Monthly Archives: June 2023

Starmer, Reeves, Streeting, Khan, Sarwar party with Murdoch

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Contempt for ordinary people paraded again

Image of Rupert Murdoch, Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves, participants at Murdoch's summer party.
Keir Starmer, his mini-me Wes Streeting, the dire Rachel Reeves have partied with S*n owner Rupert Murdoch and a string of Tories at his ‘summer party’, including Rishi Sunak, Suella ‘ship them all to Rwanda’ Braverman, disgraced former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and ‘Scum’ hacks:

The contempt of Starmeroids for ordinary people has long been on show, with Starmer writing repeatedly, and Reeves and Streeting at least once, for Murdoch’s ‘Scum’ rag despite its lies, racism and its decades-long smear campaign against the victims and survivors of the Hillsborough disaster.

So great is the arrogance of the Labour right that they no longer even bother to try to hide their billionaire fetish and barely even try to pretend that they have the needs of ordinary people remotely at heart. No doubt the apologists for the ghoulish regime will roll out their tired excuse that the party needs to appeal to the hard-right readers of the S*n, but appealing to the millions who need real change is clearly an idea that has been passed through the shredder repeatedly to make sure the interests of the rich and powerful are not threatened.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

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Tories accused of voter suppression after photo ID rules blocked 14,000 people from polling booths

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A voter carrying his passport along with his poll card, as he makes his way to vote at The Vyne polling station in Knaphill, in May 2018

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tories-accused-voter-suppression-after-photo-id-rules-blocked-14000-people-polling-booths

THE Tories were accused of voter suppression today after thousands of people were stopped from taking part in the local elections due to not having voter ID.

Interim analysis from the Electoral Commission found that around 14,000 people did not vote after being unable to show an accepted form of photo ID during England’s local elections in May.

Commission officials said the data suggested “significantly more” people were likely to have not turned out because of the policy.

Craig Westwood, the independent watchdog’s director of communications, added there was “concerning” evidence that disabled and unemployed people were “more likely than other groups to give a reason related to ID for not voting.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tories-accused-voter-suppression-after-photo-id-rules-blocked-14000-people-polling-booths

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Halt new roads and developments adding to emissions, advisers to tell UK government

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/23/halt-new-roads-and-developments-adding-to-emissions-advisers-to-tell-uk-government

The government should halt all new roads unless there are exceptional circumstances, the government’s climate advisers are likely to say next week.

On Wednesday the Committee on Climate Change will publish its latest report on the UK’s progress in dealing with the climate crisis. Speaking at Glastonbury on Friday, the climate change committee chair, Lord Deben, said new roads inevitably increased traffic and emissions.

The report is likely to advise that any new developments that make climate breakdown worse should be banned.

If the recommendation is followed through, it would sound the death knell for the government’s road-building programme – and had it been adopted earlier, it would have meant the high-speed HS2 rail line would never have been approved. 

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/23/halt-new-roads-and-developments-adding-to-emissions-advisers-to-tell-uk-government

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Church of England divests from fossil fuels

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Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Image: Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.politico.eu/article/jesus-vs-big-oil-church-of-england-divests/

The Church of England is selling all its remaining oil and gas investments, saying that “not nearly enough” progress had been made by fossil fuel companies in transitioning to net zero.

The decision by the Church Commissioners for England, which manages the Anglican church’s £10.3 billion endowment fund, cuts off investments in oil majors including Shell, BP and Total.

It will also see the church divest from all other companies involved in oil and gas production unless they are in “genuine alignment” with Paris Agreement goals to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the Commissioners said.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the climate crisis “threatens the planet we live on, and people around the world who Jesus Christ calls us to love as our neighbors.”

“It is our duty to protect God’s creation, and energy companies have a special responsibility to help us achieve the just transition to the low carbon economy we need,” he added.

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https://www.politico.eu/article/jesus-vs-big-oil-church-of-england-divests/

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Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

NHS sign

If it wins the next general election in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could try to fix the damage inflicted on the National Health Service by years of Tory austerity. But Labour seems set on further privatizing the NHS.

Everywhere you look in the health service, the signs of thirteen years of austerity and willful Tory neglect are apparent. The Tories have, throughout their time in government, allowed the National Health Service (NHS) to go to rack and ruin, sending staff morale crashing through the floor and putting patients’ lives at risk.     

The waiting list for surgery or specialist clinical care — partly a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic but exacerbated by years of chronic underfunding — stands at a record high of 7.22 million. Millions of patients, meanwhile, are struggling to get general practitioner (GP) appointments due to the immense pressures on NHS primary care.  

Ambulance waiting times are alarmingly long: in December, response times in England were the worst on record, while the number of patients waiting twelve hours or more to be admitted to accidents and emergency department (A&E) also hit a new all-time high. NHS dentistry, in addition, is in a state of almost-total collapse. 

Both opinion polls and the recent local elections in England indicate that the Tories are on track to lose the next general election. While the differences between Keir Starmer’s Labour and Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are narrowing all the time, it might at least be expected that the Labour Party would repair the worst of the damage done since 2010. The NHS remains the great survivor of postwar social democracy. But statements from the Labour front bench suggest otherwise. 

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

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