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Author: dizzy
The government isn’t waging a war on poverty. It’s waging a war on the poor.
One of the many occasions climate change denier and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet. Perhaps, there was a time when governments declared war on poverty. After all, no economy can flourish whilst masses are in poverty and can’t buy the goods and services produced by businesses. Now, the British state has declared war on low and middle income families.
The squeeze on workers has reduced their share of the gross domestic product (GDP), in the form of wages and salaries, from 65.1% in 1976 to around 50% at the end of second quarter of 2023. Between1980 and 2014, real GDP growth averaged around 2.2% per year and the economy has grown sporadically since then. However, most people have seen little benefit of that growth.
One study estimates that “if wages had continued to grow as they were before the financial crash of 2008, real average weekly earnings would be around £11,000 per year higher than they currently are – a 37 per cent lost wages gap”. The real average earnings are unchanged since 2005.
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The war on the poor cannot provide economic or social stability. It has destroyed lives and inhibited social development. The institutions of government need to listen to saner voices, trade unions and non-governmental organisations to build a fair and just society through redistribution, higher public investment and by freeing themselves from the shackles of neoliberal economics.
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
Just Stop Oil bid to block first migrants from returning to Bibby Stockholm barge
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/just-stop-oil-blockade-coach-returning-migrants-to-bibby-stockholm-barge/
The group unfurled a banner that read “No Prison Ships” and tried to halt the coach of migrants.
They managed to temporarily halt the coach, which had around 30 migrants on board.
The vehicle moved forward as the protesters pushed back against it before sitting down on the tarmac.
Just Stop Oil said the group were “repeatedly driven into, resulting in them leaving the carriageway for their own safety.”
Two people were arrested.
Greenpeace loses legal challenge to UK’s new North Sea oil and gas licences
Greenpeace image, sign reads CHOOSE OCEANS, NOT OIL LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Britain’s decision to authorise new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea was lawful, London’s High Court ruled on Thursday, dismissing a legal challenge by Greenpeace.
The environmental campaign group had argued Britain’s failure to assess the greenhouse gases produced by consuming oil and gas – so-called end-use or downstream emissions – rendered its offshore energy plan unlawful.
But lawyers representing Britain’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said at a hearing in July that ministers were not required to assess end-use emissions, though they nonetheless considered them.
Judge David Holgate rejected Greenpeace’s case on Thursday, saying in a written ruling that the decision not to assess end-use emissions was not irrational.
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Greenpeace said it planned to appeal the ruling.
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‘Shameful’: Boris Johnson appointed as ‘democracy adviser’
Image of Elmo (left) and former Prime Minister Tory idiot Boris Johnson (right) https://leftfootforward.org/2023/10/shameful-boris-johnson-appointed-as-democracy-adviser/
There has been widespread bewilderment and anger after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has a history of lying and who trashed Parliament, was appointed as a ‘democracy adviser’.
Johnson, who was booted out of office after lying about Covid lockdown parties in Downing Street, trashing the very rules his own government had set, and who prorogued parliament, violated parliamentary codes, lied repeatedly, partied in lockdown and handed government contracts to Tory cronies, has been appointed to the advisory board of the International Democracy Union (IDU).
The IDU is a global centre-right group chaired by Stephen Harper, the former prime minister of Canada, whose stated goal is the promotion of “democracy and centre-right policies around the globe”.
On Tuesday the group announced: “The IDU is excited to announce that PM Boris Johnson has joined our Honorary Advisory Board”.
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