Laurie Dunkin Wedd
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ldw1.bsky.social
Laurie Dunkin Wedd
@ldw1.bsky.social
Bought no coal or gas since 1977, no flights since 2006, no petrol since 2015. You can give up fossils too!
PV, EV, domestic battery.
ME/CFS. #UBI
Kent UK.
Sometimes musical.
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
I'm not vegan, and this is an absurd decision in so many ways. We're all well able to tell the difference between animal and vegetable 'milk', and to make decisions based on impact information www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Oatly loses long-running 'milk' battle with dairy lobby
The plant-based drink maker can no longer use the term 'milk' to market its products.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 11, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
These days it isn't troops that take on the most risk in war, it's civilians. 🤬

The 34-yr-old, his 2-yr-old twins & their 1-yr-old sister — were killed, while rescue workers pulled out the mother alive...The war killed 2,514 civilians % wounded 12,142 in Ukraine in 2025 — 31% higher than in 2024 "
Russian drone attack kills a father and 3 children in Ukraine while pregnant mother survives
A Russian drone has struck a home in Ukraine's Kharkiv region in an attack that killed a father and his three small children.
apnews.com
February 11, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
🚨 @libdemdaisy.bsky.social sets out the Lib Dem plan to drive growth by replacing the Treasury with a new Department for Growth in Birmingham.
February 11, 2026 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
NEW – Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is ‘50% cheaper’ than new gas | @mollylempriere.carbonbrief.org

Read here: buff.ly/IDBhecw
February 11, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
🔴Jeffrey Epstein Met Privately with Bill Gates and Peter Thiel to ‘Rebuild His Reputation’ Through Philanthropy

Documents suggest they met at the convicted child sex offender’s home, alongside Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman

bylinetimes.com/2026/02/11/j...
Jeffrey Epstein Met Privately with Bill Gates and Peter Thiel to 'Rebuild His Reputation' Through Philanthropy
To 'rebuild' his reputation, Epstein proposed a global philanthropic framework for Gates at the convicted child sex offender's Manhattan home during a meeting attended by Palantir co-founder Peter Thi...
bylinetimes.com
February 11, 2026 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
Enough of elections going to the monied few, especially when they work for foreign interests democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-c...
Revealed: Corporate donations to British politics have tripled
Influential Labour committee chairs call on government to clean up politics as our new analysis finds record £42 million in company donations ahead of last election
democracyforsale.substack.com
February 11, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
This is great news, if they can accomplish it!
🚨🚨Welcome news: The #EU is hatching an unprecedented plan that could give #Ukraine partial #membership in the bloc as early as next year, as Brussels tries to shore up the country’s position in Europe and away from #Moscow. 🧵
www.politico.eu/article/5-st...
5 steps to get Ukraine into the EU in 2027
Plans to bring Kyiv into the tent before it has completed all reforms and to remove Hungary’s veto signal a sense of urgency in Brussels.
www.politico.eu
February 11, 2026 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
🎯Spot on from Lord Sikka.

Thames Water's collapsing, South East Water can't manage its own supply, and the bosses of the private companies are trying to find loopholes in the law so they can pay themselves bonuses.

We need public ownership for water.
Public ownership of water is the only way to deliver security, efficiency, investment and value for money
37 years of privatisation has been a disaster
leftfootforward.org
February 10, 2026 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
PMQs review: Whatever unofficial pact existed between Labour and the Lib Dems, it's just been blown up

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
What we learned from PMQs: The Starmer-Davey bromance is over
To appoint two paedophile supporters shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.
www.newstatesman.com
February 11, 2026 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
"History is women following behind with the bucket."

So Morgan McSweeney has been replaced by Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson. Antonia Romeo is about to take over from Chris Wormald. Steph Driver may return to fill Tim Allan's vacancy.

Sense that now there's a mess to mop up, get the women in
February 11, 2026 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
GOVERNMENT LIES

A clip from last night’s C4 Despatches shows that the government’s own advisor saw no evidence on claims used by Labour to proscribe Palestine Action.

Jonathan Hall KC slams the phoney accusations of an ‘Iran link’ as “nudge nudge, wink wink”.

Lift The Ban NOW
February 10, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
Contrived self-employment and National Insurance dodge.

Drivers at Amazon, Evri, eCourier and elsewhere are persuaded to be self-employed. They pay income tax and Class 4 NIC but lose out on worker rights - e.g. minimum wage.

Companies don't pay employers’ NIC.

Must end this dodge.
National Insurance is a regressive tax that hits the less well-off hardest
Compared to income tax, national insurance contributions attract little sustained scrutiny even though they provide large amounts to the public purse.
leftfootforward.org
February 11, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
Trump to pollute more, produce electricity more expensively, cost taxpayers more in bid to shore up fossil fuel industry

The fossil industry were, of course, heavy donors to his election campaign

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump to Direct Pentagon to Buy Coal in Bid to Revive Industry
President Donald Trump will unveil plans to use government funding and Pentagon contracts to sustain US coal-fired power plants as he seeks to drive domestic reliance on the fossil fuel.
www.bloomberg.com
February 11, 2026 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
To be clear they approached the debating society.

Who does thar?

I'll tell you - people who are deliberately engineering controversy in the hope that it will get talked about on talk radio stations and GB News
Reform UK approached Bangor University to ask whether Sarah Pochin (Reform MP) could come to debate. They said no, and this is the response they get

Reform would behave exactly as Donald Trump. Don't agree with them, and they will penalise, threaten, defund, and cancel you. They are proto fascists.
February 11, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
The same people who tell us “oh, dear boy, you don’t understand” when reassuring us about Palantir embedding itself in the British state were almost exactly the same people who told us Russian interference, Cambridge Analytica and phone hacking were just ‘conspiracy theories’
February 10, 2026 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
our FT story from June 2023 showed:

Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s $77m townhouse in Manhattan in June 2009 while the financier was in prison for soliciting prostitution from minor

in 2010 and 2011 Epstein noted that “Petie” was with him in Paris, where the financier owned a sumptuous apartment
February 11, 2026 at 7:59 AM
Ah, yes. The “cost of net zero”.
And the cost of climate change…

www.ft.com/content/8801...
Weather-related insurance payouts set to jump after UK storms and flooding
The expected rise in claims comes at the same time as a fall in the cost of property insurance
www.ft.com
February 11, 2026 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
An 11 ppt swing from mortgagers to renters over the 3 decades since 1995 means that 8.6 million people in lower-income families rent from a private landlord.

These people spend on average 43 per cent of their total household budget on rent.

Read Unsung Britain now ⤵️ buff.ly/7WcqrbQ
February 11, 2026 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
Reform MPs Accused of Pandering to Putin After Skipping Russian Interference Debate
Reform MPs Accused of Pandering to Putin After Skipping Russian Interference Debate
Nigel Farage's party refused to attend the debate, called after more than 100,000 people signed a petition demanding a public inquiry into Russian interference in British politics
bylinetimes.com
February 11, 2026 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
"For every dollar invested in protecting nature, US$30 are spent destroying it."

This is not ‘finance’, it’s arson with public money and corporate profit matches.
Harmful investments outpace nature protection by 30 to 1 – new UNEP report
For every US$1 the world invests in protecting nature, it spends US$30 on destroying it. This stark imbalance is the central finding of a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released today. It ...
www.unep.org
February 11, 2026 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
🚨🚨Welcome news: The #EU is hatching an unprecedented plan that could give #Ukraine partial #membership in the bloc as early as next year, as Brussels tries to shore up the country’s position in Europe and away from #Moscow. 🧵
www.politico.eu/article/5-st...
5 steps to get Ukraine into the EU in 2027
Plans to bring Kyiv into the tent before it has completed all reforms and to remove Hungary’s veto signal a sense of urgency in Brussels.
www.politico.eu
February 11, 2026 at 9:43 AM
This is not news. This is not reportage. This is a political campaign by a company that admitted phone hacking.
#Leveson2 please.
February 11, 2026 at 9:48 AM
“The [shadow] fleet currently consists of 1,468 vessels... about 18-19% of the total internationally trading tanker fleet, carrying approximately 17% of all seaborne crude…”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sanctions-busting shadow ships are increasing - the big question is what to do about them
What can governments do when countries circumvent or flout the rules to export oil?
www.bbc.co.uk
February 11, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
The insistence on hoops to jump through, even on the left, is the bane of my existence as a UBI advocate.
February 10, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Laurie Dunkin Wedd
The hypocrisy exposed 👀

“When was the last time anyone spotted the Reform UK leader 'at work' in his own constituency of Clacton-on-Sea? According to him, it’s 'a couple of days a week'. Sounds a lot like hybrid working, then.”
Nigel Farage is a WFH icon – I can just picture him at his ‘home desk’
The Reform UK leader wants to end remote working, saying it ‘doesn’t make you more productive’. He would know, writes Vi
www.independent.co.uk
February 10, 2026 at 7:15 PM