THE BBC has reportedly rebuked Gary Lineker for describing the government’s anti-refugee rhetoric as “language not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.”
The famous footballer and presenter’s tweet has enraged Tory MPs, some of whom have called for him to be sacked. But he is not the first to have called out the grim historical precedent.
It was child Holocaust survivor Joan Salter who confronted Home Secretary Suella Braverman earlier this year, pointing to exactly the same parallels between Nazi demonisation of Jews and the language she uses when attacking refugees.
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This Tory administration is extremist. Braverman admits she thinks it more likely than not her plans breach the European Convention on Human Rights, which we as a country are obliged to respect: she doesn’t care.
But the countering voice for a more compassionate, principled approach is absent from Westminster. Labour scaremongers over boat crossings as well to claim the Tories have lost control.
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Category: Labour Party
Saluting Gary Lineker: challenge state racism. Don’t conform to it
Starmer covered up abuse of women, welcomes Gapes, who defended right-wing rape and murder comments
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.
Cesspit of Labour right regime again on show
Image thanks to the Skwawkbox Keir Starmer has posted a tweet welcoming Mike Gapes back to the Labour party. Gapes was one of the handful of Labour right lightweights who quit the Labour party to start the disastrous and racism-linked ‘Change UK’ and worked to prevent a Labour victory in the 2019 general election. Angela Smith, who infamously said that people of colour have a ‘funny tinge’, rejoined quietly some time ago.
Gapes has his own history of atrocious comment. When right-wing hardliner Ian McKenzie tweeted about the gang-rape and beheading of Labour MP Emily Thornberry, Gapes was one of several right-wing MPs who defended McKenzie’s comments and attacked those who were outraged at them. And when he was challenged over what he was defending, Gapes’s response was ‘Lol’:
That Starmer is welcoming back a right-wing saboteur who defended comments about the rape and murder of women should come as no surprise. When Starmer was informed by a parliamentary staffer-turned-whistleblower that the lover and employee of a right-wing MP was involved in the ‘sadistic’ and ‘criminal’ abuse of vulnerable domestic violence victims, Starmer ignored her emails, covering up the abuse and leaving Khalid Mahmood as a member of his front bench.
This has not, of course, prevented Starmer hypocritically boasting that he will protect domestic violence victims, so his welcome for Gapes is anything but anomalous.
The welcome also exposes Starmer’s complete hypocrisy over so-called ‘Labour antisemitism’. While any left-winger faces expulsion for defending Palestinian rights, Gapes – who joined in with the antisemitism smears as enthusiastically as any – in a rare moment of sense once commented that the UK should be talking to Palestinian resistance group Hamas. In 2021, Starmer whipped MPs to vote with the Tories to ban Hamas – yet, as so often, ‘it’s ok if it’s a right-winger’, as activist account ToryFibs pointed out:
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.
Starmer’s Labour abstains on vote to protect journalists from state persecution, allowing Tory win
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
Yet another shameful episode from ‘long-time servant of the security state’ Starmer
Image of Keir Starmer, thanks to The Skwawkbox The UK’s lurch toward fascism continued last night with yet another shameful – and shamefully unsurprising – episode of cowardice and betrayal by Keir Starmer and the shell of the Labour party under his control.
With the Tories’ repressive ‘National Security Bill’ in the Lords last night, the Green party tried to rally support to protect journalists – and investigative journalism and therefore the interests of the UK people – from persecution under a bill widely recognised to be a measure to give the government freedom to act without scrutiny or accountability, turning the UK into a mini-US in its treatment of journalists for doing their job.
Even a handful of Tories in Parliament have pointed out that such vital revelations as the ‘Panama papers’ would not have been possible under the new bill and that the rights of women, minority groups and the wellbeing of citizens are under severe threat from the proposed new law.
So the Greens in the Lords called a vote to protect journalists – for the sake of all this country’s people. It was defeated, because Keir Starmer whipped Labour peers to abstain.
Keir Starmer has been called a ‘long-time servant of the British security state’ and his affiliations have been expressed in votes to protect state agents from even such crimes as rape and murder, his attacks on environmental and human rights protesters, his support for immunity for soldiers who murdered civilians in Northern Ireland and more. So his action in the Lords vote last night should surprise no one, but his decision to whip for abstention and engineer the defeat of the motion rather vote against it directly is another manifestation of his fundamental spinelessness.
He is avidly helping push this country along the road to fascism, but doesn’t have the moral courage even to nail his colours to the mast, instead hoping that telling Labour representatives not to vote at all will lessen the backlash against his betrayal.
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
Parliament’s £180m expenses bonanza: photoshoots and business class flights
Original article by Martin Williams republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Image of loads of money Exclusive: Train enthusiast MP claimed £52,000 on London hotels, instead of catching the train
MPs and peers have claimed almost £180m on expenses in just three years, charging taxpayers for business class flights, hotels, iPads and professional photoshoots, analysis by openDemocracy has found.
Our investigation has uncovered a spending splurge by Westminster politicians during a period that spans Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, when ordinary Brits struggled with the cost of living crisis.
MPs claimed almost £90m on expenses between August 2019 and July 2022, while members of the House of Lords spent the same. The figures do not include £310m claimed separately for MPs’ staff.
In one case, the Conservative chair of the Transport Committee claimed £51,896 on hotels in London – despite living in a constituency just 35 minutes’ train ride from the capital.
Iain Stewart describes himself as a “self-confessed transport wonk” who “derives great pleasure from a comfortable train journey”. Yet instead of catching a train each day, he charged taxpayers thousands of pounds each year to spend at least 307 nights in a hotel.
Stewart is one of eight politicians who billed the public purse more than £40,000 each for London hotels during the period we examined. Overall, MPs billed more than £2.3m for hotels, including for trips abroad. That’s despite repeated Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, which meant travel and hotel stays were severely restricted.
The finding comes after openDemocracy previously revealed how MPs had claimed more than £1m over six years to heat their second homes.
“It’s high time for a review into rules on MPs’ expenses to ensure that they are justified in the public interest,” said Anny Cullum from community union ACORN (The Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now).
“It’s scandalous that some MPs are squandering huge amounts of public money on unnecessary hotel stays, business class flights and heating their second homes, especially while many of us are struggling with rising rents, energy bills and food costs as the cost of living crisis grinds on.”
Alongside accommodation fees, some 398 MPs also racked up parking costs of £307,000 in three years – among them claims from scores of government ministers, including transport secretary Mark Harper and health secretary Steven Barclay.
The government ended free parking for NHS staff in April last year, insisting it was the “right” thing to do. Since then, ministers have continued to charge taxpayers for their parking, including Chris Heaton-Harris, Alister Jack, Johnny Mercer, Nick Gibb, Guy Opperman and Victoria Prentis.
As a perk of the job, MPs also have access to about 400 free parking spaces in the House of Commons.
‘A relaxed regime’
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee (IPSA), which regulates MPs’ expenses, says it ensures “value for money”, transparency and accountability. But although there is no evidence of rule-breaking, critics have urged the watchdog to review the way it upholds these principles.
The former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Alistair Graham, told openDemocracy: “I’d be shocked if it’s true that IPSA have run such a relaxed regime.
“Clearly all these things should be publicised and IPSA should have a major second look at their rules to see if these claims can be justified in the public interest.”
Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee into wasteful spending, charged taxpayers £1,852 for photographs – including £924 for pictures of her constituency in east London.
Another Labour MP, Emma Lewell-Buck, spent £400 on a professional photoshoot for herself, while her colleague Apsana Begum also claimed £725 for photos.
IPSA is also relaxed about politicians using taxpayers’ money to award contracts to companies run by friends and political allies.
On Monday openDemocracy revealed MPs had claimed more than £1m for private spin doctors and PR firms, with many using taxpayers’ money to pay companies with close personal links to their political parties.
But the problem is not confined to the PR industry: in another case, former health secretary Matt Hancock claimed £5,720 to pay a consultancy firm run by his former adviser.
Ben Greenstone served as Hancock’s private secretary when he was minister for digital and creative industries. He went on to set up Taso Advisory Ltd, which describes itself as a “specialist technology public policy consultancy”. Hancock then hired the firm to help his parliamentary office and used his expenses to pay it on at least four occasions.
IPSA should have a major second look at their rules to see if these claims can be justified in the public interestAlistair Graham, former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life
Other claims approved by IPSA may raise eyebrows despite being relatively small amounts. For instance, records show that Conservative MP Mark Francois – who made headlines in the 2009 expenses scandal after claiming money for chocolates, sweets and snacks – allowed his staff to claim £25.30 to cover train fares for attending the funeral of fellow MP David Amess, who was murdered in 2021.
The SNP’s Allan Dorans also claimed £37.40 for a Remembrance Day wreath that he laid at an event in South Ayrshire. The MP tweeted that he had been “determined to keep a long standing commitment” to lay the wreath, despite recovering from Covid at the time.
Meanwhile, claims made by peers in the House of Lords are not dealt by IPSA at all, and are still managed internally. Typically, peers do not receive a salary and their expenses are limited to a few specific categories, including travel and postage. But peers are also entitled to a “daily allowance” which currently stands at £332, which they can claim even if they don’t contribute to proceedings.
openDemocracy revealed last week how crossbench peer Khalid Hameed, a former private health tycoon, had claimed more than £18,000 in a year without speaking or voting in the chamber once.
In total, members of the Lords have taken more than £41m of daily allowance over the last three years, together with £3.2m travel costs.
They include money paid to an earl named Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, who was suspended from the House of Lords in December over a lobbying scandal. He claimed more than any other peer for travel expenses, submitting £51,000 worth of receipts.
And Ulster Unionist peer Dennis Rogan also billed taxpayers more than £47,000 for travel, including a £398 business class flight to London Heathrow. Such tickets are specifically permitted under the rules, which state that members of the Lords are “entitled to be reimbursed for the cost of a business class [plane] ticket.”
Original article by Martin Williams republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Selection AND executive committees of Broxtowe Labour resign over candidate stitch-up (yet another one)
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
Starmeroids block another popular local candidate – in favour of parachuted Blairites
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
Two entire Labour committees have resigned after yet another candidate selection stitch-up by Keir Starmer and his drones in the Labour party.
Local favourite Greg Marshall – backed by figures from a wide spectrum of the party – tweeted news that the party had blocked him from the shortlist:
In response to the shameless rigging, the local party (CLP) selection committee resigned and issued a withering statement about London officials overriding local democracy:
Shortly afterward, the entire CLP executive resigned too over the ‘undemocratic’ behaviour of the party and its national executive (NEC):
Meanwhile, Anna Joy Rickard – a literal Blairite – was tweeting her joy at being shortlisted and was admonished by a local figure for her claim, when no shortlist had even been announced:
Broxtowe is just the latest in a series of shamelessly-rigged selections as the Labour right tries to eradicate the left, both in seats that Labour does not hold and in those it does – and a repeat of Labour’s routine tactic of fixing selections by making sure members can only choose from a shortlist of approved Blairites.
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