Senior Playbook author for Politico - in inboxes at 7am Mon-Fri. Often drowsy.
Jul 6 • 29 tweets • 3 min read
Mega 🧵 — I reckon I make it 165 Tory MPs who lost their seats this week. Here follows the list...
Bim Afolami (Hitchin) … Peter Aldous (Lowestoft) … Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) … Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) … Shaun Bailey (Tipton and Wednesbury) … Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) …
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) … Steve Baker (Wycombe) … Simon Baynes (North Shropshire) … Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) … Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) … Ben Bradley (Mansfield) … Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) … Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) …
Apr 6 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
ICYMI: I went through this book in Playbook this week - with some interesting comparisons between 1997 and now 🧵
I found it striking how much the authors mentioned apathy (especially in the press) during the campaign … before it all got forgotten in the fire of Tony Blair’s historic landslide.
“The Tories relentlessly negative and Labour remorselessly defensive.”
Apr 3 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
STORY: Politicians, officials and journalists working in parliament are being targeted with personalized messages and explicit images in what experts believe is a clear attempt to compromise them.
Have you received these? Get in touch confidentially…
politico.eu/article/uk-par…
This goes further than your average text scam — messages were crafted depending on whether the recipient was gay or straight, they claimed to have met in a parliamentary bar and on by-election campaigns. At least one staffer was (briefly) taken in by it.
Feb 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
At the climax of his Westminster Hall address, Zelensky gifts the UK a Ukrainian pilot's helmet - and asks for a "coalition of planes" from the West.
Written on the helmet, he says, is: "We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it."
Zelensky: "Two years ago I thanked you for delicious English tea. And I will be leaving the Parliament today thanking all of you in advance for powerful English planes."
Jan 10, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here’s the minimum service levels bill. Looks like will give the government carte blanche (by passing a secondary law as and when) to impose minimum service levels in NHS, fire, education, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security during strikes
Some key points about the Bill:
- Minimum service levels can be imposed on unions *after* they've already named a date of a strike
- Bill does not once refer to "safety", despite Grant Shapps' attempts to sell it that way
cont.
Jan 10, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
🚨 Grant Shapps has just accused striking paramedics of putting "lives at risk"
Shapps: "A lack of timely co-operation from the ambulance unions meant employers could not reach agreement nationally for minimum safety levels during recent strikes and health officials were left guessing at the likely minimum coverage
1/
Jan 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
EXC: Tens of thousands of disabled people are being stranded for months without cash under a government help-to-work scheme
Waiting times have skyrocketed for Access to Work, which funds office adaptations, etc, so people can do their jobs
/
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
The average “clearance” time for applications has almost doubled from 32.5 to 63.1 days
By November 25,289 people were waiting for a decision on their claim, up from 8,435 in February 2020
One unlucky person waited 254 working days - about a year
Jan 8, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Keir Starmer on Sky on his NHS review: “We're not talking about privatising the NHS, we’re talking about using the private sector effectively.”
He says it could use local pharmacies to look at prescriptions, or “is there a route for self-referral?"
Keir Starmer says he's "not going to back down" in "battle" with doctors' union the BMA. "There will always be people who say I wouldn’t do that, I’d keep it as it is, don’t touch anything. I totally disregard that. If there’s change to be made, we’ve got to get on and make it."
Dec 13, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
UPDATED: I think I've got to the bottom of the issue of whether or not bankrupt MP Adam Afriyie will lose his seat (short answer - looks like he won't). Buckle up for a short thread... mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
The 1986 Insolvency Act used to say if an MP was declared bankrupt, they could not sit or vote in Parliament - and then if it wasn't annulled, they could lose their seat entirely after six months. Here's what the 1986 Act used to look like.
Oct 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NEW: Treasury confirms the bankers' bonus cap WILL still be scrapped... Updates going in here mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
No10 confirmed Whitehall departments will be asked to “look again” at what spending they can cut
Chancellor will meet with all Secretaries of State this week to decide on future spending plans which will then be submitted to the Office for Budget Responsibility this Friday.
Oct 17, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
BREAKING Huge financial statement to be delivered by Jeremy Hunt today amid chaos mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Here’s the Treasury release
Aug 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
Perhaps she missed this
Kemi Badenoch starts speech at Policy Exchange by saying Tories can’t “have your cake and eat it” and she will promise "o tax cuts without limits on government spending”. “Unlike others I’m not going to promise you things without a plan to deliver. People are sick of that.”
Jul 10, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
And then there were 11… if Priti Patel declares that makes 12.
Rehman Chishti’s pitch per his Facebook video: “Lower taxes, small state, Big Society”(!)
Jul 5, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: No10 are now trying to suggest Boris Johnson FORGOT he had been told all about a full-blown investigation into Chris Pincher two years ago, when he spoke to officials on Friday, and that's why No10 misled us...
STORY from me and @LizzyBuchanmirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
BREAKING Top official says Boris Johnson was 'briefed in person' on Chris Pincher and suggests No10 lied mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Jul 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW - Angela Rayner on the 'dread' of poverty - 'I still guarantee family members' rent' mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Rayner speaks of when “you don’t have a couple of quid in the bank that you can just get a fridge freezer with, just like that.
“It’s that feeling, that pit, that dread in your stomach about ‘how am I going to cope, how am I going to survive’ - the panic sets in.
May 24, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: I spoke to RMT union leader Mick Lynch today as the ballot closes on the biggest rail strike in a generation. A few news lines as result expected tonight or in the morning…
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Blackouts, fuel shortages or empty shelves are a “realistic possibility if the dispute continues and we have to escalate the action. I can’t rule anything out.” Mick Lynch adds “if we get a resolution, none of that will need to happen.”
May 23, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether there was a party in Downing Street on the 13th of November?"
Speaking under privilege in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson replied: "No.”
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
So... It's thought the Commons Privileges Committee can now investigate whether the PM lied about the November 13 party, as part of its wider probe into claims he misled Parliament.
BREAKING - Britain scraps a string of planned post-Brexit checks on imports in a major Tory U-turn.
Rules that were due to enter force in July after two delays will now only come in at the end of 2023 - and not in their original form
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Government says: “The change in approach is expected to save British importers at least £1 billion in annual costs.” In other words, its own Brexit checks would have cost importers £1bn a year. Don’t remember seeing that on the side of a bus etc etc.
Woah oh! Boris Johnson braces for last-minute fights with Lords before local elections as six divisive laws still snarled up
PM had hoped Parliament would prorogue on Thurs, but sources braced for a late-night battle - or even to carry on next Tuesday
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Six Bills are still "in play" and pretty much all of them have controversial elements:
- Elections (watchdog 'takeover')
- Police (noisy protests)
- Judicial Review
- Nationality and Borders (litany of asylum complaints)
- Health and Care (care cap, workforce)
- Building Safety
