Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
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Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
@mikecookson.bsky.social
Husband, Father, Son and Local Liberal Democrat Councillor for, Ouseburn Ward in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Imprint, promoted by the Liberal Democrats, 1 Vincent Square, SW1P 2PN.
"You'll be visited by three spirits."

The three spirits:
November 24, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
This is £600m from the same university sector that is pretty close to collapse in a growing number of major institutions?

Many of them universities that are among the biggest employers in the very ‘left behind’ towns and cities that Labour talks so much about…
i: Reeves to unveil £600m raid on foreign student
university fees #TomorrowsPapersToday
November 24, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
A “hole?”……there’s a bloody great Brexit chasm that is going to swallow Labour whole if they don’t open their eyes and stop chasing Reform and the Brexit Vote.
Rachel Reeves says there’s a “hole” in the public finances. A new decade-long Brexit study explains it: a 6–8% hit to GDP means less tax, less investment and less money for everything else. The bill has finally arrived.
eastangliabylines.co.uk/news/brexit/...
New: Boris Johnson’s ‘Brexit Titanic success’ was half right
Nearly ten years on, the first full assessment of Brexit confirms what millions warned: Britain made itself poorer
eastangliabylines.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
The evidence in favour of 20 mph speed limits is overwhelming, cheaper insurance, less emissions, less car crashes, it saves the NHS, Police and councils money. But Gary from Port Talbot's commute now takes 42 minutes instead of 40 so it simply must go.
September 24, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
I’d have thought nothing cuts more against our precious British values than selling out your country for Russian bribes…

And yet Reform, the right‑wing press, and all those self‑styled guardians of these values have nothing to say

…funny that.
November 23, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Nothing to see here, just a UK politician taking bribes from a country that, to all intents & purposes, were at war with.

Reform is a grift, so of course its leaders are grifters. Gill should be facing charges of high treason.
8/ In these messages Voloshyn asks Gill to arrange for three MEPs to make "comments on camera". He mentions ex-Ukip/Brexit party MEPs Jonathan Arnott and David Coburn. There's no suggestion Arnott & Coburn took bribes, knew about Voloshyn, or agreed to this particular proposal
November 23, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
This bus-and-cycle expressway runs directly from Nijmegen station to the university and hospital in the south of the city. People on bikes and buses get there fast without delays, while motor traffic has to take the longer route.

Priorities matter. This is what it looks like when a city means it.
November 23, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
The same Lloyd Russell Moyle who campaigned against Brighton LTNs & about whom Caroline Lucas previously said: “Thankfully our city has one MP who speaks sense - not the one spreading misinformation about schemes to make people safer and the air cleaner to breathe”? Ok.
Welcome to the Green Party, former Labour and Co-operative MP for Brighton Kemptown, @russell-moyle.co.uk 💚
November 23, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
High streets are struggling, with pubs, restaurants and cafés shutting their doors.

Cutting VAT on hospitality and energy would put money back in people’s pockets, support local jobs, and give the country a much-needed boost.
November 23, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Newmarket MP Matt Hancock gave a £37bn Covid testing contract to Jockey Club director Dido Harding, who subcontracted it to Grand National sponsor Randox, employer of Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose late wife chaired Aintree racecourse. That's how the Tories handled the pandemic.
November 22, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Rachel Reeves admits Brexit has damaged the economy but won’t take the steps needed to fix it.

Lib Dems have a plan to rebuild Britain’s trade with the EU and boost growth.
November 21, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
#GVerse #KingResist #Unite #FBaRmy

@nikkibas.bsky.social
@browneyegirlhi.bsky.social
@coko.bsky.social
@kingresist.bsky.social
@rubicon1313.bsky.social

David Clayton is running for congress in NC's District 5 against #FuckMAGA Republican Virginia Foxx — and this is how he introduced himself.👇
November 23, 2025 at 5:53 AM
If self driving cars are ever to be allowed on roads in the UK, they should be made to sit a driving test.

Proper stern examiner, asking them to turn in the width of the road, park next to the kerb and do an emergency stop.

This looks like it's been trained by a bad driver!
​It's baffling that we allow private companies to use public infrastructure as their R&D lab, externalizing the risk onto the public, while they fine tune their unproven software.
November 23, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
So much winning...

"By 2025, the UK economy is 6%–8% smaller than it would have been had we stayed in the EU"

"Business investment is down 12%–18%"

"Fewer tax receipts mean less money for public services, less for investment"

Brexit impact study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
November 23, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Ex-leader of Reform UK in Wales sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for taking bribes for pro-Russia interviews and speeches.

Who else was involved,?

Party can now add treason to racism, misogyny, islamaphobia, economic illiteracy as its electoral credentials.
Former Reform in Wales leader Nathan Gill jailed for pro-Russian bribery
Nathan Gill, 52, is sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison after admitting taking bribes while an MEP.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Durham will scrap full council-tax rebates, forcing 26,000 low-income working-age residents to start paying for the first time | Peter Morris
Council tax shock for thousands of Durham’s poorest – thanks to Reform UK
Durham will scrap full council-tax rebates, forcing 26,000 low-income working-age residents to start paying for the first time
northeastbylines.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Unless you live in a car and never have to leave it, *everybody* is a pedestrian at each end of a journey.
Pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders are statistically likely to be paying less tax and be less inclined to vote. Rational choice.
November 22, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
An investigation into Russian interference in our politics is long overdue. And we all know who should be questioned first.
November 21, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
So much of our infrastructure, planning, environmental, and road safety measures seem to be based around politicians' fear of slightly inconveniencing easily-angered motorists. Pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport users are barely considered in their calculations.
November 21, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
The official Covid inquiry has found that Dominic Cummings ‘poisoned the atmosphere’ of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street, by insisting on bringing up politics at those lockdown parties
November 21, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
November 20, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Nathan Gill has been sentenced to 10.5 years for endangering national security and taking Russian bribes.

Nigel Farage and Reform are a danger to national security, the Liberal Democrats will continue to hold them to account and defend our democracy.
November 21, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Compare and contrast the Government language.

£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.

Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.

And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
🚨BREAKING NEWS

Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform UK in Wales, has been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for taking bribes as part of a pro-Russian influence campaign. He admitted to eight counts of bribery committed between 2018 and 2019.

(📷 Alamy/PA Images/Yui Mok)
November 21, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Mike Cookson 🔶 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Conservative MP Joe Robertson criticises Labour for the increase in civil service since 2016

Of course the civil service ballooned after Brexit to manage the red tape created by Brexit #BBCQT

He's complaining about an effect caused by his own Conservative government 🤷‍♂️
November 21, 2025 at 12:08 PM