Lesley Ritchie
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larlesley.bsky.social
Lesley Ritchie
@larlesley.bsky.social
380 followers 1.3K following 350 posts
HR Professional, Dog lover, MCFC fan and definitely pro EU, just joined the Green Party
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
anthonypainter.bsky.social
Pin this post. Make a poster of it. Put it on your wall.
resolutionfoundation.org Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 1h
Is welfare spending ''out of control''?

It's estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP this financial year.

That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️ buff.ly/s5mz97u
The chart shows where spending on social security is shown as a share of GDP. As this makes plain, total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP. This is 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than it stood on the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007-08. But since 2012-13 (the peak in the post-GFC recession), total welfare spending has fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP. Added to this, welfare spending is expected to rise by just 0.1 per cent of GDP across the forecast period until 2029-30 (after U-turns and before any decisions made at the Budget).
November 28, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
peterstefanovic.bsky.social
🚨Now at almost 85,000 signatures. Let’s keep going!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
November 28, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
adambienkov.bsky.social
Here's UKIP's former Scottish leader David Coburn, who has denied taking Russian bribes after being named in Whatsapp messages between Nathan Gill and a pawn of the Putin administration, being applauded by Gill for arguing against Ukraine's entry to the EU
November 28, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
greenparty.org.uk
Hope is here.

Help us beat Reform in May. Donate today ⤵️
November 28, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
politicsintheuk.bsky.social
Nasty Badenoch. [Cartoonist Jennings on Badenoch’s reaction to the lifting of the two-child benefit cap]
November 28, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
carolecadwalla.bsky.social
Yay!! I couldn’t be there but Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring just won gold at the APA podcast awards!!

Whole thing was crowdfunded by @the-citizens.bsky.social to highlight 5-year legal case to get an investigation into Russian interference in UK politics. Power to the people!
November 27, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
peterstefanovic.bsky.social
🚨BOOM!! The Petition calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy has now rocketed past 50,000 signatures! Let’s get it to 100,000. If a petition is what it’s going to take let’s get this done!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
November 25, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
navyblue4eu.bsky.social
📣A relatively new petition ( two weeks old) that is taking off.

Please SIGN and then SHARE!

Currently being signed at a rate of @ 800 an hour!

Now well over 20,000 signatures. Help it fly even more!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
Petition: Call a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy
We are concerned about reported efforts from Russia to influence democracy in the US, UK, Europe and elsewhere. We believe we must establish the depth and breadth of possible Russian influence campaig...
petition.parliament.uk
November 24, 2025 at 12:52 PM
larlesley.bsky.social
We can't let the future of the BBC be decided by its enemies and politicians swayed by billionaires. We have to protect its independence. Sign the petition today and make sure the public has its say on the future of our BBC: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...
Save Our BBC: Give the public a real say
The BBC isn't perfect, but we must come together to make it better and stronger. We must use the upcoming Royal Charter review to protect our BBC for us, the British public. For too long, the public h...
you.38degrees.org.uk
November 24, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
nickreeves.bsky.social
Please repost and share this petition calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy.

We must do everything in our power to keep the spotlight on Farage's links to Russia and work for Putin. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
Petition: Call a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy
We are concerned about reported efforts from Russia to influence democracy in the US, UK, Europe and elsewhere. We believe we must establish the depth and breadth of possible Russian influence campaig...
petition.parliament.uk
November 22, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
weownit.org.uk
NHS private finance diverts money away from healthcare, towards the pockets of private shareholders.

Cat Eccles MP’s motion can force the government to drop their NHS private finance plans from the Autumn Budget.

✉️Take 2 mins now to email your MP to sign the motion and protect patients.
November 20, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
greenparty.org.uk
At the Budget, the Green Party's message is clear: Cut Bills. Tax Billionaires.
November 19, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
tanjabueltmann.net
I do not think that anger is a helpful emotion. It does not really do anything that is positive.

But I must admit that I am angry at a very fundamental level these days because everything that is currently happening in the UK was predictable and predicted. Not in every detail, but in the ... 🧵
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
tanjabueltmann.net
Tried to get this published but no luck, so might as well ‘publish’ it here so it’s not a complete waste!

➡️ Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow

#asylum #Mahmood #history #humanrights
Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow   When I was 13, I visited a Nazi concentration camp for the first time, confronting my country’s dark history always—and rightly—a bedrock in my growing up.    One image from that visit has stayed with me ever since: a display of prisoners’ personal possessions.    It revealed a world in which those imprisoned were stripped not only of their freedom but of the last tangible traces of their humanity. That systematic erasure was the most important precondition for murdering millions.   Now, as a historian, I know that history does not flow into the present in a straight line, and direct comparisons are rarely appropriate. They certainly are not here.   But history is the one compass humanity has. Too often we choose to ignore it.    The Home Secretary’s proposals for changes to the UK’s asylum system represent such a moment of failure.    Yet the most troubling aspect of Labour’s frantic efforts to appear tough on immigration is not even the historical echoes that taking refugees’ possessions invokes. It is that cost recovery is not the real purpose of the rationale behind it.    The true aim is to appeal to a particular audience—those who take satisfaction in seeing people seeking refuge deprived of what little they have. It is hard to imagine a more troubling approach to policymaking, and that becomes even clearer when we consider the Home Secretary’s proposals in context.   As of June 2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally. Over 70% are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. The UK hosts 548,000 refugees; that is 0.78% of the UK population. Around 110,000 people are in receipt of asylum support; that is 0.15% of the UK population.   It is unconscionable that such a small and vulnerable population can be targeted with deliberate cruelty and weaponised for assumed political gain.   And that is all this will ever be. The core miscalculation is believing that adopting these positions will neutralise Reform.    Both historical knowledge and current research show the opposite. Mainstreaming extremist policies legitimises them further and aids only the original. Each step towards Reform’s territory simply gives Reform more power.   But our political discourse has been so degraded over the last decade that many no longer even recognise policies—or the language that frames them—as extreme.    That is how the Home Secretary can speak so casually of desperate people seeking sanctuary as recipients of a ‘golden ticket’ as though the context is Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory rather than countries torn apart by war and starved by famine. Speak of her ‘moral mission’ to withdraw support, alleging that ‘illegal migration is tearing our country apart.’ And warn of ‘dark forces stirring up anger,’ oblivious to her own role: from the use of blurry, dehumanising images of refugees to spread falsehoods about their impact on communities, to the equally false description of refugee movements as illegal migration.    I suggest the Home Secretary find a mirror if she is keen to understand who is helping turn anger into hate.   Because it is the mainstreaming of far-right talking points that the Home Secretary’s proposals represent that is really tearing our country apart.   For when a policy looks like the far right, speaks to the far right and is hailed by the far right as being far right, it is far right. There is a reason Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is jubilant and speaks of ‘the Overton window having been obliterated.’   This makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s recent comments on the urgent need to tackle racism. But it also raises alarming questions about the impact this will have on communities around the country, many of which are already deeply divided.    The proposed policies will do nothing for these struggling communities, because their problems simply do not stem from people seeking sanctuary with us. In fact: for as long as politicians focus on immigrants and refugees as the cause of our problems, they will fail to deliver for the British people.   But it is important to grasp the impact of the Home Secretary’s proposals as they carry broader consequences for all of us. Suggestions for changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights is applied are particularly concerning. Requiring judges to prioritise ‘public safety’—falsely implying refugees pose a threat—would qualify human rights for a specific group.   And once one accepts that human rights can be qualified for one group, one creates tools that can be used against anyone.   So what these proposals really mean goes far beyond asylum policy. This is about the kind of country we will have in the future. If human rights are no longer universal, they become a means for exclusion and control.    That is why stripping rights from refugees today can only enable a system that endangers all our rights tomorrow.    And that is why our historical compass matters and why we have to use it now. Because that compass tells us without doubt that when first they come for one group that is never where it ends. 
November 18, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
patc1949.bsky.social
youtu.be/iCMnJ4KicW8?...
Trump vs The BBC
YouTube video by Jonathan Pie
youtu.be
November 18, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
38degrees.bsky.social
Fujitsu can still be held to account for their role in the Horizon IT scandal. Add your name today:
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ho...
Hold Fujitsu to account for Post Office scandal
£41 million! That’s how much more the Post Office has just agreed to pay Fujitsu to keep using the faulty Horizon IT system. And that's on top of another whopping £65m the Government paid the scandal ...
you.38degrees.org.uk
November 12, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
libdems.org.uk
"Leaving the ECHR would do nothing to halt small boat crossings, but it would deny British people hard-won rights."

@MaxWilkinson.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
bylines.scot
Wonderful news.

#Hero
Rail worker who saved passengers from stabbings leaves hospital
Samir Zitouni's family say they are
www.bbc.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM
larlesley.bsky.social
I just signed the petition to to demand the Government tax the super rich to rebuild our NHS, schools, and other public services. Will you sign too? you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ta...
Tax the super rich to stop cuts to public services
Across the UK, living standards are falling and millions live in poverty, while the cost of living crisis has made affording the basics difficult. Public services we all rely on - our hospitals, schoo...
you.38degrees.org.uk
November 14, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
boldpolitics.bsky.social
"This energy!!!" 👏👏👏👏

Zack Polanski joins Rizzle Kicks out on stage in Bristol
November 13, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
peterjukes.bsky.social
The letter the BBC could send back to Trump - brilliant stuff from @davidallengreen.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/emptycit...
The letter the BBC could send back to Trump
A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim
open.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Lesley Ritchie
zackpolanski.bsky.social
And today it's the turn of The Times to try and patronise us all.

Every single day the right wing establishment tries to close ranks.

And every day we are growing.

Join.greenparty.org.uk
Sorry kids, greens fantasy politics don't add up
November 12, 2025 at 8:33 AM
larlesley.bsky.social
I've just emailed my MP and asked them to vote to protect nature in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Will you take action too?
action.rspb.org.uk/page/180990/...
Help stop the Planning and Infrastructure Bill tearing up nature protections
I've just emailed my MP and asked them to vote to protect nature in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Will you take action too?
action.rspb.org.uk
November 11, 2025 at 11:20 PM
larlesley.bsky.social
www.libdems.org.uk/bbc
Trump-proof the BBC
The BBC is our national broadcaster, we must defend it against those who want to destroy it.
www.libdems.org.uk
November 11, 2025 at 11:12 PM
larlesley.bsky.social
🚨Our BBC is under attack 🚨 We can't let those that want to see it torn up 38d.gs/cicq
Sign the petition: save our BBC: don't let the likes of Trump and his UK cronies meddle with our public broadcaster
🚨Our BBC is under attack 🚨 We can't let those that want to see it torn up & replaced by the likes of GBNews or Fox win. Sign the open letter now to demand the new BBC boss is someone that will protect...
38d.gs
November 11, 2025 at 6:24 PM