Keir Starmer Archives - Page 293 of 416 - ... on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

London air pollution down since Ulez extended to outer boroughs, study finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/07/london-air-pollution-down-since-ulez-expansion-study

Ulez has improved London’s air quality across the board. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Levels of deadly pollutants have dropped, with significant improvements in capital’s most deprived areas

People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found.

Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.

Sadiq Khan had faced severe opposition to the 2023 expansion of Ulez to outer London boroughs. But on Friday as the report was published, the mayor of London said the scheme had driven down pollution, taken old polluting cars off the roads and brought cleaner air to millions more people.

He said: “When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.”

Several outer London councils mounted unsuccessful legal challenges to the Ulez rollout, and Keir Starmer blamed it for Labour’s defeat in the Ruislip and Uxbridge byelection and called for Khan to “reflect” on his plans.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/07/london-air-pollution-down-since-ulez-expansion-study

Post author:dizzy
Post published:7 March 2025
Post category:Keir Starmer Labour Party politics Sadiq Khan
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Fury at Reeves’s war on the poor

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fury-at-reevess-war-on-the-poor

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves attending the Make UK Conference at the QEII Centre in London, March 4, 2025

UNIONS, MPs and campaigners reacted with fury after the Treasury backed plans to slash billions from welfare spending in an “outrageous attack” on the poorest.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves was today urged to tax the rich instead after government sources said the cuts were necessary as the “world has changed” since her autumn budget.

The furore was sparked after an early draft of Budget watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecast was leaked to the BBC.

It suggests that the £9.9 billion of headroom it said she had against her self-imposed fiscal rules in October have been wiped out by lower expected economic growth and higher government borrowing costs.

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Prime Sir Keir Starmer last week announced a £6bn a year rise to military spending, to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.

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National secretary of the People’s Assembly Ben Sellers said that Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves are not interested in the alternatives to targeting the disabled and most vulnerable as they “are wedded to a pernicious and militaristic neoliberalism which is failing all over the world.”

And a Momentum spokeswoman said: “The Labour government’s decision to prioritise military spending whilst cutting welfare budgets will bring further austerity to Britain.”

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP accused Labour of “a total betrayal of what voters were told at the election.”

Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fury-at-reevess-war-on-the-poor

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

Post author:dizzy
Post published:5 March 2025
Post category:crap pretend Labour Keir Starmer Labour Party Neo-liberalism new authoritarianism politics Rachel Reeves
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No kant do: Eurovision bars Malta’s entry over title’s similarity to C-word

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/05/kant-malta-eurovision-entry-censored-title-similarity-c-word

Miriana Conte said she had been notified that the European Broadcasting Union had ruled against the word ‘kant’. Photograph: Eurovision 2025/Youtube

Singer Miriana Conte told to change title and lyrics owing to suggestive play on Maltese word for ‘singing’

Malta’s contestant at this year’s Eurovision contest will have to change the title and lyrics of her song owing to the phonetic resemblance between the Maltese word for “singing” and the C-word, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has ruled.

Miriana Conte, 23, will represent Malta at the five-day music event in Basel, Switzerland, on 13 to 17 May after winning the Maltese song contest last month with her song Kant.

While kant, from the Latin cantus, does mean “singing” and does not have a rude meaning in Maltese, the play on the English slang word for female genitalia is clearly intentional.

The chorus of Conte’s empowerment anthem contains the phrase “serving kant” – a queer or drag slang phrase roughly meaning “to express boldness”.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Conte said she had been notified that the EBU had ruled against her using the word “kant”.“While I’m shocked and disappointed, especially since we have less than a week to submit the song, I promise you this: the show will go on – Diva NOT down,” she wrote.

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/05/kant-malta-eurovision-entry-censored-title-similarity-c-word

Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much

Post author:dizzy
Post published:5 March 2025
Post category:crap pretend Labour Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party politics Rachel Reeves Zionism
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John McDonnell : Advice to Keir Starmer: stop the fawning over Trump. Then help plan for a better world without him

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/05/keir-starmer-fawning-over-trump-plan-better-world

Donald Trump shows off a letter from King Charles that Keir Starmer has just handed him, Washington, 27 February 2025. Photograph: ABACA/REX/Shutterstock

We need a ‘coalition of the willing’ capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south. Britain should facilitate that

There are only so many times Donald Trump can be offered a state and royal visit to temper his political tantrums. With his latest attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the halting of aid to Ukraine, it’s already clear that not even the offer of a bed for the night at Balmoral has worked.

The silver lining of the Trump experience over the past fortnight is hopefully that it leads to a more realistic appraisal not just of the implications of the re-election of this narcissistic, bullying, corporate thug, but an understanding of the role the US has played over generations. Trump and his gang members JD Vance and Elon Musk are just the ugliest of faces of the US global policy pursued for a century at least.

In 1992 Noam Chomsky published a bestselling booklet, What Uncle Sam Really Wants. A read of Chomsky may help Labour’s policymakers overcome their apparent naivety so worryingly displayed in the constant references to the special relationship between the UK and US.

Trump’s “America First” policy is simply a more blatant articulation of the role the US has pursued globally since at least the second world war.

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There is an opening now for a much greater and more longer-sighted “coalition of the willing” capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south to create the alliances and institutions needed to pursue the political and economic agenda that the US now resiles from.

This includes an economic cooperation agenda not based upon tariffs and protectionism for the wealthy, but one that is mutually beneficial and tackles both the grotesque inequalities between north and south and the common threat of the climate emergency.

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Unwise and immoral plans to cut British overseas aid, undermining soft power, are a legacy of a sort, but how much better it would be to see our prime minister using our influence and heft to bring together all those who want to discuss and construct a world reordered without the malign influences of Trump and China. That really would be a place in history worth having.

Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/05/keir-starmer-fawning-over-trump-plan-better-world

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

Post author:dizzy
Post published:5 March 2025
Post category:Climate Crisis Climate Emergency Donald Trump Elon Musk John McDonnell Keir Starmer Labour Party Neo-liberalism new authoritarianism plutocracy the filthy rich Trump
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Jeremy Corbyn: Keir Starmer says there’s no money – I don’t believe him

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https://metro.co.uk/2025/03/05/jeremy-corbyn-keir-starmer-says-no-money-dont-believe-22673792/

I said that I would praise Keir Starmer when I thought he was performing well (Picture: Getty Images)

‘There’s no money’.

That always seems to be the current government’s response when asked to tackle the enormous crises affecting the UK.

But as Keir Starmer announces he will ramp up military spending, and as Rachel Reeves plans to slash welfare budgets, we must never forget what impact government funding choices have on the most vulnerable people in society.

As we speak, 4.3 million children in the UK are living in relative poverty. Over 350,000 people are homeless in England.

Millions are worried about the cost of heating their home, braced for yet another hike in energy bills. Meanwhile, billionaires are richer than ever.

So what is the government doing?

They could lift children out of poverty, if they wanted to, by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

STEADFAST DART 25 (STDT25), the principal NATO exercise for 2025, will be the first large-scale deployment of NATO?s Allied Reaction Force (ARF) exercise conducted across various geographical locations within SACEUR?s area of responsibility. It is the largest NATO exercise in 2025, with approximately 10.000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines from 9 Allies, and it will be based on NATO?s new defence plans. NARRATIVE In response to an evolving and unpredictable security environment, NATO has implemented the biggest increase in collective defence since the Cold War. NATO has a new generation of defence plans, and is integrated with national military planning like never before. These defence plans make the Alliance stronger and better able to deter and, if necessary, defend against any potential adversary in any domain, and at any time. A critical component of NATO?s plans, which are designed to safeguard the Euro-Atlantic?s one billion inhabitants, is having high-readiness forces across all domains able to rapidly respond to any emerging or known threat. NATO?s new robust and agile Allied Reaction Force is central to this. Throughout January and February 2025, NATO will conduct Exercise Steadfast Dart in order to test and train the operational deployment of the Allied Reaction Force and rapid reinforcement of NATO assets located along its eastern flank. Steadfast Dart 25 is an alert and deployment exercise, and the first time the Allied Reaction Force will exercise an operational deployment since the Force?s establishment on July 1, 2024. The exercise will demonstrate NATO?s ability to activate the Allied Reaction Force, and coordinate its swift transit to where it can deliver strategic deterrence effects by bolstering forces already situated in location. Steadfast Dart 25 will showcase the Allied Reaction Force as a strategic, high-readiness, multi-domain and multinational capability that can be deployed and employed rapidly to strengthen deterrence in peacetime and crisis, and support the Alliance?s defence in conflict. NATO exercises such as this are defensive, transparent and proportionate, and conducted in full respect of our international obligations. Exercise aim: Exercise Steadfast Dart 2025 is the first large-scale deployment of NATO?s Allied Reaction Force (ARF). The aim is to test the deployable capabilities and procedures as well as the interoperability among the troop contributors and host nations. The NATO Allied Reaction Force (ARF) is a strategic, high-readiness, multi-domain capable force. It provides multi-domain forces from across the Alliance to produce effects at shorter notice than has previously been possible. STDT25 will demonstrate NATO's ability to rapidly deploy forces to reinforce NATO assets located along its eastern flank. This reinforcement will occur during a simulated emerging conflict scenario with a near-peer adversary. It will show that NATO Allied Reaction Force (ARF) can conduct and sustain complex operations across thousands of kilometers in the Eastern Europe, and in any condition. STDT25 will be a clear demonstration of NATO?s unity, strength and determination to continue to do all that is necessary to protect each other, our common values and the rules-based international order. NATO exercises are defensive, transparent, proportionate, and conducted in full respect of our international obligations. — Keir Starmer says that a changing world means we have to increase defence spending (Picture: Ministry of Defence)

They could help pensioners with energy bills, if they wanted to, by restoring universal winter fuel allowance.

They could ensure nobody had to sleep rough on the streets, if they wanted to, by launching a massive council-house-building programme.

Instead, they have signed off on a 13.4 billion increase in military spending. With that money, the government could scrap the two-child benefit cap 10 times over.

Now, today, we’re told the government is preparing to cut billions from welfare budgets.

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