"Ocean Flyer, a business founded by former banker and Air Napier owner Shah Aslam and former New Zealand Air Force chief John Hamilton, is among the earliest customers.
They have a $700m order for 25 seagliders that they plan to operate along New Zealand’s coast for about $30 to $60 one-way. Regent has about NZ$10 billion in orders from around the world."
Way back in the dawn of time (2022), we had a local election in the London Borough of #Lewisham. I took to Twitter (which was the fashion at the time), to pillory the candidates. My tweets caused a bit of a ruckus. Ultimately, they got me name checked by the #DailyHate and a bunch of far-right websites.
Anyways, guess what time it is! That's right it's Lewisham mayoral election time! And that means I've read the manifestos so you don't have to.
Next up we have #JohnHamilton of the #WorkersPartyGB, a rebrand of the deeply problematic People Before Profit. The names sound so nice and cuddly, don't they?
Spoiler alert, these are some very dodgy people who, although they appear to have lofty aims, erm… Well, they're not very nice.
I'm not showing you his leaflet yet, because I want to set the scene a bit first.
My first encounter with John was in 2016 at a local Brexit debate. John was very pro-Brexit. If I recall correctly, his reasoning focused on immigrants. But what I definitely do remember was John telling Joe Dromey (son of Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey) that, unlike him, he was pro-union and pro-worker. It didn't go over well.
Now, let's have a look at John's priorities, shall we? He intends to:
If elected John will:
*Re-open ALL the libraries, community centres, youth clubs and under 5s playclubs
*Hire in-house workers to build new social housing
*Take school meals, parks maintenance and road-works back in-house
Remember me laughing at the Tory and LibDem candidates for making pledges they couldn't afford? Ha! And double ha!
Oh! But don't worry… He's got a plan for how he's going to pay for those grandiose plans. He does!
He's going to raise the millions and millions (and even more MILLIONS) of pounds needed by … erm … reneging on a bunch of maintenance contracts and sacking some consultants.
Okay, cool. Perhaps if a couple of toddlers add the contents of their piggbanks, that'll help too.
But I need to point out that these plans for how John intends to 'help' Lewisham are secondary to his real priority for Lewisham: Palestine.
I mean, look, seriously. I get it. Genocide is not okay. Fully agree with him there. But he's standing to be the mayor of a single London borough. This job focuses on the needs of the residents of Lewisham – a borough where a significant portion of the population lives in poverty.
Wait, what's that? Remember Siama and her weird statement that she's an 'international author'. Well, she just lost the prize for weird things to announce in your campaign leaflet.
John here admits (brags???) that he's been charged with (and I quote) 'incitement to cause racial or religious hatred'. That feels like a bold thing to announce in your campaign – but hey, it's working for Trump.