Best Of

This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.

"Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.

In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.

That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.

Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.

Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.

I’m not even going to discuss that.

It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.

It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.

Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.

Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?

It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.

And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?

When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.

We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.

As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."

https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1971816994316984476

This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.

"Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.

In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.

That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.

Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.

Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.

I’m not even going to discuss that.

It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.

It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.

Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.

Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?

It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.

And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?

When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.

We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.

As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."

https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1971816994316984476

Thats a very good summary from Lowe

It is mad situation that Starmer has dragged us to, that Lowe is the voice of reason.

This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.

"Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.

In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.

That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.

Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.

Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.

I’m not even going to discuss that.

It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.

It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.

Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.

Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?

It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.

And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?

When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.

We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.

As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."

https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1971816994316984476

Thats a very good summary from Lowe

Keir Starmer has tasked a Conservative peer with writing a new planning bill to remove the ability for environmental groups to delay projects such as Heathrow’s third runway with judicial reviews.

The Guardian understands that leaving the Aarhus convention is being discussed as an option. This is an international treaty signed up to by the EU and other countries in Europe, which protects the right for campaigners to bring legal claims against large infrastructure projects such as waste plants, nuclear power stations and motorways.

Doing this would “destabilise Britain’s constitution” and silence legitimate objections, leading planning lawyers have warned.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/27/starmer-asks-conservative-peer-write-planning-bill-block-judicial-reviews

And, most damaging of all, threaten the planning lawyers' income stream.

Off topic: I'm not averse to a good moan on here about the state of the education system, so thought I should balance that out with a bit of praise.

My school had an INSET day yesterday. In times gone by these days would be crammed full of sessions focused on the senior leadership team members' pet projects or fads, which immediately get forgotten because noone has time to implement them.

Yesterday, aside from an hour where we discussed how to respond to the London riots (we have a very diverse student body) we were trusted to use the day to deal with all the backlog of tasks that always arise in September as a result of the new school year.

This was a really conscious choice on the school's part to reduce burnout amongst staff. It is something the headteacher has agency over, and is exactly the sort of thing that will stop our school, and the system as a whole, bleeding staff. I managed to pin down my line manager to meet, meaning that I am now enthusiastic about how I can move my role forward over the next few months.

More importantly, I sorted out an assessment for students that will mean we can make sure they're in the right class to prepare for their GCSEs, and give them and home a month's warning of the assessment, rather than springing it on them. The school's decision to reduce the crap they throw our way will have a tangible positive impact on our students' experience of preparing for their maths GCSE.

I'm impressed.

I went to a junior school yesterday which was a show put on for parents/grandparents. The kids were from 4-10 I think. Each group of about 40 or 50 were introduced and came onto a stage and then sang a few lines of a meaningful (woke) song they'd learnt. As you got to the older groups the hand and body movements became more in time with the song and each other.

I have to say I found it moving. They were all so nice and kind to each other and when they took us round their classrooms they were relaxed and confident and eager to show us what they'd done

But I couldn't help this gnawing question of how these beautiful bright young children without a prejudice in the world could have turned into those flag waving morons that turned out in London two Saturdays ago.

I'm not in sympathy with the themes of the march, but it's possible to be mild 90% of the time and still nurse passionate prejudices and resentment. If we write them all off as flag-waving morons we miss the point. A lot of people are emotional about politics on the rare occasions when they pay attention to it at all. The challenge is to engage that emotion positively without expecting them suddenly to subscribe to the Guardian.

We are a people who've been told we have no culture. To me the march looked like people who are seeking their roots, and remembering (in the visibility of Islam) that those roots are Christian.

I don't think that we have been told that we have no culture. Who on earth gave you that idea?

Not that culture is static, as shown by the flag wavers lining up for curry and pizza at food stalls after the march.

I also find the intolerance of minority cultures by the "fun with flags" brigade as much of a threat as the intolerance of the more extreme strands of Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. Accepting that neighbours live differently and not attempting to force them into line, is the sort of British culture that I am proud of.

We still don’t know what Johnson was up to - when actually serving as British PM - giving his security the slip and going off to meet that Russian oligarch in his Italian villa. I’d imagine MI6 know, and it will all come out one day.

The theory that Boris was in bed with the Russians is a strange one. Among the core powers, he was initially a remarkably lone voice in powerfully fighting Ukraine’s corner. I have directly heard it this month that when the war eventually ends, British contractors will be welcomed with open arms in Ukraine, and that Brits “will never understand just how many lives they saved” in 2022.

Having bring in Ukraine last month, that is very much correct.

Whatever one might have to say about Boris Johnson, Ukrainians absolutely love him. He was the face of the initial Western response to the war as far as they are concerned. And yes, there will be a lot of work in clearing up and rebuilding much of the country after the war, will be a huge opportunity for British companies.

Russia has been trying to cultivate politicians worldwide for years, and in the UK it has been remarkably even-handed with who it approached. In the Conservatives you had the likes of Boris and Osborne; Labour Mandelson, Goldsmith and Brown; the SNP Salmond, and UKIP/Reform has Farage himself and others, as shown in the Gill court case. The Lib Dems had Mike Hancock.

This does not mean any of the above did anything wrong; just that Russia was really trying to cultivate influence. Some of the interactions may have appeared totally benign to the targets. Whether they succeeded in the case of the individuals mentioned is questionable; though in the case of Gill, they definitely did.

Was there not also a Lib Dem fifty-something sex god?

Naah, I was never an MP.