Call me dizzy, call me deep
Call me fekking bleep, bleep
Can’t have Fascism or Genocide
Vote for someone on our side
30/6/24
Call me dizzy, call me deep
Call me fekkin bleep bleep bleep
Can’t have Fascism or Genocide
Vote for someone on our side
Think that’s better ;)
Years ago, probably 20 years or more I saw this couple probably in their early twenties in a pub. The guy was pretending to be me to mount the woman. That quite amused me. ;)
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-masses-against-machine-islington-north
WILL Jeremy Corbyn win? It is the anxious question asked thousands of times a day by men and women on the left across Britain.
Across the world, come to that. The Islington North MP is recognised globally as one of the foremost champions for peace and social justice.
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Five years ago he was leading Labour’s charge for office. His period as party leader did one thing the Establishment can never forgive — it gave them a fright. Keir Starmer is the instrument of their vengeance.
Interviewed by the Star in a cafe in the shadow of Finsbury Park station, near his campaign headquarters, he is invited to reflect on what has become of his party of nearly 60 years.
“It’s very sad. When I stepped down as leader it had 600,000 members, it was developing community organising, delayed for two years by officialdom.
“That was the direction we were going in — a broad, community-based grassroots campaigning party. Now it is a very centralised party. Local parties like Islington North have been treated with absolute disdain by the national party.”
His campaign has focused heavily on the local and has not really attacked his former party.
Prompted, Corbyn acknowledges that “if Labour loses that social milieu of people fighting for social justice and peace it just becomes a vehicle with no soul.”
That is the price of the consensus which Corbynism briefly shattered and is now in advanced restoration. Nationally, it is an arid campaign.
“The duopoly of the economic offer, both parties promise the same spending plans, same taxation regime, means the inequalities of the past 15 years are hard-wired into economic plans for the future.”
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As ever, Jeremy Corbyn is most fluent, most at ease when discussing either the social problems on the ground, in his own constituency above all, or the dangers facing the world as a whole. I put to him George Galloway’s recent warning that Britain could be at war within six months.
“George is not wrong about that. We are moving towards a very very dangerous situation. Defence spending is by consensus to rise to 2.5 per cent and there are pretty loud voices saying it should go even more, to 3 per cent.”
He slates the bipartisan obsession “with Britain’s global military role — for what? We are building up to a cold war with China,” incurring vast spending on the Aukus nuclear submarine pact ”and not doing anything to bring about peace, not in the Ukraine war, not in Palestine.”
Re-elected, “I will be that voice for peace,” he pledges, a rare politician’s commitment that you can be absolutely sure will be honoured.
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“The Gaza crisis has sorted a lot of people out. I think that the opportunity for politics coming back offered by the peace movement is going to be the future. People who come together for social justice.
“If you want to know what the future looks like, look at the demonstrations, people from all walks of life, communities, religions, races; all of this is a way forward.
“It includes a lot of people in the Labour Party who have radical political demands” but also the wave of independent candidates challenging Labour in this election.
“People are working in the same direction like Andrew [Feinstein] and Leanne [Mohamad],” he says.
“I would expect after the election to see a political grassroots movement, a community of activity from the grassroots.” In Islington, he pledges to establish a people’s assembly to render account to.
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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-masses-against-machine-islington-north
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tory-government-met-oil-and-gas-lobbyists-daily-last-year
At least 65 fossil fuel organisations and industry bodies were identified as meeting with ministers over the year, according to the group.
Global Witness analysed data by Transparency International UK, looking at any organisation that “could be reasonably assumed to have the goal of influencing policy or legislation in the interests of a fossil fuel company and its shareholders.”
According to its findings, ministers met representatives from the oil and gas sector at least 343 times last year, up from 330 meetings held in 2022.
More widely, the group found that meetings between oil and gas lobbyists and the government have been steadily increasing over the past 11 years.
November 2023 saw record-high levels of meetings when the government met oil and gas lobbyists at least 63 times, equivalent to almost three meetings every working day, the campaigners said.
The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which would mandate annual licensing of new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, was introduced the same month, they noted.
The end of November also marked the start of the UN climate change conference Cop28 in Dubai.
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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tory-government-met-oil-and-gas-lobbyists-daily-last-year
Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.
There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil climate protectors are being jailed:
The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that they be jailed.
There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil’s key single demand #NoNewOil has not been implemented by the UK government:
The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that the UK government reject JSO and instead max out UK North Sea oil and gas reserves.
For many climate protectors who do not read the billionaire owned tabloids (Mail, Sun,Telegraph) or watch their new far-right TV stations GB News and Talk TV, this may seem exaggerated. Many are unaware of the full-scale billionaire-media war being waged on UK climate action and how despite dwindling circulations, they wield enormous unaccountable political power over UK policy, including climate policy.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, outlined to a Parliamentary Select Committee the direct impact the right-wing media had on Johnson’s decision making. The Climate Media Coalition in 2022 carried out an analysis of the process leading up to the UK government’s energy security strategy, drafted after the energy crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine.
We looked at opinion polling on eight energy policy issues covered by the strategy. We then analysed the coverage of these issues in the editorial and comment pages of the billionaire media. And finally, we looked at the government policy positions adopted by the published strategy. The eight policy issues were: onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, nuclear, fusion, insulation, fracking and new North-sea oil drilling.
The public by significant majorities supported onshore wind, offshore wind, solar and insulation. They opposed new North Sea oil and gas, fracking and nuclear. There was no polling on fusion. The billionaire media supported new North Sea oil and gas, fracking, nuclear and fusion. They opposed onshore wind, insulation and solar.
The government’s final strategy?
Every single policy position reflected the eight policy positions of the billionaire media! Only one item reflected what the public supported. The only one also supported by the billionaire media.
We are the only nation on earth to have had a de facto ban on onshore wind for the last decade after the Telegraph and Mail demanded it be banned. This evidence graphically demonstrates the raw climate-trashing political power of the UK’s billionaire press and the threat it poses to humanity and what is left of nature.
Murdoch (owner of the Sun) and Rothermere (owner of The Mail) abused their power by bullying the police and government into introducing not just one but TWO new Acts of Parliament, to punitively try to destroy Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion and are actively lobbying for a third, following the peaceful Palestinian protests.
The Guardian has reported that distinguished international scientists identified Rupert Murdoch, as one of the key media billionaires endangering humanity.
Prof Lesley Hughes, Australian Climate Change Authority said:
“Rupert Murdoch bears enormous responsibility for the world’s lack of action on climate. His outlets promote scepticism about climate science that undermines the need to act.”
Prof Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania, said Murdoch is
“one of the most destructive forces in modern history when it comes to climate action”. He wields his media empire as a cudgel to sow doubt about science and solutions. He is one of the greatest climate villains.”
Dr Friederike Otto, Grantham Institute said:
“Murdoch leaves a terrible legacy, that people are paying for, with lives and livelihoods. Climate protesters are portrayed as people trying to make life difficult for the average person, whereas of course they try to make it better”
So what strategy should the climate movement now move forward with?
What are the four pillars of the fossil fuelled economy? They are the government that regulates it, the oil industry that operates it, the banks that fund it but most importantly the corporate media that give it the social and political licence to operate. The media pillar is THE foundational pillar on which the other three depend.
And the UK’s media billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclays and Paul Marshall have captured that pillar. Therefore, the climate movement’s TOP-PRIORITY must be one way or another to remove the billionaire climate-trashing media and instead create a free Fourth Estate that backs the urgent climate action and wildlife repair necessary.
We must replace a bought press with a free press!
The world has recognised how Ukraine has a right to self-defence from the brutal Russian invasion. It is time for the climate movement to recognise that all of humanity has a far, far -greater right to self-defence from the media billionaires’ war to destroy the climate, upon which nature and all future generations’ lives depend.
But excitingly, in this battle there is a huge coalition out there gagging for leadership. Not least, the 76% of the UK public horrified by the billionaire-media backed Gazan genocide. There are deep chilling parallels between their support for the horrific Gazan genocide and their support for climate genocide and how both usurp British democracy. In the crucial parliamentary vote, 71% of MPs backed the billionaire media’s opposition to the ceasefire and betrayed their own constituents!
There is hardly a section of the population that the billionaire media have not vilified at one time or another. These include NHS staff, gay people, trade-unions, wildlife protectors, freedom of the press campaigners, human rights advocates, refugees, immigrants, EU residents, civil servants, locally elected councils, the disabled, the unemployed, travellers, Muslims, women, cyclists, the Church of England, etc etc.
When Extinction Rebellion successfully blockaded Murdoch’s printing works for just 12 hours in 2020, a ripple of excitement ran across the nation. Finally, somebody had stood up to the billionaire media dictatorship brutalising Britain. Just imagine what would happen, if we broke the hold they have on our democracy? Imagine if every front page constantly screamed for action on climate and wildlife?!
The fossil fuelled criminal establishment would be gone within a year.
The banks would be funding the renewable energy economy, the government would regulate for a net zero economy by 2030 and the oil corporations would become renewable energy corporations.
If Just Stop Oil and the wider climate movement are to win (and we must!) – then it needs to now focus, focus, focus on the one key positive and uplifting political revolution that can enable our success – peaceful direct action and building a pan-societal coalition to win the media battle for human and wildlife survival.
It is the media stupid!
Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/23/rupert-murdoch-climate-change-denial
Donnachadh McCarthy, is a director of the Climate Media Coalition (climatemediacoalition.org.uk) and was in 2015, one of the first people to be arrested for a peaceful direct action demanding the criminalisation of investments in new fossil fuels. He is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats and the author of The Prostitute State. (theprostitutestate.co.uk), E-book version is free to JSO activists & supporters from contact@3acorns.co.ukPost navigation
Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.
The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.
Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.
The analysis by the Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft also found that the number of private jets taking off from the UK increased by 75% between 2021 and 2022 to 90,256 flights, emitting 500,000 tonnes of CO2 – more than in any other European country.
The UK tops all league tables for private jets, boasting the busiest route, the most polluting route and the most flights overall. Flights between London and Paris were the most popular route, accounting for 3,357 flights, and six of the top 10 routes overall also included London.
According to a Transport & Environment study, private jets are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger, and 50 times more polluting than trains. Previous research found that 50% of all aviation emissions were caused by 1% of the world’s population.
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Environmental campaigners at Greenpeace are calling for a ban on private jet travel, highlighting that the research shows almost one-in-four (39%) private jet flights in Europe were considered “very short-haul” meaning they were less than 310 miles (500km) and could easily have been train trips.
There were also some staggeringly inefficient routes found in the analysis. A flight between Blackbushe and Farnborough in Hampshire – which is just 4.6 miles (7.4km) – topped the charts for the most carbon-intensive route in 2021 and 2022. This is because it takes less than 30 minutes to cycle between the two airports.
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