UK Politics

Protective helmets were donned and sledgehammers wielded as Elon Musk critics vented their frustration at the Tesla boss and billionaire by smashing up a disused Tesla bound for the scrap heap.

The public art project was organised by the social media campaign group Everyone Hates Elon. A 2014 Tesla Model S was provided by an anonymous donor “to create a debate about wealth inequality”, a spokesperson for the group said.

The participants gathered at Hardess studios in south London on Thursday to take it in turns to swing at the car with sledgehammers and baseball bats. The destroyed electric vehicle, which retails for about £14,000, will be auctioned in the next few weeks, with all proceeds going to food bank charities.

Peers working for big City firms including Santander, Secure Trust Bank and the London Stock Exchange are currently sitting on a new House of Lords panel scrutinizing regulation of the financial services industry, the Guardian has found.

Th House of Lords committee has been highly critical of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), despite a number of the committee members being paid by companies that are overseen by the FCA.

The chair of the committee, Michael Forsyth, was until May last year chair of the UK retail bank Secure Trust Bank, which is regulated by the FCA. He is still a shareholder, according to his register of interests.

Lord Forsyth wrote to the FCA saying the committee didn't agree with the regulator’s plans to name companies under investigation in cases where it was in the public interest.

Currently, 9 other members of the 13-person committee have interests in financial services companies.

The Liberal Democrat peer Sharon Bowles is paid by the London Stock Exchange plc.

Labour peer Clive Hollick is an adviser to the fund Hambro Perks.

John Eatwell is an adviser to Palamon Capital Partners and a non-executive director of Unity Trust Bank. Another Labour peer, Jonathan Kestenbaum, is a director of Windmill Asset Management, and is also a director of the JP Morgan Japanese Investment Trust.

Peter Lilley, a former Tory cabinet minister, is an adviser to a Shanghai investment fund, YiMei Capital. Jonathan Hill, another former Tory minister, is an adviser to the Spanish bank Santander and the payment company Visa Europe.

Anthony Grabiner declared that he sat on the board of Goldman Sachs from 2014 to 2022, and has shareholdings that include Citigroup, HSBC and UBS

A spokesperson for the Lords committee said its members came from “different walks of life, from across the UK, and represent a wide range of professions and backgrounds”

Tom Brake, the director of the campaign group Unlock Democracy, said it would have been “safer” had members with financial interests in the sector recused themselves

Brake questioned whether putting pressure on the Financial Conduct Authority not to name financial service companies under investigation was really in the interests of consumers.

Archived version can be seen here: https://archive.is/xtbKI

I thought this was a funny article. It's arguing that Britain's leading politicians pay too much attention to the opinions of voters who are now dead. Here's a quote:

Death had whittled away the Leave majority by 2019, according to one analysis. Among the ranks of the living, Brexit is seen as a clownish endeavour, even among those who supported it. Demography combined with the pointless, damaging reality of leaving the EU to kill Brexit Britain. Yet it lives on in the minds of the country’s politicians, where it is forever 2016.

A woman has been placed on the sex offenders register and been ordered to attend counselling after licking an MSP’s neck.

Elspeth Wood approached a member of the Scottish Parliament while they were out campaigning for the general election on May 27, 2024.

She made a sexual comment towards the MSP before hugging and licking them on the neck.

The 57-year-old pled guilty to acting in a threatening and abusive manner towards an elected official, an offence under Section 38(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, in February.

...

A non-harassment order, stopping her from contacting her victim, was also granted for a three-year period.

The sheriff accepted the prosecutor’s submissions that there was a significant sexual element to the offence, and placed Wood on the sex offenders register for the same period.

I thought this was interesting, seeing the views of a young adult who supports Reform. The article is about him having a date with a Green-voting young woman.

What are your thoughts about the growth of Reform, especially among young adults?

Having said that though, it looks like Reform's voting base still skews older. If you look at YouGov's most recent data here (as of the time of me writing this) you can see the following:

• 15% of 18-24 year-olds support Reform
• 20% of 25-49 year-olds support Reform
• 26% of 50-64 year-olds support Reform
• 29% of 65+ year-olds support Reform

In this piece, Brown argues that rising tariffs and growing economic division push the world towards another downturn.

He calls for coordinated action, similar to what was done in 2008, when countries worked together to stabilise the global economy.

His proposal is a “coalition of the willing” to lead renewed efforts through institutions like the IMF and World Bank, even without agreement from every major power. Perhaps a reminder that some still believe global solutions are possible.

Sudan’s foreign minister has written a letter to his British counterpart criticising the UK for hosting a Sudan conference without inviting the de-facto Khartoum government, and for extending invitations to allies of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)​​​​.

Ali Yousif wrote a letter to David Lammy on Sunday objecting to the conference set to take place on 15 April in London.

The summit will bring together foreign ministers from around the world in an attempt to end the war and address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan

Rachel Reeves has declined to back calls for the UK government to launch a “buy British” campaign in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying it would make Britain too “inward-looking”.

However, Downing Street said the Cabinet Office was examining procurement rules and said there were already policies in place to incentivise using the government’s purchasing power for British companies.

The chancellor and Downing Street said they would not be calling for British shoppers to do the same, despite a campaign from the Liberal Democrats. Canada launched a buy Canadian campaign in response to a 25% US tariff on Canadian imports.

During Treasury questions on Tuesday, the Lib Dems’ deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, Daisy Cooper, asked the government to “commit to a ‘buy British’ campaign as part of a broader national effort to encourage people to buy British here at home”.

Reeves replied: “In terms of buying British, I think everyone will make their own decisions. What we don’t want to see is a trade war, with Britain becoming inward-looking, because if every country in the world decided that they only wanted to buy things produced in their country, that is not a good way forward.”

The prime minister’s spokesperson backed Reeves and said there were no plans for the government to launch a buy British campaign. He said the government “will always back British manufacturers” but it was up to individuals to decide what they wanted to buy.

Asked if the government would advise people to avoid US products, he said that would not be consistent with Britain being an “open, trading nation” and the government was “not going to tell people where they buy their stuff”.

He said: “That is something the prime minister and the chancellor have previously said, and we want to see fewer trade barriers around the world, such that we’re continuing to support our economy. At the same time, we also continue to prioritise and support British manufacturers, British producers.

“We have a significant programme of support, whether it’s farmers, whether it’s manufacturers, as yesterday with supporting the car industry. So, we can take a two-pronged approach. We can be an open trading nation whilst also supporting British producers and manufacturers.”

Cooper said Reeves’s comments were “an insult to businesses being pushed to the brink by Donald Trump’s trade war”. She said: “This is completely out of touch with the British people who are rallying behind local businesses in their time of need.

“Instead of talking down our high streets, the government needs to send a clear message to the White House that they stand squarely behind British businesses and against Trump’s damaging tariffs. Buying British is a powerful way that people can get behind local businesses and show that as a country we won’t give in to Donald Trump’s bullying.”

Reeves fronted a plan to “make, buy and sell more in Britain” in 2021 when Labour was in opposition, promising to award more public contracts to British businesses and pass a law requiring public bodies to report on how much they are buying from British businesses including small and medium-sized enterprises.

No 10 said the government did want to move towards more British procurement. “We already have got significant ambitions to ensure that we’re supporting British industry,” the spokesperson said. “Obviously, I can’t get ahead of procurement rules and all of that, but it is important that the government is using its weight as a procurer to support British industry, and that will definitely be part of our agenda.

“There’s a lot of work across government to ensure we’ve got the most active, effective state possible that is supporting the economy, that is delivering value for money for taxpayers. We’re always going to back British manufacturers and producers whilst also ensuring that we’re an open trading nation that is exporting around the world.”

In an extraordinary legal filing submitted Wednesday in London, Hamas argued that the British government should remove its designation of the movement as a proscribed terror group and recognize its legitimate role as a Palestinian resistance movement engaged in a struggle for self-determination and liberation.

A top political leader of Hamas rejected allegations that the movement is an anti-semitic terror organization, asserted that Hamas poses no threat to Western nations, and argues that the political organization has never engaged in an armed operation outside the boundaries of historic Palestine.

“Hamas is not a terrorist group. It is a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project,” wrote Mousa Abu Marzouk—head of international relations for Hamas, and the applicant for the claim to the U.K. home secretary—in a signed and submitted witness statement provided to Drop Site.

archive.is

The UK is seriously considering nationalizing Jingye Group’s British Steel, as ministers rush to rescue the country’s last steelmaker from the prospect of permanent closure. Amid concerns the manufacturer’s main plant in Scunthorpe faces imminent closure, Britain’s Labour government is holding active discussions about taking it into public ownership, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity about plans that haven’t been finalized and may not materialize. Ministers will do whatever it takes to save British Steel from collapse, they said.

British Steel’s fate is a headache for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is trying to preserve a key industry just as Britain is stepping up defense spending and seeking to reduce the country’s reliance on other countries for critical resources. The matter is further complicated by British Steel having a Chinese owner which has already rejected a £500 million ($64o million) UK rescue package. The government remains in talks with Jingye to seek a way forward. The UK government declined to comment. A spokesperson for British Steel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Calls to Jingye’s headquarters in China were not answered outside of office hours, and the company didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. “All options are on the table in relation to Scunthorpe,” Starmer said on Monday.

Jingye, which bought British Steel out of liquidation in 2020, has been in negotiations with the government since 2023 after it prepared to abandon plans to build two new electric arc furnaces while closing its existing two blast furnaces, the last remaining in the UK. Worries about the sector are being compounded by US President Donald Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on imports of foreign steel.

Trade unions have warned that Jingye has canceled orders for iron ore, coking coal and other raw materials needed to make steel, raising concerns the Scunthorpe plant could effectively close within days without the fuel to run it. If the raw materials aren’t ordered this week, the blast furnaces risk being permanently shuttered, according to one person working in the industry.

Ministers are now examining putting in the order for the raw materials themselves to buy Scunthorpe time, the people said, adding that the order could be made as soon as Wednesday. Nationalization looks like the only viable option if Britain wants to prevent itself from becoming the only Group of Seven economy without a virgin steel industry, the industry figure said.

The closure of British Steel’s UK operations would put thousands of jobs at risk in Scunthorpe and Teesside, both in northern England. The company employs around 3,500 people in total.

Wes Streeting may have started as health secretary back in July, but the donations he’s been taking from companies and individuals with interests in the private health sector are still rolling in. The MP for Ilford North has been raking in support at a rate of almost £10,000 a month.

The £58,000 of office support Streeting has bagged from these sources since July 2024 are the latest in a long series of payments. Last year we showed how more than 60% of the donations accepted by Streeting since he entered parliament in 2015 were from companies and individuals with links to private health.

In February, Streeting took £53,000 from OPD Group Ltd to pay for staffing in his constituency office. OPD is owned by Peter Hearn, whose companies work with “senior NHS executive recruitment” and help “private sector providers recruit healthcare professionals”.

And in the same month, the health secretary accepted £5,000 worth of support for his constituency campaigning from Sir Trevor Chinn, a senior advisor to a firm holding investments in several private health companies.

These latest donations bring the total Streeting has accepted from private health-linked interests since 2015 up to £372,000 as declared to parliament and the Electoral Commission.

The Tory at the helm of the Labour party is now at odds with the OBR over it's analysis of the latest round of shafting the most vulnerable people in society to cover tax cuts for US multinationals that don't pay tax and avoiding increasing taxes on the millionaires literally asking for it.

(My first Lemmy post, did I do it right?)

The head of the Muslim World League (MWL) has urged Britons to talk less about Gaza and more about domestic issues, saying that the UK government should consider integration a matter of national security.

Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Issa, the former Saudi Arabian justice minister who has headed up the Mecca-based international Islamic NGO since 2016, said in comments to The Times that Israel's war on Gaza has increased division in Britain.

The return of a Tony Boogaloo Blair policy.

Just across the bay from the historic town of Cobh, the last port of call for the Titanic in 1912 on her ill-fated maiden voyage, lies the source of some of the world’s biggest life savers and givers.

Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, medicinal compounds for the treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s and Parkinson’s disease, all are manufactured within two miles of the deep port of Ringaskiddy in County Cork.

After more than 50 years, however, it is all now under threat after Donald Trump accused Ireland of stealing America’s pharmaceutical industry and vowed to “force” US companies, jobs and taxes to return home.

This has concentrated the minds of local politicians, who have called on the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to visit the area.

“If Pfizer and the others closed … the collateral damage would be huge,” said John Twomey, something of a local historian and treasurer of the local Gaelic Athletic Association in Shanbally, a tiny village a two-minute drive from Pfizer’s entrance.

Hospitals in England could axe more than 100,000 jobs as a result of the huge reorganisation and brutal cost-cutting ordered by Wes Streeting and the NHS’s new boss.

The scale of looming job losses is so large that NHS leaders have urged the Treasury to cover the costs involved, which they say could top £2bn, because they do not have the money.

Sir Jim Mackey, NHS England’s new chief executive, has told the 215 trusts that provide health care across England to cut the costs of their corporate functions – such as HR, finance and communications – by 50% by the end of the year.

But the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, said some trusts believe complying with that edict could force them to shed anywhere between 3% and 11% of their entire workforce.

If replicated across the 215 trusts, that could lead to job losses ranging from 41,100 to 150,700, given they employ 1.37 million people.

Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, said trusts were being asked to make such “staggering” savings that they might not be able to help banish the long delays patients faced for treatment.

He called on the Treasury to create an NHS “national redundancy fund” to foot the bill for job losses because trusts were already too cash-strapped to do so.

His intervention came as Streeting and Mackey prepared to be questioned by MPs on the Commons health and social care committee on Tuesday about their plans.

The NHS is bracing itself for an unprecedented loss of jobs after the decision by the health secretary to abolish NHS England and cut a huge number of managers.

About half of NHS England’s 15,300-strong personnel are set to lose their jobs when it is merged with the Department of Health and Social Care. The DHSC is also expecting some of its 3,300 staff to depart. A further 12,500 jobs could go at the NHS’s 42 integrated care boards – regional oversight bodies that employ 25,000 people between them.

Taylor said: “Health leaders understand the troubling financial situation facing the country and the need to improve efficiency where they can, as they have already demonstrated by significantly reducing their planned deficit for the year ahead.

“However, the scale and pace of what has been asked of them to downsize is staggering and leaves them fearful of being able to find the right balance between improving performance and implementing the reforms needed to put the NHS on a sustainable footing.

“They have told us that unless the Treasury creates a national redundancy fund to cover these job losses, any savings the government hopes to make risks being eroded at best and completely wiped out at worst.”

He said trusts needed financial stability in order to deliver the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan.

Some trust heads are budgeting to spend as much as £12m making staff redundant this year, the Confederation said. But one said they were not planning a redundancy programme “as it will be unaffordable” and will instead use the natural turnover of staff to slim down.

Redundancy payouts could reach £1bn in NHS shake-up

Read more

Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of the King’s Fund, highlighted research showing that only 14% of people in Britain think the NHS spends its money efficiently.

Despite that, she said, “the UK spends just 1.9% of its health budget on administration costs – the sixth lowest out of the 19 comparable countries measured”.

She added: “You need highly skilled and experienced people in key behind-the-scenes roles – including management and administration – in order to enable frontline staff to focus on delivering great care.

“In the drive to raise NHS efficiency, national politicians need to be aware that cutting cost is not the same as increasing efficiency.”

Thea Stein, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust thinktank, echoed Woolnough’s caution about the cost-cutting drive.

She said: “There is certainly duplication and wasted time in NHS governance, but the government needs to be careful about exactly what gets cut.

“Corporate staff in NHS trusts include the digital specialists, analysts and recruitment professionals needed to improve NHS efficiency and keep wards staffed.”

The former NHS trust chief executive added: “Last year’s Darzi review, commissioned by the current government, noted that cuts in the last round of squeezing oversight bodies in 2013 left the NHS short on capable administration and ended up being reversed.”

In recent days several NHS trusts have outlined plans to shed hundreds of posts each, in a bid to meet what Taylor has called “challenging” efficiency savings targets for 2025-26.

The trusts, which provide care in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, plan to cut 798 whole-time equivalent posts, or about 7% of their combined workforce. They hope to save £39m, almost half their combined £82m savings target, the Health Service Journal reported.

Similarly, the trust that runs Bristol’s hospitals intends to shrink its workforce by 2%, in a move that could lead to more than 300 job losses.

NHS England told all 215 trusts to save 5% of their budget for this year through “cost improvement programmes” amid fears the service could overspend its budget by £6.6bn.

A DHSC spokesperson said: “We will work with the NHS to make the changes needed to get the health service back on its feet, and will focus on delivering for patients and taxpayers while also supporting staff.

“Our plans to bring NHS England back into the department will eliminate duplication, freeing up hundreds of millions of pounds for frontline care and better treatment for patients.

“We are investing an extra £26bn in health and care, and have already made progress on our mission to cut waiting lists – delivering an extra 2 million appointments seven months early and cutting the waiting list by 193,000 since July.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28230288

The pro-Palestine Youth Demand movement says it has been targeted with over 150 arrests since it began

Katherine Hearst Published date: 5 April 2025 09:12 BST

"On 27 March, some 20 police officers burst in on a group of young women at a Quaker’s meeting house in central London and arrested them on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

The women were activists who had gathered for an open meeting of Youth Demand, a pro-Palestine and climate justice movement demanding an end to UK government arms sales to Israel and new fossil fuel licensing. The group emerged in the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza, which began in October 2023."

More than 130 refugee and human rights organisations have called on Keir Starmer to stop using language that demonises migrants, after he made controversial remarks before an international people-smuggling summit.

The criticisms are contained in a letter to the UK prime minister, coordinated by the campaign coalition Together With Refugees. It has been sent to the prime minister in response to comments he made before the Organised Immigration Crime Summit on 31 March, where more than 40 countries came together in London to focus on tackling organised immigration crime including people-smuggling gangs.

Starmer said: “But we all pay the price for insecure borders – from the cost of accommodating migrants to the strain on our public services. It is a basic question of fairness.”

In an open letter to the prime minister, the organisations say: “Now is not the time to play into the hands of those seeking to build them-and-us division between local communities and refugees. It is the time to move away from the hostile politics, racist rhetoric and demonising language of the past and unite our communities for a different way forward.”

The 136 signatories are from a range of organisations across the UK including City of Sanctuary UK, Choose Love, Freedom from Torture, One Strong Voice, Rainbow Migration, Refugee Action, Refugee Council, Safe Passage International, Scottish Refugee Council, Welsh Refugee Council and the Public and Commercial Services Union.

The letter states: “You told us this week that immigration ‘is a basic question of fairness’. We agree. But the searing experiences of last summer, when hate-filled mobs tried to burn down hotels hosting asylum seekers, make it clear that the path to fairness is not to be found in those pitting local communities against refugees seeking safety from persecution and war.”

The letter also responds to the summit’s focus on targeting smuggling gangs, saying: “Rather than the border security summit’s focus on expensive new ways to disrupt people smugglers, often making the journey more dangerous for refugees, the government should be looking at safe routes for refugees to get here without risking their lives.”

Tim Naor Hilton, the chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “We need the prime minister and his government to be brave and ditch the divisive language that scapegoats migrants, including refugees and people seeking asylum.

“Hostile policies and rhetoric risk fuelling more of the racist, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant riots that tore through our communities last summer.

“The government must use language that focuses on unity and community resilience, and develop a new asylum system that is grounded in rights and justice.”

Nico Ndlovu, a signatory and the representative of the lived experience campaign group One Strong Voice, said: “The prime minister’s words this week make no recognition of our suffering and why we desperately need to find safety, or our contribution to this country, its economy and culture.

“It’s painful to hear him add his voice to this kind of hostile rhetoric. Rather than this summit’s narrow and expensive focus on people smugglers we need a proper vision for the asylum system, with a plan that is fair, compassionate and well managed.”

The letter calls for a new plan for refugees that is compassionate and well managed including fair, rapid decisions on their application for asylum, and the chance to rebuild their lives, stronger global cooperation to tackle the root causes that force people to flee their homes and safe routes for refugees.

A government spokesperson said: “As the prime minister made clear, there is nothing compassionate about turning a blind eye to the vile gangs who ruthlessly exploit vulnerable people and trade in human misery. This is why we have launched an unprecedented global fight against these criminals to secure our borders as part of our plan for change.”

Keir Starmer is preparing to rethink key elements of the government’s economic policy in an emergency response to Donald Trump’s tariff blitz, amid growing concern in Downing Street that the US president’s trade war could do lasting damage to the UK.

The prime minister believes, say allies, that “old assumptions should be discarded” in the UK’s response, suggesting he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may be preparing to raise taxes again – despite having promised not to do so – or even possibly change their “iron clad” fiscal rules to allow more borrowing and fire up economic growth at home in the event of recession.
[…]
This week, Starmer, who has refused to criticise Trump or his tariffs directly, will focus on how to frame an economic response to a global economic shock that protects working people, and their incomes and jobs – as well as the UK’s public services.

He believes that the last few days have ushered in a “new era”, that the “world has changed” and that a global trade war risks “undermining a proud, hard-working nation”.

The kind of language now emanating from Starmer’s circles will be seen by economists – and politicians at Westminster – as preparing the ground for big potential shifts in economic policy on the basis that emergency times may require emergency measures.

Also, Treasury Minister says 'globalisation era has ended':

Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, [Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren] Jones was asked whether globalisation - which has resulted in a boom in imports of cheap fashion, electrical goods and other products - was over.

"Yeah it's ended, the prime minister said that himself this morning," he said.

The change meant the UK had to "build out" relationships with allies around the world but also invest in the UK's own economy, Jones said, denying ministers were "scrabbling" for solutions.

He insisted the government was "trying to get ahead of these challenges" , which he said were "why we have to invest in the domestic economy, both for UK businesses, but also our public services... which is why our plan for change is investing in the NHS and skills as well as industrial policy."

Amid reports both elements of the spending review and the industrial strategy could now be brought forward from their expected June publication date, he said Labour had been working on the industrial strategy since it was in opposition.

Pressed on whether they would be brought forward, Jones deferred to Sir Keir's announcement expected in the coming days and laughed when Laura Kuenssberg said "that sounds almost like a yes but you're not allowed to say it to us this morning".

The UK government is continuing its policy of not responding with counter-tariffs, as other countries have done, preferring a "calm" approach focused on a UK-US trade deal.

"We're hoping to do a deal," Jones said, adding on tariffs that "we have a better outcome than other comparable countries as a consequence of our diplomacy".