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Category: politics

  • Suella Braverman misleads public with police hiring claims

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/04/suella-braverman-misleads-public-with-police-hiring-claims/

    Government claims are “misleading and misplaced”

    Image of Sue-Ellen 'Suella' Braverman

    Suella Braverman has been called out over claims made this week that the government has hit record breaking police recruitment targets.

    The government are declaring a victory for saying they have delivered a manifesto target of recruiting 20,000 more police officers in England and Wales, as Braverman appealed to the right-wing press by boasting that there are now more officers than ever before in the history of policing.

    However this claim has come under rigorous scrutiny, not just from a fact checking charity but also from the Police Federation itself.

    Whilst this number is correct based on an increase between 2019 and March 2023, the figures follow a substantial decline in police numbers from 2010 to 2017 – estimated by the charity Full Fact to be a fall of almost 22,000 officers.

    Figures revealed that there are actually only around 3,500 more officers now than there were in 2010, due to the huge drop in numbers before 2017.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/04/suella-braverman-misleads-public-with-police-hiring-claims/

  • NIC and CCC call for urgent action to protect infrastructure from climate risks

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    https://nic.org.uk/news/nic-and-ccc-call-for-urgent-action-to-protect-infrastructure-from-climate-risks/

    The two organisations have written jointly to ministers on the urgent need for action on climate adaptation

    The National Infrastructure Commission and Climate Change Committee have written jointly to government urging ministers to take steps to improve the resilience of key infrastructure services to the effects of climate change.

    Building on recent reports by both organisations, the advisory bodies set out five steps to accelerate national adaptation planning to protect key networks:

    • Setting clear and measurable goals for resilience, and action plans to deliver them
    • Ensuring these standards are developed in time to inform forthcoming regulatory price control periods (which set investment levels for operators)
    • Giving explicit duties for resilience to all infrastructure regulators
    • Cabinet-level oversight of interdependencies and whole-system resilience
    • Embedding resilience in infrastructure planning as we move to an economy more reliant on electricity

    The letter was sent to Oliver Dowden MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Thérèse Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs yesterday (26 April).

    …

    https://nic.org.uk/news/nic-and-ccc-call-for-urgent-action-to-protect-infrastructure-from-climate-risks/

  • Question Time audience member perfectly sums up Britain’s wealth inequality

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    An excellent post from Left Foot Forward

    Image of loads of money
    Image of loads of money

    Question Time audience member perfectly sums up Britain’s wealth inequality

    An audience member on BBC Question Time last night offered a perfect summary of the wealth inequality in Britain as a result of the government’s politically motivated economic choices.

    The comment came after a question on the show which asked, “is it a bit rich, for the rich, to tell us to accept being poorer?”.

    This was in response to an insensitive, to say the least, remark earlier this week by the Bank of England’s Chief Economist Huw Pill who said Britons, need to accept being poorer.

    …

    “If you put the tax burden on the very rich, it’s like, ‘ok I have a slightly smaller bank balance at the end of the year’, but you’re still rich.

    “And when I say rich, I don’t mean people on £100,000 or £200,000, we’re talking about people who have billions, you could never spend it in a lifetime, you could never spend it in ten lifetimes.

    “Why is that you’re then putting the burden on people who have no money, it just doesn’t make sense.”

    …

    Question Time audience member perfectly sums up Britain’s wealth inequality

  • Greenpeace granted permission to proceed with a Judicial Review of the Government’s decision to launch a new licensing oil and gas round

    Greenpeace granted permission to proceed with a Judicial Review of the Government’s decision to launch a new licensing oil and gas round

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    The High Court yesterday granted Greenpeace permission to proceed with a Judicial Review of the Government’s decision to launch a new licensing oil and gas round, with fossil fuel companies submitting more than 100 licences to explore for new oil and gas. 

    The judge has granted permission to Greenpeace for a full Judicial Review of the Government’s decision not to take into account the environmental effects of consuming the oil and gas to be extracted in the new licensing round. 

    Greenpeace’s legal argument is that this is a glaring omission from the Government’s decision making, including its climate compatibility check. Since at no time do the test involve looking at the emissions created from burning fossil fuels, despite the fact that this will amount to more than 80% of the total emissions generated from the new licences.

    This news comes one month after stark warnings from the IPCC and UN Secretary General which yet again restated that there must be no new fossil fuel development if the world is to limit warming to 1.5C, with current approved projects already enough to take us beyond that point. 

    Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK’s climate campaigner, said:

    “This verdict is the first real setback for the Government’s reckless oil and gas licensing round. Ministers will now be forced to justify in front of a judge why they want to unleash a new drilling frenzy in the North Sea against the advice of leading scientists and the UN chief, without assessing the climate impact. 

    “The Government already has the solutions to tackle the scandal of the cost of living, guarantee our energy security, and help the climate but the Government is ignoring them in favour of their friends in the fossil fuel industry. They must instead upgrade our old fashioned electricity grid, invest in cheap home grown renewables and stop energy waste from our homes.”

    North Sea drilling: Greenpeace prepares to challenge ‘disastrous’ UK decision

    …

    A court hearing on Tuesday will determine whether the environmental group will be permitted a judicial review of the decision, made during Liz Truss’s short-lived time as prime minister.

    Last year, her administration kicked off an oil and gas licensing round under which companies could bid for more than 100 new licences to explore for oil and gas.

    The North Sea Transition Authority began the process in October, offering up about 900 locations for exploration, and it is expected to conclude in June. It is the first new licensing round since 2019-20.

    The decision was carried out by the then energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, under Truss despite warnings of possible legal action by Greenpeace. The green organisation has since carried out that threat, arguing in its court filing that the new licences will further harm the environment.

    …

    North Sea drilling: Greenpeace prepares to challenge ‘disastrous’ UK decision

  • Record ocean temperatures put Earth in ‘uncharted territory’, say scientists

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    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/26/accelerating-ocean-warming-earth-temperatures-climate-crisis

    ‘Unprecedented’ warming indicates climate crisis is taking place before our eyes, experts say

    Temperatures in the world’s oceans have broken fresh records, testing new highs for more than a month in an “unprecedented” run that has led to scientists stating the Earth has reached “uncharted territory” in the climate crisis.

    …

    Prof Mike Meredith of the British Antarctic Survey said: “This has got scientists scratching their heads. The fact that it is warming as much as it has been is a real surprise, and very concerning. It could be a short-lived extreme high, or it could be the start of something much more serious.”

    …

    Some scientists fear that the rapid warming could be a sign of the climate crisis progressing at a faster rate than predicted. The oceans have acted as a kind of global buffer to the climate crisis over recent decades, both by absorbing vast amounts of the carbon dioxide that we have poured into the atmosphere, and by storing about 90% of the excess energy and heat this has created, dampening some of the impacts of global heating on land. Some scientists fear we could be reaching the limit of the oceans’ capacity to absorb these excesses.

    Meredith said it was still too soon to tell. “The rate [of temperature rise] is stronger than climate models would predict,” he said. “The cause for concern is that if it carries on, this will be well ahead of the climate curve [predicted] for the ocean. But we don’t know yet if that is going to happen.”

    …

    Mark Maslin, professor of Earth system science at University College London, said the climate crisis was taking hold before our eyes. “Climate scientists were shocked by the extreme weather events in 2021,” he said. “Many hoped this was just an extreme year. But they continued into 2022 and now they are occurring in 2023. It seems we have moved to a warmer climate system with frequent extreme climate events and record-breaking temperatures that are the new normal. It is difficult to see how anyone can deny climate change is happening and having devastating effects around the world.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/26/accelerating-ocean-warming-earth-temperatures-climate-crisis

    World Economic Forum: Ocean surface temperatures reach record high

    Rich Davosers: El Niño is coming, and ocean temps are already at record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals