Take a few minutes out of your day to listen to Boris Johnson’s speech at the COP 27 summit in Egypt.
You may have heard methane making more sense while negotiating its way through a cow’s digestive system:
This man was prime minister of the United Kingdom for three years.
No wonder the country is in the state it’s in now.
And, inevitably, he skated right over his own climate change denial.
Fortunately, here’s Maximilien Robespierre to remind him of it:
The decision on the Cumbria coal mine, mentioned in the clip, was delayed for a third time only at the beginning of this month.
So we see in Johnson a man who says one thing now, but whose government did the opposite when he was in charge – and whose successor (Rishi Sunak) is continuing in similar vein.
And if you want to learn about his contribution to COP 27, I have a nice little article right here.
Rishi rushes out: why was he really in such a hurry?
It can’t have been to write his speech. Can it?
Rishi Sunak caused a stir – and some hilarity – when he was rushed out of the launch of the Forests Partnership at COP 27:
About 2 mins before he left an aide came onto stage and was whispering in his ear for more than a minute…there was a discussion going on about, it seems, whether to leave at that moment. But Sunak stayed but another aide made decision to go back to him and urge him to leave pic.twitter.com/F2xSJc0sEw
No official statement has been issued by Downing Street to explain the prime minister’s dramatic exit however it is believed he left early to prepare for a keynote climate change speech he would make later in the afternoon.
Does that ring true, considering what the content of his speech actually was?
“Putin’s abhorrent war in Ukraine and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change. They are a reason to act faster.”
“We can bequeath our children a greener planet and a more prosperous future […] There really is room for hope.”
If that seems good to you, then brace yourself because it didn’t go down well with activists.
His speech caused scepticism from the summit with social justice campaign group Global Justice calling his works “tepid” and [saying it] “failed to address the scale of the climate emergency.”
Friends of the Earth campaigner Rachel Kennerley, said it failed to offer “adequate finance to support vulnerable nations to tackle climate change and deal with its impacts.”
So it seems strange that this speech is being touted as the reason Sunak was practically dragged out of the hall previously.
Should we expect a new government-rocking revelation in short order?
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If you were wondering why Rishi Sunak suddenly decided to attend the COP 27 climate change summit after all – and you’re not convinced that it was because Boris Johnson said he’d be going, then here’s an alternative (but even less convincing) explanation:
… or IS it less convincing?
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Rishi Sunak: he’s attending COP 27 for “political management” reasons, not because he wants to be there.
Rishi Sunak has u-turned on his decision not to attend the COP 27 climate change summit.
After saying he was too busy preparing for the November 17 budget to attend the event that starts in Egypt on Sunday, he has caved in to criticism by climate campaigners, opposition parties and his own climate adviser, Alok Sharma.
It is also possible that he’s going after learning that former prime minister Boris Johnson said he would be attending the summit, yesterday (November 1).
So he’s being dragged to the table when he should have leapt at the opportunity. This is not leadership. This is, as Keir Starmer (of all people) pointed out: “political management”.
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The trouble with this is that it is a better speech than we got from the real prime minister.
Enjoy:
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The folk at Politics Joe have been looking at Liz Truss’s speech to the Conservative Party conference, and they’ve found it a little disturbing.
They have highlighted moments when she seems to appear more than a little … well … strange.
And they’ve highlighted some of these moments by zooming in on her face, so you can see for yourself the bizarre look in her eyes.
Seriously – see for yourself:
What do you make of that?
She has always claimed to be the heir of Thatcher. Well, Thatcher went a bit doolally in the end and it seems it hasn’t taken Truss quite as long to reach that point.
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She probably thought it was a good choice of walk-on music at a conference whose slogan was “Getting Britain Moving”.
But Liz Truss’s choice of M People’s Moving On Up has deeply angered members of the band who created it – not least because the Conservative Party never even bothered to ask permission to use the track.
Producer and DJ Mike Pickering, who was one of M People’s three members, had this to say:
So apparently we can't stop Truss walking out to our song, very weird! So sad it got used by this shower of a government. BTW Truss labour used it with permission in 90's. I don't want my song being a soundtrack to lies.
The band was left-leaning, as we can see from these tweets about singer Heather Small:
Liz Truss walks onto stage to M People’s ‘Moving On Up’. (Trivia: Heather Small’s son was elected as a Labour councillor in May) pic.twitter.com/Y3th7Cv2tO
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First, here’s a selection of Conservative MPs (including a wonky-spectacled Chancellor Queasy Kwarteng) working hard to justify themselves:
Now let’s see what their own voters think of them…
… Oh dear.
The best that can be said is that they all approve of the tax u-turn. But that means they’re admitting that their government – that they chose – got their first big decision wrong.
And some of the comments were a lot less positive.
And Kwasi Kwarteng’s speech didn’t get the ovation he would have wanted. Most people stayed in their seats and This Writer has a suspicion that many of them didn’t even bother to clap.
I think these Tories are in deep, deep trouble. But they’re all working hard to avoid admitting it.
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Having sat through Kwasi Kwarteng’s speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I tend to agree with Professor Tim Wilson.
It was all excuses; there was no substance – no new policies, nothing to announce at all.
And the delivery was shocking.
Here’s the quick summary:
And now here’s the long-seeming speech itself:
One point I would add: “Getting Britain Moving” is a terrible slogan for a party – and a Chancellor – that has endangered the ownership of millions of homes across the country by his own economic incompetence.
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Two-fingered salute: Boris Johnson has voiced opposition to conversion therapy on multiple occasions, but actions speak louder than words and the gesture in the image above seems more indicative of his actual attitude to LGBT+ people
The UK’s Tory government has humiliatingly been forced to cancel an international conference of LGBT+ people in a row over its support for conversion therapy.
According to Wikipedia, “Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual or their gender identity from transgender to cisgender using psychological, physical, or spiritual interventions.
“There is no reliable evidence that such practices can alter sexual orientation or gender identity, and medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and potentially harmful.”
The government had promised to outlaw conversion therapy in any form – but u-turned last week, saying any ban would only apply to attempts to alter a person’s sexuality, not attempts to try to change people’s gender identity.
So it seems the Tories are happy to expose trans people to potential harm.
It’s probably no wonder, then, that more than 100 LGBT+ organisations have responded by walking out of the Tories’ big, flagship, headline-grabbing international conference for, among all the other groups, trans people.
The killing blow was dealt to the event on Tuesday (April 5, 2022) when Iain Anderson, the Tory government’s first LGBT+ business champion, resigned. His unpaid role was specially-created for the lead-up to the conference, and was expected to last 18 months.
He would have been expected to showcase what UK businesses have done in reducing workplace discrimination and promoting quality for LGBT+ people at the conference – a tricky job in the light of the government’s new policy.
In a letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, who has allowed (demanded?) the u-turn to happen, he stated: “Trust and belief in the government’s overall commitment to LGBT+ rights has been damaged.
“I believe a comprehensive plan to support LGBT+ people to play their full part in our society is urgently needed.”
Johnson himself has previously called the practice of conversion therapy “repulsive and abhorrent” and had promised plans to outlaw it on a number of separate occasions. Has he been lying again?
A government spokesperson has responded with a statement that it would carry out “separate work” on the issue of transgender conversion therapy but it was keen for any legislation not to have “unintended consequences”, adding it was a “legally complex area”.
Oh yes – “unintended consequences”. We know that’s something that the government has always tried to avoid! (Hint: it never has.)
A Conservative MP, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: “Having failed to deliver for the LGBT community at home, we will now fail to deliver for LGBT communities around the world. What a record.”
Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry posted on Twitter: “For three years, I urged the Government to use the opportunity they had as co-chair of the (intergovernmental) Equal Rights Coalition to take a global lead on LGBTQ+ issues.
“For three years, they did nothing except talk up their ‘Safe To Be Me’ conference. And now where are we? What a sickening waste.”
Consortium, the umbrella body for LGBT+ voluntary and community organisations, said: “The implications of the international LGBT conference being cancelled are solely at the doorstep of Number 10.
“LGBT+ organisations were left with no choice but to withdraw any support in order to stand in solidarity and partnership with our trans communities.”
So there you have it. The Tories’ own prejudices have humiliated them. This is a terrific example of people power laying the mighty low. We may all learn from this.
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