Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has called for next week’s King’s Speech to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.
Green Party Co-leader Adrian_Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Ramsay said:
“Rishi Sunak has decided when in a climate hole keep digging. Pushing ahead with new oil and gas drilling licences is an act of environmental vandalism. Especially at a time when the country is reeling from hugely damaging storms and floods, which scientists warn will become more frequent, ferocious and destructive as our planet heats.
“It seems fossil fools are driving government energy policy – pushing a false narrative that extracting more climate-wrecking oil and gas out of the North Sea will lead to energy security and lower bills. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“Green lighting energy giants to exploit fossil fuel reserves they then sell on the global market at global prices cannot provide either security or cheaper energy bills. This can only come from ramping up cheaper and abundant renewable resources such as solar and onshore wind together with a mass home insulation programme.
“That’s why Green MP Caroline Lucas has set out five Bills that the government ought to introduce to tackle the climate and nature emergencies and address the cost-of-living crisis, including a Just Fossil Fuel Phaseout Bill and a Green New Deal Bill.
“The attack on road safety measures is a further deplorable and desperate attempt to pick up a few votes through creating a culture war. But the fact that the Conservatives need to go to such extremes to create a wedge issue with Labour shows that Labour simply aren’t offering the bold alternative or hopeful vision that our communities so desperately need.
“It is clear, whoever forms the government after the next general election, we are going to need more Green MPs pushing legislation that will lead to a greener, fairer, healthier and safer country.”
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
The co-leaders of the Green Party have written to the UK government and the official opposition urging them to “listen to the people” and join international calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
In a letter to both the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, and his Labour counterpart, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Green co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, deputy leader Zack Polanski and Global Solidarity spokesperson Carne Ross set out how the only way to protect civilians is for the fighting to stop.
In addition, they call on both the Conservatives and Labour to throw their weight behind an “internationally arbitrated once-and-for-all settlement” so that “Israeli and Palestinian citizens can live in safety and security with their rights, at last, fully protected.”
Co-leader Carla Denyer said:
“The mass civilian suffering we have seen in Israel and Gaza has shocked the world. Over 700 civilians are being killed every day, one child every ten minutes. The dire humanitarian situation is clearly intolerable and must end.
“We cannot hear arguments about violence now somehow preventing further violence in future without shuddering. The lives of children cannot be bartered in this way.
“We are deeply concerned that neither the UK government nor the official opposition has joined international calls for a ceasefire. It is with deep regret that the Green Party feels the need to point out that at times like these, silence is complicity.
“We urge both the government and the Labour Party to listen to the British people, three-quarters of whom want an immediate ceasefire.”
In the letters, the Green Party sets out how war crimes have been committed by both sides since Hamas’s horrific attacks on 7 October.
Green Party Co-leader Adrian_Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:
“The awful attacks committed by Hamas on 7 October were brutal violence, and the hostages must be released unconditionally, but the horrific attacks we saw on that day cannot justify military actions that break international law.
“There is no military route to long-term safety and security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, as they both deserve. Instead, there must be a political settlement, based on the requirements of international law and beginning with an end to the occupation.
“The UK government should push for an internationally arbitrated once-and-for-all settlement that fully ends the occupation of Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem, in accordance with the requirements of international law.
“It used to be the case that international law was the basis of UK government policy, and the positions of both Conservatives and Labour. It is deeply troubling that this seems to have been forgotten by both government and opposition. Such an abandonment will do long-term harm to Britain’s already-questionable reputation as a defender of the international rules-based order.”
The energy giant BP has been accused of prioritising its profits over people and the planet after making £2.7 billion in profit over the last quarter, while investing £2 billion in fossil fuels.
Leading think tank IPPR said now was a time when energy companies should be urgently responding to climate change, but instead BP has “doubled down on its oil and gas business to reap enormous profits.”
For every £1 BP spent on low carbon investments in the last quarter, they invested £11 in fossil fuels it was revealed. And since the energy price shock began two years ago, BP has put nine times more into fossil fuels as renewables.
BP also completed more than £14.8 billion of buybacks from surplus cash flow whilst announcing a new round of share buybacks, which will transfer £1.2 billion to shareholders.
“It’s clear that oil and gas companies are prioritising their shareholders at the expense of the transition to clean energy, so the UK government must now take the reins by investing in renewables,” said Joseph Evans, IPPR researcher.
Although BP’s profits have actually fallen on last year, when the oil company saw mega earnings following the rise in oil prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, £2.7 billion profit between July and September remains extremely high as organisations ask why ordinary people are still facing high energy bills.
“The government has had countless opportunities to bring down our bills and emissions. Instead, all we’ve had are weakened green policies and massive tax breaks for oil and gas giants,” Friends of the Earth responded.
Former prime minister said he agreed that ‘we should let the old people get it’, today’s Covid inquiry heard
Boris Johnson thought Covid was “nature’s way of dealing with old people”, the official Covid inquiry heard today.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, made the comments in his diary on 14 December 2020, amid a huge Covid wave that led to the third national lockdown and killed 1,000 people a day at its peak.
Vallance claimed Johnson said that a lot of his party “thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them”.
The following day, Vallance wrote that the then Conservative chief whip, Mark Spencer, said “I think we should let the old people get it and protect others.” Johnson backed this statement, according to Vallance, allegedly responding: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them.”
The comments were made on the same day Johnson hosted a ‘Christmas quiz’ for staff in Downing Street and four days before he issued London and the south-east of England with a ‘stay at home’ order, banning social gatherings.
In an earlier diary entry from 28 August 2020, Vallance wrote that Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going.”
Rishi Sunak’s efforts to bolster the economy also came under fire at today’s hearing.
Lee Cain, Johnson’s former director of communications, criticised Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which encouraged people to enjoy discounted meals in restaurants on certain days between 3 and 31 August.
Cain told the inquiry today he was critical of the scheme at the time, feeling that the government was “indicating to people that Covid’s over… crowd yourself onto trains, go into restaurants and enjoy pizzas with friends and family”.
He continued: “That’s fine if you are intent on never having to do suppression measures again but from all the evidence we were receiving, from all of the advice that we were receiving it was clear we were certainly going to have to do suppression again, we knew we were going to do that.”
The inquiry continues. openDemocracy is fundraising to pay reporters to cover every day of the public hearings.Please support us by donating here.
Boris Johnson’s top adviser complained that he was having to ‘dodge stilettos’ from UK’s most senior female civil servant
Dominic Cummings called the UK’s most senior female civil servant a “c**t” in a misogynistic WhatsApp message sent to Boris Johnson and Lee Cain in August 2020.
He was referring to deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, who had commissioned a report into poor behaviour within the Cabinet Office.
The message in full reads: “If I have to come back to Helen’s bullshit with PET [propriety and ethics] designed to waste huge amounts of my time so I can’t spend it on other stuff – I will personally handcuff her and escort her from the building. I don’t care how it is done but that woman must be out of our hair – we cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that c**t. [sic]”
Cummings was asked by Hugo Keith, counsel to the inquiry, whether he treated “individuals in Downing Street with offence and misogyny”.
“Certainly not,” the former chief adviser to the PM responded.
“Was that aggressive and foulmouthed and misogynistic approach the correct way to manage fellow professionals?” Keith asked.
Alluding to the ongoing chaos regarding changes in the Cabinet Office at the time, Cummings said: “My language about Helen is obviously appalling and actually I got on with Helen at a personal level. But a thousand times worse than my bad language is the underlying issue at stake.”
The inquiry heard yesterday that MacNamara had commissioned a report into the culture at Number 10 in May 2020, which – according to the lead counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC – had painted a picture of “misogyny” and a “macho” culture.
The report, titled ‘How can No.10 and the CO [Cabinet Office] better support the PM in the next phase’, says that “bad behaviours from senior leaders [are] tolerated” and “No.10 [is] always at war with someone”.
The report also singled out misogynistic behaviour including “junior women being talked over or ignored”.
The report paints a chaotic picture of what No.10 was like in the first months of Covid. MacNamara wrote that it was “not clear what we are trying to achieve”, “no one listens to anyone else” and that it was a “superhero bunfight”.
Cummings had touched on this behaviour in his evidence earlier in the day.
Discussing the Cabinet Office, which he described as a “dumpster fire”, he said: “There was a core problem, which is that private secretaries in the PM’s office are generally quite junior officials. Quite a few of them are young women and, at that meeting on 15 May and on other occasions, some of the young women in the private office said to me that they thought there was a serious problem with senior people in the Cabinet Office not paying attention to what they were saying, talking over them – generally just a bad culture of a lot of the senior male leadership in the Cabinet Office, which is something I agree with.”
Cummings also told Johnson in August 2020 his authority was “seriously damaged”. Cummings referred to cabinet ministers as “feral” and “useless fuckpigs”.
In a WhatsApp message on 23 August 2020, Cummings urged Johnson to sack health secretary Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson.
“I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or shd [sic] believe on anything, and we face going into the autumn crisis with the cunt in charge of the NHS”, Cummings wrote.
Cummings also said: “Don’t think sustainable for GW [Gavin Williamson, then education secretary] to stay.” Boris Johnson responded saying: “Agree”. Williamson remained in post for over a year after this conversation.
The inquiry also heard yesterday that Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty, the country’s top scientific and medical officials respectively, resisted attempts by top political advisers to “strongarm” them into appearing at the Covid news conference on the same day Cummings was answering questions on the Barnard Castle scandal in the Downing Street garden.
Cummings had been accused of breaking lockdown regulations by driving his family to Durham in March 2020 while his wife had suspected Covid, before taking a family trip to the town of Barnard Castle days later. At the time, all non-essential travel was prohibited and people were allowed to take one short trip outside each day for the purposes of exercise. Cummings claimed at the time that he had been testing his eyesight ahead of the drive home, a suggestion that was widely ridiculed.
Vallance wrote in his diaries: “All highly political and dwarfed by DC [Dominic Cummings]. We tried to get out of it by suggesting that it was not the right day to announce new measures.”
The inquiry continues. openDemocracy is fundraising to pay reporters to cover every day of the public hearings. Please support us by donating here.
