Ed Miliband

COP26 News review day 4

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COP26: Nicola Sturgeon urged to intervene in policing of protests

FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been urged to intervene to stop “over the top” policing of climate protests at COP26.

Environmental campaigners have claimed that there have been “numerous incidents” of abuse of power tactics by officers from forces all over the UK.

Around 10,000 officers a day have been deployed on the streets of Glasgow for the duration of the summit.

Activists have sent an open letter to the First Minister asking her to intervene to ensure the right to protest is upheld ahead of a mass climate march on Saturday, expected to draw in thousands and spark other protests across the country.

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Cop26 protest demands end to the hostile environment and the arms trade

A MARCH for peace travelled through Glasgow during Cop26 today, demanding an end to the hostile environment and the arms trade.

The demonstration, led by activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) and XR Peace, travelled from the Home Office to BAE Systems to highlight the links between the climate crisis, Britain’s racist immigration policies and the arms trade — and in solidarity with climate and war refugees.

The event featured speakers from the Faslane Peace Camp, CND, and participants from the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.

XR said that Britain’s military-industrial sector annually emits more greenhouse gases than 60 individual countries — such as Uganda, which has a population of 45 million people — while poorer countries suffer a huge injustice in climate and conflict.

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If Fighting Climate Crisis Is the Goal, Critics Say COP26 Coal Reduction Deal ‘Falls Spectacularly Short’

COP26 officials on Thursday are heralding developments they say signal that “the end of coal is in sight”—but advocates for strong climate action suggest holding the applause.

“Agreed at COP26 is an inadequate agreement that allows coal to continue for nearly 20 more years,” tweeted Extinction Rebellion. “But that’s excluding major nations who refuse to sign at all.”

Among the key developments at the ongoing climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland is the new Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement signed by nearly four dozen countries, though notably not the U.S., China, or Australia——among the world’s top coal producers.

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COP26: UK has failed to lead on energy

The UK Government has failed to lead COP26 talks on energy because it does not practice what it preaches, the Scottish Greens have said.

Today’s announcements on energy include a coal commitment that excludes the biggest polluters like the US, Australia, China and India and overseas finance plans that won’t cover projects already in the pipeline, like the UK’s planned investment in a gasfield in Mozambique.

Commenting, Scottish Greens climate spokesperson Mark Ruskell said: “Today marks a colossal failure of leadership by the UK Government, just days after the Prime Minister flew from Glasgow to London on a private jet.

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Ed Miliband Says Ministers’ “Flirting” With New Coal Mine Project Is Undermining COP26 Progress

Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, has accused the government of “double speak and double standards” after they announced a series of commitments at COP26 to reduce the use of coal despite “flirting” with a new UK-based colliery.

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Speaking to PoliticsHome, Miliband said the refusal to scrap the project was “undermining” their ability to press other countries to take tougher acion on phasing out the use of coal.

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Cameron, Clegg and Ed sneak in a snoopers’ charter by the back door

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A snoopers’ charter by the backdoor: One day until Drip is forced through

by Ian Dunt

Privacy campaigners are frantically trying to brief MPs about the implications of the data retention and investigatory powers bill (Drip), before it is forced through all of its Commons stages tomorrow.

The more experts look at the bill, the more convinced they’ve become that it provides authorities with the spine of the snoopers’ charter, but without any of the public debate or parliamentary scrutiny which were supposed to accompany it.

The charter – known as the draft communications bill before it was killed off – would have forced internet service providers and mobile operators to keep details of their customers’ behaviour for 12 months.

Analysis of Drip, which was supposed to only extend the government’s current powers for another two years, suggests it forces through many of those requirements on internet firms without any of the political outrage which derailed the earlier effort.

Clause four of the bill appears to extend Ripa – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (basically Britain’s Patriot Act) – so that the UK government can impose severe penalties on companies overseas that refuse to comply with interception warrants. It also lays out situations in which they may be required to maintain permanent interception capacity.

Clause five then provides a new definition of “telecommunications service”, which includes companies offering internet-based services. That seems to drag services like Gmail and Hotmail into the law, and very probably social media sites like Facebook too.

The government insists the extraterritoriality clause merely makes explicit what was previously implicit. It’s tosh. As the explanatory notes for the legislation – released very quietly on Friday night – make clear, overseas telecommunications companies did not believe they were necessarily under Ripa’s jurisdiction.

“Regarding the amendments to Ripa, in view of the suggestion by overseas telecommunications service providers that the extra-territorial effect of Ripa is unclear, it is considered necessary to amend the legislation to put the issue beyond doubt,” it reads.

“This includes clarifying the definition of a ‘telecommunications service’ to ensure the full range of telecommunications services available to customers in the United Kingdom are included in the definition.”

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband insist Drip merely extends their current powers for two years. That’s nonsense. These two clauses, which have nothing to do with the purported aim of the bill, provide the spine of the snoopers’ charter.

They also appear to provide a legal basis for programmes like Tempora, the project revealed by Edward Snowden to allow GCHQ to tap into transatlantic fibre-optic cables and stored data.

Notably, Privacy International, Liberty and others are taking the government to a tribunal this week on whether Tempora is legal, even though the government won’t even admit its existence. Drip could make the tribunal ruling irrelevant.

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Commentary and analysis

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Commentary and analysis of recent UK political events …

Good to see that blind old cnut David ‘airy-fairy civil liberties’ Blunkett announces his resignation at the next general election. Not a moment to soon, eh?

The Liberal-Demonrats are out for Nick Clegg while the Labour Party are out for Ed Miliband.

Image of David Cameron and Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg is described as ‘toxic’ on the doorstep which seems about right. He is a very hated figure having abandoned election pledges and supported nasty Tories. The truth is that Nick Clegg has always been a Tory – he was a member of Cambridge Uniersity’s Conservative Association, worked in Leon Brittan’s private office in Brussels (after Leon was relocated by Thatcher under some very nasty – scandalous even – er, alleged circumstances) and is an out-and-out Tory according to the Orange book and his calls to privatise the NHS.

I’m disappointed that the Labour Party is pursuing a policy of continuing the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition’s austerity measures instead of pursuing tax evasion and avoidance. I am disappointed, for example, that Rachel Reeves has stated that Labour intends to be harder on benefits claimants than the Tories and that she has recently announced benefits cuts on young people – exactly the opposite to previous claims.

Image of Tony Blair and Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband seems to be adopting a policy of doing nothing to differentiate himself and the Labour Party from the Tories or Liberal-Demonrats Tories in an attempt to preserve his narrow poll margin. He most certainly won’t have my support while he is trying to out-Tory the Tories.

Tens of thousands march in London against coalition’s austerity measures

Image of Russell Brand at anti-austerity march 21 June 2014

Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday afternoon in protest at austerity measures introduced by the coalition government. The demonstrators gathered before the Houses of Parliament, where they were addressed by speakers, including comedians Russell Brand and Mark Steel.

An estimated 50,000 people marched from the BBC’s New Broadcasting House in central London to Westminster.

“The people of this building [the House of Commons] generally speaking do not represent us, they represent their friends in big business. It’s time for us to take back our power,” said Brand.

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* Plans for this blog include regular updates and ‘monetizing’ (making money from it). I have resisted this but I can’t really see any alternatives. I’m sorry to say that ads are on their way.

Continue ReadingCommentary and analysis

‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10439303/Truly-shocking-that-the-private-school-educated-and-affluent-middle-class-still-run-Britain-says-Sir-John-Major.html

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The former Conservative Prime Minister said he was appalled that “every single sphere of British influence” in society is dominated by men and women who went to private school or who are from the “affluent middle class”

More than half of the Cabinet, including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to have gone to private school [Isn’t that a fact? what’s this “though to have”? Isn’t it closer to all than half?] and are independently very wealthy.

In the speech to Tory party grassroots activists on Friday evening, Sir John – who went to a comprehensive in south London and left school with three O-Levels – said: “In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.”

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Russell Brand on Revolution

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Well worth reading and I will adopt and adapt some of his suggestions.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution

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Cameron, Osborne, Boris, all of them lot, they went to the same schools and the same universities that have the same decor as the old buildings from which they now govern us. It’s not that they’re malevolent; it’s just that they’re irrelevant. Relics of an old notion, like Old Spice: it’s fine that it exists but no one should actually use it.

We are still led by blithering chimps, in razor-sharp suits, with razor-sharp lines, pimped and crimped by spin doctors and speech-writers. Well-groomed ape-men, superficially altered by post-Clintonian trends.

We are mammals on a planet, who now face a struggle for survival if our species is to avoid expiry. We can’t be led by people who have never struggled, who are a dusty oak-brown echo of a system dreamed up by Whigs and old Dutch racists.

We now must live in reality, inner and outer. Consciousness itself must change. My optimism comes entirely from the knowledge that this total social shift is actually the shared responsibility of six billion individuals who ultimately have the same interests. Self-preservation and the survival of the planet. This is a better idea than the sustenance of an elite. The Indian teacher Yogananda said: “It doesn’t matter if a cave has been in darkness for 10,000 years or half an hour, once you light a match it is illuminated.” Like a tanker way off course due to an imperceptible navigational error at the offset we need only alter our inner longitude.

Capitalism is not real; it is an idea. America is not real; it is an idea that someone had ages ago. Britain, Christianity, Islam, karate, Wednesdays are all just ideas that we choose to believe in and very nice ideas they are, too, when they serve a purpose. These concepts, though, cannot be served to the detriment of actual reality.

The reality is we have a spherical ecosystem, suspended in, as far as we know, infinite space upon which there are billions of carbon-based life forms, of which we presume ourselves to be the most important, and a limited amount of resources.

The only systems we can afford to employ are those that rationally serve the planet first, then all humanity. Not out of some woolly, bullshit tree-hugging piffle but because we live on it, currently without alternatives. This is why I believe we need a unifying and in – clusive spiritual ideology: atheism and materialism atomise us and anchor us to one frequency of consciousness and inhibit necessary co-operation.

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[7.30pm edit: I don’t want anyone thinking that I intend to be some political or spiritual leader. There were suggestions of this in the Jerusalem Post articles of 7 & 8th July 2005 which were the script to be followed in the July 7 bombings and investigation.

Brand acknowledges the role of materialism and self-interest in his article. From a personal perspective, many years ago I had a young man and a young woman presenting themselves to be used and I have the different odd nod of acknowledgment [1/11/13 and respect which is appreciated] every now and again. Apart from that it’s been a real pain and nothing but a real pain. Granted while I am occasionally successful in my endeavours, I don’t personally benefit from it and it does take some effort. ]

Continue ReadingRussell Brand on Revolution