Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
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robertwoolley.bsky.social
Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
@robertwoolley.bsky.social
Cynical mid-50 something -Gen X'er. British/English/Irish 48er. Personal politics complex. Undiagnosed Aspergers. Transport person who became a software dev in late 40s.

Brent, London/Dublin/Kilkenny/ASEAN. (But mainly Brent).

Blocks arseholes.
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
On this Epstein stuff, just a reminder that multiple contestants in the Miss Teen USA pageant - to repeat, TEENAGERS - said that when Trump owned it, he would walk into the dressing room so he could watch them changing clothes

www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kend...
Teen Beauty Queens Say Trump Walked In On Them Changing
“Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”
www.buzzfeednews.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Such concrete outcomes do not grow on trees.
Talk TV has sacked presenter Mike Graham over a racist FB post. He actually tried to blame “hackers”.
November 12, 2025 at 4:36 PM
TLDR: The concrete farmer is a bad liar.
Talk TV has sacked presenter Mike Graham over a racist FB post. He actually tried to blame “hackers”.
November 12, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I thought Streeting was pro-Trade Union?
Streeting claims 'cartel-like behaviour' of BMA is threat to future of NHS, ahead of 5-day resident doctors strike - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
November 12, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Many thanks to JCB’s Lord Bamford for donating £200,000 to Reform. HMRC seem to think he owes them up to £500m from money hidden in offshore accounts, but why pay tax when you can give it to a bunch of racists instead?
November 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Yuan is an ex-FT journo, now a Labour MP. Well worth a follow.
Despite how often the country argues about tax, there’s actually a strong cross-party consensus that the UK’s long and outdated tax code is in much need of improvement – and there’s even agreement about what some changes could do to simplify tax and improve growth.
November 12, 2025 at 4:23 PM
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"Most immigrants are already net fiscal contributors; decreasing their numbers will only decrease their contributions."

✍️ @lgilbert.co argues that migrants to the UK are net fiscal contributors, adding much more to the economy than they take out,

ukandeu.ac.uk/lower-migrat...
Lower migration is bad news for the UK economy - UK in a changing Europe
Lauren Gilbert argues that migrants to the UK are net fiscal contributors, adding much more to the economy than they take out, and that the recent collapse in immigration will harm the UK's economic p...
ukandeu.ac.uk
November 12, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Justin is having *way* too much fun here....
"Look, every word the president just said is a lie."
-- Me, telling the truth.
November 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
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Careful how you edit this lads, wouldn't wants to be treating anyone unfairly
A direct email exchange from 2011 between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, just released by House Oversight Committee Democrats.
November 12, 2025 at 4:10 PM
I think inner circle.
Is Glassman in his inner circle or just endlessly trotted out by the media?
November 12, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
At the risk of talking shop: there are just under 50 Government Bills before Parliament (including Employment Rights, English Devolution, Great British Energy) which aren’t getting the media attention that Coalition Bills at a similar point did. We’re missing proper scrutiny outside of Parliament.
This whole Streeting vs Starmer story is such a Westminster bubble inanity from a bored media class that has gotten addicted to toppling governments and abdicated any responsibility for what they're actually meant to be doing in a healthy society
November 12, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Sounds like the Ryanair Notre Dame..
my personal favourite 'hubris of man: gothic edition" is beauvais cathedral in france, of which they only built a third because it kept collapsing, and has been held up by temporary braces since, uh, the 1990s. genuinely you should go see it before it collapses because it will
November 12, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Great as ever.

I think another reason Labour don't reach for the EU lever is over confidence in their ability to do domestic policy [industrial, regional, deregulation] and over confidence in the benefits of AI.
New post: Labour’s Brexit stance is as untenable as their tax pledge
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/labo...
As public perception and econometric estimates of the damage caused by Brexit rise, Labour's refusal to discuss rejoining the EU's customs union or single market means more self harm.
Labour’s Brexit stance is as untenable as their tax pledge
In my last post about the prospect of Labour breaking its tax pledge, I did something I don’t often do, which is indulge in some ‘I told y...
mainlymacro.blogspot.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
At least when The Conservatives were in power you weren’t getting party discontent & changes of leadership all the time.
🇬🇧
November 12, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
As God is my witness, sit Stalin and Joe McCarthy at a bar with a strong drink apiece, expose them to five minutes of the US online left, and the conversation after ten minutes of silence would be roughly:

“… I *mean*.”

“These *people*…”

Both: “*Tankies*, man.”
November 12, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Very noticeable in Ireland.
The pound is quietly souring against the euro – though due more to mounting expectations of interest rate cuts than events in Westminster. Hit lowest in more than two years today
www.ft.com/content/9eb6...
November 12, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
The pound is quietly souring against the euro – though due more to mounting expectations of interest rate cuts than events in Westminster. Hit lowest in more than two years today
www.ft.com/content/9eb6...
November 12, 2025 at 1:19 PM
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November 12, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
TIME Magazine (!!!) asked me to explain what the wider world should know about Catherine Connolly:

time.com/7333194/irel...
The Meaning of Ireland's New Anti-Establishment President
Catherine Connolly has a change mandate that may put her at odds with Ireland's own government—and its allies in Europe and America.
time.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:41 PM
"Earlier this year, in a parliamentary debate on the invasion of Ukraine, Connolly said Russia was not the only untrustworthy global actor: “America is one of those,” she said, “and England and France are others.” "

Good piece from Gavan

I'm sure she will be wildly popular with President Macron..
November 12, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
The Economic and Social Research Council core budget for 24/25 was £134m, not £8 billion.
The decline of the Office of National Statistics is a tragedy.

We should take £50m from the £8 billion+ we spend on economic and social research in academia - much of it highly politicised - and give it to the ONS.

Reliable official statistics are the bedrock of so much else.
November 12, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Its like a shit version of Changing Rooms but with gold spray paint.
CONFIRMED: the gold snot covering the Oval Office is $58-apiece onlays from Home Depot that have been spraypainted.

When Laura Ingraham confronted Trump about this in the Oval—specifically and correctly noting that the tacky garbage was from Home Depot—he lied to her face and insisted it wasn't.
November 12, 2025 at 12:35 PM
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Be careful what you share, Ivanka.

Some of us actually read the rest of the story.👇
November 11, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Yes. They had one of them on the World Tonight last night and he referred to their report on the BBC's coverage of history.
I took a look at it (it's on their website) and it's very thin.
It covers a handful of programmes and there's a lot of focus on the work of non-white presenters / academics.
November 12, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Robert Woolley 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Transport for London Reveals the Top 20 Busiest Bus Routes and Top Three Longest Night Bus Routes of 2025
clondoner92.blogspot.com/2025/11/tran...
Transport for London Reveals the Top 20 Busiest Bus Routes and Top Three Longest Night Bus Routes of 2025
Top 20 busiest London bus routes & most commended services revealed in latest TfL FOI data, plus details on longest night routes.
clondoner92.blogspot.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:14 PM