Born a Tory and expect to die as one; but others should be Conservatives too. Into History, High Church CofE, Liberty, Brexit & Oval cricket. Ex City.
London, UK
Joined May 2011
- Tweets62.2K
- Following796
- Followers937
- Likes4.6K
Pinned Tweet
10 years since I became 40.1%.
Most people supporting other Parties or none will be happy that Mr Farage was invited to lay a wreath as part of the moment of national unity that Remembrance brings to the fore. But to use this to post divisive partisan nonsense is despicable and Mr Braverman should be ashamed.
To reduce government borrowing, obviously 🙄. I wonder if that’s even an option in this survey?
The lack of self-awareness involved in Barnier going on TV lecturing us Brits and thinking this will do anything other than stop stone dead any idea that we want to engage with him and his like again. Or perhaps he’s more subtle and it’s just a new French way of saying “non”.
Barnier appearing on the BBC to issue an ultimatum isn't nostalgia; it is the opening salvo of a coordinated pincer movement to trap Britain back inside the orbit of Brussels.
Whenever Brussels prepares to extract concessions, they deploy the old chief negotiator to lay down the law: the Single Market is indivisible, freedom of movement is non-negotiable, and Britain will not be allowed to "cherry-pick."
Behind the polite diplomatic language about an "economic reset", the negotiations taking place in Whitehall and Brussels are quietly trading away British sovereignty.
What the negotiations actually look like right now;
Whitehall negotiators are desperate for an SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) veterinary agreement and an unblocking of Dover red tape to claim an economic win. But Brussels never grants market access for free. The invoice being pushed across the table in Brussels contains three brutal stipulations:
1. The Backdoor Return of Free Movement: The EU Commission has made an EU-wide Youth Mobility Scheme the prerequisite for any trade easements. Whitehall is privately attempting to rebrand this as a limited "cultural exchange," but Brussels' draft mandates uncapped, multi-year working visas for under-30s with no domestic labour-market tests. It is freedom of movement re-introduced by stealth.
2. Dynamic Regulatory Alignment: In exchange for reduced border friction, the UK is being pushed to swallow dynamic alignment on environmental, industrial, and labour laws. If Brussels changes a directive, the UK must either mirror it or face unilateral retaliatory tariffs.
3. The ECJ Guillotine: Any dispute mechanism covering cross-border trade, energy, or data will ultimately require European Court of Justice (ECJ) supremacy over British statute.
The most dmning rumours circulating Whitehall;
The Fishing Trade-Off: With the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) fishing provisions under immediate pressure, the diplomatic backchannel suggests civil servants are preparing to sacrifice long-term sovereign quotas in Scottish and English waters as the bargaining chip to secure continental energy grid cooperation.
The "Vassal State" Concession: Officials in the Cabinet Office and FCDO are reportedly willing to accept "rule-taker" status on manufactured and agricultural goods. That means British factories and farms will be bound by laws they cannot vote on, cannot amend, and cannot repeal.
The Reality
The public is being conditioned to believe that economic stability requires national surrender.
If this deal goes through, Britain will occupy the worst geopolitical status on earth: paying into European programmes, accepting unvetted migration through youth schemes, and having British industries governed by foreign bureaucrats—all while surrendering the sovereign veto we held as a member state.
Barnier isn't warning ministers. He is dictating the terms of an establishment surrender. 🇬🇧
40.1%Londoner retweeted
We should be able to walk down the street without having our faces scanned and checked against a watchlist The goalposts have shifted yet again and everyone saw this coming
UK to roll out facial recognition cameras in fresh crackdown on illegal immigration
lbc.co.uk/article/uk-facial-…
Basically everything the EU would want us to do if we rejoined are things we wouldn’t otherwise want to do. I can’t believe that even the Labour Party would be so stupid as to want to put itself in that position.
Perhaps the most powerful voice for the case against rejoining will end up being Brussels 👇
EU demands Britain scrap plans to deport more European criminals
thetimes.com/article/055c4d9…
This is surely part of the Foreign Aid budget (a budget incidentally that the Opposition wants to cut). But even assuming he doesn’t want to but it overall, where’s he taking this extra money from? Some other, probably more deserving, development aid projects?
40.1%Londoner retweeted
What a depressing Labour u-turn on the extension of ILR for Boriswave care workers. It’s not just the huge cost heading our way, it’s the way that care workers are singled out for the sentimental treatment we usually reserve for NHS nurses. For our own benefit as a country we need the average carer to be better paid, better trained, and higher status (I recently wrote a book partly about this The Care Dilemma). But we don’t have to pretend they are all angels: there are some who are v good, most who are average and too many who are useless, as in any walk of life. The immigrant carers are coming here for a better life from poorer often failing societies not because they love looking after British people. In my own last hospital stay most the care assistants were Boriswave women, mostly from Africa - some decent some indifferent - but ALL spoke quite poor and v heavily accented English that was sometimes hard to understand and unless I spoke slowly and deliberately they struggled to understand me. This is obviously a sensitive issue that many people experience but don’t feel able to talk about (though it must be reflected in those low satisfaction surveys), partly because a carer has helped you when you are vulnerable and there is a kind of reflex gratitude even if the care has actually been a bit sloppy or incompetent (and you also feel you’re getting it free so shouldn’t moan, even if you’re paying more and more in tax). Yet it’s crazy that we are spending billions subsidising this when we could be using the money to incentivise British ppl, who speak the language fluently and understand the culture, to do these jobs.
40.1%Londoner retweeted
We need to reclaim November from the commercial Christmas-pushers. Here's some suggestions.
1st: All Saints
2nd: All Souls
5th: Bonfire Night
11th: Remembrance
Post Remembrance: Martinmas
Last Sunday before Advent: Stir up Sunday
30th: St Andrew's Day
40.1%Londoner retweeted
My read of events in Poland is that they will explode in the face of Brussels.
Putting it together, Tusk made his move on All Saints weekend, which is a big thing in Poland. It is a official public holiday, triggering one of the biggest travel weekends of the year in Poland. Families travel across the country to congregate at ancestral burial plots.
Tusk had reasonable expectation, therefore, that Warsaw would be quieter than normal, with fewer people available to respond, while the one person who could put a legal block on him - the president - was out of the country. Meanwhile, the police were notified a week in advance and instructed to tool up and put their riot squads on notice.
This does have all the hallmarks of a planned coup, but it has backfired spectacularly, largely due to the swift response of Karol Nawrocki and the rapid assembly of a large crowd - probably larger than expected.
This means that Święczkowski will now almost certainly keep his position as president of the court, and double down on telling the EU to foxtrot oscar.
This is an unsustainable position for Brussels which is already under serious pressure to keep its migration programme from collapsing. Come Monday, the political ramifications may be felt all over Europe,
Where are there reliable reports, with the full background, on what is happening in Poland? What little I’ve seen seems to be biased one way or the other (though I do know that Tusk, the only character involved who we know in the UK, probably has his first loyalty to the EU).
So says the Chancellor who exercised her party’s democratic mandate to put VAT on school fees, which she couldn’t have done in the EU.
The @Telegraph seems to think content like this should take precedence over hard-hitting columnists like @LiamHalligan & @AllisonPearson. 😳
40.1%Londoner retweeted
Delighted to hear that you and @AllisonPearson will be carrying on with Planet Normal. In an age when so much of our public conversation has taken leave of its senses, it is a rare and welcome thing to find two people prepared to say what is plainly true, and to say it with wit, rigour and good humour. It remains one of the very few podcasts I make a point of never missing, and you are two of the finest journalists working today. I have no doubt the best is yet to come for you both @LiamHalligan
I was hoping to be able to announce this in my own time – but the media rumour mill is swirling, I'm being contacted by various reporters and others, and I don't like denying the truth, so ...
I wrote my first "Economic Agenda" column in The Sunday Telegraph 27 years ago, under the editorship of Dominic Lawson – filling-in occasionally during the late-1990s, before being given my own weekly slot from 2003.
Since then, while I've been heavily involved in television, and am perhaps better known as a broadcaster, penning "Economic Agenda" for The Sunday Telegraph each week has been the backbone of my journalistic life.
On Thursday, the @Telegraph rang to tell me my column is being scrapped.
I was asked, and have agreed, to write "Economic Agenda" until the end of November, as per my contract. After that, my Sunday Telegraph column will be no more.
Why this decision has been made, and whether or not my columns were any good, is for others to judge.
All I will say is that, as the first person in my family to attend university, sustaining a weekly column in a leading national newspaper for a quarter of a century has been a source of enormous pride for myself and my family.
Lots of people have been asking me about the future of "Planet Normal" - the hugely-popular Telegraph podcast which I co-created and co-present with the brilliant @AllisonPearson
"Planet Normal" has, over the last 330 weekly episodes, also become a major part of my professional life and my broader identity.
With Allison reportedly leaving the Telegraph as well, there is a lot of speculation about whether or not the podcast will continue to impart "news and views from beyond the bubble" with our usual blend of sharp analysis, humour and occasional outrage !
Well, I am delighted to confirm that Co-Pilot Pearson and myself are deeply committed to our joint podcast – and, above all, to our beloved listeners.
We will, as and when notice periods allow, continue our voyages through space every Thursday – perhaps to "Planet Normal", or maybe to another part of the solar system – so we can "gaze down each week at the madness of Planet Earth", as we have done since the Spring of 2020.
So citizens of Planet Normal, stand ready ! The "rocket-of-right-thinking", the "flying refuge of reasoned views", will soon be launched once again 🚀🪐👨🏭👱♀️🎙️📺
I poured my heart and soul into "Economic Agenda" and "Planet Normal". The Telegraph's decision to scrap them is obviously a huge personal blow. But I will always be grateful for the opportunities the paper has given me.
Above all, I would like to thank the illustrious list of successive Telegraph business editors I've worked with since the late-1990s, many of whom have become and remain good friends - including @Peston @RobertsDan @larmitstead @neilbenet @benjaminmarlow @cg_williams @kamalahmednews @MarkKleinmanSky @jamesrquinn (sorry if I've forgotten anyone, it's been a long time!)
On Friday, even though I almost always write my column from elsewhere, and despite being extremely disappointed by the paper's decision, I decided to go into the Telegraph and write today's column sitting in the newsroom.
I am glad I did - as being at the heart of the paper at such a difficult time allowed for lots of conversations, with everyone from junior production staff to senior reporters and executives, which reminded me that journalism, despite being an industry at the whim of seemingly endless and often brutal commercial and technological upheaval, is not only hugely important to our country, but full of talented, decent people.
See picture below, having just filed my piece, as I was heading out the door ...
Even the clock that is Liz Truss is correct twice a day.
A characteristically honest and dignified response to the crass mistake that the @Telegraph is making. Excellent news though that “Planet Normal”, the jewel of podcasts, will seek out a new home. It’ll just be that the newspaper’s connection with such sanity will be no more.
I was hoping to be able to announce this in my own time – but the media rumour mill is swirling, I'm being contacted by various reporters and others, and I don't like denying the truth, so ...
I wrote my first "Economic Agenda" column in The Sunday Telegraph 27 years ago, under the editorship of Dominic Lawson – filling-in occasionally during the late-1990s, before being given my own weekly slot from 2003.
Since then, while I've been heavily involved in television, and am perhaps better known as a broadcaster, penning "Economic Agenda" for The Sunday Telegraph each week has been the backbone of my journalistic life.
On Thursday, the @Telegraph rang to tell me my column is being scrapped.
I was asked, and have agreed, to write "Economic Agenda" until the end of November, as per my contract. After that, my Sunday Telegraph column will be no more.
Why this decision has been made, and whether or not my columns were any good, is for others to judge.
All I will say is that, as the first person in my family to attend university, sustaining a weekly column in a leading national newspaper for a quarter of a century has been a source of enormous pride for myself and my family.
Lots of people have been asking me about the future of "Planet Normal" - the hugely-popular Telegraph podcast which I co-created and co-present with the brilliant @AllisonPearson
"Planet Normal" has, over the last 330 weekly episodes, also become a major part of my professional life and my broader identity.
With Allison reportedly leaving the Telegraph as well, there is a lot of speculation about whether or not the podcast will continue to impart "news and views from beyond the bubble" with our usual blend of sharp analysis, humour and occasional outrage !
Well, I am delighted to confirm that Co-Pilot Pearson and myself are deeply committed to our joint podcast – and, above all, to our beloved listeners.
We will, as and when notice periods allow, continue our voyages through space every Thursday – perhaps to "Planet Normal", or maybe to another part of the solar system – so we can "gaze down each week at the madness of Planet Earth", as we have done since the Spring of 2020.
So citizens of Planet Normal, stand ready ! The "rocket-of-right-thinking", the "flying refuge of reasoned views", will soon be launched once again 🚀🪐👨🏭👱♀️🎙️📺
I poured my heart and soul into "Economic Agenda" and "Planet Normal". The Telegraph's decision to scrap them is obviously a huge personal blow. But I will always be grateful for the opportunities the paper has given me.
Above all, I would like to thank the illustrious list of successive Telegraph business editors I've worked with since the late-1990s, many of whom have become and remain good friends - including @Peston @RobertsDan @larmitstead @neilbenet @benjaminmarlow @cg_williams @kamalahmednews @MarkKleinmanSky @jamesrquinn (sorry if I've forgotten anyone, it's been a long time!)
On Friday, even though I almost always write my column from elsewhere, and despite being extremely disappointed by the paper's decision, I decided to go into the Telegraph and write today's column sitting in the newsroom.
I am glad I did - as being at the heart of the paper at such a difficult time allowed for lots of conversations, with everyone from junior production staff to senior reporters and executives, which reminded me that journalism, despite being an industry at the whim of seemingly endless and often brutal commercial and technological upheaval, is not only hugely important to our country, but full of talented, decent people.
See picture below, having just filed my piece, as I was heading out the door ...
There was a very respectful response at @BrentfordFC today to the minute’s silence and last post before their nearest home game to Remembrance Sunday (and poppies being sold outside). Added lustre to their subsequent 2-0 win v Notts Forest, continuing the good season so far!
40.1%Londoner retweeted
What a swerve for the Tories it was to get Kemi over Jenrick.
Such an unprincipled man. Now an anti capitalism interventionalist. Will literally do anything for a vote.
Poundland have been in the bin for years. Nothing to do with "Wall Street".
40.1%Londoner retweeted
The Telegraph commits hara-kiri. 🗡️
@AllisonPearson was its best-loved writer.
And readers will grieve the loss of other fine writers such as @LiamHalligan and @Sherelle_E_J
You can’t cut out the heart of a paper and expect its readers to stay.
Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson is reportedly about to leave the newspaper amid significant job cuts to the newsroom theguardian.com/media/2026/o…
