Former MP & Minister for London, Small Business & Technology. Back to the real world of work
Sutton, UK
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Absolutely this. There's no way a rebuild should cost £300m. Knock it down, rebuild something more appropriate then hang dummy suspension wires afterwards if you must hang onto the past...
The Hammersmith Bridge is a beautiful Victorian bridge that no longer works. The Victorians would have demolished it, confident they could build something better. We sit among the ruins of their civilisation.
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A point I made on a ministerial call whilst Minister for London. I was told they weren't part of the Strategic Road Network (SRN). I reminded the minister of the number of WWII films that had 'Bridge' in the title...
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The problem with voting against a political party is you have to live with the actions of the party that benefits as a result.tgw country has experienced that with Starmer. Now Sutton's parents are starting to notice the same closer to home: insidecroydon.com/2026/06/27…
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You'd need an XXL t-shirt to get all of this abuse on. 🙄
Here’s the video of Angela Rayner calling children who attend Eton “scum” (and also managing to come off even more rabid than nature intended).
But they’re not trying to start a class war, and educational VAT is not political payback…
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I choose to cook my own food rather than have someone else prepare and heat it up. Clearly I'm not getting a tax break.
Note to all the pearl-clutching Tories out in force today…
You don’t HAVE to send your kids to private school. We have universal education provision in this country.
If you *choose* to do so, the rest of us shouldn’t pay for you to have a tax break for the privilege.
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Disappointing to see the first of the 3 MPs to swear the oath of allegiance, the new SNP MP for Arbroath, cross her fingers whilst reading the script. First of several performative appearances I suspect.
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Well it could be worse...
"Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants. In fact, I've heard it's substantially more, actually beyond that number—100%. It's a much higher number than that." (August 2024) @Acyn
Fact-check: This is impossible.
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The civil service has started reusing podiums, such is the regularity of change of PMs and lack of economic growth.
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1. For the sake of everyone else in the UK, we'd like some warning about what he wants to do 2. If it's just the 2024 manifesto, expect the same results 3. It was clear that Boris was a very successful politician 4. Voters hate being taken for mugs (I seem to remember this!)
MP backing Andy Burnham tells Today prog there is no need for him to set out his plans for governing, or face a vote, before becoming PM because "it's clear he's a very successful politician".
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Another fan comment on @LBC whilst doing Cross Questions and sharing my view on the absurdity of keeping the pension triple lock. @SimonMarksFSN did tell me afterwards that the subject matter was an emotive ones for listeners! Anyway, thanks for the feedback James!
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Feels like everyone is rushing to a ban on social media for young people. I agree with Ian Russell of @mollyroseorg that this looks rushed for political reasons after such a short consultation. Disappointingly, Conservatives will be happy to support having pushed it first 1/10
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It's a popular policy but that doesn't make it right. My children are grown up so I don't have personal experience of such pressures, but that gives me a chance to take a step back just as I did with the gambling white paper, trying to balance benefits vs harm 9/10
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