Today we will likely see police arrest more peaceful protestors during demonstrations against the proscription of Palestine Action.
Its yet one more unforced error by the Labour Party; there were other ways that PA might have been sanctioned (not least of all the usual prosecutions for criminal damage), but Yvette Cooper (with the backing of Kier Starmer) has gone down the route of attacking the democratic right to protest.
Today protestors are making a vital point; I salute them!
#politics
It wil be no surprise to you that England's bathing water(s) are five times more likely to be polluted compared to those across the EU.
We know water privatisation has been a disaster, with pollution & sewage flowing into our pubic waters... while the water firms treat this merely as an externally that is often too costly to deal with, the country continues to suffer from the draining (pun intended) of funds from the operators into the pockets of 'investors'.
#water
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/08/englands-swimming-waters-five-times-more-likely-to-be-polluted-than-in-eu-research-finds
While there are many problems to overcome in the EU Commission's aspiration to make high-speed rial travel across Europe competitive with air travel, the direction of travel (pun intended) must be right; unlike our own Govt. with its support for expansion at Heathrow Airport & its continued difficulty in seeing rail as a public good whose price must be reduced.
Rail as mass-transport needs to be made a priority, by making it cheap(er) & easily used.
#railways #climate
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/08/high-speed-rail-network-vision-europe-eu-transport
One in eight MPs is a Landlord; as the majority party its perhaps unsurprising that Labour has the most (currently) with 43 MPs receiving rental income for properties they own.
Expecting a Parliament with this number of Landlords to reform the housing market would seem to be optimistic.
The landlord interest in Parliament is neither insignificant nor unproblematic!
MPs are around three times more likely to be landlords than we are, they're not like us!
#politics
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/08/four-labour-cabinet-ministers-earn-rental-income-analysis-finds
This weekend will likely see (potentially) violent anti-migrant protests in a number of cities, stoked by the (Far) Right, as well as (expected) peaceful protests in London by those objecting to the proscription of Palestine Action.
The actions of the police across these different cases (and in comparison) will be instructive.
#protests #politics
The gig economy's exploitation of migrants:
'The food delivery sector is no longer just a site of informal economic survival for precarious migrants. It has become a laboratory for a new mode of migration governance. In this hybrid regime, algorithmic control merges with immigration enforcement, producing a workforce that is as vulnerable as it is visible: highly surveilled and functionally expendable'!
The gig economy's callousness deepens!
#GigEconomy #migrants
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/delivery-riders-caught-between-algorithms-and-immigration-raids/
As you may have noticed the Defend Our Juries website was taken down earlier today.... no doubt in response to their organising of a day of action agains the proscription of Palestine Action....
You can (for now) get details of the protests here via a different URL:
#protest #democracy
https://defendourjuries.net/lift-the-ban/
So the BoE/MPC have cut interest rates (by 25 basis points) to 4%, after a second vote was forced as there was no majority position in the first vote.
Lots of talk of decisions on a 'knife edge' and the need for continuing caution due to the ongoing presence of 'inflationary pressures'.
Meanwhile the stagnation that has been the aim of BoE policy (preferring stagnation to inflation) continues - at some point the sado-monetarists will admit we've suffered enough, but not quite yet!
#economics
What happens when the Govt. Under Secretary for Homelessness & Rough Sleeping is herself a landlord?
Well, the answer is she continues to act as a Landlord; serving notice on tenants that a lease would not be renewed so that the rent could be raised & the property re-listed.... now this is not an uncommon tactic, but its also what is stoking rent inflation (and therefore indirectly homelessness).
The problem with our political class in a nutshell; hypocrisy!
#politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czerl5dy0kgo
Martin Kettle uses the crisis in prisons as an example of a wider crisis of governance across the country... and to draw out one specific issue (and use a phrase he doesn't), the various crises are excavated by the problem of a rigid Treasury oversight, which 'know the cost of everything & the value of nothing'.
This is forcing departments into a constant crisis management & constraining any forward planning to actually resolve crises!
Its idiocy!
#politics
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/07/prisons-report-crisis-overcrowding-keir-starmer-labour-uk
And we might link this to the continuing political economy of austerity, which continues in all but name...
I have explored this problem recently for @NWBylines@mastodon.social
#politics #austerity
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https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/economy/the-false-economies-of-austerity/
Emeritus Prof Christopher May