Neo-liberalism

Keir Starmer Used Dodgy Figures to Claim 4,000 New Jobs. In Fact, It’s Only 400

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https://novaramedia.com/2025/06/04/keir-starmer-used-dodgy-figures-to-claim-4000-new-jobs-in-fact-its-only-400/

A conceptual rendering of the proposed AI datacentre. Image: Northumberland County Council

Does he think we’re stupid?

When Keir Starmer announced the creation of a £10 billion AI datacentre at Blyth in Northumberland last year, it was with a promise that the site would bring 4,000 jobs to the north-east of England.

For an ex-mining town, once home to two coal power stations, this was welcome news. The area had been let down once before: the new “artificial intelligence datacentre” will open on a site once destined to host Britishvolt, the startup planning to employ 3,000 people making batteries for electric vehicles that collapsed spectacularly in 2023.

However, it has since emerged that the true figure for job creation is closer to just 300 to 400 permanent staff, a tenth of what Starmer promised. Other media outlets have noted the yawning gap between Starmer’s hype and the disappointing reality. But the apparent willingness of the government to launder dodgy figures provided by the PR machine of a rapacious private equity firm has not been scrutinised – until now.

When asked in January by Labour MP Chi Onwurah what the evidential basis for the 4,000 claim was in a parliamentary question, Chris Bryant, a minister in the culture and science department, said that it had been supplied by Northumberland County Council.

However, in a freedom of information request seen by Novara Media sent by Foxglove, a legal campaign group monitoring big tech, the council revealed that that source was in fact Blackstone, the vampiric US private equity giant behind the data centre’s construction. The 4,000 figure came from Blackstone’s “evidence of the anticipated job creation numbers” put forward in the planning application.  

Martha Dark, Foxglove’s co-executive director, said that Starmer had either “willingly promoted US Blackstone-owned developer QTS’s PR spiel on jobs, in effect laundering the dubious credibility of the claim through association with his office – or he didn’t know the claim came from them.

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Article continues at https://novaramedia.com/2025/06/04/keir-starmer-used-dodgy-figures-to-claim-4000-new-jobs-in-fact-its-only-400/

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

The BlackRock letters: inside Labour’s ‘close partnership’

Labour is putting its plans for Britain in the hands of private finance. It could end badly

Continue ReadingKeir Starmer Used Dodgy Figures to Claim 4,000 New Jobs. In Fact, It’s Only 400

MPs call for bottom trawling ban

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mps-call-bottom-trawling-ban

 Activists from Ocean Rebellion with a large sculptural bottom trawling fishing boat on the banks of the river Clyde, as Glasgow prepared for the Cop26 summit, October 30, 2021

MPs have called on the government to ban damaging activities like bottom-trawling, dredging and mining in protected English waters.

The practices are still permitted across Britain’s 178 marine protected areas (MPAs), but spurred-on by footage from Sir David Attenborough’s new film on oceans showing the heavy metal chains of a bottom trawl net scooping up species indiscriminately, calls for bans have intensified ahead of next week’s UN ocean conference in Nice, France.

Now the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has added its voice to the chorus for action, slamming the government’s “failure to effectively manage gaps in the network of marine protected areas” by allowing these damaging activities to take place, despite Labour water minister Emma Hardy recently telling the committee they were “committed” to ending the practices in MPAs.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mps-call-bottom-trawling-ban

David Attenborough’s Ocean reveals how bottom trawling is hurting sealife in horrifying detail

Continue ReadingMPs call for bottom trawling ban

Treaty to protect seas short on support ahead of UN ocean summit

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https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/06/05/treaty-to-protect-seas-short-on-support-ahead-of-un-ocean-conference/

A hammerhead shark swims close to Wolf Island at Galapagos Marine Reserve August 19, 2013. Picture taken August 19, 2013. REUTERS/Jorge Silva (ECUADOR – Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY ANIMALS TRAVEL)

Once the High Seas Treaty enters into force, experts say it will boost the health of oceans and their role in tackling climate change

As governments head to a major UN ocean conference next week, the race is on to get enough countries to ratify an international treaty seen as crucial to meeting a goal of protecting 30% of the world’s seas by 2030 so that it can take effect within two years of its adoption in 2023.

So far, of the 60 states needed for that to happen, only 29 have ratified the agreement, known as the High Seas Treaty but formally titled Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). The treaty aims to create rules for establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) in international waters.

Establishing those MPAs is seen as key to conserving 30% of the world’s land and sea ecosystems by the end of this decade, as countries pledged to do at talks in Montreal in 2022. Experts say MPAs can also help oceans recover their ability to store planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the atmosphere, which has been weakening in the past two decades.

According to the UN, the world’s ocean absorbs 30% of all CO2 emissions and captures 90% of the excess heat generated by these emissions, serving as a vital buffer against the impacts of climate change. However, rising greenhouse gas emissions have affected the health of the ocean by warming and acidifying seawater – in turn harming biodiversity and and reducing the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2. 

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Article continues at https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/06/05/treaty-to-protect-seas-short-on-support-ahead-of-un-ocean-conference/

Continue ReadingTreaty to protect seas short on support ahead of UN ocean summit

Sellafield could leak until 2050s, MPs warn

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lne622kk7o

The NDA said the “leak in the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo is contained and does not pose a risk to the public”

The UK’s largest nuclear site could continue leaking radioactive water until the 2050s, MPs have warned, while its clean-up operations struggle to progress quickly enough.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the speed of decommissioning work at Sellafield in Cumbria, citing “cost overruns and continuing safety concerns” in a report published on Wednesday.

Although the committee noted there were “signs of improvement”, PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Sellafield continued to present “intolerable risks”.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) acknowledged the leak at its Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) was its “single biggest environmental issue”.

The MSSS, which the NDA described as “the most hazardous building in the UK”, has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018, releasing enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every three years.

It is likely to continue leaking until the oldest section of the building has been emptied in the 2050s, about a decade later than previously expected.

Sir Geoffrey said: “As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have.

“Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life.

“Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.”

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Article continues at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lne622kk7o

Another seabird in one of Sellafield nuclear dump's open-air ponds.
Another seabird in one of Sellafield nuclear dump’s open-air ponds.

Sellafield

Continue ReadingSellafield could leak until 2050s, MPs warn

Labour MPs visit Israel in middle of Gaza genocide

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https://www.thenational.scot/news/25213365.labour-mps-visit-israel-middle-gaza-genocide

Isaac Herzog (centre) with LFI chair Jon Pearce to his left (Image: LFI/Twitter)

LABOUR MPs have visited Israel on a lobbying trip amid the country’s brutal assault on Gaza. 

The party’s most prominent pro-Israel group, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), sent a delegation of parliamentarians including chair Jon Pearce, as well as fellow Labour MPs Cat Eccles, Kevin McKenna, Peter Prinsley and Mark Sewards.

Former Labour MP and House of Lords member Luciana Berger also joined.

They were pictured with a host of Israeli politicians over the course of the four-day delegation, which appears to have taken place last week, including president Isaac Herzog.

Herzog has previously been criticised after photographs showed him signing Israeli bombs set to be dropped on Gaza.

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Article continues at https://www.thenational.scot/news/25213365.labour-mps-visit-israel-middle-gaza-genocide

Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.

Continue ReadingLabour MPs visit Israel in middle of Gaza genocide