A tanker pumping out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL groups called on the public today to mobilise this autumn and ramp up pressure on the government to tackle Britain’s water pollution crisis.
River Action, Surfers Against Sewage and Greenpeace are among the groups who will join the March for Clean Water in Central London on October 26.
It will mark the end of the first 100 days of the Labour government, and take place just days before Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first Budget.
An escalating water crisis looms, driven by factors such as ageing infrastructure, lack of investment from water firms and industrial pollution.
More than 3.6 million hours of raw sewage discharges poured into rivers and seas last year — a 105 per cent increase compared with 2022.
ENERGY prices are set to rise by 9 per cent in October, experts revealed today — with the “alarming” increase accompanying winter fuel payment cuts.
A typical household’s energy bills are expected to rise to £1,714 a year, up from £1,568, according to energy consultancy Cornwall Insight.
The group said that while the figure is less than the cap previously predicted, there are also likely to be further “modest increases” in January and more rises early in the year due to “recent tensions in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
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End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said that instead of offering help, the government has axed winter fuel payments to millions and refuses to confirm if the Household Support Fund will be extended.
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“The reality is that bills will go up compared to today and will be around 65 per cent higher than they were before the energy bills crisis started.
Mark Smith said he had been the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales to the Middle East
The British civil servant who resigned over concerns that the government is complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza has said he was formerly the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales in the Foreign Office’s Middle East and North Africa Directorate.
Diplomat Mark Smith’s resignation was first reported when prominent journalist Hind Hassan posted the contents of his resignation letter on X on Friday evening. On Saturday Middle East Eye confirmed the resignation through two sources familiar with the situation.
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In a statement issued on Sunday, Smith added that he was the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales in the Middle East and North Africa Directorate.
He said: “It was my job to gather all relevant information regarding civilian casualties, international law compliance as well as assess the commitment and capabilities of the countries in question.”
“To export arms to any nation, the UK must be satisfied that the recipient nation has in place robust procedures to avoid civilian casualties and to minimize harm to civilian life. It is impossible to argue that Israel is doing that.”
It is unclear when Smith, who appears to have been at the British embassy in Dublin since at least 2022, was in this role.
Smith said he has written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy informing him of his resignation.
“I sincerely hope that he will listen to the concerns of Civil Servants on this issue and make the necessary changes.”
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper during a walk through Lewisham town centre, in south London, as part of a visit to speak about neighbourhood policing and meet with policing teams, July 8, 2024
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Cooper cites both far-right and Islamist hate. But political Islam has no profile in Britain at all. She, like Lord Walney, seeks to lump violent fascist riots together with the peaceful Palestine solidarity movement, whose mass demos have been slandered as “hate marches” by the Tories, right-wing media and fascist agitators such as Tommy Robinson.
Where jihadist violence has reached Britain, it has had more to do with our state’s hyper-violent foreign policy than online grooming. The deadliest terror attack of the last decade, that on the Manchester Arena by Salman Abedi in 2017, was carried out by a man our government had helped travel to Libya to fight in a British-backed Islamist revolt against its government, and whose return to Britain was facilitated by MI5.
A state campaign against extremism “across the political spectrum” will reinforce the clampdowns on protest rights and free speech associated with the Conservatives.
That Labour’s current leadership will deploy it to silence left criticism seems predictable given their record: this is the party that banned its branches from discussing the suspension of its former leader Jeremy Corbyn on the ludicrous grounds that this would make Jewish members feel unsafe.
Bans on “fake news” could only be welcomed if we had total confidence in the objectivity and fairness of those sifting the truth from the lies. X, Facebook and indeed the British state are not objective. There is no way such a ban would not simply become a form of political censorship exercised by the ruling class.
Liz Kendall – continuing the Tories’ treatment of the vulnerable (image: Skwawkbox)
Could anything provide better proof that Starmer’s party is just the red-badged version of the murderous Tories?
Liz Kendall’s (DWP) is trying to block the release of data from reports compiled under the Tories on how many people’s deaths were linked to the hated and punitive Universal Credit (UC). If released, the information is expected to show what internal investigations were carried out by the DWP into the deaths of claimants since 2019.
Data the Tories did release in 2021 showed that 43% of UC claimants were in food poverty – well before the steep rises in food and energy prices caused by corporate price-gouging in the so-called ‘cost of living emergency. The previous year, the Conservative government had been heavily criticised by the United Nations’ poverty expert for its intentional cruelty and the misery it inflicts on millions.
The Disability News Service (DNS) had been trying since November to obtain the DWP data on the number of internal process reviews (IPRs) it carried out following deaths of UC claimants and what actions investigators had recommended the DWP take to prevent further deaths.
Last month, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ordered the Labour DWP to release the information, but the ICO has announced that the Labour government is appealing the decision and trying to block the release.
DNS had also reported that Labour is also blocking the release of information about IPRs carried out into the work capability assessment (WCA) under the Tories. As commentator Kernow Damo has pointed out, Labour is withholding information that would damn the Tories – and the only feasible reason for doing that is because Keir Starmer’s DWP Secretary, right-wing horror Liz Kendall, is planning to continue the Tories processes and policies.
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect proof that Labour is the Tory party with a red rosette than the red Tories trying to hide proof of the evils of the blue Tories they’re supposed to be opposing.
