Morning Star: The coronation crackdown signposts Britain’s authoritarian future in important respects
THE crackdown on protesters against the coronation is a wake-up call to the dystopian reality of Britain’s repressive anti-protest laws.
Leader of the Republic campaign Graham Smith, who was arrested and held for 16 hours, is right to warn that “there is no longer a right to peaceful protest in the UK.”
Police chiefs who demur, saying that some protests went ahead and they had to factor in the “once-in-a-generation” nature of the coronation when assessing whether to shut them down, only underline that our right to protest now exists at their discretion.
Republic campaigners were arrested before their protest had even begun, while unloading Not My King placards from the back of a van.
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Unless we confront the authoritarian and anti-democratic reality of British state power, our liberties will keep being taken from us.
Tufton Street Linked Donors Have Given £630,000 to the Conservatives Since Sunak Became Prime Minister
Financial, ideological and senior staff ties are still channelling the interests of opaquely funded think tanks into the heart of government.
The Conservative Party has received in excess of £600,000 since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister from four board members at leading Tufton Street ‘think tanks’, a new DeSmog analysis shows.
The data also shows that free market groups based in Tufton Street, Westminster, have retained significant influence in Sunak’s administration. More than half a dozen Tufton Street alumni currently serve as special advisers to the government, while seven ministers have appeared at events hosted by Tufton Street groups since Sunak became prime minister in October.
These groups have often acted as a blocker to climate action. All are known for their anti-big-state and pro-fracking views, while their anti-green stances range from opposition to state-led climate intervention to active climate science denial. Previous reports indicate that Tufton Street groups have received substantial funds from organisations that support climate science denial in the past decade, with some donations provided directly by fossil fuel firms.
The joint-largest donation to the Conservatives during this period was made by Graham Edwards, a board member at the influential Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). He gave £500,000 in December 2022 – the same month that he was appointed as Tory treasurer, responsible for party fundraising.
Other CPS board members – Lord Michael Spencer and Lord Anthony Bamford – have also donated £100,000 and £10,000 to the party respectively since Sunak became prime minister. Lord Spencer donated via his family holding company, IPGL, while Lord Bamford’s donation is linked to his construction conglomerate, JCB.
As revealed by DeSmog this week, a firm owned by a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – one of the UK’s principal climate science denial groups – also donated £20,000 in March to House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt and Conservative MP Liam Fox.
The CPS, which is based out of 57 Tufton Street, is a leading member of the network. This alliance of free market think tanks and lobby groups catapulted into public consciousness last autumn for its outsized influence over former Prime Minister Liz Truss and ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whose ‘mini budget’ on 23 September 2022 caused market panic and a dramatic fall in the value of the pound.
The funding of Tufton Street groups is notoriously opaque. Every single one of its members was given the lowest transparency rating – E – by openDemocracy’s ‘Who Funds You?’ 2022 report into think tanks. Tufton Street groups have earned £6 million collectively in their latest accounting periods.
“It’s time to kick toxic fossil fuel interests out of politics once and for all,” Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told DeSmog. “This government’s murky ties to Tufton Street have barely diminished since Liz Truss’s economy-wrecking mini budget fiasco. When we face a rapidly closing window of opportunity to tackle the climate emergency, there are still countless climate-denying and delaying influences right at the heart of government.”
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Conservative Party Funds Anti-ULEZ Facebook Ad Blitz
https://www.desmog.com/2023/05/03/conservative-party-funds-anti-ulez-facebook-ad-blitz/
Rishi Sunak’s party has attacked green traffic measures via adverts to millions of UK voters, despite central government commitments to cut road pollution.
The Conservatives deployed anti-ULEZ adverts on Facebook in March and April that were seen on more than three million occasions, DeSmog research has found.
The party has engaged in a concerted online campaign against the expansion of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which has been the subject of more than a quarter (28.4 percent) of the 88 adverts that were launched during this period.
Although London boroughs are not going to the polls in the 2023 local elections coming up on on 4 May, the proposed ULEZ expansion has been a key campaign issue in the areas bordering the capital, many of which are set to vote.
According to Facebook data, the Conservative Party’s 25 anti-ULEZ adverts were seen between 3 to 3.5 million times, at a cost to the party of up to £19,100.
This is despite the government’s 2021 Decarbonising Transport Plan, which lauded the Labour mayor’s efforts on air pollution for its “significant impact on air quality” and on “reducing the number of older, more polluting vehicles that enter London’s central zone.”
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https://www.desmog.com/2023/05/03/conservative-party-funds-anti-ulez-facebook-ad-blitz/