Success has many parents. Allow me a brief proprietorial moment. In May 2022, I visited the Shadow Treasury Team and proposed a raft of strategies for Rachel Reeves. (Blame me if you tired of hearing her say she was a trained economist who worked at the Bank of England!)
1/4 My chief suggestion was that the party could put forward no policies, zero, nilch, nada - at least until they could go on Newsnight and not be asked, "That's a nice idea, but how would you pay for it?"
Because that was code for, "Labour is not trusted on the economy."
2/4

I love my followers. A truly humbling roster of wonderful, talented and thoughtful folk. Almost all of them (apart from a certain Mr Tice whom I had to block) 'progressive' of one kind or another. People, in short, of decency and compassion, of moral and scruple.
1/15 People who are most likely to examine policy and pronouncement in detail, and exercise their vote with care and conscience.

These are exactly the people to whom I want to appeal now:
please, don't vote with your heart. Please, forget those fine scruples I admire and love.
2/15

It's not that these Tories are awful.

(They are. They are staggeringly incompetent, dishonest and corrupt. Many of them have knowingly led the country toward poverty and isolation for their own short term gain, and therefore can reasonably be described as traitors.)

1/13 It's that Tory ideas and values have been shown, these last 14 years, to be bogus.

These Conservatives may be awful, but ConservatISM has been exposed as bankrupt.

2/13

Do you think Boris Johnson knew about lockdown parties in Number 10? If yes, do you think Boris Johnson knew those parties were against the law?

In the mid-90s I set fire to myself. My sister and her husband arrived for dinner from the Isle of Wight. I turned up the gas on the stove and threw the pasta into the boiling water.
1/18 As they came in I turned to greet them. The kitchen in our little flat was tiny. I leaned back and saw their faces turn from glad-to-be-here to sheer horror. Then I felt the flames at my back. My shirt was on fire.
/2

What should we expect from the Tories today? An apology. Because what Sunak called 'a profound economic crisis' doesn't happen overnight. This mess has been 12 years in the making. Failed austerity and a botched Brexit left us an economy without resilience.
1/17 What should we expect from the Tories today? An apology. Because an economy weakened after 12 years of public service cuts, high taxes and botched Brexit could not cope with the shocks of the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine.
2/17

I don't feel safe under Sunak, It was Sunak who pressed Johnson not to heed SAGE's 21st September 2020 advice to lock down, and brought pseudoscientists into Downing St to argue for more Covid denial. That bollox brought us 30,000 deaths per month by Jan 2021. I don't feel safe under Sunak. It was Sunak who, in this year's Spring Statement, with the economy clearly tanking and the cost of living clearly out of control, insisted that the government 'can't be expected to solve every problem' - and so he did effectively nothing.

This week is extraordinary. But they've been steadily making most of us poorer for 12 long years. It's time for change. They've pretended to care about poverty and redistribution for 12 long years. Now, not even the pretence.

Rising panic over the energy crisis brings it into sharp relief: the Tories, despite being populists, failed on every front to govern for the people. But don't be fooled. They may have failed us, but they were busy. Busy using their majority to ram through a raft of legislation. This raft of legislation did nothing for you and me, but it did a lot for authoritarian government - taking away rights, preventing scrutiny, reducing democracy and criminalising protest. Their populist slogans have been nothing but a mask for their authoritarian agenda.

The UK has a sword-of-Damocles cost of living (and cost of trading) crisis hanging over it, and no effective government.
#takebackBritain Will this get better when Johnson finally sheds his current snakeskin, and Truss or (just possibly) Sunak takes over? It will not. They both represent more of the same - a breathtaking disregard for real people.
#takebackBritain

So the Tories are hiding from each other in Parliament. Literally hiding behind chairs in side rooms.
They're giving the public the middle finger. Also literally.
They're boasting about cutting the taxes they insisted were necessary. Claiming fiscal responsibility as birthright when the evidence of decades shows they consistently mismanage the economy - they strip it and sell it and dole it out the proceeds to their mates, crushing our services and our safety net.

Michael Green has thrown his hat into the ring. As transport secretary and a shadow minister since 2007, he is the candidate with the most political experience to have entered the race.
1/4 Corinne Stockheath has thrown his hat into the ring. As transport secretary and a shadow minister since 2007, he is the candidate with the most political experience to have entered the race.
2/4

Say what you like about the suffering he caused to the victims and families of those who were sent to their deaths in care homes, but Boris Johnson got all the big calls right.
1/8 Say what you like about Boris Johnson failing to chair Cobra meetings, shaking hands in hospitals, and sorting out his divorce, while tens of thousands caught Covid and died, but he got all the big calls right.
2/8

We know the Tories aren't going to help us with the cost of living.
Why? Because they've said so.
- It's 'down to individuals to make spending choices'.
- it's ideology for them. They don't really believe in helping people. They like to let markets do their thing.
1/15 - Their interim solution is a loaned reduction on our energy bills. It's not enough, and it'll have to be paid back.
- their broader argument is that there needs to be a long-term energy policy. That helps nobody now, and who has faith in a Johnson-led long term policy?
2/15

If you voted for a party calling themselves 'Local Conservatives', you'd be voting for people who couldn't even be honest about who they really are.
1/4 If you voted for a party calling themselves 'Local Conservatives', you'd be voting for people who know their national leadership is a disgrace, but still want your support for their wrecking-ball mismanagement of the UK.
2/4

The problem with the Tories is where their money comes from.
The problem with the oligarchs is where their money comes from.
The problem with the 'think tanks' is where their money comes from.
The problem with the libertarian activist groups is where their money comes from.
1/5 The problem with the 'taxpayer' advocacy groups is where their money comes from.
The problem with the schoolchild advocacy groups is where their money comes from.
The problem with the anti-vax groups is where their money comes from.
2/5

Ukraine reopens the casebook on our recent history with Russia, and exposes the Vote Leave cabal, now in power, to a scrutiny they thought they had successfully avoided. It presents them with a bind - they harder they go on Putin, the more they risk undermining their own

1/4 Brexit-dependent legitimacy. Putin's paws and cash were all over Brexit. The Vote Leave Tories are in power on a 'get Brexit done' ticket. They have literally done the bidding of World Enemy Number 1.

2/4

Hands up if all those rubles sloshing round the Conservative party make you queasy. Hands up if Johnson's off-grid Russian partying makes you queasy.

It's 2022. Let's stop pussy-footing around and call the regime what it is... The Policing Bill, the Elections Bill, the Nationality & Borders Bill, media control, othering of migrants and lawyers, sweeping use of secondary legislation, brazen lies and wholesale corruption...

1/6 You know where I'm going with this. If it makes you feel uncomfortable saying the word, or you think it's somehow "unhelpful", I get it. I've been there too, I've done that too, I've sat on my hands too.

2/6

In September we sent our kids back to school - with much trepidation, but at least with the promise of vaccination for teens (albeit 1 dose) by half term. That half-hearted teen vaccination programme essentially failed, and schools drove 50k/day cases throughout the autumn. In January, as the focus starts to shift to 5-11 year olds, are we to send them back on a similarly unreliable promise that they will be vaccinated? Parents can have little confidence in this government's capacity or willingness to protect children.

There's a terrible idea going round that I thought we had dismissed in all but extremist circles. But it was repeated today on Radio 4 by an august professor. It is the suggestion that kids are vaccinated more for the social good than their own good. Therefore the risks...
/1 ... associated with vaccine for kids have to weigh more heavily in the cost/benefit analysis. The underlying thought is "they're getting vaccinated more for us than them" so we must proceed with great caution. Sounds reasonable, but it really is lousy thinking. Here's why:
/2