Tag Archives: bill

Should Thames Water go bust, rather than increase its bills by two-fifths?

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Government defeated by Lords on Rwanda treaty

The House of Lords has called for the new UK-Rwanda treaty to be delayed until Kigali improves its asylum procedures:

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The motion is not binding on the government.

But note:

According to the BBC:

Next week peers will begin debating the bill itself, which aims to prevent legal challenges to deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

While non-binding, the vote on the treaty gives an indication of the level of opposition Mr Sunak is likely to face when the bill is debated in the Lords.

Rishi Sunak is in trouble here.


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Cold, damp homes skyrocket estimates of excess deaths

How to heat? For many pensioners this winter, the fire may not be an option and the only heat they are likely to get may be from a cup of tea – even after temperatures plummeted to -14C this week.

An “appalling and avoidable” increase in excess death estimates is due to cold, damp homes, according to a new report:

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has predicted from the latest government data that 4,950 excess winter deaths in the UK were caused by living in cold, damp homes during winter 2022/23, an increase of 1,721 people compared to estimates from last year.

The latest figures from the Warm This Winter campaign also show that 8.3m adults in the UK are living in cold, damp homes.

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Energy bills have soared in recent years following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and with Ofgem’s energy price cap for January to March 2024 set at £1,928 a year – significantly higher than what it was in October 2021 at at £1,277 ,before the energy crisis began.

Exclusive polling for PoliticsHome in November by Savanta found 32 per cent of people were “very concerned” about whether they would be able to afford they energy bills this winter, with 44 per cent reporting they were “somewhat concerned”. Only 17 per cent said they were “not really concerned”, with just 5 per cent saying they were “not concerned at all”.

Labour is saying this is an indication that people should vote for that party, which is promising a scheme to insulate homes if it forms a government.

The trouble is, under Keir Starmer, Labour has promised a lot of things only to u-turn on them as soon as it is convenient.

Nobody seems to be talking about reducing the price of heating homes – by getting rid of our reliance on fossil fuels altogether and investing in cheap and clean energy.

Is that because it will cut profits for the fossil fuel magnates who pay big donations to politicians in all the major parties?

Source: Labour Says Spike In Cold Deaths Underlines Urgency Of Home Insulation Scheme


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Rwanda Bill passes – but only to keep Sunak in office. It won’t work

Rishi Sunak and his plan to stop the boats: it won’t work, as passed by MPs on January 17, it seems. Why did they back it, then?

Let’s have the BBC report first, before I drop the flipside on you:

Rishi Sunak has succeeded in getting his key Rwanda bill through the House of Commons after a Tory rebellion failed to materialise.

The bill, which aims to stop legal challenges against ministers’ plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, was approved by 320 votes to 276 votes.

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Dozens of Tories thought the bill was flawed and had threatened to rebel but in the end, only 11 voted against it…  including [Robert] Jenrick and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman – voted against it.

Other Tory MPs on the list include Miriam Cates, Sir Simon Clarke, Mark Francois and Danny Kruger.

The bill now goes to the House of Lords where it will face stiff opposition.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who did not vote against the Bill, despite voicing reservations, got himself into hot water when the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire interviewed him about it.

You can bet he’s not alone in having voted for something that he doesn’t think will work, simply to keep the status quo in Parliament.

It seems clear that the Rwanda Bill will not achieve what it set out to do – for the reasons Rees-Mogg described in his interview.

There was, therefore, no reason for him and all those other Tory critics of the Bill to support it.

But they did.

The reason they did must be to support Rishi Sunak and keep this from becoming a ‘no confidence’ vote in his leadership – to cling on to office as a government for just a little bit longer.

That’s not good enough. We need MPs who have the courage of their convictions and will vote down bad legislation as they see it. Clearly the Tories don’t have that at all and there is no reason for anybody to support them any more.


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Tory deputy chairmen resign to support rebel amendments to Rwanda Bill

Lee Anderson with his idol, Boris Johnson: it seems he may now try to remove one of Johnson’s successors as prime minister.

Has Rishi Sunak lost control?

It would seem so, after Tory Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resigned in order to support rebel amendments to Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.

And Jane Stevenson, a parliamentary private secretary in the Department for Business and Trade, also confirmed she had offered her resignation after voting for the rebel amendments.

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This Site discussed the amendments and the reasons behind them here.

As far as This Writer can tell, the amendments they supported failed.

This suggests to me that they will want to vote the Bill down today (Wednesday, January 17, 2024) – as urged by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She, together with Robert Jenrick, who proposed the rebel amendments, has said she is prepared to vote against the bill if it is not improved.

More could join them and it has been reported that only 30 Tories need to join the Opposition for the Bill to be voted down.

If that happens, it could be treated as a ‘no confidence’ vote in Sunak’s leadership.

And that could mean the end of him. What then?


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#ToryChaos: Braverman to split Tories with ‘toughen Rwanda Bill’ demand?

Suella Braverman: sniping from the sidelines.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman could split the Conservative government and trigger a general election with a call to toughen up Rishi Sunak’s Bill to make it possible to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, it has been claimed.

Braverman wants MPs to support rebel amendments by Robert Jenrick, the former Immigration Minister who resigned over the Bill, aimed at stopping judges on the European Court of Human Rights from frustrating ministers’ implementation of the Rwanda. Braverman’s support may persuade like-minded right-wingers to vote for it.

She put forward her views in an interview on GB News. I haven’t been able to make the clip play but I present it below in the hope that one day it will:

But former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland, from the centrist One Nation group of MPs, has backed three amendments which would tone down some parts of the bill by deleting clauses declaring Rwanda “a safe country”, disapplying the Human Rights Act, and forcing courts to disregard interim rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

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The opposing amendments may split the Tory vote in Parliament, which is being touted as a vote of confidence in Rishi Sunak as prime minister. This suggests that, if the Bill falls, he could be ousted and a general election called. But that seems only a remote possibility, as HuffPost political editor Kevin Schofield explained – also on GB News:

This Writer has already bought popcorn – for a completely separate issue that could also sink the Tories (decide for yourself which one) – so I’m ready to be entertained by whatever happens. You have to get your fun where you can in the Tory Britain of 2024.


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Bill is passed to stop us boycotting Israeli products – even after the genocide

A lamppost sticker promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions. Note that it demands “justice for Palestine” and makes no anti-Semitic statements.

Considering everything that has happened since October 7, did nobody in the UK’s Tory government stop to think that, perhaps, this piece of legislation is now in bad taste?

It has been hard to collect information on this Bill because nobody in the media seems to have covered it. I wonder why.

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Fortunately the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has a bit of context:

Yes indeed.

The Bill – which still has to pass through the House of Lords – now explicitly demands that local authorities may not boycott products from a country that currently stands accused of genocide and may soon be a convicted, genocidal, rogue state.

That can’t be right.

This Site has discussed the situation previously, and some of what I wrote then bears repeating:

The innocently-titled Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill … specifically forbids public bodies like local councils from taking into account human rights abuses committed by foreign governments when making decisions, including on procurement of goods and services.

You see how harmful this legislation is, in the light of Israel’s activities since October 7, 2023?

The Bill specifically forbids such public bodies from ever refusing to take goods and services from Israel, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and/or the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, no matter what atrocities are committed there.

Some have suggested a simple way around the issue:

Personally, I think this would lay any councils following such advice open to accusations of boycott by the back door – for example, if they could not explain why they would not take Israeli goods that appear to be the most economical option.

Perhaps a better way forward would be simply to rename the legislation.

Why not call it the UK (Unconditional Support for Genocide) Bill?


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Rishi Sunak wins Rwanda vote despite threat of Tory rebellions – but who cares?

Rishi Sunak and his priorities: he appears to be apologising for getting them all wrong; if only that were true!

Rishi Sunak has won a Commons vote on his controversial policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda – but the crucial element to notice is not the way he’s crowing about it; instead it is the response of others.

Here’s an example. Note that it doesn’t help Sunak’s cause that he lies about what his Rwanda Bill is supposed to do:

Here’s a fairly accurate summary of what actually happened:

And here’s one with a little more depth, courtesy of the ever-reliable Peter Stefanovic:

Would you like to know what happened in the debate?

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Let’s start with this:

Here’s what I suspect was the more prevalent Tory behaviour – apparent racism from one Nick Fletcher, representing the Don Valley:

According to this drone, failures in local council services and the NHS are entirely due to illegal immigration. In fact, services are falling apart because his party has withdrawn funding. This is scapegoating of the meanest kind.

In contrast, Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy provided an excellent analysis – only to have it undermined by objections to a single word that some honourable members found distasteful:

The entire Bill is distasteful but they objected to that one word in a dissenting speech. If you are in the UK, it tells you everything you need to know about your government.

Of course the Bill still has a way to go yet, before it becomes law. The House of Lords will not debate it until the New Year – and some are salivating in anticipation:

Finally, the commentariat are having a field day:

This Writer’s opinion is that, once passed, this law will become a millstone around Rishi Sunak’s neck. Even if he succeeds in sending people to Rwanda, they won’t be enough to placate the racist anti-immigration crowd in his own party, and it won’t deter more people from crossing the Channel.

It will simply show that he was lying about the influence of foreign courts on what’s happening in the UK.

He would, indeed, be better-off calling a general election and putting himself out of our misery.


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