Climate activists face ‘crippling’ legal fees for injunctions banning protest

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Image of an Insulate Britain roadblock September 2021
Image of an Insulate Britain roadblock September 2021

Original article by Anita Mureithi repubished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence

Protesters facing criminal convictions are being punished twice as National Highways and TfL seek costly injunctions

Climate activists have told openDemocracy they are being hit with “crippling” bills totalling thousands of pounds because of legal action brought by government and public bodies to prevent protests.

Injunctions – orders issued through civil courts, usually to ban something – are increasingly being used to crack down on climate demonstrations, activists say, in what they believe is an attempt to silence dissent.

Both National Highways and Transport for London (TfL) have named supporters of environmental campaign groups Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil on injunctions intended to stop protests on certain roads in recent years. One person named on a TfL injunction told openDemocracy they have never even protested in London.

Breaching an injunction can lead to a contempt of court conviction, which is punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine and the seizure of assets.

One Just Stop Oil protester said they had been warned by their lawyers that those who go to trial to fight an alleged breach and lose could be made to pay up to £150,000 to £200,000 in legal fees, while accepting a breach could incur costs of between £5,000 and £20,000.

The protester told openDemocracy that the costs could leave defendants vulnerable to “the kinds of debts which could cripple you and potentially make you homeless”.

Raj Chada, a partner at law firm Hodge Jones & Allen who represents a number of Insulate Britain supporters, said the way injunctions are now being used is “astonishing” and something he’s never seen before in 15 years of working with protesters.

“The injunctions that are currently being used have always been there but it has never been the case that National Highways Agency or TfL would seek injunctions to completely prevent protests in certain areas,” he said.

Yesterday, it was reported that Rishi Sunak is considering weakening the government’s net-zero commitments, including by delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, watering down the phasing out of gas boilers, and scrapping plans for new energy-efficiency targets for private rented homes.

Such actions are likely to lead to increased environmental protests. Climate activists say the use of injunctions is one way the government has been cracking down on such protests in recent years, alongside new police powers to shut down demonstrations deemed too disruptive, and existing public nuisance laws that can see people imprisoned for up to ten years for taking part in civil resistance.

Chada agrees, saying: “This government in particular doesn’t like being challenged by groups such as Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion.”

Hefty fees

National Highways is a government-owned company responsible for operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A-roads in England.

According to a court document seen by openDemocracy, National Highways initially sought costs of £727,573 for legal fees incurred in securing injunctions blocking protests on and around the M25. Split between more than 130 climate activists it named on its injunctions, this would have worked out at more than £5,000 per person.

Those named in an interim injunction must go to court to negotiate its full terms, or to try to have their names removed or the injunction overturned. During this process, which can take years, the terms of the interim injunction – which can be harsher than the final parameters – are binding.

In the National Highways case, the court granted a final injunction against 24 people who were found in contempt of court for breaching the interim injunction. It also issued an anticipatory injunction against a further 109 people, meaning they were injuncted in anticipation of potential wrongdoing.

The court ruled that the 109 people who weren’t found in contempt of court should pay £1,500 in interim payments towards National Highways’ legal fees, while the remaining 24 will pay £3,000. The full extent of the costs will be determined at a later hearing.

Labour councillor Giovanna Lewis, an Insulate Britain supporter who has been fighting the National Highways injunction on behalf of all defendants, says the financial consequences are far-reaching. Some of the 133 people injuncted have had to set up payment plans to pay legal fees. Missed payments could result in a visit from bailiffs.

Annie, a 66-year-old retired grandmother from Dorchester, is among those paying off the £1,500 ordered by the court. She believes the government is “trying to squash” protesters.

After being left feeling “shocked” and “horrified” to hear of people dying of cold in their own homes, Annie took part in three road-blocking Insulate Britain protests in the south of England in September 2021. She was arrested and charged with wilful obstruction of the highway, a criminal offence. Thinking that was it, the injunction issued days later came as a shock.

“We were suddenly getting these people in black knocking on the door and trying to deliver massive letters to us,” she said. “This is both National Highways Ltd and TfL. I’ve kept everything, it’s all in a box and there’s between 10 kilograms and 12 kilograms of mail.”

Annie described feeling hounded by lawyers trying to deliver injunction documents. “It came to a point where if I knew that I was making arrangements with friends, I’d ask them not to knock on the front door and come around the back. I just stopped answering,” she said.

A spokesperson for National Highways said people were added to the injunction due to evidence that they “had previously been engaged in protests on or near our roads shortly before or after the injunction order was made, and therefore posed a risk of breaching the injunction in future”. They added that such evidence typically came from the police after arrests.

A spokesperson for TfL also said the names of protesters it included on an injunction that it sought due to “continuing threats of disruptive protests from Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain” were disclosed by the Metropolitan Police.

‘Anxious and vulnerable’

Organisations applying for an interim injunction don’t have to prove any of the claims they make, according to Green and Black Cross, a grassroots project that helps protesters with legal matters. Companies can name specific people, wider groups, or ‘persons unknown’ who have protested against the organisation or are believed to be likely to do so.

Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil supporters told openDemocracy that those who are named are being forced to front expensive legal fees to fight the injunction. The hourly rate for a solicitor in London with more than eight years’ experience is £512, according to government guideline figures.

If they lose the case and are injuncted against, the activists can also be made to pay the legal fees of the winning side. The court has discretion over how much they should pay.

They try to impoverish people so that they’re more concerned about earning to pay things off than campaigning on the climate crisis

Mya, who is also the subject of multiple injunctions, was arrested in November 2022 after attempting to climb a gantry over the M25 with Just Stop Oil. She told openDemocracy that costs for people who admit to breaching a National Highways injunction range from £5,000 to £20,000.

These figures were described as “broadly correct” by National Highways, though they said the amount would “vary from person to person, taking into consideration individual circumstances, the severity of the breach and the number of breaches”.

Mya said: “I think the injunctions are there to try and deter people. And then they’re there to also keep people caught up in all these legal proceedings and to try to impoverish people so that they’re more concerned about trying to earn money to pay things off, rather than trying to campaign on the climate crisis.”

As well as the hefty financial costs, Chada told openDemocracy that the human impact of the injunctions has left people feeling “concerned, anxious, vulnerable and fearful of what the cost of their actions will now be”.

“It really is just quite astonishing – the chilling effect of what all of this could be,” he said.

A National Highways spokesperson said: “Our primary concern is always safety – protesting on the strategic road network is extremely dangerous to the protesters and motorists.

“It’s right that dangerous and reckless protesters who disrupt our strategic road network should face the necessary consequences; anyone intending to protest on these roads should know that they run the risk of imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. People rely on the strategic road network for so many things and they have a right to expect it to operate as it should.”

TfL said it is “doing all it can to ensure that London’s road network operates safely and efficiently and that vital emergency service vehicles are able to move freely through the city”.

Original article by Anita Mureithi repubished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence

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Continue ReadingClimate activists face ‘crippling’ legal fees for injunctions banning protest

Labour figures took £10,000 gifts from Google and YouTube ahead of tax U-turn

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Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.

Original article by Adam Ramsay republished from Open Democracy under  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal.

Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each.

The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google.

The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used to fund a slash in tax for small businesses.

As recently as 5 June, Reynolds was still talking about the policy. Yet on 26 June this year, the day after Glastonbury ended, The Times reported that the policy had been ditched, with Labour saying it had “no plans” to raise the digital service tax when in government. Reynolds declined to comment.

It was not the only time senior figures in Starmer’s team accepted luxury gifts from Google in the months before the party’s U-turn. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell’s political adviser, Labour’s executive director of policy, and the party’s head of domestic policy all accepted tickets and transport to, and ‘hospitality’ at, the Brit Awards in February from the digital giant. Powell’s register of interests estimates that the adviser’s ticket was worth £1,170.

Starmer’s political director also accepted transport to and ‘hospitality’ ahead of the event from Google, though his ticket, along with that of Starmer’s private secretary, was covered by Universal Music.

YouTube will sponsor an event at Labour’s annual conference next month with the chair of the business and trade select committee, Darren Jones. The talk, hosted by the New Statesman Media Group, will be on “harnessing tech for growth”.

Last week, openDemocracy revealed that Starmer had accepted a £380 dinner from Google for him and one staff member during the World Economic Forum in January.

In total, openDemocracy estimates that Labour shadow cabinet members and their staff accepted luxury gifts from Google worth nearly £10,000 over the months before they announced their policy U-turn. By contrast, the value to the British public of the policy Labour appears to have ditched is estimated at around £3bn.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “This is a really very worrying set of events which suggests that big business has far too much access to senior opposition politicians.

“But this isn’t simply about foolish behaviour on the part of the individuals concerned. In office, Labour needs to radically restructure our economy if it’s to have any hope of creating a more sustainable and equal society, and undoing the damage of recent governments. To do that, they must take on vested interests, like the Big Tech monopolies, which have far too much wealth and power.”

Staff for other Labour shadow cabinet members have also accepted valuable gifts from controversial companies. A political adviser to the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, accepted two ‘box’ tickets to a Harry Styles concert worth £250 each from BT. In the 2019 Labour manifesto, the party committed to nationalising BT, a measure the company opposed. It’s not clear whether the party maintains this policy, but Reeves has distanced herself from other nationalisation plans.

In April this year, BT announced a 14.4% average increase in its prices, and £1.7bn in profit. An Openreach spokesperson said: “As you’d expect from any major employer investing billions into the UK, we engage regularly with a range of stakeholders to support the interests of our people, our customers and our business. Any hospitality is consistent with the rules, fully declared and transparent.”

Updated 31 August 2023: The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the value of the Harry Styles box tickets was £700 each. They were in fact £250 each.

Original article by Adam Ramsay republished from Open Democracy under  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingLabour figures took £10,000 gifts from Google and YouTube ahead of tax U-turn

US climate deniers pump millions into Tory-linked think tanks

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Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from Open Democracy under under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. This article was published 16 June 2022 while Boris Johnson was UK Prime Minister. Boris Johnson was followed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as prime ministers.

Image: Boris Johnson confirms his thumbs up from Rupert Murdoch
Boris Johnson confirms his thumbs up from Rupert Murdoch

Our investigation reveals secretive funding sources for think tanks that boast of influencing the government

Influential right-wing UK think tanks with close access to ministers have received millions in ‘dark money’ donations from the US, openDemocracy can reveal.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Policy Exchange, the Adam Smith Institute and the Legatum Institute have raised $9m from American donors since 2012. Of this, at least $6m has been channelled to the UK, according to tax returns filed with US authorities – representing 11% of the think tanks’ total UK receipts, with the figure reaching 23% for the Adam Smith Institute.

In that time, all five have steadily increased their connections in the heart of government. Between them, they have secured more than 100 meetings with ministers and more than a dozen of their former staff have joined Boris Johnson’s government as special advisers.

Representatives from right-wing think tanks – many of whom are headquartered at 55 Tufton Street in central London – frequently appear in British media and have been credited with pushing the Tories further to the right on Brexit and the economy.

As openDemocracy revealed yesterday, ExxonMobil gave Policy Exchange $30,000 in 2017. The think tank went on to recommend the creation of a new anti-protest law targeting the likes of Extinction Rebellion, which became the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

None of these think tanks disclose their UK donors. With the exception of the Adam Smith Institute, none provide any information about the identity of donors to their US fundraising arms. 

But an investigation by openDemocracy has identified dozens of the groups’ US funders by analysing more than 100 publicly available tax filings.

The Scottish National Party MP Alyn Smith said that the findings showed that the UK’s lobbying laws were not tough enough.

“He who pays the piper calls the tune,” he told openDemocracy. “We urgently need to rewrite the laws governing this sort of sock puppet funding so that we can see who speaks for who.”

Last month, Smith asked an IEA representative who funded the think tank on BBC’s flagship question time show.

Among the US-organisations who have donated to UK think tanks are oil companies and several of the top funders of climate change denial in the US. 

The think tanks’ US arms received $5.4m from 18 donors who have also separately donated a combined $584m towards a vast network of organisations promoting climate denial in the US between 2003 to 2018, according to research from climate scientists.

  • The John Templeton Foundation, founded by the late billionaire American-British investor, has donated almost $2m to the US arms of the Adam Smith Institute and the IEA. Researchers claim that the John Templeton Foundation has a “history of funding what could be seen as anti-science activities and groups (particularly concerning climate-change and stem-cell research)”.
  • The National Philanthropic Trust, a multi-billion-dollar fund that does not disclose its own donors, has given almost $2m to the IEA, Policy Exchange, TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Legatum Institute’s US fundraisers. The trust has donated $22m to climate denial organisations, one of which described it as a “vehicle” for funnelling anonymous donations from the fossil fuel industry.   
  • The Sarah Scaife Foundation, founded by the billionaire heir to an oil and banking fortune, has given $350,000 to the Adam Smith Institute and the Legatum Institute. The foundation is one of the biggest funders of climate denial in the US, contributing more than $120m to 50 organisations promoting climate denial since 2012. Last month, openDemocracy revealed that the foundation, which has $30m in shares in fossil fuel companies, gave $210,525 to a UK climate sceptic group.

Policy Exchange, the influential conservative think tank, published a report in 2019 – two years after taking money from ExxonMobil – claiming that Extinction Rebellion were “extremists” and calling for the government to introduce new laws to crack down on the climate protest group.

New anti-protest laws passed under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act last month appear to have been directly inspired by the report. The Home Office did not deny that it considered the recommendations when approached for comment. 

The American Friends of the IEA also received a $50,000 donation from ExxonMobil in 2004, while the main UK branch of the IEA has received donations from BP every year since 1967.

The Legatum Institute has received $154,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation in 2018 and 2019. The foundation was set up by the American billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, one the biggest fossil fuel companies in the US. 

Andy Rowell, co-author of “A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain”, told openDemocracy: “For years, there have been calls for think tanks, who are so often joined at the hip with government, to be transparent and disclose who funds them.

“The fact that so much dark money is behind these groups, and much of it is linked to climate denial groups, is a political scandal that can’t be allowed to continue, especially given our climate emergency.”

In all, US donors account for more than a tenth of the overall income of the IEA, Policy Exchange, Adam Smith Institute and TaxPayers’ Alliance. 

Anti-green lobbying

While all the think tanks say they do not dispute the science on climate change, many are campaigning to increase the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels and deregulate energy markets in response to the cost of living crisis.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, Adam Smith Institute and the IEA have all called for the UK’s ban on fracking to be overturned. In April, the government agreed to review the moratorium it had imposed in 2019, when scientists deemed fracking unsafe. The U-turn came after concerted pressure from anti-net zero Tory MPs and lobby groups.

The IEA has also called for the government to approve the opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria, while the TaxPayers’ Alliance has called for the government to scrap green energy bill levies. Tory MP Ben Bradley has cited the TaxPayers’ Alliance in Parliament while claiming that levies will exacerbate the cost of living crisis.

Environmental groups say cutting the levies, which are used to invest in energy efficiency measures and renewable energy, would be self-defeating and merely delay the UK’s longer-term transition away from fossil fuels.

Johnson’s think tank cabinet

Right-wing think tanks like the IEA have come to play an increasingly influential role in shaping British politics, despite the lack of transparency around their funding.

The IEA has boasted that 14 members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet – including the home secretary Priti Patel, the foreign secretary Liz Truss and the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, are “alumni of IEA initiatives”.

Ministers have recorded 26 meetings with the think tank since 2012, but there may be additional, undeclared private meetings. In 2020, Truss, who was then the secretary of state for trade, failed to declare two meetings with the IEA, arguing that they were made in a personal capacity. 

Mark Littlewood, the director of the IEA, has boasted of securing access to ministers and MPs for his corporate clients, including BP, telling an undercover reporter in 2018 that he was in “the Brexit influencing game”.

Others like Policy Exchange, which was co-founded by the ‘levelling up’ secretary Michael Gove, can claim to have had some of their policy ideas taken up by the government. 

Gove’s recently announced plan to allow residents to vote on whether to allow developments on their street was first proposed by Policy Exchange last year. Campaigners said the plan will not help increase the supply of affordable housing.

Several of the think tanks were accused by a whistleblower of coordinating with one another to advocate for a hard break from the European Union following the referendum vote.

Shamir Sanni, a former pro-Brexit campaigner who worked for TaxPayers’ Alliance before going public with his claims, alleged that the organisation regularly met with the IEA, the Adam Smith Institute to agree on a common line on issues relating to Brexit. 

Sanni subsequently won an unfair dismissal case against the TaxPayers’ Alliance. The organisations he identified have all denied they act as lobbyists or coordinate.  

The IEA referred openDemocracy to a statement about its funding posted on its website when approached for comment.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, Adam Smith Institute, Policy Exchange and the Legatum Institute did not respond to requests for comment.

Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from Open Democracy under under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. This article was published 16 June 2022 while Boris Johnson was UK Prime Minister. Boris Johnson was followed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as prime ministers.

Continue ReadingUS climate deniers pump millions into Tory-linked think tanks

Starmer has taken more freebies than all Labour leaders since 1997 combined

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Original article by Adam Ramsey republished from Open Democracy.

Labour leader’s 28 junkets include Spurs hospitality, two Coldplay concerts and a £380 dinner from Google at Davos

Image of Keir Starmer and a poor child.
Image of Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox

Keir Starmer has accepted more free tickets to events such as sports matches, concerts and parties than the combined total of every other Labour leader since records began in 1997, openDemocracy analysis has found.

While the Labour leader spent his first year and a half in the role under lockdown, he has quickly made up for it, accepting gifts from donors including multi-millionaires, gambling giants, the online shopping app GETIR and the construction giant Mulalley & Co on 28 separate occasions. The gifts include days at the races, hospitality at Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur matches, an Adele gig, and two separate Coldplay concerts. In total, they are worth nearly £30,000.

In his five years as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn only accepted one such freebie: tickets to Glastonbury, where he spoke on the pyramid stage in 2017. Former Corbyn adviser Andrew Fisher told openDemocracy the Islington North MP had made a point of turning down corporate hospitality.

“Politicians at any level shouldn’t be beholden to corporate interests,” he said. “They’re elected to represent the people, and are well paid for it.”

His predecessor, Ed Miliband, only accepted tickets to the London Olympics and Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies, and a number of the contests during the games. Gordon Brown accepted no such gifts during his time as Labour leader and prime minister.

While Tony Blair led a jet-setting lifestyle – including accepting summer holidays with the regional president of Tuscany and in Cliff Richard’s holiday home in the Caribbean – he accepted fewer gifts than Starmer in his whole time as prime minister, and usually donated the value of any such freebie to a relevant charity.

‘An indulgent retreat’

Companies giving Starmer and his office gifts include the groceries delivery app GETIR, the fast food delivery company Just Eat, and Matthew Moulding, chief exec of the online retail warehouse firm The Hut Group, which has recently expanded into the hotels business.

openDemocracy understands Moulding put Starmer and three others up in his luxury Manchester hotel The King Street Townhouse on the night of 1 June. The boutique hotel has an infinity pool with views over Manchester’s iconic town hall. Its restaurant advertises “a dining experience you’ll remember forever” while The Telegraph has described it as “an indulgent retreat in the city centre”.

A spokesperson for The Hut Group would not comment on why they provided Starmer and others with free accommodation in their hotel.

Meanwhile, GETIR gave Starmer “four tickets with hospitality for Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal,” worth £1,600. The match attended by Starmer, who is an Arsenal fan, took place at the Spurs stadium, where the executive suite advertises “private gourmet dining” and “beautifully crafted menus… crafted by world famous chefs”.

Speaking to openDemocracy, a staff collective of GETIR employees in Germany, where the firm is more established than the UK, said it was “like working in a cartel”, and that employees are often too afraid to speak out against the violation of their rights. GETIR didn’t respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment.

Just Eat handed Starmer two sets of tickets in 2021 – to the British Kebab Awards, and the ‘Taste of London’ event, both of which he gave to staff in his office. The firm is currently facing legal action from lawyers representing thousands of its workers over allegations that it denies them basic rights like holiday pay and minimum wage by categorising them as self-employed.

Recent reports have indicated that Starmer is now considering rolling back on previous commitments to enhance rights for workers in sectors like the online delivery market, where jobs are notoriously precarious.

In total, Starmer has accepted tickets to 11 football matches, in most cases in exclusive executive suites, and also two rugby matches.

Starmer has also attended two glamorous days at the races, including six tickets with hospitality for Doncaster Races in autumn 2022 worth more than £3,000, thanks to the Arena Racing Company. The race course’s fine dining restaurant offers a package which includes a glass of prosecco on arrival, a “three course plated lunch” and exclusive views of the track for the day.

In June this year, Starmer accepted a “private box for four people at Epsom Downs Racecourse, including catering and admission tickets, total value £3,716”, courtesy of the Jockey Club. Epsom Downs’ VIP experience includes a champagne reception, free bar and a four-course meal, as well as exclusive views of the race track.

Speaking to openDemocracy, Matt Zarb-Cousin, director of Clean Up Gambling, said: “The same Labour leader that refuses to meet with climate justice campaigners is selling off his time to the highest bidder. Concerning for gambling reform campaigners is his willingness to accept hospitality from the gambling industry, including racing which has actively lobbied against affordability checks in defence of the operators. Policy drafted by the vested interests that have Starmer’s ear will only benefit corporations at the expense of protecting consumers.”

In January this year, Starmer accepted a meal for himself and an aide worth £380, as a gift from Google while he was in Davos at the World Economic Forum. In June, the Labour Party abandoned plans to introduce a digital tax on big tech firms like Google, which had been estimated to be worth £3bn.

North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, who quit the Labour Party last month and has spoken out against Starmer’s leadership, said: “I’ve been offered tickets for the executive boxes at [Newcastle United stadium] St James’ Park, expensive dinners by lobbyists, hospitality for sporting events – and I turn them all down. It’s wrong to take perks when you’re elected to do a job.

“Why does an MP need free tickets to the football or Coldplay concerts to do their job? At best it’s a culture of entitlement.”

Starmer is paid £149,682 a year for his work as an MP and as leader of the opposition, and also received an £18,450 advance for a book in 2022 from the Rupert Murdoch-owned publishing house Harper Collins. The Labour Party did not respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment.

Original article by Adam Ramsey republished from Open Democracy.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-freebies-junkets-tottenham-hotspur-chelsea-coldplay-adele-google/

Continue ReadingStarmer has taken more freebies than all Labour leaders since 1997 combined

‘There’s Nothing Patriotic about Anti-Green Extremism’

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https://bylinetimes.com/2023/08/17/theres-nothing-patriotic-about-anti-green-extremism/

[A}nti-net zero think tanks, such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Institute for Economic Affairs, both housed at the infamous 55 Tufton Street, are known to be highly influential in shaping government policy – yet their funding sources remain largely opaque.

Until last year that is, when an investigation by openDemocracy revealed the GWPF to have accepted money from US-based groups with interests in fossil fuels. As Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute told the Guardian following the revelations, “it is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy”.

It is particularly disturbing when that influence leads to us being left behind in the transition to the post-fossil age.

As the world moves on to cheaper and better technologies, we must not allow fossil fuel-backed interests to dictate our energy and economic decisions – to do so would be to act like a newspaper board that decided not to invest in desktop computers because it was in thrall to the typewriter lobby.  

I haven’t even mentioned climate change, because I haven’t needed to. In a world of rapidly evolving technology, it makes sound economic sense to move beyond the fossil fuel era and onto better, cleaner ways of powering our activity. We must not listen to the anti-green extremists trying to hold us back.

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/08/17/theres-nothing-patriotic-about-anti-green-extremism/

Continue Reading‘There’s Nothing Patriotic about Anti-Green Extremism’