[It has been announced that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak will be attending the COP27 summit since this article was published.]
King Charles will host a reception for key COP27 figures at Buckingham Palace on Friday, [today] despite not attending the conference himself.
…
The reception will bring together over 200 international business leaders, decision makers and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to mark the end of the United Kingdom’s presidency of COP26 and look ahead to the COP27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
…
The reception has been organised to facilitate discussion of sustainable growth, progress made since COP26 in Glasgow and collective and continued efforts to tackle climate change.
The King has attended the UN climate conference for a number of years and delivered one of the keynote speeches at the opening ceremony for COP26 in Glasgow.
People taken from Manston immigration holding centre have described their dismay at being deposited late at night in central London, without accommodation, appropriate clothing or money.
Amid growing controversy over the circumstances in which large numbers of people were bussed out of the acutely overcrowded camp, the Home Office has insisted that it only released asylum seekers who told staff that they had family or friends they could stay with.
But two people from Afghanistan told the Guardian that they were brought to London without having a clear idea of where they could stay. They describe scenes of rushed confusion as staff ushered them on to buses at the holding centre, before they were abandoned at Victoria railway station.
…
A young asylum seeker from Afghanistan was among the group of 11 people left on the street outside Victoria station on Tuesday evening. He said he had told Home Office staff during an interview before leaving the camp that he had no relatives or acquaintances in the UK.
“They asked me if I had any friends or family and I replied I had no one in England,” he said. Later he was asked by officials what city he would like to go to, and he said he would like to go to London, assuming that accommodation would be provided for him.
…
The young man, who asked not to be named, said he asked the bus driver where he should go as they arrived at Victoria station. “I thought there was going to be a hotel for us. He said: ‘Go anywhere you want to go, it’s not my responsibility.’ I told the driver I don’t have any address or any relatives. He said: ‘I can’t do anything for you.’”
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is under pressure from campaigners, unions and his own MPs to set out plans for “wealth taxes” on the richest in society in order to support public services and help the poorest through the cost of living crisis.
As the government prepares to cut spending to fill an estimated £35bn black hole in the nation’s finances, calls are growing for higher taxes on the super-rich, many of whom have seen their fortunes soar during the pandemic.
Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East, said: “While living standards are plummeting for most people, it’s been boom time for the super-rich, whose wealth has soared to record highs in recent years.”
Starmer, who is trying to position his party in the centre ground, has avoided committing to higher taxes on private incomes as Labour seeks to woo the City and businesspeople angry at the damage caused by the Conservatives’ mini-budget. But that approach is causing concern on his backbenches and more widely, with the Greens calling Labour “timid” on wealth.
…
Molly Scott Cato, the Green party’s spokesperson on finance, said: “The Tories have created a big hole the public finances but there is an obvious place to look to fill it: taxing the super-rich. Not only do they have the broadest shoulders but they also increased their wealth during the pandemic because of enforced savings.
“What is more surprising is to find Labour being so timid on wealth taxes. Their proposal to abolish non-dom status will only bring in a few billion while a proper wealth tax could yield tens of billions. We’ve now got two weeks for Labour to remember their egalitarian roots and support loud and growing calls for a wealth tax. Otherwise they will be colluding in the devastating cuts to public services that are being cooked up by the millionaires in Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street.”
I travelled to London on Monday to protest with Just Stop Oil (JSO). It was supposed to be the last day of their month of October actions and so it was my last opportunity to participate and show solidarity with them. I didn’t know at the time that JSO activists had targeted MI5, Bank of England and News Corp that day. They then had a 32nd day of action on the first of November that targeted Downing Street. I had wanted to join them from the start of October but simply wasn’t able to for weeks because of commitments involving an elderly person needing support.
I arrived at about 11.30, half an hour later than JSO’s meeting time. I was very pleased to find them near the Department of Defence opposite Downing Street. I was worried that I might not find them and would be wasting hours wandering around London until I could catch my booked coach back.
There were about 35 of us from all over the UK. Ages were from late teens and I would say about 70% like me fifty or over, some able to be there because they were retired and still fit. There were about three wearing Christian dog-collars. I recognised one from an image of him used on this blog before.
A Just Stop Oil participant getting arrested at Kingsbury oil terminal. A JSO / Vladamir Morozov image.
I’m going to end this quickly because I’m suffering from a temporary health condition (Baker’s cysts) that causes a lot of pain. My reasoning is affected because of the pain and the painkillers that I’m taking.
JSO activists have no choice but to cause disruption. The climate crisis is a huge, real and immediate crisis.
JSO are very concerned with the safety of their participants. Marches are stewarded very well.
There is a choice to get arrested or not. JSO know the boundaries, how far they can push it until they are arrested. I was marching in the area around Parliament. Although there were arrests, those arrested were willing to be arrested.
Leafleting for JSO is challenging because you meet people who have a go at you.
JSO were not keen on letting me have the megaphone because they didn’t know me and didn’t know what I was going to say in the presence of many police officers.
There is a policy of getting out of the way of emergency vehicles despite what Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and others claim.
Just Stop Oil’s Phoebe Plummer who threw soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. The painting is undamaged because it was behind glass.
