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Sarah Ludford 🇬🇧 🇮🇪🇪🇺 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Sarah Ludford 🇬🇧 🇮🇪🇪🇺 🇺🇦
@SarahLudford
Londoner, Lib, LSE grad, Legislator, ‘Lady’, ex-MEP; @LibDemLords; *uber-Remainer* (Politico)
Oct 19 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I hope both @wesstreeting and @ShabanaMahmood read this devastating article by @TimesONeill about the scandalous death of his daughter Maeve from ME & the complete lack of support for bereaved families - incl no legal aid at inquests while NHS is lawyered-up at taxpayer expense There was inquest into my late husband’s death 5 yrs ago. I was told was automatic since he died suddenly, even tho I said unnecessary as I was satisfied medics did all they could. Meanwhile @TimesONeill had 3-yr wait for essential inquest. @ShabanaMahmood needs to sort out.
Jun 7, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I suspect that Johnson-nominated peers will not want to share the ‘honour’ that I and a relatively small band of us are enjoying, to stay till midnight or so battling against the inhumanity of the govt’s treatment of refugees in the #IllegalMigrationBill I told a lie. We have not stopped at midnight. The govt is exerting macho power by forcing us to debate crucial issues about their plans for arbitrary indefinite detention into the early hours of the morning.
I had better restrain what I say about them, it is unprintable
Apr 27, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Only 35 (21%) of @LabourLordsUK voted in favour of this last attempt - by one of their own, Shami Chakrabarti - to get respect for Refugee Conv into this Bill, while @LibDemLords with only half their numbers fielded 72 (87% of us) in favour. If they’d matched us, we’d have won. And on the #ElectionsBill, only 67 (40% of their 167) @LabourLordsUK voted for Lord Judge’s amendment to uphold @ElectoralCommUK independence while 70 (84% of our @LibDemLords 83) did so.
Again, if they’d voted in same proportion as us, we’d have won - easily.
Apr 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“Johnson’s govt is drafting law that would give ministers power to override the NI protocol of Brexit deal..the very treaty that Johnson hailed as ‘great’ ‘excellent’, fulfilment of all his negotiating ambitions. If that were true, he would not now be planning to set it on fire.” “In the Brexiteer imagination it is an action adventure movie. Brussels has taken a portion of UK sovereignty hostage. Plucky Boris must go in, all guns blazing, to retrieve it. In such escapades of derring-do, playing by the rules & respecting treaties is for remoaner softies.”
Apr 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“If Finland & Sweden join the alliance [Nato], as they look poised to do, they will bring substantial new military capabilities, including advanced air & submarine capabilities, that will alter the security architecture of northern Europe & help deter further Russian aggression.” “Important initiatives to strengthen EU defense and security policy integration are underway, but as far as territorial defense is concerned, duplicating the institutions and command structures of NATO would make little sense and won’t happen.”
Feb 28, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
“Ukrainian woman & 15-year-old diabetic daughter are feeling increasingly distraught after escaping conflict in Ukraine only to be blocked from visa the UK govt announced on Sunday evening for which they are eligible.”

And still we’re being fobbed off by shameful govt answers “family hoped wd be straightforward to reach UK, after publication of new HO guidance for some family members of British cits to apply free of charge..But when they tried to apply for new visa online they were blocked..unless paid £thousands even tho applic supposed to be free”
Dec 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“use of public rental vehicles [is] dwarfed by that of an estimated half million illegal e-scooters in Britain.
Legislation has been put on hold amid increasing safety concerns over private unregulated e-scooters” “influential voices in government suggest that far from switching from cars, most e-scooter users were previously cycling, walking or on public transport, which have better health benefits and environmental credentials.”
Dec 25, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“There are suggestions from some in government that Frost – a Brexit purist and fanatical deregulator – came to suspect Johnson had no real plan, no real detailed idea of how to make Brexit work beyond slogans and soundbites.”

Surely not? 😩🙄😢 theguardian.com/politics/2021/… “The extent of economic damage from Brexit has been made clear by the Office for Budget Responsibility, which predicts that leaving the EU will reduce our long-term GDP by around 4%, compared to a fall of around 1.5% that will be caused by the pandemic.”
Oct 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Johnson to #r4today:
‘Shortage of labour is a sign of economic robustness’ .@bbcnickrobinson on @BBCr4today riposte to Johnson waffling & whining that ‘I haven’t had a chance to explain this to your listeners for 2 years’:
- ‘your choice not ours’
Sep 1, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“There is mounting anxiety in the UK legal profession that respect for the rule of law in this country is declining. The current climate and legislation due to be considered in the forthcoming parliamentary term are cause for serious concern.” “ministers and sections of the media have derided judges as ‘enemies of the people’ & lawyers as leftwing ‘activists’. It is dangerous for government, in particular, to attack legal professionals for just doing their jobs, & to do so undermines the framework of laws made by parl”
Aug 28, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“After Brexit, Boris Johnson’s government hailed the UK as an independent actor on the global stage. The pullout from Afghanistan, where among allies the UK was the biggest contributor to the US-led mission, has revealed its utter dependence on Washington.” “Johnson set out his vaulting ambitions in integrated review of for & def policy. Free of European straitjacket, ‘Global Britain’ would rediscover the world. Policy would tilt towards Indo-Pac..navy’s new aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, would be dispatched to S China Sea”
Aug 16, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
According to @nicholaswatt on @BBCNewsnight, Johnson has promised a ‘bespoke scheme’ for Afghan refugees ‘in the next few days’.
No hurry, mate, take your time.
I really don’t understand why there was no evacuation plan ready-prepared as a contingency. I stress, for the sake of some today who have sneered at my tweets, that I am expressing no view whatsoever on the foreign policy, military or strategic decisions around the AFG withdrawal. All I am focussing on is how to save lives in the situation that now exists.
Jul 17, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.@NickCohen4:
“I have spoken to many Conservative sources who are concerned about the way their party is heading and equally concerned that the security services are evading their responsibilities…Observer tried to talk to MI5 but, perhaps inevitably, it didn’t answer our qu’s” “Russia & China want to influence Brit politics. One way to do it is to give money to ruling party & run front orgs. In 2010s, Sergey Nalobin of Russian embassy set up Conservative Friends of Russia. In 2015, his diplomatic visa was revoked after the security services intervened”
Jul 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“Southern was not alone..Environment Agency data for 2020 showed water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters in England more than 400,000 times, up 37% on the previous year.” theguardian.com/business/2021/… “Thatcher’s govt wiped out the industry’s debts prior to privatisation; since 1989 the industry has loaded it back up again with £48bn.
Research….found that the debt was not used to fix leaky pipes or treatment works but went straight into shareholders’ pockets.”
Jul 9, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
“many scientists & health experts have angrily challenged the govt’s argument:
‘The world is looking at us with disbelief - a country with some of the best universities & minds acting with arrogance’ says Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge university.” “The proposed end of compulsory mask wearing on public transport and in crowded indoor spaces has attracted the strongest criticism. Gupta says:
‘It defies logic and it’s criminal frankly. There will be unnecessary deaths as a direct result of that’.”
Jun 6, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
“Compounding the ill-feeling is the belief that while the Commission, according to officials, is working flat out to find flexibilities, the UK is either dragging its feet on implementing the Protocol, or publicly criticising the EU’s interpretation of it.” “The UK pushed for the EU to agree an equivalence deal, whereby UK food standards are accepted as similar to EU ones…the EU rejected this, arguing that the UK had pledged to diverge from EU standards”
Jun 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
“the govt learned its lesson [from care.data]. Which is to say that 8 years on it’s doing same thing, only in less time, without public awareness campaign, with trickier opt-out, & in the middle of a global pandemic. Have you, at some level, got to admire the work?” “difficult to summon anything other than deep suspicion, born of bitter experience, about fact that @NHSDigital has barely informed GPs, waiting till last minute to order them to submit records of every patient, where they’ll become permanent & irreversible part of new database”
Jun 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.@LaylaMoran:
“It is staggering that Heathrow only this week announced that it has received the government support needed to ensure travellers arriving from red list countries have a separate terminal, rather than waiting alongside those from green and amber list countries.” “Even now, those arriving from red list countries who have transited via another destination are being allowed to mix with others, & airports are warning of lengthy queues as internat travel reopens. The govt must fix this gaping flaw in our defences against covid immediately”
May 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
.@docneilb:
“care.data, the disastrous data-grab project scrapped back in 2016, is back from the dead. And it's bigger than before.” “millions of people simply will not have a clue that this is happening.
Their right to be informed is not being upheld. As a consquence, they will not be afforded the right to object/opt-out. No radio or TV ads, no letters to individuals, no junk mail to households. On the quiet”
May 22, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“The former sub-postmaster spent 18 months behind bars, was declared bankrupt and since coming out of prison has struggled to find work. He and Balbinder have had to sell their home and now rely on benefits.”

(His outrageous fraud conviction was one of those quashed by Ct App) “The story of how a great British institution unfairly criminalised hundreds of law-abiding citizens is an astonishing tale of corporate cover-up, political mismanagement and personal injustice.”

There needs to be not only a full public inquiry, but prosecutions of PO bosses
Mar 14, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Key point:
‘The Judge confirmed that @ReclaimTS’ assessment of
the law is correct: not all protest is, or can be treated as, illegal
under the Tier 4 rules.’ “unless it is necessary and proportionate to prevent persons gathering to exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly, having regard to the individual facts and circumstances of the protest in question, such a protest is not prohibited by the Tier 4 regulations”