Rt Hon Steve Baker FRSA 🗽 Profile picture
Chief Provocation Officer, @ProvocPeople – 30 years of leadership experience in the armed forces, business, parliament and government.
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Feb 1 9 tweets 3 min read
🇬🇧Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of the UK leaving the EU.

🌎Brexit has allowed us to unlock our international trade potential meaning that #Wycombe, #Bucks, #NI, and the rest of the UK have easier access to global trade. 👇Take CPTPP, for example, which I long advocated for the UK to join.

📊When the UK fully enters it later this year, our membership will deliver lower tariffs, easier connections, and better trade.

👏We will be the first European country to join #CPTPP.

May 17, 2022 4 tweets 4 min read
👉About 15 years ago, @TobyBaxendale and I founded @CobdenCentre to argue for social progress through honest money, free trade and peace.

👇We see now more clearly than ever the damage done by war, restrictions on trade and easy money. @TobyBaxendale @CobdenCentre 🗽Importantly, @MaxRangeley, @CobdenCentre and I are producing vital work to show how our monetary system has caused many of the problems we are currently experiencing.
Apr 27, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
🚨🚗 My statement on the threatened closure of High Wycombe's Driving Test Centre 🚗🚨

⬇⬇⬇

stevebaker.info/2022/04/my-sta… "I was extremely disappointed to be informed last week about the threatened closure, once again, of High Wycombe’s Driving Test Centre."
Apr 19, 2022 5 tweets 3 min read
💻My joint article with @profpauldolan for @timesredbox on the changes necessary to the Online Safety Bill 👇

thetimes.co.uk/article/its-no… @profpauldolan @timesredbox 👎Under the threat of penalties, social media companies won’t risk allowing content that could come close to “legal but harmful” to remain on its platform.

💀Free speech and free discussion on the internet will die a slow and painful death.
Mar 5, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
🗣My speech to @EastBelfastCA last night ⬇️

The Northern Ireland Protocol was always unfinished business. That's why we said Boris' deal was a tolerable path to a great future.

We surely now all agree the NIP does not deliver what it promised. It has divided the two communities, destroyed political confidence, ended power sharing and caused trade diversion.

These are all not only good reasons for change but reasons which were foreseen.
Dec 17, 2021 4 tweets 3 min read
🏠I wrote to @ChrisPincher on how we can use brownfield developments to deliver affordable homes with local community support.

🏷️Many in #Wycombe have a genuine concern their children will be priced out of their area.

🤝Heart of the problem is an adversarial planning system. Image @ChrisPincher 🏗️Less than half of approved brownfield developments are completed within 6 years.

📉When developments are completed, the complexities of the current system mean that affordable housing contributions aren’t always met.

➡️We need to find a better way forward.
Nov 30, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
🗽"We should be living with coronavirus, like we live with flu"

👇My speech today in response to the new Covid restrictions ❌"If the Government keeps going down this path...if we panic every time there is a new variant - when there will be new variant after new variant - we are going to make entire sections of our economy uninvestable"

👇"Where is the hope from the Government"
Oct 19, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
📋Today MPs will consider the renewal of the #CoronavirusAct

🗽The Coronavirus Act has contained egregious powers but it's the Public Health Act that has been used to lock us down, shut businesses & stop family reunions

⬇️My position on today's motion

stevebaker.info/2021/10/todays… 🚷Covid restrictions have been mostly implemented under the Public Health Act 1984 - what happens today does not affect it

🔒The risk of immediate lockdown by ministerial fiat without scrutiny remains until we have a new Public Health Act ⤵️

Sep 12, 2021 5 tweets 3 min read
Sep 12, 2021 5 tweets 3 min read
🗽I campaigned and voted against the Coronavirus Act - EG: votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/… - so I am pleased ministers are getting rid of egregious powers like Schedules 21 and 22.

Summary: bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/coronavirusact/

But the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 is a bigger danger⬇️ According to @HansardSociety, "Coronavirus-related Statutory Instruments have been made and laid under 133 Acts of Parliament, seven Orders, five EU Regulations (which are now retained EU law in the UK) and one Church Measure."

Great dashboard here:

hansardsociety.org.uk/publications/d…
Aug 7, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
⚠️There's been a great deal of difficulty obtaining workings out from @theCCCuk on #CostOfNetZero

🧐Now it sounds like the dog ate their homework.

⚖️👀See what the judge said about why this matters⬇️

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9… "Judge Sophie Buckley said: ‘There is an extremely strong public interest in enabling scrutiny of the data, models and calculations which underpin the CCC’s conclusion that the net zero target could be met at an annual resource cost of up to 1-2 per cent of GDP.
Aug 4, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
☀️Having a lovely time 🪂

🙏Wish you were here! 😀
Jul 25, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
😱A scary development which I explored on @CommonsTreasury: Britcoin could enable a dramatic increase in state control of our lives.

The article contains an error on bank lending. Via @bankofengland,

"Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions -"... "- banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits."

More:

bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/fi…
Jul 12, 2021 7 tweets 4 min read
🚨🚨🚨
🚷A two-tier society is back: Covid-status certification will be “encouraged”

🤝Govt must not restrict basic freedoms only to restore them to some

🐇We are so far down the rabbit hole, we have forgotten we fell in 📉This is not about nightclubs: there is no limit to where Covid-status certification can be used

🗽Our civil liberties are not a stick to beat those who can’t be, or choose not to be, vaccinated

% of over 50s not vaccinated by ethnicity: White 6%, South Asian 15%, Black 31%
Jun 23, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
⚖️"To every subject of this land, however powerful, I would use Thomas Fuller's words over three hundred years ago, ‘Be ye never so high, the law is above you.’"

☝️Lord Denning 1899–1999, a British judge

💡It's an idea we must recover and preserve.

oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/a… 😳No one should be allowed or enabled to circumvent laws which suppress the rights of others, however necessary restrictions may or may not be.

Mar 24, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
Tomorrow’s vote on the #CoronavirusAct is an opportunity to say NO to a new way of life under extreme police powers.

❌ The Coronavirus Act is extreme, unnecessary and disproportionate

🚷 We must not allow for a checkpoint society to become normal. PM: “anything that is redundant will go” from #CoronavirusAct.

🚨 Sch 21- allows indefinite detainment of “potentially infectious” incl. children; 100% unlawful prosecution rate.

🚨 Sch 22- never been used; allows for even less scrutiny in gathering & business restrictions.
Feb 19, 2021 8 tweets 8 min read
Yesterday, @AdamAfriyie and I talked with @carlheneghan about the positive Covid data, the reasons for it and the need to help the developing world.

Find the full conversation here:

Clips to follow... @AdamAfriyie @carlheneghan "The data today is looking very positive."

Find the full conversation here:
Jan 18, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read
@Conservatives will continue to stand behind families, children and the most vulnerable throughout this pandemic

We have invested more than £400 million so far to support remote education, including purchasing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for those most in need @Conservatives The Government has eliminated barriers to remote learning for our poorest students by working with the country’s leading mobile operators to deliver free internet access...
Jan 18, 2021 8 tweets 7 min read
The Government’s approach throughout this pandemic has been to support families through a range of measures worth over £280 billion

This has included the furlough scheme, catch up funding for schools, a £500 million Hardship Fund and a £7 billion increase to welfare The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has kept over 9 million people in their jobs and a £500 lump sum support payment can be claimed by people on low incomes who cannot work from home and have lost income as a result of self-isolation in England
Jan 15, 2021 5 tweets 3 min read
Covid is a serious disease and our hospitals in Bucks are under real pressure.

One can accept this while opposing lockdowns and restrictions

Hear from Dr Mitra Shahidi from @BucksHealthcare on the pressures facing our hospitals. 👇 @BucksHealthcare Cases and hospitalisations are at serious levels across Wycombe and Bucks.

We must all ensure we comply with the restrictions.

The quicker pressure eases, the quicker Covid restrictions will be lifted.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?…

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/health…
Jan 13, 2021 10 tweets 8 min read
💬 Now that the President of Azad Kashmir has accused India of genocide, Govt must take allegations of human rights abuses in Kashmir seriously.

Disappointed I can’t speak in today’s debate as I am now self-isolating with Covid symptoms awaiting results of an NHS test 🏥 In an article published by @BBCWorld on 16 May 2019, they write “there’s a real concern that those who wield power in today’s India are embracing a culture of impunity”

bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…