Dad, grandad. Retired engineer. England Rugby 🏉🏴 AntiFa.
Kidsgrove,Stoke-on-Trent.U.K.
Joined March 2020
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Paul Thatcher retweeted
Occupy Democrats
2͏h͏ ·
BREAKING: PANIC! Trump is DESPERATELY trying to stop Jack Smith from testifying in his own $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC.
Donald Trump sued the BBC for defamation, asking for a whopping $10 billion in damages. Now, he’s panicking about the one witness who might actually know something about the behavior that led the British broadcaster to publish what it did.
According to The New Republic, the BBC subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith to testify as part of its defense against Trump’s defamation suit. The suit claims the network defamed him with deceptive editing in a 2024 documentary about the January 6 Capitol attack.
Trump’s lawyers filed a motion Friday to block the deposition, arguing that “Smith lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter.”
Their reasoning: Smith wasn’t at the January 6 speech, didn’t help prepare it, and can’t know what Trump was thinking. They say anything he gathered was “secondhand knowledge” from materials collected from other sources.
The BBC’s lawyers weren’t impressed. They wrote that “none of [Trump]’s arguments for blocking the deposition of Mr. Smith can withstand scrutiny.” They noted that Smith himself doesn’t object to testifying, and that Trump still has to prove he “did not foment or incite the January 6 Capitol riot,” which he claims the documentary falsely implied.
Then came the line that says it all: “No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol. But as long as he chooses to maintain the case, he cannot commit the fundamental injustice of preventing the BBC from obtaining the evidence it needs to robustly defend itself.”
This isn’t Trump’s only dodge. His attorneys are also fighting efforts to make Trump himself testify, to subpoena his children, and to look into his finances. Trump sued over what the BBC said about January 6, and now he’s fighting every attempt to examine what actually happened.
There’s another problem for him. The BBC is funded by British taxpayers, so Trump can’t bully it into a hefty settlement or force it to back off its coverage the way he has with some American media companies.
So now he has two choices: drop the case, or actually try to prove his point and live with the consequences.
If Trump really believes he did nothing wrong on January 6, a deposition should be no problem. His lawyers’ desperation suggests otherwise.
Please like and share if you can’t wait to hear what Jack Smith has to say if the BBC successfully gets him to testify!
Crazy,but if he’s going to do it,why not get a JCB type digger and driver. Cheaper than robots from China,I’m guessing.
Meteorites.
AI, and the rise of the robots...
Aliens…?
Prepper Peter tries explain his rationale for buying 20 robots from China and 13 acres of land in Wiltshire without @HenryRiley1 calling him a “nutcase”…
He was unsuccessful.
Paul Thatcher retweeted
#BenAitken
This Staffordshire city might just be Britain’s friendliest
thetimes.com/travel/destinat…
Paul Thatcher retweeted
We love #stokeontrent best place best people
“This Staffordshire city might just be Britain’s friendliest”
Smashing article in the Times shared by fellow Stoke expat @caribbeanpotter about the city I grew up in and where I return to, as often as I can, to visit me family and cheer on the mighty, mighty potters! 🔴⚪️
Paul Thatcher retweeted
Winston Marshall isn’t just “an ex-Mumford & Sons member turned podcaster.” He’s the son of Paul Marshall, a co-owner of GB News FFS. When you’re platforming him on Brexit and Labour politics, that family media connection is material context — especially for a channel that regularly criticises the BBC. Why omit it?
Paul Thatcher retweeted
“Hello and welcome to Newsnight. Tonight, we’re joined by Faiza Shaheen, director of Tax Justice UK. Faiza is an economist and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics. Faiza’s previous roles include Program Head for the Inequality and Exclusion Grand Challenge of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, Director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies, Head of Inequality and Sustainable Development at Save the Children, and Senior Researcher at the New Economics Foundation. Faiza holds a PhD and MSc from the University of Manchester and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from St John’s College, Oxford University.
She is the author of a range of materials and publications covering the most salient social and economic debates of our times, including inequality, austerity, immigration, and social mobility. Faiza has over 15 years of experience researching the trends and consequences of inequality, as well as designing policies and campaigns to address the causes of inequality and exclusion. Her book, ‘Know your place: How society sets us up to fail and what we can do about it’ was published in July 2023 by Simon & Schuster.
To speak over her, we’ve invited Winston Marshall, a podcaster and former member of Mumford and Sons.
We hope you enjoy the programme.”
"If you want to lift up the poor, you have to create wealth."
"How's that going?"
Podcaster and former Mumford & Sons member Winston Marshall discusses taxes with economist and Green Party supporter Faiza Shaheen.
#Newsnight
Paul Thatcher retweeted
An unusually fair assessment of the Potteries
This Staffordshire city might just be Britain’s friendliest
thetimes.com/article/022f4f9…
Paul Thatcher retweeted
Could this be the highly anticipated ITV undercover documentary about Reform? This Sunday
Just look at the length of the programme - 1hr 40m
Must have some pretty shocking stuff to be given that long a slot. Almost unheard of….
Paul Thatcher retweeted
As his sidekick smirks, a foreign collaborator calls the PM a liar for telling a long accepted truth about Russian interreference in UK politics (see Nathan Gill et al), and is applauded by his 'associates' at his fake press conference in Dover. Farage is the enemy within.
Paul Thatcher retweeted
In July 2009, an unemployed man named Terry Herbert took his old metal detector out to a farmer's field in Staffordshire, England.
He had been detecting as a hobby for nearly 20 years and never found much. That day his detector started going off. Then it kept going off.
Over the next five days he pulled more than 200 pieces of gold out of the dirt before he called the authorities.
Archaeologists took over, and the final count was staggering. Around 4,000 pieces and fragments. Roughly 11 pounds of gold, about 3 pounds of silver, and thousands of tiny cut garnets. It's the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, by a wide margin. It made the gold at Sutton Hoo look small.
But the strangest thing about it was what it was made of.
There was almost no jewelry. No coins. No women's ornaments. No cups or plates.
It was nearly all war gear. Gold sword hilt fittings. Dozens and dozens of sword pommels. Pieces of a helmet decorated in silver. Fittings stripped off weapons, with the blades themselves gone.
Someone had collected the gold decorations from a lot of swords and buried them together, sometime in the 600s.
The leading theory is that it was loot. In that period, the kingdom of Mercia was at war constantly, and the winners took the weapons of the men they killed. Somebody pried off the valuable parts, bundled them up, and buried them. They never came back.
One piece makes it even stranger. It's a folded gold strip with a Latin verse from the Bible, and the Latin is misspelled. It says "Rise up, O Lord, and may your enemies be scattered, and those who hate you be driven from your face."
A Christian prayer for victory, buried in a pile of trophies taken from defeated warriors.
The hoard was valued at £3.285 million. Terry Herbert and the farmer split it. Local museums raised the money to keep it in the area, and it's now on display in Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent.
Thousands of warriors' gold, buried in a field for 1,300 years, and found by a guy who almost didn't go out that day.
Paul Thatcher retweeted
Reform UK Councillors Gone: Updated
Reform UK Councillor Jim McIlroy (West Surrey) is now an Independent after being ousted as Leader of the West Surrey Group.
➡️ Kicked Out
Brian Black (Kent CC)
Oliver Bradshaw (Kent CC)
Paul Thomas (Kent CC)
Bob Ford (Kent CC)
Bill Barratt (Kent CC)
Ed Hill (Devon CC)
James Regan (Essex CC)
Mark Broadhurst (Doncaster CC)
Paul Bean (Durham CC)
Adam Smith (West Northants C)
Daniel Taylor (Kent CC)
Nicole Brooke (Northumberland CC)
Patrick Lambert (Northumberland CC)
Maxine Fothergill (Kent CC)
Ian Cooper (Staffordshire CC)
Edward Harris (Warwickshire CC)
Isabella Kemp (Kent CC)
Aaron Roy (Hartlepool BC)
Jay Cooper (Sefton MBC)
Caroline Gladwin (Isle of Wight C)
Robert Hanson (Sheffield)
Danielle Cavanagh (Gateshead C)
Daniel Astley (Newcastle C)
Daniel Rollinson (Walsall C)
➡️ Resigned Independent
Nicola Brown (Doncaster CC) Ind
Christopher Marriott (Doncaster CC) Ind
Chris Large (Staffordshire CC) Ind
Lynn Dean (Staffordshire CC) Ind
Robin Perry (Walsall C) Ind
Alan Dennison (Pembrokeshire CC) Ind
Kathryn Shaw (West Northants C) Ind
Joanne Blythe (West Northants C) Ind
Andrew Barry (Torfaen CBC) Ind
Todd Ferguson (North Ayrshire C) Ind
Roger Tarrant (Cornwall CC) Ind
Susanne Desmonde (Cornwall CC) Ind
Nick Farmer (Wakefield C) Ind
Jo Monk (Worcestershire CC) Ind
Ashley Monk (Worcestershire CC) Ind
Matthew Jones (Worcestershire CC) Ind
Jamie Hanlon (Cornwall CC) Ind
Jasmine Fox (Durham CC) Ind
Steven Lewis (Wakefield C) Ind
Rosemary Trollope-Bellew (South Kesteven DC) Ind
Susan Maxfield (Kirklees C) Ind
Rebecca Waters (Birmingham C) Ind
Steven Deakin (Cannock Chase C) Ind
Joe Garner (North Northants), Ind
Bella Simon (Walsall), Ind
James Fletcher (Luton), Ind
Glenn Gibbins (Sunderland), Ind
Alex Barr (South Tyneside), Ind
Billy Burke (Trafford C), Ind
Lawrence Davies (Swindon C), Ind
Carol Ney (Plymouth C), Ind
Tanya Brasted (NE Lincolnshire C), Ind
Robbie Withey (Aberdeenshire), Ind
Mark Hill (Chorley), Ind
Grace Stickland (Plymouth), Ind
Jonathan Millard (Blaenau Gwent), Ind
Dawn Saunders (Durham), Ind
Mark Hill (Chorley DC), Ind
Lyndsey Fox (Durham), Ind
Paul Sexton (Durham), Ind
Nicole Brown (Durham), Ind
Chris Perera (Essex), Ind
Marcus Barr (Somerset), Ind
Brian Smith (North Tyneside), Ind
Dan Bradley (East Sussex CC), Ind
Jim McIlroy (West Surrey CC), Ind
➡️ Defected
Amelia Randall (Kent CC) Rest
John Roddy (Warrington BC) Con
Peter Colley (Hertfordshire CC) Rest
Dean Burns (Kent CC) Rest
Jack Goncalvez (North Northants C) Rest
Charles Whitford (Leicestershire CC) Rest
Luke Cooper (Warwickshire CC) Rest
Scott Cameron (Warwickshire CC) Rest
Kieran Mishchuck (Kent CC) Rest
Alistair Hendry (Somerset CC) Con
Graham Eardley (Walsall C) Rest
Owain Clatworthy (Bridgend CBC) Rest
Cain Parkinson (Lincolnshire CC) Con
Brandon Dodd (Glamorgan C) Rest
Charlotte Kelly (Staffordshire CC) Con
Robbie Lammas (Medway C) Con
Dan Glover (Warwickshire CC) Rest
Rob Aitkenhead (Warwickshire CC) Rest
Leon Graham (Lancashire CC) Con
Cameron Emery (West Northants C) Rest
David Hoey (Solihull MBC) Con
Karl Perks (Worcestershire CC), Con
Bruce Craze (Cornwall), Res
Rhys Carr (Wakefield C), SDP
Mark Hadfield (Plymouth CC), Res
Andrew Crumplin (Plymouth CC), Res
Nigel Swales (Lancashire CC), Lab
Robert Hanson (Sheffield), Chartist Reform
Mick Lee (Sheffield), Chartist Reform
Andrew Southall (Dudley MBC), Res
Michael Rees (Gloucestershire CC), Res
Cathy Gibbon (Buckinghamshire CC), Con
➡️ Suspended
Dave Rowan (Kirklees C)
Jacob Padget (Wakefield C)
Matthew Wallens (Staffordshire CC)
Dean Robertson (Litchfield City)
Bradley Thompson (Essex CC)
➡️ Disqualified
Andy Osborn (Cambridgeshire CC)
John Allen (Northumberland CC)
➡️ Resigned
Mark Whittington (South Kesteven DC)
Jack McGlenen (Durham CC)
Gaynor Jean-Louis (Worcestershire CC)
Wayne Titley (Staffordshire CC)
Donna Edmunds (Shropshire CC)
Luke Shingler (Warwickshire CC)
Desmond Clarke (Nottinghamshire CC)
Andrew Kilburn (Durham CC)
Paul Thatcher retweeted
A message from Lower the Flags.
'These are popping up all over Birmingham, I feel compelled to make a statement, as a deflagger group, we absolutely do not condone the erection or display of unauthorised flags. No exceptions, no excuses. I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to like, share, copy and paste this image, upload it to their profile, or post it in groups or on pages for wider distribution across this or other social media. That would be completely wrong, of course.'😂
