… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: politics

  • UK environment laws under threat in ‘deregulatory free-for-all’

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    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/uk-environment-laws-under-threat-in-deregulatory-free-for-all

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    Environmentalists accused Liz Truss’s government of reneging on a commitment made after Brexit to halt the decline of nature by 2030. They say the revoking of 570 environmental laws that were rolled over from EU law after Brexit amounts to a deregulatory free-for-all leaving the environment unprotected.

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    The bill laid before parliament outlines how 570 environmental laws, and hundreds more covering every government department, including transport, health and social care, working hours and other areas, are being lined up to be removed from UK law or rewritten. These include the habitat regulations that have been vital in the protection of places for wildlife in the last 30 years and laws covering the release of nitrates and phosphates into rivers.

    The laws were retained after Brexit when the then Conservative environment secretary, Michael Gove, promised the UK’s environmental laws would not be watered down.

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    RSPB ‘not ruling out’ direct action to defend nature from government policy

    The head of the RSPB says the bird charity is ruling nothing out as it organises a mobilisation of millions of people against what it calls the government’s “attack on nature”.

    Beccy Speight dismissed accusations by Conservative MPs that the group was lying to its members and pursuing a marketing drive, as it leads a coalition campaigning against the government over key “growth” policies which it argues will damage wildlife and nature.

    The chief executive said a meeting with the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, Ranil Jayawardena, had not provided any reassurance that the government’s growth policies would protect nature.

    The director general of the National Trust, Hilary McGrady, accused the government of “demonising” conservationists, saying her members were “outraged and worried”.

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  • Kwasi Kwarteng’s secret meetings with Saudi oil firms revealed

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    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/11/kwasi-kwarteng-secret-meetings-with-saudi-oil-firms-revealed-by-foi

    The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was the business secretary, documents acquired by the Guardian show.

    The meetings occurred in January, when Kwarteng visited the kingdom for a two-day trip under his previous ministerial role.

    Documents released using the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) show Kwarteng held undisclosed meetings with the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer; the chief executive of Sabic, the world’s fourth largest petrochemical company; and the chair of Alfanar Group, an industrial conglomerate.

    However, transparency disclosures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy did not contain any reference to meetings during the period Kwarteng was in Saudi Arabia when originally published.

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    I seem to remember someone saying that it’s difficult to tell politics and big oil apart …

  • Green party conference opens with call for wealth tax to fund renewables

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    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/30/green-party-conference-opens-wealth-tax-renewables

    The Greens have kicked off their conference with a call for taxes on wealth and “dirty profits” to finance the transition to renewable energy – and a condemnation of Labour’s plans, unveiled last week, as woefully insufficient.

    At the gathering in Harrogate, days after a Labour conference based heavily around clean power initiatives, the Green party in England and Wales – the Scottish Greens are separate – repeatedly stressed policy differences not just over renewables but also areas such as support for strikers and public ownership.

    The party’s co-leaders, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, pledged in a joint speech that they would introduce an emergency tax package to fund renewable energy and a scheme for mass domestic insulation.

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    The Green Party: Tax the richest 1% to pay for better, warmer homes, say Greens

  • ‘Fantastic’: What Truss’s allies said about budget that crashed UK economy

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    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/liz-truss-kwasi-kwarteng-mini-budget-think-tanks/

    [Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘mini-budget’] announcements were cheered on by a group of secretive think tanks closely connected to Liz Truss and her advisers. After years of lobbying, a Conservative government had finally adopted their proposals to scrap the top rate of income tax, remove the cap on bankers’ bonuses, shelve a planned rise in corporation tax, and pledge a fresh crackdown on unions.

    The Adam Smith Institute, where Truss’s political secretary Sophie Jarvis was head of government affairs, said the plans were “a welcome first step to getting the British economy back on track”.

    The mood was particularly buoyant at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), whose director general Mark Littlewood greeted the announcement by claiming: “This isn’t a trickle-down budget – it’s a boost-up budget.”

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    None of the think tanks discloses its funders, but the IEA has received donations from BP and ExxonMobil and, along with the Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies, the tobacco industry. The IEA and the Adam Smith Institute have also received millions of dollars from US funders of climate denial.

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  • Jake Berry apology slammed for being meaningless

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2022/10/jake-berry-apology-slammed-for-being-meaningless/

    Talking to Sky News during the Conservative Party Conference, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen said: “People know that when their bills arrive, they can either cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary, higher wages, go out there and get that new job.

    “That’s the approach the government is taking so households can afford their bills,” said Berry, as he defended the tax cuts for the rich made in the mini budget.

    ‘Living on another planet’

    The comments prompted backlash, labelled ‘out of touch and ‘crass’, as the MP’s name trended on social media. UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said the government was “living on another planet.”

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