With Liz Truss at a summit in the United States, is it a good moment to point out that she cannot help insulting foreign leaders by exhibiting her ignorance?
She’s an utter embarrassment because – well, see for yourself:
How many other leaders can she insult in a single meeting? Lay your bets now!
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Sunak: he’d rather hand social care to profit-making American companies than invest in a UK-based service that might actually help people.
Here’s a good investigation from iNews: Rishi Sunak tried to get US-based social care companies to bring their businesses to the UK.
He tried to get social care firms Honor and Unite Us, healthcare data firm Komodo Health, health insurance firm Devoted Health, and cancer detection company Grail (whose parent Illumina is advised by former PM David Cameron) to profit from UK citizens’ care needs.
They all turned him down:
According to partially redacted Treasury minutes of the meeting… “US healthcare firms want to focus on their domestic market before contemplating expansion, because i) it’s so vast: population and spend per capita much higher than e.g. in the UK; ii) it’s complicated and idiosyncratic; it’s not a portable approach.
“UK healthcare has historically not been especially innovative, but some participants reported positive engagements where they’ve worked with the NHS recently.”
This is particularly telling:
A Government spokesperson said: “We have a strong track record of promoting overseas investment to the UK to boost our economy and level up the country.”
Is that because it’s easier than investing in doing it ourselves?
Trouble is, the profits go out of the country too – leaving the UK even more impoverished due to Tory policies.
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Off with his head! This statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston was beheaded by anti-racism protesters.
The words “America” and “racism” seem to be inextricably linked – to the shame of everybody in authority there.
This Writer has been trying to keep up with events since the killing of George Floyd and it is practically impossible, especially if one wants to comment on those events too.
Here’s a truncated timeline of events. Feel free to send links in to the comment column so I can add to this and improve it:
Wow! DJT built a fence. The People turned it into a monument befitting the nation’s capital. https://t.co/DxFbvKSZu9
“As monuments to controversial figures face a reckoning around the world, protesters in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia have targeted statues of Christopher Columbus, damaging or pulling down three in a matter of days.
“In St. Paul, demonstrators toppled a ten-foot-tall statue that stood in front of the Minnesota state capitol. In Richmond, protesters pulled down an eight-foot-tall statue in Byrd Park, carrying it about 200 yards before setting it on fire and throwing it into the nearby Fountain Lake. And, around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, police in Boston received a report that a marble statue of the Italian explorer and colonizer had lost its head.”
“Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old protester who was pushed by two Buffalo, New York, police officers earlier this month, has a fractured skull and is not able to walk, his lawyer said in a statement provided to CNN on Monday.
“”I am not at liberty to elaborate at this time other than to confirm that his skull was fractured,” Gugino’s attorney Kelly Zarcone said. “While he is not able to walk yet, we were able to have a short conversation before he became too tired. He is appreciative of all of the concern about him but he is still focused on the issues rather than himself.””
“A white Mississippi official claimed that African Americans have been “dependent” since slavery, following a meeting where a proposal to take down a Confederate statue was rejected.
“Harry Sanders, who is a Lowndes County supervisor, made the offensive comments during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday.
“The board were discussing the possible removal of a Confederate statue on the lawn of the county courthouse in Columbus, that has stood there since 1912.”
“The former Atlanta police officer who killed Rayshard Brooks has been charged with 11 offences including felony murder following the death of the 27-year-old black man in a Wendy’s restaurant car park.
“Garrett Rolfe, who fired two shots into Mr Brooks’s back on 12 June, could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted
“Mr Rolfe was fired and police chief Erika Shields resigned just hours after the shooting. The other officer, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative duty. He also faces a charge of aggravated assault. Arrest warrants have been issued for both men.”
“Widespread protests have broken out across the United States in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other black Americans at the hands of police. Demonstrations have also erupted in the UK, Australia, France and several other countries in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in protest at these countries’ own domestic cases of institutional racism.
“The fact that these protests are happening in the middle of a pandemic raises certain issues regarding the spread of the virus, but also they highlight deep inequalities that exist due to structural racism and its effects on people’s health.
“It is no coincidence that the people who are most at risk of dying due to institutional racism are also those who are most at risk of COVID-19.
“Protests, by their nature, lead to the clustering of large groups of people. Police are dealing with this by crowding people together to control their movements, a tactic known as “kettling”, and spraying tear gas. When protesters are detained, they are often placed in crowded vans and cells.
“These conditions are ideal for the transmission of COVID-19. Tear gas irritates mucous membranes, causing people to cough and remove face masks. The proximity of other protesters increases the risk of infection. Additionally, people who are asymptomatic play a large role in infection and increase the possibility of transmission in settings where physical distancing is nearly impossible to observe, such as in jail cells.
“The interconnected nature of racism, structural inequalities and health cannot be ignored. Black people are dying at three times the rate of white people in the US due to COVID-19.
“Similar to COVID-19, police killings and structural racism are major threats to public health, and the protests bring these issues to the forefront of public discussion. From an epidemiological perspective, there are certainly risks of increased COVID-19 spread as a direct result of the protests – but the racial disparities in health (which have the same roots as police brutality) and implementation of measures which address these are just as important.
“Many protesters are from communities of colour, which have been hardest hit by the effects of the pandemic. They are not acting out of ignorance, but out of necessity.”
But racism goes both ways. Why did this guy push a woman so that she cracked her skull on a fire hydrant?
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The news was dominated by the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, but there were two snippets from the States.
One showed how the American public had reacted to their president’s decision to wall himself inside a big fence (he likes putting up barriers, doesn’t he?):
I can’t get over this. Protesters in DC have turned Trump’s disgusting White House fence into this 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/b83DSVMIMf
The other shows how the American authorities respond to police officers who attack members of the public.
Released without bail. Released without bail. Released without bail. Released without bail. Released without bail.
They threw that man down on the ground, pleaded not guilty, and then walked out to a crowd who cheered them on. https://t.co/YWpG7aYzFZ
— Twilight Sparkle (@yourcompanionAI) June 6, 2020
I hope people in the United States have aken note, and realised that the system they have created has been perverted against them.
No longer government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is government by the elite, against the people, and terrorising the people.
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Remember when Theresa Villiers made this promise, back in January?
Here's a government Minister back in January, promising that chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef would not be allowed into the UK. It will. Tory promises mean nothing. pic.twitter.com/RgET68p8KN
The Conservative manifesto promised: "we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”. Six months later …https://t.co/oxWVHJc5hQ
Britain is prepared to permit imports of chlorinated chicken from the US but will slap high tariffs on cheaply-produced food in order to minimise the impact on British farmers.
The latest Government proposal for a trade deal with the US is for a “dual tariff” regime that imposes different levels of duty on imported foods, depending on whether they comply with UK animal welfare standards.
Hormone-fed beef, chlorinated chicken and other foods that use techniques banned in Britain will be allowed across the Atlantic, but ministers want to use tariffs to make it uneconomical for US producers to export them to the UK.
It’s a classic Tory tactic.
Faced with public opposition to a plan, they say they absolutely will not allow it – not now, not ever, our laws forbid it.
Then they wait a while, before saying: “Oh, we’re going to allow it but with severe restrictions.”
Then when the change comes into effect, they quietly ensure that no restrictions are imposed.
Bear in mind that 14.7 per cent of US citizens suffer from a food-borne illness each year, compared with just 1.5 per cent of UK citizens. Watch the UK percentage skyrocket after this change is imposed.
Today’s announcement means you will be asked to eat chicken and beef that does not meet UK food standards – effectively poisoning yourself so fat Tory businesspeople can have a cosy trade deal with the United States that the majority of people in the UK don’t want. And they won’t be chomping on chlorinated crap!
And… chlorinated is only used as being symbolic of the unacceptable drop in food standards… it’s not the only one. https://t.co/olQBQmI4qT
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Sacrilege: Donald Trump had people tear-gassed so he could have this picture taken, outside a church, with a Bible. It seems he hasn’t read the New Testament… and if he stepped inside the church, would he disappear in a puff of brimstone?
Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane
UK prime minister Boris Johnson is being urged to ban the sale of riot control equipment to the United States in response to shocking images of police attacking peaceful protesters against the killing of George Floyd.
Trump seems to be entirely out of control. He had peaceful protesters tear-gassed so he could take part in a photo shoot in front of a church, clutching a Bible, in what many people (including myself) may describe as a blasphemy.
I’m home & still processing that I saw peaceful protesters teargassed outside the White House so Pres Trump could walk to St. John's Episcopal Church.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who oversees the church, said she is “outraged” to see it used in a photo-op.
This is symptomatic of the attitude he has displayed since public opinion boiled over in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Many – including media pundits – believe he has turned the corner into dictatorship:
CNN anchor claims US is teetering on dictatorship with Trump as president https://t.co/8sHn64Lz8l
There have been exceptions, though – and it is important to note them. Not all in the police or the military agree with Trump that peaceful demonstrations should be put down with an iron fist:
It seems US police have been learning “brutality and repression” in specially-funded trips abroad. I make no comment about the country providing the training.
A lot of what’s happening today, the militaristic & oppressive attitude of US cops toward their fellow citizens can be understood by reading this article. ‘U.S. Police Routinely Travel to Israel to Learn Methods of Brutality and Repression’ https://t.co/6t8kXKshE1
The good news is that, after Derek Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the killing of Mr Floyd, the three other officers involved are also to face criminal charges. It has been said that Tou Thao watched while J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas K. Lane helped hold the victim down:
Three officers involved with George Floyd's death to be criminally charged, attorney says https://t.co/bx2OKqaKH9
Back with the president, it seems the affair has killed Trump’s approval rating among US citizens. Now 54 per cent of them disapprove of him – the highest disapproval rating for any US president.
Trump should be happy – he’s always trying to say he’s top at something, and now he is.
FUN FACT: Trump’s disapproval rating has climbed to 54% — the highest disapproval for any president in U.S. history.
All of this takes us back to the UK’s response to all this. Boris Johnson has been urged to stop exporting arms and riot equipment to the United States, so it cannot be used to harm peaceful protesters in the way we’ve seen in the videos (above):
UK opposition parties urge Boris Johnson to suspend export of arms and riot gear to US https://t.co/dcsL0VQrh6
.@EmilyThornberry demands the suspension of exports of riot control equipment to the United States, pending a review of whether they are being used in response to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in American cities – https://t.co/rJ6f7Q55ih
According to the Independent article, neither Johnson nor any government spokesperson has yet commented on the issue.
This Writer’s opinion? There won’t be any cessation of arms trading with the US – it makes Tory-donor UK firms a fortune every day.
And Trump supporters can’t help shooting themselves in the foot (if only metaphorically). After Piers Morgan tweeted critically about the depths to which Trump has dragged his country, a US Twitter user made it clear that they did not want people from the UK to be involved in that country’s business. The response from a Brit was well-deserved and entirely appropriate:
Worst coronavirus death toll in the world, 40 million job losses, America burning as you vow to shoot black protestors after a black man is murdered by a racist cop… and you want THANKS? Get a bloody grip Mr President. 👇 https://t.co/EZqjygX8L5
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Trump: while all this is going on, he’s been sitting in a White House bunker, writing incendiary tweets that could burn down his country.
People in the United States cannot trust their police or the services who work for them, after a private post-mortem found that he was asphyxiated by Minneapolis police officers.
The county medical examiner had previously claimed that the death of George Floyd was caused by the combined effects of being restrained, underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease, and potential intoxicants in his system.
Now we hear that this was not true.
It means the people of the United States cannot trust the officers they appoint to keep the law – either to enforce it properly or to tell the truth about it when others have failed in that duty.
In such circumstances, they cannot afford to trust in those who provide the services they fund. People of colour must feel particularly at risk.
This has happened in the term of exactly the wrong president.
Whereas Barack Obama (for example) might have agreed that there are serious problems with the authorities in Minneapolis, authorised an investigation and promised to get to the bottom of it, Americans have to face whatever decision Donald Trump makes instead.
He is likely to try to brazen it out – pretend that the county medical examiner’s finding was right and threaten action against anyone who says otherwise. In other words, he is likely to make a terrible situation disastrous.
If he’s not careful – and we know he isn’t – Trump could turn every US citizen against their neighbours. People across that country have already participated in violent confrontations over this.
There’s nothing to stop Trump from escalating that violence catastrophically. For example:
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Could you trust this face? Don’t. Michael Gove is hiding the facts from you.
Here’s a typical double-standard from Michael “Don’t Trust Experts” Gove:
He’s broadcasting the predicted boost to the economy of a future trade deal with the United States – just 0.16 per cent.
But he’s refusing to admit that the loss of the current trade deal with EU countries – gone because of Brexit – means a loss of 5.2 per cent of GDP over 15 years, and that’s if a “typical” free trade agreement is struck.
It’s all part of the Tory Brexiteer bid to make fools of the general public.
They think we’re so stupid that if they don’t tell us about the harm their policies are causing, we won’t notice.
Are they right?
The economic cost of Brexit was laid bare on Wednesday by Britain’s official budget watchdog, which warned that leaving the EU would hit growth, exports and the public finances at a time of rising uncertainty.
Against a backdrop of coronavirus and slowing global growth, the Office for Budget Responsibility modelled for a 5.2 per cent loss of potential GDP over 15 years if a “typical” free trade agreement was struck.
The watchdog said that Britain had already lost 2 per cent of potential output since the 2016 Leave vote with a further 3.2 per cent to come, blaming rising trade friction, restrictions on migration and red tape.
The warning came as Michael Gove, cabinet office minister, revealed that the government would not publish its own economic impact assessment of the Canada-style trade deal that Britain hopes to strike with the EU.
Mr Gove told MPs he was “sceptical” about economic impact assessments, even though the government has just published a detailed 60-page document setting out the possible economic advantages of a trade deal with the US.
“We are taking a different approach with the EU,” Mr Gove told a House of Commons committee examining the Johnson government’s handling of post-Brexit trade negotiations.
The report also warned that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new migration regime, which aims to halt the inflow of low-skilled EU labour, would force up Britain’s borrowing costs by £1bn a year in 2024.
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This is conclusive: the 2019 general election is now a fight for the survival of the National Health Service.
In a press conference, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn brandished 451 pages of government papers detailing trade talks between the Conservative government and the Trump administration in the USA.
They make it clear that Mr Johnson will sell the NHS to US-based private companies if he wins the election on December 12:
"We've now got evidence that under Boris Johnson the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale."
Jeremy Corbyn says Labour have obtained an unredacted 451-page report which shows there are "secret talks for a deal with Donald Trump after Brexit". pic.twitter.com/gPUGt3IUEj
According to the papers, “total market access” for US companies to all UK service sectors is the baseline from which the trade talks will start.
It is also worth noting that the US demand no mention of climate change in any deal – so if Mr Johnson is elected, the UK’s commitment to carbon neutrality, by any date, will be canclled. Apparently BoJob wants to see us burn.
Mr Trump and his people want a “no deal” Brexit – so any claim by Mr Johnson that he is going to agree a deal with the EU seems to be a lie.
And the talks cover a range of other sectors including financial services, the British film industry, UK nursing qualifications, workers’ rights, data privacy, pesticide control, sugar content labelling and even gender discrimination rules. These represent a major power-grab.
One key sentence in this document is the killer. "Everything that isn't expressly excluded is included" . It's the goodbye NHS sentence.
International trade secretary Liz Truss has responded by saying that Mr Corbyn is “out-and-out lying to the public about what these documents contain”. But that’s a hard stance to maintain when he handed out copies to members of the press.
According to the BBC, Mr Johnson also said the claims were “total nonsense”.
But Mr Corbyn has an impeccable record of honesty while Mr Johnson has been exposed as a liar, time and time again. Here are a few examples:
Here are all the lies, spin & blatantly false statements Boris Johnson inflicted on the public last night. In doing so he treated us with contempt. If you think people deserve the truth please RT pic.twitter.com/5MjjM7eaK7
If Jeremy Corbyn says Boris Johnson is in the process of selling off the NHS, then I believe him – and I think you should too.
This election has become a choice between accepting a hugely-expensive US-style insurance-based health system that will keep you sick and bankrupt you while doing so – under Boris Johnson, or a restored NHS, fully public, and free at the point of use – under Jeremy Corbyn.
If you value your health, you must tell our politicians that our NHS is not for sale.
Those of you who think voting for another party – especially the Liberal Democrats – will help achieve this should think again. The Lib Dems helped inflict privatisation on the health service during the Coalition government and cannot be trusted not to get right back in bed with the Tories if they have a chance.
So who are you going to elect? A Labour Party that is telling you the facts? Or the lying Tories who’ll sell your health for pennies?
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After their campaign on law and order dissolved into chaos, the Tories tried to take the moral high ground on health. It didn’t work.
Most particularly, it didn’t work for Boris Johnson, who was challenged on the subject by prime minister-in-waiting Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Mr Corbyn was keen for Mr Johnson to explain why his government had held secret trade talks with US firms that would nearly triple the price of medicines bought by the NHS, creating serious pressure on the service at a time when it is already under enormous strain.
I discuss the issue here, or you can watch this video to have it in a nutshell:
Tory trade officials have been warned that the subject of 'drug pricing' is so sensitive they must not mention it in emails but use the term 'valuing innovation' instead. Turns out 'valuing innovation' will cost our NHS an extra £500 MILLION A WEEK. Bang that on the side of a bus pic.twitter.com/ABRPxdq73Y
Note also that “drug pricing” is now to be known as “valuing innovation”. And, as a TV comedian once said, from now on radiation will be known as “magic moonbeams”.
Here’s Mr Corbyn, opening his questioning in PMQs – and Mr Johnson’s answer:
Corbyn delivers a huge truth bomb at #PMQs today. If Johnson denies something then it’s most likely true.
Of course, Mr Corbyn was well aware of the situation regarding the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi; it was his intervention that succeeded in getting it provided on the NHS, we’re told.
Mr Johnson’s claims about building 40 new hospitals fare less well in the fact-check. As Mr Corbyn put it: “As for the fabled 40 hospitals, that figure dropped to 20 and then finally dropped to six.” They’ll be down to none in the event of a Conservative election victory.
Mr Corbyn continued: “We learned this week that Government officials have met US pharmaceutical companies five times as part of the Prime Minister’s planned trade deal. The US has called for “full market access” to our NHS, which would mean prices of some of our most important medicines increasing by up to sevenfold. While the Government are having secret meetings with US corporations, it is patients here who continue to suffer.”
And he said: “Of course we need to import medicines from various places; I just want it to be done in an open and transparent way. I do not want secret talks between Government officials, on behalf of Ministers, and big pharma corporations in the USA.”
He slammed Tory privatisation of NHS services, which has skyrocketed with more than £10 billion being frittered away to private companies and their shareholders, rather than supporting the health of UK citizens.
He said: “What we do not want is private companies like Virgin Care suing our NHS for contracts that they did not get. Our NHS should be focused on making people better, not making the wealthy few richer.
“National health service A&E departments have just had their worst September on record. This morning, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said that this winter the NHS needs more than 4,000 extra beds.” But under Boris Johnson’s government, he said, the number of people in England waiting for an operation has now reached a record high of 4.4 million.
And he concluded: “Despite the Prime Minister’s denials, the NHS is up for grabs by US corporations in a Trump trade deal. Is it not the truth—the Government may not like this—that this Government are preparing to sell out our NHS? Our health service is in more danger than at any other time in its glorious history because of the Prime Minister’s Government, his attitudes and the trade deals that he wants to strike.”
It is indeed the truth.
Mr Johnson spluttered on for a while but the best he could do in his defence was quote a discredited CBI claim that Labour would spend nearly £200 billion on a privatisation programme; the CBI itself has admitted that the claim was based on questionable assumptions and withdrawn it.
He lied that Labour would tax corporations, people, pensions and businesses – in fact Labour will only increase taxes on the people earning the most, who are therefore most able to accommodate such a charge.
And he said Labour would condemn the UK to two more referendums – on Brexit and Scottish independence. He neglected to say that he would consign us all to even more Brexit uncertainty as he would try – yet again – to push through a departure on the worst possible terms for the majority of the nation.
Finally, he appears to have become tongue-tied in his predictions of the future, mixing the roles of his party and Mr Corbyn’s.
I’ll fix that for him now:
“That is the future for this country: drift and dither under the Conservative party, or taking Britain forward to a brighter future under Labour. That is the choice this country faces.”
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