Laura

It’s just … about to backfire !

I sit in Parliament listening to these ministers, and it’s all just so depressing - the vast majority of them have never run a business, and it SHOWS. You would not believe how bad it is. They think ‘work’ means turning up to an office between 9 and 5, answering a few emails, and going home at the end of the day. Nice lunch break, few coffees away from the desk, probably a smoking break or several. It doesn’t - not for the millions of men and women who actually create the wealth that funds the state. Running a small business isn’t a job. It’s a way of life. It is life. It’s 24/7/365. It’s relentless. You are the accountant, HR department, compliance officer, cleaner, marketer, and customer service team - all in one. There’s no sick pay, no safety net, and no taxpayer-funded pension waiting for you. Holiday? Good luck. If you do manage to get away, it’s checking the phone all day, every day. Wife/husband obviously getting pissed off. We’ve all been there... It’s all on you. Every invoice chased, every tax deadline met, every bit of red tape navigated is on you. And if you make one mistake, one error, one small slip-up, the state comes after you - in a relentlessly efficient manner that is never afforded to us when we ask questions of it. Most MPs have no idea what that feels like. They just don’t. We’re going to see more of this in the budget I’m sure. More hurt. More pain. More tax. They don’t get it. They don’t understand that when a small business owner gets hit with another tax, it’s not absorbed by a ‘budget’ - it’s taken straight out of their family’s pocket. There is no ‘deficit’ in the business world - that’s called going bust. And they certainly don’t understand what real risk looks like. Politicians can vote through a policy on Monday and forget it by Tuesday - a small business owner lives with the consequences of that policy for years, decades. The MP monthly salary is safe. It always has been. In the public sector before, and in the public sector after - if not that, some charity/NGO funded entirely by the public sector. GET A REAL JOB. If MPs actually spent a week running a small firm - paying suppliers, tackling VAT, navigating health and safety law, sorting out HR issues, chasing clients for payment, trying to expand while staying compliant with everything from GDPR to local planning regulations - they’d legislate very differently. I can promise you that. They’d realise that most of Britain’s problems could be solved by the state doing less, not more. Cutting tax. Simplifying regulation. Slashing back the HRification of the country. Trusting people who actually produce things to get on with it. Instead, we have a political class that talks endlessly about ‘growth’ while brutally punishing the only people capable of delivering it - especially going after the family businesses/farms, which is a particularly spiteful policy decision. Small business owners are people who work harder than almost anyone in Parliament could imagine - and who are treated worse for it. Britain’s small businesses don’t succeed because of politicians, they survive in spite of them.

Amount of people saying “Stay & fight”, like this is some war movie. You cant fight. You cant even protest without being called racist. & Fight who? How? The whole country is fucked, the water companies robbed us & dumped shit in the water, you can’t swim anywhere you’ll get ill & die. The country is literally a shit hole. The councils are bankrupt & cant even fix a pot hole & charge you council tax for the privilege of doing fuck all while robbing you. Moneys taxed, cars taxed, petrols taxed, booze, food EVERYTHING is taxed, then if you manage to save enough money after its been taxed to buy a house you get taxed on that, then if you die and pass it to your kids that gets taxed. They literally want everything from the working man while they hide their money. Its a con, we are being conned. & We are about to get taxed even more. NHS is fucked. Cost of living fucked. Interest rates are fucked, & we got years of it getting worse before it gets better. Londons a hell hole & unsafe after dark. I hate it. The men think they are women, kids are encouraged to think about their sexuality & gender. Our soldiers are getting stabbed. Our police are pussies & the ones that aint get fired. & that aint even getting started on illegal immigration, thats getting worse. If my country ever needed me to actually fight id be there, 100%, but i ain’t gambling the lifes of my three daughters in the mean time, & even if they did survive growing up here for what? To live in a shit hole full of fucking wierdo’s. No thanks. Where would i go? Somewhere with a backbone, a bit of sun & with less risk of your kids getting murderd, like Australia, Russia or fucking North Korea. I whole heartedly encourage anyone with young kids that have the ability to leave to do so. Todays events in Southport have rocked me to the core, im sat here looking at my daughters feeling sad. You can still work on trying to get your voice heard while your kids are safe. I want my kids to live not survive.

No one saying women can’t but the ones I’ve seen on TV mostly have note pads and Q cards next to them at half time talks while their male counterparts don’t. It comes off forced and disingenuous. Should be the best person for the job

WHATS EATING JOEY BARTON? The last 24 hours have seen a bizarre twist in the culture war coming from an unexpected quarter. Yes the football lot are kicking off, led by Joey Barton described by the BBC as the philosophical footballer who could rival Cantona, he is as well know for his outlandish tweets quoting Nietzsche as he is for his violent alterations that have accompanied his accomplished football career. Ellie Mae of the Guardian said that when Joey is violent and brawling this is a sign of his working class roots, but when his being intellectual this is a sign of his reformation, because intellect is reserved as a sign of the upper classes. And it is this dichotomy that has defined Barton, is he philosopher or thug? In truth he represents the forgotten man of Britain, allowed to do as he wishes as long as he plays ball, literally, and keeps quiet. But this weekend Joey isn’t keeping quiet, this weekend Joey has went nuclear ☢️ What began as outspoken comments on female football pundits has morphed into a scorched earth attack on the entire philosophy of Woke. Barton has called out the system that seeks to artificially micro-manage the world to make it confirm to an idealised utopia while ignoring and silencing the concerns and problems those who are excluded from this shining new utopia. Woke like the Marxism it’s grown from is obsessed with power and taking power by creating slurs that can be thrown at everyone who dares to disagree, as it seeks to advance not through skill, or competency or good ideas, but through quota’s, gaslighting and blatant power grabs. So it’s no surprise that Barton’s rallying war cry has been meritocracy rules, the antithesis of what Woke stands for. Now the football lot are mainly protected from this, or they were, it’s the game of the working classes, the white working classes, often self employed and existing beyond the world of the HR department, they are a bubble of pre-Woke Britain and the managerial class that run Britain have been happy to let them stay there. Not because they believe in any diversity of thought but because they fear them. Hundreds of thousands of men who gather every weekend wearing their club colours, drinking and chanting and generally being a sight that strikes terror into the managerial elites heart, organised men who believe in something, but so long as they maintained their apolitical stance, believing in their club and staying out of politics they’ve been left alone. Or they were until covid, until BLM, until the Woke superstate decided to they needed to Wokify the entire world. And so they came for football, under qualified pundits, the never ending kneeling before games, football went Woke. But Barton didn’t go Woke, he remained as he was an outspoken modern gladiator, seasoned on the field of dreams, he knows what it is to fight, to win, to feel the flush of victory, in short he doesn’t just preach meritocracy he has lived it, for football is mercilessly meritocratic. And Barton as can be seen from the replies is far from alone, it seems many of the football lot do not appreciate their new Marxist inspired overlords, and like a lightening rod Barton has drawn this discontent and brought it to earth, In essence the Woke backlash is spreading from niche podcasts, and ignored corners of X and is hitting the mainstream, Barton’s two million followers are talking, national newspapers are too and suddenly the Woke behemoth that seemed beyond reproach is suddenly up for debate, and it’s only the first weekend of 2024! So yes the culture wars are heating up and the managerial class will soon have to face the raging fire of discontent that they have ignored for so long. So thank you @Joey7Barton for lobbing some bombs 💣 over the walls of the Woke Ivory Towers, and @NewCultureForum @lotuseaters_com @piersmorgan you need to have a chat with Joey and see what washes out. And to all my culture warriors LFG 🚀

There isn’t a single pair of glasses that can help VAR

And Labour would give him the vote… bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne…

The Mobberley pub with a massive beer garden that families love - and it has its own adventure park for little ones to enjoy 😍