- Post author:dizzy
- Post published:23 December 2025
- Post category:conservatives/crap pretend Labour/David Lammy/Fascism/genocide/Israel/Labour Party/Neo-liberalism/Palestine/plutocracy/politics/Zionism
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New poll shows Reform lead ‘cut to three points’ – as Green surge continues
Should Reform start looking over their shoulders? Their lead at the top of the polls is dwindling, as the Green Party continues to gain.
To say Nigel Farage and Reform are in the cross-hairs right now could prove to be the understatement of the year. After soaring high in the voting intention polls throughout 2025, one survey has shown that their lead over the chasing pack has dropped significantly in recent weeks.
ALSO READ: A Tory–Reform election pact would be doomed to fail
What’s behind the Reform slump?
The political upstarts have endured arguably their roughest time since their official rebrand to ‘Reform UK’, following a slew of scandals and negative headlines. After taking charge of their first local councils back in May, tax rises have been proposed – and a flurry of councillors lost their positions.
This unsteady ship has been further rocked by allegations levelled against Nigel Farage himself. His connections to Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform in Wales who was convicted of taking Russian bribes, provided ample fodder for his political opponents on the offensive.
Weeks after this fiasco, former classmates of Brexit’s biggest cheerleader accused him of using racist and antisemitic language during his school days. He has so far refused to issue an apology – but the toxicity surrounding these claims has done Mr. Farage no good in the polls…
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Article continues at https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/latest-polls-reform-green-party-nigel-farage-zack-polanski-401645/
Patient survival ‘clearly linked’ to nursing numbers
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/patient-survival-clearly-linked-nursing-numbers
ALANDMARK study into excess patient deaths across NHS hospitals has found a “very clear and consistent” link between nurse staffing and patient mortality — and that replacing them with lower-paid workers makes no difference.
Dramatic variations in patient death rates were revealed in the first-ever analysis of staffing and death rates over time, sparking calls for NHS England to investigate trusts where deaths have risen.
Study leader Professor Alison Leary told the Sunday Times that the data across 122 NHS trusts over four years showed “a very clear and consistent relationship between the absence of registered nurses available to patients and excess deaths.”
“Although organisations have tried to make up for the lack of registered nurses with other staffing groups, this has not improved survival,” added the chair of workforce modelling at London South Bank University and a senior consultant for the World Health Organisation.
The study, covering December 2020 to May 2024, found that hospitals with lower-than-expected death rates had the highest nurse staffing, with an average of 5.65 hours of registered nurse care per patient per day.
Those with higher-than-expected deaths meanwhile had significantly fewer nurses available to care for patients, with just 4.59 hours of nurse care per patient per day.
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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/patient-survival-clearly-linked-nursing-numbers
Pirates of the Caribbean: sovereignty, law and Donald Trump
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump
US President Donald Trump says Venezuela must return ownership rights of its oil to US companiesWASHINGTON’S seizure of a second ship carrying Venezuelan oil continues its brazen piracy on the high seas.
It’s a further escalation in US aggression against Venezuela designed to bring about regime change.
Donald Trump’s crimes are dramatic, his motives expressed unusually openly. His secretary for war — and the revival of this title instead of defence secretary speaks for itself — boasts about prioritising “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” The administration is hardly making the effort to pretend its actions are legal.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t lying. It lies constantly, and the official rationale for its Venezuela blockade is a lie — there is no evidence the boats it bombs were smuggling drugs, nor that the Venezuelan oil industry has any connection to the drug trade, nor even of the existence of the so-called Cartel de los Soles that it alleges Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro heads.
But just as when, during his first term, Trump embarrassed his Nato allies by admitting Western militaries were in Syria “only for the oil,” the president’s online rants show the same is true for Venezuela.
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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump
enough.
Euro-Med rights group says US cover enables Israel’s genocide and ‘slow death’ in Gaza
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has accused the United States of providing political cover that allows Israel to perpetuate genocide in the Gaza Strip and impose a “slow death” on the civilian population.
In a statement published on Sunday, the Geneva-based organisation said US support has enabled Israel to maintain the status quo in Gaza, despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation. It argued that Washington has effectively made any progress towards a ceasefire conditional on the return of the last body from Gaza, a position the group described as “shameful complicity” in ongoing crimes.
The Monitor said such US-backed conditions contribute directly to continued ceasefire violations, the sustained siege, mass displacement of civilians, and the destruction of what remains of homes and livelihoods across the Gaza Strip.
It stressed that “the fate of more than two million people in Gaza should never be tied to political or military conditions that may be difficult, or even impossible, to fulfil on the ground,” adding that fundamental human rights must be guaranteed “immediately and unconditionally”.
The organisation said the scale of devastation in Gaza, combined with the systematic destruction of search-and-rescue equipment and emergency vehicles, has made fulfilment of Israeli conditions for progress on the ceasefire extremely difficult. It said these conditions are being used as a pretext to prolong the siege and deepen humanitarian suffering.
The Monitor added that US support for Israel in this context reinforces an illegitimate conflation between negotiation processes and guaranteed human rights. It said such rights must be implemented without conditions, compromises or political exploitation, regardless of the circumstances.
READ: Famine conditions offset in Gaza, but 1.6M to still face crisis-level hunger: IPC
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
