Daily Archives: 17 February 2025

Badenoch and Farage to vie for attention of Trump allies at London summit

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/17/badenoch-farage-trump-allies-london-rightwing-arc-summit

Badenoch (right) will give a welcome address at the conference, with her party under increasing pressure from Farage (left) and Reform UK. Composite: PA

Event co-founded by Jordan Peterson will bring together global rightwing figures including senior US Republicans

Influential rightwingers from around the world are to gather in London from Monday at a major conference to network and build connections with senior US Republicans linked to the Trump administration.

The UK opposition leader, the Conservatives’ Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party, her hard-right anti-immigration rival, will compete to present themselves as the torchbearer of British conservatism.

Conservatives from Britain, continental Europe and Australia attending the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference will seize on the opportunity to meet and hear counterparts from the US, including those with links to the new Trump administration. The House speaker, the Republican Mike Johnson, had been due to attend in person but will now give a keynote address remotely on Monday.

Other Republicans due to speak include the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Vivek Ramaswamy – who has worked with Elon Musk on moves to radically reshape the US government – and Kevin Roberts, the president of the US Heritage Foundation, the thinktank behind the controversial “Project 2025” blueprint for Trump’s second term.

The conference, which is intended to be a gathering of influential intellectuals shaping global rightwing thinking, has a distinctly anti-environmental and socially conservative theme. It pledges to build on “our growing movement and continue the vital work of relaying the foundations of our civilisation”.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/17/badenoch-farage-trump-allies-london-rightwing-arc-summit

dizzy: Jordan Peterson is a renowned climate change denier

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Poorest UK households pay rising share of income on council tax, study finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/17/uk-poorest-households-income-share-council-tax-resolution-foundation

The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax or domestic rates in 2020-21, up from 2.9% in 2002-03. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Resolution Foundation report says failure to reform has ‘slowly recreated the issues that undid the poll tax’

Britain’s poorest households are paying an increasing share of their income on council tax, according to new analysis that likened it to the poll tax that contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax in England, Wales and Scotland and on domestic rates in Northern Ireland in the 2020-21 financial year, up from 2.9% in 2002-3, according to research by the Resolution Foundation.

Council taxes are one of the few levies on wealth in the UK, with different systems applied in each of the four countries.

However, they are seen by economists as deeply flawed, not least because the tax in England and Scotland is levied based on the value of properties in 1991, despite huge changes in the spread of wealth over the past three decades. Wales has updated its system to use 2003 valuations, while Scotland raised the rates on higher-banded properties in 2017. Northern Ireland still has a system of domestic rates, which predates council tax.

Highlighting the “regressive” nature of the tax, meaning poorer households pay more of their income towards it than richer ones, the Resolution Foundation said the failure to reform council tax had made it progressively worse.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/17/uk-poorest-households-income-share-council-tax-resolution-foundation

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Calls mount for public ownership of Thames Water as it launches ‘blatantly greedy’ bid to hike bills

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/calls-mount-public-ownership-thames-water-it-launches-blatantly-greedy-bid-hike-bills

GREED: Thames Water’s chief executive Chris Weston defended bosses getting £770,000 in bonuses

CAMPAIGNERS mounted further calls for Thames Water to be permanently brought into public ownership today [Friday] after the firm launched a “blatantly greedy and desperate bid” to hike bills yet again.

The firm has already been allowed to increase bills by 35 per cent over the next five years by regulator Ofwat.

Thames Water originally lobbied for a 59 per cent increase and is now asking the Competition and Markets Authority to review the decision.

On the verge of financial collapse, Thames Water sits on £19 billion of debts.

Despite this, it paid out £158.3 million in dividends last March, and attempted to award its CEO and CFO £770,000 in bonuses using customer money before being blocked by Ofwat.

Thames Water is currently waiting for a court decision on whether it will be allowed a £3.3bn creditor bailout to avoid falling into special administration at the end of March.

The loan will cost a mammoth £800m in interest and fees alone, which campaign group We Own It argues will add an extra £250 a year to household bills.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/calls-mount-public-ownership-thames-water-it-launches-blatantly-greedy-bid-hike-bills

Continue ReadingCalls mount for public ownership of Thames Water as it launches ‘blatantly greedy’ bid to hike bills