Labour accuses government of holding back data on use of official alcohol stock between March 2020 and 2022
Crates of wine being delivered to No 10 in January 2020. The last official statement on the ‘usage, value, costs and stock levels of the wine cellar’ was made in July 2021. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Ministers have been asked to explain why a report on the UK government’s consumption of wine during the Covid pandemic has been delayed four times over the last year.
Labour said the Foreign Office, which holds the government’s wine collection, should publish the data on its stocks for 2020 to 2022 immediately, as the delay was causing suspicion about how much had been used.
The stock list was originally meant to be published in “early 2023”, was subsequently scheduled for July and then ministers later said it would appear in the autumn.
The last update was from Andrew Mitchell, a Foreign Office minister, who answered a parliamentary question saying it would be published “before the Christmas recess” – but it never materialised by the end of the parliamentary term.
The delays mean it is now two and a half years since the last official statement on the “usage, value, costs and stock levels of the wine cellar” was made in July 2021.
The yet-to-be-published data should cover the period March 2020 to March 2022 – the whole course of the pandemic. Given the cellar is supposed to be used only “to provide guests of the government, from home and overseas, with wines of appropriate quality at reasonable cost”, the report would be expected to show a decline in consumption, given the curbs on indoor gatherings and international travel caused by the Covid pandemic.
Global efforts to slow a runaway climate catastrophe may have reached a critical milestone in the last year with the peak of global carbon emissions from energy use, according to experts.
A growing number of climate analysts believe that 2023 may be recorded as the year in which annual emissions reached a pinnacle before the global fossil fuel economy begins a terminal decline.
The milestone is considered a crucial tipping point in the race to drive emissions to net zero. But for many climate experts it’s an inflexion point that was due years ago and which, although encouraging, falls far short of the rapid reduction the world needs.
The world’s leading climate scientists have consistently warned that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere means it is critical to drive down emissions before 2030 if leaders hope to keep global heating to a maximum of 1.5C above pre-industrialised levels. The rate at which emissions would need to be reduced will require, most experts agree, global transformation on a scale not yet in the pipeline.
“We can take a small pause to celebrate this tipping point,” said Dave Jones, a director at the climate thinktank Ember. “But in a way it’s worrying that we are still talking about when emissions might peak. The reality of the situation is that we need deep and fast reductions in emissions if we hope to stay within the vanishingly small budget for carbon which remains.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) raised hopes earlier this year of an end to the fossil fuel era when it predicted for the first time that the consumption of oil, gas and coal would peak before 2030 and begin to fall as climate policies took effect.
“It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ – and the sooner the better for all of us,” said Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA.
Scientists protest at UK Parliament 5 September 2023.
dizzy: I’m expecting huge disinvestment and consequent disempowerment of the fossil fuel sector. The longer investors stay in fossil fuels, the larger their lossses will be. later elaboration: Plutocrats are losing control of the narrative, activists are aware of and highlighting huge fossil fuel subsidies and fossil fuel lies like CCS, renewables becoming much cheaper, court cases, greater acceptance and recognition of role of fossil fuels in destroying the planet, green parties achieving much higher vote share, it’ll hit the fan. later still elaboration: All the increasingly extreme and more often weather events that we’re experiencing attributed to fossil fuels caused climate crisis.
Peoples Dispatch speaks to Munir Marwan, a longtime Palestine solidarity organizer and PYM member about PYM’s latest demands, which include an end to occupation, the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and ending Western complicity in Zionism
The entire Palestine solidarity movement in North America has united behind the demand of a ceasefire in Gaza. For the first time in years, organizations of the working class such as labor unions have been united against the status quo of Western foreign policy and taken an unprecedented stance against Israeli violence.
At the same time, important sectors in the movement have been trying to push the demands even further. The Palestinian Youth Movement, a major international formation of Palestinian youth with significant presence across North America, has been working to push the movement beyond dreaming of an end to current aggression, and into demanding full liberation from Israeli occupation.
To talk about PYM’s latest demands, which include an end to occupation, the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and ending Western complicity in Zionism, Peoples Dispatch speaks to Munir Marwan, a longtime Palestine solidarity organizer and PYM member.
After over two months of genocide, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling
Image from demonstration outside of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s house on Christmas morning, protesting US policy in Israel
Since October 7, Biden has added to Israel’s massive US-made military arsenal and sent more weapons to Israel as it carries out its genocide in the Gaza Strip, even bypassing Congressional review to do so. After nearly three months of war, however, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling.
Some of the most bloody attacks against Palestinian civilians have been made possible with US-made bombs, such as the attack that leveled an apartment block in the Jabalya refugee camp, killing over 100 people.
Many of the atrocities perpetrated by Israel with US-made weaponry and funded by US money have been broadcast internationally across communications channels for even the people of the US to see. As a result, massprotests have erupted in the streets for months, often disrupting major commercial centers and events throughout the busy holiday season.
A recent poll shows that popular support for US aid to Israel has dropped since November. According to a poll from Quinnipiac University released on December 20, less than half (45%) of registered voters support sending “military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war.” This is a significant drop from the results of Quinnipiac’s previous poll from a month ago, in which 54% of voters expressed their support for military aid to Israel. A comparison of the two polls reveals that support for aid to Israel has dropped among voters in both the Republican and Democratic parties. In the November poll, 71% of Republicans and 45% Democratic voters said they were in favor of further military aid to Israel. Those numbers dropped in December, with 65% of Republicans and only 36% of Democrats supporting more US aid to Israel.
The dwindling support for US support to the Zionist state follows the trends of other polls in the growing popularity of the Palestinian cause, such as an early December Date for Progress poll which found that 61% of voters support calls for a permanent ceasefire—including nearly half, 49%, of Republicans.
Pressure for the Biden administration to shift its policies on Israel has also been coming from within Congress itself—not even necessarily from the most progressive elements of the legislature. Six members of security-oriented committees of the House of Representatives, including the Intelligence, Armed Services or Foreign Affairs committees, none of whom are known progressives, penned a letter to Biden on December 18, calling on the President to “use all of our nation’s leverage to shift the Israeli military’s strategy.”
“The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with American interests,” the letter reads. The representatives also reference the history of “America’s war on terror” as a warning for the future, stating, “We know from personal and often painful experience that you can’t destroy a terror ideology with military force alone. And it can, in fact, make it worse.”
Several prominent humanitarian organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders USA, Oxfam America, and Amnesty International, have also penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging him to halt military aid to Israel. The organizations urge the Pentagon to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law.”
Biden himself has not responded to any of the outside pressures against his Israel policy, and has only dug his heels in. As his administration toldCNN earlier this month, the US has no plans to place conditions on Israel aid as it carries out genocide in Gaza.
South Africa has launched a case against Israel at the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) accusing the state of committing genocide in its military campaign in Gaza.
Israel responded to the allegations “with disgust”, calling South Africa’s case a “blood libel” and urging the ICJ to reject it.
Any case at the ICJ is likely to take years to resolve, but South Africa has called for the court to convene in the next few days to issue “provisional measures” calling for a ceasefire. In March 2022, the ICJ ordered Russia to halt its offensive in Ukraine, an order which was supposed to be legally binding, but Moscow ignored it anyway. Any such ruling however is likely to significantly sway international public opinion.
“The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” the South African application to open proceedings said.
“Provisional measures are necessary in this case to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention, which continue to be violated with impunity.”
Article IX of the Genocide Convention allows any state party to the convention to bring a case against another to the ICJ, even if it doesn’t have any direct link to the conflict in question. Last year, the court ruled that the Gambia could bring a genocide claim against Myanmar. The court also ruled in a case between Croatia and Serbia that depriving a people of food, shelter, medical care and other means of subsistence constitutes genocidal acts.
