Views (mostly) my own, the odd few to keep things stirred up and interesting. Current Affairs 📰 | MilTwitter🪖 | PME📖 |Freemasonry🤝 | Ski Touring 🗻
Joined September 2011
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At 1:00 in see how our AAC Ground Officers (ASOs) and our soldiers work as part of the team to keep these aircraft effective and operating for longer #TheTeamWorks #FlyFightLead #ArmyAirCorps #FARPsForDays #BritishArmy #ALifeLessOrdinary
Recce at the forefront of Regimental business; supported by a team of excellent personnel across a multitude of trades and cap badges. 1 AAC is doing business across Europe as it should be. #TrainHardFightEasy #WeAreNato #ArmyAviation #CombatAviation #FlyFightLead @1st_Aviation
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
“Bleak” IFS Chart on living standards by decade…
Who remembers the talk of a “roaring 2020s”?
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
In 1999 you had to earn over 4x the minimum wage to be considered a higher earner on the 40% rate.
Today just 1.8x the minimum wage considered high earner!
If the same minimum-wage-to-high-earner ratio was applied from 1999 you’d have to earn over £115k before hitting the 40% income tax rate.
We’re seeing a level of wage compression that would make a Soviet era socialist blush.
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Just an incredibly grim chart.
Last decade was comfortably the worst on postwar record for living standards...
This decade: hold my drink.
The outlook for real household disposable incomes after yesterday's Budget remains bleak.
@OBR_UK forecasts incomes will rise by just 2% over the whole 2020s.
This is far lower than any other decade since the 1950s.
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Wow - just listening to Jonathan Haskel, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility on Radio 4
He says UK GDP spent on welfare is rising to 11% of GDP from 10.5% of GDP following the budget. "That's a big increase."
Yet Chancellor John Healey can't even say how he's going to inch up defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 even as his government says the military needs to be ready for war by then.
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
OBR chart on real household disposable income growth over the decades. Just wow
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
There is not a single mention in the Budget of the government's new three-year "Be Ready" campaign to strengthen national resilience in the face of mounting threats (from severe weather to war).
This feels like an oversight⬇️
assets.publishing.service.go…
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Fantastic interviewing from the BBC’s @sallynugent.
Imagine if Farage had got this kind of scrutiny and persistent questioning from UK media interviewers over the past decade? The UK might not be in the mess it is today.
Look how annoyed and uncomfortable he is.
Car crash alert 🚨
Sally Nugent asks Nigel Farage about Raheem Kassam's “Nigerian scammer” comments on Kemi Badenoch and his response is painful to watch.
#bbcbreakfast
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Robert Jenrick wasn’t born when decimalisation happened in the UK.
Nobody under the age of 65 will understand it, that’s about 80% of the population.
Ridiculous idea, ridiculous party, ridiculous man.
Reform plan to 'bring back imperial measurements' as party announces list of pledges it says will create jobs
lbc.co.uk/article/reform-imp…
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Perhaps if we had been a major land power before either war we might have saved ourselves 4-5 years of pain.
The UK has never been a major land power in Europe outside of war. The 2H of the 20C was an aberration. The situation has changed dramatically.
The benefit of being in an alliance is we can prioritise and share the burden. After all no one is asking Bulgaria and Poland to field ASW forces in the North Atlantic, or deploy ballistic nuclear missiles, or develop 6th gen bombers.
‘Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil - each to our part, each to our station’
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Farage has really fallen from grace.
No good answer under the slightest bit of scrutiny and as with his hero Trump, his default is to then get snappy with a female journalist.
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
997 days
Healey vows cheaper marmalade and gherkins in pre-Budget package of 'everyday fixes' bbc.in/4zTnQ4K
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
One of the greatest officers ever to serve in the @BritishArmy. His approach to #leadership was unorthodox but highly successful. The stories about him are the stuff of legend. Interview courtesy of @Telegraph
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
There is no area, of any city which isn’t made infinitely better by well-thought through pedestrianisation.
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
imagine if someone suggested cramming all these people onto the pavements to make space for motor traffic down the middle
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
It’s kind of Liz to thank us but she very much managed it on her own
Traitorous Gove, Cartlidge and Stride toppled me, claims Liz Truss
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
Exclusive: General Lord Sanders has intervened on John Healey’s maiden budget, telling @telegraph it’s “incredible” that the Chancellor - who resigned as Defence Secretary over a lack of money for defence - would not use next week’s Budget to explain how the UK will get to 3% by 2030.
Lord Sanders told me that you can’t expect industry to prepare the nation for war when it has no idea how the gov intends to get to its NATO target of 3.5% by 2035 when it can’t even set out the initial steps of getting there.
Lord Sanders was speaking at the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on rearmament, which is running an inquiry into the state of the military and whether it needs to rearm (short answer: Yes.)
He stressed the Army has some of the best people in the world serving, but they don’t have the money or capabilities to back this moral component up. So while the UK could fight day 1 of a war, without adequate stockpiles etc being able to hold the fight on day 30/day 90 is not a sure thing.
Mike Martin, @ThreshedThought
who chairs the APPG told telegraph: “We heard today in our inquiry that the UK is effectively unable to deter our enemies on land and we are taking grave risks as a nation.
“For the Government not to set out a credible path to 3 per cent of GDP next week in the budget beggars belief.”
V interesting conversation where Lord Sanders also told those gathered in Houses of Parliament that he was deeply concerned about lawfare, the Troubles Bill in its current shape and how soldiers HAVE to feel that the country “has their back”. How can they be expected to fight for king and country if they fear they will be hung out to dry by the very institution they dedicate their lives to?
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
"I once watched world famous actor Michael Sheen blame a Little Mix dance choreography routine for the murder of Grant Mitchell" #CelebrityTraitors
Will Hearnshaw retweeted
can we normalize returning summaries to the backs of the books again instead of reviews and praises? i just want to know what the book is about.
