The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of decline – with soaring rents and mortgages, devastated public services, sky-high bills and the highest tax burden on working people in a generation. They have nothing to offer.
That’s why they are desperate to confect a bogus war on the motorist. Division is both their strategy and overriding priority.
Regrettably, fostering this type of damaging politics is more important to Rishi Sunak right now than the harm being done to our children’s lungs by air pollution or the decline forced on our economy because of their recklessness and incompetence.
Serious, robust, reasoned discussion is essential in any democratic society, and something I have always welcomed.
My objection is not to good-faith debate, but to the Tories sowing discord and division, in a desperate attempt to distract from the mess they’ve made of our country.
Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal.
Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each.
The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google.
The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used to fund a slash in tax for small businesses.
As recently as 5 June, Reynolds was still talking about the policy. Yet on 26 June this year, the day after Glastonbury ended, The Times reported that the policy had been ditched, with Labour saying it had “no plans” to raise the digital service tax when in government. Reynolds declined to comment.
It was not the only time senior figures in Starmer’s team accepted luxury gifts from Google in the months before the party’s U-turn. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell’s political adviser, Labour’s executive director of policy, and the party’s head of domestic policy all accepted tickets and transport to, and ‘hospitality’ at, the Brit Awards in February from the digital giant. Powell’s register of interests estimates that the adviser’s ticket was worth £1,170.
Starmer’s political director also accepted transport to and ‘hospitality’ ahead of the event from Google, though his ticket, along with that of Starmer’s private secretary, was covered by Universal Music.
YouTube will sponsor an event at Labour’s annual conference next month with the chair of the business and trade select committee, Darren Jones. The talk, hosted by the New Statesman Media Group, will be on “harnessing tech for growth”.
Last week, openDemocracy revealed that Starmer had accepted a £380 dinner from Google for him and one staff member during the World Economic Forum in January.
In total, openDemocracy estimates that Labour shadow cabinet members and their staff accepted luxury gifts from Google worth nearly £10,000 over the months before they announced their policy U-turn. By contrast, the value to the British public of the policy Labour appears to have ditched is estimated at around £3bn.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “This is a really very worrying set of events which suggests that big business has far too much access to senior opposition politicians.
“But this isn’t simply about foolish behaviour on the part of the individuals concerned. In office, Labour needs to radically restructure our economy if it’s to have any hope of creating a more sustainable and equal society, and undoing the damage of recent governments. To do that, they must take on vested interests, like the Big Tech monopolies, which have far too much wealth and power.”
Staff for other Labour shadow cabinet members have also accepted valuable gifts from controversial companies. A political adviser to the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, accepted two ‘box’ tickets to a Harry Styles concert worth £250 each from BT. In the 2019 Labour manifesto, the party committed to nationalising BT, a measure the company opposed. It’s not clear whether the party maintains this policy, but Reeves has distanced herself from other nationalisation plans.
In April this year, BT announced a 14.4% average increase in its prices, and £1.7bn in profit. An Openreach spokesperson said: “As you’d expect from any major employer investing billions into the UK, we engage regularly with a range of stakeholders to support the interests of our people, our customers and our business. Any hospitality is consistent with the rules, fully declared and transparent.”
Updated 31 August 2023:The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the value of the Harry Styles box tickets was £700 each. They were in fact £250 each.
Jewish left-winger smeared and hounded out of Labour, who hammered Starmer party in local election, will stand for Greens
Jo Bird, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Birkenhead. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.
Jo Bird, the Jewish left-winger repeatedly smeared, suspended and ultimately hounded out of Labour by the Starmer regime, will stand for the Greens in the Birkenhead parliamentary election.
The news will deeply worry the Labour right, who engineered the replacement of popular left-wing Birkenhead MP as candidate in the next election by the hard-right Alison McGovern, who currently sits in Wirral south.
Bird, a popular local councillor, trounced Labour in May’s local elections despite a dirty and intensive Labour campaign.
Birkenhead deserves better:
Better trains, buses, water and energy in public hands
Wirral, where Birkenhead is located, has been the scene of constant right-wing smears and machinations during and since the Corbyn leadership of the party. The party had just announced its shortlist of three for Wirral West, including a former councillor who quit accused of bullying and a woman who previously stood for the Tories. The party suspended the local ‘CLP’ to deprive members of a say.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn calls on Labour to commit to nationalising the transport industry in exclusive interview
Jeremy Corbyn slammed plans to close railway ticket offices as ‘cruel and simply wrong’ whilst calling on Labour to commit to renationalising the transport system, in an interview with LFF.
“What we need is a real, public and clear determination by the Labour Party, not just to bring the train operating companies back into public ownership, but all the other aspects of the rail industry into public ownership,” said Corbyn.
“We need a publicly owned and publicly run transport system.”
Plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in Britain have led to fresh calls to renationalise the rail system, as a whistle-blower admitted the plan was in fact about cost cutting, as supposed to ‘digitalising’ the future of travel which the government claimed. Over 2,300 jobs are being put at risk by the plan.
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
“The call from the public is too clear for Keir Starmer to ignore – we want an NHS we can be proud of again.”
Anti-privatisation campaigners today launched a petition calling for Keir Starmer to commit to reinstating the NHS as a fully public service. The petition, coordinated by We Own It, calls on the Labour leader to pledge to end NHS privatisation in advance of the next general election.
Opinion polls have consistently shown that the public support the NHS being in public ownership. Figures from Survation suggest as much as 78% of the public support a publicly owned health service.
Despite this, research indicates that decades of private sector involvement in the health service has eroded the core principles of the NHS, with a marketised, two-tier system emerging.
…
Keir Starmer has so far refused to commit to ending NHS privatisation if he enters Downing Street after the next election. That’s despite a pledge he made in the 2020 Labour leadership election to “end NHS privatisation and reinstate the NHS on the basis of its founding principles.”
