HEAT strikes, like those due to begin this Friday by London bus drivers organised in the Unite union, will become more common as long as governments shut their eyes to the scale of climate adaptation needed.
This punishing summer, now entering its fifth heatwave, is extreme but not unexpected.
All 10 of the hottest years on record in Britain have been since 2002. The reality of a warming climate has been recognised for decades. The TUC has been urging a legal maximum workplace temperature since 2008.
Britain is bound by international treaties to seek to reduce the emissions that cause global warming, though serious action to do so has fallen well short of what’s required and open climate denialism is now fashionable again, thanks to an aggressive new right taking inspiration from the anti-science Donald Trump regime in the United States.
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Increased frequency of extreme weather, the see-saw between longer droughts and fiercer floods that are ruining harvests, has not interrupted British governments in their long push to debilitate the public sector, imposing deep cuts on the fire brigade as on every service that cannot be turned into a cash cow for private providers.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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Israeli forces conduct a raid, taking extensive security measures on August 09, 2026 in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
UN officials said Tuesday that the occupied West Bank has reached a critical “breaking point,” citing a record surge in violence by Israeli occupiers and a systematic unraveling of Palestinian statehood, Anadolu reports.
“Humanitarian organizations cannot create the political conditions that children need to be safe,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman told the Security Council. “That responsibility rests with member states who have the power to change them.”
She presented four urgent requests to the international community: prioritizing the protection of children by ending administrative detention, halting forced displacements through diplomatic pressure, ensuring safe access to schools and hospitals, and allowing vital humanitarian supplies to move without delay.
Sulieman reported a harrowing toll on minors, noting that 174 Palestinian children have been verified killed in the occupied West Bank since January 2024. “That is more than one child every week,” she noted.
She revealed that at least 355 Palestinian children are being held in military detention, the highest in eight years, with nearly half detained without charge or trial.
Systematic displacement
Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov echoed the alarm, describing the situation as an emergency requiring immediate action to prevent de facto annexation. He said that in 2026, dozens of Palestinians have been killed and approximately 3,800 displaced due to demolitions, evictions and attacks by occupiers.
“Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” Alakbarov emphasized, citing more than 1,400 documented incidents this year affecting 260 communities. He warned of a clear pattern where Palestinian populations are forcibly removed from their villages before occupiers seize the vacated land. The official noted that for the first time, land was explicitly seized in “Area A” to build infrastructure for occupiers.
Fiscal, political instability
Alakbarov also highlighted the acute fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA), which reportedly lacks $6 billion in clearance revenues withheld by Israeli authorities. Amid the turmoil, he welcomed preparations for legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28.
Alakbarov concluded that they are “interconnected steps, not isolated developments,” aimed at weakening Palestinian governance.
He said if the situation continues to unravel, it will undermine implementation of resolution 2803 (2025) and erode the prospects for realizing a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution, urging an immediate “and in full” implementation of resolution 2803, together with the New York Declaration.
Resolution 2803 endorses a peace plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for the Gaza Strip and a temporary international force in the enclave following two years of war.
Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have escalated attacks in the West Bank, killing more than 1,183 Palestinians, injuring 13,000 and arresting nearly 25,000, according to Palestinian figures.
Palestinians warn that the escalation is part of Israeli efforts to impose facts on the ground, paving the way for annexation of the occupied West Bank and undermining the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders under relevant UN resolutions.
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceOrcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
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US air force personnel prepare to load munitions on to a heavy bomber aircraft at the RAF Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Trade unions say UK prime minister must begin by revoking permission for US to use RAF bases for airstrikes in Gulf
Trade unions have called on Andy Burnham to tackle the cost of living crisis at its source by pressuring Donald Trump to bring the conflict in the Middle East swiftly to an end.
Leaders from 10 unions, including Unison, the UK’s largest, urged the prime minister to oppose further fighting in the Gulf to help bring down energy and fuel costs.
To put pressure on Trump, unions said Burnham must begin by revoking permission for the US to use RAF bases to launch airstrikes on Iran.
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The general secretaries of 10 UK trade unions, representing more than 2.3 million workers, said in their letter to Burnham that he should do more to oppose “the US and Israel’s devastating, illegal war on Iran”, which was “deepening the cost of living crisis faced by our members and the British public”.
“Since the war started, the average British household has seen its annual energy bill rise by £221, while monthly food bills are forecast to rise by £32.80. Without an end to the war, there will be no end to this cost of living crisis,” they wrote.
The general secretaries said they were encouraged by the new government’s focus on the cost of living and the measures it was taking “to make life more affordable”.
But they said they were “deeply concerned” that it had “authorised US airstrikes to be conducted from bases on British territories as part of the escalating war against Iran”.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
As the consultation on Jackdaw, a major North sea oil and gas project ends, the Green Party leader calls out Prime Minister Burnham’s ‘weasel words’ on approval of more North Sea drilling and says it is a clear breach of Labour’s manifesto pledge.
Last week, the Green leader called an emergency press conference to urge Andy Burnham to act, and was joined by a firefighter, a GP and an ex soldier, all outlining the devastating impact the climate crisis is having in their areas of public service. Sky News have reported that the Government has rejected his call for COBR to be reconvened, with the Government ‘insisting supply chains are resilient’.
Zack Polanski said,
“We are now facing the fifth heatwave in months following the recent deaths of 3,000 people in our country from extreme weather conditions.”
“This is the greatest crisis this country has faced since the Second World War and to complacently dismiss the demands for immediate action by saying everything is under control is gross negligence, blatantly untrue and misses the severity of the crisis”
“Only days after dedicated public servants talked about the need for urgent action, backed up by indisputable science, to secure our food supplies and the health of the most vulnerable, the Labour government says it’s all in hand, and supply chains are resilient.”
On the ending of the consultation for Jackdaw, Zack Polanski says,
“In the midst of a heatwave fuelled by the climate crisis, the science is clear that more North Sea drilling would be a dereliction of duty by Labour. Whatever weasel words are used on drilling within new or existing licences, one of the new Prime Minister’s first significant decisions would be to break Labour’s manifesto pledge.
“In their own analysis, Jackdaw’s owners have themselves said that only 27 direct full time jobs would be created if given the go ahead.
“This has nothing to do with boosting the economy for the people of this country and far more to do with boosting obscene profits for fossil fuel companies and their shareholders. I made clear in my press conference last week, that’s why this needs to be treated for the serious crisis it is, with financial support for homes to keep cool and for fossil fuel giants to pay the costs of extreme weather adaptation.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham will chair a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee on Wednesday to discuss the UK’s response to the extreme heat, as temperatures are set to soar again.
A No 10 spokesperson said the government understood firefighters, farmers and NHS staff were all facing challenges connected to the weather.
This week’s latest heatwave comes as more areas in England were placed under drought status on Monday and firefighters continue to battle a significant wildfire in the New Forest in Hampshire.
The Met Office has issued a rare amber extreme heat warning, external for Thursday, with temperatures peaking in the mid-to-high 30s across the Midlands and south-east of England, and a high of 38C possible
It comes as the record for the number of days reaching 30C in any year in the UK has been broken, according to the Met Office, with Sunday the 35th day of the year so far.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
