Rob Lesslie
@roblesslie
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Just some guy, you know (with apologies to Douglas Adams). Quite keen on Agile.
Bath, UK
Joined June 2011
When FaceID comes to the Mac, will we finally get focus follows eyes?
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This programme started in 2006 as Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS). A mere 19 years later the design for the solid stores ship is done.
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One tweet that says much…
The Blame Game 22/25 The adventurism in Afghanistan left heavy armour to rust while light forces chased campaign medals. Counter-insurgency prestige trumped preparation for peer conflict. Retired senior officers now appear in the media blaming Treasury “short-termism,”
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Each time WASPI idiots cause additional public expenditure explaining to them why they’re still wrong, or they distract those paid at public expense with their childish antics, their pensions should be docked to make up the balance.
PA: A decision not to award compensation to Waspi women will be reconsidered by the Government because of undisclosed “evidence”, the Work and Pensions Secretary said.
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Hadn't clocked this till now but Labour seem to be de facto banning school uniform, or at least school uniform plus games/team kit, or CCF uniforms...
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For their today, they are taking my tomorrow.
'Taxing pensions will punish those trying to do the right thing. Curbs on salary sacrifice at the budget could cost you a fortune, especially if you work in the private sector. It would also be another tax on jobs' | ✍️@PensionsMonkey
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Nimrod it. It's not too late.
BREAKING: Soldiers were sent to hospital with hearing problems and serious headaches after testing out the new Ajax vehicles while on an exercise THIS summer
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This is idiotic actually, because unlike the present system it provides no incentive to have an efficient vehicle. Fuel duty is charged from fuel consumed - a less efficient vehicle consumes more fuel per mile and therefore pays more.
This is good, actually. Like most drivers I pay fuel duty for my petrol car. Which is actually a pay per mile tax. If everyone were to drive fuel tax free electric vehicles, the Treasury would miss out on ÂŁ25bn in revenue.
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Excellent piece by Navy Lookout bringing to life the tightness of the financial bind the MoD is in, through a detailed look at navy surface ships. How we are supposed to believe that we can believe in a flotilla of 12 SSNs when the fleet as a whole is in such a parlours state is
Latest analysis article: The Royal Navy’s frigate gap – how deep and how long will it last? https://t.co/sGWQQVuLOo
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Introduction: The F-35B in UK Service – A Story of Compromise and Challenge Views my own, corrections and comments welcomed. I have written on F-35B before - I am agnostic to it, I am more interested in outcome than platform. My view, we have the wrong aircraft to deliver the
committees.parliament.uk
The F-35 is the best fast jet the UK has ever had – but the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) cost-cutting approach has caused significant problems in its use. In a new report on the UK’s F-35 capability,...
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This is a great report, am going through it now. One thing stood out to me: "90% of the more than a billion prescriptions issued annually are issued free of charge, with two-thirds of these being issued free of charge due to the recipient’s age."
Lots of people say the Government should significantly cut spending. Hardly any spell out how that could be achieved. So kudos to the Policy Exchange for a serious-minded report proposing spending cuts taking the size of the state down to where it was before the pandemic.
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We’re about to have a terrible lesson in economics.
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The UK has stumbled into inventing a maximum wage
The tax cliff above ÂŁ100K is objectively insane, inefficient and growth destroying. But since we've talked ourselves into a situation where someone on this salary is 'rich', or a 'fat cat' there is no incentive to fix it. Our politicians are either dumb or cowards.
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They can stick this up their collective holes.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨 Senior defence officials, including a former head of the armed forces and a NATO secretary general, have tentatively said Britain should be open to sharing nuclear weapons with Europe in the face of mounting Russia aggression 🧵1/7.
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Most don’t realise how threadbare is the upholstery of our “Rolls Royce” of a civil service machine. Read down this 🧵 “…completed at the last minute, to justify decisions already taken.” rang bells.
We think of the British state as a juggernaut. But in many ways, it's often terrifyingly ramshackle - and as I say in @thetimes today, the govt's new announcements on business regulation are the perfect case in point. Nerdy but important thread. (1/?)
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Informative article, but - like many takes on the RN’s current push to expand its mass through large-scale adoption of autonomous systems - it doesn’t really address many of the potential downsides. These include… 🧵
Latest analysis article: Echoes of the Flower-class corvettes – Royal Navy’s plans to increase anti-submarine warfare mass https://t.co/sPwtKTdjZU By @TomHoyland
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NEW: The Government spent £22m on its Small Modular Reactor competition- and demanded 50% gender diversity across bidders’ supply chains. Is it any wonder Britain is the most expensive country in the world to build new nuclear? https://t.co/y6nGDq5ksx
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China has: - spied on Parliament - attacked dissidents- - threatened Hongkongers - stolen technology - collapsed businesses But somehow they claim the UK has shown “disregard for contractual spirit, acting in bad faith and without integrity”. And they end it with a threat: The
BREAKING: China warns Keir Starmer he faces “consequences” if he doesn’t approve its embassy in London Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian launches a broadside against the UK as Starmer’s thaw with Beijing threatens to break down. Olly Robbins’ meetings in Beijing do not appear
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And that’s why I liked him.
'David Cameron said, undiplomatically, "they can f*** off". Michael Gove recalls a trip to China during which officials asked the British delegation to remove their poppies. Watch in full https://t.co/KhroxDIv0W
@michaelgove @Madz_Grant
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