… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: poverty

  • War pays… BP billions

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/war-pays-bp-billions

    A BP petrol station sign in Chelmsford, Essex A BP petrol station sign in Chelmsford, Essex

    Iran conflict sends BP profits skyrocketing and takes Euro fuel giants’ gains to £66.4bn

    DONALD TRUMP’S Iran war has sent BP’s profits soaring to £6.31 billion in just three months while one in 10 languish in fuel poverty and diesel costs cripple the economy. 

    The latest quarterly profits represent a staggering 282 per cent rise on the £1.65bn it coined-in over the same period in 2025, as the once state-owned business reaps the rewards of a war that has seen supplies hit by blockages in the Straits of Hormuz, and households face a 27 per cent rise in fuel bills from January.

    The figures come hot on the heels of rivals Shell posting profits of over £8bn in the same period, and bring BP’s total haul to an eye-watering £13bn in the last nine months alone.

    …

    Pointing out that the latest figures from Europe’s oil and gas giants bring total profiteering to a staggering £66.4bn this year, Global Witness, campaign group spokesman Jonathan Noronha-Gant said: “It is obscene that polluters are continuing to cash in on the fallout of the war in Iran, making more bumper profits from spiralling oil prices while innocent civilians suffer.

    “These massive profits come as ordinary people across Europe are struggling with the rising cost of living, with many struggling to afford to heat their homes as winter arrives.

    “Oil giants can and should pay much more for the damage they are doing to our planet.”

    Echoing the call for tougher taxation, 350.org head of global campaigns Clemence Dubois hit out: “The climate crisis is not an abstract future threat. 

    “People are facing deadly heat, destroyed livelihoods and growing insecurity now. 

    “Governments are being forced to find money to protect their populations, while fossil fuel companies are forecast to make extraordinary profits from the same energy system that leaves people vulnerable.”

    …

    See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/war-pays-bp-billions

    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that he's delayed the go-ahead for Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea oil and gas extraction until after the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election - don't want democracy interfering with Capitalism.
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that he’s delayed the go-ahead for Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea oil and gas extraction until after the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election – don’t want democracy interfering with Capitalism.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Donald Trump urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
    Donald Trump urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.

  • Greens Back Aspire’s Legal Action to Stop London Mayor Cutting Affordable Homes

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    https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/24/greens-back-legal-action-to-stop-london-mayor-cutting-affordable-homes/

    David P Maynard | Marissa Davison/Reuters

    Green party-controlled councils have joined a high court legal challenge led by the Aspire party to stop London mayor Sadiq Khan slashing affordable housing in the city. 

    Hackney and Lewisham councils, which Zack Polanski’s party took control of following the 7 May elections, have joined the Aspire-run Tower Hamlets council in its bid to stop Khan from cutting the city’s affordable housing quota from 35% to 20%. 

    …

    Khan said in 2016 that more than 50% of new homes in London should be affordable, but later the same year allowed private developers to limit affordable housing in new developments to 35%.

    His plan to further reduce the quota comes amid an escalating housing crisis in the city, where the cost of rent is a major driver of poverty and child homelessness. 

    …

    See the original article at https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/24/greens-back-legal-action-to-stop-london-mayor-cutting-affordable-homes/

  • More than a fifth of UK’s ‘austerity children’ scarred by poverty, study says

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    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/13/uk-austerity-children-scarred-poverty-study-conservatives

    Austerity policies effectively pitched hundreds of thousands more children into sustained poverty. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

    Researchers say hardship is a direct legacy of welfare benefit cuts imposed by Tory governments in recent years

    More than a fifth of all “austerity generation” British children have been scarred by poverty for at least half their childhood, a direct legacy of the welfare benefit cuts imposed by Conservative governments in recent years, research reveals.

    The proportion of children born after 2013 who spent at least six of their first 11 years of life in hardship surged after ministers froze working age benefits levels and imposed policies such as the two-child limit, it found.

    Austerity policies, which drastically shrank annual welfare spending by tens of billions a year and took thousands of pounds a year out of low-income family budgets, effectively pitched hundreds of thousands more children into sustained poverty.

    The University of Oxford study said the austerity-era growth in children exposed to poverty for most of their formative years was a “significant social problem” that would cause long-term harms to their health, education and life chances.

    The study’s co-author, Selçuk Bedük, said the post-2013 austerity cuts to welfare increased both the numbers of children experiencing poverty and the time they spent in it. As a consequence, long-term poverty was now a defining factor in the childhood of about 23% of British youngsters.

    …

    Austerity cuts masterminded by the former Tory chancellor George Osborne and the ex-welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith included the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, the two-child benefit limit, cuts to the generosity of universal credit, and years of benefit rate freezes. By 2021, they had stripped about £37bn a year from welfare spending.

    …

    Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/13/uk-austerity-children-scarred-poverty-study-conservatives

    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.

  • Ministers urged to go further on child poverty as MPs vote to end two child benefits cap

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ministers-urged-go-further-child-poverty-mps-vote-end-two-child-benefits-cap

     Children playing football on the street in Luton, August 1, 2025

    MINISTERS were urged to go further to tackle child poverty as MPs voted on lifting the two-child benefit cap today.

    Labour has faced calls since they came to power in summer 2024 to scrap the Tory policy that restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.

    Seven Labour MPs were suspended by the party after a backing an SNP motion to scrap the welfare measure in a vote in Parliament that year.

    The government had at the time cited spending controls as a reason for not being able to ditch the policy immediately, indicating there would be no change without economic growth.

    But following repeated calls from charities, campaigners and many of the party’s own MPs, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in the autumn Budget last year that the government would move to scrap the policy from April.

    Addressing the Commons for the second reading of the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill today, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said that the policy used children as pawns and was “all about the politics of dividing lines” between the “deserving and undeserving poor.”

    But Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside Kim Johnson said that she feared the Bill to remove the cap would never have happened without the campaigning of the End Child Poverty Coalition (ECPC) and National Education Union (NEU).

    She said: “It’s a shame that it has taken so long to reverse this draconian cap that was driving hundreds of families into poverty every single month.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ministers-urged-go-further-child-poverty-mps-vote-end-two-child-benefits-cap

    Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
    Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
    Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.

  • A generation at risk: Labour’s proposed war on disabled youth

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/generation-risk-labours-proposed-war-disabled-youth

    Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports

    IN A MOVE that has sent shockwaves through disabled communities across the country, the Labour government is considering a policy that would slash vital financial support for young disabled people aged 18 to 21.

    As the campaign group Benefits and Work has pointed out, “One of the proposals in the Pathways to Work green paper was to delay access to the UC [universal credit] health element until age 22, meaning that younger people would not be eligible. The claim is that this would make it less likely that young people would be trapped in a life on benefits. The proposal is pencilled in for 2027/28.”

    This has sparked a firestorm of criticism from disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), which warn of a “devastating financial impact” that will push a vulnerable generation further into poverty and away from the very employment opportunities the government claims to be promoting.

    The government’s rationale for this drastic measure is to prevent young people from being “trapped in a life on benefits.” However, this narrative has been widely condemned as a gross misrepresentation of the reality faced by young disabled people.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/generation-risk-labours-proposed-war-disabled-youth

    Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
    Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.