fleetstreetfox
@fleetstreetfox
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Fleet Street hack and author. Often sarcastic, occasionally right. Fox (n) carnivore of genus vulpes; crafty person; scavenger; (vb) to confuse; to be drunk
Fleet Street, of course
Joined October 2009
'Brexit has been a wild and unqualified success, says absolutely no-one'.
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No, because sexual assault is a crime, not romance.
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I keep thinking about this Matthew Parris column from August 20.
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Drinks giant @CocaCola says it’ll keep trading with Russia. Fine. I won’t keep trading with it. Goodbye @CostaCoffee and @SchweppesGB tonic water.
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Well I reckon those pallbearers all deserve to be knighted. Lead lined English oak with the Crown Jewels on top, and it didn’t wobble once. Those lads must be knackered. 👑.
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Can we all please ignore every single announcement of "new laws" from the Queen's Speech today. He has a majority of -43. Not a single one can be passed. Please go about your day.
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80 years ago, my grandad was spending his first night on a Liberty boat off the Normandy coast, watching the carnage, hearing the bodies thump against the boat, with other people's vomit up to his ankles. He was a 32 year old furniture salesman from Gillingham, a conscript, and
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You never see those who claim to be worried about their country outside sweeping up the mess they made of it.
And now, the community clear up. A local construction company deployed men and machines in Southport, locals turning out with brooms and wheelbarrows to clear the debris. @GMB
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These cunts are lying. 1. Prorogation is not the same as recess. 2. Prorogation closes all scrutiny, all select committees, and House of Lords. 3. Those things continue during a normal conference recess. 4. Prorogation is average of 5-10 days. This is 35. 5. Why lie?.
Many people have contacted me about the prorogation of Parliament. I would urge everyone to look at the facts. The number of days Parliament is not sitting is only six more than was planned. Most importantly, Parliament is back well before October 31st. (1/5).
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He's got two degrees, was an international lawyer, and is still, somehow, a complete fucking moron.
WATCH: The new Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has told me the the "balance has shifted" towards no deal, but says "there's a deal to be done if the EU shows the flexibility we've shown.". I asked him what flexibility the UK government has shown:
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Suella Braverman, 2019, on her own website: "Time and again we hear of people convicted for serious violence or sexual assault who don't receive a sentence that properly reflects the severity of their crimes." . 2024, giving a thumbs-up that a rapist is leading the free world:
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From someone who said partying during lockdown was fine for a Prime Minister.
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So Boris Johnson:. * asked for an extension.* got a deal worse than May’s.* won’t Brexit by Oct 31.* and all because Parliament is sovereign. Please could people report this accurately as his failure.
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If 'senior Tory sources' are using BBC and ITV journalists to disseminate lies, that in itself is the story now. Is it the same ones? What else have they said? Who, what, where, when, why.
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Well well well well well. This is worth a thread and no mistake.
How did the Foreign Office manage to spend £4,333.30 on two trips to the hairdresser?. Why has their spending via government procurement cards shot up 45% since last September?. And why won’t they answer these and dozens more related questions?. Read all about it in my letter:
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No reporter seems to have yet found an 80-year-old farmer who still owns their own land and has children to pass it on to. Maybe that's because most family farmers pass it on in their 60s, and die after any IHT is due?. It's a tax only paid by people who don't trust their.
'This Budget has ripped the heart out of us'. Farmer David Barton spoke to #BBCBreakfast as thousands of farmers protest in Westminster over plans to charge inheritance tax on farms valued at more than £1m.
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Considering you were booted out of office, who gives a fuck?.
On State of the Nation tonight at 8 o’clock I will reveal which of the final two candidates for the the Conservative leadership I will be supporting. Is it Kemi or Robert? @GBNEWS.
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Some of those watching or taking part in the #RemembranceDay2023 parade may have noticed it slowed down in the last half. Here’s why. /🧵
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Take a moment to notice that a state-educated female from New Cross and the Wirral has replaced a Bullingdon Boy from Eton in the most prestigious job in current affairs.
We are delighted to welcome Fiona Bruce as the new presenter of Question Time. Join us on the 10th of January on @BBCOne as Fiona presents the first Question Time of 2019. #bbcqt .
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The same Crispin Odey who runs Odey Asset Management, where Kwasi Kwarteng .used to work? . How amazing.
Good old Crispin - While the rest of the country is on it's arse, the Brexit backer's hedge fund soars 145% on bets against UK bonds.
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.@PippaCrerar, formerly of this parish and Official Party Pooper to Boris Johnson, has been nominated for journalist of the year by the London Press Club. I for one will hold a party, legal or otherwise, if she wins.
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Due to boundary changes, the very safe Tory seat in Kent where I live has been split. Today I received a letter from the new Tory candidate, who said: "I am delighted to introduce myself.". Let's meet her, shall we?
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Let's check the Boris reliability-o-meter, shall we?.1) Fathers child in affair, runs away.2) Writes lies in newspaper, runs away.3) Promises things with a bus, runs away.4) Promises to lie in front of Heathrow bulldozers, runs away.5) Brexit turns to shit. you guess.
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I know it's Twitter and there's no editor but please don't RT pictures of dead and wounded on Westminster Bridge. They have loved ones.
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Dunno but 17m Leavers didn’t bother to sign the Leave Now petition either.
Why have 10 million who voted Remain still not signed this petition? Have they all changed their minds?.
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For those wondering why journalists aren’t showing you what’s happening in hospitals - we can’t break in, and the ministers refuse access. An individual overriding that would lose their job, a trust would lose funding.
7. Senior clinicians in multiple hospitals tell me they are desperate to show the reality inside our ICUs, wards and EDs. They aren't allowed to. All comms have been centralised. 8. I know this to be true at a Trust level too. CEOs who *want* to show the truth and can't.
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Turns out we have a PM who sends thank you cards. And does stuff. And inspires nice-and-normal people to demonstrate how nice and normal they expect everyone else to be. Sweet lord but it's a relief.
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As a key govt worker, Dominic Cummings had the right to access normal childcare for his son. It would have given him and wife a minimum of 6.5 hours a day, potentially more, to relax and focus on getting well. So why didn’t they just do that?.
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I love the fact a gorilla broke out of a zoo 3hrs ago and still no shots fired. Harambe would still be alive if he was British.
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I don’t care what side you’re on, @bydonkeys has done such sterling work for democracy and accountability they should all be knighted after this.
“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.” - @DavidDavisMP .Parliament Square, London.23rd March 2019
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That would be the sentencing guidelines in place at time of their 2017 convictions, which were the responsibility of an independent council appointed by……………… Liz Truss!
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Man lies: let’s all move on. Woman tells truth: let’s move her on.
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Please stop criticising waffle by journalists. They’re working very hard, speaking while knowing more than they can say, commentating while checking texts, finding the right words and treading a fine line. This is hard work; they’re also human and have griefs of their own. Pace.
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I've changed my phone too. Still got all my messages - and even if I didn't, they're all still on the Whats App server.
"I've changed my phone multiple times over the past few years and as that has happened the messages have not come across". Rishi Sunak outlines the reason for missing WhatsApp messages after questioning from Hugo Keith KC. Follow live
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1. Never, ever, tie your dog to the pushchair.2. If your dog pulls like this they need training.3. What kind of monster goes for a run in his work shirt?
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We’ve all had to do that drive to that bedside at some point; and if we haven’t, we will. They’re awful, grim times when you just try to hold it together and do all the right things. The Royals have more practice at that than us. But still, an awful journey.
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If someone doesn't headline the story of the ridiculous #BigBen vigil with "BELL ENDS" there will be no point to life any more.
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Obviously I filled in the survey with some rude words and posted it back in the SAE provided. 88p less for the Tory war chest is 88p closer to sanity.
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Katie used to work for Dominic Cummings. Katie worked for Boris in No10, and was a SpAd to Suella 'Batshit' Braverman. Katie was once accused of kicking Dilyn the dog after he allegedly pissed in her handbag. Katie doesn't mention the detail on LinkedIn either.
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Honestly. Meghan refuses a Vogue cover that would focus on her, and does something that focuses on others - and still gets beasted for it. If you have a problem with it, you need to fuck all the way off.
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OMG they've found a WhatsApp from 2020. Where's the rest, hmm?.
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We grabbed John’s arms again, got back onto Horseguards, and he stopped at last, beaming still, and said “I did it!”. This is him at the end with Keith, just before 5,000 veterans ran into the back of us.
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Perhaps you could properly honour the legacy of Captain Sir Tom Moore by properly funding the NHS in future so that centenarians don't need to skip around the garden to raise 1% of the £30billion your government is underfunding it by.
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Faked pictures of soldiers urinating on prisoners? Anyone?
**NEW COLUMN**.Why @BuzzFeed shamed journalism with their disgraceful smear job on @realDonaldTrump
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Of course they intentionally pushed back compensation for postmasters until after the election, when Labour would have to pay for it. They've done the same for Grenfell, Windrush, nuke veterans, WASPI women and countless others. This is nasty politics.
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What’s astonishing is not that Rishi was defeated, but that he actually whipped his MPs to in effect vote against compensation for 30,000 people negligently given infected blood, and who were then subject to a 40 year cover up. What kind of person does that? Cc @cazjwheeler.
Rishi Sunak suffers humiliating Commons defeat over Infected blood scandal.
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And there you have it. Faced with the moral choice of honouring veterans, or begging for votes, Sunak chose the least moral. With the political choice to look like a statesman or a prat, he chose prat. Give the man a map and a compass and he still wouldn't know which way was up.
It was No10’s choice to do the interview today.
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At the #remembranceday2022 event at the Cenotaph tomorrow, you will see a small band of veterans wearing these black and yellow badges. It is the #MissingMedal.
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What I don’t understand is the police and MI5 will go undercover for years to infiltrate some harmless hippies, but don’t seem able to spot and arrest actual Nazis who’ve been organising and funding flashmobs to harass politicians for 6 years now.
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This is pathetic. It infantilises him, makes his girlfriend manipulative, and denigrates his wife for not having a mythical, magic vagina. What annoys me most is the Mail readership of older women will lap it up without noticing it’s demeaning them.
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Saying boys can't wear dresses because of your faith is ridiculous. Every faith I can think of is led by men in, at best, not-trousers.
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I set up 2x school papers, did work experience on local rag, begged for an apprenticeship, did my NCTJ and worked like a dog for 25yrs. No contacts, no degree, and a comprehensive education. It’s not a cult Owen, it’s just people think you’re a bit of a twat.
The main thing I've learned from working in the British media is that much of it is a cult. Afflicted by a suffocating groupthink, intolerant of critics, hounds internal dissenters, full of people who made it because of connections and/or personal background rather than merit.
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The most telling bit was when the Tory backbenches threw their hands up in despair about inheritance tax on agricultural land kicking in after £1m to protect small family farms. Most Tory farms aren't that small.
Sunak incandescent with rage. Whole of the Tory benches are, actually. It's a combination of self-interest and ideology. Labour's narrative (correctly) pins the blame on them for the state we're in. And its solution is higher taxes, more borrowing and more investment.
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Really enjoying* watching the headbangers claim it’s now up the EU to do something .1. You wasted 2yrs screaming into your own arseholes.2. That’s not how negotiations work .3. The Irish border is still a thing. * I’m not enjoying it, this is shit, people are stupid.
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Raab has known the date of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan since January. So why did he book his holiday for immediately afterwards?
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A reminder that Priti Patel and Cressida Dick - who knew the awful details of Sarah Everard’s death at the time - thought this was fine.
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No, the British public hasn't 'lost faith in the NHS'. It's lost faith with the people who were supposed to be looking after it, and have cut costs, battled nurses, pissed off doctors, destroyed dentistry, and killed people. Let that be the headline.
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"High end private catering, wellness and beauty treatments, extensive supplies from UK wineries, large amounts of home furnishing, and £1.8k at the Norwich City club shop.". That's an unfortunate coincidence, considering Liz is a Norwich City supporter.
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"Naga Munchetty was born in the UK, went to school here, pays taxes here, and works for the BBC. That all makes her slightly more British than Boris Johnson, and he has yet to apologise for anything, to anyone, ever." .
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Keir Starmer has passed his first test. Nice and normal 1, Nazis 0.
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Paid more per month by GBN than he gets in an entire year as an MP. £1.2m in his back pocket, but he'll tell you the elite is someone else.
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Please get well soon, @BorisJohnson. Whatever our differences, I think we can all agree that nobody wants Dominic Raab in charge.
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100 years ago today suffragettes chained themselves to Buckingham Palace. Every woman in Britain who can should vote tomorrow.
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If we’d vaccinated Africa this perhaps wouldn’t have happened.
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Bernard Jenkin on #Newsnight: it’s up to the EU if they want to destroy our economy with swingeing tariffs. I thought we were supposed to be taking back control?.
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Perhaps he could have acted:. - 2yrs ago when hauliers warned there were problems.- 3mo ago when retailers warned deliveries under threat.- 2mo ago when his govt quietly started looking at HGV visas.- 4wks ago when industry wrote to him screaming about exactly this.
new splash on @ft website:. Boris Johnson has given the go-ahead to ministers to relax UK immigration rules to allow more foreign truck drivers into the country to ease shortages at petrol stations and wider economic disruption.
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BBC News is getting rid of the nightly paper review. What an enormous shame - and also denies people worldwide a breakdown and analysis of what’s in the news by people other than bbc employees.
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The irresistible, death-defying pull factor of the sweet, sweet offer of… £5.66 a day.
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The Johnson Spike.
The EU didn’t think Christmas mattered quite as much as Johnson did, hence the divergence.
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“Labour bankrupted the economy in 2010”? Pretty certain that’s when you made a multi million pound killing in the banking crash, Rishi.
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Tell me again how Labour is not an effective Opposition. This is brilliant, unsung work which will change the lives of thousands for years to come.
Confirmed - Govt has finally accepted our proposal to lift 6 month time limit on domestic abuse prosecutions!. We put huge pressure on to get this through. Thanks to @RefugeCharity @womensaid @centreWJ @EricaOsakwe @CommissionerDA . We’ll keep up pressure for further action too/.
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The arrogance of this. A man who lives in millionaire's haven on the Isle of Wight parachuting himself into what he considers to be somewhere racist enough to vote for him, which he knows little about and understands even less, where people are broke and unemployed. And they.
Richard Tice confirms that Reform will stand candidates in 630 seats. He’ll stand himself in Boston and Skegness.
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Therese Coffey:. * Earns £149,437.* Employs her sister as a secretary.* Gets more than £10k a year rental income from a second home. Of course she doesn't give a fuck about £20.
"£20 a week is about two hours extra work every week, we will be seeing what we can do help people perhaps secure those extra hours”. On #BBCBreakfast Work and Pension Secretary Thérèse Coffey says the increase to universal credit was always temporary.
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I’ve been angry for most of the past year, but now it’s despair. How can they fuck up so badly? How can a nation with all our gifts and strengths, with the amazing achievement of a vaccine in less than a year, still be in such a fucking mess?.
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The accidental racism of Danny Baker vs the intentional racism of Farage, Robinson, and Trump. Twitter gets angry about Danny, but actively enables the others. Something's amiss.
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Dear @metpoliceuk - is there still a "lack of evidence" that there was a party going on?
NEW: Conservative activists filmed dancing at a Christmas party during Covid restrictions in 2020 were invited to what was described as a "Jingle and Mingle" -- the BBC has seen the invite
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Ambushed by porn. It was a wank event. Sleaze and whine. Cockdown parties. Followed the guy-dance. I did not watch porn, I am assured I did not watch porn, I accept there may be some who think I watched porn, I understand the hurt caused, let’s wait to see if it was porn.
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You had a vote. You lost. Get over it.
Fuming Tories demand new vote to oust Theresa May as 'two thirds' of MPs want her gone
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Small boat crossings, 2019-22: 84,590. Deaths in Channel, 2019-22: 56. Prime Minister with responsibility, 2019-22… ?
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Anyone who can spaff £30k on a cock shot can pay his own lawyers.
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The thing they cannot admit is this: they have run out of Brexits. All the versions promised have been proven not to exist. All that’s left is the Shittest Brexit Possible, the one they said it would never be, and they’re determined to force it on a nation that does not want it.
I don't get how the people cooking up this bullsh1t in Downing Street - some of whom I must have worked with - are not deeply ashamed of themselves. Here I am in my mid forties still so naive. I've read dozens of political biographies and cannot recall such shamelessness.
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Dear @jeremycorbyn: it is all very well waiting for the Tories to eat themselves (it’s working), but unless you have a viable alternative in which people don’t die and the economy doesn’t tank you are not leading an Opposition to this clusterfuck.
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Please please please don't give the vaccines to Serco.
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Replace the word 'Harry' in every tweet with the word 'Diana', and then see how it sounds.
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Genuine question to all sides of the debate: name me one good, useful thing that's happened as a result of the Brexit referendum.
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Katie may be lovely and must be bright to have worked where she has. Maybe she'd make a marvellous MP. But a) starting out by not telling people a single damned thing about you who are or what you stand for is a pretty poor look.
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If you ever thought your vote didn't matter: a few thousand people just changed the future for NATO, the UN, the WHO, the Paris climate accord, nuclear weapons, Brexit, Chinese trade wars. They didn't expect their vote to make a difference. You never know when yours will. Vote.
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Everything just feels a bit. cleaner. A faint whiff of Mr Sheen in the air.
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The contortions of a newspaper which campaigned for years to overturn the criminal conviction of a soldier accused of murdering a Taliban, to somehow say that killing MORE Taliban in a way that was NOT against the rules of war is WORSE.
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Yet to hear many of these reporters point out that 52% of such crossings last year were granted automatic asylum, and 40% of appeals were granted too. That means the vast majority of these crossings were not illegal. There is no way to claim asylum while in a different country.
The gross Faragification of the news cycle by the govt is shameless. But the decision by news orgs to amplify it is appalling. Shame on @skynews.
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Stanley Johnson's right: there are too many people in the world. And all of them are called Johnson.
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Kemi's shadow cabinet so far:. Chancellor - man who wants to abolish the pensions triple lock.Education - woman who doesn't understand percentages.Foreign - woman fired for freelancing policy on Israel. It's all going really well so far.
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This care worker is 17. She probably earns less than standard minimum wage. She's shown all the heart and soul anyone could ever hope to have, and is worth her weight in gold.
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Just waiting for someone to notice the real reason Elon Musk is having a pop is because of the Online Safety Act, which will see him fined up to 10% of X's global revenue if he does not remove illegal content posted by twats like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
'Nigel Farage was wooed, seduced, and dumped by a Christmas cad'.
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Boris: 22 alleged parties, 12 police investigations, 1 fine so far, a suitcase, a karaoke machine, and lying to Parliament. Keir: 1 beer in the kitchen. Tories: IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME!!!!!. Voters: Hmmm, not so much actually.
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A reminder that if you think a singer is in anyway responsible for the military policy of a government then you're an idiot.
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So Kit Malthouse thinks busting a statue is a crime, and Priti Patel says Churchill was defaced by "repulsive criminals". Maybe; but they're inanimate. I thought driving 260mi with a deadly disease was a crime against the living. Turned out I was wrong.
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So. We’ve all got enough toilet roll this time, yes? We’ve practiced our sourdough? Set up for Zoom? . Then please could we remember, as we head towards another spike, that this one is the fault of the same people who locked down too late to properly squash the last one.
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