crap pretend Labour

The climate credentials of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet :: Labour policy indistinguishable from Grant Shapps ‘bonkers’ policy

Spread the love

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party are positioning themselves as the new red Tories and have committed to continuing whatever the Tories do about energy. Labour have adopted the Tories energy policy exctly, there is no difference between them.

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mission-Climate.pdf [my emphasis in bold].

Labour and the country value the contribution of all those working in energy, including oil and gas, to powering the UK now and into the future. That is why, as part of our approach, Labour will ensure a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea, partnering with business and workers to manage our existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan. As the North Sea Transition Authority (NTSA) itself indicates, oil and gas production in the North Sea will be with us for decades to come. The charts below show that the significant majority of proven gas in the North Sea lies in existing fields. In the case of oil, there are more potential new fields, but 80 per cent of our oil production is exported abroad.

Under Labour’s plans, North Sea oil and gas will continue for decades to come. We will not revoke licences. But we will also build alternative opportunities for workers that transition out of oil and gas, in decommissioning, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and renewables like offshore wind. Labour has committed to not handout new licences to explore new oil and gas fields, which we believe would not offer the right answer for the economy or the environment. We will act to ensure continued investment in our offshore infrastructure and workforce as the North Sea becomes home to new forms of energy production. Labour will work with offshore communities and trade unions to avoid a repeat of the mistakes of the past. As oil and gas workers consider the future of their industry, they should be in no doubt about Labour’s commitment to prevent a transition akin to the Tories’ closure of the coal mines of the 1980s. We will not let that happen again.

…

This is Grant Shapps bonkers policy. Bonkers, insane, mad because there can be no new oil or gas without trashing the planet.

https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/04/04/ipcc-ar6-wgiii-pressrelease/

…

Limiting global warming will require major transitions in the energy sector. This will involve a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use, widespread electrification, improved energy efficiency, and use of alternative fuels (such as hydrogen).

“Having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable changes to our lifestyles and behaviour can result in a 40-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This offers significant untapped potential,” said IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Priyadarshi Shukla. “The evidence also shows that these lifestyle changes can improve our health and wellbeing.”

…

Climate protestors march in Washington DC
Climate protestors march in Washington DC
Continue ReadingThe climate credentials of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet :: Labour policy indistinguishable from Grant Shapps ‘bonkers’ policy

The climate credentials of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet :: Keir Starmer

Spread the love

While Keir Starmer is leader of the UK Labour Party and therefore notionally supposedly opposed to Rushi Sunak’s cabinet and government, he’s a Tory pretending to be a Socialist, a red Tory.

https://youtu.be/DDEdFxUZ01s

Keir Starmer has abandoned every one of his Socialist ‘pledges’ on taking over the Labour Party. Included in these pledges is

3. Climate justice

Put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do. There is no issue more important to our future than the climate emergency. A Clean Air Act to tackle pollution locally. Demand international action on climate rights.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/23/keir-starmer-denies-abandoning-labour-leadership-pledges

… He denied that the 10 promises he made during the 2020 race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn had been abandoned and insisted they remained “important statements of value and principle”.

However, Starmer refused to confirm that he stood by several of them, including public ownership of utilities and rail services and the abolition of university tuition fees.

He has been repeatedly criticised by some on the left of the party who accuse him of shifting away from the platform he stood on three years ago.

Challenged on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme over whether voters could trust him to deliver the five new national missions, Starmer said the pledges made during his Labour leadership bid “haven’t all been abandoned by any stretch of the imagination”.

He said: “What I’ve had to do is obviously adapt some of them to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Since I ran for leader, we’ve had Covid. Since I ran for leader, we’ve had the conflict in Ukraine. Since I ran for leader, we’ve had a government that’s done huge damage to our economy.” …

On climate commitments specifically,

9 Jun 2023 Labour postpones £28bn green plan as it seeks to be trusted on public finances

… Labour has scaled back plans to borrow £28bn a year to invest in green jobs and industry as the party’s leadership looks to review its spending in an attempt to prove its fiscal credibility.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delayed plans for a green prosperity fund to start in the first year of a Labour government, saying it would “ramp up” by the middle of a first parliament.

She said the decision had to be taken as a result of the poor economic backdrop and rising interest rates, after Liz Truss’s short premiership crashed the markets last autumn. …

18 Jun 2023 Keir Starmer to ‘throw everything’ at plan to get UK to net zero

… Keir Starmer will pledge to “throw everything” at net zero and the overhaul of the UK’s energy system and industries, promising new jobs in “the race of our lifetime” to a low-carbon future.

The Labour leader will seek to regain the initiative on his plan for green growth on Monday, having rowed back earlier this month on a pledge to invest £28bn in a green industrial strategy, a figure that will not now be reached until the second half of a Labour parliament, as well as damaging rows with trade unions over the future of the North Sea.

Announcing a package of policies designed to decarbonise the energy system and industry, Starmer will say: “We’re going to throw everything at this: planning reform, procurement, long-term finance, R&D, a strategic plan for skills and supply chains … Pulling together for a simple, unifying priority: British power for British jobs.” …

This is when the Tories started accusing Labour of pursuing Just Stop Oil policies. “Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, accused the Labour leader of being “the political wing” of Just Stop Oil.” There’s also actually a suggestion of terrorism in Grant Shapp’s comment … that phrase.

His team also rebuffed suggestions of a U-turn on the North Sea oil ban. Rescinding permission for projects that have cleared all regulatory hurdles before the general election would be costly and legally complex, so the party’s proposed ban on new oilfields will not cover projects that have achieved all three levels of consent, for exploration, development and production.

It is unlikely that many of the more than 100 North Sea licences the government is mulling would fall into that category, though one of the biggest – the Rosebank oil and gas field – could clear the final regulatory hurdles soon.

It’s not possible to get to Net Zero if Rosebank is permitted. Just like everything else, Keir Starmer and the Labour party can’t be trusted on the climate.

Which is why he gets heckled by climate protestors

Continue ReadingThe climate credentials of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet :: Keir Starmer

Morning Star: Our NHS at 75: we have still faith, now we need to fight

Spread the love
People on Warren Street in London, ahead of a Support the Strikes march in solidarity with nurse 11 March 2023
People on Warren Street in London, ahead of a Support the Strikes march in solidarity with nurse 11 March 2023

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/our-nhs-at-75-we-have-still-faith-now-we-need-to-fight

Image reads Accident & Emergency, A & E

…

Today the NHS is in a deep crisis. Its millions-long waiting list condemns patients to seriously delayed treatments, often painfully, sometimes dangerously. Its hospitals are so overloaded ambulances line up outside, waiting hours to discharge patients.

Those who can afford it are going private: the number paying for private hospital treatment has risen by nearly a third since 2019.

This raises demand for trained medical workers in the private sector, with reports earlier this year that doctors were being offered £5,000 to recruit NHS colleagues to undertake private work, accelerating a vicious cycle in resource competition when the NHS already carries over 100,000 vacancies.

The logic is towards a two-tier healthcare system in which those who can pay get faster treatment while the “universal” health service is reduced through under-resourcing to basic cover for the poor.

Preventing this means challenging the two main drivers of NHS decline: underinvestment and privatisation.

…

NHS sign

Since Tony Blair first introduced private provision within the NHS, the service itself has become a lucrative source of private profit. Extortionate PFI contracts, state collusion with big pharma over drug prices and reliance on private providers all waste NHS money.

The last risks turning our health service into a commissioner rather than a provider of services, a brand name that masks a for-profit health system.

That betrayal of Bevan’s vision is the current prospectus from both Tories and Labour. Saving the NHS means building a mass campaign for real solutions to its twin crises: a serious increase in investment, and an end to all private-sector involvement.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/our-nhs-at-75-we-have-still-faith-now-we-need-to-fight

Continue ReadingMorning Star: Our NHS at 75: we have still faith, now we need to fight