Labour ‘betrays millions of young people’ after dropping pledge to abolish university tuition fees

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-betrays-millions-of-young-people-after-dropping-pledge-to-abolish-university-tuition-fees

STUDENTS and education unions slammed Labour’s “betrayal of millions of young people in desperate need of hope” today after the party’s increasingly right-wing leadership dropped a pledge to abolish cripplingly high university tuition fees.

Sir Keir Starmer’s latest U-turn on yet another left-wing pledge which got him elected leader in 2020 will help to condemn “millions of future students to a life of debt” and leaves Britain even further away from the publicly funded higher education system it needs, they stressed.

The move is likely to draw criticism from the party’s left, which has repeatedly warned that attempts to please the right-wing press while failing to offer a genuinely progressive alternative will only benefit Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

With Tory MPs branding Jeremy Corbyn’s successor “Sir Flip-Flop,” Mr Sunak attempted to capitalise on the situation in a fiery Prime Ministers Questions today saying Sir Keir has made a “series of broken promises.”

These include now abandoned pledges to renationalise public services, increase income tax for the highest earners and defend freedom of movement post-Brexit.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-betrays-millions-of-young-people-after-dropping-pledge-to-abolish-university-tuition-fees

Continue ReadingLabour ‘betrays millions of young people’ after dropping pledge to abolish university tuition fees

Staggering BP profits, Labour abandons commitment to abolish tuition fees, Nurses strike continues …

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Staggering BP profits spark outrage

Extinction Rebellion protests at BP
Extinction Rebellion protests at BP

Fossil fuel giant BP has one again reported eye watering profits. In the first quarter of 2023, BP made £4 billion.

The news has sparked outrage amongst opposition politicians and groups campaigning on the climate and cost of living crises.

Staggering BP profits spark outrage

Tuition fees: How the left has responded to Keir Starmer’s U-turn

Left wing faction Momentum compared Starmer’s shifting position to that of Nick Clegg, who famously went into the 2010 general election pledging to abolish tuition fees only to triple them when in government. A spokesperson for Momentum said: “This move wouldn’t just fly in the face of party democracy and the wishes of Labour Students. It would be a betrayal of millions of young people in desperate need of hope. The Labour leadership should learn from Nick Clegg’s failure, not repeat it.”

The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made similar comments. He tweeted: “Young people should not be saddled with a lifetime of debt just because they want to get an education. Abolish tuition fees, restore maintenance grants and deliver free education for all.”

Tuition fees: How the left has responded to Keir Starmer’s U-turn

Don’t underestimate nurses’ resolve, Pat Cullen tells government

NHS sign

Cullen commented that, although the outcome of today’s meeting appeared to be set, nurses will remain in dispute with the government over pay and staffing.

“Tuesday’s meeting with Steve Barclay appears a foregone conclusion,” said Cullen. “Different unions and different professions came to different, but respectable, conclusions on this pay offer.

“The deal being accepted by others does not alter the clear fact that nursing staff, as the largest part of the NHS workforce, remain in dispute with the government over unfair pay and unsafe staffing.”

Don’t underestimate nurses’ resolve, Pat Cullen tells government

Breaking: Labour councillor exposes himself running hate account mocking left-wing candidates

Right-wing Liverpool Labour councillor Tom Cardwell has been outed apparently running a hateful troll account attacking local political opponents. 

The ‘GorstSpam’ Twitter account was set up to attack Garston councillor Sam Gorst and other Liverpool Community Independent (LCI) councillors and candidates who left Labour over the Labour-run council’s swingeing cuts to services for the most vulnerable – and has put out vile misogynistic and homophobic content.

And Cardwell exposed his link to the account when he tweeted one message pretending to be Gorst, then immediately deleted it and was stupid enough to put the same message out on the ‘Spam’ account moments later

Breaking: Labour councillor exposes himself running hate account mocking left-wing candidates

Phillips deletes tweet about buying house at 20 – she told FT she was in ‘squat’ at 22

Right-wing Labour MP Jess Phillips has deleted a tweet in which she said she bought her first home at the age of twenty and described how it changed her and her children’s ‘fortune’

Phillips has previously told the Financial Times, presumably in an oddly-placed effort to boost her working-class credentials, that at age 22 she was living in a ‘squat’

Phillips deletes tweet about buying house at 20 – she told FT she was in ‘squat’ at 22

Apologies that I sometimes lose it dear readers

Continue ReadingStaggering BP profits, Labour abandons commitment to abolish tuition fees, Nurses strike continues …

Politics news allsorts

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Commentary and analysis of recent UK politics events

Image of GCHQ donught buildingFollowing Home Secretary Theresa May’s refusal to allow MI5 boss Andrew Parker to appear before the parliamentary home affairs select committee the committee has said that it will question Theresa May more thoroughly.

The issue is about oversight of the security services: the home affairs select committee consider that intelligence agencies should be answerable to parliament and ordinary MPs, the government and the Home Secretary do not. Tim Farron, President of the ‘Liberal-Democrats’ is to propose measures to improve scrutiny of the intelligence services at the ‘Liberal-Democrats’ spring conference. The ‘Liberal-Democrat’ leadership has previously ignored directions from their ‘liberal-democratic’ party e.g. student tuition fees.

The public accounts committee has commented on Chancellor George Osborne use of misleading statistics on Britain’s budget deficit.

PAC chair Margaret Hodge said it was “hard to understand why the government debt and deficit highlighted in the whole government accounts differ from those reported in the ONS’s national accounts.”

“According to the former document, compiled on the basis of well-understood accounting standards, the UK’s in-year deficit for 2011-12 was £185bn. The national accounts used by the chancellor put the figure at £90bn.”

George Osborne has said that he wants “billions” more cut from the welfare budget. George Eaton at the New Statesman speculates where the axe might fall:

What cuts could he have in mind? It’s worth looking back at the speech David Cameron made on the subject in June 2012 when he outlined a series of possible measures, including:

  • The restriction of child-related benefits for families with more than two children.
  • A lower rate of benefits for the under-21s.
  • Preventing school leavers from claiming benefits.
  • Paying benefits in kind (like free school meals), rather than in cash.
  • Reducing benefit levels for the long-term unemployed. Cameron said: “Instead of US-style time-limits – which remove entitlements altogether – we could perhaps revise the levels of benefits people receive if they are out of work for literally years on end”.
  • A lower housing benefit cap. Cameron said that the current limit of £20,000 was still too high.
  • The abolition of the “non-dependent deduction”. Those who have an adult child living with them would lose up to £74 a week in housing benefit.

Osborne would also likely reduce the household benefit cap of £26,000 (he said today that “future governments could change the level” and Tory MPs have been pushing for one of £20,000) and maintain the 1% cap on benefit increases (a real-terms cut).

G4S and Serco are to have their criminals’ electronic tagging contracts transferred to Crapita.

New Statesman has a guide to fast-track processing of asylum-seekers.

 

Continue ReadingPolitics news allsorts