Hunt gambles on tax as services crumble
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/hunt-gambles-tax-services-crumble
PUBLIC services are at still greater risk as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gambled the Tories’ election hopes on a last-ditch tax-cutting Budget.
Mr Hunt announced a 2 per cent cut in National Insurance in a bid to put more money in workers’ pockets before Britain goes to the polls later this year.
But the price will be a major squeeze in public spending in the next parliament, with many department budgets likely to fall in real terms.
The Chancellor also abolished the non-dom tax rule which lets the wealthiest avoid paying taxes on overseas earnings, a key Labour pledge, and brought more families within the scope of child benefit payments.
The Budget therefore leaves Labour more politically denuded than ever — it will either have to find other ways to raise the money it had planned for public services from scrapping the non-dom loophole, or more likely drop residual spending commitments altogether.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told MPs that Labour supported the National Insurance cut too, leaving the parties exchanging rhetorical sound and fury on economic policy but with no significant differences.
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/hunt-gambles-tax-services-crumble
Australian PM First Western Leader Referred to ICC as ‘Accessory to Genocide in Gaza’
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
More than 100 lawyers endorsed the referral, which points to the military, intelligence, and rhetorical support Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has provided to the Israeli government.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is one of several Western leaders who have provided political and material support of the Israeli government and military over the past five months as their bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, but on Monday he became the first to be referred to the International Criminal Court for being an “accessory to genocide.”
More than 100 lawyers supported the referral under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, arguing that Albanese, a member of the Labor Party, as well as members of his Cabinet and of Parliament, have provided Israel with “rhetorical support in their public statements, their press conferences, their speeches” as well as material assistance, as attorney Sheryn Omeri told ABC‘s “News Breakfast.”
Omeri said the aid Australia has “most particularly” provided since Israel began attacking Gaza has been the export of F-35 fighter jet parts as well as military intelligence through the government’s surveillance work at Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap in Australia’s Northern Territory.
While Albanese has recently called on Israel to respect international law, said Omeri, “it’s been months since the 7th of October, 2023, and between then and now there has been very little in the way of urging restraint on Israel and discouraging what the International Court of Justice found on the 26th of January was a plausible case of genocide.”
The 92-page document compiled by the legal team lays out a number of specific ways Albanese and other Australian officials have acted as an accessory to genocide, including:
- Freezing $6 million in funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East amid a humanitarian crisis based on unsubstantiated claims by Israel;
- Providing military aid and approving defence exports to Israel, which could be used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the course of the prima facie commission of genocide and crimes against humanity;
- Ambiguously deploying an Australian military contingent to the region, where its location and exact role have not been disclosed; and
- Permitting Australians, either explicitly or implicitly, to travel to Israel to join the IDF and take part in its attacks on Gaza.
“The Rome Statute provides four modes of individual criminal responsibility, two of which are accessorial,” Omeri explained in a statement.
Along with Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are among the Western leaders who have repeatedly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza—despite the genocidal intent expressed in numerous public statements by Israeli leaders.
Biden was sued in federal court in January for alleged “complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide.” That case is still making its way through the U.S. appeals process.
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- Turkey, Malaysia Back South Africa’s ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel ›
- Amnesty Probe Finds ‘Damning Evidence Of War Crimes’ By Israel In Gaza ›
Morning Star: The Tories’ paltry 15 per cent doesn’t translate into enthusiasm for Starmer
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories’-paltry-15-cent-doesn’t-translate-enthusiasm-starmer
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Fewer people think Starmer will make a competent prime minister than those convinced he won’t.
Crunch the numbers whichever way you want, and we still have an opposition that can win by default but without much enthusiasm.
While an element of this is the lack of trust in Starmer that is the inevitable consequence of his mendacity much is down to the failure of the party to make a challenge to the anti-working-class policies that unite neoliberals of all “parties of government.”
That is the measure of the problems workers face.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories’-paltry-15-cent-doesn’t-translate-enthusiasm-starmer
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