radiofree.asia

Category: UK

  • Starmer’s latest U-turn is his most striking yet

    Keir Starmer U-turns so often that he should probably be interviewed on a roundabout. His dedication to gyration was on full display this Sunday when Laura Kuenssberg asked him about the so-called ‘conflict’ in the Middle East:

    A man of (non-military) action

    Kuenssberg showed Starmer the following video:

    Starmer responded, as reported by the BBC:

    Sir Keir insisted there was “no inconsistency” between his previous comments and his support for the air strikes in Yemen, telling the programme that there is a difference between this action on Houthi targets and “sustained” military action.

    A couple of problems with this.

    Firstly, that wasn’t a distinction he made previously. Secondly, how do we know the strikes against Yemen aren’t going to result in “sustained” military action? You can’t punch someone in the nose then act surprised when a fight ensues. Or maybe he could? Because – let’s face it – the man is either completely without shame or an idiot.

    People had a lot to say about Starmer’s latest interview:

     

    Starmer was already attracting criticism beforehand:

    And the embarrassment is spreading:

     

    Arms for the rich

    Starmer managed to slip another U-turn into his interview – this time on arming Saudi Arabia:

    The BBC reported:

    Separately pressed on whether he had changed commitment to stop the UK selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Sir Keir said he supported a review into all UK arms sales which will “make clear” what Labour’s position is.

    Once again, Starmer was confronted by his own words from 2020 when he said (as reported by the National):

    the UK “should stop the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia” over concerns about their use in the Yemen civil war.

    In response to his own stance, Mr Robot repeated:

    We will do a review to look at the sales, look at the countries and the relationships we have.

    And then just:

    We will do a review.

    When you need to carry out a review to confirm if you’re planning to do what you said you would, things are clearly very far from “clear”:

     

    A man of his word (just not the words he literally says)

    So here’s the question: is it really Starmer’s fault if people take him at his literal word, and not the second, unspoken meaning he secretly thinks in his head?

    The answer to that question is ‘no’. Although, in true Starmer-style, by ‘no’, we actually mean ‘yes’.

    Featured image via BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The BBC is freezing out the one party with answers – and it’s easy to see why

    The BBC is supposedly governed by a charter which ensures balanced political reporting. As we all know, what they actually do is split their time equally between:

    • The party of the status quo (i.e. the government).
    • The wannabe party of the status quo (i.e. the ‘opposition’).
    • Whatever party Nigel Farage is involved with.

    What this means is that there’s little – and often zero – time given to parties that challenge the status quo. And when you read the Green Party deputy leader’s roundup of this week’s political shows, it’s clear that this is a party which is challenging the status quo:

    Side one of the same arse: David Cameron

    Some of you may be old enough to remember that foreign secretary David Cameron was once the prime minister. He arguably didn’t resign in ‘disgrace’, but he certainly resigned having fucked up a massive political gamble – namely on the Brexit referendum. He’d certainly behaved disgracefully when in government, of course, and he also behaved disgracefully after; most notably in the ‘Greensill Scandal’.

    As we wrote in 2021 (back when Andrew Marr was washing the government’s dirty laundry every Sunday):

    David Cameron is at the heart of it, and people have accused him of corruption. This is because of his lobbying for his mate Lex Greensill, who was the owner of Greensill Capital. Greensill worked for Cameron as an adviser when Cameron was PM.

    Then, when Cameron quit, he in turn went to work for Greensill. During the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Cameron got in touch with his mates in government. He asked for them to help Greensill get access to a coronavirus loan scheme. But the Tories didn’t give Greensill one, so it went bust.

    The story just keeps on getting more toxic. Chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Matt Hancock have both been implicated. And as the Canary’s Tom Coburg wrote, the stink of corruption keeps deepening. This is because Boris Johnson has put fellow Tories in charge of the investigation into Greensill.

    So, if all of this was making senior Tories squirm – fear not. Because Andrew Marr has got their backs.

    Given Cameron’s history of demonstrable incompetence and alleged corruption, you might be surprised to see him back in government. Not if you work at the BBC, of course, beyond some tepid softball questioning with zero follow up. As Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski commented:

    Polanski also pointed out the one thing no one is talking about in the refugee debate:

    The weaselly British government thinks we can shirk our international responsibilities by virtue of us being an island. Amnesty International explains ‘four truths’ when it comes to the matter:

    • “TRUTH 1: The Government allows nobody to make a claim for asylum in the UK unless they are physically present in the UK”.
    • “TRUTH 2: It is impossible to come to the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum in any way permitted by the Government’s immigration rules”.
    • “TRUTH 3: The Government makes almost no safe and legal route available to any refugee other than someone from Ukraine”.
    • “TRUTH 4: Seeking asylum from persecution is lawful – refugees don’t need anyone’s permission to do so”.

    In other words, Polanski is right. If we want to protect refugees and ‘smash’ smuggling gangs, there needs to be a safe way refugees can reach us. For all the fuss it causes in the British media and political space, we already receive significantly fewer asylum applicants than our neighbours, as reported by UNHCR:

    In the year ending September 2021, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants (127,730) in the EU+, followed by France (96,510). When compared with the EU+ for the same period, the UK received the 4th largest number of applicants (44,190 – including main applicants and dependents). This equates to 8% of the total asylum applicants across the EU+ and UK combined over that period, or the 18th largest intake when measured per head of population.

    Germany, France, Spain, and Italy accounted for around 70% of all first-time applicants in the EU-27. These figures include all asylum applicants, not just main applicants (i.e. including  children and other dependents). World-wide around  85%  of all refugees live in developing regions, not in wealthy industrialised countries, and 73% of refugees displaced abroad live in countries neighbouring their countries of origin.

    The issue is that people in the UK think we shouldn’t have to hold ourselves to the same standards as other countries, and that people fleeing persecution can go whistle (even if the persecution they’re facing is in a region of the world we played a pivotal role in destabilising).

    And do you know who else holds these opinions?

    Side two of the same arse: Keir Starmer

    It won’t surprise you to learn that Keir Starmer is repeating the same talking points as the right-wing media, our right-wing government, and every right-wing loser in every shithole pub. Polanski noted:

    Looking at it sensibly, how are we going to ‘stop the boats’? There are only two options:

    • We stop them on the water (i.e. we commit sea murder).
    • We stop them setting off in the first place.

    The problem with the first is that it’s – well – we probably don’t need to explain. The problem with the second is that the boats are setting off from a country other than our own. How arsed do you think the French are when they know:

    • They’re already doing more than us.
    • If we created safe routes – as we legally should – this wouldn’t be an issue.

    In other words, Starmer is another cowardly bullshit artist who will say anything to avoid a bad headline in the Daily Mail.

    And talking of bullshit:

    Ah yes, it wasn’t a military action, it was simply an action carried out by our military. We actually didn’t realise our militaries were now available for non-military work. If they are, they could come round to one of the Canary writer’s houses and do a non-military action on the mess in our yard.

    Pig to man: man to pig

    Green Party MP Caroline Lucas pointed out that Cameron had some equally nonsensical opinions on the strikes:

    And talking of planets, Polanksi wondered what Starmer is doing for the one we live on:

    Green Parties are often criticised for not having a fleshed-out socialist platform (or for not being socialist at all). The UK Green Party might not be the party with all the answers we need, but they are at least engaging with the questions. As such, it’s detrimental to national discourse that they’re frozen out of the conversation.

    Featured image via YouTube – BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Tories have already failed ‘to act on the lessons’ from the Post Office scandal

    The Trades Union Congress (TUC) warned on Saturday 13 January that the government has failed to act on the lessons from the Post Office scandal. The union body says ministers’ refusals to tighten laws around taxpayer-funded contracts is a “huge missed opportunity” – and that ministers “repeatedly” ignored calls from unions for greater accountability and oversight of publicly-awarded contracts

    The union body says that despite being made aware of the scandal years ago, ministers have ignored warnings and refused to put in place the necessary safeguards to prevent future scandals involving publicly-awarded contracts.

    The TUC also says last October’s Procurement Act was a “huge missed opportunity” to tighten up rules governing the awarding of taxpayer-funded contracts to private companies.

    ‘Huge gaps’ in the law

    The union body accused the government of leaving “huge gaps” in the oversight of publicly-awarded contracts.

    This includes:

    • Freedom of information access: unions, Labour and the Liberal Democrats all called for October’s Procurement Act to ensure that private companies delivering a public contract are subject to Freedom of Information requests. But this was not incorporated into the legislation.

    The TUC highlighted that such a provision would have helped uncover the scale of the problem with the Horizon software far earlier. And having a freedom of information duty would have made it far harder for Fujitsu and the Post Office to make false claims to the individuals affected.

    • Independent oversight: In the drafting stage of the Procurement Act, unions called for the establishment of a new statutory body with a specific mandate to assess value for taxpayers’ money for publicly-awarded contracts.

    This call was also not incorporated into law. The TUC says the lack of an independent oversight body with investigatory powers allowed the Post Office and Fujitsu to stonewall whistle-blowers and duck scrutiny.

    • Greater transparency and value for money: As the TUC highlighted after the collapse of the outsourcing giant Carillion, public services should be run in the public interest not for profit.

    The union body says the widespread outsourcing of public contracts has led to a race to the bottom on the quality of public services and workforce pay and conditions. But despite a catalogue of outsourcing failure the government has no programme to return outsourced services back in house. Plus, ministers have ignored union calls for a ‘public interest’ test to be applied when public services are outsourced.

    In addition, unions proposed that Procurement Act should enable workers to seek compensation and redress if they were mistreated during the delivery of a public contract. But this again was rejected by government.

    Union shut out at Post Office

    The TUC also highlighted how the Communication Workers Union (CWU) was blocked from effectively organising at the Post Office. The Post Office set up and funded the rival National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP) – providing over £20m in funding over the last 15 years.

    A High Court Judge ruled in 2019 that the Post Office “effectively controls” the NFSP and remarked that “the NFSP is not remotely independent of the Post Office, nor does it put its members’ interests above its own separate interests.”

    TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

    The Post Office-Horizon debacle must never be allowed to happen again. But the government has failed to act on the lessons from this scandal despite repeated calls and warnings.

    Last October’s Procurement Act was a chance to improve the oversight and delivery of publicly-awarded contracts. Yet instead of putting in place the necessary checks and balances, ministers blocked attempts to properly safeguard workers from mistreatment.

    Huge sums of taxpayers’ money are still being awarded to private companies without proper accountability and transparency.

    Calling for more services to be run in-house, Nowak added:

    Things cannot go on like this. The government must take urgent action to beef up UK procurement laws. October’s Act was a huge missed opportunity. And ministers must call time on failed outsourcing. Public services should be run in the public interest, not for profit.

    Featured image via Wikimedia

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Peace doesn’t come by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into accepting the Gaza genocide

    COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

    The US has carried out another air raid on Yemen, with targets reportedly including the international airport in the capital city of Sanaa. This comes a day after US and UK airstrikes on Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial vessels.

    For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been greatly inconveniencing commercial shipping with their blockade, with reports last month saying Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since the attacks began.

    This entirely bloodless inconvenience was all it took for Washington to attack Yemen, the war-ravaged nation in which the US and its allies have spent recent years helping Saudi Arabia murder hundreds of thousands of people with its own maritime blockades.

    Yemen has issued defiant statements in response to these attacks, saying they will not go “unanswered or unpunished”.

    The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been hotly criticised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place without congressional approval.

    This impotent congressional whining will never go anywhere, since, as Glenn Greenwald has observed, the US Congress never actually does anything to hold presidents to account for carrying out acts of war without their approval.

    But there are some worthwhile ideas going around.

    After the second round of strikes, a Democratic representative from Georgia named Hank Johnson tweeted the following:

    “I have what some may consider a dumb idea, but here it is: stop the bombing of Gaza, then the attacks on commercial shipping will end. Why not try that approach?”

    By golly, that’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, anti-interventionists have been screaming it at the top of their lungs since the standoff with Yemen began.

    All the way back in mid-October Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi was already writing urgently about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent it from exploding into a wider war in the region, a position Parsi has continued pushing ever since.

    As we discussed previously, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is threatening to bleed over into conflicts with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and even potentially with Iran itself – any of which could easily see the US and its allies committing themselves to a full-scale war.

    Peace in Gaza takes these completely unnecessary gambles off the table.

    And it is absolutely within Washington’s power to force a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden could end all this with one phone call, as US presidents have done in the past. As Parsi wrote for The Nation earlier this month:

    “In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was ‘disgusted’ by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that ‘this is a holocaust.’ Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks.

    “Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. ‘All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,’ retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November of last year. ‘The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.’ ”

    In the end, you get peace by pursuing peace. That’s how it happens. You don’t get it by pursuing impossible imaginary ideals like the total elimination of Hamas while butchering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

    You don’t get it by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into passively accepting an active genocide. You get it by negotiation, de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.

    The path to peace is right there. The door’s not locked. It’s not even closed. The fact that they don’t take it tells you what these imperialist bastards are really interested in.

    Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Canary will be closed on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 January 2024. Oh, and about our adverts…

    The Canary will be closed on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 January 2024. This is because, as it’s a new year, we’re getting a new-look website. On 14 January www.thecanary.co will not be working at all for a period of time. Here’s what’s happening – plus some thoughts on our adverts that have prompted responses from readers.

    The Canary: a new website on the way

    Our current website runs on an old package that doesn’t make for the fastest or most user-friendly experience for our readers. It also makes it more difficult to work with from our point of view. So, with the help of some experts who have experience in highly successful independent media, we’re updating the entire site.

    It’s probably going to look like the biggest change since the Canary last altered the site in 2018. In fact, it’s actually going to be bigger. We’re going to be working off a whole, new “theme” – binning the one we’ve had for most of our existence. As Elementor wrote:

    A website theme is a foundation for a site’s complete design. A website theme manages the front-end design, establishing the overall appearance and functionality by managing its front-end design.

    Themes determine all design components: page layouts, backgrounds, color palettes, headers and footers, positioning, sizing, and typography.

    This should all make for a faster experience, an increased ease of reading, and better interaction with other sites and software we all use on the internet – from Google, to Twitter, via Facebook.

    This means that the site will need some down time. We hope it will just be for 14 January – but there will be glitches to iron out, hence we’re closing for two days.

    Meanwhile, the Canary has had a lot of comments about the advertising we have been running – including sponsored articles.

    About our adverts

    Let’s cut to the chase. Much of the independent media landscape is in dire straits at present. The class war (dressed up by politicians as a ‘cost of living crisis’) had directly impacted most outlets – because the public simply cannot afford to support them in the ways they used to. Remember Galdem? Evolve Politics? Unity News? These outlets have either folded or drastically reduced their content.

    At the Canary, we tried different approaches: bringing in new writers, changing what we write about, increasing our video content, and engaging much more with our subscribers – including exclusive weekly content, and much faster responses to their emails. We also ditched all our corporate advertising.

    Sadly, this has not been enough to sustain the Canary‘s current funding model – coupled with huge debts we inherited from previous directors. So, we’ve had to revert back to advertising and sponsored content – something the Canary has used in the past.

    This will not be changing, because otherwise the Canary will no longer exist. We’re already going through another period of huge change, and currently we’re trying to keep our outlet alive. So, this means adverts and sponsored content will be on the site. However, we’re aware that the advert-style articles on gambling have not been appreciated by some readers.

    So, we’re going to be working with a new partner who will be looking at the kind of content we display on the site. We’re also aware the adverts are intrusive. Again, with the new site we’re looking at how these can be best-placed to lessen their impact.

    We’re not middle class, so unfortunately this is how it is

    Independent media is generally the preserve of the middle classes – you only have to look at the most successful outlets to realise that. At the Canary, we cannot afford to work for free from our council houses and slum landlord-owned properties. Most of us don’t have well-off families or partners who can prop us up. Nor do we have other business ventures to keep us afloat.

    So, unless people want the Canary to be the actual one in the coalmine – dying a death as a warning over independent media’s collapse – then readers will have to tolerate what are capitalist adverts. Sometimes, you have to dance with the devil – and if taking money off it as well means we can help bring about its demise, then sobeit.

    Capitalists effectively paying for the Canary to rally against capitalism seems like a pretty decent idea to us. We hope you will understand that too.

    So, a new website is coming and our adverts will look less intrusive. There will be more changes coming in the next few months – so, stay posted, and thanks for the ongoing support.

    Featured image via Unsplash

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Cornwall will be marching for Palestine, while a surprise guest will make an appearance in London

    On Saturday 13 January, campaigners from Palestine Solidarity Cornwall (PSC) will gather in Truro to protest against the ongoing genocide the Israeli government is perpetrating against Palestinian people in Gaza. Meanwhile, the national march in London will be hosting a very special guest; one that has travelled around the world for the past few years.

    Palestine solidarity in Cornwall

    The Cornwall demonstration meets on Lemon Quay at 1pm, and will feature a variety of speakers, including people from the Palestinian community and representatives from local and national organisations.

    Groups supporting the protest include Cornwall Resists, the Bakers, Food, and Allied Workers union, Falmouth and Penryn Welcomes Refugees, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Penzance Socialists, and Divest Borders. During recent months, hundreds of people have taken to the streets across Cornwall, with events in Penzance, Falmouth, Newquay, and Truro highlighting the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza, and standing in solidarity with Palestinian people.

    Protests have also focused on the UK government and the UK arms industry’s complicity in the war crimes taking place in Gaza.

    Since 2015, the UK has licensed £472m worth of arms sales to the Israeli government. However, this figure does not include open licenses where companies can export unlimited amounts of specified goods without further accountability, Components for the F35 combat aircraft that are currently bombarding Gaza are covered under one such open license. 15% of every F35 is made by UK industry, with contracts worth £336m since 2016, according to estimates by Campaign Against Arms Trade.

    ‘Beyond catastrophic’

    A spokesperson for PSC Cornwall stated:

    The situation in Gaza is beyond catastrophic. Thousands of people have died, including thousands of children. Hospitals have not only been targeted, they’ve been completely destroyed, refugee camps have been targeted. People have nowhere to go. There is no food and no access to aid. These are clear breaches of International Humanitarian Law.

    Under UK arms exports licensing conditions, arms sales should be immediately suspended when there is a clear risk they will be used to commit war crimes. It could not be clearer this is happening in Gaza but the UK government is refusing to take action.

    But we will not refuse to act. The UK government and the UK arms trade is complicit in genocide. We owe it to every single Palestinian person to continue protesting and to continue raising our voices. We are proud that Cornwall is part of this global day of action, and we refuse to be silenced while UK companies profit from the death of Palestinian children.

    Meanwhile, the national march in London will see a surprise visitor.

    Amal returns to the UK

    Little Amal is a global symbol of human rights and the rights of children in particular. The name Amal means “hope” in Arabic. She represents a nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl who travels alone across Europe to find her mother. She was created in 2021 for a project in which she walked between the Syrian-Turkey border and the UK to draw attention to the experience of refugees. Since then she has travelled the world and met millions of people.

    On Saturday Amal will bring hope as she walks with demonstrators calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the lifting of Israel’s siege and immediate humanitarian relief.

    Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of more than 23,000 Palestinians, including more than 10,000 children. Thousands more are missing, presumed dead. More than 85% of the population of Gaza have been displaced and more than 60% of buildings damaged or destroyed. The UN has warned one in four people in Gaza are starving as Israel refuses to allow in adequate supplies and destroys food infrastructure.

    ‘Hope’ for Gaza and the Occupied Territories

    Amir Nizar Zuabi, artistic director of the Walk Productions and a Palestinian, said:

    Amal has become a symbol of the vulnerability and resilience of the millions of people that met her or followed her journey. On Saturday Amal walks for those most vulnerable and for their bravery and resilience. Amal is a child and a refugee and today in Gaza childhood is under attack, with an unfathomable number of children killed. Childhood itself is being targeted. That’s why we walk.

    Ben Jamal, national Palestine Solidarity Campaign director, said :

    Israel has tried to ensure that Palestinians feel nothing but despair as they conduct a genocide in Gaza. But the world stands in solidarity with Palestinians and millions of people will protest this weekend in cities around the world.

    Amal means hope in Arabic, and her presence in London on the March for Palestine, as part of a Global Day of Action, gives us not just hope but determination to continue our campaign not only to end Israel’s current bombardment of the Gaza Strip, but to end the decades of military occupation and the system of apartheid under which Palestinians have lived for over 75 years.

    Featured image via PSC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The government is doing nothing about the lies manufacturers sell to us about UK radiators – and it costs us billions

    A documentary video produced by supplier UK Radiators has revealed the financial and ethical implications of misinformation in the heating industry, impacting consumers across Britain. The boss of the company is urging for immediate action against what he calls these “deceptive practices” – because it’s costing consumers billions.

    UK Radiators: exposing the great British heating rip off

    UK Radiators is, on the face of it, a radiator supplier. However, the company has now branched out into campaigning. It has launched a short video documentary called The Lies Costing Britain £Billions – EXPOSED. It looks at the regulations surrounding radiators in the UK and whether manufacturers and retailers are adhering to them. Spoiler alert: they’re not.

    Rob Nezard is the managing director of UK Radiators. He noted in the documentary that:

    In order to comply with British standards, and to be sold legally in the UK, a radiator’s heat output must be tested by a notified body and the heat output advertised for the radiator backed by the test results. The unfortunate truth is that there are millions of radiators sold every year that have not been tested, and the heat outputs being advertised are overstated.

    Why does this matter? Because it affects the efficiency of your heating system, and ends up costing you money in higher heating bills.

    As part of the investigation, tests were conducted on five radiators purchased from five prominent retailers. The results were shocking.

    Given the size of the retailers in question, the number of radiators sold per year and the lifetime of each radiator spanning over a decade, the unnecessary costs being put onto the heating bills of the British public are estimated to be in the billions.

    As an example, the investigation found that manufacturers and retailers were exaggerating the heat output of one radiator by a staggering 38%.

    Watch the full documentary below:

    “We cannot allow these practices to go unchecked”

    This situation highlights a critical failure in regulatory enforcement, allowing suppliers to operate without accountability. It’s not just about financial loss; it’s about consumer trust and industry integrity.

    Nezard said:

    As an industry leader, it’s our responsibility to advocate for transparency and consumer protection. We cannot allow these practices to continue unchecked. The documentary video aims to raise awareness of this issue and gain support for a petition that calls on the relevant government ministers to begin enforcing the regulations that are already in place.

    UK Radiators is calling on the government to “do its job” – which currently it’s not.

    Given we have been in a cost of living crisis for what seems like years, part of which has been spiralling energy costs thanks to the lack of action by government and energy companies – it’s a kick in the teeth to all of us that manufacturers and retailed are kicking us again by ripping us off with radiators.

    You can sign UK Radiators petition calling on the government to act here.

    Featured image via UK Radiators – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Downing Street given 1,410 letters calling for removal of Hamas from the UK’s Proscribed List of Terrorist Bodies

    On Thursday 11 January, 10 Downing Street accepted delivery of 1,410 letters calling for the removal of Hamas from the UK’s Proscribed List of Terrorist Bodies, which were created through a petition at www.cc.tiny/hamas.

    Hamas: a call to de-proscribe the political wing

    The letters were delivered by the organiser, Pete Gregson – chair of One Democratic Palestine (an association of 85 members which campaigns for a single-state solution) – along with a few supporters. The GMB union and Labour both expelled Gregson for alleged antisemitism.

    With the petition, he pointed out that whilst the Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades, were proscribed in 2001, the political wing was only added in 2021 – following the then-home secretary Priti Patel’s secret meetings whilst on an Israeli holiday. The Terrorism Act 2000 provides that any person affected by proscription may call upon the government to remove the proscribed body from the list.

    Gregson originally sought to lodge the petition through the Parliamentary Petitions website, only to be informed that it was rejected because “It calls for an action relating to a particular individual, or organisation outside of the UK Government or Parliament.” Undeterred, he approached GoPetition in the US, which agreed to carry the petition.

    It has been featured in various publications, including Middle East Monitor, Russia Today, and Al Jazeera – and publicised through flyers and social media.

    Given that recently Palestinian activists such as Craig Murray, Tony Greenstein, and Mick Napier have been arrested for declaring support in some way for Hamas, Gregson said he was amazed and pleased that he was allowed by parliamentary police to deliver the letters.

    Branding Hamas terrorists – escalating the situation?

    Gregson was assisted in making the delivery by two fellow activists, Moloy Hoque and Palestinian Zina Abdullatif Baird. Separately from the letters, 30 people have submitted written applications for Hamas’s de-proscription to the Head of Counter Terrorism Policy at the Home Office.

    Media-wise, 270 journalists were emailed details of the Downing Street action, but only Al Jazeera and Russia Today Arabic Services chose to feature it. The video of the action is available on YouTube:

    Gregson said:

    Given Hamas’s rise in popularity in the West Bank and Gaza since 7 October, Israel should realise that as long as it oppresses Palestinians and steals their land, Hamas will continue…

    Our government’s branding of them as terrorists encourages Israel to even greater excesses in its decimation of Gaza. But let’s not forget that Downing Street chose to negotiate with Sinn Fein and the IRA rather than carpet-bomb Derry, which is why we have peace in Northern Ireland today.

    By excluding the elected leaders of the Palestinian people from discussions, we deny the Gazans a voice – and remove a partner for peace.

    Featured image via One Palestine

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • After threatening legal action, the Good Law Project and ERCS have won a climate battle with the Scottish government

    After withholding a climate assessment of its £26bn infrastructure plan, the prospect of legal action from the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) and Good Law Project has won a promise from Scottish Ministers to publish it.

    Good Law Project and ERCS: where’s the climate impact assessment?

    In response to the prospect of legal action by ERCS and Good Law Project, the Scottish Government has confirmed it will publish a detailed assessment of the carbon emissions expected from its £26bn investment plan from the week beginning 15th January.

    ERCS and Good Law Project took legal action in September 2023, forcing the Government to admit that its failure to publish any assessment of the climate impact of its Infrastructure Investment Plan was in breach of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

    Ministers said they had begun “urgent work” to address this problem. But when it emerged they were withholding details of the emissions the plan is expected to produce, we pointed out that this work wouldn’t be enough.

    The Government has now upheld its “commitment to complying fully with the section 94A duty through the publication of the assessment as soon as possible”. This assessment is now due to be published in the week beginning 15 January.

    Good Law Project and ERCS look forward to the publication of these crucial details in full and will be taking a close look at the assessment as soon as it is published, to ensure it is up to scratch and fully complies with the Scottish Government’s legal duties.

    ‘Comprehensive, detailed, and robust’

    Dr Shivali Fifield, Chief Officer at ERCS, said:

    We are pleased to hear the government has made progress on its climate impact assessment. However, this promise to publish must be matched with transparent calculations of the emissions anticipated from the Infrastructure Investment Plan. This is the only way to credibly demonstrate compatibility with Net Zero targets. If Scotland is serious about being a climate leader, this assessment must be comprehensive, detailed, and robust. We’ll wait to see next week if it is.

    Good Law Project Legal Director,  Emma Dearnaley, said:

    We’re facing a climate emergency, so it’s crucial we can see whether or not the Scottish Government’s plan will impact our ability to reach net zero.

    It’s encouraging that Scottish Ministers have now committed to publish a climate impact assessment of its plan – following our further legal pressure. If only the UK Government was prepared to follow Scotland’s lead and come to the table to enable climate transparency in the same way.

    Featured image via Wikimedia

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Growing number admit doing nothing to help climate change, data shows

    Recent data shows growing inaction towards acting on climate change by people in England and Wales over the last three years.

    Climate crisis: less people making lifestyle changes

    In three Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys, the number of people who said they have made no lifestyle changes to help tackle climate change has increased from 19% in October 2021, to 23% in July 2022, to 28% in November 2023.

    The surveys also asked respondents why they had not made any changes to their lifestyle, with the belief that their changes will have no effect becoming the most common reason, increasing from 32% to 41% between the second and third survey:

    “You can read this data in two ways,” said Holly Brazier-Tope, head of politics at environmental think tank Green Alliance:

    I feel like people will interpret it to imply apathy rather than what actually I think is much more helplessness.

    I don’t think it is because people don’t care, I think it is because they cannot care. They are not in a situation economically to be able to contemplate these issues.

    Between 2021 and 2022 the data shows a 9% increase in people saying that it is too expensive to make changes to help the climate, following the cost of living crisis beginning in mid-2021:

    The cost-of-living crisis may have forced people to avoid climate-friendly lifestyle changes, which often come with a cost, with London Councils reporting that 73% of Londoners said the cost-of-living crisis has made it more difficult to take action on climate change.

    Joan Williams, a mother of three children from London said:

    These past few months have been really tough.

    I used to buy these eco-friendly products, soaps and cloths for my youngest but over the last two years I have had to make some serious cut backs and just go for the cheapest now.

    I still do try to keep the environment in mind because climate problems will affect my children even more than me, but right now I just cannot afford it.

    Of those who did make changes, the biggest motivator was concern for future generations.

    Cost of living crisis impacting action

    As well as changes becoming less affordable, more immediate financial concerns may have taken priority over more long-term climate worries. The ONS found that between COP27 in 2022 and COP28 in 2023, less people had placed climate as one the most important issues facing the UK.

    Meanwhile, “cost-of-living” was reported by nearly 89% of people.

    “Given the economic situation in the country, the public at large have absolutely no choice but to view all policies through the cost-of-living”, said Brazier-Tope.

    Apart from financial issues, Brazier-Tope claims that a failure by government to prioritise climate action has led to the public not taking personal actions.

    She said:

    The public is well aware that this is a pivotal decade for climate action. What they don’t have is bold and strong political leadership on climate.

    We cannot ask the public to make changes when we’re not showing leadership ourselves.

    As an example she cites the delay of measures to help the UK reach net zero, such as pushing the switch to heat pumps and electric vehicles to 2035.

    She accuses the government of politicising climate issues: making choices on climate policy based on what is good for the Conservative Party rather than good for the environment, an argument echoed by the Institute for Government think tank.

    The desire to be led by example on climate could be captured by 34% of respondents to the last two surveys, saying that they did not make changes because they believed that large polluters should change before individuals, making this the second most common reason given.

    The government says…

    A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero denied claims of weak leadership on climate, saying:

    We are and will continue to be world leaders in net zero, having cut emissions faster than any other major country and set into law one of the most ambitious emissions targets in the world.

    The spokesperson also added that the delays to climate objectives aimed to ease financial pressure on households, saying:

    We understand the concerns households have in making the transition to net zero, and that’s why last year we announced a new proportionate and pragmatic approach that helps us meet our net zero targets, while not putting burdens onto hardworking families.

    Featured image via biasciolialessandro – Envato Elements

    By Ben Gardner

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A global march for Palestine is happening as South Africa’s BoD accuses its government of ‘antisemitism’

    As Israel faces the charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), protests are planned in more than 60 cities, in at least 36 countries, across 6 continents. With this, the seventh national march for Palestine in London on Saturday 13 January is part of a global day of action mobilising for a full ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies has accused its government of antisemitism over genocide accusations.

    Israel: genocide 101?

    Currently, lawyers for South Africa are presenting their case at the UN’s top court in the Hague, where the country lodged an urgent appeal to force Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in Gaza.

    South Africa argues that Israel is breaking its commitments under the UN Genocide Convention, alleging the bombing and invasion of Gaza is “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group”. “No armed attack on a state territory no matter how serious… can provide justification for or defend breaches of the convention,” Justice Minister Ronald Lamola told the court.

    Israeli far-right president Isaac Herzog has dismissed the accusations as “atrocious” and “preposterous”. Predictably, South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies (BoD) has also condemned the legal action, accusing the government of antisemitism and of “inverting reality”. “These charges have at their root an antisemitic worldview, which denies Jews their rights to defend themselves,” the body’s chair Karen Milner said on Thursday.

    So, against this backdrop people will be marching around the world again – showing their opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has claimed the lives of more than 23,000 Palestinians, the majority of them being women and children.

    Marching for Palestine globally

    On 13 January hundreds of thousands of people are expected to demonstrate in London on a National March for Palestine. They will be joining millions more who will be marching in more than 60 cities, in least 36 countries, across 6 continents, in a global day of action for Palestine. The global day of action was called by the UK organising coalition comprising the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of Al Aqsa, and the Muslim Association of Britain.

    Israel’s actions are causing outrage around the world and now for the first time a global mobilisation of Palestinian solidarity has been organised this weekend. Saturday will be the 99th day of Israel’s offensive on Gaza, and there will be demonstrations in dozens of cities in countries including the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Jordan, and Turkey.

    The march in London will be the seventh national demonstration since October, which together with five days of action constitutes one of the largest, sustained political campaigns in British history.

    ‘Charge Israel with the gravest of crimes’

    Ben Jamal, PSC Director, said:

    The world needs to charge Israel with the gravest of crimes – genocide – not just in the International Court of Justice, but in the court of global public opinion. In the face of the failure of Governments, including the UK, to act to uphold International law and defend fundamental human rights, people continue to take to the streets to protest, week after week.

    This Saturday, from Australia to South America, from Dacca to Washington, people of conscience will show the world demands a full ceasefire and an end to Israel’s impunity from international law.

    London has been at the forefront of these global protests, attracting hundreds of thousands of solidarity campaigners despite Government hostility and Opposition indifference. Once again on Saturday we will show the majority of British people stand with Palestinians in this dark hour of their decades of oppression.

    A permanent ceasefire must be the starting point to address the underlying causes, including Israeli military occupation and a system of oppression against the Palestinian people that is considered internationally to meet the legal definition of apartheid. We will continue to march, demonstrate, and organise to demand justice for the Palestinian people.

    Demanding ceasefires and permanent solutions

    CND general secretary Kate Hudson said:

    More than 23,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s invasion and bombing of Gaza, with thousands more suffering from a lack of food, clean water, and medical supplies.

    Millions of people will take to the streets across the world this Saturday, to demand a permanent ceasefire and a lasting political settlement for all Palestinians. The UK government must end its support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, and join the wider international community in condemning its war crimes.

    The longer the conflict continues, the greater the chance of regional tensions spilling over into a wider regional war which could see nuclear use. It must be ended as quickly as possible.

    The Jeremy Corbyn-founded Peace and Justice Project said:

    Last weekend, thousands of people demonstrated in town centres and cities across the country. From vigils in Abergavenny to BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] tours in Bath to rallies outside Starmer’s office in Camden we will continue to speak up for the rights of Palestinians and call for an immediate ceasefire.

    This Saturday there will be a national demonstration in Central London – the first one of the year – where our whole movement will gather to demand a full, permanent and immediate ceasefire. If you can, please join us in London on Saturday and let’s help make this one of the biggest demonstrations that we have seen.

    Featured image via PSC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The number of British women dying during pregnancy has hit a 20-year high

    The number of women in Britain dying during pregnancy or soon afterwards has reached its highest level in almost two decades, a new study from MBRRACE-UK reported on Thursday 11 January.

    MBRRACE-UK: a staggering increase in maternal deaths

    The figures from MBRRACE-UK, which monitors maternal deaths, stillbirths and infant deaths, and their causes, showed Black women and those from deprived areas remained the most severely impacted. Overall, it found the rate of deaths had increased a staggering 53% since the last three-year reporting period:

    MPs reported last year that although the UK has one of the lowest maternal mortality ratios in the world, it has “glaring and persistent disparities in outcomes for women depending on their ethnicity”.

    It also comes after a series of scandals at maternity units within the NHS. A damning 2022 report into one found failures at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust had contributed to the deaths of 201 babies and nine mothers over a 20-year period.

    The latest statistics prompted renewed calls for more investment and training in maternity services, despite health bosses in England claiming more money than ever is going into the sector.

    Marian Knight, director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and MBRRACE-UK maternal reporting lead, said Britain’s maternity systems were “under pressure” and the “increase in maternal mortality raises further concern”:

    Ensuring pre-pregnancy health… as well as critical actions to work towards more inclusive and personalised care, need to be prioritised as a matter of urgency now more than ever.

    Highest levels of deaths in 20 years

    MBRRACE-UK found there were 13.41 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies reported from 2020 to 2022.

    Excluding deaths from Covid-19 – the second most common cause – the maternal death rate for the period was 11.54 per 100,000.

    This is up from 8.79 per 100,000 in 2017-2019 and the highest since 2003-2005.

    The main cause of death was thrombosis and thromboembolism, or blood clots in the veins. Heart disease and deaths related to poor mental health were also common.

    The maternal death rate among Black women decreased slightly compared to 2019 to 2021, but this cohort remained three times more likely to die compared to white women.

    Women from Asian backgrounds were twice as likely to die than white women, while women living in the most deprived areas were also twice as likely to die compared to those in the least deprived areas.

    A horrifying crisis

    On X, people reacted with both sadness and anger. Head of midwifery Sophie Russell said:

    This is hugely significant, with Covid deaths excluded the death rate is still 31% higher than previous 3 years. Whilst this is multifaceted I still review multiple maternal deaths where women are not listened to. With women from lowest socioeconomic group accounting 20% of all deaths.

    Other people were saying the government must call a public inquiry. However, as one user summed up:

    If these statistics do not make you understand the crisis currently happening in maternity services, I do not know what will. Everyone reading it should be horrified.

    Featured image via Prostock-studio – Envato Elements

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UK solar power target for 2035 obliterated by inflated costs, government chaos, and gridlock

    A perfect storm of inflation, supply chain disruption, spiralling interest rates, and delays in connection to the National Grid means that the swathe of solar power farms approved and going through planning permission in the UK are likely to be severely delayed or cancelled – undermining any hopes of achieving the government target of a fivefold increase to 70GW by 2035.

    Solar power: government gambling with carbon neutral

    A new study by Huw Evans, an energy consultant and former head of global economics for BG Group, suggests that under the current macro-economic conditions and impasse at obtaining connection to the National Grid, any chance of these solar farms being viable in the near future is negligible. The government has gambled heavily on promoting solar energy to achieve its stated goal to be carbon neutral by 2035.

    In his report, Evans goes on to say that despite greatly increased prices offered by the government in their Contract for Difference (CfD) allocation round to encourage renewable energy – where prices have been increased by 30% for solar energy – solar developers will still struggle to make any return on their investment.

    That is before you take into any account delays in connecting to the National Grid. He says the UK government has vastly underestimated the increasing costs to develop solar farms, where their assumptions suggest the UK can develop solar energy cheaper than anywhere else in the world; based on published data, which is clearly unrealistic.

    Huge backlogs in grid connection

    Within the report, Evans points to International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) data that shows that given the UK’s climate, solar energy is within the worst 5% areas in the world to develop solar electricity, as only 10%-11% of the capacity of solar farms will ever be generated annually compared to double that in places such as Spain, Australia, and parts of the US.

    For grid connection, as of November 2023, there are 1,300 projects that are awaiting connection which amounts to 400GW of grid access requirements. Companies applying for grid access have been told they have to wait 15 years before any electricity they produce can be sold.

    New rules issued by the National Grid to alleviate the backlog of connections which effectively are “get on, get back, or get out of the energy queue” are in danger of creating thousands of acres of white elephants, as grid connections continue to be delayed with diggers tearing up the landscape and then being suspended as projects are put on hold pending a grid connection date.

    Evans points out that this as already happened in Torquay, Devon where diggers have cleared a site only to be told that grid connection will be at least five years and there are indications that that could slip into the mid 2030s.

    White elephants across the UK?

    He further notes that Centrica have said that approximately 80% of the 300 substations across England and Wales need upgrading and:

    Supergrid transformers are huge bits of kit that weigh several hundred tonnes, and it takes years to install them… We’re talking five to eight years for each one of these.

    For projects to progress they will probably need an allocation of a CfD in the auction rounds, which come with a deadline of when the project needs to come on stream, a date from the National Grid to be connected which may or may not be in line with the deadline set by the CfD and provide the investor and financiers with a viable return on their investment which in the current climate is very doubtful.

    These hurdles are hard to negotiate especially when the bodies that are setting the hurdles are not joined up and are blaming each other for delays in the process. The DNOs (Distribution Network Operator’s) blame National Grid for the delays, National Grid Blames Ofgem, and Ofgem blames the National Grid, but there is no mandate for Ofgem and National Grid to invest in the grid because that cost will be passed on to the consumer. No government wants to do that.

    Peter Aston, a specialist connections engineer at the consultancy Roadnight Taylor notes:

    2035 is just 12 years away and some of the transmission projects easily take 10 years to 12 years to complete.

    Featured image via pixabay

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Four Just Stop Oil supporters found not guilty, as judge declares they had lawful excuse to disrupt parliament

    Four Just Stop Oil supporters were acquitted of willful obstruction of the highway on Monday 8 January, as the Judge declared they had a lawful excuse for their actions. Meanwhile, another case against Just Stop Oil supporters has been cancelled due to a lack of a primary witness.

    Judge agrees with Just Stop Oil and acquits activists

    Miranda Forward, Dave Boden, Chris Hardy, and Annotony Cottam appeared before District Judge Lloyd at Stratford Magistrates court. The four Just Stop Oil supporters peacefully blocked roads into Parliament Square with 60 others on the 4 October 2022. Their actions were part of a month of continuous action to ‘Occupy Westminster’ in order to demand that the government call a halt to all new fossil fuel licenses and consents.

    The prosecution was relying on helicopter footage of Parliament Square from the day in question, however, finding no evidence of ‘significant disruption’, Judge Lloyd delivered a not-guilty verdict.

    The court heard the supporters of Just Stop Oil argue that blocking the roads to Parliament Square was proportionate under articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights – the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association. Judge Lloyd agreed that there was a lawful excuse for their actions, addressing the defendants directly she said that their motivations “could not be more important”.

    One of those acquitted yesterday, Boden, said:

    For the sake of future generations, other animals and for our life-support systems, I felt I had no other choice but to act in face of climate breakdown, given that our government acts in defiance of all science and reason.

    ‘Politics is failing us – arrest the real criminals in government’

    A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:

    Instead of prosecuting grandmothers, students and doctors, the courts and police should focus on the breakdown of ordered society that is a guaranteed side effect of more oil extraction. It is a waste of public money, police time, court time and our time. Of Just Stop Oil supporters arrested, less than 50% have ended up in a conviction.

    Politics is failing us, it is time to arrest the real criminals in Government, who are planning the deaths of countless millions for the sake of profiting the richest corporations.

    These acquittals come as a case against supporters of Just Stop Oil was discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

    Supporters of Just Stop Oil were expected to appear at City of London Magistrates court on Tuesday 9 January, charged with breaching section 12 of the Public Order Act after marching peacefully in Parliament square on 19 July 2023. They were joined by 160 supporters of Just Stop Oil marching across London in resistance against new oil and gas.

    They were informed that the trial would not go ahead as the chief inspector due to testify against the supporters of Just Stop Oil was on holiday.

    Just Stop Oil supporters are refusing to allow the breakdown of ordered society and a collapse of the rule of law as a result of the selfish actions of a few. The people of the UK have had enough of the corruption and lies of the people leading the country off a very steep cliff. Just Stop Oil is calling on everyone to step into civil resistance in order to save our communities from the worst of climate breakdown. It is not a case of ‘if’ we will win, but ‘when’.

    Featured image via Just Stop Oil

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The CWU has called for snivelling Paula Vennells to face a potential criminal investigation

    The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has slammed the former boss of the Post Office, Paula Vennells CBE, after she handed back her state-sanctioned gong – saying police should look at a “criminal investigation” into her involvement in the ongoing Horizon scandal.

    Post Office scandal: Vennells at the heart of it

    The Canary has been reporting on the ongoing Post Office scandal – which has seen over 700 workers receive criminal convictions, some of them ending up imprisoned, while others lost their families and homes. Vennells was CEO of the company from 2012 to 2019. However, as Sky News reported:

    Vennells oversaw the organisation while it routinely denied there were problems with its Horizon IT system.

    Crucially, as an online petition over the scandal noted:

    Vennells, who decided to resign days before the first substantial judgement was released by the High Court, has since been awarded a CBE, a position in the cabinet office of government and also… [chaired] one of the largest NHS Groups (Imperial NHS).

    Now, Vennells has clearly realised just how shattered her reputation is. To double up on metaphors, she’s doing this after the horse has bolted and only because the cat is out of the bag thanks to the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office. As the Guardian reported:

    She was awarded her CBE for services to the Post Office and charity at the start of 2019, shortly before she stepped down – ending a seven-year period as chief executive during which she collected more than £4.5m in pay.

    Snivelling AND potentially criminal?

    However, the snivelling Vennells is now handing the CBE back. She said in a mealy-mouthed statement she was:

    truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.

    So, responding to the news that Vennells has volunteered to hand in her CBE, CWU officer Andy Furey said:

    This news, while welcome, was inevitable and is really just a token gesture compared to what real justice would look like.

    Vennells holding such a distinction for services to the Post Office was always a slap in the face to every postmaster who suffered terribly under her leadership. Her time at the Post Office has forever tarnished this once-great national institution.

    But for her, it involved receiving millions of pounds in pay and performance-related bonuses.

    Since she received these bonuses while overseeing the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, it would only be right to return this money.

    There must also be serious considerations from the relevant authorities for criminal investigations into Vennells for allowing an extreme regime that resulted in the attack and criminalisation of hundreds of innocent, hard-working, pillars of society.

    All in it together

    Meanwhile, BBC News reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby personally pushed Vennells’ application to become Bishop of London:

    Vennells was interviewed for the role of Bishop of London – the third most senior in the Church of England – but not appointed from a final shortlist of three.

    It also noted that:

    The Archbishop of Canterbury pushed her application and was seen as a supporter of her…

    Of course, Welby is another – what you might refer to as – ‘capitalist Christian’, having been an oil executive before becoming a priest.

    However, the broader point here is that Vennells is a prime example of how the system and the state reward the rich and powerful for destroying the lives of the rest of us. Given her closeness to the establishment, it’s highly unlikely she’ll ever be prosecuted for her role in the Post Office scandal. So, Vennells handing her CBE back will be cold comfort to her victims.

    Featured image via Parliament TV

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • After the Post Office scandal, it’s time ITV exposed the ‘post-viral scandal’ of ME and Long Covid

    The ITV1 drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office has caused a flurry of activity around the Horizon IT system scandal. It has also prompted countless people and campaign groups to reach out to the broadcaster – asking it to create a drama on their individual cause. One such scandal has been that of post-viral illness; a topic which would need an entire season on ITV to properly explore.

    So, one campaign group is asking people to join it in a so-called Twitter storm, to call on ITV to pick up theirs, and millions of other peoples’, stories.

    Mr Bates vs the Post Office: a real-life drama

    As the Canary previously reported, Mr Bates vs the Post Office has brought the ongoing scandal over the Horizon IT system, and Post Office and politicians conduct at the time, back into the public eye. More than 700 people running small local post offices received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2005 after faulty accounting software made it appear that money had gone missing from their branches.

    The scandal has been described at an ongoing public inquiry as “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”. Now, police are involved, petitions are going viral, and the government is doing further work on compensation and acquittals for the survivors of the scandal.

    However, people have not been shy to the fact that a lot of this has come off the back of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. So, they’ve been reaching out to ITV asking it to consider doing similar dramas on other scandals:

    Now, a group for people living with chronic illnesses has organised a campaign to see if ITV will consider running a drama on post-viral illnesses. It’s a topic which has repeatedly hit the headlines – but sadly, for all the wrong reasons.

    #ExposeMENow ITV, like Mr Bates vs the Post Office

    The Chronic Collaboration will be running a Twitter storm from 8pm on Wednesday 10 January:

    The group said that:

    surely now is the time that the broadcaster (or one of its peers – the BBC or Channel 4 perhaps) picked up the ‘biggest medical scandal of the 21st century’ – the ‘post-viral scandal’? This includes myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also known as CFS), Long Covid, and their psychologisation partly thanks to the PACE trial.

    We want to start applying pressure to make this happen – or at least be heard.

    So, join us during Wednesday 10 January 2024’s ME Awareness Hour (8pm GMT). We want people to tweet at the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, asking them to #ExposeMENow and run a drama on this scandalous story – telling them why it would be such an important piece of work.

    Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS) is a debilitating and poorly-treated chronic, systemic neuroimmune disease that affects every aspect of the patient’s lives. You can read more about ME symptoms here. The disease has been at the centre of various scandals for decades. These include medical professionals saying it was a psychological illness – that is, that it’s ‘all in people’s heads’.

    Many people develop ME after catching a virus – hence it is sometimes known as a post-viral illness. Then, there’s long Covid – another post-viral illness. It’s similar in some respects to ME – not least being the response from many medical professionals and politicians. Long Covid patients have no treatment options, little support, and no cure. However, the disease is inextricably linked to ME – thanks to how the latter has been treated.

    PACE trial and the psychologisation of post-viral illness

    For decades – thanks to medical professionals and researchers’ psychologisation of the disease – health services have neglected, mistreated, and gaslighted ME patients. This is partly because of something called PACE trial. It was research that recommended exercise and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for ME. In short, PACE trial was scientific and financial fraud.

    The Canary has reported extensively on how:

    Overall, PACE Trial was a con to keep ME as a psychological illness, and to deny people benefits and private health insurance. For years, exercise and CBT were recommended treatments for ME.

    However, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) updated its guidelines in 2021 to remove or downgrade PACE trial’s harmful and ineffective treatments – those pushed by the same professionals who psychologise the illness. Many people hoped this would be a watershed moment for the community. They hoped patients would start to get the recognition, validation, and support they desperately needed. Sadly, and somewhat predictably, this hasn’t been the case.

    The biggest medical scandal of the 21st century

    The Canary has been documenting how medical professionals and the NHS are still neglecting people living with ME – to the point where some are so severe they’re dying. We also documented how the NHS is leaving people with long Covid in a similar situation. Moreover, former PM Boris Johnson described long Covid as “bollocks” – partly thanks to how ME has been viewed by professionals.

    One MP described the story of ME and PACE trial as:

    the biggest medical scandal of the 21st century.

    So, while Mr Bates vs the Post Office undoubtedly made the public aware of a horrifying scandal, surely its time that the post-viral scandal was given equal prominence? Millions of people in the UK alone are suffering right now – thanks to fraud, cover ups, cronyism, and political indifference. It sounds like the Post Office scandal – and it’s not really that far removed from it.

    So, get involved at 8pm on 10 January via X to tell ITV (or the BBC or Channel 4) to do the right thing and amplify the voices of millions of people, for whom the post-viral scandal is very real, and happening right now.

    Featured image via ITV press centre

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Just Stop Oil is negotiating with the Met over the group’s refusal to stop protesting

    Representatives of Just Stop Oil met with the Met Police on Monday 8 January to discuss relations going forward, after the police requested the group meet with them late last year. Its supporters caused significant disruption in the capital last year, demanding that the UK government immediately halts all new licences and consents for fossil fuel exploration and extraction.

    Just Stop Oil: meeting with the Met

    At 1pm representatives of Just Stop Oil – Sarah Lunnon, Indigo Rumbelow and Eben Lazarus – met with officers Karen Findlay, Simon Hearn, and Sian Thomas at the Met’s office at 109 Lambeth Road:

    The meeting comes after a request from Commander Kyle Gordon that the group:

    come forward and speak with us, so we can actually work with them.

    As the Canary previously reported, Just Stop Oil responded with a letter on 8 December 2023 proposing a meeting with Rowley.

    Who are the real criminals?

    The group’s co-founder Lunnon said:

    We met with Metropolitan Police to present evidence that by developing new oil and gas projects, the activities of the British Government constitute an act of ‘genocide by oblique intent’, as defined under Article 30 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

    Public Order Commander Karen Findlay requested a copy of our evidence and told us she will be taking this information to the Commissioner and Specialist Operations – which covers genocide crimes. We have offered a pause on disruptive Just Stop Oil actions if this investigation is to go ahead. Negotiations are ongoing.

    Just Stop Oil is calling on the police to investigate and charge the real criminals who are responsible for this unfolding genocide – they can start with PM Rishi Sunak, Shell CEO Wael Sawan, Lloyd’s London CEO John Neal, Barclay’s Chair Nigel Higgens, and Telegraph owner Fred Barclay.

    Article 30 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment for a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court if the perpetrator clearly has an understanding that significant loss of human life will occur ‘in the ordinary course of events’ after undertaking a course of action.

    Lazarus remarked:

    Last year the Dutch Police Federation, ANPV, Equipe and ACP [police unions] wrote an open letter to the Dutch Government demanding that the government listen to the public as they cried out for a safe and sustainable future. NPCC lead for Protest Policing Chief Constable Chris Noble has said ‘we’re not going to arrest our way out of environmental protest’.

    The Met have told us that their primary concern at this moment is policing ‘environmental protests’. We wasted no time informing them that if new oil and gas licences are granted, then not only protest but disruption and violence should be expected when the public are in danger of flood, fire, and famine. How will they uphold public order when there’s no food on the shelves?

    The potential for a violent response

    The Met has recently released its Force Management Statement 2023. It drew a link between potential terrorism and:

    environmentalism, given the ever-increasing sentiment within this lobby and a sense of not being listened to by the Government.

    Just Stop Oil responded by affirming its nonviolent ethos, but noting that without immediate political action on the climate crisis then:

    the Police are right, there is the potential for a violent response. The route to avoiding this is to end new oil and gas and mobilise the country to deal with climate breakdown.

    Featured image via Stephen Gingell/Just Stop Oil

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Sun turning on Starmer? We’re shocked. Shocked, we tell you. We’re sure Corbyn is, too…

    That bastion of right-wing shithousery the Sun has finally begun its character assassination of Labour leader Keir Starmer. It’s published an article accusing him of saving “baby-killers and axe murderers” when he was a lawyer. Oh, and the Sun also claims he did it for free. Predictably, we’re in an election year. Of course the story has been twisted to suit the tabloid shitrag’s agenda. Moreover, if the Sun wanted to call Starmer out for anything, there’s a whole heap of other misdemeanors it could have listed.

    However, the paper behaving like this is hardly new, either – just ask Jeremy Corbyn.

    Gammon-in-Chief: Starmer supports baby-killers or something

    As ‘Gammon-in-Chief’ of the Sun Harry Cole tweeted:

    The right-wing shitrag says that:

    Keir was part of a team that launched several bids to scrap the death sentence for serious crimes in countries across Africa and the Caribbean.

    His interventions took place from 2002 to 2014 — covering his ascent from junior lawyer to Director of Public Prosecutions.

    It documents several cases where defendants in countries like Jamaica appealed to the UK’s Privy Council to quash their death penalty sentence. Here, the defendant’s appeal also led to a law change in Jamaica – meaning judges could only apply the death penalty in certain, very specific, cases.

    The Sun then goes further – dedicating its print editorial to the matter. It said that:

    Many oppose the death penalty in the UK. The Sun does. There is a difference between that and flying to Africa or the Caribbean to get baby-killers off the hook.

    More drivel from the Sun

    Of course, the paper’s argument is utter drivel – as people were pointing out on what the Canary still calls Twitter:

    Aside from the obvious desperation of the Sun in palming off this nonsense as ‘news’ to its readers, there’s a healthy dose of racism in its framing of the story too:

    Plus, using people’s murders to try and score political points is a little bit sick:

    So, the Sun ran a vexatious and wholly inaccurate story on the leader of the Labour Party. Ring any bells to anyone?

    Sun Jeremy Corbyn Canary article

    Throughout his leadership, the shitrag repeatedly attacked Corbyn with smears and falsehoods – much like the rest of the corporate media did. Starmer now bearing the brunt of the Sun‘s mendacious agenda is hardly surprising.

    The Sun Starmer smear: plenty else to bash him with

    Of course, in a parallel (and functioning) universe, the Sun wouldn’t need to print nonsense about Starmer – because there’s plenty of bad news about the Labour leader it could have run with, like:

    Scrub that last one. It’s probably endearing to the Sun.

    If you happen to support Starmer and/or Labour, then the Sun‘s attack on him must be piss-boiling. It is, of course, unacceptable – hence the Canary is calling it out. However, none of this makes Starmer any better than the Tories – but it perhaps shows that when it comes to the corporate media, nothing really changes.

    Featured image via the Sun – screengrab

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Spineless Ofgem has just allowed energy firms to restart forcing people onto prepayment meters

    The energy regulator Ofgem has just agreed that three energy firms can start forcing vulnerable customers onto prepayment meters again. It comes after the government put a quasi ban in place in February 2023. One campaign group has hit back at the move – saying Ofgem is once again putting “energy company profits” before customers. And overall, it shows just how spineless the energy regulator is.

    Ofgem prepayment meters: an ongoing scandal

    As the Canary reported back in February, energy companies in the UK could obtain court warrants that allowed them to enter people’s homes and fit the pay-as-you-go (‘prepayment’) meters. This was when customers had fallen into arrears with their energy bills. They were then at risk of companies cutting their gas supply off if they fail to top them up.

    However, an undercover investigation by the Times newspaper looked into this. It found that contractors working for British Gas sent debt collectors to “break into” homes and “force-fit” meters. This prompted uproar from the public and politicians – even though the practice had actually been going on since 1954.

    So, the energy regulator Ofgem and courts stopped energy suppliers from forcing customers to have prepayment meters. However, as the Morning Star reported:

    Ofgem introduced a self-regulating code of practice for energy providers enabling them to resume forced break-ins and installations.

    Scottish Power has now reportedly secured warrants and broken into the homes of mothers with young children to force them onto prepay meters using the code. But the firm claims it was unaware of the customers’ circumstances and would not have installed a meter forcibly had this become clear.

    Now, Ofgem has looked at how companies are dealing with that self-regulating code. It’s decided that three are suddenly so responsible that they can start forcing prepayment meters onto customers.

    Ofgem: spineless AND not fit for purpose

    As the energy regulator itself wrote on its website:

    Ofgem confirmed today (Monday 8 January 2023) that EDF, Octopus and Scottish Power have been given permission to restart involuntary PPM installations after meeting the regulator’s set of conditions, which include conducting internal audits to identify wrongfully installed PPMs and committing to reinstating non-prepayment methods and offering compensation. Suppliers must also provide regular monitoring data to Ofgem, so that concerning trends on involuntary PPM practices can be identified early.

    The regulator also announced that if suppliers install a PPM in a property occupied by someone in the ‘do not install’ category set out in Ofgem’s Supplier Licence Conditions, and have not followed the rules in full set out by the regulator to make sure a prepayment meter is appropriate, they are expected to reinstate a credit meter within 24 hours and compensate their customers appropriately.

    Ofgem is reminding supplier CEOs that the rules must be followed to the letter to avoid a re-run of some of the practices seen last year where vulnerable customers in energy debt were being moved onto PPMs without their consent.

    But who exactly does Ofgem consider a “vulnerable” customer?

    Vulnerable who?

    The energy regulator says vulnerable customers are those with:

    • A continuous supply needed for health reasons, including dependence on powered medical equipment.
    • An older occupant (aged 75+), without support in the house.
    • Children aged under two years old.
    • Residents with severe health issues including terminal illnesses or those with a medical dependency on a warm home (for example due to illness such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis, sickle cell disease).

    So, if you’re a lone parent with a child aged two years and one month – then you can freeze. If you’re aged over 75, but your council will not provide support workers for you due to funding cuts – then you can freeze. Oh, and so can anyone else who doesn’t meet Ofgem’s wafer-thin criteria of vulnerability.

    But it’s OK! Ofgem has said energy firms have to make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer before they can force their way into their home and install a prepayment meter. That means that if you live with enduring mental distress which restricts your ability to deal with the authorities, strangers, or companies – then you can freeze too.

    Happy new year from Ofgem

    For his part, the director general for markets at Ofgem Tim Jarvis (we don’t know what his bullshit job is but we’re confident he’s never been on a prepayment meter) said:

    Protecting consumers is our number one priority…

    While nobody wants to see the practices uncovered last year repeated, we also know that allowing households to build up unsustainable amounts of debt isn’t the right thing to do either. Many households value the control that these pay as you go meters offer over bills and how they can help with budgeting, and suppliers must also be able to recover debt to make sure those costs don’t end up on everyone else’s bills.

    ‘Protecting customers’ is demonstrably NOT Ofgem’s priority – otherwise it wouldn’t allow energy companies to ever forcibly install prepayment meters.

    Stu Bretherton from campaign group Fuel Poverty Action told the Canary:

    Energy firms have proven time and again that they can’t be trusted with this dangerous practice. Just two months ago, Scottish Power was granted warrants impacting families with newborn babies. We need an outright ban but Ofgem continually puts energy company profits first, even when doing so will put lives at risk this winter.

    So, it’s a new year but the same old story from Ofgem. The poorest people in the UK can freeze so long as private energy companies’ profits are protected.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Thanks to the cost of living crisis, none of us are able to put money away for a rainy day

    Recent reports state that UK households are to face a forecasted 11% increase in credit card and loan debt in 2024, as well as warnings of a £17,600 debt surge by 2026. However, another financial storm is battering people in the UK – and it’s their inability to save.

    UK savings: well below averages

    In a recent study by CityIndex, UK households are saving just 3.25% of their disposable income amid the soaring cost of living crisis – a figure that is expected to change if debt levels reach their predicted peak.

    The study analysed global data on household savings, including mean disposable income, mean household savings and long-term interest rates, to ultimately discover the countries with the highest household savings in the world.

    Key findings from the study found that:

    • UK households save an average of 3.25% of their earnings per annum.
    • Households in the United Kingdom make almost as much as those in Sweden, but they get to save three times less.
    • Switzerland leads the rating with a total savings score of 9.83/10, and the lowest mean long-term interest rates.
    • Sweden stands out for lower than average long-term interest rates.

    The countries with the highest household savings

    County 

    Mean household disposable 

    income in USD*

    Mean household savings in USD from disposable income*

    % of disposable 

    income put 

    toward savings

    Mean 

    long-term interest rates

    Total savings score

    1.

    Switzerland

    $35,311

    $5908

    17%

    1.44

    9.83

    2.

    Luxembourg

    $40,395

    $3028

    8%

    2.35

    9.69

    3.

    United States of America 

    $42,592

    $2961

    7%

    3.21

    9.67

    4.

    Chile

    $14,004

    $1532

    11%

    5.19

    9.63

    5.

    Germany

    $32,997

    $3568

    11%

    2.28

    9.62

    6.

    Austria

    $31,792

    $3058

    10%

    2.61

    9.55

    7.

    Netherlands 

    $31,304

    $2475

    8%

    2.47

    9.51

    8.

    France

    $29,663

    $2876

    10%

    2.62

    9.49

    9.

    Belgium

    $29,837

    $2778

    9%

    2.75

    9.48

    10.

    Sweden

    $28,611

    $2814

    10%

    2.55

    9.47

    17.

    United Kingdom

    $28,222

    $918

    3.25%

    3

    9.26

    Data is calculated between 2000-2022. *Mean household disposable income & savings are calculated per annum. Exchange rates may have an impact on the final rankings. 

    The UK ranked 17th out of the 35 countries analysed. While UK households have a mean household disposable income of $28,222 (£22,956), which is not far from Sweden which made it into the top 10, only a mere 3.25% is put towards their savings.

    Amid the ongoing cost of living crisis, essential expenses like housing, utilities, and groceries are dwindling the funds available for savings. With food prices experiencing their most rapid increase in 45 years and utility bills soaring, households find themselves with limited support, unsurprisingly resulting in scarily low savings rates.

    Furthermore, the substantial debt obligations, encompassing loans and mortgages, absorb a significant portion of the income of UK residents, especially now when mortgage rates have peaked.

    Top three countries with the highest savings per household 

    Switzerland residents have the highest household savings with a total savings score of 9.83 out of 10. Households in Switzerland save 17% of their gross income, with $5,908 per year saved on average between 2000-2022. This is 48% higher than the neighbouring country of Austria ($3,058) in the same time period, despite having a similar population size.

    Switzerland also has the lowest long-term interest rates at 1.44 since 2000 – 63% lower than the long-term interest rates in Luxembourg (2.345).

    Luxembourg ranks second with a total savings score of 9.69/10. The country has the second-highest household disposable income between 2000-2022 ($40,398), 35% higher than in the neighbouring country of Belgium ($29,837). Luxembourg residents have mean household savings of $3,028, with 8% of their disposable income put toward savings.

    Not only this, Luxembourg’s long-term interest rates stand at 2.35, which are the third lowest interest rates globally behind Switzerland (1.44) and Germany (2.28).

    The US ranks 3rd, with a total savings score of 9.67 out of 10. With the dollar exchange rate taken into account, the US has the highest mean household disposable income in the ranking  ($42,592), 45% higher than Canada ($29,442) and three times higher than Mexico ($14,102). CityIndex found that American residents have a mean average household savings of $2,961, with 7% of their disposable income going into their savings.

    Other countries with notable savings findings  

    Chile ranks fourth with a total savings score of 9.63 out of 10. Chile has one of the highest long-term interest rates (5.19) and the lowest mean disposable income at $14,004. Despite this, Chile residents manage to put 11% of their disposable income towards their savings – 3% more than Luxembourg in second place – equating to $1,532 in mean household savings.

    Germany, which ranks 5th, was found to have the second highest mean household savings ($3,568), 21% higher than in the neighbouring country of France ($2,876). Not only this, but  the country has the fourth lowest long-term interest rates on the list (2.28), 19% lower than in Belgium (2.75).

    Sweden stands out for lower than average long-term interest rates. The country ranks 10th, with a total savings score of 9.47 out of 10. Swedish households have a mean household disposable income of $28,611, over double that of Poland ($16,736), putting 10% of this toward their savings on average. Sweden has a lower-than-average long-term interest rate compared to other countries in the ranking (2.55) along with impressive mean household savings ($2,814), 12 times more than Finland ($242).

    Featured image via twinsterphoto – Envato Elements

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UK families are suffering the ‘worst decline’ in living standards in the G7

    The UK is only country in the G7 where household budgets have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. That’s the verdict of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), as its analysis reveals that British families would be £750 a year better off if real disposable income had grown in line with other leading economies

    UK living standards: lagging behind the rest of the G7

    The UK is suffering the worst decline in living standards of any G7 country – according to new TUC analysis published on Monday 8 January. The analysis shows the UK is only G7 economy where real household disposable income per head hasn’t recovered to its pre-pandemic levels:

    Real household disposable incomes in the UK were 1.2% lower in the second quarter of 2023 than at the end of 2019. But over the same period they grew by 3.5%, on average, across the G7.

    The TUC estimates that if real disposable income in the UK had risen in line with the G7 average UK families would be £750 a year better off.

    More pain ahead for households budgets

    The union body warned that the contraction in UK household budgets is going to get worse – despite falling inflation.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that real house disposable income per head in Britain will fall by an additional 3.4% by the end of the first quarter of 2024.

    And according to the same forecasts household budgets won’t even recover to their pre-pandemic levels until the end of 2026.

    The OBR said in November that UK households are suffering the worst period for living standards since modern records began in the 1950s.

    Households in debt

    The TUC says the Conservatives’ failure to grow the economy and deliver healthy wage growth has pushed many households further into debt.

    Analysis published by the union body at the end of December revealed that unsecured debt (credit cards, loans, hire purchase agreements) is set to rise by £1,400 per household, in real terms, this year.

    The TUC says working people have been left brutally exposed to rising costs and decimated household budgets after years of pay stagnation.

    UK workers are on course for two decades of lost living standards with real wages not forecast to recover to their 2008 level until 2028.

    The TUC estimates that the average worker has lost £14,800 since 2008 as a result of their pay not keeping up with pre-global financial crisis real wage trends.

    The Tories’ damning record is to blame

    TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

    The UK is the only G7 nation where living standards are worse than before the pandemic. While families in other countries have seen their incomes recover – household budgets here continue to shrink.

    This is a damning indictment on the Conservatives’ economic record. Their failure to deliver decent growth and living standards over the last 13 years has left millions exposed to skyrocketing bills – and is pushing many deeper into debt.

    We can’t go on like this. Britain cannot afford the Tories for a day longer.

    Featured image via formatoriginal – Envato Elements

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sneaky politicians are already data harvesting in preparation for the coming election

    It’s an election year in Great Britain, and you know what that means – shenanigans. In 2019, “dirty tricks” perpetrated by the Tory Party included a fake punch, several fake fact-checking websites, and pretty much everything Boris Johnson said (or did (or secretly thought)).

    The 2024 general election might not happen until later this year, and yet the dodgy tactics are already on display. The latest trick was highlighted with a community note on the website we’re choosing to refer to as Twitter:

    “Classic data-grabbing”

    IT law professor Paul Bernal described the Tory ploy as follows:

    Other people had similar things to say:

    Responses to Bernal’s tweet highlighted a sad truth – namely that the Labour Party is doing something similarly slimey:

    The tactic is one which seems to have been deployed for some time, and by both parties:

    Rock-bottom trust in an election year

    In December 2023, polling company Ipsos reported:

    Trust in politicians reaches its lowest score in 40 years

    Ouch. It elaborated further, noting:

    Just nine per cent of the British public say they trust politicians to tell the truth, down from twelve per cent in 2022. This makes them the least trusted profession in Britain*. Although trust in politicians is usually low, this years’ score is the lowest for politicians since the first wave of the survey in 1983; aside from 2022 the previous low was a score of 13%, which occurred in 2009 following the expenses scandal.

    Could hoodwinking working people be making the problem worse? It certainly can’t be helping.

    If you yourself number among the 9% who still trust British politicians, I’ve got a data scam I think you’d be interested in signing up to.

    * To give you the full picture, we should note that journalists also number in the top 5 least-trusted professions. Having observed the mainstream British press for several years, we’re fully on board with this assessment.

    Featured image via Twitter

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sunak just shot himself in the foot with his election year starting gun

    It’s election year! And you know what that means? Because we don’t – namely because the last several elections have consistently bucked expectations. While it’s too early to tell what fresh horrors await us, it isn’t too early to start commenting on the electioneering process. On Sunday 7 January, prime minister Rishi Sunak attempted to fire the starting gun on his election year in an interview with the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg.

    His gun misfired. And then it made a damp farting noise. And then it actually went off and shot him in the foot.

    Sunak: uninteresting times

    As exciting as the starting gun analogy sounds, the key takeaway was that Sunak just isn’t very interesting:

    Depending on the political landscape, boringness could be a strength or weakness. On the one hand, boring politicians don’t stand out; on the other hand, it’s a huge benefit when your opposition stands out for all the wrong reasons. In the 2024 election, it’s unlikely boringness will be a deciding factor, as it’s a quality both Sunak and Starmer have in spades:

    The above commenter is being fairly charitable to Starmer, as his problems go way beyond boringness:

    In any election, boringness is likely to benefit the Tories most. As reported by the Independent:

    The Tories are only supported by over-65-year-olds ahead of a looming general election, a tracker of polls reveals.

    Rishi Sunak’s party is trailing Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour with voters in every age group except the over-65s, according to The Economist.

    The party enjoys the support of 40 per cent of people in the oldest age bracket, compared with just 18 per cent of those aged between 18 and 34. At the last election, two thirds of over-65s voted for the Conservatives.

    Meanwhile Labour is backed by more than half of 18 to 34-year-olds, and leads in the polls with everybody 64 and under.

    Older people are more likely to vote than young people, and there’s a risk that Starmer proves so uninspiring that people just don’t bother (or they vote Greens/Lib Dems/other).

    So, is Sunak’s weapon-grade boringness actually a clever strategy? No – he’s obviously just a very dull person. He also has the same problem Starmer does in that he can’t talk about what he actually wants – a country which solely benefits his wealthy backers – so he has to stick to the script.

    The dull, dull script…

    “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”

    Sunak is a politician, so obviously a lot of what he said was horseshit. People were quick to point this out:

    The headline of Kuenssberg’s latest blog was:

    New year, new tactics but old problems for Sunak

    Arguably, however, Sunak doesn’t have “new tactics”; he’s only ever had one tactic, and that’s to wildly spin like a political weathercock. The only winds he seems to register, however, are those of the pant-pissingly reactionary elements of his party (and the right-wing media). This is why Sunak is gutting environmental protections even as floods ravage the country:

    It’s also why Sunak is happy to make us an international pariah for the benefit of pleasing a handful of nationalist weirdos:

    Perhaps the most tawdry of all, however, is Sunak’s ‘new’ plan to facilitate tax cuts for the rich via another round of austerity:

    Unfunny yet laughable Sunak

    The most ridiculous moment in the Sunak interview was when he said the following:

    People were quick to point out the hypocrisy of Sunak saying this:

    And it didn’t stop there:

    Or even there:

    Bravely, Sunak used the ‘it’s not about slogans’ line to setup another slogan:

    Maybe ‘It’s Not About Slogans’ will become a slogan itself with Sunak spearheading the first post-modern election? It’s unclear if that would make things less or more boring. You’d imagine that Starmer would quickly ape the approach – probably with an anti-slogan of his own like ‘Slogans Aren’t Working’.

    All change

    It’s hard to imagine Sunak having anything other than a terrible election. It’s equally hard to imagine Starmer impressing once the media spotlight is on him. At this point, it seems like the most likely outcome is a Labour victory – even if Starmer manages to piss away half of his current lead (or he bores a sizeable portion of the electorate into a sleep coma).

    The thing to bear in mind is this: when was the last time an election went how anyone thought it would at the beginning of the same year?

    Featured image via Number 10 – Flickr (image cropped to 770 x 403)

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A viral petition and the CWU sum up the corrupt cronyism that ‘Mr Bates vs the Post Office’ reignited public awareness of

    The ITV1 drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office has caused a flurry of activity around the Horizon IT system scandal – not least a new police investigation and a viral online petition. However, the Communications Workers Union (CWU) has perhaps summed up the situation the best. It has issued an angry statement calling for the ex-Post Office boss – now a CBE – to have her honour stripped.

    Mr Bates vs the Post Office: a real-life drama

    Mr Bates vs the Post Office has brought the ongoing scandal over the Horizon IT system, and Post Office and politicians conduct at the time, back into the public eye. More than 700 people running small local post offices received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2005 after faulty accounting software made it appear that money had gone missing from their branches.

    The scandal has been described at an ongoing public inquiry as “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”. The Horizon IT system had been developed by the Japanese technology giant Fujitsu. The Post Office began installing the software in the late 90s, but flaws in its programming showed up deficits in branch accounts.

    Postal service executives, refusing to acknowledge problems with the software, forced workers to repay the shortfalls. Some were imprisoned or left out of pocket, while others failed to find other jobs and lost their homes.

    However, in December 2019 a High Court judge concluded that the system contained a number of “bugs, errors, and defects”. 86 postmasters have so far seen their convictions overturned and £21m has been paid in compensation.

    The UK government announced in September 2023 that every postmaster convicted would receive a payout of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

    A new angle to the Met investigation – and more potential victims

    Now, the Met Police said late on Friday 5 January that officers are “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”. The probe also includes money recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of civil actions, the force added in a statement.

    The Met had already been investigating potential crimes of perjury and perverting the course of justice relating to investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. Two people have been interviewed under caution but nobody has been arrested since the investigation opened in January 2020.

    Plus, as the Guardian reported, since ITV broadcast Mr Bates vs the Post Office:

    50 new potential victims have contacted lawyers, including five who wish to appeal against their convictions.

    The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which refers cases to the court of appeal, has since urged more potential victims to come forward. In a statement issued on Friday, it said it “might be able to help if your appeal was unsuccessful, or if you pleaded guilty in a magistrates court, or if you are a close relative of a former sub-postmaster who has died”.

    Meanwhile, an online petition over the scandal has gone viral.

    A viral petition

    Christopher Head started the Change petition Post Office Scandal Compensation & Accountability in January 2020 – will little attention. However, since Mr Bates vs the Post Office aired, it has gone from a few thousand signatures to nearly a quarter of a million as of 12pm on Saturday 6 January. Head was a victim of the Post Office and its Horizon IT system. As he says in the petition:

    There are over 550 claimants who completed costly litigation, 2500 who have now joined the Historical Shortfall scheme and potentially 900+ wrongful convictions taking this scandal to well over 3500 people. Lives were destroyed, businesses lost, homes repossessed, bankruptcies, false imprisonment, families destroyed, health issues and suicides, all down to a total cover up of the truth.

    Head wants “full and fair” government compensation for all victims. But crucially, he also wants accountability. What is missing from much of the discourse is what has happened to the boss of the Post Office at the time when the scandal first started coming to light.

    Paula Vennells CBE was CEO of the company from 2012 to 2019. However, as Sky News reported:

    Vennells oversaw the organisation while it routinely denied there were problems with its Horizon IT system.

    Crucially, as Head wrote:

    Vennells, who decided to resign days before the first substantial judgement was released by the High Court, has since been awarded a CBE, a position in the cabinet office of government and also chairs one of the largest NHS Groups (Imperial NHS).

    This level of cronyism and corruption in government and public bodies is routine – but still shocking. So, you can sign Head’s petition here.

    Mr Bates vs the Post Office: drama for social good

    Overall, Mr Bates vs the Post Office has brought the scandal back to the fore. As CWU national officer Andy Furey said in a statement:

    Mr Bates vs the Post Office has been a tremendously moving depiction of such a harrowing story that has rightly been described as the greatest miscarriage of justice ever seen in the UK.

    Alan Bates and the Justice For Sub-Postmaster Alliance (JFSA) must be lauded for their tireless efforts to expose the disgraceful actions of the Post Office.

    The emotional response from across the country has been a vindication for Alan Bates and those who fought a crusade to overturn the Post Office establishment, who closed ranks to defend the Horizon system – even though this meant Postmasters being imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.

    It has also been vindicating for CWU members in the Post Office, who have supported the efforts of the JFSA in fighting this injustice for well over a decade.

    Sadly, this fight was necessary as hundreds of Postmasters were let down and abandoned by the National Federation of SubPostmasters, who failed them every step of the way due to their blind and unquestionable support for the Post Office Board.

    The CWU fully reiterates our demand that the government strips former Chief Executive Officer Paula Vennells of her CBE – this honour for Post Office services is an insult to every postmaster who were treated so abhorrently under her leadership.

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via ITV Press Department

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Starmer’s office is set to see another protest over Israel – with 100 others happening across the UK too

    On Saturday 6 January, protests will take place across the UK regarding Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. However, at two locations there is a different focus – with one calling for solidarity with activists facing trial, and another calling on Labour leader Keir Starmer to effectively fix up.

    UK protests over Israel’s genocide number 100 on 6 January

    Tens of thousands of people across the UK are expected to protest in the fifth national Day of Action against Israel’s attacks on Gaza:

    • Up to 100 actions are taking place across the UK.
    • As Israel is charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice, the demand grows for a permanent ceasefire and lifting of Israel’s illegal siege to allow in desperately needed humanitarian aid.
    • UK political leaders are urged to stop their complicity in Israeli war crimes.

    The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said in a press release:

    Tens of thousands of British people will show their opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has claimed the lives of more than 22 000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. Thousands more are missing, presumed dead. More than 85% of the population of Gaza have been displaced, more than 60% of buildings damaged or destroyed. Nearly 2 million people face winter without safety from bombing or the basics of human survival – shelter, adequate food and water.

    This will be the fifth national Day of Action and it’s a continuation of the protests that have been held ever since Israel began its attacks on Gaza in early October. It comes the week before a seventh national March for Palestine in London on January 13th, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to protest against Israeli war crimes and the UK government’s complicity.

    There are actions from Bath to Wolverhampton – protests, rallies, petitions, fundraising and marches, mainly led by Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s network of branches across the UK. Several protests will highlight the complicity of corporations like Barclays Bank, which holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to 9 companies whose weapons, components, and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.

    Free the #Bristol7

    First up, 6 January will see the latest of the fortnightly local Palestine marches organised by the group “Bristol Palestine Alliance” (BPA). People will assemble at 12.00 noon at the bandstand on Castle Park, BS2 0HQ for circular march around Broadmead shopping centre followed by a rally back at the Bandstand.

    The event will headline the message “Stop Arming Israel”. In addition to conventional banners and flags the march aims to carry a 30m-long banner which reads “From Slave Trade to Arms Trade Bristol says NO” which includes an image of a slave ship and a modern-day missile.

    Organisers say this is “probably the longest banner ever carried on a march in Bristol”. In addition, the march will have banners showing solidarity with the “Elbit Seven” who are due to start their jury trial at Bristol Crown Court on Monday 8th January.

    The “Elbit Seven” are charged with breaking into the Elbit UK Technical Headquarters in Aztec West Business Park in Patchway on “Nakba Day” (15 May) 2022 and causing substantial damage to the building and the interior. You can read more on the #Bristol7 here.

    ‘No happy new year for the people of Gaza’

    A spokesperson for the BPA said:

    There is no happy new year for the people of Gaza. The situation and the suffering of the people can only be described as apocalyptic.

    This Saturday 6 January, the day of our march, will be the 92nd day of the attack – with the civilian population deprived of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical aid. Imagine if that was happening to us here in Bristol? The death toll has passed 22,000 and over 57,000 have been injured, plus many more unaccounted for under the rubble. Many hospitals have been attacked with the remaining staff sometimes having to carry our operations such as amputations without anesthetics. According to UNRWA, 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are internally displaced.

    They continued:

    What’s even more shocking is this country is helping supply the weapons. Britain has a massive two-way arms trade with Israel. Added to that there are arms companies in north Bristol which are not only linking up with our universities but also supplying essential parts for the US planes being supplied to Israel and used to bomb Gaza. Plus the big name that stands out now is the Israeli arms company, Elbit, which is currently opening a new factory site in Patchway.

    The BPA spokesperson concluded:

    Bristol is the city that prides itself, correctly, for standing on the right side of history. We’ve faced up to the shocking involvement in the slave trade historically. Now we should say NO to the arms industry.

    Starmer: toothless

    Meanwhile, in north London people will also be marching on the offices of Starmer and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq – calling for the Labour Party to support an immediate ceasefire:

    As Not The Andrew Marr Show said in an email:

    With Labour’s leader still refusing to condemn Israel’s genocide or call for a permanent ceasefire, Camden Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Brent & Harrow Palestinian Solidarity Campaign have joined up for a march to the offices of Starmer and Tulip Siddiq.

    The march assembles at 12:30pm at Chalk Farm and Kentish Town stations before marching to Camden Town and Mornington Crescent for the final rally at 2pm.

    The show will have footage and interviews from the protest on its Sunday 7 January edition. You can sign up to watch via the link in the X post below:

    Permanent ceasefire, now

    Overall, PSC Director Ben Jamal said:

    The international community is beginning to confront the reality that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to the crime of genocide, as they demonstrate an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Israel is attempting to erase the foundations of Palestinian life in Gaza and ethnically cleanse the population. The government of South Africa has led the way in charging Israel at the International Court of Justice, and shown up the hypocrisy of UK political leaders who pay lip service to human rights and the application of international law, but actually support Israel’s crimes through diplomatic cover, military cooperation and arms sales.

    This Saturday, ordinary people across the UK will come out again to show that the vast majority of them support the demand for a permanent ceasefire and stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine. They will also demand the root causes are addressed – Israel’s decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territories and its system of apartheid against Palestinians. We demand justice for the Palestinian people – their right to self-determination and to live in freedom, dignity and with equality.

    Find out more about the local protests here.

    Featured image via BBC iPlayer

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Can Wales still call itself an anti-apartheid nation as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza?

    In this guest article, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) groups in Wales explore Wales’s proud history in opposing apartheid in South Africa. They consider whether Wales can still feel proud considering that we have collectively buried our heads in the desert sands when in comes to the ongoing apartheid Israel has imposed upon Palestinian people.

    Wales: calling for a ceasefire in Gaza

    Yes we can feel proud that on 8 November 2023 the Welsh Senedd joined the majority of the world’s countries in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. These calls, however, were not led by Welsh government itself – but by Plaid Cymru, supported by 11 Labour backbenchers and the only Liberal Democrat.

    Out of 60 Senedd members just 24 voted in support of a ceasefire. Several put forward an amendment calling for a humanitarian pause, and 19 voted against, including the entire Welsh Conservative group. The 13 Welsh Labour government ministers abstained as the ‘Welsh government has no jurisdiction over international affairs‘.

    In March 2022, in an admirable display of solidarity the Welsh Government voted in support of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. And public bodies in Wales followed suit, engaging in a boycott of goods and services and divesting investments and pensions from Russian companies, and those with Russian ties.

    At the time, first minister Mark Drakeford stated that:

    The people of Wales are appalled at the invasion of Ukraine.

    Though when it came to calls for an immediate ceasefire amidst the appalling bombardment of Gaza, Drakeford attended but did not take part or comment. And in a way, perhaps that is understandable.

    As the result of the debate was announced, cheering and shouts of “free Palestine” could be heard coming from the public gallery. And it is this cry for freedom, rather than the calls for a ceasefire, which are at the heart of the wider issue of apartheid.

    Israel: practising apartheid

    In March 2022 Michael Lynk, the then-UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, released a statement which said that:

    apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.

    This echoed findings by Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights organisations.

    The statement speaks of a:

    deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system… [of] the walls, checkpoints, roads and an entrenched military presence… [separating] more than three million Palestinians, who are without rights, living under an oppressive rule of institutional discrimination and without a path to a genuine Palestinian state that the world has long promised is their right.

    The statement described Gaza as an “open-air prison“ which even before the “siege on Gaza” was:

    without adequate access to power, water or health, with a collapsing economy and with no ability to freely travel to the rest of Palestine or the outside world.

    Lynk concluded that:

    a political regime which so intentionally and clearly prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s racial-national-ethnic identity satisfies the international legal definition of apartheid.

    The UN rapporteur’s remit covers only the occupied Palestinian territories and not Israel itself. Other human rights groups have referred to Israel practising apartheid against Palestinian citizens of Israel as well. For example, a 2022 Amnesty International report states that Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians “wherever it has control over their rights”.

    Nelson Mandela’s visit to Wales

    We have learned that Wales has a proud history of opposing apartheid. When president Nelson Mandela made his only visit to Wales in 1998, four years after the ANC had been swept to power in South Africa’s first democratic elections, he praised Wales’s contribution in the fight to end apartheid.

    The man, who had been labelled and imprisoned as a terrorist by the apartheid regime, was introduced by the then-Cardiff city council leader Russell Goodway as:

    a beacon of light during the dark days of apartheid and oppression… a symbol of hope in the new world order.

    After meeting with the queen and thanking those in Wales who had campaigned for apartheid’s end, he told the crowds at a Freedom of the City Ceremony in Cardiff Castle that he asked the people of Wales to:

    accept our heartfelt thanks on behalf of the people of South Africa for your solidarity. When the call for the international isolation of apartheid went out to the world, the people of Wales responded magnificently.

    So how did this Wales come to have the proud history of opposing apartheid?

    A proud history of opposition and solidarity

    The archives held by the National Library of Wales record that “The Welsh Committee of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was established in 1981″ as the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement (WAAM) bringing together numerous local branches “as a national movement in Wales, with a clear Welsh identity”.

    According to these records its aims and objectives included informing the people of Wales and elsewhere about apartheid and campaigning for international action to bring about an end to apartheid.

    From the 1960s to the 1990s, the government of the UK traded with and openly supported the Apartheid regime of South Africa, despite the open knowledge that South Africa was an apartheid regime. This included the sale of weapons and other apartheid equipment.

    And today we make similar public shows of unconditional support for an apartheid regime, and actively encourage trade and investments in arms and other equipment used to enforce apartheid. This includes companies based in Wales.

    The archives state that WAAM’s campaigning work:

    covered a wide range of areas including sports, cultural and consumer boycotts, and campaigns against investment in South Africa by British and international companies and banks, against nuclear and military collaboration, loans to South Africa and oil sanctions.

    There are huge similarities then between WAAM and the PSC and other groups in Wales who are working to end apartheid and liberate the Palestinian people through calling for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).

    Similarities across the decades

    As the apartheid regime of South Africa was a key Cold War ally then, Israel is a key strategic ally of the UK today. Then – as now – apartheid is an inconvenient truth best ignored, or even suppressed – to the extent that heavy pressure (which included spying) was put on activists campaigning to end apartheid.

    And then – as now – expressing solidarity with an oppressed people is an incredibly brave thing for people to do. In Wales such outspoken activists included Peter Hain, who went on to become MP for Neath and the Welsh Office minister, and Mick Antoniw who became the AS/MS for Pontypridd and counsel general for Wales.

    And their valued contribution, and that of Wales, was celebrated by Mandela when he stated that:

    The knowledge that local authorities all over Wales were banning apartheid products from canteens and schools – and that the universities, the Welsh Rugby Union, and the choirs had cut their links – was a great inspiration to us in our struggle.

    So, how does Wales fare when it comes to opposing apartheid today?

    Opposing Israel’s apartheid in the 21st century

    We’ve heard about how groups small local groups are coming together to campaign for BDS in Wales. And in a piece for the IWA called Protecting the Right to Boycott in Wales, the author examined the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill (UK) and its likely impact on the right of public bodies to BDS here in Wales.

    The article outlined how the UK government is attempting to undermine devolution and the powers of public bodies to take part in BDS, and how worryingly the bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons with ease on 3 July 2023, after many Labour MP’s followed the party whip and abstained. It passed through both committee and report stages unamended.

    Yet on 15 November 2023, following the terrible events of 7 October and the brutal bombardment of Gaza which followed, when asked to vote on the SNP amendment to the king’s speech calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, 56 Labour MPs rebelled and voted in favour of the amendment.

    The rebellion, however, was largely confined to Labour MPs from England. Out of 40 MPs from Wales only five voted for a ceasefire: three Plaid Cymru MPs, one Labour, and one independent. One Labour MP was unavailable to vote as they were in the US. In the UK parliament the Welsh record on opposing apartheid isn’t looking great.

    Standing against international law is not conditional

    According to Lynk:

    The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into law after the collapse of the old South Africa. It is a forward-looking legal instrument which prohibits apartheid as a crime against humanity today and into the future, wherever it may exist.

    Standing against apartheid then is therefore a matter of international law which Welsh politicians cannot pick and choose to ignore.

    Thankfully, on 8 September 2023 Rebecca Evans, MS and minister for finance and local government, laid a legislative consent memorandum before the Senedd which stated that it would not be appropriate to adopt the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill (UK) for Wales. She stated:

    I cannot recommend consent is given whilst questions remain as to the compatibility of this Bill with convention rights and international law.

    Then on 22 November 2023, the Legislation, Justice, and Constitution Committee laid its final report on the proposed bill before the Senedd noting that:

    The devolution settlement requires the Welsh Ministers to comply with both international obligations and the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention rights).

    The committee also shared the ministers’ concerns that:

    A decision by the Senedd to consent to the Bill could contribute to a breach of international law and would mean the Senedd acting incompatibly with international obligations, which would be in contrast to the spirit of the devolution settlement.

    When this report comes up for debate in the Senedd chamber, it looks highly likely that any motion to oppose consent for the bill as it stands will gain the support of the majority, but not all, of the Senedd’s members. Like the vote for a ceasefire, this will stand as a signal of solidarity between the people of Wales, as represented by the Senedd, and the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle against apartheid.

    But such a signal of solidarity still falls far short of the actions needed.

    BDS and more

    Significant areas of concern remain with regards to Wales’s ongoing relationship with the apartheid state of Israel. If the campaign to end apartheid is to be successful once more, then civil society will need to organise around the anti-apartheid banner, and bring concerted pressure to bear on the public sector so that it can play its part in boycotting goods and services, divesting finance, and engaging in sanctions.

    Are we comfortable with Wales being a place where the Israeli arms industry does business? With Wales being a place where the Welsh public sector provides public sector inward investment support to cyber security, aerospace, and other firms with links to an apartheid regime? With Wales as a place where public sector pensions profit from apartheid? As the people of Wales, are we okay with this?

    Friends of the Earth Cymru, People & Planet, and Palestine solidarity groups have been calling for the divestment and decarbonisation of public sector pension funds for several years. In July 2023 several Welsh PSC groups wrote to their local authorities to express their concerns about the continuing investments of over £4.6bn of funds. Yet little progress on divesting has been made.

    Wales must oppose apartheid once again

    In his opening speech on the Ceasefire debate, Rhun ap Iorwerth said:

    There cannot be justification for the collective punishment of an entire population.

    As the UN and other human rights organisations makes clear, apartheid is collective punishment. 

    Palestine solidarity groups in Wales are calling on civil society to join in the campaign for BDS. The groups are, for example, calling on everyone in Wales to boycott Israeli goods and companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

    Yes, Wales has a proud history of opposing apartheid. But apartheid isn’t history. Let us work together to maintain Wales’s proud history of opposing apartheid whenever and wherever it arises.

    Let us come together and oppose apartheid once again.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Trial of the Palestine Action #Bristol7 begins on Monday – with defendants pleading not guilty

    On Monday 8 January, seven Palestine Action activists will be entering Bristol Crown Court for a four week trial, charged with burglary and criminal damage after allegedly entering, occupying, and dismantling Elbit’s Bristol headquarters in May 2022. The activists will plead not guilty to the charges against them, giving evidence to the court that Elbit are guilty – and not the activists standing against them.

    Elbit: complicit in Israel’s current Nakba in Palestine

    The action marked Elbit’s role in the ongoing Nakba and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, highlighting the 74th year of Zionist colonial occupation since its initial act of forced displacement of 800,000 Indigenous Palestinians from their land:

    The genocidal actions of the Israeli state – armed to the teeth with Elbit weaponry and working hand in hand with Elbit personnel – continue this violent displacement of Palestinians from their native homeland. Since October 2023, these actions, using Elbit drones, munitions, and equipment, have taken over 25,000 lives, and displaced almost two million Palestinians.

    To disrupt British complicity in this ethnic cleansing, the seven Palestine Action activists occupied the headquarters of Elbit Systems UK in Bristol. It is this Bristol HQ from which Elbit oversee the British production of drones, technologies, and other arms eventually shipped to Israel, while profiting from British government contracts and financing Israel’s weapons trade.

    The site was forced closed as activists occupied office and meeting rooms, and dismantled the property inside. Walls were painted and marked with ‘Palestine Action’, ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Shut Elbit Down’, and ‘Elbit=Nakba’ written in Hebrew:

    Palestine Action Elbit action

    Committed to the collective fight

    After the action, all of the activists were remanded to prison. Two of them, both anti-Zionist Jewish activists, were detained for one month, one of the reasons being Israeli embassy involvement in the case due to them having Israeli citizenship. The two were then kept under electronic monitoring for a year, while all seven faced strict bail conditions restricting their movement and communications.

    Despite the state’s harassment, all seven remain committed to the collective fight for Palestinian liberation, and know that the only guilty party in that courtroom is Elbit. Despite the fact that the British criminal justice system has long worked to support these war profiteers, the seven have plead ‘not guilty’ – with their actions deemed urgent and necessary given the Palestinian suffering created by Elbit’s continued operations.

    This trial was due to take place in April 2022, before being postponed to this year. Initially, two others were charged alongside the seven, but their cases have since been separated out.

    Join the seven for their four-week trial at Bristol Crown Court (9 Small St, Bristol BS1 1DB), taking place 8-19 January, before breaking for one week and resuming from 29 January to 9 February.

    Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • As workers ate lunch today, CEOs had already earned the equivalent of their annual salary

    The median FTSE 100 CEO’s earnings for 2024 surpassed the median annual salary for a full-time worker in the UK by around 1pm on Thursday 4 January, according to calculations by the High Pay Centre think tank. It means bosses will have already earned over £34,000 this year.

    High Pay Centre: CEO earns £34k in four days

    The calculations are based on the High Pay Centre’s analysis of the most recent CEO pay disclosures published in companies’ annual reports, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.

    As with last year, the executive pay data suggests that CEOs will have to wait until the third working day of 2024 to surpass the annual pay of the median worker.

    Median FTSE 100 CEO pay (excluding pension) currently stands at £3.81m, 109 times the median full time worker’s pay of £34,963. This represents an 9.5% increase on median CEO pay levels as of March 2023, while the median worker’s pay has increased by 6%.

    The figures come against a backdrop of calls from leading figures in the city and big business for UK CEOs to be paid more. In December 2023 Legal and General Investment Management adjusted their executive pay guidelines to permit firms they invest in to offer more generous incentive payments, while earlier in the year the London Stock Exchange Chief Executive argued that low CEO pay levels create a risk to the UK economy.

    How other top earners compare

    The High Pay Centre used other publicly available data to estimate how long it would take other top earners to surpass the median UK worker’s full time earnings.

    Other FTSE 350 executives (comprised of FTSE 100 executives other than the CEO, plus CEOs and other executives of FTSE 250 companies), with a median pay of £1.32m, will need to work until 10 January for their pay to overtake the annual pay of the median UK worker. Moreover, a:

    • Partner at a ‘magic circle’ law firm, average pay £1.92m, would need to work until 8 January.
    • One at a ‘Big Four’ Accountancy firm, average pay £871k, would need to work until 16 January.
    • A top banker (so-called ‘material risk taker’) at one of the five FTSE 100 listed banks, average pay £807k, would need to work until 16 January.

    Everyone in the top 1% of full time UK earners, making at least £145k, will have overtaken the annual pay of the median full time worker by 29 March.

    ‘Massive inequality’

    High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said:

    Lobbyists for big business and the financial services industry spent much of 2023 arguing that top earners in Britain aren’t paid enough and that we are too concerned with gaps between the super-rich and everybody else. They think that economic success is created by a tiny number of people at the top and that everybody else has very little to contribute.

    When politicians listen to these misguided views, it’s unsurprising that we end up with massive inequality, and stagnating living standards for the majority of the population.

    Featured image via Wikimedia 

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • TUC warns of ‘debt timebomb’ with households facing £1,400 rise in credit card and loan debt in 2024

    The Trades Union Congress (TUC) had warned households are facing a “debt timebomb” with credit card and loan bills set to rise by £1,400 on average in 2024. The trade union body has said that next year will see 11% real-terms rise in unsecured debt with household debt hitting record levels in 2026.

    TUC: a ‘debt timebomb’ over the next five years

    The warning comes as new analysis from the TUC reveals that unsecured debt (loans credit cards, purchase hire agreements) is set to increase by £1,400 in real terms next year, on average, per household.

    The analysis of official statistics shows that in 2024 household unsecured debt is forecast to rise by 11%.

    And over the course of the next parliament unsecured debt is set to rocket by £6,000 (43%), on average, per family.

    The union body warned that unsecured debt per UK household is on course to reach a record level of £17,200 by 2026 – exceeding the previous high of £16,800 set in 2007.

    By 2028 unsecured debt per household is set to top £19,000.

    Unsecured debt includes credit cards, loans and purchase hire agreements, and excludes mortgages. The TUC excluded student loans from the analysis.

    Families left exposed

    The TUC says working people have been left brutally exposed to rising costs after years of pay stagnation.

    UK workers are on course for two decades of lost living standards with real wages not forecast to recover to their 2008 level until 2028.

    The TUC estimates that the average worker would now be £14,800 better off if their pay had kept up with pre-crisis real wage growth trends since 2008.

    The union body says the sharp spike in debt, along with stagnant living standards, will “more than wipe out” any gains from the chancellor’s cut to national insurance tax and leave many families “under the cosh”.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility says the period between 2021 and 2024 will be the worst for living standards (real household disposable income per person) since records began in 1955.

    Nowak: we’ cannot afford the Tories’

    TUC general secretary Paul Nowak has warned that Britain “cannot afford the Tories” in his annual New Year Message on Friday 29 December.

    Calling for an early general election, Nowak said:

    Every month the Tories stay in office the more families will be pushed into debt.

    This party of out-of-touch millionaires is more focussed on clinging to power than on growing our economy and getting living standards rising again.

    If something doesn’t change, real wages won’t recover to their 2008 levels until 2028.

    These 13 years of economic stagnation have left working people brutally exposed to the cost of living crisis.

    We cannot afford a Tory government for one day longer.

    ‘We won’t be intimidated by the Tories’

    Highlighting the TUC’s ongoing campaign against the government’s new anti-strike laws, Nowak said:

    Nobody withdraws their labour lightly. It is the last resort when employers refuse to talk and refuse to compromise.

    The action taken by union members [in 2023] forced bosses across the country back to the negotiating table and secured better deals.

    Unions will do everything in our power to defend that right to strike. It is a cornerstone of our democracy.

    We won’t be intimidated by this government, and we won’t be bullied.

    The Tories’ Strikes Act is toxic, unworkable, undemocratic and likely illegal. And it’s a brazen attempt to try stop working people winning better pay and conditions.

    The entire trade union movement will rally behind any worker who is sacked for exercising their right to strike.

    Featured image via s_kawee – Envato Elements

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Bristol’s Broadmead shopping centre will see a BDS ‘tour’ of Israel-supporting businesses

    Bristol’s Broadmead shopping district will see activists host a tour of it – focusing on companies that are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and war crimes in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Organisers are inviting the public to join them on Saturday 30 December as they visit companies like Barclays and Pret A Manger.

    Bristol: in an alliance with Palestine

    As the Canary previously reported, Bristol Palestine Alliance was formed in response to the horrific events happening in Gaza. Acting as an umbrella group, it brings members from organisations and groups and communities in the city together to respond collectively to organise marches and other events to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. It is based on the network of solidarity that has been successfully built in this city over many years.

    Most recently, the group organised a protest outside a Labour Christmas buffet and quiz. In attendance at this party were local Bristol politicians. As the Canary previously wrote, they included:

    Thangam Debbonaire (MP for Bristol West), together with Dan Norris (Labour West of England Mayor), Clare Moody (Labour Police and Crime Commissioner), plus local Labour councillors…

    Local people are shocked that in November their MP Debbonaire, together with the three other Bristol Labour MPs, abstained from the vote for a ceasefire on Gaza. In addition, Dan Norris is known to be a member of “Labour Friends of Israel”.

    Now, Bristol Palestine Alliance is taking its action one step further.

    A walking tour of boycott in Broadmead

    The group has announced a “Boycott Tour of Broadmead” 30 December.

    The event starts at 10.30am at the Podium outside Barclays Bank BS1 3EA in Broadmead and is described as a “tour of stores and businesses people may wish to avoid”. Supporters are asked to bring whistles, drums, musical instruments, and children’s toys to make some noise.

    Organisers say:

    People are utterly horrified at the slaughter being inflicted on the people of Gaza and feel they want to try to stop it. The aim of this tour is to explain how people can help by boycotting Israel products and companies that financially support Israel.

    They go on to say:

    People will be shocked that Barclays Bank invests over a billion pounds in the Israeli Arms Industry! That SodaStream is manufactured in settlements in the West Bank that are illegal under International Law! That Pret A Manger are planning to roll-out new restaurants in the West Bank settlements. That McDonalds and Burger King are supplying take-away dinners to Israeli soldiers killing innocent civilians in Gaza. And that many supermarkets sell products that support the Israeli economy.

    Different group in Bristol have already done protests against specific sites in Bristol including the Arnolfini, AXA, Starbucks, Barclays Bank, Zara, and McDonalds. However, this is the first time all the targets have been joined-up into one tour.

    An ‘educational’ event

    Organisers say:

    Our aim definitely isn’t to disrupt the public. We see this as an educational tour. We aim to inform people how they can avoid supporting the Israel’s war machine with their purses and wallets.

    They go on to say:

    Due to hard work by campaigners over many years there have already been some great successes! Five years ago, HSBC bank dropped over three million pounds worth of shares in Elbit, an Israeli arms company. Plus, they pulled out over eight hundred million pounds from companies that provide technology to the Israeli military, such as Rolls Royce and BAE Systems.

    Elbit Systems is one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, notorious for its deadly drones used in attacks on Palestinian civilians and marketed abroad as ‘combat proven’. The company has also manufactured white phosphorous and artillery systems that can be used for cluster munitions.

    BDS for Palestine in Bristol

    Organisers add:

    Just earlier this month PUMA, under relentless pressure from consumers, announced it was ending its sponsorship for the Israel Football Association because it includes teams from the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

    People can find out more about the movement for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) which works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and to apply pressure on Israel to comply with international law. https://bdsmovement.net/

    Organisers also say “there’s even an app people can down-load to their phones called WATERMELON which they can use to check products while they’re shopping”.

    Bristol Palestine Alliance hope to see people at 10:30am on Saturday.

    Featured image via Visit Bristol

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.