Andrew Cooper is standing for the party in Tamworth.
With two by-elections set to take place this Thursday following the resignation of two Tory MPs, this week is a crucial test for Rishi Sunak ahead of the next general election.
Yet one of the Tory by-election candidates, Andrew Cooper, who is standing for the party in Tamworth is revealed to have posted a chart telling parents who can’t feed kids to ‘f*** off’, causing yet another headache for the Tories.
The story, first reported in the Mirror, reveals that in 2020 Cooper posted on Facebook a diagram drawn in pen on a piece of paper asking the question: “Can you feed your kids?” It said that those who have subscriptions for TV services such as Sky, as well as mobile phone contracts or get their nails done should “f*** off”. The diagram suggested that parents who do none of these but do not work should also “f*** off”.
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Andrew Cooper prospective Tory MP for Tamworth’s diagram telling parents to feck off
Domestic energy prices more than doubled during 2022 compared with the year before. This meant that the number of UK households in fuel poverty who could not afford to heat their homes to a safe level rose from 4.5 million to 7.3 million.
The UK government attempted to alleviate the impact of rocketing bills with a package of support measures. This included capping the unit cost of electricity and gas, a £400 rebate to all households using mains gas for heating and £200 for those using alternative fuels, and a further £650 “cost of living payment” to claimants of means-tested benefits.
Many of these schemes ended in spring 2023. And with wholesale gas costs and the government’s energy price cap having come down somewhat, you could be forgiven for thinking that the worst of the energy crisis has passed.
But that’s not the case for many billpayers – in fact, this winter is likely to be worse than the last for many households.
The energy price cap, introduced in 2019 by market regulator Ofgem, limits how much people pay for each unit of gas and electricity. The latest price cap, set on October 1 2023, means that a typical household will pay £1,834 a year for energy – less than £2,000 for the first time in 18 months.
This might sound like good news, but it’s still a substantial increase on the pre-crisis cap. In August 2021, the most a typical household could expect to pay in a year for energy was £1,277.
Although the unit prices of electricity and gas have fallen, there has been a steep increase in standing charges. These are a levy on all energy bills which cover the costs associated with supplying energy to homes.
Standing charges have gone up from around £186 a year pre-crisis to just over £300 now – effectively adding £110 to bills.
Standing charges pay for the upkeep of the UK’s energy supply network. KingTa/Shutterstock
Standing charges are regressive because they are the same for everyone, regardless of how much energy you consume. Poorer households often use much less energy than wealthier ones, so standing charges make up a larger proportion of their energy costs.
The £400 energy bill rebate paid to all households last winter has now ended. Meanwhile, cost of living payments to claimants of means-tested benefits have increased from £650 to £900 a year. This will be helpful to those who qualify, but one third of households eligible for means-tested welfare payments do not claim them due to stigma, lack of awareness or bad experiences with the assessment process, and so will receive no assistance.
Many households who do receive these cost of living payments will spend it on other expenses, such as food, rather than heating their home. This reflects the fact that energy is often seen by struggling households as something that can be rationed.
If you’re in a household that does not qualify for the cost of living payment then the savings of around £150 that resulted from the lowering of the cap will soon be more than cancelled out by the lack of a rebate.
Cold homes can kill
Despite the financial support offered last winter, average levels of energy debt for people contacting Citizens Advice in England and Wales have risen sharply over the last year, from around £1,400 per household on average in March 2022 to £1,711 in July 2023. One-third of UK energy customers are now in arrears.
So although energy bills have fallen slightly, many households are less resilient to financial shocks than they were in early 2022. Volatile energy prices are predicted to last until the end of the decade.
Research last winter found that households in fuel poverty were underheating their homes, causing damp and mould that can create serious health problems and exacerbating anguish and stress. The health risks of a cold home increase with repeated exposure.
As temperatures begin to fall again, a range of measures are urgently needed to prevent a crisis worse than that of last winter.
What can be done to help?
Since energy prices are expected to remain high for years, long-term solutions are vital. There must be increased investment in efforts to insulate the UK’s leaky housing stock. But with winter just weeks away, what can the government do right now?
To start, it could offer greater energy bill rebates. Given the scale of the fuel poverty problem, eligibility for these rebates must be wide enough for anyone on a below average income to receive help.
Alternatively, the government could make the rebates universal again, and potentially recoup the costs by increasing taxes on the most wealthy or energy company profits. At the very least, unclaimed energy bill support from last winter should be used to support those likely to struggle in the coming winter, rather than being returned to the treasury.
Cut funding for government-backed advice services could also be restored. And there are reforms to the retail energy market that could be implemented fairly quickly, such as bringing standing charges in line with levels of usage.
More fundamentally, there are a number of proposals that would be fairer than the current system and could be implemented together for maximum impact. These include a “green power pool”, which would ensure that the cheap power generated by renewables such as wind and solar benefits those most in need first and foremost, social tariffs (discounted energy bills for low-income households), or a national energy guarantee that would secure access to enough free energy to meet everyone’s basic needs.
The government’s forthcoming autumn statement must not sidestep these issues if people in fuel poverty are to stay safe and warm this winter.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
New research shows household debt has hit five-year high
BRITAIN’S energy crisis is “growing by the week,” campaigners warned today after research found that household debt has hit a five-year high of £216 as winter approaches.
The number of homes already owing money to their energy provider is up 11 per cent on last year, according to a survey by comparison website Uswitch.
Of those in arrears on their gas and electricity bills, 40 per cent say their debt is higher than last year and 28 per cent believe their position is about the same as 12 months ago.
Almost one in seven say they have gone from being in credit a year ago to owing money now.
More than half of households are worried about how they will pay their energy bills this winter and 49 per cent say they will wear extra layers of clothing at home so that they can manage with less heating.
And 25 per cent say they will not turning their heating at all, even when it is cold.
The conflict in the Middle East has led British political actors to try and redefine what is ‘acceptable speech’
Police and protesters at the March for Palestine in London on Saturday | Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images
As a humanitarian crisis unfolds in the Middle East, the UK government and its backers in the media have sought to marginalise and silence dissenting voices by targeting protest movements showing solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Hundreds of people in Israel were killed, just over a week ago, in a brutal attack by Hamas. In response, Israel has moved swiftly against Hamas and the Palestinian population living in the Gaza strip. It has cut off their electricity and prevented the entry of food, water and medical supplies as it commences a devastating bombardment of homes and civilian infrastructure, leaving hundreds dead.
The reaction to these unfolding events in Britain has been one of shock and anger. Amongst the political class, a closing of the ranks has occurred, shoring up support for Israel as it strikes against the Palestinian population. And as part of this, political actors have sought to demarcate new boundaries on what is acceptable speech in the UK.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday urged pro-Palestinian protesters to stay at home. And home secretary Suella Braverman wrote to police chiefs asking them to take action against acts of protest that – in whose eyes it was not clear – might indicate support for Hamas.
She singled out the waving of the Palestinian flag in particular as being illegitimate “when intended to glorify acts of terrorism”, and asked that the police “consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of violent desire to see Israel erased from the world” and therefore a “racially aggravated” crime.
The Telegraph has also reported that Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, has commissioned officials in the Home Office to consider how they could revoke visas and expel foreign students who “praise Hamas”.
There are undoubtedly circumstances in which the use of particular chants or imagery could be inflammatory or even threatening. But the purpose of these statements is not to protect British communities (that much is clear from Braverman’s failure to issue a similar letter warning against attacks on Muslim or pro-Palestinian groups). The purpose is rather to intimidate would-be protestors and delegitimise criticism of Israel by aligning it with criminality.
The government’s views on acts of protest are mirrored by the official opposition: a diktat sent out by Labour Party general secretary David Evans warned members, councillors and MPs against attending pro-Palestine demonstrations. Labour has gone further still by also forbidding debate on Israel-Palestine in local party branches – a censorship not even attempted by Tony Blair during the lead-up to the Iraq war.
The results of Braverman’s provocation can already be seen. On Wednesday, Greater Manchester Police arrested four people for breaching the peace “during events… marking the Hamas-Israel conflict”, later de-arresting three of them. A video taken at the scene of the arrest and posted online shows a young man being led into a police van, a Palestine flag wrapped around his shoulders, as concerned onlookers shout at officers: “He has done nothing wrong,” and: “Freedom of speech.”
The Metropolitan Police Service itself appears to have ruled out any crackdown on people waving the Palestinian flag. But on Thursday night, the Palestinian Literature Festival was forced to cancel a book launch for Jewish American journalist Nathan Thrall’s latest book ‘A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story,’ “after the Metropolitan Police Service contacted the host organisation and asked that it be cancelled ‘due to security concerns’.”
And at London’s ‘March for Palestine’ demonstration on Saturday, legal observers from Black Protest Legal Support witnessed the police make arrests of protesters who had refused to remove the ‘keffiyeh’ – a chequered black and white scarf that is symbolic of Palestinian nationalism and is traditionally worn around the head. In a statement, the Met Police confirmed four arrests for failing to remove face coverings that concealed the arrestee’s identity – at least one person has been subsequently charged, whilst others have been referred to youth offending teams.
These events (and the statements that preceded them) should be of concern not just to advocates of the Palestinian cause, but to anyone concerned about the erosion of democratic norms: here is the government using the murder of Israeli civilians abroad to attack free speech and the right to protest here in the UK.
One lawyer who spoke to openDemocracy this week linked Braverman’s crackdown on Palestinian flag-waving to the Public Order Act. That piece of legislation (which received royal assent in May 2023) was intended to break the backs of the climate movement, making it far easier for police forces to deem acts of protest illegal and criminalise those in attendance or organisers, for even minor disruption.
And last year, the Met Police used the spectre of Covid to target and criminalise those protesting against police brutality at a vigil for Sarah Everard, who was murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens.
Each crisis – climate, Covid, war – is seized upon by the state, government and media, as an opportunity to stifle dissent and curtail free speech. And it is through this framing that we can understand the response of the political and media establishment in the UK to Israel-Palestine: not simply as solidarity with the Israeli people but as an opportunity to attack our rights.
Attacks on freedom of speech relating to Palestine are not new. Palestinians in Britain have long experienced marginalisation and silencing, especially when giving voice to views on the “Palestinian experience of colonialism”.
This has been seen in particular within academia, which has become a battleground over acceptable speech on Israel-Palestine. In British schools, pupils have been sanctioned for expressing vocal support for Palestine, including with detentions and suspensions. Fear about reprisals, including referrals to the government anti-extremism programme Prevent, has been described as having a ‘chilling effect’ on engagement of students with the topic of Palestine.
This is part of a broader effort by the UK Home Office to identify protest movements and left-wing struggles as being outside of acceptable debate, with recent changes to the training on Prevent categorising “socialism” and “anti-fascism” under the heading “terrorist ideologies”. This process of delegitimisation is often backed by the media. In recent days attacks on free speech on Palestine have intensified.
On Wednesday, a report in the Times was published that “identified a dozen academics at Oxbridge and Russell Group universities who have posted statements appearing to justify the weekend’s attacks on Israel”. In one case, an academic had simply called for solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
Much of the right-wing press has also chosen this moment to campaign for the BBC to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organisation, a term the BBC says does not meet impartiality rules – with the front page headline of Thursday’s Daily Mail eschewing proclamations on the outbreak of war and instead asking: “The King Calls Them Terrorists, Why Can’t The BBC?”. Defence secretary Grant Shapps also criticised the BBC on Radio 4 over the decision in a combative interview. The prominence this demand has been given raises questions about the priorities of the British press at such a high stakes moment.
Gaza is already partially reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes. More than two million people are experiencing total siege, bombardment and the removal of all basic human rights. Chemical weapons have now been confirmed as being in play and preparations are underway for a ground offensive by Israeli troops, with the 1.1 million Palestinians living in the most populated area of Gaza given 24 hours to move further south. This will almost certainly mean further atrocities.
The government and opposition both stand steadfastly behind Israel. Number 10 has said the UK will send surveillance aircraft and two Royal Navy ships to the eastern Mediterranean in plans “to support Israel”. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has himself travelled to Israel to “underline UK’s unwavering solidarity in the face of terror”. And both the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, and his shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, have refused to criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza or describe the “collective punishment” of civilians as a war crime.
This shocking complicity must be loudly challenged. Yet, as with the arrival of any shocking event, the political class moves quickly to turn the dial down ever further on legitimate speech.
If a ceasefire does arrive, without dissenting voices, the missing context – the dislocation of Palestinians in 1948, the occupation of the West Bank since 1967 and the 16-year blockade of Gaza – will continue not to be heard. As long as this silencing act continues, both the Palestinian and Israeli people will continue to suffer.
A poll in May also revealed that both Tory and Leave backers feel that Brexit has been a failure.
The demand to reverse Brexit has hit its ‘highest ever level’, according to a new poll which shows a staggering level of disillusionment with the decision to leave the EU.
The poll from WeThink, affiliated with Omnisis, shows that 63% of those surveyed believe that the UK should now reverse the referendum result, and return to its previous trading relationship with the bloc. Just 37% of voters want to stay out of the EU.
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The Brexit vote has resulted in a 4% hit to the economy over the medium-to-long-term, which amounts to £40bn in tax revenues.
