White wine and opinions. Member @speechunion
UK
Joined February 2009
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Robert Corbishley retweeted
The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria is alarming. and why are we all mute about it? 💔
Robert Corbishley retweeted
Believing Britain's future lies within the European Union is a hugely pessimistic view.
It's a view that says Britain can't hack it setting its own tariffs, regulating its own goods and services, setting its own taxes, controlling its own border, and eventually managing its own currency.
It's a miserable acceptance that Britain is defeated - and consequently must be subsumed into a larger political entity, under a higher political authority.
Robert Corbishley retweeted
🤦🏻♂️They don’t make MPs for Wycombe like they used to.
'I don't think employers are working people.'
@CamillaTominey grills Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds MP, over whether Labour has breached its manifesto pledge in the Budget.
📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
Robert Corbishley retweeted
It exists.
🚨 EXCL: Labour minister claims that visions of Britain based on warm ale, pubs, and black labradors are a 'far-Right' fantasy that 'never really existed’
dailymail.com/news/article-1…
Robert Corbishley retweeted
And even the type of public sector experience is quite different! @Katie_Lam_MP was a business adviser in No 10, coming in from private sector, @TomTugendhat was in Afghanistan, @AndrewBowie_MP was in the Navy…
Robert Corbishley retweeted
There you have it folks, the Government saying that employers are not working people
The disdain for those that drive the economy is off the scale
Robert Corbishley retweeted
They literally have nothing else in the tank apart from nostalgia for those glory days when Brussels wrote the laws & UK politicians implemented them. Taking responsibility for our country's destiny? Nah, far too difficult. Democracy be damned.
NEW
Rachel Reeves tonight declares Britain should return to the European Union
The former chancellor says Brexit made the UK “poorer, weaker and less secure”
She will make her case in a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday
Reeves helped draft the Labour 2024 manifesto which said no EU return
She’s one of the most prominent Lab figures to back rejoin since Burnham became PM
The tectonic plates within Labour are shifting. Will more follow her?
Reeves writes in The Sunday Times:
“I am proud of the progress we have already made in strengthening our relationship with the European Union. Brexit has made us poorer, weaker and less secure.
“There is a debate to be had about our future relationship with Europe, and I welcome Andy Burnham’s leadership in facing up to this. No one in the Treasury ever doubted where my instincts were.
“I do believe Britain’s future lies in the European Union.
“However, it is incumbent on supporters of our re-entry to make the argument, demonstrate tangible benefits and to get the next steps right — especially ahead of the UK-EU summit later this month, where at a minimum we should be looking for confirmation of the ambitious youth mobility scheme negotiated earlier this year, and — I hope — progress towards entry into the SAFE defence partnership.”
thetimes.com/article/06d9b6a…
Robert Corbishley retweeted
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
Robert Corbishley retweeted
Only in Britain could a massive station (over 7.5 million passengers a year) be closed for half a year over escalator repairs.
We are NOT a serious country.
📢 City Thameslink will temporarily close from 17 May to late December 2027 while all 10 escalators at the station are replaced.
When it reopens, customers will benefit from modern, more reliable escalators.
ℹ️ More information, including travel advice 👇
thameslinkrailway.com/servic…
Robert Corbishley retweeted
BREAKING Eight migrant boats with more than 500 migrants on board are en route to the UK from the Continent. Watch for more updates now on @GBNEWS.
Robert Corbishley retweeted
If only he was in a position to do something about it.
Burnham says he wants to cut welfare bill 'as soon as we possibly can' bbc.in/4iq10L0
Robert Corbishley retweeted
Andy Burnham is so determined to tackle the bloated welfare bill that his first budget made it even bigger.
Pathological liar.
'I don't want to see anyone in their 20s on benefits'
Andy Burnham insists he does want to cut the welfare bill, in an interview with @DanielHewittITV
Watch our ITV Tonight Special, 'Burnham: Inside The First 100 Days' at 1915 on Tuesday 3rd November, ITV 1, ITVX and STV
Robert Corbishley retweeted
I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and as a young man in the 1990s and that lived experience leaves me convinced that Britain was a better society back then.
Of course there were real problems - recessions, industrial strikes, deindustrialisation and inequalities that should never be romanticised. Yet alongside them ran a stronger sense of community, greater everyday freedoms and a deeper spirit of national and local pride, stoicism and resilience. People looked out for one another more readily, lived with more basic contentment and faced difficulties with a toughness that now feels less commonplace.
Those qualities were not perfect, and they were not universal. But they shaped ordinary life in Britain in ways that feel diminished today.
This is not nostalgia for its own sake. I’ve lived through the diametric difference between these eras. Britain now lacks a core spirit that it used to take pride in. So where did it all go wrong?
Robert Corbishley retweeted
I don’t think this has had the press coverage it deserves. It is insane.
The right to decide who enters Britain belongs to the British state, not to whichever charity has the Home Office’s ear.
The opportunities for favouritism, nepotism and corruption are obvious. A well-connected individual with well-placed supporters will secure nomination over others facing greater persecution. Dodgy intermediaries may well demand money from families seeking sponsorship. Charities could become vehicles for bringing over relatives, associates or even political allies. It risks creating an entire system of private patronage.
I go into all this in more detail here: thecritic.co.uk/labours-gold…
Robert Corbishley retweeted
This deserves far greater publicity, so please repost.
The hidden tax measure in the Budget is huge for people paying tax under self-assessment - sole traders, partners, landlords, retired investors.
For 6th April 2028-29, you currently pay 50% of your income tax late in the tax year in question (in January 2029), 50% just after the year end (in July 2029) with any make-up payment in January 2030.
Under the new proposals you will pay your tax perhaps monthly or quarterly (TBC) from April 2029 onwards. A rough analysis suggests the impact is to draw about 50% of your tax bill forward, a huge cashflow boost to HMRC and a significant funding issue for the self-employed.
The Treasury recognises this, and expects to raise £1.3bn of additional tax in 29/30 as a result of this change.
The cashflow impact of the accelerated charge will send some businesses to the wall.
