Consultant, speaker, trainer, architect, skier, ex-rugby player and Barry boy - in the wrong order.
Cardiff
Joined June 2012
- Tweets4.9K
- Following1.8K
- Followers1.3K
- Likes6.7K
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
“You can tell the economic character of a nation by the way its infrastructure works.”
Powerful words from George Monbiot on BBC Question Time explaining how Wales’s economy was built to extract wealth rather than enrich its own people, and why we need the powers to put that right.
#Annibyniaeth 🏴 #indyWales
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
We were absolutely delighted to win the #WelshCharityAwards Diversity Category @HiltonHotels in #Cardiff last night.
There were so many amazing entrants and we were absolutely thrilled to be chosen by the distinguished panel.
A big thank you to our staff and volunteers in all the work you do each day to support children, young people and our families. This is for you.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Good luck to our Chief Executive Karen and super volunteer Tracey who are at the @southwalesargus Awards Evening. Both ladies have been nominated for awards.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
The highest quality video of the moon was just released… this is so beautiful.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
If you want to see Michelle Mone kicked out of the House of Lords and arrested until she pays the £232,000,000 she owes give this a RT.
If you want Rishi Sunak's involvement in the £14,900,000,000 PPE Fraud he covered up investigated, LIKE.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Trump's position on Ukraine explained in two minutes
A brilliant cartoon by @freeonis/Instagram
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Today we have heard some outstanding speeches from NATO ally leaders. However, this one from the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, was the one that spoke to me for sure.
I think it’s time to stop pretending to ourselves that the U.S. is anything but an impediment to solving this existential threat, to the welfare and safety of all our citizens.
Let me quote Sun Tzu's The Art of War. ‘All warfare is based on deception’ and for sure, Putin has waged a war of deception. He projected the historical power of the mighty Red army in a bid to quickly overrun Ukraine. He attempted to do it with untrained poorly equipped troops, on out of date rations.
Putin rolled the dice thinking NATO would not commit troops to help defend Ukraine and he was right. What he didn’t plan for, was the lion spirit of the Ukrainian people and the ingenuity of their military engineers. Their work with drones and sea drones has redefined battlefield strategy. Once allies started providing javelin anti-tank missiles and supporting artillery, the game changed. They prevented the Russians from achieving air superiority? And the Russian Black Sea Fleet had to retreat from port.
It is testament to the Ukrainian army and air force, Russia has been held back against all the odds. Let’s be clear, the military has achieved what it has, not because of us, but in-spite of us. We have only given them enough weapons to hold the bear back, not to evict it. There were constant delays, waiting on artillery shells, HIMARS and ATACMS, as well as tanks and F16s.
WE HAVE LET THEM DOWN. Yet these brave men and women have innovated and made do, to defend not only their country, but our borders too. WE OWE THEM BIG TIME. Not with words and sympathy, but with the proper tools to get the job done.
America has disgracefully walked away and aligned with our enemy. The U.S. president’s pet, Elon Musk along with JD Vance, have meanwhile actively supported far right political parties in Europe. Then Vance had the audacity to turn up and lecture us on our own doorstep. What was our answer? ‘Please don’t hurt us’.
This week, we see a slow procession of European leaders making the pilgrimage to the court of Mad King Don for a humiliation session. Pardon my French but ‘f*ck that’, it’s time to stand tall and tell Trump to ‘f*ck right off’ and if it were me. I’d tell him to take his airbases with him too and cancel all military arms contracts.
If he wants access to Ukrainian minerals that’s fine. Ukraine HAS NO DEBT with the U.S. They simply have the thanks of a grateful nation. There was no loan agreement. If he wants mineral rights, then provide an arms package as a down payment for future revenues. Leave the deal on the table for a week and if it’s not signed, pull the deal. Then they get nothing and in addition, no bids will be accepted from US companies for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. Now that’s the art of the deal.
As for NATO allies, Trump is walking away regardless, so Europe needs to get its act together NOW. Seize Russian assets and use the funds to fire up the European military industrial base. This will create jobs and growth, while capacity is expanded in all countries with an arms manufacturing capability.
In the meantime, we already have the ability, especially if Poland steps up, to defend against any increased Russian aggression. The British military has already said, if it were needed, we would meet that threat head on today. If this collective approach is taken, the Russian army in Ukraine could be crushed just as crushed the Iraqi army in Desert Storm.
It’s time to show the Americans their services are no longer required. Then when the war is over, we can look to promote the Euro as the new global reserve currency. No harm in ambition I say.
We need to believe in ourselves. It’s time to get the job done and show the world FAFO. There’s only one village idiot in this town and it’s not Zelenskyy.
I rest my case.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Wales' leading engineering company, Jones the Tarmac, has approached the UK Government, offering to build the third runway at Heathrow at a knockdown price of £900, for cash. Dai Jones, the company's CEO, said, "We can get started once we've finished a drive in Gorseinon; we can have the runway finished by a week Friday". A spokesman for the UK Government declined to comment.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Deliverewe have started operating out of Tregaron. The freshest food delivered to your door.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
Two minutes of unbridled, unfettered, unspeakable, uncontrollable joy.
Wonderful. And daft.
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:
“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”
-Nate White
Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
As a Ukrainian person looking at everything that’s been happening in the world lately, here’s what I really, REALLY need people living in liberal democracies to understand as soon as possible.
This isn’t a pleasant conversation.
A thread.
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Robert Firth 🏴 retweeted
I do wonder what is more likely
1) Bongi shouting ‘white kant’ to alert all his defenders that the ball is on the English side.
Or!
2) that he has decided to racially insult at an English player in his third language using a swearword that no one in South Africa uses.
🤔
