Yearly Archives: 2023

Tesco rakes in £1bn while hiking prices amid cost-of-living crisis

Spread the love
Tesco store. Creative commons licensed image by Editor5807.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tesco-rakes-in-1bn-while-hiking-prices-during-cost-of-living-crisis

Mega-rich firm accused of ‘obscene profiteering’ while millions struggle to feed their families

TESCO is indulging in “obscene profiteering” during the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, Unite the Union charged today after the supermarket giant reported a whopping £1 billion profit despite soaring food prices.

The mega-rich firm said it made the pre-tax windfall in the 12 months to the end of February as total sales rose by more than 7 per cent to £65.8bn.

The profit was less than half of the more than £2bn it pocketed a year earlier as the amount of product sold fell, but bosses admitted making up for the shortfall by charging more per item on average.

They declined to reveal how much they have jacked prices for hard-hit shoppers struggling to cope with crippling 18.2 per cent food inflation — the highest in 45 years.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Tesco’s profits are another example of excessive profiteering fired up by astonishing corporate greed.

“It’s this rampant profiteering which is driving inflation, and cranking up the cost-of-living crisis for workers and their families.

“How can it be that at a time when millions are struggling to feed their families Britain’s biggest supermarket is profiteering as never before.

“What sort of country have we become? Frankly, these results are obscene.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tesco-rakes-in-1bn-while-hiking-prices-during-cost-of-living-crisis

Continue ReadingTesco rakes in £1bn while hiking prices amid cost-of-living crisis

Jeremy Corbyn: Labour should be defending democracy, not debasing it

Spread the love
Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-labour-should-be-defending-democracy-not-debasing-it

…

When I became Leader, I was proud to be part of a movement that gave its members a voice, fought for a politics of redistribution and anti-imperialism, and mobilised a new generation of voters to believe that a better world was possible.

The decision to block my candidacy is an insult to the millions of people who voted for our Party in 2017 and 2019, and to all those who voted for his leadership on the basis that he would “defend [the] radical values” we put forward.

Keir Starmer has abandoned his pledges to defend trade unions, bring key industries into public ownership, reverse NHS privatisation, raise corporation tax, protect free movement and abolish tuition fees. Solidarity is now saved for CEOs, not striking workers. Trust is placed in corporate interests, not party members.

Human rights issues are cherry picked at the expense of a consistently ethical foreign policy. And empathy for desperate refugees is eschewed to appease the right-wing press.

As the government plunges millions into hardship, Keir Starmer has decided to attack the democratic foundations of his own party and the principles he once proclaimed to support.

However, just because the Labour leader has abandoned his faith in a better world doesn’t mean the rest of the labour movement should follow. There is huge demand for a more hopeful alternative: decent pay rises, democratic public ownership, housing for all, a wealth tax to save our NHS, and a humane immigration system grounded in dignity, empathy and care.

…

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-labour-should-be-defending-democracy-not-debasing-it

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: Labour should be defending democracy, not debasing it

Exxon’s new ‘advanced recycling’ plant raises environmental concerns

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/10/exxon-advanced-recycling-plastic-environment

Advocates warn plants like the latest addition to the Texas complex generate hazardous pollutants and provide cover for oil giants to produce new plastic products

Exxon plant at Baytown, Texas

ExxonMobil just launched one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America – but environmental advocates say the technology is a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce plastic production.

On the surface, the latest addition to ExxonMobil’s giant petrochemical refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, sounds like it could be a good thing: An “advanced recycling” facility capable of breaking down 36,000 metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastic each year. But plastic waste advocates warn that plants like it do little actual recycling, and instead generate hazardous pollutants while providing cover for oil giants to keep producing millions of tons of new plastic products each year.

The facility, which began large-scale operations in December of last year, is one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America. Chemical recycling works by breaking down plastic polymers into small molecules in order to make new plastics, synthetic fuels and other products. Companies like ExxonMobil have rebranded the technology as “advanced recycling” and are now touting it as the latest hi-tech fix to address the plastic crisis, as traditional, mechanical recycling has failed to slow the tide of plastic piling up in landfills and the ocean.

…

ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex – which includes the third largest oil refinery in the US and a plant that manufactures 2.3m metric tons of plastic a year – is a major contributor to regional air and water pollution. It also has a long history of emitting chemicals above its permit limits, including the carcinogenic compound benzene. In recent years, ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex has been the site of fires and explosions that have injured workers and triggered shelter-in-place orders for nearby residents.

“Exxon has a terrible track record of polluting the Baytown community,” Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, told the Guardian. “This false ‘chemical recycling’ will only produce more toxic misery for Baytown.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/10/exxon-advanced-recycling-plastic-environment

Continue ReadingExxon’s new ‘advanced recycling’ plant raises environmental concerns

Starmer asked judge to hide paedophile’s identity and ‘leniency of sentence’

Spread the love

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

More hypocrisy

Keir Starmer has rightly been under fire since Labour last week exploited abused children by publishing a Twitter post claiming Rishi Sunak doesn’t care about protecting children from paedophiles. Sunak is abysmal, but he has no role in the sentencing of offenders – and Starmer himself, as then-Director of Public Prosecutions, played a key role in creating the sentencing guidelines that courts still follow, including specific recommendations on sentencing sex offenders.

Starmer’s anonymity request was not his only controversy regarding sex offenders

And further hypocrisy in Labour’s current stance has come to light thanks to Gil O’Teane, who pointed out that – as a barrister acting on behalf of a convicted paedophile – Starmer asked a judge to keep secret both the offender’s identity and the leniency of the sentence he had received:

There is no suggestion that Starmer was acting improperly in representing his client in 2002 – but there is every suggestion that a man who understood the nuances of sentencing in 2002 is profoundly hypocritical and reckless to disregard his own history in order to make a vile, misleading and inflammatory smear against a political opponent. Especially one who was running the CPS when it chose not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

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

Continue ReadingStarmer asked judge to hide paedophile’s identity and ‘leniency of sentence’

more

Spread the love
Image of a Great White Shark
Image of a Great White Shark, think it might be the same wun actually.

Continuing from what I said yesterday, if you have 2 pretend opponents – Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer – who both represent the class interests of the rich and powerful then it doesn’t really matter which one wins or loses because the rich and powerful win regardless. That’s certainly my perspective and approach to Sunk and Starmer and it’s also why Corbyn’s progress was destroyed by the rich and powerful.

The Tories are so unpopular that it’s for Starmer to lose and he seems to be going for that outcome with nasty, ridiculous attack ads against Sunak.

‘Stand by every word’: Keir Starmer defends attack ad on Rishi Sunak

Keir Starmer has said he will “make absolutely zero apologies for being blunt” in an article published after a row over a widely criticised Labour attack advert on child sexual assaults.

In a veiled message to critics within his own party, the Labour leader said he will “stand by every word Labour has said on this subject” and would continue to use the Conservatives’ record on crime as a legitimate criticism “no matter how squeamish it might make some feel”.

The advert, which drew criticism from both left and right, used a picture of Rishi Sunak and said he “does not believe adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison” and pointed to the Conservative record on offenders avoiding jail.

…

‘Stand by every word’: Keir Starmer defends attack ad on Rishi Sunak

Continue Readingmore