Emma 💛💙🇩🇰🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
Jan 12, 2024 20 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Hampshire Country Council have opened a consultation on what areas they should cut their services to 1.4 million residents, to ensure they meet their £132 million shortfall by April 2025 - following years of austerity cuts.

The options are pretty grim😢

🧵1/
1 - Adult social care charges

Rather than getting people to pay 95% of their care and support, we just go the full whack and charge them 100%

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2 - Withdraw funding from grant programs that support voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Given how much we now rely on volunteers to run things, making that EVEN harder doesn’t sound good

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3 - Remove the one off grant schemes that go to support community schemes and projects - again, usually helping volunteer run organisations with costs

Again - as a society we rely heavily on these kinds of organisations to support the most vulnerable.

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4 - Reduce the Cultural Trust grant that supports arts and museum services.

I mean, who needs culture in a society anyway 🙄

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5 - Reducing highways maintenance

I mean FFS - our roads are absolutely awful already

Hampshire ranked 8th in this pothole poll!



Reducing road maintenance, drainage improvements (given recent flooding?!) and surface treatments - is that smart?

6/ vanarama.com/blog/vans/reve…
Image
6 - Highways Winter Service

To redetermine which roads should be treated as a priority in winter…

You’ve seen what happens when we have more than an inch of snow, right?!

The country grinds to a halt. We should be improving it, not making it worse!

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7- Stop all homeless support services apart from their legally obligated requirements.

With homelessness rising across Hampshire (and the country as a whole), to cut support even further is just cruel.

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8 - Household waste recycling centres to provide further reduced services.

Hampshire CC contains 13 local authorities. EVERY single one sits in the bottom half of the National ranking of council recycling rates.

Cutting services further is a terrible idea!

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9 - Library stock

As if library services haven’t been hit hard enough already.

In a cost of living crisis, libraries are a vital part of our community - providing education, joy, community groups and warmth for many.

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10 - Passenger Transport

Yet another area that’s already cut to the bone. Hampshire has huge rural areas which would become inaccessible to those without a car. Cutting further community bus services, school buses etc would be a disaster

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11 - Rural countryside parking

So in a cost of living crisis, where there is very, very little pleasure that can be had for “free”, adding on charges to visit nature reserves and conservation sites seems cruel

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12 Crossing Patrols

Let’s get rid of the mechanism by which kids can cross safely to get to school.

Nope, can’t see anything going wrong there….😢

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13- Street Lighting

Reducing street lighting in both brightness and hours of operation.

Again - what could possibly go wrong! 🙄

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Don’t get me wrong - I don’t blame HCC for having to make these cuts. They’re in an impossible situation thanks to #ToryAusterity

We’ve had 13 years of cuts to every area of our lives. The Tories seem hell bent on creating a Britain that is just an empty husk of itself

15/
Do you remember a time when it was given that libraries would be there, street lights were a necessity, councils fixed the roads, ran community bus services to help the vulnerable…..

And now they can only do the absolute bare minimum of what they’re legally obliged to do

16/
This country is broken. Utterly, utterly broken.

We NEED a #GeneralElectionN0W

We NEED to start fixing the damage, investing in infrastructure, councils, public services.

We can’t take any more cuts.

17/
And don’t even think about claiming there’s no money!

If they can find £240 million to throw at Rwanda for a scheme they know will never happen and spend millions on a barge just for some performative cruelty, then they can start finding money to actually fix the country

18/
Im old enough to remember “Global Britain”, “Rule Britannia” “World beating Britain”….

Now we’re just broken Britain, disfunctional Britain, no heart, no soul, just crumbling and stumbling from self inflicted crisis to self inflicted crisis.

It has to end soon….🙏🏼

19/19 End
for those that live in Hampshire….👍🏻hants.gov.uk/aboutthecounci…

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More from @MonkEmma

May 13
Well, that Express headline was always going to raise a few eyebrows!😳

Starmer is responsible for embracing polygamy to appease Muslims, and so he's increasing their benefits??

That's the implication.

After all, this "started in April", right?

Wrong!

🧵1/25 Express Headline:  DWP increases benefits for husbands with 2 or more wives - Started in April
As ever, the first place to check is the article itself.

The Express doesn't make finding context, nuance, or explanation easy!

👇I had to scroll through 8 adverts, 2 blocks of links to other clickbait stories, and a newsletter signup block before reaching anything explanatory

2/Example of the eight adverts I had to scroll through
Example of the 2 other article clickbait story blocks I had to scroll through
A sign up block I needed to scroll through.
So let's look at the situation objectively.

Polygamous marriage is illegal in the UK.

However, people who have entered into a polygamous marriage while living in a country where that is legal will have that marriage status recognised in the UK under certain circumstances

3/ Extract from the Express article: Although bigamy is illegal in the UK, the act of marrying more than one person at a time - polygamy - is not illegal if the marriages took place overseas. This is legal where a person has married multiple wives (or husbands) overseas while legally living in a country where this is legally allowed, and then moved to the UK legally afterwards.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 17
🧵
These stories really are coming thick and fast at the moment🙄

Guess what?

The Canadian school is NOT 'banning food at lunchtime' during Ramadan🤦‍♀️

Obviously...

And if you BELIEVED it to be true, then you need to ask why you would choose to believe such an obviously ludicrous headline?

1/20Image
This story began with an account on X sharing an email from a Canadian middle school (ages 9-15) to parents about lunchtime arrangements during Ramadan, and demanding that people online harass the school

I'll come to the details of the email shortly.

First, a quick look at the Tanya Gaw...

2/A Twitter post by Tanya Gaw calls for action against a Canadian school's Ramadan lunchtime arrangements, urging public contact.
Tanya Gaw is the Founder of Action4Canada.

They want to 'Protect Canada's rich heritage, which is founded on Judeo-Christian biblical principles'.

They also happen to be anti-vax, anti-15min cities, anti-UN, anti-Trans, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, 5G obsessed...🙄

3/ Profile of Tanya Gaw, founder of Action4Canada, featuring her photo and a quote on freedom and rights. Background emphasizes her organization’s mission.
Website homepage for Action4Canada featuring sections on popular topics, including political Islam, food security, and vaccination.
Website layout for Action4Canada highlighting various current issues like abortion, climate change, and political topics with donation call to action.
A graphic urging to stop mass immigration to Canada, featuring bold text and logos of various email services, indicating inbox censorship.
Read 20 tweets
Mar 11
Oh boy! What a headline...

Ask yourself:

"What am I being asked to believe?"

"Who am I being told to blame?"

Take a few seconds to imagine what the Daily Mail (And Telegraph, GB News and Express) WANT you to think is going on.

Let's see what's ACTUALLY happening...🧵

1/21 Daily Mail Headline:  Pupils' drawings could be blasphemous under Islamic law, Labour councils tell schools - while music and dance classes may go against the teachings of Islam
Firstly, you are definitely supposed to blame Labour for this

After all, it is something Labour councils are telling schools while a Labour government is in power

Right?

This is the "offending" document causing the outrage in the RW media today, in March 2026

A document published in 2023...

2/Six characters representing diverse faiths and beliefs, surrounded by colorful shapes, promoting awareness in schools by Calderdale Council.
Yup, under the previous Tory government.

"But it was published by LABOUR councils!"😤

Yes, that particular document was.

However, Essex and Hampshire - both Tory councils - also have the same types of guidelines, both published in or before 2017

This is nothing new and nothing "Labour" driven

3/Document from Essex Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education focusing on accommodating pupils' religious obligations.
Hampshire SACRE advice for schools A teacher assists a group of children engaged in a creative activity, emphasizing topics related to religion and faith.
Read 21 tweets
Mar 8
Today we have a double debunk:

1. A debunk of the idea that 67 dog breeds are being banned in Britain

2. A debunk of what the usual suspects are saying online (because they are so tediously predictable!🙄)

🧵1/21 Image
The article opens with the giveaway that this isn't what's actually happening but is a warning from "campaigners" and "critics"

The Daily Mail points us to the Times to find out where this list of 67 dog breeds that could be banned comes from...

2/ Screenshot from the Daily Mail article: Sixty-seven dog breeds could be banned in Britain if new breeding guidelines set by parliament become mandatory, campaigners have warned. The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for animal welfare has launched a new tool to determine if a dog is healthy.
Screenshot from Daily Mail article: But critics have cautioned the new criteria will see some 67 of the most popular types of dog in the UK automatically dubbed unhealthy, according to The Times.
And here it is.

The breeds that Kennel Club members FEAR are at risk*

And the asterisk?

*List being shared among members...

So not an official list of breeds, just a speculative one.

There are just two individuals quoted in The Times as 'critics'

3/ Image
Read 21 tweets
Mar 4
Did you see this headline?

Did you feel the requisite anger and rage at asylum seekers that The Sun was asking of you?

Did you maybe blame Starmer because.... um... it was probably his fault🤷‍♀️

Would you like to know the reality behind the headline?

Course you would!😜

Let's take a look

🧵

1/25Sun headline about £500k compensation for migrants, discussing human rights, and public outcry over payouts.
🚨 The FACTS 🚨

This was a Sun "exclusive" following an FOI, but the story itself is a couple of years old

In 2022, the High Court found that the Home Office and the then Home Secretary Priti Patel, had been acting unlawfully with respect to asylum seekers from April to November 2020

2/
During this time:

1,300+ Asylum seekers had their phones unlawfully seized on arrival

400+ phones have NEVER been returned as the Home Office didn't keep accurate records of who they took them from

3 asylum seekers took the government to court in late 2020, having had their phones seized

3/
Read 25 tweets
Mar 1
OK, the Gorton and Denton by-election, I have some thoughts!

Let's take a look at some of the FACTS and burst a few of the more ridiculous takes doing the rounds

But first up, can we acknowledge just what bad losers Reform are?!🤣

Right, let's get started...

🧵 1/
Reform believe they're the "silent" majority

They can't compute that their brand of divisive, blame-your-neighbour politics doesn't wash when bots can't vote!

They are blaming Muslims and Commonwealth citizens for their G&D loss

But they also lost in 97% White British, 0.3% Muslim, Caerphilly🤷‍♀️
2/Screenshot from BBC Technology website:  Bot or not: Are fake accounts swaying voters toward Reform UK?  Picture of a man and a robot holding Reform UK arrow signs
Let's all take a look at the reality in G&D

It's an odd constituency made up of 2 parts

The Gorton bit (2/3) More ethnically diverse, more Muslim, younger, with more uni students and graduates

The Denton bit (1/3) older, more white, working class

graph from👇

3/open.substack.com/pub/swingomete…Graph from https://open.substack.com/pub/swingometer/p/the-gorton-and-denton-by-election showing the demographic differences between the Tameside and Manchester wards of Gorton and Denton Tameside wards average: - 82.6% white - 5.9% Muslim - 86.2% born in the UK - 6.2% full-time student - 22.5% graduate Manchester wards average: - 41.9% white - 39.4% Muslim - 61.9% born in the UK - 11.8% full-time student - 30.3% graduate
Read 25 tweets

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