The information marks the launch of a think tank called New Britain (not the island in Papua New Guinea).
While it’s a staggering indictment against the Tories, it’s not an endorsement of Labour either; people don’t think Keir Starmer’s mob are up to the challenge:
Polling shows both middle and working-class people want reform – but they don’t necessarily believe Labour can deliver it. @REWearmouth reports: https://t.co/3FvMXYhCXJ
Any Starmer victory will not be greeted with the euphoria of 1997. Not because of his character or words but because Britain is broken, and many feel broken too.
This Writer cautiously welcomes the new think tank.
With luck, its information will provide us with a stick – not necessarily to beat Keir Starmer, but certainly to prod him in the right direction.
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Keir Starmer: the compressed lips indicate he thought he had said the wrong thing. This seems highly likely, considering his party’s performance in the English local elections.
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is celebrating after it increased its number of council seats in England by 25 per cent (against the number it won in 2019).
But what do his MPs really have to celebrate?
Sure, the Conservatives have lost more than 1,000 seats (1,058, to be precise – so far). But in proportionate terms, Labour trailed the other parties – the Liberal Democrats increased their seats by 33 per cent (with almost as many seats gained as Labour) and the Greens actually more than doubled their number of seats (that’s all in comparison with the number the parties won in 2019, of course).
And has it improved Labour’s chances of winning a general election?
No.
Not according to Sky‘s forecasters, anyway:
Starmer has thrown his majority away as people vote in droves for the Greens and Lib Dems instead, along with candidates the country over he had expelled. Karma has come for Keith.https://t.co/qKLN6veda0
Based on analysis of change in vote share across 1,500 wards Labour is the most popular party with 36%, with the Conservative share 29%, Lib Dems with 18% and others standing at 17%.
Labour would be on course to become the largest party at the next election.
It would gain 95 seats – to an improved total of 298 in this projection – the highest number since Labour won the 2005 general election, but 28 short of an overall majority.
In other words, no matter what shadow ministers or other party representatives might say, Labour has not won the victory it needed.
And the party’s critics have been quick to point this out:
So Starmer’s twisted and turned, strangled and buried his own pledges, acted like a crazed dictator, suspended and expelled like a madman, lost 300,000 Party members and what for? To prove he can deliver a hung parliament. Well done Keith, what a guy! Now open your eyes. pic.twitter.com/bQB8bkvSrI
The result could indicate that voters are tired of living in a two-party state – especially when the largest two parties have many policies that are practically indistinguishable.
Labour didn’t even get a majority of seat gains:
56% of seats gained went to LD/Green.
These are voters Starmer is failing to inspire.
It will cost Labour a majority if Starmer doesn’t end his war with the left, and make amends.
Good, cos more and more people ain't buying, but this of course reveals the truth of the matter – its not us he wants to serve, its the rich. He despises ordinary people which is why he's failed to make progress on vote share today. Again. https://t.co/ptkTwkoHex
He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “For me personally, I really hated selling myself to the membership and I much prefer leadership decisions as leader of the Labour Party. I’m much more comfortable in this than I am in the campaign.”
He instantly backtracked, of course – because he realised it isn’t appropriate for a leader to admit he considers himself above begging for votes among his party members:
Asked by the surprised podcast hosts whether he hated the campaign or the members, Starmer said: “Oh no, I didn’t say I don’t like the mem– what I don’t like is selling myself to the membership.”
He clarified: “You’re in your own party and you’re up against colleagues, and very good colleagues, who you like. And it is a very odd thing to do. I’m very glad that that part of it is over, I have to say.”
Hmm. Did he really like those colleagues? He had said he liked former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, but that has turned out to be untrue.
And how well did he like Rebecca Long-Bailey, one of his fellow 2020 leadership candidate who he appointed to the shadow cabinet and then sacked without discussion after she shared on Twitter an interview with Maxine Peake, who said US police had learned from the Israeli security services how to kneel on people’s necks (a reference to the George Floyd killing, if I recall correctly).
In fairness, the claim had been linked to a report by Amnesty International but the organisation said it had not made any such statement. Long-Bailey, after describing Ms Peake as an “absolute diamond” had stated that she did not endorse everything in her interview.
When it became clear that Starmer was planning to take disciplinary action, Long-Bailey claimed, she asked to discuss matters with him before agreeing what further action to take – but “sadly he had already made his decision”.
That doesn’t seem particularly friendly – or the action of a thoughtful, balanced leader.
It is symptomatic of a leadership that is best characterised by its purges of left-wing party members (most often under accusations of anti-Semitism, often of dubious value) and its rejection of the pledges Starmer made in order to “sell” himself to the party members – the same members he has been busily removing.
And what did those members do at the local elections?
Oh, yes…
Great news to see ex-Labour members, who were despicably smeared by Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party, seeing off @UKLabour in yesterday's local elections. @skwawkbox has the details.
That’s right – councillors purged by Starmer, who went on to stand as Independents, won resounding victories, including over the Labour candidates in their wards.
And that also feeds back into possible general election results – especially in any poll involving that former party leader mentioned above:
One thing confirmed by today’s results given the resounding victories of people purged by Labour.
Should Jeremy Corbyn wish to run as an independent in Islington North, he will be re-elected MP with a large majority.
So whichever way you look at it, the local election results have been mostly bad for Keir Starmer and his Labour Party.
You wouldn’t think so, to hear him and his cronies talking.
But then, he promised to continue Jeremy Corbyn’s policies and ditched them – with the most recent being his announcement that he won’t oppose university tuition fees any more.
So we know that Keir Starmer’s words aren’t worth the air he uses to utter them. Perhaps that’s why his support at the local elections was so lukewarm.
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Jeremy Corbyn: his Project for Peace and Justice has just announced its five demands for government (of any stripe) to deal with the cost of living crisis and bring real prosperity to everyone.
After Jeremy Hunt announced his “E’s and Wizz” Budget and Keir Starmer brought out his “five missions”, here’s a message from the Project for Peace and Justice, brought to you by Jeremy Corbyn:
Last week, the Chancellor announced a budget that did nothing to alleviate the obscene levels of poverty and inequality in our society – instead protecting the riches of global corporations and the wealthiest in our society.
He should have used the opportunity to present policies to deal with the cost of living crisis with a budget that could have made a difference to the lives of all those that have suffered under 13 years of austerity, the Covid-19 pandemic and a decline in real wages.
That’s why we need an alternative budget that puts people first, based on the following five demands:
A REAL PAY RISE FOR ALL
Everyone has a right to live and work with dignity. That means giving nurses, teachers and public sector workers an above-inflation pay rise, implementing a minimum wage of £15 per hour, banning zero-hours contracts and reversing cruel benefit sanctions.
DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
As millions struggle to pay their energy bills, fossil fuel giants are taking home record profits. Private profiteering is ripping people off and destroying our planet. Alongside water, rail and mail, it’s time we put energy back where it belongs: in public hands.
Democratic public ownership will empower communities, bring prices down and kickstart a Green New Deal that invests in clean energy.
HOUSING FOR THE MANY
Housing is a human right, not a commodity – everyone deserves a decent, safe, warm and affordable place to live.
We need an immediate rent freeze and reduction, an end to no-fault evictions and an urgent mass council home building programme.
TAX THE RICH TO SAVE THE NHS
After years of austerity and privatisation, our NHS is on its knees. It’s time to end outsourcing, invest in a fully public system of universal healthcare and build a National Care Service.
The government says there’s no more money for our NHS – but they’re wrong. We can give our public services the money they need by introducing a wealth tax, raising income tax on the top five per cent of earners and making corporations pay their fair share.
WELCOME REFUGEES AND A WORLD FREE FROM WAR
Refugees are being scapegoated for an economic crisis they didn’t create. We must work towards a world of peace, free from nuclear weapons where conflicts are resolved through diplomacy and negotiation. We need a humane migration system based on dignity, compassion and care, which gives asylum seekers the right to work, healthcare and housing.
The refugees of today are our doctors, teachers and neighbours of tomorrow.
As we face the starkest cost-of-living crisis in a generation, we cannot afford to be timid. We need to offer a clearer alternative to the Tories’ failed economic experiment. As striking workers in Trafalgar Square demonstrated, there is an appetite for something different.
The manifesto [Labour] put forward in 2017 and 2019 gave hope to millions around the country – and now we must continue to build [a] radical alternative vision for our country. You can find out more about these demands in my article in the Morning Star.
We must unite, organise and build our vision for a fairer world. I hope you will join me in demanding and campaigning for these policies, and sign up to support them here.
Fair enough?
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Expensive vanity project: this artist’s impression of the Tories much-desired Royal Yacht project was released when it was announced last year.
What a circus.
A little more than a year after launching a competition to build a new ‘royal yacht’ to replace the long-since-mothballed Britannia, the Tory government has withdrawn the project.
The ship was commissioned by Boris Johnson in June 2021, to host trade fairs and diplomatic events – and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the £250 million plan to build it had been terminated today (November 7, 2022).
The announcement came as part of the government’s search for spending cuts, and 10 Downing Street said it was right to “prioritise” spending “at a time when difficult spending decisions need to be made”.
The plan had been criticised as Boris Johnson’s “vanity project” – not least by This Writer – but in fact it has long been a Tory dream to have a new state-of-the-art maritime toy on which to gad about the world pretending to be players.
I wrote about it when the project was announced last year:
Tories have been trying to build themselves a new luxury yacht – at our expense – since at least 2012, when Michael Gove suggested spending £60 million on it to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee:
“This boat would cost £60 million, apparently – a million for every year she’s been on the throne. It would be a pointless present because, at Her Majesty’s age, she’s hardly going to be able to steer it.”
“Now we learn that Conservative MPs want to give the Queen another yacht – at a cost of £100 million that could be better-used elsewhere, perhaps on benefit payments for a further £16,666 sick people for a year.
“When [Gove] suggested it, back in January 2012, the cost was said to be £60 million. Why has it nearly doubled in the years since?
“At least we have an answer to my question of the time – whether Tories try to spend our money on such unnecessary lavishments habitually.
“Yes. Yes they do.”
Amazingly, that price had remained static when the possibility was floated yet again in 2020:
“The twist this time is a proposal to split funding three ways between businesses, the public and the National Lottery (so the public pays twice).”
The idea of boosting trade has been there since Gove, and I addressed it last year:
“The point about trade deals is interesting at a time when the Tory government is desperately trying to re-establish the UK as a trading nation after severing ties with the European Union.
“But who benefits from such deals?
“Rich businesspeople, perhaps – but would they pay their taxes or send the cash to tax havens?
“If the latter, then why should the public pay for something that will not help us in the slightest?”
Exactly. Thankfully, the public will be saved from having to pay for this monumental White Elephant – this time.
How long until the idea is resurrected yet again?
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How will the Met Police justify this? Boris Johnson is pictured toasting departing Downing Street comms chief Lee Cain at a leaving party on November 13, 2020, that the prime minister told Parliament he never attended.
We are, today, issuing formal proceedings against the Met Police for their apparent continued failure to properly investigate Boris Johnson’s attendance at three lockdown gatherings, in November and December 2020 and January 2021, and their refusal to answer our legitimate questions about how they reached this decision.
The public have a right to know what really went on inside the Partygate investigation. The Met’s actions have raised grave concerns about the deferential way in which they are policing those in power. It stands in stark contrast to how ordinary people were policed during lockdown.
It was only after we threatened to sue the Met in January 2022 that they agreed to investigate at all and the Prime Minister was eventually fined for attending a lockdown gathering in June 2020.
We’ve given the Met multiple opportunities to explain why he was reportedly not sent questionnaires regarding these three other gatherings, nor issued with fixed penalty notices for attending them, when a number of civil servants and officials who did received both.
On 15 June, we wrote to the Met, giving them a week to finally live up to their duty to be honest and upfront with the public.
Rather than work with us in a spirit of transparency, or address to the substantive issues raised in our case, their response focuses on our right to bring this action at all (known as ‘standing’). Yet even here, they haven’t properly explained themselves. We asked them who, if not us, would have standing and they refused to answer.
We strongly believe that Good Law Project and our co-claimant, former senior Met Officer Lord Paddick, have standing to represent the public interest in this matter. If we aren’t allowed to bring this claim, we don’t believe anyone else will be in a position to do so.
So now we’re forced to sue the Met for a second time.
Lord Paddick: “Members of the public will have seen Boris Johnson raising a glass at a party that he was apparently not even questioned about, and thought ‘If that had been me, I would have been fined.’ We are determined that the Prime Minister should be held to the same standard as the rest of us.”
From its failure to hold the Prime Minister and those around him to account for their lockdown breaches, to shocking reports of institutional misogyny, discrimination and sexual harassment, the public’s faith in the Met has been shaken to the core this year. This is their moment to finally begin repairing the damage their inaction has done.
Our challenge is grounded in a single, simple idea: for the law to have any meaning, it must apply equally to us all. The Met must explain their seeming lack of action in this matter. We won’t stop until the full story is uncovered.
The Met have until 22 July to respond. We will keep you updated.
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As figures in the Labour Party move to smear former leader Jeremy Corbyn and push him out, supporters need to be aware of more subtle attackers.
For example: the “Project for Peace and Justice” website at https://projectforpeaceandjustice.com that attempts to satirise Mr Corbyn’s new organisation with smears that are neither accurate nor amusing.
The current version of this page offers a foul-mouthed tribute (if you can call it that) to the late Peter Newbon, a leading light of the pressure group Labour Against Anti-Semitism who brought it into disrepute by publishing a doctored image showing Mr Corbyn apparently reading anti-Semitic hate book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to schoolchildren. In fact he was reading Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Rosen’s entirely justified response to this abuse appears on the page, where he is described using a four-letter word beginning with ‘C’. Accurate? No. Amusing? No.
Another page attacks two campaigners who have demonstrated repeatedly that the current hysteria over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is nothing more than a witch-hunt. It describes a fictional “Greenstein” award (named after Tony Greenstein) for services to anti-Semitism on social media being given to Simon Maginn for his #ItWasAScam campaign? Accurate? No. Amusing? No.
The indicia at the bottom of every page includes the message: “The Project for Peace and Justice does not adhere to the IHRA definition of antisemitism. I didn’t want to do this Laura made me” – an apparent claim that the site is operated by Mr Corbyn himself after his wife Laura demanded it. Accurate? No. Amusing? No.
Possibly the worst aspect of this is the call for donations that appears immediately whenever anybody visits the site. It doesn’t work – clicking to donate says it can’t be done – and this may put people who genuinely want to donate to the Corbyn Peace and Justice Project off doing so.
You can see this travesty yourself – if you’ve got the stomach for it – by visiting the website at the link above. But your time would be far better-used by visiting the genuine Peace and Justice Project site at https://thecorbynproject.com where you can learn about the four main projects: climate justice, economic security, democratic society and international justice – and may donate by using the proper system for doing so. This one does work.
Considering the hatred for Mr Corbyn and the concentration on fake accusations of anti-Semitism against people who have done nothing more than campaign for accuracy, This Writer wonders whether the fake site was set up by the former Labour leader’s critics on the right wing of that party.
It would seem reasonable, considering the fact that right-wingers like Steve Reed are now admitting their involvement in the creation of pressure groups like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, that has been found also to be involved in spreading such hate against figures like Mr Corbyn, to question whether right-wing Labour members are also behind the fake “Peace and Justice” website.
If so, it makes a mockery of their claim to be crusading against fake news.
But while it is important to be aware of these fakers and their lies, the best thing to do is simply to ignore them.
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Backhander: if you know the circumstances of the court case against the government over its contract with Public First, then you will know why I’m using this picture. If not, follow the link in the story to read the details.
After spending half a million pounds defending a decision to give a contract worth only slightly more to friends of Tory minister Michael Gove – and losing – the government intends to spend even more on an appeal.
In June, the High Court ruled that a Tory government decision to award a £560,000 contract to Public First gave rise to “apparent bias” and was unlawful.
Mrs Justice O’Farrell said: “The claimant is entitled to a declaration that the decision of 5 June 2020 to award the contract to Public First gave rise to apparent bias and was unlawful.”
Now the Good Law Project – which brought the case to court – has revealed that the government is appealing against the ruling, although the exact grounds for the appeal do not seem clear.
“We think his decision to spend more public money on an appeal is likely to be driven by a desire to postpone a further embarrassing loss in a separate challenge we are bringing,” a statement by the Good Law Project claims.
“We are challenging another lucrative contract awarded to allies of Michael Gove, this time to a company called Hanbury. It was due to be heard later this month but will now be delayed.
“However, the appeal gives us a chance to revivify the arguments … that there was time for a proper competitive tender process and/or no need to give such a long and valuable contract without any tender process.
“All of that having been said, we have to recognise Government spent an extraordinary £500,000+ on a one day hearing below – approximately twice what we managed to raise to fight and win the case. With that in mind, we have decided to reopen our crowdfunding page.”
If you are in a position to donate, you can do so here.
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Positive change: Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project is working to improve the lives of people in the UK and across the world. Isn’t that better than Boris Johnson’s determination to crush anybody who disagrees with him, and to launch pointless wars abroad?
Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project has had a busy month after the Johnson Tory government put forward plans to curb your right to protest and to escalate involvement in pointless wars across the world.
The attack on your right to protest is now well-documented; Boris Johnson and cronies like Priti Patel want to arrest you if you “annoy” them with protests against their increasingly unfair, fascist new laws.
And the plan to spend billions on new nuclear arms and become involved in more foreign wars over lengthier periods of time has also been well-reported.
Here’s Jeremy Corbyn to outline what the Peace and Justice Project has been doing about it – and on all the other issues it is taking forward:
This is worthwhile politics – actually working to make the UK, and the wider world, a better place in which to live.
It is sad that the UK’s system of government has now become so corrupt that the only way of achieving positive goals is as part of a campaigning organisation – but that is the situation that the last 42 years of neoliberal politics has created.
We can either work within that situation or give up and accept slavery to the likes of Johnson, or Keir Starmer, or the next would-be dictator.
If you want to be part of the movement for change, details of how to join the Peace and Justice Project are in the video.
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Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project hasn’t been sitting around waiting for the world to change.
He – and they – have been working on four main projects, along with several offshoots, to make a difference in all our lives – as soon as possible.
In the video clip above, he explains what has been going on while the Tories – and his successor as Labour leader – dithered over the economy, got confused over Covid, and discussed laws to support violence against women.
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The ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm Deloitte is being pursued in the courts over a claim that a £145 million consultancy contract related to Covid-19 was handed to it unlawfully.
There’s also an issue over the fact that the Conservatives failed to announce details of the five-month contract until after it had expired.
Deloitte is well-known to the Tory government. One of the main accountancy firms involved in creating tax avoidance schemes, it also advised the Cameron government on – guess what? – tax avoidance.
This Writer has a feeling there may have been a conflict of interest there…
Now, Deloitte is being criticised after it received 25 Covid-related contracts, totalling £193.3 million, courtesy of Tory peer James Bethell, the government minister in charge of test and trace. Of these, five – worth £170.5 million – were awarded directly with no competition.
Lord Bethell previously ran a lobbying company that represented Deloitte as they won over £700 million of government contracts on Chris Grayling’s Work Programme schemes for the unemployed.
This Writer has a feeling there may have been a conflict of interest there, too…
The most important issue here is the misuse of public money.
In the Mirror article, Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project makes a good point:
“It’s like we set up a whole new Government department, but instead of civil servants paid £40k a year, it’s run by hundreds of private consultants for whom we pay £40k a month.”
That is not responsible use of public funds! Yet the Tories keep presenting themselves to us as the Party of Economic Responsibility.
It simply isn’t true.
They create money by the billion, shovel it out to their cronies and chums, and then tell those of us who don’t use Deloitte’s tax avoidance schemes that we have to pay for it in our tax bills!
It is corrupt; it is a perversion of government. It is exactly the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from Boris Johnson and his people. And it is right that it should be challenged.
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