Labour Party

Jeremy Corbyn annihilates Labour over ‘wealth tax u-turn’

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-wealth-tax-355502/

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was banned from standing as a candidate for the party earlier this year, has taken an almighty swipe at Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, after it was confirmed that the pair would not look to implement a wealth tax if elected into office.

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Keir Starmer also confirmed last month that would retain the two-child benefit limit – despite growing calls from poverty campaigners for the cap to be abandoned. The controversial stance has divided politicians within the Labour Party.

It’s another questionable policy u-turn from Starmer, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jeremy Corbyn. The two-time Prime Ministerial candidate ripped into Sir Keir, saying that a wealth tax could easily fund an extension to the two-child cap.

Corbyn also urged his successor to ‘side with those in need’:

“With the money raised from a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, we could afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap SEVENTEEN times over. Politics is about choices — and we should be on the side of those in need, not those with greed.” | Jeremy Corbyn

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-wealth-tax-355502/

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Insane thinktanks destroying our World

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This is very draft, unfinished but at least I’ve started. Please expect it to be extended and elaborated.

Thinktanks are here as a huge part of the political landscape providing ready-made policy and even huge quantities of staff to governments matching their bigoted perspectives. The topic of thinktanks can be overwhelming and easily lead to distraction.

I had not realised that thinktanks have such influence in contemporary politics. It’s claims that thinktanks exerted huge influence over Brexit and that the Conservative manifesto was written and the Labour manifesto mostly written by think tanks. [M]

There is also the claim that donating to a thinktank gets you far better influence for your money than simply donating to a political party and that thinktanks are so influential because they have such huge media exposure. [M] George Monbiot complains that thinktanks are often presented in the media as experts without any mention of their political biases. [GM]

There are claims that thinktanks and the media conspire to promote their mostly shared agendas. I’ve come across this claim from two sources so expect that it’s probably correct. So you have lobbying, the mostly right-wing media and mostly right-wing thinktanks exerting their malign influence – the agenda of the rich and powerful – in politics and on political parties. [need to find these refs]

There are left-wing as well as right-wing thinktanks although it appears that right-wing ones are more influential, quite possibly through being far better funded.

One issue that I was chasing down in writing this article is how thinktanks can propose the totally insane position of exploit fossil fuels to the fullest extent possible – a proposition adopted by US and UK governments.

[M] article explains ‘The ASI’s chief executive Madsen Pirie has said that they propose things that at first are thought of as the “edge of lunacy”, which then become the “edge of policy”.’ This is the explanation for the exploit fossil fuels to the fullest extent proposition – it is actual, literal lunacy passing for policy. This is Heritage Foundation lunacy contained in it’s Project 2025, a detailed insane program of actions for the next insane Republican president and govenment to follow.

It is insane, isn’t it? The world is burning to a crisp with extreme weather events all over the globe, we’re likely to pass 1.5C in a few years when we’re already fekked at 1.1 or 1.2C and these insane fekkers want to accelerate global destruction. Why is anyone taking them seriously? They belong in an asylum. We’re talking about people getting killed and nature destroyed on a huge scale!

Heritage Foundation is the largest, most influential thinktank in US. It provided huge nimbers of staff for the Trump administration and promoted the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

References

[GM] George Monbiot https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/05/rightwing-thinktanks-government-bbc-news-programmes

[M] Mace https://macemagazine.com/wonk-warriors/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/28/far-right-climate-plans-00107498

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Keir Starmer slammed by SNP ahead of expected Scotland visit

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Labour leader Keir Starmer (centre) with then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (R) and then US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, in London, 21 July 2020.
Labour leader Keir Starmer (centre) with then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (R) and then US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, in London, 21 July 2020. Pompeo said in 2019 “we will do our level best” to stop Jeremy Corbyn getting elected. (Photo: US State Department)

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23720386.keir-starmer-slammed-snp-ahead-expected-scotland-visit/

THE SNP have slammed Keir Starmer as a “sell out” ahead of his expected visit to Scotland on Monday. 

The party’s depute leader Keith Brown called on the Labour leader to scrap his support for “Tory policies like Brexit and the bedroom tax”.

The MSP for Clackmannanshire and Dunblane also challenged Starmer to answer ‘one simple question: What does the Labour party stand for?’

It comes as the Labour party and its leader have been criticised for a number of policy u-turns, including that a Labour government will not scrap the two-child cap, and associated ‘rape clause’, or bedroom tax, despite previously calling it “heinous” and “inhuman”.

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Starmer disliked by all age groups, poll finds

Even older, more right-wing voters dislike or despise ‘Labour’ ‘leader

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Keir Starmer’s approval rating among the public is negative among all age groups, according to the latest YouGov poll, speaking volumes of the impact he makes when seen by the public and for the effect of his ‘red Toryism’.

Among 18-24yos, 25-49yos and 50-64yos, Starmer’s approval levels are significantly negative

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Morning Star: Building unity against the Westminster consensus on the NHS

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NHS sign

JUNIOR doctors walking out for a fifth time this weekend are blamed by Tory ministers for the NHS’s record-breaking waiting lists.

Their pay restoration demands are billed as greedy, though the case they make is straightforward, as the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson points out: “Over the last 15 years, the government has cut our pay by 31.7 per cent so we’re looking to restore that pay back to what it was like in 2008.”

Rishi Sunak declines even to discuss this — maintaining that the current offer is “fair and final,” on the grounds it has been recommended by an “independent” (by which he means government-appointed) pay review body.

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Labour backs the Tory policy for reducing waiting lists, which is to increase NHS use of private-sector providers.

This cannot possibly work, since the private sector is parasitical on the NHS and poaches NHS staff. Commissioning more private-sector work actively worsens the NHS staffing crisis.

Our demand ultimately needs to be for more resources for the NHS. It needs more staff, it needs to pay them more and it needs to treat them better.

The Westminster consensus against raising spending needs to be challenged. It’s therefore disappointing that Scottish Labour simply carped at the Scottish National Party after research it commissioned exposed the huge funding gap between the NHS and European healthcare systems — with Germany and Norway spending a full third more per head on healthcare than we do.

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Tackling Climate Chaos Needs a Willingness to Stand Firm For the Many – Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://labouroutlook.org/2023/08/09/tackling-climate-chaos-needs-a-willingness-to-stand-firm-for-the-many-islington-friends-of-jeremy-corbyn/

In thirty years, maybe less, people will ask: why the hell didn’t we do anything to mitigate and prepare for climate breakdown in the 2020s? Scientific predictions about global heating have been surpassed, and temperature records are now broken with increasing rapidity. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for immediate, radical action on climate change, arguing that the Earth is entered an “era of global boiling”. News reports are filled with stories about people being evacuated to escape uncontainable wildfires in Europe. Globally, heat and floods are killing and displacing people.

Yet despite all this, our leading politicians are rowing back on net zero promises and policies, finding reasons not to act positively for a transition to a socially just and sustainable future. We need environmental policies like those in Labour’s 2019 manifesto and an unswerving commitment from politicians to carry them through. Instead, we have a Tory government that has granted licences for Rosebank, a new oilfield in the North Sea that alone would exceed the UK’s carbon budgets. But this is just the tip of a melting iceberg. The government is also backing airport expansion despite the uncertain and meagre economic benefits.

The government’s failure on climate progress has turned former Climate Change Committee (CCC) chair and Conservative Environment Minister, Lord Deben, into an eco-warrior! The CCC was set up by the Labour government in 2008 to monitor and report on the government’s progress in meeting environmental and climate targets. Their recent report is damning. It highlights a failure to invest in green technologies, to make progress on insulating homes or in rolling out heat pumps to replace gas boilers in homes – and so it goes on. Deben points out that “Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) is a department which has no full programme to reach net-zero, which is a scandal”, and he describes granting planning permission for a new Cumbrian coal mine, as “absolutely barmy”.

Though frequently referencing the climate crisis, mainstream politicians fail to make the connections between climate breakdown, social injustice and the growing risks and crises we face. For example, it’s estimated that environment breakdown will increase forced migration to 1.2 billion people by 2050 and 1.4 billion by 2060. Following that, the numbers will soar. Rather than addressing the urgent underlying factors behind migration, the political response is a poisonous campaign to “stop the boats”!

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https://labouroutlook.org/2023/08/09/tackling-climate-chaos-needs-a-willingness-to-stand-firm-for-the-many-islington-friends-of-jeremy-corby

Continue ReadingTackling Climate Chaos Needs a Willingness to Stand Firm For the Many – Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn