Tag Archives: Chinese

Karma for Coyle: Labour suspends the whip after allegedly racist remarks

Caught: Neil Coyle has admitted making racist remarks.

Keir Starmer may have spent months delaying any investigation of anti-Semitism by Neil Coyle but he has acted faster over a second allegation of racism against the far-right Labour MP.

It only took Starmer’s party a week to suspend its whip from Coyle after two claims were made about him.

British-Chinese journalist Henry Dyer has reported Sinophobic remarks by Coyle to Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle after a meeting in the Strangers’ Bar on the Parliamentary estate on the evening of February 1.

Mr Dyer claimed he had also witnessed Coyle “angrily shouting at a Labour staffer” in the bar the previous evening.

It is understood that after the Speaker became aware of Mr Dyer’s allegations, he convened a meeting with the Serjeant at Arms who ordered that Coyle should be suspended from bars in the Commons for six months. Authorities in the House of Lords are believed to have taken similar action.

Labour has said that the party’s chief whip, Alan Campbell, has suspended Coyle from membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party, pending an investigation.

Coyle has released a statement apologising for his comments (so he has admitted making them). He said he had apologised to all those involved and would be co-operating fully with the inquiry.

It is good that Starmer has acted at last over his out-of-control right-winger.

But it is strange that it took a week for his party to suspend the whip and start an investigation; contrast it with his immediate suspension of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn on the basis of a false interpretation of that MP’s words about anti-Semitism.

And Coyle is the subject of anti-Semitism claims on which Labour has been sitting for more than six months.

So karma has struck; if Coyle got away with anti-Semitism, he has still been caught for racism.

But the incident highlights prejudice in Starmer’s Labour – unless they fall foul of outside authorities, his right-wing supporters enjoy privileged exemption from the rules.

Source: Labour MP Neil Coyle has party whip suspended following alleged racist remarks

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‘Chinese agent’ dead cat falls flat for Tories as it turns out she has donated to them

Political influence: Christine Lee has been donating money to the Conservatives for many years, and has been seen with David Cameron (pictured), Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Remember this sideshow from last week?

The claim was that Christine Lee had been influencing Labour MP Barry Gardiner with donations, while her son was working in his office – but Mr Gardiner swiftly and efficiently killed the allegation:

So all the donations were legitimate, MI5 knew about Lee and was kept informed about her by Mr Gardiner’s office, and there is no evidence to suggest that her son had anything to do with the matter.

MI5 appears to have confirmed this:

More concerning is Ms Lee’s connection with another political organisation… The Conservative Party.

Here she is in close contact with former prime minister David Cameron:

And now here’s a tweet that proved prophetic:

This is the reason:

Apparently she has been backing the Tories for quite a while too. That’s probably the reason the amount she has handed them seems to fluctuate.

Yes indeed:

Possibly the funniest observation of all (although not from the Tory point of view) is this:

And, in the name of political balance, the sharpest comment is this:

So we see that a tactic intended to smear the Labour Party with allegations of corruption and possible treason, to distract from the Downing Street parties scandal, has backfired in Boris Johnson’s face – and now it is his Tories who must face the same claims.

I look forward to seeing them explain their way out of this one.

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Has British Steel been rescued – or has China gained a foothold in the western industry?

British Steel in Scunthorpe: It seems one reason the plant here has lost a large amount of income was Brexit uncertainty.

China has found a way around high EU tariffs on its steel, by buying British Steel for the bargain price of just £70 million.

It seems that country’s strategy has paid off – the UK industry has been struggling for years after it was said that China was flooding the international market with cheap, inferior steel.

In 2016 the EU imposed tariffs of up to 73.7 per cent on Chinese steel after an influx of cheap imports from Asia forced European manufacturers to cut jobs and lower prices.

But it seems that the damage was done, and it seems the only way the UK could protect 4,000 jobs in the industry, and 20,000 in the supply chain, was to allow a Chinese company to buy British Steel.

Won’t this be a way around those huge EU tariffs – even with Brexit, if a UK government negotiates a favourable trade deal?

And won’t this mean more inferior steel flooding the market, with the safety risks this entails?

From a political point of view, this is a slap in the face for the right-wing parties.

They attack Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour as far-left amateurs who don’t understand economics – but now they are being forced to accept help from the ‘tiger’ economy of the far east, which is run by communists.

It is clear that these Chinese left-wingers know far more about economic imperialism than the Tories.

British Steel is set to announce a rescue deal with China’s Jingye Group, which could safeguard up to 4,000 jobs in the UK.

Jingye Group has agreed in principle to buy British Steel for £70m.

It is understood that the government will help in the form of loan guarantees and other financial support.

British Steel has been kept running by the government via the Official Receiver since May, when the company went into liquidation.

As well as employing 4,000 people at its Scunthorpe and Teesside sites, British Steel supports an additional 20,000 jobs in the supply chain.

Another 1,000 jobs are based in France and the Netherlands – those are included in the deal too.

Source: British Steel to be rescued by Chinese firm in £70m deal – BBC News

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Foreign office officials: Meet the new boss – same as the old boss

Just when officials at the Foreign Office thought they could live without embarrassment for a while, it turns out Jeremy Hunt is just as stupid as his immediate forerunner.

On a trip to China, intended to strengthen trade ties ahead of Brexit, Hunt tried to win the approval of his hosts by mentioning that his wife is Japanese – evoking memories of a centuries-old rivalry and a bloody occupation in the 1930s and 40s.

He backslid fast but the damage had been done.

Good luck getting a decent trade deal now, Jeremy! I only wish I had some knowledge of Chinese so I could describe you in the appropriate language.

Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s new foreign secretary, has made an awkward debut in China when he sought to curry favour with his hosts by mentioning his Chinese wife, but accidentally referred to her as “Japanese”.

China and Japan have been traditional rivals for centuries. Although relations have improved somewhat recently, they remain touchy due to issues such as Japan’s bloody occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 40s.

Source: Jeremy Hunt makes ‘terrible’ gaffe about his wife in China | UK news | The Guardian

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Moonlighter Hunt pockets 12 times a nurse’s pay – for no work at all?

There used to be a word for it – what people did when, on top of their main job, they took on another that might be ‘sketchy’ by nature: Moonlighting.

It seems our new health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has been moonlighting – and in a very lucrative way – pocketing £366,000 from his Hotcourses publishing firm, and a further £3,000 for lessons in Mandarin Chinese.

That’s more than 12 times the salary of the average nurse, at a time when millions of healthcare professionals are seeing their pay cut in real terms.

Let me make myself clear: I’m not opposed to people having secondary or tertiary streams of income. In these straitened times, I think many people need the extra money just to make ends meet.

Jeremy Hunt does not fall into that category.

He is now a senior government minister, who takes home an extremely large taxpayer-funded salary for that job. Anyone in his position should be devoting all of their working time to public service, and none of it to their own personal concerns.

Hotcourses tells us that Mr Hunt’s earnings with it are entirely from shares and from taking back and then renting out a building previously owned by the company. In other words, for no work at all.

I don’t care. This is still business that must take his attention away from the Department of Health. He should have left it behind.

It is obscene that a Cabinet minister is banking so much money when the people his department employs – people who work long hours under extremely difficult conditions – are taking a real-terms pay cut.

And it illustrates the contrast between pay for the highest-earning in society and the lowest. Recently we all learned that, if the minimum wage had increased in line with that of company directors, it would be nearly £19 by now.

I wonder how much a nurse’s pay would have increased, if it had been allowed to do so at the same rate?