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www.independent.co.uk
> Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to give some £4 million to the far-right Italian government to tackle irregular migration. > > The funding for the initiative, called the Rome Process, comes following the meeting of the two leaders. > > Sir Keir met with his Italian counterpart in Rome today to discuss plans to tackle illegal migration. > > The populist Italian government, led by Giorgia Meloni, has seen a 60 per cent drop in illegal migration in the past year and recently signed a controversial deal with Albania. > > Sir Keir said he is “very interested” in Italy’s policies leading to “dramatic reductions” in irregular migration. > > “You’ve made remarkable progress working with countries across migration routes as equals, to address the drivers of migration at source and tackle gangs,” Sir Keir told the press conference. > > Ms Meloni added she and Sir Keir had signed a joint communique including “very tangible, important points, and is evidence of the deep relation between our two countries.” > > Sir Keir has signalled he is open to pursuing an arrangement similar to Italy’s migration deal with Albania, whereby asylum seekers will be held in the Balkan state while their claims are processed.
www.bbc.co.uk
www.theguardian.com
McSweeney made clear his mission to those gathered in [the Labour Croydon North MP Steve] Reed’s parliamentary office: “to move the Labour party from the hard left when JC steps down as leader and to reconnect the Labour party with the country [and] build a sustainable winning electoral coalition…” He then pointed to a slide of soldiers holding up huge shields, completely covering their bodies. “Operation Red Shield,” he said. The first job, he argued, was to protect supportive MPs from accusations of disloyalty. The next slide zoomed in on a Greenpeace logo. This would be their model, McSweeney told the gathered MPs: soft branding that made them seem warm and cuddly. After a few months working from a park bench, the group funded a small office in Vauxhall, and soon it reached out to former Labour advisers to work alongside them with a focus on online antisemitism. In an early review, they identified problem posts in hundreds of Facebook groups with links to either the party or leftwing politics. Some of these were aimed at Labour’s female Jewish MPs. They then farmed out the posts they uncovered to journalists who were themselves reporting on rising evidence of antisemitism on the left. Together with a row over whether the party would adopt all the examples linked to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, the scandal was becoming increasingly destabilising for Corbyn. As for the Guardian schmoozing, I witnessed that first-hand. At the time, I was the joint political editor at the newspaper and found myself invited with colleagues to a dinner in a private dining room in the basement of Browns in Covent Garden. We sat on red chairs with gold trimming, set around a long, thin table covered with a white tablecloth, listening to McSweeney, Cruddas, Reed, [Wigan MP Lisa] Nandy and [Birmingham Ladywood MP Shabana] Mahmood tell us about Labour Together’s plans for renewal. They had brought with them another MP who was just starting to do more with the group – Keir Starmer. The project was pitched, as planned, with the soft, cuddly Greenpeace framing. They neatly side-stepped our more cynical questions about their plans for a future leadership. Alongside me that night was Guardian news editor Dan Sabbagh, who has since told me he immediately wondered if Starmer was their candidate. Even if McSweeney was wondering about Starmer as a possible leader as early as 2017, it was not spoken about and another hopeful also later emerged from the same group. Back then, the mere prospect of an opportunity to either take control of Labour’s leadership or win a general election still felt very distant.
www.middleeasteye.net
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20363678 > By MEE staff > > Published date: 16 September 2024 13:39 BST
www.theguardian.com
> Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli. > > The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the *Sunday Times* reported. > > Starmer approached the parliamentary authorities on Tuesday to make a late declaration after being given updated advice on what needed to be registered. > > The donations reportedly covered the cost of a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer before and after Labour’s election win in July. > > MPs are required to register gifts and donations within 28 days. > > The Tories have demanded a full investigation into the Starmers’ links with Lord Alli, who has donated £500,000 to Labour since 2020. > […] > Last weekend it emerged that Alli had been given a Downing Street security pass temporarily without apparently having a government role. > > The row was dubbed the “passes for glasses” affair because the television mogul had previously donated tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothing, accommodation and “multiple pairs” of spectacles to the Labour leader. There is no suggestion that the peer has broken any rules. > > Alli, 59, was the youngest member of the House of Lords when he was ennobled in 1998.
www.theguardian.com
The launch of a major humanitarian appeal for Gaza by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is being delayed by the BBC, it has emerged. The corporation said the appeal did not meet all the established criteria for a national appeal, but the possibility of broadcasting an appeal was “under review”. Other channels have agreed to broadcast an appeal. Insiders at the DEC, the BBC and aid agencies said they were dismayed at the delay. Some have accused the BBC of “blocking” the appeal because the corporation fears a backlash from supporters of Israel in its war with Hamas. One senior NGO figure said that staff were “furious” at the BBC’s position.
It’s ridiculous. I know the MSM is pretty right wing in general but like really? Maybe they are and I’ve just missed it but I would think it would be big news. Ukrainians getting slaughtered on the daily basically on behalf of us (NATO) in order to hold the border between NATO and Russia. Yet we take months to agree to give them the things they need, making them ineffective, while giving Israel everything they could possibly dream of to genocide the Palestinians. I’ve gotta believe that history won’t look back on this kindly… if we even have much more of a future as a race… I think at this point, we either need to absolutely swamp Ukraine with weapons or we need to be pushing for “peace” which will involve at least pieces of Ukraine being handed over to Russia. I swear NATO is basically using the Ukrainians as cannon fodder right now. Or like suicide bombers: we don’t care if they die, as long as they take some Russians with them. I think unfortunately it’s gonna have to be piece at this point. Had we really thrown everything to Ukraine at the start, I think there’s a good a chance they could have kept Russia back. I don’t think we have that same opportunity now. We are about to start entering a cold period again. How many Ukrainians will freeze to death over this coming winter? And for what? For them to surrender next year? Meanwhile we continue to give Israel all the tools they need to completely wipe out the Palestinians. If the UK could make a stand, it would put a lot of pressure on America. We need our government to be brave and not repeat the failures of following America as we did with the Iraq war. We need to be brave on both issues. In both cases, the pressure from probably their closest ally, should make a difference. We should do it now, because it will be easier to do before hopefully Harris is elected. Then she will just be continuing with what she was left with rather than having to make the big changes herself. Like ideally she should be able to succumb to some pressure from us if it comes to it too. But it would just be easier to have this awkward moment with an outgoing president, who we won’t have to speak to in a couple of months. If Trump gets elected then we are just fucked all round really. Again it would make sense for us to have made our move before he gets in, but realistically we are probably all fucked anyway if Trump the Dictator gets in. That’s my rant over anyway… am I wrong? Am I missing something here? Apart from the obvious that we tend to treat country’s with nukes better than those countries without, even the ones we persuaded to get rid of their nukes and swore we would protect *cough* Ukraine *cough*.
www.middleeasteye.net
The UK government is justifying the continued sale of F-35 fighter jet parts which could end up in Israel through a legal provision that “has never been formally relied on” and one which likely requires parliamentary oversight, 37 MPs said on Friday. “The government has admitted it cannot licence the direct transfer of F-35 components to Israel because of the clear risk of serious international humanitarian law violations,” they write. “But it has not suspended licences to export UK-made F-35 components to Israel as an end user via third-party countries including the United States. There are serious questions that we demand answers to about the legality and practical necessity of such an exemption.”
www.middleeasteye.net
A court has found a woman not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence for holding a placard depicting politicians Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as “coconuts” during a pro-Palestine march in central London. Speaking in Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday, Hussain said the placard was not “meant to be offensive” but an example of political commentary and “satirical". “[Calling the placard] hate-speech is far-fetched in my opinion.”  "The only qualified expert the police could find in 10 months of searching was Professor Kehinde Andrews. And he told them that coconut was not racist. And he additionally told the police to share his advice with the CPS so they could stop wasting everyone's time.
[Archive link](https://archive.ph/E2cJ3) for when your finances have been sucked off by a black hole.
>This may seem a strange thing to say: Democracy isn't actually about finding out what the people want and just trying to do it. Democracy is about setting out a vision and a plan for the country and persuading people to follow it.
www.middleeasteye.net
Nearly a year into the world’s first live-streamed genocide - which began in Gaza, and is rapidly expanding into the occupied West Bank - the establishment western media still avoid using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s rampage of destruction. The worse the genocide gets, the longer Israel’s starvation-blockade of the enclave continues, the harder it gets to obscure the horrors - and the less coverage Gaza receives. The worst offender has been the BBC, given that it is Britain’s only publicly funded broadcaster. Ultimately, it is supposed to be accountable to the British public, who are required by law to pay its licence fee. This is why it has been beyond ludicrous to witness the billionaire-owned media froth at the mouth in recent days about “BBC bias” - not against Palestinians, but against Israel. Yes, you heard that right. We are talking about the same “anti-Israel” BBC that just ran yet another headline - this time after an Israeli sniper shot an American citizen in the head - that managed somehow, once again, to fail to mention who killed her. Any casual reader risked inferring from the headline “American activist shot dead in occupied West Bank” that the culprit was a Palestinian gunman. And it is the supposedly “anti-Israel” BBC that last week sought to stymie efforts by 15 aid agencies known as the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to run a major fundraiser through the nation’s broadcasters. No one is under any illusions about why the BBC is so unwilling to get involved. The DEC has chosen Gaza as the beneficiary of its latest aid drive. The committee faced the very same problem with the BBC back in 2009, when the corporation refused to take part in a Gaza fundraiser on the extraordinary pretext that doing so would compromise its rules on “impartiality”. Presumably, in the BBC’s eyes, saving the lives of Palestinian children reveals a prejudice that saving Ukrainian children’s lives does not. The reason Israel is able to carry out a genocide, and western leaders are able to actively support it, is precisely because the establishment media constantly pulls its punches - very much in Israel’s favour. Readers and viewers are given no sense that Israel is carrying out systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, let alone a genocide.
www.theguardian.com
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17357147 > > Junk food TV advertisements are to be banned from airing before the 9pm watershed as part of the government’s drive to improve public health. > > > >In addition, online ads for products that are high in fat, salt and sugar will be banned altogether, Andrew Gwynne, the public health minister, told the Commons on Thursday. Both measures will come into force on 1 October 2025. > > > >Health campaigners welcomed the move as an overdue restriction on firms’ ability to bombard children with ads for their unhealthy food and drink products. > > > > ... > > > > The previous, Conservative government pledged to bring in the TV watershed ban from January 2023. But a month before its introduction, Rishi Sunak decided to delay it until 2025, prompting a wave of criticism that he had put the interests of big business ahead of improving children’s health.
In an interview posted on her account on X, Wilkinson said: “The bail conditions have been removed… Six of the seven bail conditions are completely inhumane and disabled me from being able to sort of live in this area. All the bail conditions have been removed, apart from I cannot talk about the Palestinian resistance but I can use social media.” At the end of August Wilkinson’s house was raided by Counter Terrorism Police and she was arrested. According to reports she was asked to give up details of her contacts in Gaza. “They had absolutely no intention of this going to court,” she said of the police’s actions. The police raid by officers wearing balaclavas “terrorised this end of town. Was it really worth it?”
> Delegates at Green Party conference in Manchester have voted for HS2 to be funded and completed in full, including the entire Eastern leg and an underground through station at Manchester Piccadilly. The policy development comes as phase one of HS2 between London and Birmingham is well under construction. > > Commenting on the revised Green Party policy, co-leader Carla Denyer MP, said: > > “The Green Party has long supported the principle of a new north-south high-speed rail line but had serious concerns about the specific route of HS2 and the environmental impacts of this route. > > “However, this first phase of HS2 between London and Birmingham is well under way and most of the environmental impacts of construction are already baked in. So this is a pragmatic decision by the Green Party. It moves us on. > > “Crucially, we have also acknowledged that the northern leg of HS2 was always the most important in terms of tackling capacity issues on our railways as well as addressing regional inequalities. So the line must be completed in full. > > “We also say loud and clear that our railways have to be built right – for habitats and wildlife, for local transport users, for affected neighbours and for government coffers. Greens will not support blank cheques or offer uncritical endorsement. > > “We need to move at great speed to shift travel away from cars and flights to public transport. HS2, in full, can play an important role in achieving this shift.” The vote passed with 345 for and 318 against.
www.heraldscotland.com
> News that the picture - commissioned by Gordon Brown - had been removed was first reported in The Herald last month. > >Politicians on the right were furious at the decision. > >Former first minister of Northern Ireland and DUP leader Baroness Arlene Foster described it as “vindictive and petty." > >Asked why he had relocated the portrait, Sir Keir said: “I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons where I have got to have… where there is a difficult paper that I need to. > >“This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all. I don’t like images and pictures of people staring down at me. > >“I’ve found it all my life. When I was a lawyer I used to have pictures of judges. I don’t like it. I like landscapes. > > ... > > “I might tolerate Thierry Henry on the wall, but that's about as far as I go.”
www.thenational.scot
THE BBC has been accused of “blocking” a major humanitarian appeal for Gaza as it has been revealed the broadcaster has “delayed” the launch of a campaign. All other channels have agreed to broadcast the appeal, the Guardian has reported. Insiders at the DEC, the BBC and aid agencies told the news agency they were dismayed at the delay with some accusing the broadcaster of “blocking” the appeal because of fears over a backlash from Israel supporters.
www.theguardian.com
> Employees have lost out on holiday pay worth £2bn, according to new trade union research
www.mirror.co.uk
>Buses were privatised under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s > >But since 2017, metro mayors have had the power to run their own bus networks. > >Manchester mayor Andy Burnham launched the hugely successful Bee Network last year - which increased reliability, introduced 24/7 services and boosted passenger numbers. > >He’s pledged to complete the process of taking Manchester’s buses under public control by next January (2025). > >Similar plans are underway in the Liverpool City Region and West Yorkshire. > >It’s understood Labour’s rule changes, to be tabled in the Commons on Tuesday, would lift the ban on local councils setting up community bus companies, allowing more local leaders to take more services into public control. > […] > ##### Thousands of vital routes have been axed - that's what happens when control is handed to those who put profit above passengers > ###### By Louise Haigh, Transport Secretary > […] > I’ve heard countless stories from people let down, of communities cut off, about opportunities missed, all due to poor bus services. I know how much this matters. > > That’s why this Government was elected. To deliver on our mission to repair and rebuild Britain. To return our country to the service of working people. To fix what is broken. > > And I am not wasting any time. My pledge to Mirror readers is simple: better buses are around the corner. > > I promised to move fast and fix things, and next week I will be setting out the first stop on the journey to better buses, with steps to take back control of our buses. > > For too long Private operators have been allowed to pick and choose whatever routes they want, regardless of what communities need. We want to see every area have the power to build their own public transport network in a way that works for them > […] > Four decades of deregulation has seen thousands of vital routes axed, and a staggering 1.5 billion fewer bus journeys taken each year. > > This wasn’t inevitable. It is the result of political choices. > > It is what happens when control of services is handed to those who put profit above passengers. > > When whole communities are cut off and isolated, without a thought to the damage this does to local economies.
