flamingos-cant
- 81 Posts
- 153 Comments
101·9 days agoHow could Anna Isaac be such a scab /s.
In response to the decision to strike, Tortoise issued a statement saying that it was saving the Observer from its decline into “irrelevance”.
I’m not the biggest fan of the Observer (it’s where the TERFs are), but this is quite the statement to make about an asset you want to buy. It’s also obviously false, the thing James Harding is after here is the prestige of an established and (somewhat) trusted name.
By launching his illegal and unprovoked full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine 1,000 days ago this week, not only did Vladimir Putin accelerate the largest war on the European continent since the Second World War, he also sought to rewrite the international order.
This is also why we continue to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, the massive scale-up of humanitarian assistance, and the cessation of violent settlers’ activities in the West Bank in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Compare and contrast when a UK/French ally commits ethnic cleansing vs when a UK/French geopolitical rival does it.
Also, real absurd that these paragraphs:
In those exceptionally challenging times, we believe that the most pressing global problems need multilateral solutions. After the Bletchley Park AI Summit last year, we will work together to make the AI Action Summit in Paris a success in February.
We will address the challenges and seize the opportunities of AI, and ensure we narrow the digital divide between developed and developing countries.
Are followed by this:
Protecting our populations also requires protecting our planet. We will step up action on climate change through the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Ten years after its adoption, we will keep pushing for the highest possible level of ambition, on the road to COP30 in Belem. The ocean is one lung of our planet. After adopting the BBNJ treaty, we now need to push the ambition further towards the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, next June.
It seems the bridge didn’t see the reply. Might be something worth making a bug report about. (Also, ignore the update profile entry, I clicked the icon by accident)
Your reply is there? Did it just take a while to go through?
The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Good to hear, given the trajectory of other Western countries it’s nice to see Starmer not underplaying the action needed.
The goal would be achieved by decarbonising the power sector and through a massive expansion of offshore wind, as well as through investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy.
Carbon capture really is going to be this government’s white elephant, isn’t it.
An elected HoL would probably require a referendum, something we’re all a bit burnt out on, so this probably isn’t going to go anywhere.
It absolutely argues that:
Frei argued to Blair that neither government would benefit if Pinochet were to die in England and that he could be tried in Chilean courts. […] Blair undertook to do what he could within the law provided the exchanges between the two leaders were kept secret. The authors claim that Blair suggested setting up a ‘back channel’, with two people appointed to liaise between the leaders’ private offices.
Skwawkbox links to this Guardian article, which itself is sourced from a book from the time. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched that a renowned negotiator would be involved with a negotiation.
The UK/US ‘special relationship’ is such a joke, it’s abundantly clear the US doesn’t hold us in anywhere near the same regard as we do them.
I do hope Labour plans to do more than try to appease Trump, I understand why this is their public stance but we should really try to reduce our reliance on America.
It’s impressive that Jonathan Ashworth managed to lose two elections on two separate continents in one year.
Because enacting policies that you know will increase the number of trans kids committing suicide is a policy of killing trans kids.
Picking Badenoch is such an own goal, left leaning and moderate people don’t like her because of the far-right culture war rhetoric and she’s very unpopular with the Reform voters she’s suppose to win back.
I think they are harming their argument by calling it “austerity” when the Budget is pumping money into hospitals and schools, starting to reverse the harm done by austerity.
I think reducing austerity to just underinvestment is letting Labour off too lightly. They promised no return to austerity and one of the key tenets of austerity was attacks on benefits recipients, especially disability benefits, and they haven’t reversed any of the planned Tory cuts to disability benefits. But don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for the increased investment in public services, god knows they need it.
Signatories
Signed,
Jeremy Corbyn MP, independent
Carla Denyer MP, Green Party Co-Leader
Adrian Ramsay MP, Green Party Co-Leader
Sian Berry MP, Green Party Leanne Wood, former leader of Plaid Cymru
Liz Saville Roberts MP, Plaid Cymru
Ben Lake MP, Plaid Cymru
Llinos Medi MP, Plaid Cymru
Ann Davies MP, Plaid Cymru
Zack Polanski, Green Party Deputy Leader and London Assembly Member
Leanne Mohamad, Independent candidate for Ilford North
Jamie Driscoll, Leader of Majority and Independent former North of Tyne Mayor
Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP and independent candidate for Holborn & St Pancras
Beth Winter, former Labour MP for Cynon Valley
Cllr Hilary Schan, Chair of We Deserve Better and independent councillor, Worthing Borough Council
Anthony Slaughter, Wales Green Party Leader
Zoë Garbett, Green London Assembly Member and councillor, Hackney Council
Caroline Russell, Green London Assembly Member and councillor, Islington Council
Cllr Amna Abdullatif, independent, Manchester City Council
Cllr Carl Walker, independent, Worthing Borough Council
Cllr Suleman Khonat, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Salim Sidat MBE, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Mustafa Desai, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Muntazir Patel, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Salma Patel, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Sajid Ali, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Terry Mahmood, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Imran Ahmed, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Rana Gulistan, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Mohamed Kapadia, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Iqbal Masters, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Waqar Hussain, independent, Blackburn Council
Cllr Ammar Anwar, independent, Kirklees Council
Cllr Tanisha Bramwell, independent, Kirklees Council
Cllr Imran S Safdar, independent, Kirklees Council
Cllr Emma Dent Coad, independent, Kensington and Chelsea Council
Cllr Yvonne Tennant, independent, Pendle Borough Council
Cllr Chris Davies, Green Party, South Tyneside Council
Cllr Holly Wadell, independent, Northumberland County Council
Cllr Benali Hamdache, Green Party, Islington Council
Cllr Jonathan Elmer, Green Party, Durham County Council.
Cllr Margaret Howard, independent, Worthing Borough Council
Cllr Claire Hunt, Green Party, Worthing Borough Council
Cllr Ian Davey, Green Party, Worthing Borough Council
Cllr Penny Wrout, independent, Hackney Council
Cllr Claudia Turbet-Delof, independent, Hackney Council
Cllr Fliss Premru, independent, Hackney Council
Cllr Alexi Dimond, Green Party, Sheffield Council
Cllr Nick Hartley, Green Party, Newcastle City Council
Cllr Mary Murphy, independent, Northumberland County Council
Cllr Ray Sutton, independent, North West Leicestershire Council
Cllr Sophia Naqvi, independent, Newham Council
Cllr Mehmood Mirza, independent, Newham Council
Cllr Zubair Gulamussen, independent, Newham Council
Cllr Nathanial Higgins, Green Party, Newham Council
Cllr Russell Whiting, independent, Gedling Borough Council
Cllr Dr Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini, independent, Oxford Council
Cllr Scott Ainslie, Green Party, Lambeth Council
Cllr Sean Halsall, independent, Sefton Council
Cllr Asima Shaikh, independent, Islington Council
Cllr Ilkay Cindi-Oner, independent, Islington Council
Cllr Phil Graham, independent, Islington Council
Cllr Matt Nathan, independent, Islington Council
Cllr Ani Stafford-Townsend, Green Party, Bristol City Council
Cllr Ria Patel, Green Party, Croydon Council
Cllr Khaled Musharraf, Green Party, Newcastle City Council
Cllr James Crawford, Green Party, Bristol City Council
Cllr Liam Davis, Green Party, Hackney Council
Cllr Kerry Picket, Green Party, Brighton & Hove City Council
Cllr Ernestas Jegorovas- Armstrong, Green Party, Islington Council
Cllr Alastair Binnie-Lubbock, Green Party, Hackney Council
Cllr Ben Foley, Green Party, Bedford Borough Council
Cllr Habib Rahman, independent, Newcastle City Council
Cllr Alan Gibbons, independent, Liverpool City Council
Cllr Sam Gorst, independent, Liverpool City Council
Cllr Lucy Williams, independent, Liverpool City Council
Cllr Karen Davis, independent, Norwich City Council
Cllr Cate Oliver, independent, Norwich City Council
Cllr Pete Kennedy, Green Party, Stroud District Council
Cllr Paul Barnett, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr Andy Batsford, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr John Cannan, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr Nigel Sinden, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr Mike Turner, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr Simon Willis, independent, Hastings Borough Council
Cllr Hau-Yu Tam, independent, Lewisham Council
Cllr Chloë Goldsmith, Green Party, Brighton & Hove City Council
Cllr Raphael Hill, Green Party, Brighton & Hove City Council
Cllr Lotte Collett, independent, Haringey Council
Cllr Jane McCoid, independent, Gateshead Council
This is actually an abridged version of the full statement, which they haven’t released a text version of anywhere because apparently uploading jpegs of text to Twitter is how we do politics now.
Full thing
Labour’s first budget punishes the “working people” they claim to support.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves promised to deliver real change to the electorate, after 14 years of Tory rule. Today, they have broken that promise. This budget is austerity by another name. While we welcome the government’s decision to invest in school and hospital buildings, it is extremely disappointing that these investments have been undermined by a swathe of public sector cuts, cruel attacks on the worst-off, and a dogmatic refusal to redistribute wealth and power. These are not “tough choices” for Government Ministers, but for ordinary people who are forced to choose between heating their home and putting food on the table.
Years of austerity and privatisation have decimated our public services and pushed millions into poverty, disproportionately impacting women, people of colour and disabled people. The collapse of the Tory government was an opportunity for Labour to end the grotesque levels of inequality reached under the Tories. Instead, they have chosen to inflict more hardship on the British public who expected - and deserved - something better.
Labour is raising defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP while telling us there is no money to lift 250,000 children out of poverty; no money to help pensioners living in poverty stay warm this winter; and no money to maintain the £2 bus cap which punishes the poorest for trying to get to work and go about their lives.
Put simply, this is a lie. There is plenty of money. It’s just in the wrong hands. The richest 1% in the UK hold more wealth than 70 per cent of Britons. By refusing to impose a wealth tax, this Government has chosen to force vulnerable communities to pay the price for years of economic failure, instead of making the richest pay their fair share. Labour’s first budget shows us whose side they’re on.
Making millions of children, working, retired and disabled people poorer damages our entire economy and stretches our public services. An austerity economy is a false economy.
Shifting the fiscal rules to increase investment is welcome but this should have been used to tackle inequality and maximise the creation of good jobs. As we saw in the New Labour years, growth does not necessarily deliver for the majority - reducing poverty and inequality while tackling the climate emergency should have dictated Labour’s policy choices. Instead the Chancellor has wedded us to a failed economic ideology and undermined our ability to fix this country.
We call on the Labour Government to:
- Abolish the 2-child benefits cap and stop attacking welfare recipients;
More than two thirds of children in poverty live with a parent in work. We must support, not stigmatise, welfare recipients. Since the election, more than 10,000 children have been pushed into poverty by the two-child limit. Abolishing the cap would cost £1.4bn and lift 250,000 children out of poverty overnight. If this isn’t a priority, what is? - Reverse cuts to winter fuel;
Four in every five pensioners living below or just above the poverty line are set to lose the winter fuel payment. We will always defend the principle of universalism to ensure everyone has the support they need. - Restore the £2 bus cap;
Scrapping the £2 bus fare cap outside of London harms the poorest in communities across England and discourages the use of public transport when it is needed more than ever to tackle the climate crisis. - Invest in a Green New Deal;
The climate emergency is the single greatest crisis of our time. Why, then, has the government reneged on its £28bn climate pledge, while continuing a Tory scheme to give £21.7 billion in public funds to subsidise the world’s largest fossil fuel companies for carbon capture and storage when we know this doesn’t work. We will continue to demand urgent investment in renewable energy and green jobs to safeguard our children’s future. - Introduce wealth taxes;
A 2% tax on wealth above £10 million would raise £24bn every year. With that, you could abolish the 2-child benefits cap 17 times over. There is plenty of money. It’s just in the wrong hands.
We refuse to believe that child poverty, mass hunger and homelessness are inevitable in the sixth largest economy in the world. A progressive movement is growing up and down the country, demanding a real alternative to this race to the bottom between Labour and the Tories which has seen the new government perpetuate decades of austerity and rampant corporate greed.
The Tories’ collapse allowed Labour to come to power with the lowest vote share ever won by any single party majority government. Labour hemorrhaging votes to progressive independents and Greens in their heartlands should be a lesson to this Government: you are wrong to believe that progressive voters have nowhere else to go. Our movement is growing every day - and you ignore the demand for a real alternative at your peril.
- Abolish the 2-child benefits cap and stop attacking welfare recipients;
largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term
Nitpick, but Lammy said “the Second Word War and the Holocaust”, the ways they’ve transribed it implies Lammy was saying the Second World War itself was a genocide.
Last summer, he referred to Azerbaijan’s bloody conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the exodus of a terrified Armenian population, as “liberation”.
Excuse me? That’s actually disgraceful.
inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies
I never knew Trump felt so strongly about VAT on private schools.
Both the Green Party and the RSPB have voiced concerns about what this will mean for Britain.
Here’s what Green Party MP Ellie Chowns said:
"Starmer’s pledge to investors that he will “cut red tape” is a tired cliché that, in practice, too often means harming environmental standards and workers’ rights. We’ve had fourteen years of successive Conservative governments promising to “cut red tape,” and all we have to show for it is a flatlining economy and falling living standards.
If Starmer is serious about attracting investment to the UK, he will need a bolder approach that delivers on the “change” he promised in his election campaign. He could start by re-evaluating our relationship with our biggest trading partner, the European Union.”
And RSPB chief executive Beccy Speight:
"An unsettling speech from the PM this morning for those who love and value nature. Deregulation done in the wrong way is effectively dropping standards, at a time when the natural world desperately needs better protection. It’s a short-sighted tactic that could have ramifications for us all in years to come, undermining our long term prosperity - better methods, such as nature-friendly planning, would give businesses the certainty they need.
We support growth and we support the badly-needed energy transition, but not at the expense of our precious wildlife and wild places.
His very own secretary of state [Steve Reed] said recently that “nature is dying” – uncontrolled deregulation is tantamount to hammering the final nail into its coffin."
You could have foreign-born parents before 2022, it just had to be from an ‘approved nation’ (no prizes for guessing which nations those were).