, will pray for you
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A transgender girl (bbc language) is a biological boy - it’s really time @Ofcom instructed the media to stop gaslighting the public. It makes a mockery of decent journalism, which at its very least should explain in a way the public understands so a story makes sense.
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Hi UK 👋
There's a country that builds the world's best missile defense systems. It's a pity you accused it of "genocide" 🤡
Daily Mail@DailyMail
UK has no defences to stop Iranian missiles and would be forced to rely on US and Europe to stop them as it's revealed they can now hit London trib.al/vfoRq6d
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@AdamRochussen @mattwridley Curiously, it does for Oesophagus ac cancers
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Big headlines the other week about this huge (1.8 million people, 3 continents! Wow!) study out of Oxford looking at the effect of different diets on cancer risk. Vegetarianism cures cancer!!!
Just one problem. That's not what the data show.
The study (nature.com/articles/s4141…) makes it's big claims based on unadjusted p-values (that aren't even numerically reported anywhere in the main paper).
But as anyone with a brain knows, performing 80 different hypothesis tests is bound to produce some false positives. The authors adjust for false discoveries, but don't really take it into account when discussing their data. They also perform sensitivity analysis, but again ignore the findings when discussing their results.
Journalists then picked up the narrative-convenient "significant" findings (while simultaneously ignoring inconvenient significant findings):
BBC, Sky News, The Independent all reported the same claim: "A vegetarian diet can slash the risk of five types of cancer by as much as 30%, a new study has found.”
Okay. But of the original 11 nominally significant findings in study, which made it through both multiple comparisons adjustment and sensitivity analysis?
Just the one.
Which one?
Risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma in vegetarians versus meat eaters. HR=1.93 (95% CI: 1.30-2.87). Yup.
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@nealasher Er, maybe a terrorist state with nuclear weapons, control of 'the straits, funding ISIS, Hamas, Hezbolla is the problem, and Trump is the solution.
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Oh right, so UK energy wasn't the most expensive in the world before the attack on Iran, and that this government and the one before haven't fucked over and destroyed the resilience of the country with Net Zero? Take your TDS and bog off elsewhere.
sam 💬@sayswhatnow
@nealasher @FirstSquawk A problem created by Donald Trump
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@Keir_Starmer Coward. You are certainly the opposite of Churchil. Useless on the economy, hopeless on migration, dreadful on energy. What a useless Chancellor as well.
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The UK is fully committed to the security of Cyprus and British military personnel based there.
We’re continuing our defensive operations and I've just spoken with the President of Cyprus to let him know that we are sending helicopters with counter drone capabilities and HMS Dragon is to be deployed to the region.
We will always act in the interest of the UK and our allies.
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@richardcalhoun I agree. A once independent people reduced to a woke joke. But its down to the dominance of the two big cities. City populations with the overdominance of public sector workers are usually on the woke left
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Clearly the SNP are untouchable in Scotland despite all their woes from their ex.leaders dubious behaviour, to putting men in women's prisons, I could go on.
It is truly confusing how Scotland, of all the nations, could entertain returning the SNP to govt.
James Heale@JAHeale
New Times/Stonehaven MRP poll out puts SNP on course for a majority in the 129-strong Scottish parliament: SNP – 67 MSPs (+3) Reform – 25 MSPs (+25) Labour – 15 MSPs (-7) Lib Dems – 8 MSPs (+4) Tory - 7 MSPs (-24) Green – 7 MSPs (-1) Changes compared to 2021
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@sharrond62 The country's state institutions are broken beyond repair. We spend too much on migrants, aid and other unimportant things. No doubt management said things have been learned. What we should learn is sack incompetents
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Horrendous isn’t a strong enough word. Having broken the head of my femur (hip) it was excruciating. I can’t imagine being left days on a floor to die in unbearable pain. We are broken…
Daily Mail@DailyMail
Woman, 97, was found dead on the floor of her home after being told she would have to wait ten days for an ambulance for a suspected hip break, coroner hears trib.al/cUyNmTu
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@GadSaad @BernieSanders We're all still here. And will be for millennia. Climate change won't kill us. Crazies might but not climate
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Dear @BernieSanders, could you give us an update on the extinction clock?
MAZE@mazemoore
Six years ago Bernie Sanders claimed that humanity only had about six years left to stop the existential threat of climate change. Bernie said the way to stop it was by passing the Green New Deal. The GND was projected to cost between $10 and $90 trillion. Bernie doesn't talk as much about climate change as he used to. Now he fundraises off of "Fight the Oligarchy."
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@Anthea06274890 @elonmusk That's because you're not inventing, investing, creating, paying wages, mortgages etc. You're passively accreting money from the wealth-creating actions of others. That's why capitalism works well. It rewards doers over rent seekers
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@afneil Yes they do. Look how the countrys gone to the dogs since
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Yeah. And what about the Relief of Mafeking? Nobody EVER talks about that these days.
Andrea Clifton@AndreaClifton2
@afneil It's alright critiscising Mandleson, but what about Starmer and his suit buyer? They are all the same.
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@zatzi Quite right. The tragedy is that I have to vote Reform to get it. Johnson and the Cons' just gaslighted us over economic growth and replaced European labour with Godhelpus 3rd worlders. We voted Con' most of our life. Sad
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“We need cheaper energy, lower taxes and slashed red tape” 👏
And for that we need a new government.
Andrew Griffith MP@griffitha
The CBI are slow to criticise so when they say business has had a bad start to the year, Labour should listen. The economy has been crippled under the stifling weight of Labour’s Jobs Tax, business rates hike and the red tape UnEmployment Act. Nothing is moving. We need cheaper energy, lower taxes and slashed red tape to get back to growth.
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@afneil You go to interfere with the US police carrying a gun. Means you have intent to use. Police have to act accordingly to stay alive.
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@PJTheEconomist These sorts of arguments emerge for reasons. The first relates to govt failure in growing general prosperity. This then leads to fighting over share of the pie. Poor policy leads to pork barrel trade-offs.
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100% this. It is outrageous that the, on average better off, over 60s get these freebies, while on average worse off, younger people subsidise them. Policy remains stuck in the 1970s when older people really were very poor on average. No longer true.
thetimes.com/article/1430ad…
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@The3rdFrame @afneil More money into the public sector isn't investment. It's just spending. If govt spending was the communist country's would have succeeded. Private sector inv' is what drives economic growth. Not tax and spend.
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@afneil So many people have short memories.
In 18 months this government have had to do so much to pick up the Tory carnage.
The economy is turning the corner. More investment is going into public services, education, NHS & infrastructure.
It's going to take a bit more time.
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I appreciate Reform’s poll position is not rock solid and there’s a way to go. Though it has hovered round 30% mark for quite some time now.
But you were also in power 1997-2010 with its ‘ups and downs’ and never polled anything close to 20%, even at your lowest points under G Brown. So you have a mountain to climb to stay in power.
Do you think K Starmer has 3+ years to go as PM?
Oliver Ryan MP@OliverRyanUK
@afneil Thing is Andrew, we're in Government, deciding and governing, which comes with its ups & downs - all they've to do is present themselves, and I hate to disappoint you, but folk aren't keen and we've 3+ years to go yet.
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