The Tories oversaw the degradation of UK gas storage capacity - 2010 to 2017.
Thatcher privatised the gas and oil industry - 1982 to 1986.
Thatcher closed the collieries - 1986 to 1991.
This woman is an idiot - 1960 to 2026
Ed Miliband, famously closing coal mines as a 14-year-old minister in Thatcher's government during the miners' strike
Listening to Ed Vaizey - not exactly a heavyweight politician himself- talking about how Milliband has stopped Starmer dancing to Trump's tune and seriously for one last time what part of the UK's response doesn't look like it's the genuine version of Keir Starmer!?? This shit is driving me insane.
DUBAI right now. Unbowed! We love it. We push on (Isabel Oakeshott)
Reports of another drone in Middle East.
This one was spotted filming the beach with her phone.
trouble is it's hard for ex or current PMs to say 'sometimes events just gonna shape you & there's not much you can do' but it is the truth. Maybe we could play our hand better but Trump is not going to be persuaded out of this war by the UK & the economic consequences will be what they are.
I mean it appears to be a lost battle but literally every credible source says that the Iranian regime was surprised by October 7th, so how the fuck they “masterminded” the attack is beyond me
Get ready to be annoyed when petrol prizes go up and a) a bunch of politicos declare the government's poll ratings have gone down because Starmer didn't go in with the US on Iran and b) a bunch of politicos who support the war blame the government for increased energy costs.
The Daily Mail going to Tony Blair for a take on conflict in the Middle East, is it?
I'm sure it's just a massive coincidence that they used all the same words, ideas and punctuation.
Did Trevor Phillips really just ask Shabana Mahmood on @news.sky.com ,
“Do you support England or Pakistan in the Cricket?”
What the hell is that all about?!
Future Qs that Trevor Phillips will ask (without a sense of hypocrisy).
1. Why did the PM leave the High North undefended to send the carrier to the Gulf?
Or
2. Why did we leave the Falklands unprotected to send assets to the High North?
Or
3. Is it a disgrace that we did / didn’t get involved?
This interview by Trevor Phillips of Mahmood is appalling, mostly on Phillips' part: 'You're a Muslim, you shook my hand and you don't cover your hair, why is that?'
Trevor Phillips has just said that if the U.K. doesn’t get it’s act together then we are in danger of ‘Missing the whole show’
This isn’t a video game or a reality TV show - people are being blown to pieces by air strikes every day.
Choose your bloody words with more care 😡
#BBCLaurak: Keir Starmer was concerned about the legality of Trump's actions
Tory war monger, Penny Mordaunt: "And this is the crux of it, Starmer is more interested in process than outcomes"
Mordaunt literally saying the PM should ignore international law, & LauraK doesn't even qn that position.
It’s now almost 2 months since Nigel Farage was scheduled to appear on #bbclaurak as part of her Leaders Interview but pulled out due to being “under the weather”
He’s currently in America supporting a foreign president over his own country
Kuenssberg: it's impossible to report freely and fairly from inside Iran.
What's your excuse for not doing so in the UK, Laura?
#bbclaurak
Aside from anything else here (and there is a lot to unpack), the idea “Donald sending a few angry posts on truth social” is more humiliating than anything since Suez is remarkably psychologically illuminating. Our only job in the world is apparently to hang on America’s shoulder.
Anyone still on Twitter and found they're suddenly unable to send posts or reply to them? Oh well, I guess it's finally forced me to get off that wretched site.
That Trump repeats calls for Iran's unconditional surrender on same day he's got the defence industrial chiefs round for an emergency meeting on military supplies perfectly sums up his grasp of ends & means.
It's partly about reflexive Atalantism and imperial nostalgia. But I think a big part of this is their sheer hatred of Starmer's focus on international law. Same as the reason Chagos has become such a big deal for them.
Iain Dale citing Trump's Truth Social post against Starmer.
It seems the full spectrum of British Conservatives are now joining in and rubbing their hands with glee over Trump scolding Starmer.
👏👏👏
Starmer’s position is entirely consistent with what he wrote about Iraq in 2003, a fact of enormous inconvenience to just about everybody currently criticising it. Happily for them, just like the entire bloody Chilcot Inquiry it is apparently very easy to ignore.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper responds to President Trump’s latest outburst.
“The job of the British PM is to take decisions in the national interest of the U.K., not in the interests of other countries… we don’t outsource foreign policy to other countries”.
#bbclaurak
Do they think people have literally no memory of past events at all?
The Mail there, aiming at the three people in the U.K. who still trust Tony Blair on the subject of War In The Middle East, Read the Daily Mail and Yet Have Suffered Crippling Head Injuries Leading Them To Forget The Mail Think He Is Satan.
The gulf between what people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East & what Tony Blair thinks people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East is positively Badenochian.
quite apart from Kemi Badenoch's dismal performance on BBC Breakfast, minimising the work of the RAF, she spoke of Labour 'not being built' for conflict because they came into power to do things like 'breakfast clubs' in such a disparaging way, like feeding kids is a joke ambition
This oaf is fast becoming a serious challenger to Daniel Hannan for the ‘Wrongest Man In The World’ title.
Make yourself feel slightly better, or at least differently depressed, about bleak global news by reminding yourself that Kemi Badenoch thinks the *only* reason Keir Starmer could possibly have had any concerns about this war is his electoral dependency on British Muslims.
