All those governments and individuals that support Israel e.g. Donald Trump, Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch, also support this abhorrent treatment – imprisonment, very likely medical neglect, starvation and torture – of a doctor. Dr. Hassam Abu Safia.
A decade ago, Rachel Reeves was pictured with a disabled constituent, congratulating him on being given the “keys to freedom” afforded by a Motability vehicle.
Since then, Reeves – now Britain’s chancellor – has barely mentioned the scheme that leases 300,000 cars a year to people with mobility problems, aside from criticising Tory cuts affecting its users.
Nor did it crop up in Labour’s manifesto, which promised to put disabled people’s “views and voices at the heart of all we do”.
But late last year, the idea that Motability was offering disabled people “free” BMWs and Mercedes became a repeated rightwing talking point fuelled by social media accounts on Elon Musk’s X.
In fact, the cars are funded by people’s disability benefit payments, topped up with their own contributions.
From there, articles began to spring up in the tabloid press reproducing social media memes calling for Motability vehicles to be made more ugly, and the furore spread to the speeches of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage – and, finally, grabbed the attention of the Treasury.
At the budget, Reeves for the first time publicly identified the programme as a problem, saying it “was set up to protect the most vulnerable, not to subsidise the lease on a Mercedes-Benz”.
…
The Green Party of England and Wales’ membership has surged past the Conservative Party, making the Greens the third largest party in the UK. From this position, and with Labour’s clear shift to the right, it’s clear that the Greens are now the Party of choice to counter Reform and their brand of divisive politics.
In just over two hours, the Green Party saw 1,000 new members join on Sunday morning after Zack Polanski announced the news on BBC One’s Laura Kuenssberg show. The Green Party membership now stands at over 126,000. This latest milestone marks an 80% increase since Zack Polanski was elected Leader of the party last month. The Greens now have more than double the reported members of the Liberal Democrats.
Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said:
“More than 126,000 people have now joined the Green movement, showing that British politics is changing and support for old-style parties built on privilege and power is shrinking. Increasing numbers of people are walking away from the politics of austerity, inequality and division and choosing a new kind of politics that offers a bold, hopeful vision of prosperity, equality and unity”.
“Our membership boom reflects growing public frustration with the political status quo and a hunger for genuine alternatives”.
Since Polanski was elected leader, the Greens have become a clear voice on the cost-of-living crisis, climate breakdown, and the collapse in political trust.
Polanski added, “This milestone shows that people are ready for something new. The old two-party system is broken. The Green Party is growing because we speak to the real challenges of this moment, and it’s clear that with our message, people can see that politics can be a force for good”.
The Green Party is now preparing to launch a series of autumn campaigns on fair taxation and tackling the cost-of-living crisis, as the Labour Party prepares what is likely to be another austerity-driven budget.
Mainstream UK politicians are united in supporting Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligan football supporters.
Sam Fankhauser, University of Oxford
In the mid-2000s, soon after becoming Conservative leader, David Cameron hugged a husky on a trip to the Arctic, in what was widely described as an attempt to “detoxify” the Tory brand. Eighteen years later, Kemi Badenoch has promised to scrap the law that once made that rebranding credible.
Her announcement that the Conservatives will repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act if they win the next general election has the potential to be a major own goal – politically, environmentally and economically.
To understand why, we need to remember how the Climate Change Act came about. The bill was put forward by the Labour government of Gordon Brown, but it had enthusiastic support from the Conservative opposition, which tabled several amendments to strengthen it. Cameron had concluded that green policies were a good way to modernise his party and lead it back into power.
It worked, both for Cameron, who became prime minister in 2010, and for UK climate policy, which has enjoyed a unique period of consensus and stability. Over seven governments, multiple economic crises, Brexit, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, there has been clarity about Britain’s climate change objectives. Policies were chopped and changed, often to the frustration of investors, but the institutional framework was stable and widely appreciated.
The Climate Change Act gives the UK a statutory long-term emissions target – initially an 80% cut from 1990 levels by 2050, strengthened to net zero by 2050 by Theresa May, another Tory prime minister.
Progress is managed through a series of five-year carbon budgets, legislated 12 years in advance and monitored by a powerful independent body, the Climate Change Committee (CCC). For much of its existence, the CCC has been chaired by yet another environmentally-minded Tory, Lord Deben (John Gummer). It is this framework the Conservatives now say they want to dismantle.
Yet the Climate Change Act has delivered, both in terms of process and substance. Indeed, the UK model has been emulated around the world. Nearly 60 countries have UK-style climate change laws and over 20 countries have CCC-style advisory bodies, cementing the UK’s position as a climate leader.
The act gives the UK a steady institutional rhythm. Relevant businesses and other organisations know the formal set pieces, such as the CCC’s annual report to parliament, and can time their interventions accordingly.
When colleagues and I interviewed people from business and civil society about the act a few years ago, they emphasised the predictable process, the clear rules on accountability and the evidence-based discourse it has enabled. This all reduces uncertainty and enables long-term planning.
Importantly, the Climate Change Act has delivered environmentally too. Compared to 1990, UK greenhouse gas emissions are down by 50%. The UK economy now uses three times less carbon per unit of economic output than in 1990. Emissions are at their lowest level since 1872.
This trend started before the act, but it was helped and accelerated by it. This is perhaps most noticeable in the radical transformation of the electricity sector: coal has been completely phased out, while offshore wind and other renewables have flourished.
Voters value this progress more than politicians appreciate. A University of Oxford survey found that internationally public support for climate action is almost twice as high as policymakers assume. In the UK, three out of four people are fairly or very concerned about climate change.
Badenoch’s announcement comes just as households are starting to reap the financial benefits of clean technology. Colleagues and I have estimated that four out of five UK households, particularly those owning a car, would be better off if net zero was achieved. The typical savings are £100-£380 per household and year.
It is true that households do not yet see the benefits of renewables on their energy bills. We are still paying for the high costs of early investments in clean power, before technology and sheer scale brought the price down.
Successive governments have chosen to recoup these learning costs through electricity bills, rather than general taxation, which would have been easier on most households. But recent analysis suggests renewables are now cutting electricity prices by up to a quarter.
The policy uncertainty generated by the Tory announcement and similar pronouncements by Reform UK will eventually find its way into the risk premiums for investors, though for the time being this effect is still small.
But the reputational damage is immediate. Undoing the act would signal that the UK no longer values the long-term stability that has driven clean investment and made its climate policy admired around the world.
Climate policy requires debate. Deeply political choices need to be made about different decarbonisation strategies, how to pay for necessary investments or the role of controversial technologies like nuclear energy. The past 17 years have shown that these debates are best had within an agreed framework, with support from all major parties. That is what the Climate Change Act provides.
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Sam Fankhauser, Professor of Climate Economics and Policy, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
