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Morning Star Editorial: Starmer copies the Tories in misrepresenting migration

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-copies-tories-misrepresenting-migration

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer leads a roundtable discussion at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House in central London, March 31, 2025

KEIR STARMER’S anti-refugee summit picks up where the Tories left off in giving unauthorised migration exaggerated status as some kind of national crisis.

Just as Rishi Sunak penned a joint article with Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni calling for a Europe-wide crackdown on irregular arrivals, Meloni took centre-stage by video link today, citing Italy’s use of a third-country processing hub in Albania as a model increasingly adopted across the continent.

Meloni depicts Italy as a pioneer. It is, though not in a good way. It successfully pushed the EU to abolish its last official search-and-rescue service in the Mediterranean nearly five years ago and it has led the way too in prosecuting civilian search-and-rescue missions it smears as people-smugglers.

As the Public and Commercial Services union and Care4Calais recently urged, the easiest way to end criminal people-smuggling operations would be to provide safe routes for people to claim asylum, perhaps through an extension of the scheme for Ukrainian refugees to people of other backgrounds.

There is no reason why victims of one war should be privileged over victims of others, and Britain bears responsibility for many of those wars. Yvette Cooper’s own reference to gangs working from the “hills of Kurdistan to the money markets of Kabul” cites two countries devastated by invasions we took part in, Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The international refugee crisis is driven by war, poverty and climate change.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-copies-tories-misrepresenting-migration

‘A wasted opportunity to do what is really needed’

Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Starmer copies the Tories in misrepresenting migration

Why should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

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In short, this doesn’t happen and is part of a frenzy of demonization of disabled benefits claimants whipped-up by the right-wing including Labour Health Secretary Wes Steeting. The Guardian explains:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

Queen Elizabeth inspects the classic Invacar, as she hosts a ceremony to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Motability, at Windsor Castle in 2017. Photograph: Richard Pohle/AFP/Getty Images.

A common refrain in the coverage – “Do you want a free new car?” the Times’ Alice Thomson asked – but one which misses a central point: the Pip funding that goes to Motability is money that customers would have been getting anyway.

If they weren’t getting a car, they’d have it to spend on something else. And if they want a more expensive car – perhaps needing a bigger vehicle for essential equipment, perhaps shockingly able to have preferences despite also having a disability – they have to make a down payment out of their own pocket.

The cars are new, meanwhile, so that they retain a significant resale value at the end of the lease. “It’s just not true that it’s ‘free’,” Carew said. “And because it comes out of an existing Pip award, it’s at no additional cost to the taxpayer.” Scrapping Motability wouldn’t save a penny from the benefits bill.

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So where did this story come from?

Allegations that Motability is infested with people making bogus claims have existed for many years. Hardy perennial though the story is, it’s also worth tracking the genesis of the latest iteration. Part of the timeline is familiar enough: first a fascinating Bloomberg piece focusing on Motability’s impact on the car market, then the Daily Mail, then everyone else.

Before that, though, the story gained momentum in a stranger corner of the internet – through a couple of rightwing X accounts, @loftussteve and @maxtempers, with fewer than 28,000 followers between them. The anonymous user behind Max Tempers, in particular, has been banging the drum since at least December, when he suggested that claimants should only be allowed to drive a hideous old car with MOTABILITY written on it. A few weeks later, a post of his about grooming gangs was shared by Elon Musk, and became the ground zero of a whole other dodgy social media frenzy.

As the Motability story went viral, it got picked up by accounts like Politics UK, a popular X news source, and later by prominent users like GB News’ deputy political editor Tom Harwood, who even borrowed Max Tempers’ idea for a car of shame. With crushing inevitability, after the Daily Mail piece, Wes Streeting told GB News the story showed why the welfare system needs reform.

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Read the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

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.

Continue ReadingWhy should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

Ofcom warns broadcasters over politician presenters ahead of general election

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/ofcom-warns-broadcasters-over-politician-presenters-ahead-of-general-election/

Ofcom warns breaches could result in ‘statutory sanctions’.

Media regulator Ofcom has issued a warning to broadcasters about using politicians as presenters, ahead of the general election.

The media regulator issued a statement in which it said it was putting ‘broadcasters on notice that they must maintain the highest editorial standards ahead of a General Election’ and that breaches could result in ‘statutory sanctions’.

It comes after Ofcom found GB News in breach of broadcasting rules when three Conservative MPs acted as newsreaders across five different episodes of its programmes.

Ofcom found that two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, two episodes of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast during May and June 2023 had broken impartiality rules. These episodes broke the part of the Ofcom code that says, “News, in whatever form, must be… presented with due impartiality” and “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/ofcom-warns-broadcasters-over-politician-presenters-ahead-of-general-election/

Continue ReadingOfcom warns broadcasters over politician presenters ahead of general election

GB News begins redundancy round, cutting 40 roles

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/gb-news-begins-redundancy-round-cutting-40-roles/

Nigel Farage presents on GB News.

GB News has begun a round of redundancy, seeking to cut 40 roles, amid an operating loss of £42.4m.

Chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos announced the redundancy plans to staff last week, with Press Gazette reporting: “The business is currently appealing for staff open to taking voluntary redundancy to come forward, offering up to two months’ salary and possible payment in lieu of notice as enticement.

“One staffer at the channel told Press Gazette there was “a real ‘last days of Saigon’ vibe in the office right now”.

The right-wing channel announced last month that its operating losses had grown 38% to £42.4m in the year to May 2023.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/gb-news-begins-redundancy-round-cutting-40-roles/

Continue ReadingGB News begins redundancy round, cutting 40 roles

Fury after former Labour MP threatens ‘hundreds of years of the right to protest’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fury-after-former-labour-mp-threatens-hundreds-of-years-of-the-right-to-protest

Protesters block Westminster Bridge during a Free Palestine Coalition demonstration in central London, January 6, 2024

PALESTINE campaigners responded with fury today after peer and former Labour MP John Woodcock said protest organisers should foot the bill for policing their demonstrations.

As thousands once again thronged the streets of towns and cities across Britain demanding an end to the slaughter in Gaza, Mr Woodcock, now known as Lord Walney, the government’s independent adviser on “political violence and disruption,” made the call for police costs to be dumped on organisers in a review carried out for the Home Office.

He specifically targeted protests by Palestine supporters who have campaigned tirelessly against Israel’s murderous actions for three months.

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) accused Lord Walney of attempting to end “hundreds of years of the right to protest” and said it was the police themselves who chose to mobilise thousands of officers for the protests.

Stop the War co-convener Lindsey German told the Morning Star: “This is just the latest scheme to stop the demonstrations.

“The government, the police and Lord Whatever should be clear that the demonstrations will continue as part of our democratic rights.

“We completely reject the idea that we should be paying for the police. We do not ask the police to turn out. We police our demonstrations ourselves.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fury-after-former-labour-mp-threatens-hundreds-of-years-of-the-right-to-protest

Morning Star: Labour turncoat Woodcock wants to ban protest by the back door

BRITISH democracy is under attack. The threat comes not from foreign bogeymen but from our own overbearing state.

Lord Walney — as hard-right ex-Labour MP John Woodcock renamed himself after his ennoblement for services against Jeremy Corbyn — wants to ban protests, at least if they aren’t bankrolled by the rich.

The demand that protest organisers meet the cost of policing demonstrations is as dangerous as it is dishonest.

Woodcock claims “disorder” at Palestine demos justifies billing the organisers.

In fact the mass peace demonstrations (which Woodcock, who called on the public to vote for Boris Johnson in 2019 to dash prospects of a socialist government, terms “anti-Israel marches”) have been strikingly peaceful.

Clashes with police, where they have occurred at all, have taken place away from the main demonstrations and certainly beyond the reach of the organisers’ stewards. They have been rare, with most arrests taking place for allegedly hateful speech or signage rather than violence or vandalism.

It adds insult to injury that Lord Walney advises the Home Office to start charging people to protest when the most serious recent disorder on our streets featured far-right hooligans incited to mob the Cenotaph on November 11 by the then home secretary herself.

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Palestine demos are huge because Westminster is at loggerheads with the people it claims to represent. There is a gulf between the government and opposition’s endorsement of Israel’s murderous war and the popular demand for peace.

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Woodcock was made a lord precisely for betraying his party to help defeat that movement, something Lord Rooker (another ex-Labour MP) described as a “national service.” He was tasked by the serial liar he backed for PM with advising the British state on how to stop such movements arising again.

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Morning Star: Labour turncoat Woodcock wants to ban protest by the back door

Image of Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Woodcock gets saluted by Fascists. Image of Fascists Mussolini and Hitler

Continue ReadingFury after former Labour MP threatens ‘hundreds of years of the right to protest’