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Campaigners urge government to prioritise ending fuel poverty in home upgrade plan

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-urge-government-prioritise-ending-fuel-poverty-home-upgrade-plan

 An elderly lady holding a cup of tea at home in Liverpool with her electric fire on

THE Warm Homes Plan should be judged on how much it cuts fuel poverty rather than focusing on technical targets, campaigners urged the government yesterday.

The £13.2 billion scheme aims to improve energy efficiency in five million homes by 2030.

End Fuel Poverty Coalition has written to energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, outlining key recommendations to ensure it delivers for those most in need.

Campaigners suggest that the scheme’s success should not be judged by how many insulation measures are installed, or homes moved to EPC band C, but by how far it goes in ending fuel poverty. 

About five million households in Britain are trapped deep fuel poverty, according to a University of York study.

Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC), said: “Cold homes cause suffering, cost lives and drive up costs for the NHS. 

“The Warm Homes Plan can be the solution — but only if it’s designed around the real needs of people, not just technical targets.”

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article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-urge-government-prioritise-ending-fuel-poverty-home-upgrade-plan

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.

Continue ReadingCampaigners urge government to prioritise ending fuel poverty in home upgrade plan

Yvette Cooper facing contempt of court allegations over Observer article

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https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025/08/18/yvette-cooper-observer-article

Featured image via the Canary

On Sunday 17 August, campaign group Defend Our Juries levelled a contempt of court complaint against the home secretary Yvette Cooper over an article in the Observer. Notably, this was after she made repeated insinuations that the government proscribed Palestine Action because of violence against people.

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In its letter to Attorney General, Defend Our Juries said of Yvette Cooper and her Observer column:

It is not only disingenuous to present this isolated case as characteristic of Palestine Action, it is a contempt of court that prevents fair trials of those who stand accused. Yvette Cooper’s comments have been widely publicised, such that it would be impossible to find a jury unaffected by them.

We are not naïve regarding the political obstacles to commencing contempt of court proceedings against the Home Secretary.

But if the rule of law means anything, it is that no-one is above the law, most particularly the rich and powerful, such as Elbit Systems UK and Yvette Cooper. It is particularly egregious for a Home Secretary to abuse their office in this way, to present a false and misleading picture of those who face serious criminal charges.

Cooper referred to Israel’s starvation and slaughter of the Palestinian people as “crimes against humanity” in her Observer article. She wrote that:

So anyone who wants to protest against the catastrophic humanitarian situation and crimes against humanity in Gaza, to oppose Israel’s military offensive, or to criticise the actions of any and every government, including our own, has the freedom to do so.

So far as Defend Our Juries are aware, this is the first time the government has formally recognised that Israel is committing crimes against humanity.

This recognition comes with profound consequences in terms of the legal obligations that ensue.

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Original article at https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025/08/18/yvette-cooper-observer-article

Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical publication 'Private Eye'.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical publication ‘Private Eye’.
Keir "I support Zionism without Qualification" Starmer supporting genocide.
Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.

Continue ReadingYvette Cooper facing contempt of court allegations over Observer article

Labour’s attempt to find successor to Diane Abbott ‘under way’

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/15/diane-abbott-suspension-labour-mp-successor

Diane Abbott is the the longest-serving female MP but lost the Labour whip in 2023 and again in July this year for her comments on racism. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA Archive

Exclusive: Contenders teed up for future contest, which MP says seems ‘to pre-empt results of investigation’

Moves to find a successor to Diane Abbott in the parliamentary seat she has represented since 1987 are under way, prompting concern that her fate has been decided before an investigation into her latest suspension has concluded.

Figures on Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) have spoken to potential contenders, teeing them up for a future contest in her constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and giving them informal advice on how to prepare, according to a party source.

Abbott was suspended from the party in July for repeating that Jewish people do not experience racism in the same way as Black people[*1], a statement that had earned her a previous suspension in April 2023.

Labour said there would be no discussion of potential successor as an investigation was ongoing. The party said there had been no discussions about alternative candidates at any NEC meetings and no proposals put to NEC members about a selection process.

Abbott said: “It does seem to be rather pre-empting the results of the investigation.”

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/15/diane-abbott-suspension-labour-mp-successor

*1 I suggest that it shouldn’t be reduced to “Jewish people do not experience racism in the same way as Black people.” While that is how it’s perceived and dealt with by the Zionist Labour party, it’s more about there being different forms and consequent experiences of racism and not addressing Jewish people specifically.

“Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don’t know.

“I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism. I don’t know why people would say that.”

Continue ReadingLabour’s attempt to find successor to Diane Abbott ‘under way’

Morning Star Editorial: Reeves’s Corbyn jibes show up a government in denial

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reevess-corbyn-jibes-show-government-denial

 Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a visit to Rolls Royce at Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, July 25, 2025

AN EARLY exchange at the Edinburgh Fringe exposes this government’s inability to read the public mood — underlining how real a threat to it a new Jeremy Corbyn-led movement is.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves denied being complacent about the Your Party initiative launched by Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, but her bland dismissal of its prospects oozed complacency.

Oddly. Since Reeves had just stated that Labour’s main rival was not the Conservative Party — which she derided as “irrelevant” — but a new party of the right, Reform UK. And she was replying specifically to her host asking whether Your Party could become a “Reform of the left.”

Opinion polls suggest it could, though it is unlikely to bask in the approval of the billionaire press or receive the season tickets to BBC Question Time Nigel Farage’s projects enjoy. Movements intended to “take on the rich and powerful,” as Corbyn says a new left party would, face Establishment and state obstruction of a different order. However, that was not among Reeves’s reasons for belittling it.

No, the Chancellor disputes the idea that a project with 700,000 sign-ups is popular at all. She casts doubt on the figures, saying her sister received an email telling her she’d signed up when she hadn’t.

Such errors might occur. And enthusiasts for a new party can read too much into the stats: they are expressions of interest only, many will be in existing parties, and saying you want to be added to an email list does not imply the commitment of paid-up membership. But Reeves, in insinuating the mass appeal of Your Party is an illusion, doth protest too much.

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Labour, still the largest party in Britain, is not finished; it is even, despite its leadership’s best efforts, still the party to which more socialists belong than any other.

But if anything is designed to entrench its dismal polling, encourage a member exodus to a new left party and unmoor it from what remains of its social base, it is the wilful blindness to the popular clamour for radical change exhibited by Reeves.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reevess-corbyn-jibes-show-government-denial

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Reeves’s Corbyn jibes show up a government in denial

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Many ex-council homes are now rented privately to tenants on housing benefit that costs taxpayers £20bn a year. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian

Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’

Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis.

In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to their tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality.

Describing it as one of the “largest giveaways in UK history”, it said the sale of 1.9m council homes in England had contributed to a situation where one in six private tenants in England now rents a former local authority home.

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Calculating the “opportunity cost” of the sales, Common Wealth said the former council homes were now worth an estimated £430bn after taking account of inflation and the surge in property prices since 1980.

Of this sum, the thinktank said £194bn represented the value that was effectively given away when the homes were sold at a discount. Between the years 1980-81 and 2023-24, the discount averaged 43% on the prevailing market price.

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See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Continue ReadingRight to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’