More than one in four parents of children aged 18 or under in Scotland have struggled to provide sufficient food for their children in the past 12 months due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. That’s according to research from Barnardo’s. Meanwhile, both Westminster and Holyrood governments refuse to lift the notorious two-child benefit cap.
Barnardo’s: child poverty is a scourge that must be ended
This grim finding has been revealed by Barnardo’s after the leading charity commissioned a Scotland-wide survey by pollsters YouGov. This is a rise of 8% since October 2022 when parents were surveyed for Barnardo’s by YouGov, suggesting the impact of the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit families who are struggling to afford to keep the power on and the fridge stocked.
As well as 27% of Scottish parents of children aged 18 or under revealing to struggles with providing food for their children, 54% of the same group claimed that they had to reduce their spending on food costs to save money over the same period. Meanwhile, 7% of parents claim to having to use a food bank in the past year, as a direct result of cost-of-living challenges.
Today, Barnardo’s in Scotland exposes a shameful picture as the colder weather and long nights approach with many families unable to afford to put enough food on the table or keep the electricity meter topped up. The charity is calling on government to act urgently to end child poverty – starting with lifting the two-child benefit cap.
For too many children this winter, they and their families will be struggling to get by. It means worrying about being able to put the lights or heating on, having hot meals or being able to contact their friends. It means worrying about where the next meal will come from and what the future holds.
Every year, Barnardo’s supports thousands of children and families across the country who are struggling; struggling to help them keep the power on and the fridge stocked so they feel safer, happier, healthier and more hopeful. But charities such as ours cannot eradicate child poverty alone – the governments in Westminster and Holyrood must commit to ending the blight of child poverty.
Martin Crewe added:
It was extremely disappointing that the latest Programme for Government rows back on the commitment to expand free school meals to all Primary 6 and 7 pupils, and failed to further increase the Scottish Child Payment. Without this crucial assistance, we know that the child poverty reduction targets will be much harder to meet.
“Things were so hard”
One such family that has been supported by Barnardo’s is mother and daughter Zara and Gemma(not their real names) from North Ayrshire. The family came to the charity’s attention because Gemma, 17, was missing school, so she found support from the Barnardo’s Works service to undertake a ‘Fit for Work’ programme and then a work placement.
However, it soon became clear that the family needed more than just employment support, as Zara, 49, explains:
We were struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and trying to buy food and keep paying for the gas. Things were really difficult, so I reached out for help. I suffered from anxiety and depression and things were so hard because I felt that I couldn’t provide for my family. From Barnardo’s, we got help with food and clothes and help to pay the gas bill.
It was also discovered that Zara and Gemma were struggling to sleep at night due to old beds that were no longer fit for purpose. Zara adds:
My daughter was sleeping in two old single beds pushed together that were broken, the springs were popping through, they were burst and dirty. It was embarrassing to me that I couldn’t provide for my daughter, and I felt as if I was a failure.
I was also sleeping in a bed that was broken at the top, so I was sinking into it. The mattress was burst and the springs were horrendous to sleep on. It wasn’t doing my back or my health any good, but Barnardo’s also managed to get us new beds, which I am very, very grateful for. When we got them, it was fantastic. I felt like I was in a nice hotel; not that I’ve stayed in a hotel before! We are both very grateful.
Barnardo’s can help
Zara has good advice for others who might be in search of a little support:
A lot of people don’t know that Barnardo’s can help single parents like me, but they were really good and they supported me and my daughter very well. It was a good help. If Gemma had not been referred to Barnardo’s, I wouldn’t have had a clue that help and support would have been there for my daughter and me. We are getting there, slowly, but surely, but life is an ongoing struggle.
Martin Crewe added:
Too many children are going to school hungry and returning to a cold home. Their physical and mental health suffers, they’re missing out on a good childhood, and it affects their chances in later life. We are calling on the public to join us in standing up for every child living in poverty to show them that they haven’t been forgotten and that they belong.
In the past year, Barnardo’s has provided essential support to more than 11,500 children, young people, parents and carers in Scotland through 150-plus specialised community-based services and partnerships across the country.
The charity works to ensure that every child has the best possible start in life. Over the course of the financial year 2023-24, more than 16,000 people volunteered for Barnardo’s across the UK – a total of 1.7 million hours of their time.
If Republicans were to win the White House and Congress, their fiscal agenda would increase poverty and hardship nationwide in order to provide deep tax breaks for corporations and wealthy families, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a liberal-leaning think tank. In a new report, the group analyzes the House GOP’s legislative wish list alongside Project 2025…
Move over, first class passengers on the Titanic! America has a new class of doomed elites! Extreme income inequality threatens our democracy and the security of the world, but unions are fighting back, showing our path forward for the safety of everyone.
C.E.O.s and billionaires celebrate record-breaking profits, but for everyday workers, wages have remained stagnant, not keeping pace with the rising cost of living. The result? The American Dream is increasingly resembling a Neoliberal Ponzi Scheme, where the promise of prosperity seems to be reserved for nepo-babies.
Beyond the obvious moral implications, income inequality has profound consequences for our society. It undermines trust in institutions, worsens political instability, and contributes to declining life expectancy—a stark reality in America today. When the rich get richer and the rest of us get left behind, it doesn’t just create social rifts; it destabilizes the United States, and therefore the world.
How do we overcome this crisis? The renaissance of unions will strengthen our economy for all and protect our democracy. This week’s guest Michael Podhorzer has been on the frontlines of this fight for decades, as the former longtime political director of the AFL-CIO – the largest federation of unions in the United States. Podhorzer is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, the chair of the Analyst Institute, the Research Collaborative and the Defend Democracy Project, and writes the Substack Weekend Reading.
A 2021 TIME article described Podhorzer as the architect of a broad movement that helped protect the integrity of our vote in the 2020 election. This week’s bonus show, available to subscribers at the Truth-teller level ($5/month) and higher, includes Podhorzer’s insights on how to protect the 2024 election, in an excerpt available to all. Exclusive to our Patreon supporters, this week’s bonus show also includes a deep-dive examination of the recent arrest of Telegram’s C.E.O. Pavel Durov and what that might mean for Russia’s global war on democracy. Subscribe today at Patreon.com/Gaslit to help support our independent journalism!
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Big Announcement! If the election cycle has left you feeling overwhelmed, we’re here to help. Join our new weekly political salon every Monday at 4 PM ET via Zoom. This space is designed for you to vent, ask questions, seek support, and contribute to discussions that shape Gaslit Nation. Everyone is welcome—our goal is to foster coalition-building and collective healing.
Starting next Monday, our first ever salon will be recorded and shared on Patreon to support our community. If these sessions resonate with you, they may continue beyond the election. To join, support us at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon at patreon.com/Gaslit where you’ll find the Zoom link every Monday afternoon.
On September 10th: Join the Gaslit Nation Debate Watch Party in the “Victory Chat” community chatroom on Patreon. A debate between democracy vs. dictatorship! (Convicted felon Trump belongs in prison, not a debate stage).
On September 16 at 7:00 PM ET: If you’re in NYC, join our in-person live taping with at the Ukrainian Institute of America in NYC. Celebrate the release of In the Shadow of Stalin, the graphic novel adaptation of my film Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Gaslit Nation Patreon supporters get in free – so message us on Patreon to be added to the guest list. I will be joined by the journalist Terrell Starr, to talk about his latest trip to Ukraine.
On September 17 at 12:00 PM ET: Join our virtual live taping with investigative journalist Stephanie Baker, author of Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia. Her book has been highly praised by Bill Browder, the advocate behind the Magnitsky Act to combat Russian corruption.
On September 24 at 12:00 PM ET: Join our virtual live taping with David Pepper, author of Saving Democracy. Join us as David discusses his new art project based on Project 2025.
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Listen to our interview with Starbucks union organizer Jasmine Leli on how to start a union https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2023/11/08/end-human-sacrifice-union-jasmine-leli
This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
The UK government has recently made the contentious decision to cut winter fuel payments for a significant portion of older people. This move has sparked widespread criticism and concern, particularly as the country grapples with the continuing cost of living crisis and rising energy prices. At the same time, the government has launched a campaign to encourage around 880,000 older people to claim Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)Pension Credits. It’s a benefit that many are either unaware of or not claiming. However, all this still leaves countless older people at risk this winter. And moreover, the Labour Party government’s sums really don’t add up.
The cut in Winter Fuel Payments: a blow to older people
Winter fuel payments have traditionally been a vital lifeline for older people during the colder months. These payments help pensioners cover the increased costs of heating their homes, which is particularly important given that many older people live on fixed incomes and are more vulnerable to the effects of cold weather.
The decision to reduce these payments comes at a time when energy costs are soaring, making the cut especially harsh. Also, now only people receiving DWP Pension Credits will get the payment – meaning currently only around 1.5 million people will be entitled to it.
The government argues that the cuts are part of a broader strategy to balance public finances and ensure that welfare spending is sustainable. It says restricting winter fuel payments will save £1.4bn this financial year. However, critics argue that this approach disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, particularly those who are already struggling to make ends meet.
The reduction in winter fuel payments is seen by many as a short-sighted measure that fails to account for the real and immediate needs of older people during the winter months.
Real-world impacts of cuts
The decision to cut winter fuel payments has been met with strong opposition from advocacy groups and charities that work with older people. Many argue that the cuts could have serious consequences for people’s health and well-being.
Cold weather is known to exacerbate a range of health conditions. So, without adequate heating, the risks of respiratory infections, hypothermia, and other cold-related illnesses increase significantly.
Moreover, the cuts are expected to push more pensioners into fuel poverty. This is a situation where households are unable to afford to keep their homes adequately warm. It is particularly concerning given that older people are already disproportionately represented among those living in fuel poverty.
The government’s decision has been criticised as both insensitive and counterproductive, especially in the context of its broader public health goals.
DWP Pension Credits campaign: a mixed message?
In parallel with the cuts to winter fuel payments, the UK government has launched a campaign to raise awareness about DWP Pension Credits. Pension Credits is a means-tested benefit designed to top up the income of the poorest older people.
It is estimated that up to a 880,000 eligible pensioners are not claiming the benefit. This either because they are unaware of it or because of the complexity of the application process – which has over 240 questions.
The government’s push to increase the uptake of pension credits is a welcome initiative. It aims to provide additional support to those who need it most. However, the timing of this campaign, coming alongside cuts to winter fuel payments, has led to criticism that the government is giving with one hand while taking away with the other.
Critics argue that while pension credits can help alleviate some financial pressure, they do not address the immediate need for support during the winter months.
What is Labour thinking?
The decision to cut winter fuel payments has been widely condemned by opposition parties, charities, and the general public. Many view it as a misguided and unfair policy that will disproportionately impact those who are already struggling.
This is because DWP Pension Credits only tops up people’s income to that of the new state pension for single older people. This means that if a person already receives the new state pension amount of £221.20 a week, then they’re not entitled to DWP Pension Credits – as the cut off for eligibility is £218.14. If you’re in a couple, the cut off is £332.94 of income – anything below that and you may get the benefit.
While the campaign to increase the uptake of DWP Pension Credits is a positive step, it does not mitigate the impact of the cuts to winter fuel payments.
Moreover, unless we’re missing something, it makes no economic sense either.
The average value of DWP Pension Credits is £3,900 a year. That means it will cost the DWP £3.4bn in the next 12 months – £2bn more than Labour is saving by restricting the winter fuel allowance.
Either the government has made a catastrophic miscalculation, or it will do some accounting sleight of hand to cover the loss. However, what’s more likely is that in chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Autumn Budget, she’ll make cuts to other people’s benefits to clear up this mess.
Whatever the outcome, countless older people will still be plunged into poverty this winter – and no amount of campaigning around DWP Pensions Credits will change that.
Research has long established strong links between neoliberal policies and increasing rates of inequality. Susan George, for instance, argued quite convincingly that increasing inequality stems from the neoliberal practices of placing public wealth into private hands, enforcing huge tax cuts for the rich and suppressing wages for average workers. And a recent study by psychology researchers shows…
Large corporations paying their employees the lowest wages among their peers have spent half a trillion dollars on stock buybacks over the past five years as inflation and corporate profits have soared, a new report finds. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found in a report published Thursday that, between 2019 and 2023, the 100 companies in the S&P 500 that pay workers the lowest median…
Janine Jackson interviewed North Central College‘s Steve Macek about “dark money” campaign contributions for the August 23, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: If you use the word “democracy” unsarcastically, you likely think it has something to do with, not only every person living in a society having some say in the laws and policies that govern them, but also the idea that everyone should be able to know what’s going on, besides voting, that influences that critical decision-making.
“Dark money,” as it’s called, has become, in practical terms, business as usual, but it still represents the opposite of that transparency, that ability for even the unpowerful to know what’s happening, to know what’s affecting the rules that govern our lives. A press corps concerned with defending democracy, and not merely narrating the nightmare of crisis, would be talking about that every day, in every way.
Our guest has written about the gap between what we need and what we get, in terms of media. Steve Macek is professor and chair of communication and media studies, at North Central College in Illinois, a co-coordinator of Project Censored’s campus affiliate program, and co-editor and contributor to, most recently, Censorship, Digital Media and the Global Crackdown on Freedom of Expression, out this year from Peter Lang. He joins us now by phone from Naperville, Illinois. Welcome to CounterSpin, Steve Macek.
Steve Macek: Thanks for having me, Janine. I’m a big fan of the show.
JJ: Well, thank you. Let’s start with some definition. Dark money doesn’t mean funding for candidates or campaigns I don’t like, or from groups I don’t like. In your June piece for the Progressive, you spell out what it is, and where it can come from, and what we can know about it. Help us, if you would, understand just the rules around dark money.
SM: Sure. So dark money, and Anna Massoglia of OpenSecrets gave me, I think, a really nice, concise definition of dark money in the interview I did with her for this article. She called it “funding from undisclosed sources that goes to influence political outcomes, such as elections.” Now, thanks to the Supreme Court case in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, and some other cases, it is now completely legal for corporations and very wealthy individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of elections.
Not all of that “independent expenditure” on elections is dark money. Dark money is spending that comes from organizations that do not have to disclose their donors. One sort of organization, I’m sure your listeners are really familiar with, are Super PACs, or, what they’re more technically known as, IRS Code 527 organizations. It can take unlimited contributions, and spend unlimited amounts on influencing elections, but they have to disclose the names of their donors.
There’s this other sort of organization, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which is sometimes known as a “social welfare nonprofit,” who can raise huge amounts of money, but they do not have to disclose the names of their donors, but they are prevented from spending the majority of their budget on political activity, which means that a lot of these 501(c)(4) organizations spend 49.999% of their budget attempting to influence the outcomes of elections, and the rest of it is spent on things like general political education, or research that might, in turn, guide the creation of political ads and so on.
JJ: When we talk about influencing the outcome of elections, it’s not that they are taking out an ad for or against a particular candidate. That doesn’t have to be involved at all.
SM: Right. So they can sometimes run issue ads. Sometimes these dark money groups, as long as they’re working within the parameters of the law, will run ads for or against a particular candidate.
But take, for example, Citizens for Sanity, the group that I talked about at the beginning of my Progressivearticle: This is a group that nobody knows very much about. It showed up back in 2022, and ran $40 million worth of ads in four battleground states. Many of the ads were general ads attacking the Democrats for wanting to erase the border, or over woke culture-war themes, but they’re spending $40+ million on ads, according to one estimate.
What we do know is the officials of the group are almost identical to America First Legal, which was made up by former Trump administration officials. America First Legal was founded by Stephen Miller, that xenophobic former advisor and sometimes speechwriter to Donald Trump. No one really knows exactly who is funding this organization, because it is a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit, and so is not required by the IRS to disclose its donors.
It has been running this year, in Ohio and elsewhere, a whole bunch of digital ads, and putting up billboards, for example, attacking Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown for his stance on immigration policies, basically saying he wants to protect criminal illegals, and also running these general, very snarky anti-“woke” ads saying, basically, Democrats used to care about the middle class, now they only care about race and gender and DEI.
JJ: Right. Well, I think “rich people influence policy,” it’s almost like “dog bites man” at this point, right? Yeah, it’s bad, but that’s how the system works, and I think it’s important to lift up: If it didn’t matter for donors to obscure their support for this or that, well then they wouldn’t be trying to obscure it.
And the thing you’re writing about, these are down-ballot issues, where you might believe that Citizens for Sanity, in this case, or any other organization, you might think of this as like a grassroots group that’s scrambled together some money to take out ads. And so it is meaningful to know to connect these financial dots.
SM: Absolutely. It is meaningful. And since you made reference to down-ballot races, one of the things that I think is so nefarious about dark money, and these dark money organizations, is that they are spending a lot on races for things like school boards or, as I discussed in the article, state attorney generals races.
There is this organization, it was founded in 2014, called the Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, which is a beautiful acronym, and they have been trying to elect extremely reactionary Republicans to the top law enforcement position in state after state. And in 2022, they spent something like $8.9 million trying to defeat Democratic state attorney generals candidates in the 2022 elections.
Now, they are a PAC of a kind, they’re a 527, so they have the same legal status as a Super PAC, so they have to disclose their donors. But the fact is, one of the major donors is a group called the Concord Fund, which has given them $17 million.
Concord Fund is a 501(c)(4) that was founded by Leonard Leo, the judicial activist affiliated with the Federalist Society, who is basically Donald Trump’s Supreme Court whisperer, who is largely responsible for the conservative takeover of the federal courts. His organization, this fund that he controls, gave $17 million to RAGA.
And we have no idea who contributed that money to the fund. We can make some educated guesses, but nobody really knows who’s funneling that money into trying to influence the election of the top law enforcement official in state after state around this country.
That’s alarming because, of course, some of these right-wing billionaires and corporations have a vested interest in who is sitting in that position. Because if it comes to enforcement of antitrust laws, or corruption laws, if they have a more friendly state attorney general in that position, it could mean millions of dollars for their bottom line.
JJ: And I think, from the point of view of the public, filtered through the point of view of the press, if you heard there’s this one macher, or this one rich person, and they’re pulling the strings and they’ve bought this judge, and they’ve paid for this policy and these ads, that would be one thing. But to have it filtered through a number of groups that are kind of opaque and you don’t really know, a minority point of view can be presented as a sort of groundswell of grassroots support.
SM: Exactly. It can create this sort of astroturfing effect where, “Oh, there are all these ads being run. It must be that there are lots of people who are really concerned or really opposed to this particular candidate,” when, in fact, it could be a single billionaire who is routing money for a number of different shells and front groups in an effort to influence the outcome of an election.
So I think attorney generals races are one kind of down-ballot race where we’ve seen a lot of dark money spent. School board elections are another, and this is something that has been really evident in the past couple of years, where various different Super PACs and other dark money groups have spent millions of dollars, that are affiliated with advocates for charter schools, and advocates for school vouchers have been spending money trying to elect school board members that are pro-voucher and pro–charter school.
In 2023, City Fund, which is a national pro–charter school group, bankrolled in part by billionaire Reed Hastings, donated $1.75 million from its affiliated PAC to a 501(c)(4), Denver Families for Public Schools, to try to elect three “friendly” pro–charter school candidates for the city school board, and all three of the candidates won.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have children who went through the public system here in Naperville, I didn’t pay very close attention to who was running in those races, or who was backing those people. I just would read about it a couple days before the election. Most people don’t pay very close attention, unless they’re employees of the school district, or have children currently in school. They’re not paying that close attention to the school board elections. And so this influx of dark money could very well have tipped those races in the favor of the pro–charter school.
JJ: And name that group again, because it didn’t say “charter schools.”
SM: So the charter school group was City Fund, and it donated money to Denver Families for Public Schools….
JJ: : For “public schools….”
SM: Right, which is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Yes, and it’s got this Orwellian name, because it’s Denver Families for Public Schools. But what they wanted to do was, of course, create more charter schools.
JJ: It’s deep, and it’s confusing because it’s designed to be confusing, and it’s opaque because, you know….
And then, OK, so here come media. And we know that lots of people, including reporters, still imagine the US press corps as kind of like an old movie, with press cards in their hat band, or Woodward and Bernstein connecting dots, holding the powerful to account, and the chips are just falling where they may.
And you make the point in the Progressive piece that there have been excellent corporate news media exposés of the influence of dark money, connecting those dots. But you write that news media have “missed or minimized as many stories about dark money as they have covered.” What are you getting at there?
SM: I absolutely believe that. So it is true, as I say, that there have been some excellent reports about dark money. Here in Chicago, we had this reclusive billionaire industrialist, Barre Seide, who made what most people say is the largest political contribution in American history. He donated his company to a fund, Marble Freedom Fund, run by Leonard Leo, again, a conservative judicial activist.
The Marble Freedom Fund sold the company for $1.6 billion. It’s hard for the corporate media to ignore a political contribution of $1.6 billion. That’s a $1.6 billion trust fund that Leonard Leo, who engineered the conservative takeover of the US Supreme Court, is going to be able to use—he’s a very right-wing, conservative Catholic—to put his particular ideological stamp on American elections and on American culture. And so that got reported.
And, in fact, there have been some really excellent follow-up reports by ProPublica, among others, about how various Leonard Leo–affiliated organizations have influenced judicial appointments and have influenced judicial elections. So you have to give credit where credit’s due.
But the problem is that there are so many other cases where dark money is in play. Whether or not you can say it’s determining the outcome of elections or not is another story. But where dark money is playing a role, and it is simply not being talked about.
Steve Macek: “Outside forces who, in some cases, do not have to disclose the source of their funding can spend more on a race than the candidates themselves.”
Think about the last month of this current presidential election. There hasn’t been much discussion about the influence of dark money. And yet OpenSecrets just came out with an analysis where they say that contributions from dark money groups and shell organizations are outpacing all prior elections in this year, and might surpass the $660 million in contributions from dark money sources that flooded the 2020 elections. So they’re projecting that could be as much as a billion dollars. We haven’t heard very much about this.
I don’t think necessarily dark money is going to make a huge difference one way or the other in the presidential race, but it certainly can make a difference in congressional races and attorney generals races, school board races, city council races, that’s where it can make a huge difference.
And I do know that OpenSecrets, among others, have done research, and they found that there were cases where, over a hundred different congressional races, there was more outside spending on those races than were spent by either of the candidates. Which is a scandal, that outside forces who, in some cases, do not have to disclose the source of their funding can spend more on a race than the candidates themselves.
JJ: And it’s disheartening, the idea that, while you’re swimming in it, it’s too big of an issue to even lift out.
SM: And I think that’s also part of the reason why it’s accepted, sort of like the weather. And I think that’s part of the reason why there isn’t as much reporting in the corporate media as there ought to be about legal struggles over the regulation of dark money.
JJ: That’s exactly where I was going to lead you, for a final question, just because we know that reporters will say, well, they can’t cover what isn’t happening. But it is happening, that legal and community and policy pushback on this influence is happening. And so, finally, what should we know about that?
SM: State-level Republican lawmakers, and state legislatures across the country, are pushing legislation that would prohibit state officials and agencies from collecting or disclosing information about donors to nonprofits, including donors to those 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations that I spoke about, that spend money on politics. So they’re trying to pass laws to make dark money even darker, to make this obscure money influencing our elections even harder to track. And I will say there are Republicans in Congress who have introduced federal legislation that would do the same thing.
Now, the bills that are being pushed through state legislatures, not probably going to be a surprise to anybody who follows this, are based on a model bill that was developed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which is a policy development organization that is funded by the Koch network of right-wing foundations, millionaires and billionaires. And they meet every year to develop model right-wing, libertarian legislation, that then is dutifully introduced into state legislatures around the country.
And since 2018, a number of states, including Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, have all adopted some version of this ALEC legislation that criminalizes disclosing donors to nonprofits that engage in political activity.
And in Arizona, where this conservative legislation was made into law, in 2022, there was a ballot referendum by the voters on the Voter’s Right to Know Act, Proposition 211, that would basically reverse the ALEC attempt to criminalize the disclosure of the names of donors. It would require PACs spending at least $50,000 on statewide campaigns to disclose all donors who have given more than $5,000—a direct reversal of the ALEC-inspired law.
Conservative dark money group spent a lot of money trying to defeat this, and yet they lost. And then they spent a lot of money challenging the new law, Proposition 211, in court. And it has gone to trial, I think, three times, and been defeated each time.
Now, the initial battle over Proposition 211 was covered to some degree in the corporate media, the New York Times, Jane Mayer at the New Yorker, who does excellent reporting on dark money issues, discussed it. But since then, we have gotten very little coverage of the court battles that continue to this day over this attempt to bring more transparency to campaign spending in the state of Arizona.
JJ: So, not to hammer it too hard home, but there are legal efforts, policy efforts around the country, to bring more transparency, to explode this idea of dark money, to connect the dots, and more media coverage of them would actually have an amplifying effect on that very transparency.
SM: Absolutely right. You would think that media organizations, whether they’re corporate or independent media, would have a vested interest in seeing more transparency in election spending. That would benefit their own reporting, and the reporters. And yet they really haven’t done a great job of covering it.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Steve Macek. He’s professor and chair of communication and media studies at North Central College in Illinois, and a co-coordinator of Project Censored’s campus affiliate program. The piece we’re talking about, “Dark Money Uncovered,” can be found at TheProgressive.org. Steve Macek, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
The top 10 asset management firms now control $50 trillion of global wealth. They answer to no one but the ultrarich — the 0.05 percent — whose fortunes they continue to expand. The rest of us pay the price. Investing in everything from fossil fuel companies to private prisons to weapons manufacturers, they provide the economic lifeblood for some of the most destructive forces in the world.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) were keynote speakers at Progressive Central 2024, which took place on Sunday and Monday just blocks north of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Progressive Central 2024 is a conference hosted by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Several other progressive organizations partnered with PDA to…
Tax Justice Network has documented that just 0.01% of super rich households relocated after Norway, Sweden, and Denmark introduced increased wealth tax reforms. The evidence challenges corporate media claims that higher taxes on extreme wealth in the UK would lead to an exodus of the super rich.
Only the most fringe, super rich penny pinchers will leave
Tax Justice Network further states:
Research suggests that the majority of wealth holders have strong ties to their countries and a genuine desire to contribute as citizens. Factors such as family and social connections, access to education, and overall economic stability carry more weight than tax levels when it comes to their decision on whether to relocate
It points out:
Our tax proposal ensures that the amount payable by individuals in relation to their net worth remains minimal. For instance, an individual in Spain with a net wealth of 5 million would only pay 34,000 in taxes, which amounts to a mere 0.068 percent of their wealth.
So, the study calls out media claims that most super rich people would leave as “exaggerated and misleading”. When there were marginal increases in the wealth tax in Norway, only 30 out of 236,000 billionaires and millionaires in the country relocated.
Still, the Guardian – reporting on rich people leaving – went with the headline “super-rich abandoning Norway at record rate as wealth tax rises slightly”. One of the people who left Norway was its fourth richest man. But the amount gained from wealth tax increases overwhelmingly dwarfs the amount lost.
Tax Justice Network: solutions and problems
The new study is an in depth look at global inequality and how we can challenge it.
The Tax Justice Network found that globally countries could raise $2.2 trillion annually through following Spain’s wealth tax on the richest 0.5% of households. This is a tax on net wealth above a high threshold. So it’s very modest. It fully preserves peoples’ wealth that does not go over that threshold. Tax Justice Network says that the amount raised would be double what’s needed for developing countries to address climate change.
Such a wealth tax would address runaway economic inequality. Tax Justice Network found that, on average for countries it studied, half the population has just 3% of total wealth. Meanwhile, the richest 0.5% of people own 25.7% of total wealth, a percentage that’s only been increasing.
The organisation notes that a key reason behind this is the disparity between taxes on people working and taxes on people collecting wealth through rent, dividends, and capital gains. While governments tax work-based income progressively, they often apply a flat rate to income collected through owning something. Either that, or it’s not taxed at all.
Such a system results in the super rich in countries such as the UK, the US, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and France paying proportionately far less tax than low-middle income households. The progressive wealth tax would help solve this.
Tax Justice Network’s head of communications took the study to the BBC:
‘A 2-3% wealth tax on the richest 0.5% like Spain are doing could raise $2tn a year.’pic.twitter.com/qDwiYe3BRg
We get an update from Dhaka, where Bangladesh’s president dissolved Parliament on Tuesday, a day after the long-ruling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country amid a wave of student protests. The military says an interim government will be formed to lead the country to new elections, but its makeup remains unclear, with many students demanding the installation of Nobel Prize…
Affluent Americans say the economy is just fine — and they’re spending like it is, too. Meanwhile, lower-income consumers are feeling the brunt of a slowdown.
Why it matters: Deteriorating economic sentiment and activity among poorer Americans suggest the economy is at a turning point, even if it doesn’t show up in headline data, since higher-income consumers make up a disproportionate share of aggregate spending.
The share of consumers surveyed by the University of Michigan who volunteered that high prices were eroding their living standards in early July matched a peak first reached two years ago when inflation was at multidecade highs.
What they’re saying: “The lower income consumer is in their own personal recession unfortunately,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at the investment firm Bleakley Financial Group, wrote in a note.
Driving the news: The latest University of Michigan report shows that economic concerns are more prominent among poorer consumers than rich ones.
“Despite expecting inflation to ease, consumers remain vociferously frustrated at the persistence of high prices,” the survey’s director Joanne Hsu wrote in a note.
“In recent months, these comments have been much more prevalent among lower-income consumers, who typically have fewer financial resources to help buffer the pain of high prices,” Hsu wrote.
Hsu also noted that lower-income consumers were much more pessimistic about future earnings growth — in nominal and real terms — than higher-income counterparts.
The big picture: Richer consumers may have escaped some of the worst effects of the inflation shock and Fed tightening, particularly as financial assets soar in value.
Lower-income consumers tend to spend a larger share of their earnings on rent, food and gasoline — all categories that have been key sources of inflation in recent years.
Pandemic-era savings have run down; the cost of their debt is getting more expensive. They are less likely to reap benefits from the stock market’s gains.
The bottom half of workers were the sole group to see real wage gains during the peak inflation period. That pattern did not stick: “[T]oday’s growth in real wages is no longer closing the gap between low and high earners,” the Minneapolis Fed found.
The intrigue: Delinquency rates are rising for auto and credit card loans.
“It’s not like millionaires are starting to go delinquent. It’s more like where the rubber hits the road is where delinquencies are going up,” Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee told reporters last week.
“So far, like the unemployment rate, delinquencies are trending up, which in the past is a bad sign, but the level is still not especially pronounced,” Goolsbee added.
What to watch: JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, sees “a little bit of weakness” among lower-income consumers.
“You see a little bit of rotation of the spend out of discretionary into non-discretionary,” the bank’s CFO Jeremy Barnum told investors Friday during the bank’s quarterly earnings call. Barnum added this wasn’t surprising, given slightly higher unemployment and moderating economic growth.
Citigroup said consumers with lower credit scores are seeing a “sharper drop in payment rates” and more borrowing. Its customers with higher credit scores were driving spending growth, with “continued strong balances in savings,” according to its earnings report, also Friday.
As families across the UK gear up for the upcoming school year, the financial strain of purchasing branded school uniforms looms large for many parents.
School uniform: yearly stress
With the ongoing cost of living crisis, finding ways to save money and cut expenses has become a top priority.
One area where substantial savings can be made is in school uniforms. By lifting the requirement for branded kit, schools could help families see a significant reduction in back-to-school costs – and the stress that comes with them.
Inspired by a conversation between a mother and her child’s headteacher, which successfully led to the removal of branded school uniform requirements at her school, the personal finance experts at latestDeals.co.uk are stepping in to help other parents.
They have launched an innovative web tool, #UniformReform, designed to assist parents in advocating for more affordable and inclusive uniform policies.
How does the #UniformReform tool work?
The #UniformReform tool allows parents to quickly and easily generate a personalised letter to send to their child’s school.
Once generated, the letter is downloadable and printable, meaning that it can be sent via email or handed in physically.
This letter highlights the financial burden of branded uniforms and requests the school to consider adopting a more flexible uniform policy.
The financial impact of branded school uniform
Tom Church, co-founder and personal finance expert at latestDeals.co.uk, explains the significance of this initiative:
The cost of branded uniforms can be a substantial strain for many families, particularly those with multiple school-aged children who may attend different schools and don’t have the opportunity to pass on ‘hand-me-downs’ to their younger offspring.
By allowing non-branded alternatives, schools can lift a heavy burden from parents during these financially challenging times.
Typically, a branded school uniform can cost parents anywhere from 50-100% more than their non-branded counterparts. Aldi’s recent offering of a full primary school uniform for just £5 underscores the potential savings for families when non-branded options are permitted.
The response:
Tom shared that the tool has already seen a significant response from parents just weeks since its launch:
I’ve been amazed by how many people have generated a letter already. The rising cost of living makes it hard to afford branded school uniforms. This tool has made it simple to voice concerns and request a change.
Our goal is to support families and ensure their children can attend school without the added financial worry of expensive uniforms weighing heavy on the minds of parents.
Nottingham University hospitals NHS Trust’s maternity wards are currently under review. Specifically, an inquiry revealed that almost nothing has been done to combat racial bias between patients. This came over two years on from another inquiry on discrimination within the health service
No change at Nottingham University hospitals
Nonprofit Birthrights launched an investigation in March of 2022 on how healthcare professionals treat women of colour in maternity wards. It found that caregivers often dehumanised and subjected them to racism. In some cases, healthcare professionals even coerced women into taking medial treatments:
‘Most of the current policies from Government and NHS England are not explicitly recognising racial bias and discrimination – that is a glaring gap.’
‘A midwife told our inquiry, “one of the things that is embedded in the system is the blame put on black bodies.”‘ @AmyLWGibbspic.twitter.com/Araqoib9iv
After learning about these injustices within the medical space, Birthrights made a series of recommendations for the maternity system to embed. It said that:
We are calling for urgent and immediate action from all parts of the maternity system, including the implementation of our Universal Recommendations
These were to:
Commit to being anti-racist
Decolonise maternity curriculums and guidance
Make Black and Brown women the decision makers in their care and in the wider maternity system
Create safe, inclusive workforce cultures
Dismantle structural barriers to racial equity through national policy change
Nottingham University hospitals has been conducting another inquiry looking into its midwife Services. Despite being years on, it is still seeing the same types of racial prejudice in how services treat pregnant mothers.
Developing investigations
Donna Ockenden – a senior midwife who became concerned about the issue when she initially began interviewing mothers – is leading it. The Ockenden inquiry has been reviewing cases all the way back to 2012. Women have come forward with similar horror stories of bias and disrespect from staff workers, and even other patients, for a separate maternity review focused in the Shrewsbury and Telford areas.
The Nottingham University hospitals investigation into variation in treatment has found that approximately 300 newborns were left brain-damaged or dead. This change in procedure depending on ethnicity is a direct cause of the poorer care provided to Black and brown mothers, with nearly 40 stillbirths recorded between 2022-2024 alone.
The investigation was able to build a better picture of what was happening. The 774 different cases brought forward by families gave a wide range of results.
Despite general improvements to the service’s infant mortality rate and injury reduction, children with Black or brown parents are also still almost double as likely to be at risk of losing their child from pre-term (early) births compared to white parents. Ockenden said:
“Families have told us that they felt dismissed by the trust. They weren’t believed they were in labour. They weren’t believed they were in pain. They were denied admission to the trust” – Donna Ockenden
What’s next?
The Labour government has promised better funding and easier access to health services going into 2025. Labour’s manifesto said that:
With Labour, it will always be publicly owned and publicly funded. But our ambition goes beyond returning the NHS to what it was.
However, many have lost faith in the service through experiences in the past. If the NHS continues to not meet expectations of the public, it will not be successful.
Keir Starmer has suspended seven of his own Labour Party MPs for rebelling over the two-child benefit cap. John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum, and Zarah Sultana were punished after they backed a motion demanding the removal of the two-child limit on benefits introduced by the previous Conservative government.
The benefit cap restricts payments to the first two children born to most families. Why a Labour government would oppose feeding hungry children seems baffling. Until, that is, you consider that this is Starmer’s right-wing Labour government.
Starmer’s first test
MPs voted 363 to 103 to reject a Scottish National Party (SNP) amendment to scrap the cap, giving the government a majority of 260.
However, in addition to the seven who voted with the amendment, more than 40 Labour lawmakers recorded no vote. That shows the level of unease within the party at the measure.
Liverpool MP Kim Johnson said she had voted with the government “for unity” but warned that the strength of feeling within the party was “undeniable”.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said Labour had “failed its first major test in government” by choosing not to “deliver meaningful change from years of Tory misrule”. He continued:
This is now the Labour government’s two-child cap — and it must take ownership of the damage it is causing, including the appalling levels of poverty in the UK.
Sir Kid Starver
The popular nickname for Starmer, Sir Kid Starver, is once again making the rounds on social media:
Right for Labour to continue punishing *children* for having parents whose circumstances led them into relying on benefits usually through no fault of their own. Shame on you, shame on Dear Leader Starmer for punishing MPs who put country before party #SirKidStarverhttps://t.co/IANaeHc09apic.twitter.com/246nL0Lr9b
— Mrs Gee #WeAreCollective (@earthygirl011) July 24, 2024
The BBC’s political editor Chris Mason summarised Starmer’s actions:
A prime minister with a narrower majority, a less emphatic win, would perhaps not have dared act so boldly. But with a colossal majority, he has the scope to act ruthlessly, and put down a marker for the months ahead.
Embedding poverty
But, what’s the actual impact of keeping the policy in place?
Charity Barnardo’s chief executive Lynn Perry said:
The two-child limit on benefits is one of the biggest policy drivers of child poverty.
The majority of families receiving universal credit are in work, and many are struggling for reasons beyond their control – such as a family break-up, the death of a partner, or someone losing a job amid the cost-of-living crisis.
The Resolution Foundation found that two in five large families – families with three or more children – are affected by the benefit cap. They also found that in 2018, 70,000 families were affected by the two child limit. However, by April 2024 450,000 families were affected by the benefit cap. They continued:
The Foundation’s analysis shows that if the policy were abolished today, it would lift around 490,000 children out of poverty.
Let’s not mince words, here. When families are affected by the two-child benefit cap that means children are going hungry. It means families can’t afford to feed themselves. It’s as simple as that. And, either the prime minister cares about that or he doesn’t – and clearly he doesn’t.
Dissent
The suspension of MPs who believe children shouldn’t be forced into poverty has, of course, not gone down well with other MPs. Nadia Whittome said:
The government’s approach to party discipline has been appalling. No MP should have lost the whip for their vote this evening, especially on a policy that almost everyone in Labour opposes.
If “almost everyone” does actually oppose the policy, then clearly they’re putting politics before people. Whittome continued:
Our party has a huge majority. If it is to govern from a position of strength, it should be able to tolerate disagreement without making threats and employing the most severe punishments.
This does not breed a healthy culture. If MPs are unable to stand up to the frontbench when they think they’re wrong, the government is more likely to make poor decisions.
A healthy culture is something Starmer has long abandoned during his leadership with the purging of left-wing members.
Joke country
Meanwhile, because Britain is a joke of a country, the King will be receiving a near-50% pay increase. That means Charlie will have an extra £45 million income. Money is not the problem. Politics is the problem. We have a political system full of politicians that take their turn in the hot seat to facilitate the sinking of thousands of people around the country into avoidable poverty. There’s a new nasty party in town, it appears.
A new benchmark – like the Living Wage Employer standard – is needed to enable businesses to tackle the scale and depth of in-work poverty, think tank the Social Market Foundation says.
Social Market Foundation: in-work poverty a “major issue”
The Social Market Foundation (SMF) has launched a proposal for an in-work poverty benchmark. It is designed to enable employers to tackle in-work poverty among their staff, supply chain and the communities they operate in.
Over three years, the SMF has been exploring in-work poverty in the capital, businesses’ desire and barriers to addressing it, and has proposed a tool that could help them in doing so.
In-work poverty is a major issue in the UK, and has increased over the last two decades. It is most acute in the capital, with around a third (32%) of households where at least one adult is employed were in poverty in 2022/23.
Private sector and public sector employees that spoke to SMF as part of its in-work poverty project expressed a clear need for better provisions for sick pay, flexibility, in-work progression and upskilling, sufficient hours and subsidies to cover the high cost of living in the capital.
The SMF’s proposals come at a time when Keir Starmer and the Labour government have put employment reforms front and centre of legislative changes at the King’s Speech.
A new benchmark for employers
Its proposed benchmark – similar to the Living Wage Employer scheme, where businesses commit to paying their employees a wage that meets the basic cost of living – is designed with relatively low barriers to entry and providing clear “pathway” for firms to follow to improve their anti-poverty offer, and could play a key part in helping the Labour government achieve it’s ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ ambitions.
Previous Social Market Foundation (SMF) research found that an overwhelming majority (84%) of London’s businesses viewed in-work poverty among their workers as a concern, and that 70% of them are motived to help tackle it by taking voluntary measures above and beyond legal minimums – such as paying the National Living Wage.
While the benchmark has been developed with Londoners and London employers in mind, it is just as relevant for and applicable to businesses in the other parts of the UK, the SMF said.
The proposed benchmark is unique in that it covers a wide variety of drivers of in-work poverty, encouraging businesses to help employees with cost of living pressures, financial resilience, and pay and conditions.
The SMF’s proposed benchmark has been taken on by the Living Wage Foundation, who will be leading on a new phase of the benchmark development process, with continued SMF involvement, and exploring how to transform the benchmark into a practical business tool, trusted by employers, investors, consumers and workers:
Making a “big difference” to in-work poverty
Richard Hyde, senior researcher at Social Market Foundation, said:
In-work poverty is a huge problem in London. The contrast between the wealth of the UK’s capital on the one hand, and the high rates of poverty of those in work on the other, is stark. It poses a real challenge to politicians and we need feasible ways of dealing with it.
The SMF spent three years developing the outline of a potentially practical remedy. Building on the available evidence base about the causes of in-work poverty and following extensive engagement with stakeholders from the business community as well as trade unions, poverty charities, the public sector and with relevant academics, we have proposed a comprehensive in-work poverty benchmark for employers that could help encourage businesses to take the kinds of steps that will make a big difference to those workers in London that are stuck in in-work poverty.
We are very excited to see this idea being taken forward by the highly respected Living Wage Foundation, who have been leading the fight in the UK against in-work poverty for many years with their ground-breaking use of employer accreditations to tackle this problem.
Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation, said:
More than 15,000 UK employers have committed to paying the real Living Wage, including 3,900 in the capital. It’s clear that many employers want to play their part in tackling poverty. With nearly a million adults in London living in poverty despite living in a working household, this commitment is crucial.
This benchmark sets out how employers can go even further by boosting pay and conditions, supporting workers with the rising cost of living, and fostering long-term economic resilience among their workforce.
We’re thrilled to be launching a project to translate this benchmark into something that will work in practice, aiming to develop an accreditation for responsible employers and change the face of in-work poverty in London and across the UK.
“Work should be a way out of poverty” – but it’s not
Klara Skrivankova, director of grants at Trust for London said:
Work should be a way out of poverty. But more than half of Londoners in poverty are working.
Businesses can help change this and do more to support workers. We know that many employers want to, but often don’t know how.
This benchmark puts forward an actionable, measurable approach that will help businesses to play their part in addressing in-work poverty in London.
The death toll in Bangladesh from a crackdown on massive student protests has risen to at least 174, with more than 2,500 people arrested, after police and soldiers were granted “shoot-on-sight” orders amid the unrest. The protests were in response to a highly contested quota system for civil service jobs, with 30% of government positions reserved for relatives of veterans who fought in the…
Content warning: this article continues descriptions of physical and emotional abuse that some readers may find upsetting.
With the police’s announcement that there is a “national emergency” over a rise in violent crime against women and girls – with a record number of nearly 3,000 crimes reported daily – you would automatically assume that this crime is happening on the streets. Or maybe you would think that these crimes are happening in poorer areas of the country – you know, the really run down places that you wouldn’t want to be in on a cold, dark night.
But what if I told you that this is happening to women and girls in loving, well-cared-for homes with the crimes being carried out by medical professionals and social services? Because it is.
It is happening right now, as I type, to Megan McIntyre.
On Tuesday 23 July a protest took place to raise awareness of an 18 year-old woman called Megan McIntyre who is allegedly being mistreated, physically and verbally abused, and held against her will in an NHS facility after being violently taken from her home:
But this wasn’t by criminal thugs or gang members – well, not officially anyway.
This was by the police, social services, and medical professionals.
Megan McIntyre’s voice
Megan is a Scottish and English national disabled gymnast and athlete:
She lives in Scotland with her mother Shona McIntyre who is also her legal guardian:
Megan’s ARFID was triggered after an incident at her gym. For the last seven months she has begun losing weight – although she was eating three meals a day with snacks. As a concerned mother would, Shona took her daughter to see a dietitian who simply offered Megan “health shakes”.
When the shakes arrived, Megan – noticing the difference in packaging and texture – refused to take them. Living with ARFID, she would only take her usual protein drinks. This was a clear sign of the illness that medical professionals completely disregarded.
Megan continued to lose weight, with medical professionals and authorities accusing Shona of “not cooperating” and “not trying different things”.
With Megan now losing 2kg every week and with no offer of a home IV drip, Shona asked her GP if Megan could be given nasogastric (NG) tube feeding at home. Shona believed this would be a solution to her daughter’s serious weight loss due to the ARFID.
Sadly this was again refused. And the situation then got seriously worse.
Ripped from her home
On Monday 15 July whilst Megan and Shona were at home, three police vans, a doctor, a social worker, and nurses arrived at their property. As Shona wrote on a petition for Megan:
They demanded to be let in or they would use force to break the door down.
I let them in as they had a warrant. They found my daughter hiding under the bed.
The fear in her eyes was awful, she ran and tried to get out the front door it was locked, down she ran into my bedroom in to the bathroom.
By this point I couldn’t count how many people where swarming our home. I asked them to back off from the bathroom as she was getting so distressed, they refused, so I attempted to close the door a bit more for her privacy.
The policeman was in the way, in my distress I hadn’t realised, he grabbed me and pinned me on the bed and put handcuffs on me, they held my ankles and pushed my face into the bed and told me I had assaulted an officer. My neighbour was here so witnessed it all and said I most definitely didn’t assault anyone.
Then the screaming began. Screams that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Taken from her life
As Shona was being handcuffed and held down by cops:
Four police officers dragged [Megan] out of bathroom… she was trying to grab onto anything, I couldn’t see properly as they kept pressing my head into bed.
When she saw me she yelled let go of her, Megan doesn’t speak much so this shows level of distress too. I didn’t see what happened after as they tore my vulnerable girl away from her safe space. My neighbour said she’s glad I didn’t see.
They took her to an unknown place and for hours no one knew where she was. Eventually we were told. She had been taken to a locked adult Learning Disability Psych ward. I asked to see her they refused saying she was too distressed. I said I hope you haven’t pinned her and drugged her, they said they hadn’t.
I called in the morning they said she had slept well….the reason for that was they had drugged her and pinned her without telling me so she was totally sedated so no wonder she slept!
When Shona was finally told where her daughter was being held she was informed that she “will be safer at a hospital – not in the community”.
The William Fraser Centre – accused of mistreatment
Megan had been taken to the William Fraser Centre at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, which is a unit for the provision of psychiatric care and treatment for learning disabled people. Clearly not a medical ward, Shona goes on to describe the horrors that she then found her daughter in:
I visited the next morning at 10am, I was asked to leave at 11am after no explanation or answers to any of my questions were given! Megan clung to me and for the next two hours they tried to prise her arm and hands off me using force and restraint but she didn’t let go she held on through the pain.
This went on for almost two and half hours.
She had told me they lay on the back of her knees crushing them into the floor and she could hardly walk when she got up. She has hypermobility and is recovering from an knee injury.
Shona has not been accused of neglect and is Megan’s legal guardian. Yet she has not received any paperwork, documents, or emails over the decision to remove Megan from her care.
Whilst Megan has been under the care of the William Fraser Clinic she has continued to lose weight – 2kgs in just five days. Staff have allegedly forcibly manhandled and physically assaulted her, and even called her a “spoiled brat”.
The hospital has also decided that Shona is not allowed on the premises to even see Megan. All of this has led Shona to having to set up a petition for legal support.
Time to protest for Megan McIntyre
Crucially, with a lack of ARFID specialists to help Shona managed to get in touch with an organisation called Autistic Inclusive Meets UK. Its CEO, activist and author Emma Dalmayne, told the Canary:
When we heard about the unconscionable abuse Megan is suffering at the hands of mental health staff in The William Frasier Centre Centre, we knew we had to act; and act quickly. The staff responsible should be charged with assault.
Megan should not be there, she is not mentally ill. Tragically, we have see many cases of autistic people being taken by force and placed into unsuitable settings, this won’t be the last person repeatedly assaulted and discriminated against. More education is desperately needed.
So, along with Shona, friends, and allies they took direct action outside of the facility holding Megan. Using #MegansVoice and #FreeMegan they desperately tried to raise awareness of Megan’s situation:
As Shona told the Canary:
My beautiful and vulnerable daughter is dying
As the protest from 11am-3pm continued outside of the William Fraser Centre the Canary was given footage showing Megan trying to hold Shona’s hand through the window of the facility and desperately seen trying to take “safe” food from her:
The upsetting footage also shows Megan explaining that staff are hurting her, and that she just wants to go home with her mum:
The Canary contacted NHS Lothian, which runs the William Fraser Centre, for comment but it had not responded at the time of publication.
Violence against women and girls: a systemic emergency – in the system
Shona will continue to protest in the hope of getting the right support for Megan – and to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Yet we are as chronically ill and disabled people constantly left in this position.
From people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) to people living with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), from #MaeveInquiry to #SaveCarlasLife and #BringMillieHome, there is a clear, systemic issue that needs to be addressed here.
Why are so many of these women’s medical needs dismissed, leaving them at risk of violence against them?
Just why are so many mothers disbelieved and not taken seriously when they know their child better than anyone else?
And why are so many women’s serious conditions completely disregarded by our NHS – from ARFID to instabilities of the neck like craniocervical and atlantoaxial?
And why does it seem that this mentality is spreading within our society and also within practiced medicine?
What more can chronically ill and disabled people do? What more can Shona do?
We have protested, we have blocked roads, we have made documentaries, and we have gone to parliament. Shona and so many of us are shouting as loud as we can. Yet still, no one seems to hear us.
You can sign the petition in support of Megan here.
Featured image and additional images and videos supplied
On Tuesday 23 July, campaigners, politicians, and trade unions gathered at parliament to call on the new Labour Party government to provide #FreeSchoolMealsForAll. You’d think, given the evidence, that giving all primary and secondary children free school meals would be a sure-fire move from Keir Starmer’s government.
‘Free School Meals For All’: campaigning at parliament
It shouldn’t need saying, but providing free school meals to all primary and secondary school children in England is a crucial measure that can significantly improve the health, well-being, and educational outcomes of millions of students.
Currently, the entitlement to free school meals is limited, leaving many children from low-income families without access to this essential support. Expanding this program to include all students would address food insecurity, promote equality, and enhance academic performance.
So, the National Education Union (NEU)-powered campaign No Child Left Behind organised a rally outside parliament on 23 July:
Today 200+ people are in Parliament Square to demand that the new Government end child hunger in schools.
Of course, these people were right to call on Labour to act – as the situation and the evidence shows just why the government needs to.
Entrenched poverty and inequality
As of 2022, approximately 4.3 million children in the UK live in poverty, accounting for around 31% of all children. In England, about 1.9 million children are eligible for free school meals, but this leaves a substantial number of children who are still in need but do not meet the eligibility criteria. This is because of Universal Credit’s tight rules around free school meals.
The current system fails to cover children from working-poor families who earn just above the threshold, resulting in many children missing out on the benefits of free meals.
Food insecurity is a pressing issue that also affects children’s ability to learn and thrive.
According to a report by the Food Foundation, 14% of households with children experienced food insecurity in 2021. Children who are hungry or malnourished are less likely to concentrate in class. This in turn leads to poorer educational outcomes.
By providing free school meals to all children, England can ensure that every child receives at least one nutritious meal a day. This is fundamental for their physical and cognitive development.
Promoting equality, enhancing performance
Free school meals for all would also promote equality among students.
The current system creates a visible divide between those who receive free meals and those who do not. This potentially leads to stigma and social exclusion. By offering free meals to every child regardless of their background, schools can foster a more inclusive environment where all students are treated equally.
This universal approach would help eliminate the shame and embarrassment that some children might feel. It would encourage better social integration and a sense of belonging.
Research has consistently shown that well-nourished children perform better academically. A study by the Institute for Social and Economic Research found that children who received free school meals made more progress in school than those who did not.
Proper nutrition is linked to improved concentration, better behavior, and higher attendance rates. All of these contribute to better educational outcomes. By ensuring that all children have access to nutritious meals, schools can create a more level playing field and help close the achievement gap.
‘An investment in all our futures’
Experts in nutrition and education advocate strongly for the expansion of free school meals.
Dr Mary Bousted, former joint general secretary of the NEU, argues that:
a universal free school meals program would be a game-changer for education in England. It would remove the barriers that hunger creates and allow all children to engage fully in their learning.
Similarly, Dr Megan Blake, a food security expert at the University of Sheffield, emphasises the long-term benefits:
Investing in free school meals for all is an investment in the future of our country. Well-fed children are healthier, more focused, and better equipped to succeed academically and socially.
Overall, as the No Child Left Behind campaign says:
We are living through the greatest cost of living crisis in a generation, and too many families with young children are being pulled into poverty.
Free school meals for every child will put money back in parents’ pockets. That’s money they can use to pay for other essentials for their children, from heating and food at home to hobbies and after-school clubs.
Free school meals: do it now, Labour
Implementing free school meals for all primary and secondary school children in England is a necessary step toward addressing child poverty, promoting equality, and enhancing educational outcomes.
With a significant number of children living in poverty and many more experiencing food insecurity, a universal free school meals program would ensure that every child has access to the nutrition they need to thrive.
By investing in the health and well-being of our children, we invest in the future prosperity of our society.
You can support the No Child Left Behind campaign. Use its template to write to your MP here. Also, sign its open letter here.
The death toll in Bangladesh from a crackdown on massive student protests has risen to at least 174, with more than 2,500 people arrested, after police and soldiers were granted “shoot-on-sight” orders amid the unrest. The protests were in response to a highly contested quota system for civil service jobs, with 30% of government positions reserved for relatives of veterans who fought in the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971. The country’s high court rolled that back Sunday to only 5%, but students are still demanding that a curfew be fully lifted, schools reopened, and detained students and protest leaders released. “The collective anger that you’re seeing is over inequality, lack of opportunity, and a perception that those who are close to the ruling class and ruling elite are getting all the benefits,” says journalist Salil Tripathi, author of a book on the Bangladeshi war of independence.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The king’s speech on Wednesday 17 July was nothing if a direct play to the Labour Party’s now-target audience: the middle classes and middle England. Because within the 39 bills, there was nothing that would directly support the poorest and most marginalised people in the UK.
Labour: the party of Gordon Brittases
Keir Starmer’s ‘landslide’ victory was mainly thanks to politicians and those in power spending decades disenfranchising the poorest people from democracy – so, on 4 July they didn’t even bother voting. Labour, rather than ‘sweeping’ to power, cuckolded in off the back of a hatred of the Tories and an equal disdain for politicians of all stripes.
Based on preliminary analysis, Labour’s voter base consisted of the middle classes and middle England. There was a smattering of working-class people who voted for them. But overall, the poorest people abandoned all political parties; a theme since 2015.
So, New-New Labour has a mandate – but only if that mandate is a government of middle managers tasked with overseeing the dregs of colonial Britain. Ergo, the king’s speech on 17 July was a fitting agenda for this party of Gordon Brittases.
Mealy-mouthed measures dressed up as radicality
For example, snivelling trade unions have been making an almighty fuss about Labour’s New Deal for Working People. In reality, it’s a mealy-mouthed piece of corporate servility dressed up as something radical. For the avoidance of any doubt, Labour is:
NOT giving all workers rights from day one. There is a loophole which will let bosses “operate probationary periods to assess new hires”. Cue said bosses making one-year probationary period.
NOT making flexible working mandatory. Bosses only have to implement this “as far as is reasonable”.
In other words, Starmer’s band of David Lloyd area managers have promised a load of shit with their fingers crossed behind their backs.
Elsewhere in the king’s speech, there was the predictable anti-immigrant laws, an improvement on conversion therapy nullified by Wes ‘twunk on a ship‘ Streeting’s ban on treatments for trans teenagers, and the renationalisation of the railways which isn’t really full renationalisation at all.
A lot for the few, nothing for me and you
However, the glaring omission from Labour’s plan to *insert PR firm-created buzz phrase here* was anything – literally ANYTHING – for poor people.
For example, outlets like the Big Issue – which present themselves as somehow radical, LOL – have trumpeted Labour’s Renter’s Rights Bill because of the banning of no-fault evictions and laws around safety in properties. But this is window-dressing when parasitic landlords (i.e. all of them) can still charge whatever the hell they want.
Moreover, this particular bill is the prime example of Labour playing to its new voter base. Most of the poorest people in the UK do NOT privately rent. They live in social housing. It’s the middle classes who have the largest proportion of private renters.
But why would Labour do anything for any of these people? In the hollowed-out husk of the already splintered remnants of what politicians repeatedly told us was a democracy, their voices don’t matter – and never really have.
The king’s speech from Charlie outlined the Labour Party’s first programme for government in 15 years. Wearing the diamond-studded Imperial State Crown, his Admiral of the Fleet uniform and the crimson Robe of State – whatever the hell that all is – he delivered Labour’s proposals from a golden throne in the House of Lords upper chamber after a carriage procession from Buckingham Palace.
Prime minister and professional wet wipe Keir Starmer said:
We will unlock growth and take the brakes off Britain.
Whatever that means also.
The details of the speech promised a new border security command with beefed-up “counter-terror powers” to curb “immigration crime.” Starmer pledged to “smash the gangs” behind migrant crossings of the Channel from northern France.
Great, the starving kids will be ecstatic to hear it.
King’s Speech: read the room
Commenters on X also took a dim view of the proceedings:
Just a reminder that as King Charles travels across London in his golden chariot, wearing the crown jewels worth 4 billion pounds to sit on his gold throne…
Green MP Sian Berry pointed out what Starmer missed out from the king’s speech:
Listened intently but what was clearly missing from the #KingsSpeech was INVESTMENT. NHS Council homes Green New Deal And powers for councils to run buses are but little use without INVESTMENT! Green MPs will keep making the case that our country deserves better. https://t.co/gMnx33TYA4
And, it’s hard to get away from the cost of the whole palaver:
Britain today:
Record numbers turning to food banks while a million-pound-hat gets a private escort in its own fancy Royal carriage. And we’re made to pay for it all too.
Hospitals in England are being hit with disruptions to patients’ care more than 100 times every week because of fires, leaks and problems created by outdated buildings.
And Charles has the audacity to sit in front of a gold wall, wearing stolen jewels, to read out Starmer’s burbling about brakes?
Corrupt
More people couldn’t believe the sheer wealth on display during the king’s speech:
– 14.5m people living in poverty, including almost one in three children
– 30.6m Britons unable to afford the cost of essentials
And, that wealth made its way round to the jokers not covered in furs and jewels. openDemocracy’s Adam Ramsey wrote in 2023:
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.
Former leader of the Green party, Caroline Lucas, said:
Plenty to welcome in new #KingsSpeech but lots of gaps too – eg no commitment to taking water sector out of grip of profiteers & putting into public hands, no plan to address poverty including lifting brutal 2 child benefit cap, and a big hole where nature restoration should be
The two-child benefit cap is a shocking omission. The SNP are joining with Labour rebels to force the government to scrap the cap. The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said:
The two-child cap is pushing thousands of Scottish children into poverty – and scrapping it is the bare minimum the Labour Party government must do if it is serious about tackling poverty.
Howard Beckett made the link that often has to be made:
1.6ml children are impacted by the Tories two child benefit cap
For all Starmer’s barely disguised dogwhistles about immigration, his actual policies laid out in the speech don’t seem to do much to tackle child poverty, a broken benefits system, or a crumbling NHS. No matter which monarch it is, and no matter which prime minister it is, this country is broken because our political system is broken.
It’s outrageous that we even have these rich scroungers as figureheads of the country reading out a speech from a government that has dragged the labour movement further and further to the right.
As usual, Britain has no idea how much of a joke it looks to the rest of the world.
On 15 July, news emerged from Glasgow that 3,000 children are currently homeless. While this is a particularly harrowing statistic for Scotland’s largest city, this homelessness crisis is not confined to Glasgow or Scotland. It is a reflection of a broader, more pervasive issue that plagues the entire UK. The responsibility for this crisis does not lie squarely with the SNP. Because it’s the Conservative Party which has failed to address the systemic issues that underpin child homelessness.
Glasgow: a microcosm on UK homelessness
The stark reality in Glasgow is a microcosm of the UK-wide homelessness crisis. Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of children are without a stable home, a situation that has profound implications for their health, education, and future prospects. The Conservative Party, which was in power at Westminster for 14 years, bears sole responsibility for this dire state of affairs. Austerity measures, cuts to social services, and a failure to invest adequately in social housing have all contributed to the rising tide of homelessness.
For Scotland in particular, successive Tory governments also cut block grant funding – meaning by 2021 it was worth around 2% less per person. However, the news about Glasgow’s homelessness crisis came at the same time the Herald revealed the Scottish government had cut its affordable housing budget.
However, thanks to botched devolution, Scotland is still tied to the rest of the UK. Decisions politicians and others make at Westminster, in the Bank of England, and the Treasury and other departments still impact north of the border.
Meanwhile, under Tory leadership local authorities across England have seen their budgets slashed, leading to a reduction in support services that are crucial for vulnerable families. The Bedroom Tax, Benefit Cap, and Universal Credit system have disproportionately affected low-income households, pushing many into precarious housing situations. These policies have created a perfect storm, leaving hundreds of thousands of children without a safe place to call home.
Labour: more of the same?
The recent change in Westminster government, with the Labour Party now at the helm, has brought renewed hope for tackling homelessness. However, its plans will not go far enough. Broadly, the party has pledged to do very little different to the Conservatives – and has made only vague statements around social housing.
Another key criticism of Labour’s approach is that it does not address the root causes of homelessness.
While building more social housing is undoubtedly necessary, it must be accompanied by broader reforms to the welfare system, healthcare, and education. Homelessness is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted response. Without addressing the underlying economic and social factors that contribute to homelessness, Labour’s plans risk being little more than a sticking plaster on a broken leg.
Moreover, Labour’s plans must contend with the legacy of austerity and cuts that have left local authorities struggling to provide basic services. Reversing these cuts and restoring funding to essential support services will be critical in providing the safety net that vulnerable families need. This includes mental health services, addiction support, and employment programs that can help families break the cycle of homelessness.
A Starmer government will not end homelessness
The homelessness crisis among children in Glasgow is a national disgrace that demands urgent action. It is a stark reminder of the failures of both the Conservative Party and the SNP to protect the most vulnerable members of society.
The new Labour government must rise to the challenge and implement bold, comprehensive measures to address the root causes of homelessness. This includes not only building more social housing but also reforming the welfare system, investing in support services, and tackling the broader social and economic inequalities that drive homelessness.
Sadly, it is unlikely it will do this.
The plight of 3,000 homeless children in Glasgow is a tragic reflection of a much larger problem that affects the entire UK. It is imperative that all levels of government work together to create a society where no child has to experience the trauma and instability of homelessness.
Over two-thirds of Welsh billpayers (70%) are calling for energy suppliers to automatically return any customer credit in their account after winter following the success of a mass protest which saw 20,000 demand their cash back. It comes after a campaign group revealed energy companies are hoarding £3bn in customer credit.
Energy suppliers sitting on £3bn of customer credit
Over 20,000 customers joined the Big Energy Credit Claim Back launched in May, which urged supporters to reclaim unused customer credit. The protest was launched after a Warm This Winter investigation revealed UK energy suppliers are sitting on over £3 BILLION worth of customer credit, with nearly a third of UK households (32%) in the black to their energy supplier all year.
Further analysis found that the combined bank interest energy suppliers have made through customer credit balances was at least £159m in 2023.
Billpayers have claimed back an average of £330 from energy suppliers in the mass protest organised by the Warm This Winter coalition which is now calling on the next government and Ofgem to introduce an automatic credit return of people’s cash after each winter.
Hailed as a huge success for people power, Warm This Winter spokesperson Fiona Waters said:
People are fed up with energy suppliers keeping hold of their cash, making millions in interest on it and then customers often struggle to get their money back from reluctant suppliers. It’s common sense that after winter, if they have credit on their account it should automatically be returned to them and that’s why so many people joined the Big Energy Credit Claim Back.
The campaign proves that by a simple measure, bill payers can slash on average over £300 from their annual energy bills which is much needed and there is no real reason why an automatic cash back isn’t implemented.
Get your customer credit back
Customers who pay their energy bills by direct debit are incentivised with better deals to spread payments over 12 months, building up a pot of credit from July onwards to cover the winter months when they will be using more energy on heating.
In May, if their account is in credit, then experts including Martin Lewis have pinpointed this as the time to reset their balance and get back credit before they start saving again in July.
But under the current system, this is not automatic and instead, the onus is on consumers to claim back their credit which can be complex and in some cases, suppliers do not return the excess credit.
New research by Warm This Winter on how easy it is to claim back credit revealed nearly a third of Welsh billpayers (28%) found it difficult to get credit back.
Nearly a quarter (24%) felt their direct debit payments had been set too high and of those who got their credit back 13% were paid after a fortnight or more, 6% are still waiting for their money to be returned at the time of polling and 14% were refused their money even though they were in credit.
Simon Francis coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition commented:
Credit hoarding by energy suppliers must become a thing of the past.
Over a third of people in permanent credit to their energy firms live in households with low incomes and may have cut back on energy use or other essentials because the direct debits set by energy firms are far too high.
Let’s hope that once general election fever is over the regulator wakes up and introduces a new licence condition on suppliers that credit balances are refunded after each winter on an opt-out basis.
A ‘disgrace’
The Warm This Winter research conducted by Opinium this month which surveyed over 2,000 people across the UK also revealed a quarter of Welsh people (23%) who paid by direct debit found understanding how their direct debits were calculated was difficult and a similar number (22%) of UK adults felt it was also hard to understand how much energy they use.
Groups that also backed the Big Energy Credit Claim Back include 38 Degrees, National Pensioners Convention, and Fuel Poverty Action. They have also called for Ofgem and the next government to close this loophole.
Jonathan Bean from Fuel Poverty Action said:
It’s disgraceful that Ofgem has allowed energy firms to hoard our money during the cost of living crisis. Our money should be refunded automatically, with interest. Energy firms are deliberately overcharging and making it hard to get the refunds we are due. This exploitation must stop.
Economic growth allows the few to grow ever-wealthier. Ending poverty and environmental catastrophe demands fresh thinking
Economic growth will bring prosperity to all. This is the mantra that guides the decision-making of the vast majority of politicians, economists and even human rights bodies.
Yet the reality – as detailed in a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council this month – shows that while poverty eradication has historically been promised through the “trickling down” or “redistribution” of wealth, economic growth largely “gushes up” to a privileged few.
While the Conservative Party is crowing about GDP and the fact the UK has technically come out of a recession, buried in the figures was some news they probably didn’t want you to hear: your disposable income has actually fallen since 2019. In fact, it has been the worst period for income growth since at least the 1950s.
The UK: out of recession… technically…
Britain’s economy emerged from a short-lived recession in the first quarter with stronger-than-anticipated growth, upwardly revised data showed Friday, lifting embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before next week’s general election.
GDP grew 0.7% in the first three months of this year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, upgrading the prior growth estimate of 0.6%. Market expectations had been for no change.
The surprise modest improvement was driven by the services sector, with slightly stronger activity in the professional services, transport and storage.
However, the ONS had revealed earlier this month that the UK economy had stagnated in April with zero growth, but the performance was hit by wet weather.
The economy contracted slightly for two quarters in a row in the second half of 2023, meeting the technical definition of a recession that was caused by elevated inflation that has prolonged a cost-of-living crisis.
But behind these figures was bad news for the rest of us.
Tories: presiding over a fall in your disposable income
Real household disposable income (RHDI) was one per cent lower in Q4 2023 (the latest data at the time of the last General Election) than it was in Q4 2019. Although there is still more data to be released before we can conclusively assess progress up to the 2024 election, it is likely that the 2019-2024 Parliament will have been the worst for income growth since at least the 1950s.
Moreover, it also found that:
Taking a longer view, typical non-pensioner incomes have grown since 2009-10, by £1,900, or 7 per cent. But again, this level of income growth – equivalent to an average annual real-terms change of 0.5 per cent, or £140 a year – is unusually low by historical standards.
And had we experienced the same level of growth in median incomes between 2007 and 2022 as the Netherlands, France and Germany, the UK’s median income in 2022-23 would be £2,700 higher than actually observed.
The economy is a top issue for many voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election. In a lengthy interview ahead of the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, world-renowned progressive economist Robert Pollin offers a detailed and thorough assessment of the actual state of the U.S. economy and the effects of Biden’s economic policies. Pollin is a distinguished university…
Poverty should be the headline general election issue
CAP’s director of external affairs, Gareth McNab, said:
Poverty in the UK is a matter of public urgency. It’s vital that any candidate standing in this general election appreciates this is an emergency situation. National polling that CAP commissioned with YouGov last year showed that almost 90 percent of adults in the UK want to see poverty tackled.
Data from our online tool shows more than 4,700 emails have already been sent to candidates, with 56% asking what their candidates are doing to tackle poverty locally.
14.3 million people including 4.3 million children, are living in poverty in the UK, according to the DWP. However, most recently the Trades Union Congress (TUC) released new figures. As the Canary previously reported TUC analysis shows that the number of kids living in poverty with at least one parent in work increased by 900,000 (44%) between 2010 and 2023 – the equivalent to 1,350 a week.
The TUC says in 2023 there were three million kids in working households living below the breadline in the UK.
Children growing up in poverty in working households now account for:
69% of all children in poverty.
24% of all children in working households.
Spiralling debt
Meanwhile, according to CAP their debt service is unable to help almost half of the people who come to them for help because they are trapped in deficit budgets (meaning no matter how much a person cuts back, their essential outgoings are higher than their income).
In addition to increasing people’s income to meet the Minimum Income Standard, we also need to focus on public services such as public transport and free school meals, which will help to keep people’s costs down.
The online tool provided by CAP allows people to easily question their general election prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) about what they are doing to tackle poverty. Anyone can use CAP’s online tool here, which takes just a couple of minutes to fill out and send.
Poverty: an impossible situation
Anthony spoke about why poverty matters to the election this year. He said:
This is an impossible situation, and I just see the divide between the rich and poor growing greater. Even though I only spend money on essentials such as food and bills, and even skip meals, my monthly income is £200 short.
I’d love to get to the point where I could afford to take my kids to watch a film, but unless poverty is put on the political agenda, I can’t see any end in sight. The help provided by Christians Against Poverty has given me a glimmer of hope, but it shouldn’t be left to charities.
Janine Jackson: If you use the word “democracy” unsarcastically, you likely think it has something to do with, not only every person living in a society having some say in the laws and policies that govern them, but also the idea that everyone should be able to know what’s going on, besides voting, that influences that critical decision-making.
#WeAreCollective (@earthygirl011) 
Today 200+ people are in Parliament Square to demand that the new Government end child hunger in schools.
AEP & 
(@holte) 
NHS
but little use without INVESTMENT!