… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Author: dizzy

  • Jeremy Corbyn annihilates Labour over ‘wealth tax u-turn’

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    Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
    Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-wealth-tax-355502/

    Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was banned from standing as a candidate for the party earlier this year, has taken an almighty swipe at Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, after it was confirmed that the pair would not look to implement a wealth tax if elected into office.

    …

    Keir Starmer also confirmed last month that would retain the two-child benefit limit – despite growing calls from poverty campaigners for the cap to be abandoned. The controversial stance has divided politicians within the Labour Party.

    It’s another questionable policy u-turn from Starmer, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jeremy Corbyn. The two-time Prime Ministerial candidate ripped into Sir Keir, saying that a wealth tax could easily fund an extension to the two-child cap.

    Corbyn also urged his successor to ‘side with those in need’:

    “With the money raised from a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, we could afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap SEVENTEEN times over. Politics is about choices — and we should be on the side of those in need, not those with greed.” | Jeremy Corbyn

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-wealth-tax-355502/

  • South-east Australia marine heatwave forecast to be literally off the scale

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    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/27/south-east-australia-marine-heatwave-forecast-to-be-literally-off-the-scale

    Patch of Tasman sea expected to warm over spring and summer to temperatures that risk significant losses to sea life

    A Bureau of Meteorology map showing sea surface temperatures. The Bureau of Meteorology expects a patch of the Tasman Sea off Tasmania and Victoria will be at least 2.5C above average from September to February.

    Australia’s south-east could be in for a marine heatwave that is literally off the scale, raising the prospect of significant losses in fishing and aquaculture.

    The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a patch of the Tasman Sea off Tasmania and Victoria could be at least 2.5C above average from September to February, and it could get hotter.

    Oceanographer Grant Smith said the colour-coded scale the bureau uses to map forecast sea surface temperature anomalies stops at 2.5C.

    “We didn’t account for anomalies that high when we developed this … it could be 3C, it could be 3.5C, but we can’t see how high it goes,” he said.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/27/south-east-australia-marine-heatwave-forecast-to-be-literally-off-the-scale

  • The Sun finds itself in line of fire over report on Huw Edwards && Jonathan Pie && Catatonia

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    Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper has published a story about BBC news presenter Huw Edwards – although without initially naming him – paying a 17 year-old £35,000 for intimate photographs with the money used to finance (his) crack-cocaine addiction. The story appears to be seriously factually flawed and published despite being informed by the young man concerned that the story was incorrect. The story clearly suggested that Edwards engaged in illegality by procuring intimate photographs from a 17 year-old when this was known to be untrue by The Sun newspaper.

    The Sun finds itself in line of fire over report on Huw Edwards

    …

    Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper is facing serious questions over its reporting and ethical standards, after it alleged Edwards paid a 17-year-old for explicit images – only for police to conclude there was no evidence to support this allegation of serious criminal wrongdoing.

    Days later, his wife said Edwards is in a hospital dealing with “serious mental health issues” and the newspaper is rapidly backtracking on its original story. Extraordinarily, on Wednesday night the Sun insisted its initial claim that the presenter had given a young person “more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images” was not a suggestion of criminal activity.

    Instead, the newspaper blamed other media outlets for misinterpreting its reporting and leading to the police getting involved, saying: “We must also re-emphasise that the Sun at no point in our original story alleged criminality and also took the decision neither to name Mr Edwards nor the young person involved in the allegations.”

    Even before the police had cleared Edwards of illegal behaviour, doubts started to emerge over the Sun’s key allegation that he bought pictures from a 17-year-old. The young person in question, now an adult aged 20, issued a statement on Monday through their lawyer saying the allegations were “rubbish”.

    …

    Jonathan Pie ‘Back to you, Huw!’

    Catatonia ‘International Velvet’

  • Rishi Sunak ridiculed for his ‘confusion’ over failing to declare wife’s shares

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/rishi-sunak-ridiculed-for-his-confusion-over-failing-to-declare-wifes-shares/

    Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
    Rish! Sunak

    The Prime Minister ‘inadvertently’ broke the MP’s code of conduct due to ‘confusion’

    The Prime Minister has been brutally ridiculed after the parliament’s standards commissioner declared he had ‘inadvertently’ broken the MPs’ code of conduct, for failing to declare his wife’s shares in a childcare company set to benefit from government policy.

    Concerns over shares Akshata Murty held in the childcare company Koru Kids were raised back in April, when the company was listed as one of six childminder agencies in the Tory’s pilot childminder incentive.

    Sunak supposedly got ‘confused’ over government rules so failed to declare his interests which led to the conclusion by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, that he had ‘inadvertently’ broken the rules.

    His ‘confusion’ was around the difference between registering and declaring his interests, with the inquiry stating that no further action will be taken.

    However, his ‘inadvertent’ rule breaking to the financial benefit of his family has raised many eyebrows. With public figures pointing to a wider theme of Tory MPs excusing themselves from misconduct.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/rishi-sunak-ridiculed-for-his-confusion-over-failing-to-declare-wifes-shares/

    Take a look at this article too, a good un

    Rishi Sunak’s Many Failures to Fully Declare his Conflicts of Interests

    The claim that the PM’s failure to declare his wife’s investment in a childcare company subsidised by his Government was ‘inadvertent’ is open to question

    …

    Such ‘confusion’ about what interests the Prime Minister needs to declare appears to be a regular occurrence for the Prime Minister, however.

    Here’s all the other times Rishi Sunak has appeared ‘confused’ about which conflicts of interests he should and shouldn’t publicly declare.

    …

  • After America’s summer of extreme weather, ‘next year may well be worse’

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    18 July 2021 California Wildfires. Image: Felton Davis

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/us-summer-extreme-heat-wildfires-climate-crisis

    A freakish season of record temperatures, wildfire smoke and the destruction of Lahaina could soon become normal, climate experts say

    It’s been a strange, cruel summer in the United States. From the dystopian orange skies above New York to the deadly immolation of a historic coastal town in Hawaii, the waning summer has been a stark demonstration of the escalating climate crisis – with experts warning that worse is to come.

    A relentless barrage of extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused global heating, has swept the North American continent this summer, routinely placing a third of the US population under warnings of severe heat and unleashing floods, fire and smoke upon communities, with a record 15 separate disasters causing at least $1bn in damages so far this year.

    The heat has been particularly withering in places like Phoenix, Arizona, which had a record 31 consecutive days at temperatures above 110F (43C), while an enormous heatwave across the central swath of the US this week caused schools to be closed in states such as Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa and food banks to be shut in Nebraska.

    While the aftermath of hurricanes continue to affect residents, such as those in Houston, Texas devastated by Hurricane Harvey (see image), research has found that the frequency and intensity of these latest storms have done little to shift public opinion about their connection with global warming. (Photo: Texas Military Department, Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)
    While the aftermath of hurricanes continue to affect residents, such as those in Houston, Texas devastated by Hurricane Harvey (above), research has found that the frequency and intensity of these latest storms have done little to shift public opinion about their connection with global warming. (Photo: Texas Military Department, Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)

    In Miami, which had a record 46 days in a row with a heat index above 100F (37C), there was no respite even in the nearby ocean, with a raging marine heatwave turning the seawater to a temperature more normally seen in hot tubs, raising fears that Florida’s coral reef will be turned to mush.

    “It’s been a shocking summer,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “We know most of this is happening because of long-term warming of the climate system so it’s not surprising, sadly, but you still get shocked by these extremes. Records are not just being broken, they are being shattered by wide margins.”

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/us-summer-extreme-heat-wildfires-climate-crisis