Category Archives: POLITICS

Union Leader Tells Keir Starmer To ‘Get A Spine’ And ‘Stick Up For’ Workers

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Labour needs to “get a spine” and stand up for working people, the general secretary of the Unite union has said.

Sharon Graham told Keir Starmer he is more likely to win the next election if he did more to back workers seeking pay rises as employers make big profits.

“There isn’t really a very strong voice for workers in parliament currently,” she told BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House on Sunday.

“It is more likely they (Labour) would get elected more if they spoke up for workers more.”

“I think that if they came out now strongly and said `hang on a second, these abhorrent profits that are going on and what’s happening with the cost of living, this is what we think should happen’ – then I think they would very much get elected.

“From my point of view, I think we are doing Labour a favour actually by saying `look, get a spine, stick up for workers’. Graham told the programme “you cannot defend workers by being silent”.

Starmer has been under pressure from unions and Labour’s left to do more to show support for striking workers across the country.

Starmer has said Labour needs to move away from being a “party of protest” and instead act like a “government in waiting” with an emphasis on negotiating with unions.

Speaking this morning, Pat McFadden, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said he did not support a general strike but understands why people are pressing for pay increases.

“Our call on government ministers would be to stop being an absent government and to help resolve these disputes to ensure that people get a decent pay rise, but to do that around the negotiating table,” he told Sky News.

“Nobody wants to see industrial action but it is understandable why people at work want a decent pay rise given the inflationary pressures that they’re feeling right now.”

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People Are Taking Nadhim Zahawi’s Advice On Cutting Energy Use With A Pinch Of Salt

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Nadhim Zahawi urging households to look at how they are using energy has left some people speechless – probably because he used taxpayers’ cash to heat his horse stables.

On Friday, the chancellor said everyone should “look at our energy consumption” as it was confirmed bills are set to soar by 80%.

In 2013, the Sunday Mirror revealed he claimed for electricity at the stables, as part of a wider bill, other parts of which were allowed under the rules.

At the time, Zahawi promised to repay part of a £5,822.27 expenses claim for his energy bills after it emerged taxpayers were paying for the electricity supply to his stables.

He has said it was a “deeply embarrassing” but “genuine mistake” to claim the expenses for heating stables for his horses.

Given his history, some were taking his guidance with a pinch of salt after it was after it was announced the average energy price cap will soar to a devastating £3,549 in October.

One of the wealthiest members of parliament, Zahawi founded the polling firm YouGov.

In July, he told Sky News’ Kay Burley the claim was a “genuine mistake” as he did not realise his stable heating and personal heating was coming in on a single bill.

“It was a complete error, a mistake, and of course I apologised and repaid,” he said.

Asked if he was embarrassed, Zahawi said: “Of course. Deeply embarrassing. But it was a genuine mistake. It’s much better to admit and demonstrate than to do anything else.”

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Brutal Hospital Heckle Gives Health Secretary Steve Barclay A Taste Of Public Anger

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Health secretary Steve Barclay has been confronted with public fury over the crumbling NHS – as an angry member of the public heckled the minister upset about ambulance delays.

The cabinet minister was speaking to media outside Moorfields Eye Hospital in Old Street, central London, when a woman suggested the Tory government has done “bugger all” during 12 years in power.

During his interviews, a woman passing by approached Barclay and asked him: “Are you going to do anything about the ambulances waiting, and the people dying out?”

Barclay replied: “Of course we are,” but the woman continued: “Don’t you think 12 years is long enough?

“Twelve years – you’ve done bugger all about it.

“People have died, and all you’ve done is nothing.”

The incident drew comparisons to an infamous scene from BBC comedy The Thick Of It, when fictional minister Hugh Abbot is confronted by an angry worker who asks: “Do you know what it’s like to clean up your own mother’s piss?”

Last week, many were shocked after an 87-year-old man had to wait 15 hours for an ambulance in a makeshift shelter made out of a garden football goal.

A recent report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) showed that patients were facing “frequent and prolonged” waits for ambulances.

The report exposed several cases, such as that of an elderly patient who died after waiting 14 hours for assistance from South Central Ambulance Service.

On Thursday, Barclay was given a tour of an operating theatre by surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital, before speaking to press on the street outside.

Following the heated interaction, Barclay said that reducing ambulance waiting times is an “absolute priority” for the government.

He told the PA news agency: “There’s a range of measures that we’re taking.

“We’re looking at conveyance rates in ambulances, we’re looking at how we address variation in performance, we’re looking at funding – an extra £150 million to the ambulance service, a further £50 million into call centres, for 111 and 999, in terms of call handling, a further £30 million into St John Ambulance around the auxiliary ambulance performance.

“We’re also then looking at what happens with the ambulance handovers, so emergency departments, how we triage those, how we look at the allocation of this within the system.

“Of course, that is all connected to delayed discharge and people being ready to leave hospital who are not doing so, and that’s about the integration of care between social care and hospitals.

“So there’s a range of issues within how we deliver on ambulances, but it’s an absolute priority both for the Government and for NHS England.”

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Emily Maitlis Has A Brutal Message For The BBC Over Its Brexit Coverage

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Emily Maitlis has criticised the BBC for “both-sideism” in its coverage of Brexit – suggesting its attempts to hear both sides of the argument led to “superficial balance”.

The former BBC journalist also argued the BBC and other media outlets are failing to tackle the impact of leaving the EU today, saying that “sidestepping” the issue “feels like a conspiracy against the British people”.

Maitlis, who left the broadcaster this year for rival media group Global, was addressing the annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday.

In one striking passage that won praise on social media, Maitlis said: “It might take our producers five minutes to find 60 economists who feared Brexit and five hours to find a sole voice who espoused it.

“But by the time we went on air we simply had one of each; we presented this unequal effort to our audience as balance. It wasn’t.”

She added: “I’d later learn that the ungainly name for this myopic style of journalism: ‘both-sideism’, which talks to the way it reaches a superficial balance while obscuring a deeper truth.”

Not everyone agreed.

The broadcaster suggested the problems continue, and outlets including the BBC adopt an “automatic crouch position whenever the Brexit issue looms large”.

She said: “Many broadcasters fear discussing the obvious economic cause of major change in this country in case they get labelled pessimistic, anti-populist, or worse still, as above: unpatriotic.

“And yet every day that we sidestep these issues with glaring omissions feels like a conspiracy against the British people.”

Maitlis joined the BBC in 2001 and presented Newsnight from 2006.

In February, she and Jon Sopel announced they were leaving the BBC to join Global, where they are hosting a new podcast, titled The News Agents, and a radio show together on LBC.

In her speech, Maitlis also said the BBC’s board includes an “active agent of the Conservative party” as she issued a warning about her former employer’s impartiality.

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