NeilMackay
@NeilMackay
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Journalist, author, filmmaker, broadcaster. Made in Ireland, found in Scotland. Writer at Large @heraldscotland MDANT🏅
Glasgow via Antrim via London
Joined December 2008
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Last Seen Profiles
I’d advise all fellow anti-monarchists that if they can’t say anything kind and decent right now then they should maintain a respectful silence. We may not like the institution of monarchy but all human beings - especially an elderly lady - deserve our empathy and fellow-feeling.
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A word of advice to Tories: if you don’t want people to detest your party then stop being detestable. Parents are starving themselves to feed their kids on your watch. Suella Braverman ‘dreams’ of sending refugees to Rwanda. You stand for cruelty and sadism. That. Is. Detestable.
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We’re governed by criminals - and I mean that literally not metaphorically. A Prime Minister with no mandate to rule is strip-mining Britain and robbing the poor to enrich Tory Party members who installed her and the millionaire donors who own her party. Britain is a crime scene.
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I think there’s a genuine - and very difficult - conversation to be had about what action a population can, or should, take to defend itself against a government which is wilfully working against the interests of the people. This is not meant to be rabble rousing. Just a question
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This should shock you, horrify you, outrage you. A reader contacted me with this Scottish Gas bill saying that even if they use no gas - ZERO GAS - they will still be charged £136. This is where we are now. It’s happening. Here’s the story Here’s the bill
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Brexit, mate
What exactly is preventing you from moving to France?
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Astonishingly poor coverage on websites of the London press about claims Boris and Carrie Johnson broke Covid rules at Christmas. I can’t see it at all on the BBC front page. It’s well covered in Scotland by comparison. Quite literally one rule for BoJo and one for the rest of us
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Can any Brexit voter tell me any benefit of Brexit?
This is a genuine question, not an attempt to start an argument. I’d just like to know what Brexit voters think Brexit has achieved in concrete terms. Thank you.
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It’s rather tricky as a columnist to find anything significant to say about the Tory leadership contenders beyond the fact that they’re the vilest concatenation of human beings this side of a 1970s cannibal movie. I can’t write: ‘appalling people are appalling’ for 1050 words
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Dear English Brexiteers,
You may be unaware but we thought we’d let you know that it’s not the best idea to have loyalist flute bands supplying the tunes at parties.
All the best,
Ireland and Scotland
xxx
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This stinks of a total stitch up - and the BBC and its election team look complicit. You don’t plan a series of interviews with political leaders unless everyone is signed up - especially the Prime Minister. Terrible journalism at best. At worst, an utter abuse of the electorate.
@afneil
For those asking when Boris Johnson's interview will take place, we're in ongoing discussions with his team but we haven't yet been able to fix a date
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As an Irishman I’ve a quaint fondness for folk bewildered why the UK media has barely mentioned the riots in NI this week. It was like this for nearly 40 years during the Troubles. The UK media only cared when the violence crossed the sea or was so appalling it had to be reported
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Am I alone in feeling it criminal that Liz Truss is governing for the benefit of the 160,000 wealthy Tory Party members who installed her as Prime Minister, at the expense of the other 65 million of us who live in this country?
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Average straight guy here who’d like to say that the way trans folk are being spoken about, demonised and vilified in Scotland today reminds me of how my gay and lesbian mates were treated in the 1980s. It was disgusting and hateful then, and it’s disgusting and hateful now.
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Really? My granny was an Irish Republican during the War of Independence
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I’m told there was a standing ovation at Braehead Shopping Centre in Glasgow when Liz Truss announced her resignation. I would LOVE to see video of this
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Is this dude ever happy? He just got a big gold hat and is sitting in a gold coach but he’s still mumping his gums
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If Johnson returns I’d be pretty much up for the Scottish government calling a Holyrood election and if there’s a Yes majority then just making a unilateral declaration of independence
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I’d have been jailed under these changes to the Official Secrets Act for my reporting on the work of British intelligence in both Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and in the run up to the Iraq War. This is how democracies die: slowly and by 1000 cuts
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There’s no longer any economic advantage to staying in the union. The Yes movement needs to hammer that message home now. Unionism has never been weaker than it is today. Those in favour of Welsh independence & Irish unity in NI need to do the same. The union is ready to collapse
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I think my support for Scottish independence has transformed from ‘moderate and pragmatic’ to ‘absolutely uncompromising’. I’d say to my many unionist friends that this is the consequence of the parties they support. I see no lifeline to decency save a complete break with Britain
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Interesting use of language by Johnson claiming he'll 'unleash the terrors of the earth' on whoever made those pathetic comments about Angela Rayner. It's a quote from Lear in which the king unwittingly admits his inability to govern and the collapse of his moral authority. Apt.
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Any nation which finds itself debating whether lifeboats should save people at sea is in truth engaged in its own moral death.
Donate to the RNLI
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The language used to discuss this Refugee/Rwanda issue is monstrous. BBC reporters asking Rwandan govt: ‘How much money do you want per refugee?’. And ‘outsourcing refugees’. These are people. This is the language of selling fellow human beings. We’re in evil, hellish territory.
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Read the runes: Sinn Fein ready to take NI, SNP and Greens romping home, Ulster unionism on the ropes, Tories a dead duck in Scotland.
The union is dead, it just doesn't have the wit to lie down. If unionists had any sense they'd work out how to respond, but they've no answers.
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Let’s be clear: it’s not an SNP majority which matters. It’s that a majority of seats in Holyrood are held by pro independence parties. If that’s the case (and it will be with SNP and Greens) there’s no moral reason for Johnson to block indyref2. If he does he assaults democracy.
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Heartbreaking. A young homeless lad at Glasgow Central Station facing his fourth night on the streets, literally crying with gratitude when I gave him a few quid. I fucking hate the society I have to live in at times. Nearly crying myself now
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The hysterical nonsense around Joe Lycett proves what any sane person knows: the right not only invented cancel culture, it pursues it in a far more tyrannical fashion than the left. The myth of left wing ‘wokery’ is the biggest gaslighting con in history
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The pound has just fallen to a 37 year low against the dollar in response to Kwarteng’s economic nonsense. You’d be forgiven for thinking the Tory government is deliberately trashing Britain’s economy so they and their financier pals can bet against us on international markets…
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Apparently nursery rhymes, fish and chips and cups of tea have all been taken away from poor suffering England. But at least you can still hit a police horse in the face with an umbrella
Fucking crazy
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I would like the good people of the world to help me get
@realDonaldTrump
to read this from today's Sunday Herald. Love from Scotland x
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Something to consider as Sinn Fein prepares to take NI. A border poll is built into the Good Friday Agreement - *if* a majority wants one. If (and it's a big if) that happens, then how could Johnson grant one in NI, and then refuse one in Scotland? The sun is setting on the union
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It appears that Kabul is right now falling to the Taliban. Every nation bordering Afghanistan needs to open its borders to refugees, and every western power which fought in Afghanistan needs to offer asylum without question and immediately to all Afghans fleeing for their lives
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Scotland could probably just declare independence now and there’s bugger all London could do about it
(I say this only half in jest …)
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I've hesitated to write this as it relates to a sexual offence against my child. But I do so now at her direct request. The Wings blog sought to attack me today by writing this about my daughter. He not only takes away the agency of a brave young woman, he denigrates all victims.
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Humanity always wins: Parisians opening their homes to folk stranded and terrified amid the bloodshed, giving them shelter for the night
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Absolutely shameless, frankly dangerous behaviour by Scottish Tories in Parliament today - trying to fan the flames of hatred between English people and Scots, at the very time Nicola Sturgeon is making clear this country should be welcoming to all in the wake of anti-Irish hate
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Hate to say I told you so: first they go for trans folk, then the entire LGBT community, and once all their enemies have been separated out and weakened, they go for the women. Because controlling women is the big prize they're really chasing. We're marching back to a bad place
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England, are you actually having a conversation about bringing Johnson back? Get a grip for the love of God
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The Daily Mail can't be defined as just right-wing anymore. It is far-right, racist, dangerous and anti-democratic. It is anti-journalism
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GB News audience figures fall through the floor. Max ratings for GB News are just 32k. As a comparison BBC News at 10 figures stand at 3.6 million. Like the Alba Party fiasco this shows the Culture War bullshit from Twitter does not translate to real life
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'Cliff Richard will lead the Queen's Jubilee celebrations by singing a medley of his hits from an open-topped bus'
Which is as good a reason as any, I reckon, to book myself a nice foreign holiday that week. Or, to be honest, even a really shitty foreign holiday.
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I have to say Nicolla Sturgeon is absolutely kicking arse in this BBC debate. She’s booting the Brexit Party and Tories around the park. Brilliantly done - and honest - stuff. I’m thoroughly disgusted with politics at the moment, but this kind of thing lifts one’s jaded spirits
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So Britain is going to pay £35bn for the chance to become an isolated little backwater, obedient to Brussels but with no say in Brussels. Well done Brexiteers, traitors couldn’t have done as much damage or reduced the UK so low.
Nose. Cut. Spite. Face.
#BrexitDeal
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When I was a teenager in NIreland in the 80s we weren’t allowed to hear the voices of Sinn Fein leaders on TV & radio. Their voices were banned from the airwaves and broadcasters got around that by dubbing them with the voices of actors. It was absurd and Orwellian. Things change
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The SNP base has utterly shamed itself today. The BBC has reported an entirely true and accurate story about the NHS, and it has been twisted and subjected to an intense disinformation campaign by SNP supporters online. This is not how you win independence. This is how you lose.
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A note ... just so history isn't misinterpreted: on November 18 2014, Alex Salmond resigned as FM. The election for a new FM took place the next day. Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson, Scottish Tory leader, both stood. Sturgeon received 66 votes, Davidson 15, with 39 abstentions.
Y'know, it's funny. There was no such front page in 2007 when Brown became PM without a vote (no GE til 2010) or in 2014 when
@NicolaSturgeon
became FM without a vote (no Scottish elex til 2016)
It's **almost** as if their pearl clutching sanctimony is actually partisanship...
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Shock news: woman who just won election will stay in job.
In other news: men who can’t win elections moan about woman who can
After
@NicolaSturgeon
made clear she intends to serve full five year term as FM, reaction from opponents:
▪️Lib Dem
@agcolehamilton
“it’s time Scotland had an alternative”
▪️Labour’s
@NeilBibby
“self-indulgent distraction”
▪️Conservative
@Jackson_Carlaw
“bad news for Scotland”
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I believe in Scottish independence, but I want no part of an independent Scotland that’s built on hate and bigotry, nor any movement that tries to achieve independence through an agenda of hate and bigotry. Independence is not more important than decency and equality for everyone
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Britain is over and Westminster killed it. It’s now no longer a question of ‘why would Scotland leave the union’, it’s a question of ‘why wouldn’t Scotland leave’. In a ruined UK economy Scotland will be poorer if we stay, but richer if we return to Europe
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My tuppence for what it’s worth: the deal between the SNP and the Greens sounds pretty damn good for Scotland to me, and it is heartening to see it driving all the usual frothing goons right up the wall. Two for one - nice.
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See if we take our eyes of the Salmond and Galloway show (hard I know as we all love a circus), the most interesting story of the election is the Greens maturing into a party with real, deep support, and coming up with policies that would clearly transform Scotland for the better
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I've a bad feeling Johnson is going nowhere. If that happens British democracy is done. The delay before stepping downs means he can wait for any uptick in polls or a deepening crisis - hello Ukraine - then strong arm Tories to backtrack and ask him to stay. It's a dangerous time
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Starmer has blown it. He’s handed success in Scotland at the next General Election to the SNP. His positioning around immigration, Brexit, and another referendum is so appallingly tone-deaf when it comes to the Scottish left that he may as well be Tory
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Kezia in the jungle, Ruth on the Bake Off ... What's that Nicola Sturgeon doing? Oh - just saving 1400 jobs at BiFab, trying to protect the country from Brexit - and all that other boring type of government stuff...
#TheDayJob
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As a political operator, Sturgeon remains head and shoulders above the pack. Her exit speech came with dignity, grace, a wee spot of humility, and plenty of humanity. It will be hard to find anyone who will measure up to her. In a field of scoundrels she was a pretty decent woman
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Little DUP snowflakes - their sense of Britishness so fragile that the Irish language threatens it ... and so weak and pathetic they’re prepared to hand governing Northern Ireland back to London ... ignorant, petulant, bigoted, dangerous brats
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Dear British and English Nationalists,
I know you don't like Irish people having opinions. Old habits die hard etc, I guess.
However, you keep telling me to 'go back home'. I'm from Northern Ireland and live in Scotland. So I am home - this is my country as much as yours.
Neil
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Parents are starving themselves to feed their kids: a portrait of Dickensian poverty on our doorstep
Mothers eating leftovers and losing so much weight their clothes don’t fit, children bullied for filthy uniforms, parents so shamed they consider suicide
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I hope this doesn't need to be said, but me and millions of other straight people in this country stand four-square behind the LGBT community - especially now when things look so cruel and dark. So many people support you and hate what is happening. You have friends at your side.
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Britain is now a nasty, shabby loser: a pitiable joke abroad - and cruel, petty and useless at home. Poverty spirals, refugees are treated like animals, the government snubs COP27, the UN and world leaders call us out. Everything is broken. Brexit broke it
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Innocent people beaten by paramilitary police on the way to vote, ballot boxes removed. This is what fascism looks like
#CatalanReferendum
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England’s dreaming.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are wide awake.
And Wales needs to get out of bed.
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Sunak will absolutely implode during the general election. He’s a cruel, stupid little brat. His public ruination will be glorious. His permanent disgrace a fitting epitaph to the most squalid of political careers
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We’ve had two MPs in Britain killed in five years. Something terrible is happening to democracy in this country. There’s a ghastly unravelling going on, a festering hate, and we need to come together as a nation to address what’s gone wrong. We have to turn ourselves around. Now.
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I respectfully suggest to Her Majesty the Queen that if she wishes to keep her money offshore she should go and join it
#ParadisePapers
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A teacher friend has 12 pupils in a class of 30 off due to Covid today. How is that safe for either kids or staff? Teachers and pupils are dodging bullets every day. It's an absolute abuse of staff and the children in their care. If schools are going to be open - make them safe
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Five minutes ago I read that Douglas Ross ‘believes’ he’ll be the First Minister of Scotland - and I’ve only just now picked myself up off the floor after collapsing in hysterics. Thanks Douglas that was a really funny joke. I needed that laugh.
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Some fabulously mad frothing being frothed still from the usual frothers over the Green/SNP deal. How awful it must be to have to think about ideas like fixing the climate, more money for poor children, better public transport and stronger tenants rights! Oh the horror the horror
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Quit whining about the Greens snubbing Holyrood’s daft discussion about the Jubilee. This is a democracy. The Greens are a republican party. They’re standing up for an opinion many of us hold. Well done to them for doing what they believe - regardless of rightwing cancel culture.
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Horror of the ‘Glorious Twelfth’. As Scotland’s shooting season starts investigators find that 250,000 animals like foxes, stoats, hedgehogs and a whole array of birds are killed so that rich people can shoot 300,000 grouse a year. Regulation is needed now
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Cheerleaders of the British establishment: your fantasy is collapsing tonight. Your Tory Party is ruined; your royals disgraced. The powers you grovel to always held you in contempt: you were just too high on empire and flags to notice. Join the rest of us in the modern world now
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The Johnson government is no longer simply a British Nationalist government. It’s shifting into something much more sinister. Old school Tories need to wake up. Johnson killed Conservatism. You’re supporting an extremist movement centred on one man that’s heading somewhere awful.
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I’ll tell you what’s not going to make me change my mind about Scottish independence: the royals.
In fact, I’ll tell you what entrenches my support for Scottish independence: just thinking about the royals.
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The economic case for the union is stone dead. The Tories killed it. Yes, there’s a risk in independence, but it’s now a much safer bet for Scotland than staying in the UK. When a plane is crashing you parachute out you don’t stay onboard to crash and burn
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Sorry but I simply don’t believe that rapists can be rehabilitated. To me that kind of crime is hard-wired. Certainly the consequences of their crimes last a lifetime for victims. So let’s cut the shit about giving some destructive unrepentant sex offender second chances shall we
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Dave Allen is trending for no reason that I can clearly understand, but that doesn't matter. It's reason enough for me to simply tweet this picture of him and reiterate the universal truth that he will always be officially cool as fuck
'Goodnight and may your god go with you' x
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I genuinely cannot take this grovelling slavish boot-licking shit anymore. And there’s still three days of it to go. It’s like watching a mass cult rally on every bloody channel. The UN needs to establish some sort of safe haven for republicans.
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The number of homeless folk shivering on the streets of Glasgow disgraces Scotland. In the name of decency and humanity, get your act together police, council, social work and Scottish govt and help these people
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Thank you Scottish Tories for the best laugh I’ve had in a long time this morning.
The Greens in government with the SNP would be a ‘coalition of chaos’, you say?
Did you watch TV yesterday?
Some free advice: read the room.
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Sturgeon to quit any day now…
Brought to you by the same people who said Ruth Davidson would be Scotland’s first Tory First Minister.
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If you’re threatening to leave your country because you don’t want to pay your taxes, then you’re a two-bit scumbag with no moral conscience and the country is better off without you. So do us all a favour: keep your promise and move
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It's an absolute joy to watch Mick Lynch make an absolute fucking moron out of every useless journalist who's grifted a career from failure, lies and hate. They've trashed my profession - that's about trying to find the truth - and now a working class guy exposes them. I love it.
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Want proof that the UK is a leading idiocracy? Offshoring by Mrs Brown's Boys is leading the news over the Queen offshoring
#ParadisePapers
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If you treat cleaners and security guards like they're shit then you're the lowest piece of fucking scum on the planet. These are the workers who sweat so other people can do pampered and easy jobs. I'd love to see just one politician mop a toilet floor. Repugnant spoilt bastards
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Editorially, it is impossible to understand the BBC's failure to adequately report Nicola Sturgeon's visit to America. As I am not of a conspiratorial mindset, I will err on the side of this being a case of inadequate journalism and bad decision-making. Some may see it otherwise.
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Did you notice the sleight of hand? An entire Tory Party conference goes by - and not a word about the defining issue for this country: the cost of living crisis. A performance of hate, lies and extremism to distract us, turn us against each other. When we should turn on them
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The BBC is an absurd organisation. If Laurence Fox had a mandate then there is every reason to give him a platform and hear his views - but he doesn't. He lost his deposit at the London Mayoral elections, polling 1.9%. Count Binface polled 1% - so get Count Binface on too please.
On todays
#PoliticsLive
Siobhan Baillie MP, Conservative
Baroness Chapman, Labour
Laurence Fox, The Reclaim Party
Ellie Mae O'Hagan, CLASS think tank
On
@BBCTwo
at 12:15
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So instead of the most incompetent person in Britain dealing with Brexit, we now have the two most incompetent people in Britain dealing with Brexit. Double the fun! Like having the flu and food poisoning at the same time.
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My grandparents fought and killed fascists, they didn’t throw a party for them as the guest of honour
#WhyBritsDontWantTrump
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This isn’t just an example of how culture war rots the brain. It’s a study in how readily so many of us are prepared to believe the worst of our children: to see them as strange, creepy, dangerous.
To these adults, one could say: projecting much?
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