… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: conservatives

  • Morning Star Editorial: Purge of dissenting MPs is a sign of Starmer’s weakness

    Spread the love

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

     Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in Downing Street, London, on his first official visit to Britain, July 17, 2025

    …

    Just 12 per cent of the public approve of the government’s record, a historic low. Current polling shows the great majority of Labour MPs losing their seats at the next election, either to Reform, or to the new left party struggling to be born, or in Scotland and Wales to nationalist parties.

    Certainly, at present it is as easy to see the suspended four — and the already-whipless John McDonnell and Apsana Begum who rebelled a year ago against the two-child benefit cap — securing re-election as independents than as candidates of the Starmer regime.

    It is certainly hard to see this move breaking resistance to the new austerity agenda going forward. Only successful leaders can hope to get away with this sort of crackdown.

    So this latest exercise in authoritarianism speaks only to Starmer’s loss of capacity to advance his right-wing agenda, as well as to his consigliere Morgan McSweeney’s blinkered view that whatever the problem is the answer lies in attacking the left.

    But it is also a challenge to the Labour left. Over the last five years it has consistently failed to find the means to arrest the Starmer-McSweeney purge of the left, often for want of the simple virtue of sticking together when under attack.

    The response to the latest suspensions has been robust, in words at least. The left has shown it can inflict defeats on the government, reversing specific policy proposals.

    But it is now beyond obvious that only a fighting plan to actually oust Starmer himself has any prospect of reversing Labour’s dismal prospects in time to save the next election. They should take every opportunity — and even create them — to express no-confidence in this government of austerity, war and authoritarianism.

    Failure to do so will certainly turbocharge the case for the new socialist party being promoted by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. The appeal of that venture rests in part on the perception that Labour is a lost cause.

    Starmer’s latest sanctions against dissent tend to make that case. He has flung down the gauntlet — the left in the PLP, the affiliated unions and the membership must pick it up.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

    Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
    Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
    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.

  • Starmer plunges Labour into crisis as he axes rebel MPs

    Spread the love

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-plunges-labour-crisis-he-axes-rebel-mps

     Prime Minister Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister’s Questions at the Houses of Parliament, July 16, 2025

    … KEIR STARMER suspended four left Labour MPs from the party whip last night in a desperate attempt to restore his floundering and diminished authority.

    Brian Leishman, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Rachael Maskell and Chris Hinchcliffe will now sit as independent MPs.

    Left MP Zarah Sultana, commenting to the Star, told the MPs to “come and join us” in the new socialist party she has committed to launching with Jeremy Corbyn after resigning from Labour two weeks ago.

    The MPs have been sanctioned by the Starmer regime because of alleged “persistent rebelliousness”. All voted against the government’s disability benefit cuts, along with a large number of other backbenchers.

    More suspensions may follow as Sir Keir seeks to recover from a series of enforced U-turns as his “make the poor pay for war” political strategy unravels.

    …

    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.

  • Greens react to chancellor’s plans to place financial services at the heart of government’s growth agenda

    Spread the love
    Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
    Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.

    Reacting to plans by Rachel Reeves to place financial services at the heart of the government’s growth agenda by softening up regulations on banks and reintroducing greater risk-taking into the financial system, co-leader of the Green Party Adrian Ramsay MP, said:

    “If in their desperation to achieve growth, the government is willing to set up the conditions for another disastrous financial crash, then we need to question whether growth should be the be-all and end-all of economic policy.

    “For Greens the focus will always be on improving health and wellbeing, creating greater equality and building a greener economy. And designing economic policy as a means to those ends.”

  • Ed Miliband says Tories are ‘anti-science’ for abandoning net zero consensus

    Spread the love

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/14/ed-miliband-says-tories-are-anti-science-for-abandoning-net-zero-consensus

    Ed Miliband said the Conservatives had ‘abandoned 20 years of bipartisanship when to comes to climate’. Photograph: UK Parliament

    Energy and net zero secretary lays out stark picture of how climate crisis and nature depletion is affecting UK

    Ed Miliband has accused the Conservatives of being “anti-science” by abandoning a political consensus on net zero as he gave MPs a stark outline of how the climate crisis and nature depletion are already affecting the UK.

    In the first of what is promised to be an annual “state of the climate” report, the energy and net zero secretary set out the findings of a Met Office-led study that detailed how the UK was already hotter and wetter, and faced a greater number of extreme weather events.

    Miliband, who told the Guardian before the statement that politicians who rejected net zero policies needed to be accountable for their decisions, called for opposition parties to unite around the need for urgent action.

    But speaking after Miliband, Andrew Bowie, a shadow energy minister, criticised what he called the government’s “shrill” language, saying the party was sticking by Kemi Badenoch’s decision to ditch the 2050 target for the UK to reach net zero.

    …

    Miliband quoted the former prime minister Theresa May, who put net zero targets into law in 2019 and had argued that the real climate zealots were “populists who offer only easy answers to complex questions”. He added: “I couldn’t put it better myself.”

    …

    “The lesson is clear. The choices we make as a country have influenced the cause of global action, and in doing so, reduced the impact of the climate and nature crisis on future generations in Britain. To those who say Britain cannot make a difference. I say: you are wrong. Stop talking our country down. British leadership matters.”

    UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dust
    UK Conservative Party leader Kemi ‘not a genocide’ Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dust
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

  • Starmer’s Labour: cuts to everything except the war machine

    Spread the love

    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmers-labour-cuts-everything-except-war-machine

    The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP

    THE Labour leadership is adopting a scorched-earth policy to social programmes and public spending, with no section of society safe from their cuts. The consequences will be very grave for some of the poorest in society, for society as a whole and for the Labour Party.

    In the first year of a Labour government, we have had cuts to the winter fuel allowance, a refusal to budge on the two-child benefit cap, cuts to sickness and disability benefits, and a tightening of departmental spending overall, which means cuts for some and a squeeze for the NHS.

    This list is growing longer all the time. The latest target is the provision of special educational needs (SEN) spending in our schools, which ministers claim is spiralling out of control. There is also the beginning of a concerted PR campaign to abolish the “triple-lock” on the state pension, even though the meagre amount provided is one of the lowest in western Europe and insufficient for a decent retirement.

    The main exception to this all-round austerity drive is military spending, which is really spiralling out of control. In fact, the pace of spending cuts elsewhere is designed to fill the real hole in government finances caused by the commitment to raise military spending to 5 per cent of GDP, a promise given to placate Donald Trump by Keir Starmer at the Nato summit.

    …

    Dianne Abbott’s article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmers-labour-cuts-everything-except-war-machine

    Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    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.