Welcome to the distopian future, where @MPSIslington spy on you without consent in @IslingtonBC. 🕵️ @BigBrotherWatch, this is outside Highbury & Islington tube just now. I wonder if they will pay any attention to cars running this red light, as always happens?

In 24 hours Thames Water's creditors will decide whether to award it another bailout of £2.4 billion. Sign our petition before tomorrow and get Andy Burnham to block the bailout. 👉vist.ly/5qb9t👈

Of everything John Healey announced today, my favourite is the Pension Tax Allowance: a tax break for pensioners worth, at the very most, £94 a year, which exists, according to the Treasury's own guidance, to spare them the "administrative burden" of a letter from HMRC asking for "a relatively small amount of tax". Why would a pensioner living on nothing but the state pension be getting a tax bill at all? Because the personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021, Labour has stretched the freeze to 2031, and from next April the full state pension, £13,036.40, sails straight over it. So instead of unfreezing the allowance - the honest thing, the thing you could explain to a child - Healey has built a second allowance on top of the first, to cancel out the damage done by the first, for three years, after which it goes "under review", which is Treasury for "in the bin". And since nothing this Treasury makes is permitted to work cleanly, the thing tapers away. Between £13,037 and £13,319 a year, every extra £3 a pensioner earns costs them £1.60 in tax. That is a marginal rate of 53%. A 70-year-old doing a few hours a week behind a till will hand over a bigger share of each extra pound than a millionaire does on his bonus. Meanwhile a 30-year-old cleaner on exactly the same income, £13,036, will pay £93.28 - the very sum Healey's own guidance waives for the pensioner standing next to her at the bus stop. The freeze costs a full-time worker on the minimum wage £759 a year. Labour signed up to taking that off every one of them until 2031, and today Healey expects applause for handing £94 back to some pensioners, for three years, with an expiry date stamped on the bottom. Progress would end the freeze outright. We would restore the personal allowance to the level it would have reached had it never been frozen, about £15,480 today, lock it to inflation for good, and make any future freeze impossible without a vote of Parliament. One allowance, for everyone, worth having. The pensioner comes out of tax, the cleaner comes out of tax, and HMRC is spared the administrative burden of writing to either of them.

A reminder that your life is worth nothing if you ride a bicycle. There's no worse thing to be described as than "cyclist" when it comes to someone facing punishment if they have wronged you.

Horrifying moment driver delivering blood deliberately ploughs into cyclist after road-rage row lbc.co.uk/article/driver-plo…

25,000 people have signed our petition calling for Andy Burnham to block the Thames Water bailout. Add your name today. 👉weownit.org.uk/StopTheBailou…👈

A van driver who deliberately ran over a cyclist while delivering blood to a hospital has been jailed for three years and six months. Mark Okotie, 44, swerved into the path of a cyclist following an altercation on New Cross Road in Lewisham in March 2024. The cyclist, a man in his 20s, suffered multiple pelvic fractures and a broken thigh bone, requiring surgery. More than two years on, the victim says he can no longer run as he used to and sometimes panics when he hears large vehicles approaching from behind. More on this story ➡️ bbc.in/4yINNmA #Lewisham #London #Cycling #Crime

Your son is 14. He wants to download a game his friends are playing. The app asks for a face scan to verify his age. You are told it is to keep him safe. You hold the phone while he looks into the camera. His face is now in a database. Tied to his name. Tied to every account he opens. For the rest of his life. Years later, that profile decides what he can access. What he can say. What he can buy. You did not protect him. You helped enroll him. This is what online child safety laws are building. A digital ID for every person, starting with our children. Share this with a parent who thinks age verification is harmless. Follow me. Every day I show you what is coming and how to stop it.

I fear next week's Twitter cabbie meltdown over Oxford Street's pedestrianisation will be apocalyptic. In 3 months' time, no one will care and will wonder why it wasn't done years ago Remember the outrage when they removed cars from Trafalgar Square? Aldwych? Now, no one cares

We should take our water into public ownership WITHOUT COMPENSATION - starting with Thames Water. Spot on @ewan_mg Andy Burnham has a real opportunity to achieve this now by blocking the Thames Water bailout by Thursday 29th Oct Sign the petition NOW: vist.ly/5pdj6

We are supposed to be a democracy, aren't we? It's time to end this madness. Thames Water's creditors are meeting on Thursday 29th Oct to decide on yet another bailout at our expense Andy Burnham MUST block the bailout. Sign the petition NOW: vist.ly/5p7r7

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Allowing this dead-company-walking to be bailed out again, instead of taking it into Special Administration and then permanent public ownership, would be a disgrace and a betrayal by the Andy Burnham government Enough is enough.

Thames Water is due to run out of money (again) over the next few weeks. A year and a half ago it was given a £3 billion bailout now it's asking for another £2.4 billion. We really are being taken for mugs. theguardian.com/business/202…

Thursday 8th October 06:05am Alleged repeated thefts have been reported at an honesty-stall in Walsham le Willows, Suffolk. If you have relevant information, contact the stall owner or report it to Suffolk Police through the appropriate channels. Disgrace to the community.

I’m sorry, but hackers remotely turning off refrigeration systems at hundreds of supermarkets and destroying all their fresh and frozen food is INSANE. We’ve connected so much of our physical world to the internet that apparently even keeping milk cold is now a cybersecurity problem. What the actual hell.

LET THEM GO BUST ! Last year, Thames Water took out a £3bn loan - at 9.75% interest. And now they want another £2.4bn to keep going?! All while the average Thames Water billpayer forks out £658 a year. ENOUGH. If water companies can't survive without rip-off pay day loans, they should be declared insolvent and brought into public hands through special administration.

I'll fix it for them: "Passport may be needed to prove identity on social media". Here's a more accurate version: "Passports will soon be required so the government can link digital speech directly to real identities, driving widespread self censorship".

"those using the sites will be required to submit their passports or driving licences or undergo credit checks to verify their age" So, Digital ID for all adults and the end of the anonymous Internet - all introduced under the guise of "protect the kids"

Just had a guy on a bike almost crash into me on Marsham Street (maybe 8 mins walk from Parliament) as he was speeding along the pavement on an electric bike. 20s probably, Asian-looking I tell him to not ride on the pavement as I walk away - angrily, but no shouting or swearing etc He throws the bike down and comes after me and says "do you want me to shank you?" (aka stab). Tucked into his belt he has a longish piece of metal - seemed to be some sort of blade but I can't be 100% sure what it was in truth. Enough to scare me anyway I very hurriedly walk away and he yells "yeh run you posh cunt", and at some point he (I think) stops following I call the police (was in two minds between 101 or 999 ; ended up going for the latter). Operator asked me my name and then how to spell it (hardly seemed the priority) Tell her what happened. She asks if I am still in danger - I say well I've walked away but the guy is still around I think She says it's not an emergency so I need to fill out a form on the police website. She says she'll text me the link I say - there's a guy threatening to stab people and is that not a priority? She says no and to fill out the form. I try to interject but mid-sentence she cuts the call That's it Not sure what to think really but as someone who doesn't have many interactions with the @metpoliceuk I just didn't really expect it to be so..dismissive? Maybe they were having a busy Friday night who knows

On a packed train with my family. Couple across the aisle both alternatively playing social media videos on speakers at full volume. Managed not to say anything until the woman started playing a documentary about serial killers. I'm here with my daughter. I politely said "please could you turn it down it's not appropriate." To which she replied "I'm sure she's heard worse at school." I said that really wasn't her call to make and in general could she please reduce the volume. Her response "Its a public train for heavens sake". For me that's exactly why it is anti social (and what headphones were invented for). I'm wondering which one of us is out of kilter on this? Ps I should note she did thankfully reduce the volume and we all left it there.