Tag Archives: rising

Starmer shouts down young people – in speech saying youngsters should speak up

Shutting down young voices: after this incident it is clear that, despite his own speechifying, Keir Starmer doesn’t want to allow anybody to speak up for themselves.

This is too good to leave for the News in tweets: while giving a speech on how young people need to learn how to express themselves vocally, Keir Starmer was challenged by two young people on Labour policy – and told them to shut up.

The youths from Green New Deal Rising were standing as part of a group of youngsters Starmer had arranged behind himself to make a good photo – but while he was talking about “oracy”, and his desire for people to be able to express themselves verbally, as well as on paper, they stepped forward.

This is what happened:

Another commentator, tweeting a similar clip, stated: “Keir Starmer making a speech about how important it is that young people learn how to express themselves & articulate their thoughts clearly. Starmer to young people expressing themselves & articulating their thoughts clearly: stop drowning other people out.”

Quite.

Worse than what happened today (Thursday, July 6, 2023) is the fact that Starmer has form in cold-shouldering young people from Green New Deal.

Remember this, from a recent Labour Party Conference?

Put it all together and not only do you know for sure that Rishi Sunak isn’t the only leader of a UK political party who is “simply uninterested” in the environment – Starmer couldn’t care less either…

But you can also be sure that, for all his own speechifying, he really doesn’t want anybody to be allowed – let alone able – to speak for themselves.

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Tory sycophant of the week: Tim Montgomerie

Tim Montgomerie: Before you suggest that he should open the window and jump, it may be worth noting that he's on the ground floor.

Tim Montgomerie: Before you suggest that he should open the window and jump, it may be worth noting that he’s on the ground floor.

Responses to Prime Minister’s Questions every Wednesday are always interesting, sometimes sinister – and sometimes unintentionally hilarious.

Yesterday (Wednesday), David Cameron and Ed Miliband were tearing chunks out of each other over the National Health Service, with the NHS in Wales coming under particularly heavy scrutiny.

In the midst of this, Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome blog and comment editor of The Times*, tweeted the following:
141023montie1
He is of course doubly wrong. Firstly, his tweet was made on the same day that a former cancer sufferer who was cured by NHS Wales expressed outrage that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has smeared the service and demanded an apology from Hunt to the doctors who saved his life.
Secondly, he seems blissfully unaware of the fact that the Tory-led Coalition Government proved – only yesterday – that it can’t look after the economy. This administration’s reason for existence was to reduce the national deficit to nothing by the next general election in 2015. We found out very quickly that this was not going to happen, but yesterday we learned that the deficit is actually rising again, partly because the Tory squeeze on workers’ wages has meant none of the people who have been put to work on a pittance have been able to pay any taxes.
The Treasury’s comment – that the government’s long-term economic plan is working – showed very clearly that the Tory-led Coalition is in no fit state to run the economy.
Therefore, by Mr Montgomerie’s own admission, it is in no fit state to look after the NHS.
It seems that ministers are more likely to benefit from NHS treatment.
*ConservativeHome is a Tory-oriented political blog that is slightly less influential than Vox Political – but still worth reading if you want to laugh at the things these people believe. The Times used to be a newspaper until it was bought by Rupert Murdoch.

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What the Tories don’t say about the deficit (austerity isn’t working)

mmeacher

Vox Political has been saying this for years. Now that grand master of pointing out the facts to politicians who just won’t see them – Michael Meacher – has written to the press with the same message.

Vindicated at last!

Here’s the esteemed Mr Meacher’s letter to The Guardian:

The Tories have enjoyed attacking Ed Miliband over his failure to mention the deficit in his conference speech (Report, 25 September), but more importantly they fail to mention what is happening to the deficit on their watch. The whole point of Osborne’s austerity was supposedly to reduce the budget deficit. But the data shows it’s actually rising. Last month he had to borrow £11.6bn, £700m more than a year ago, and, despite being forecast to borrow 12% less this year, he’s so far had to borrow 6% more.

When the bankers’ crash erupted in 2008-09, the deficit peaked at £159bn and Alistair Darling stimulated the economy with two expansionary budgets. The deficit fell £38bn in two years. Then Osborne’s austerity kicked in and the rate of deficit reduction halved in the next two years to £99bn last year. This year it seems likely that the deficit will increase to around £105bn. Why? Because if Osborne shrinks the economy – and average wages are already 9% down in real terms since the crash, and still falling – then tax receipts will shrink as well, and if they shrink faster than government expenditure is cut, the deficit will rise, which is exactly what is now happening.

This torpedoes several government claims:

That austerity is working; it isn’t, it’s proving counterproductive.

That the drop in unemployment is feeding growth and government revenues; it isn’t, the OBR forecast that tax receipts would rise 6.5% this year, but they’ve dropped by 0.8%.

And that the government is on track with its (fantasied) “long-term economic plan”. It isn’t, when the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that growth is already starting to slow (with third-quarter growth down to 0.6%), manufacturing orders have nosedived, the trade gap is widening to an all-time record, business investment is still flat, and public finances – the heart of the Osborne experiment on the British economy – are now badly deteriorating.

Michael Meacher MP
Labour, Oldham West and Royton

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