Law of the Sea, the Abysmal Plain, and the Value of Intentional Obsolescence

Rapacious Capitalism

by Paul Haeder / November 18th, 2025

REE’s — Rare Earth Elements.

We’re all connected to the deep sea. There is no line in the ocean that says to us, ‘below this, nothing matters.’ The ocean is all connected. It’s the largest livable habitat on the planet.
— Astrid Leitner, Oregon State U assistant professor.

 

The interview HERE, to be aired, in 2026, KYAQ.Org (Finding Fringe — Voices from the Edge) covers, well, the part we do not see, for the most part, at the bottom of the sea:

…formed over millions of years from falling debris like shark’s teeth or fish bones—acted as nuclei to gather trace minerals. The estimate is that the nodules grow about one millimeter every thousand years and, in some areas of the seabed, there are billions of these potato-sized rocks, each one teeming with minute marine organisms

This is Astrid’s work:

How will it impact the already diminished populations of phytoplankton which provide up to 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere? How will it impact the already diminished populations of krill, the foundation of the food pyramid in the sea? How will deep sea mining influence the climate, the movement of currents, and the migration and viability of sea life? The industry has not answered these questions because there is no answer that they will acknowledge—because such answers will expose them as harbingers of global destruction.

Since 2001, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an intergovernmental body in charge of regulating deep-sea mining in waters beyond national jurisdictions, has granted 31 exploratory licenses to private companies and governmental agencies. The organization is unlikely to approve commercial mining applications until its 36-member council reaches consensus on rules regarding exploitation and the environment. Member states have set a 2025 timeline to finalize and adopt the regulations.

Read more here: The promise and risks of deep-sea mining

Astrid Leitner completed two bachelors degrees at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2012. She has one degree in Marine Biology and another degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences. During her undergraduate career she focused mainly on coastal ecology, working for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). Astrid began her career working in the intertidal on a barnacle recruitment project. Later on, she began to work as an AAUS scientific diver in the California Kelp Forests studying the impacts of local, small-scale physical processes on the rockfish community.

Additionally, she spent one semester at STARESO (Station de Recherches Sous-marines et Oceanographiques) in Corsica, France where she studied factors influencing schools of Chromis, the Mediterranean damselfish. Astrid also completed an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at Oregon State University where she worked on her first deep sea project. While in Oregon, she worked on the fish community in Astoria Canyon, a large submarine canyon beginning at the mouth of the Columbia River. For this project Astrid analyzed Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) footage from depths ranging from 100 to 1400 meters.

As a part of her research, Leitner discovered the largest aggregation of fish ever documented at abyssal depths of 10,000 to 20,000 feet. She also recently discovered a distinct midwater boundary community along the wall of the Monterey Canyon. In addition to her role as an oceanographer, Leitner is a dedicated advocate and mentor for women in science.

“Her subsequent work in graduate school at University of Hawaii and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute helped her hone her focus on the effects of steep and dramatic undersea features on deep-sea community ecology. Leitner’s work asks, what species use various abrupt deep-sea habitats? What are they doing in these habitats? How do the observed species interact with each other? How does community structure change over space and time? (Astrid Leitner shines light on the deep, dark sea.” — By Nancy Steinberg)

Recently, a team led by researchers at the Natural History Museum in London identified 5,000 new animal species from an untouched area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (Curr. Biol. 2023, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.052).

“And there’s millions, possibly tens of millions of species in the deep sea still to be described,” Travis Washburn, an ecologist who worked with the Geological Survey of Japan to study impacts of seabed mining tests, says. “Without knowing what’s down there, scientists can’t understand mining’s full impact.”

…copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold… Strategic Metals! War War War.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

Rare metals

Rare metals are metals having a low average abundance and/or availability in the Earth’s crust (i.e. the capacity to concentrate in deposits). This is the case, for example, for indium, cobalt and antimony. Rare earths comprise a group of fifteen metals (the lanthanides) which form an integral part of the earth’s rare metals. They are commonly associated with yttrium and scandium. Their unique properties (lightness, strength, energy storage, thermal resistance, magnetic and optical properties, etc.) make them the elements of choice in a range of technology fields, ranging from defence to digital and energy transition sectors (e.g. permanent magnets, batteries, catalytic systems, etc.). Despite their name, the rare earths are not in fact that rare. However, their deposits – in other words, naturally-occurring concentrations that are economically exploitable – are typically not found in abundance.

Strategic metals

A metal is strategic if it is essential to a State’s economic policy (security, defence, energy policy, etc.). A metal may also be considered strategic for a particular company or industry (e.g. aerospace, defence, automotive, electronics & ICT, renewable energies, nuclear, etc.).

Critical metals

A metal is deemed critical if difficulties with the metal’s supply could have negative industrial or economic impacts. In most international studies the criticality of a metal (as of any mineral) is judged on two criteria: supply-side risk (geological, technical, geographical, economic, geopolitical), and economic importance which reflects the vulnerability of the economy to potential shortage or supply interruption creating a surge in prices. According to Raphaël Danino-Perraud, “In short, critical metals are metals associated with supply chain pressures, in terms of both supply and demand.” For the US National Research Council and the European Commission, a metal or mineral is critical when it is “both essential in use and potentially subject to supply constraints.”

This is what Astrid and I talked about: have a listen.

[A marine organism in the genus Relicanthus is attached to a dead sponge stalk tethered to a nodule.]

[While collecting nodules from the seabed, mining vehicles create sediment plumes that can harm ocean life.]

+—+

Rare Earths in the AI Era: How Data Centers Are Driving Demand for Forgotten Metals — Rare earth elements (REEs) consist of 17 metallic elements with similar chemical traits. This group includes the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium. These elements aren’t truly “rare” regarding their presence in the Earth’s crust. However, they are typically scattered rather than gathered in deposits that are easy to mine profitably. This spread-out nature complicates their extraction and purification. Despite their name suggesting scarcity, rare earths are vital to modern tech. Their unique physical and chemical features drive their importance.

Here are some of Astrid’s publications, co-authored, and such.

We got into her research, the power of economics driving this dirty industry, and the various laws of the open sea and the laws around deep sea mining, those written, those proposed, those not on the books.

But this is the empire of pain, dirt, pollution, lies, terror, and as we know, Trump is manipulated by Big Tech, MIC, and billionaires. We will pay for the mining, the costs, the external damage, costs, to us, to the sea, and even pay for the metal and mining companies going belly up.

[A Greenpeace activist holds a banner during a protest near a deep-sea mining vessel in Mexico, on September 27, 2023]

“The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump said in the order.

The order directs the US administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for issuing permits along the US outer continental shelf.

It also orders the expedited review of seabed mining permits “in areas beyond the national jurisdiction,” a move likely to cause friction with the international community.

The White House says deep-sea mining will generate billions of metric tonnes of materials, while adding $300bn and 100,000 jobs to the US economy over the next decade.

Environmental groups are calling for all deep-sea mining activities to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss.

“The United States government has no right to unilaterally allow an industry to destroy the common heritage of humankind, and rip up the deep sea for the profit of a few corporations,” Greenpeace’s Arlo Hemphill said.

The 30th session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Assembly established 1 November as the International Day of the Deep Seabed as proposed by the sponsoring countries, Fiji, Jamaica, Malta and Singapore. The annual observance will promote greater understanding of the deep seabed and its resources while fostering international cooperation in its sustainable management. — Source

Externalities for the Taker Race of people: The price of irreversible ecological damage with deep sea mining could be staggering, estimated to potentially surpass the entire global defence budget of about 2 trillion dollars.

Over 950 marine science and policy experts from more than 70 countries have signed a statement calling for a pause in the development of deep-sea mining.

Trump and Company: Trump’s New Executive Order Promotes Deep Sea Mining in US and International Waters While Bypassing International Law

“You cannot authorize mining that’s going to cause biodiversity loss, that’s going to cause irreparable damage to the marine environment.”

— Matthew Gianni, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition

[Marine biologist Diva Amon explores the deep sea around the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Brazil.]

So, out of sight, out of mind? The attack on critical thinking, logic, common sense, precautionary principles, and the attack on real science, and research, well well, a Brave New World INDEED.

*****

 

In an online post last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) described the political move as a step towards paving the way for “The Next Gold Rush,” stating: “Critical minerals are used in everything from defense systems and batteries to smartphones and medical devices. Access to these minerals is a key factor in the health and resilience of U.S. supply chains.”

The order, titled “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” charges NOAA and the Secretary of Commerce with expediting the process for reviewing and issuing licenses to explore and permits to mine seabed minerals in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Less than a week after it was issued, a U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian deep-sea mining corporation called The Metals Company submitted its first applications to explore and exploit polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

*****

Trigger Warming: Capitalism and Industrialization images cause many to have PTSD.

Acceptable headline? How the Coal Industry Flattened the Mountains of Appalachia –

Acceptable? Green Energy’s Dirty Secret: Its Hunger for African Resources

Considering the “dirty” impacts of critical minerals mining

Oh, business as usual: Amazon rainforest destruction is accelerating, shows government data

Study warns that vast swaths of Amazon are dead –

Worst environmental problems on planet earth?

Mix and match the photos with the environmental crimes, the scars!

Match the images above with any of these descriptors”: Potash – Heringen, Germany; Food – Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US, Food – Huelva, Spain (Most of the phosphate rock used to supply fertilizer for southern Europe is mined in Morocco and sent to facilities such as this one in Spain for processing.), Food – Luling, Louisiana US (New evidence contradicts previous claims of the relative safety of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, which is manufactured here.), Steel – Kiruna, Sweden, Steel – Burns Harbor, Indiana, US, Copper – Hurley, New Mexico US, Copper – Hurley, New Mexico US, Aluminium – Gramercy, Louisiana, US, Aluminium — Bauxite waste from aluminum production, Oil – Gulf of Mexica, US, Oil – Gulf of Mexico, US, Oil – Fort McMurray, Canada, Fracking – Williston, North Dakota, US, Fracking – Springville, Pennsylvania, US, Coal– Garzweiler, Germany, Coal – New Roads, Louisiana, US, Kayford mountain, West Virginia, US

Find your answerers here: Industrial scars: The environmental cost of consumption – in pictures

The oceans became a dumping ground due to a long-standing “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy, driven by the sheer vastness of the sea, a lack of scientific understanding of pollution’s effects, and the rise of the Industrial Revolution and mass production.

Oh, the Oppen-Monster-Heimers of the world, going to the very deepest parts of the ocean, for . . . ?

Thirty-six Thousand Feet Under the Sea — The explorers who set one of the last meaningful records on earth.

Although no complete records exist of the volumes and types of materials disposed in ocean waters in the United States prior to 1972, several reports indicate a vast magnitude of historic ocean dumping:

• In 1968, the National Academy of Sciences estimated annual volumes of ocean dumping by vessel or pipes:
  • 100 million tons of petroleum products;
  • two to four million tons of acid chemical wastes from pulp mills;
  • more than one million tons of heavy metals in industrial wastes; and
  • more than 100,000 tons of organic chemical wastes.
• A 1970 Report to the President from the Council on Environmental Quality on ocean dumping described that in 1968 the following were dumped in the ocean in the United States:
  • 38 million tons of dredged material (34 percent of which was polluted),
  • 4.5 million tons of industrial wastes,
  • 4.5 million tons of sewage sludge (significantly contaminated with heavy metals), and
  • 0.5 million tons of construction and demolition debris.
• EPA records indicate that more than 55,000 containers of radioactive wastes were dumped at three ocean sites in the Pacific Ocean between 1946 and 1970. Almost 34,000 containers of radioactive wastes were dumped at three ocean sites off the East Coast of the United States from 1951 to 1962.

Following decades of uncontrolled dumping, some areas of the ocean became demonstrably contaminated with high concentrations of harmful pollutants including heavy metals, inorganic nutrients, and chlorinated petrochemicals. The uncontrolled ocean dumping caused severe depletion of oxygen levels in some ocean waters. In the New York Bight (ocean waters off the mouth of the Hudson River), where New York City dumped sewage sludge and other materials, oxygen concentrations in waters near the seafloor declined significantly between 1949 and 1969.

Mustard gas containers, how lovely! Dumped from barges or sent to the bottom aboard scuttled ships, estimates are that millions of pounds of military munitions — unexploded 250-, 500- and 1,000-pound bombs, land mines, mustard gas and other chemical weapons, including munitions confiscated from Nazi Germany and elsewhere following World War II — were sunk the eastern seaboard of the United States, around the Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of the Hawaiian islands. Records of the dumped munitions, if kept at all, are scarce. Some likely are inaccurate. Some likely were destroyed.

Again, here, the Interview, a month-plus ahead of 91.7 FM airing for DV readers.

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Paul Haeder has been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

 CANADA

The Highest Form of Democracy: The Grassroots Campaign of Yves Engler; For Leader of the NDP

by Kim Petersen / November 18th, 2025

The farce of Western regard for democracy has been revealed in several countries. Well known are the machinations of the Democratic National Commission to prevent the social democrat Bernie Sanders from becoming the leader of the so-called Democratic Party in the US. In the UK, there was the coalition of Labour Party insiders with Israeli Zionists who upended the elected party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Consider the Western support for the continuation of the corrupt government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy well past his democratic mandate; consider the abandonment of the presidential election in Romania when it appeared certain that frontrunner Călin Georgescu would win. The pretext given by the EU was that Georgescu is “a nationalist figure, known for promoting conspiracy theories, including anti-EU, anti-NATO narratives, and for previously expressing admiration for controversial authoritarian leaders. His rhetoric often echoed messages favoured by the Kremlin.” A candidate anathema to the EU, well, can’t have that. The solution was to just ban Georgescu from standing for election.

Couldn’t happen in Canada? It already has. The candidacy of Dimitri Lascaris, the progressivist defender of Palestinian rights, for the Green Party of Canada leadership was torpedoed by the incumbent leader, a staunch Zionist, Elizabeth May.

Yves Engler is a slim, bespectacled man who usually is seen wearing jeans, a button-up sleeved shirt or t-shirt. He looks like an everyday person. There is no pretentiousness. He looks like most of us. Engler epitomizes grassroots.

Engler is a writer/author/podcaster. When he writes or talks, he speaks to the aspirations of everyday people. He eschews wars, racism, and poverty. He stands for the rights of Indigenous peoples, social justice, and protecting the environment.

But the greedy hands that pull the levers that control the political scene are arrayed against him. The fear that Engler evokes among the political hierarchy causes them to try to destroy Engler’s campaign to become a revolutionary leader of Canada’s federal New Democratic Party (NDP), a party that has also been ravaged over the years by capitalism and Zionism. In so doing, the backroom elitists expose their adherence to democracy as being a Canadian value is, in fact, a farce.

So it was to be expected that the anti-capitalist candidacy of Yves Engler would incur the wrath of the Establishment.

On 3 October, Yves Engler for NDP Leader (Team Engler) released a full policy platform — crafted by 45 activists and researchers on the policy committee.

Shortly thereafter, the NDP Establishment raised concerns. On 7 October, Engler reported on his strategy to protect democracy:

the Chief Electoral Official for the leadership race suggested to the National Post and Toronto Star that we were violating the party’s rules by fundraising. It’s untrue, as explained here and here. In his statement to the corporate media the CEO said I’ve misled people by describing my candidacy as having not “yet been approved” even though I’ve stated in a dozen public forums that we have yet to submit to party vetting because we fear that a committee of three-party insiders will quietly block our thousand strong volunteer campaign.

On 2 November, Engler declared his hope to win Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est for the NDP. It is a riding next to where the bilingual Engler lives in Montréal. Engler noted that the Electoral District Association (EDA) executive is sympathetic to his candidacy. A campaign goal of Engler is to “test support for abolishing billionaires, applying Canadian law towards Israel, bucking Trump on war spending, shuttering the tar sands and massively investing in co-op and public housing.”

On 10 November, the Globe and Mail published an article that quoted Engler explaining, “party vetting is a threat to democracy. Differences of political opinion should be determined by the membership, not a three-person back-room committee. NDP members should be allowed to decide whether they support or oppose a candidate calling for the party to vote down a budget that plows tens of billions of dollars more into a military that is structured to assist the U.S. war machine.”

Engler reported on 14 October:

A rightist columnist recently labeled me “repellent” while a left-establishment commentator publicly proclaimed, “f*** Yves Engler”. Canada’s ideological apparatus is whipped into a frenzy over my multilayered challenge to Canadian foreign policy and my campaign’s activist anti-capitalism.

On 14 November, an email from Engler stated,

Ben Mulroney doesn’t like me. On his radio program Wednesday he called me an “agitator extraordinaire, troublemaker, rabble rouser, generally unproductive member of society, antisemite of the highest order … A toxic and terrible human being.”

I guess Mulroney’s still mad I asked him in March for a comment on the killing of Palestinian children.

Mulroney’s intemperate words spoke to the simplistic strategy to preclude candidates deemed unacceptable by the Establishment: ad hominem and lies.

There have also been attempts to block Team Engler from campaign venues. CTV quoted the Sarnia mayor rejecting a bid to shut down the Team Engler event. Engler was quoted, “it’s those who promote apartheid and genocide that are the racists” not critics of Zionism. The Sarnia Observer reported that the Engler campaign campaign is “challenging genocide, militarism, and corporate power” while seeking to build a “bold, grassroots left alternative.”

*****

Engler is no weak-kneed Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn. The Establishment will do whatever it can to undermine a grassroots movement led by Engler. And whatever the outcome of the Team Engler campaign, this writer firmly believes that Engler will continue to stand and fight for everyday people. He will oppose poverty, capitalism, imperialism, and genocide. He has already been jailed by Montreal police for his social media posts criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Engler is a candidate that will breathe new life into the moribund NDP and give more than just hope for progressivists.

Disclosure: I have never met Yves Engler. I have communicated by email over the years. I am not and never have been a member of the NDP — nor any other political party for that matter.

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.

UK

Rachel Reeves urged to drop ‘dangerous and damaging’ PFI plans for NHS health centres

Olivia Barber 

Yesterday
Left Foot Forward


"The only lesson we can learn from the disaster of PFI is to keep private finance - in all its forms - out of our NHS."

Rachel Reeves is facing calls from experts, academics and patients to steer clear of new private finance deals for the NHS ahead of the Autumn budget on 26 November.

Labour’s 10-year Health Plan includes developing a business case for public private partnerships (PPPs) to deliver neighbourhood health centres, before a final decision at the autumn budget.

The Department of Health and Social Care has awarded £3 million in contracts to Deloitte and lawyers Addleshaw Goddard.

The firms will advise the government on whether to use public-private partnerships (PPPs) to build dozens of “neighbourhood health centres” in England.

More than 50 academics, including LFF columnist Lord Prem Sikka, have written to the Chancellor asking her to “abandon this dangerous and damaging proposal and fund public services through direct taxation or borrowing”.

Conservative prime minister John Major launched private finance initiative (PFI) in 1992, and its use was expanded under Tony Blair.

PFI involves the public sector hiring private companies to build and maintain an asset. They then pay the private company back over 25-30 years, with repayments often costing far more than the value of the asset itself.

As of April 2024, PFI schemes in the UK have generated an estimated £306 billion in debt.

The letter – coordinated by campaign group We Own It and Professor Christine Cooper of the Glasgow Business School – calls the arguments for private finance “bogus”.

They have also warned Reeves that “Using private capital in the NHS is no different from a family buying their home using a payday loan.”

This afternoon, MPs, patients and members of the public will hold a protest outside the Department of Health and Social Care, demanding the NHS be protected from private finance.

The government said that the “lessons of PFI have been learned”. However, We Own It argues that PFI has already been repackaged as PF2, LIFT, Scottish NPD and now the Welsh Mutual Investment Model (MIM).

Sophie Conquest, Lead Campaigner at We Own It, said: “The cost of private finance in our NHS is literally sickening. Taxpayers’ money has been diverted away from patient care towards private profit for shareholders. Under PFI, we are paying £80 billion for just £13 billion of actual investment”.

“Some trusts are having to choose repaying PFI debts over buying medicine for patients.”

“Private finance has been repackaged time and time again. New models like the Welsh Mutual Investment Model are no different – they cost the taxpayer much more for the same asset.”

“The only lesson we can learn from the disaster of PFI is to keep private finance – in all its forms – out of our NHS.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward



Opinion

Will the 10-year plan save the NHS?


Mark E Thomas 

Yesterday
Left Foot Forward

Although the last Labour government turned around the NHS, this plan looks set to fail

In July, the government published Fit for the Future, its 10-year health plan for England. In a few days’ time, the Chancellor will unveil her Budget. Between them, the 10-year plan and the Budget will determine the future of the NHS.

The omens are bad: although the last Labour government turned around the NHS, this plan looks set to fail – and it needs more than tweaks to fix it.
How to turn around the NHS

By 1997, patient satisfaction with the NHS had reached all-time lows. Between 1997 and 2010, satisfaction rose to all-time highs.

Independent international benchmark providers recognised that performance. By the end of the turnaround, the US-based Commonwealth Fund rated the NHS the best system in any of the countries they covered.

So, how did the government do it?

Their plan was strategically sound: they understood that the success of the NHS is inextricably intertwined with the success of the UK as a whole.

Without a healthy population, you cannot have a strong economy; and without a strong economy, you cannot tackle the causes of ill-health or fund healthcare properly. Getting it wrong creates a vicious circle; getting it right creates a virtuous circle. They got it right: they funded the NHS in line with need; tackled the causes of ill-health; and ensured effective prevention.

Funding first: Conservative governments from 2010 onwards claimed “we are putting record amounts of money into the NHS.” This was true only if you’re prepared to ignore the combined impact of inflation, a growing population, an ageing population and an increase in the rate of ill-health within age cohorts.

Adjusting for those factors, you see that funding vs need rose from 1997 until the Global Financial Crisis and then fell. When funding vs need rises, NHS performance improves; and when it falls, NHS performance declines. So, funding was the first thing the last government got right.

The second thing was that they tackled the causes of ill-health. Sir Michael Marmot showed that if you are living in poverty, you’re more likely to have substandard housing, to be unable to heat it properly or to eat healthily or take regular exercise, and more likely to be living with mental stress. So, you are much more likely to fall ill. Poverty fell significantly under the last Labour government.

The third thing they got right was prevention as shown by the 2010 Inquiry Our Health and Well-being Today.

So the 1997-2010 government succeeded because it had a sound strategy; but they didn’t get everything right. There are three areas where there is evidence that the impact of their initiatives was significantly negative:The private finance initiative (PFI), which added capacity but at great cost which is contributing to the financial pressures we face today;
Blunt use of performance indicators: which produce perverse behaviours in order to ‘game’ this system. Over-focus on financial indicators was a key contributor to the scandal in the mid-Staffordshire hospital which caused serious harm to patients;
Using public money to build private sector capacity is often more expensive, draws resources away from the NHS, distorts medical priorities and delivers worse outcomes for patients.

The last Labour government succeeded because its strategy was sound – despite flawed tactics.

Will this plan also succeed?

The 10-year plan has three shifts: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from treatment to prevention.

If done well, all three could be positive. Early intervention in the community to catch medical issues before they become serious would be helpful. Automating paperwork and sharing data more effectively within the NHS must be good. And encouraging people to avoid harmful substances like tobacco, ultra-processed foods, etc is sensible.

The plan, however, raises concerns about each of these shifts. Most fundamentally, however, even if the three shifts were executed perfectly, they do not substitute for sound strategy.

How does this plan stack up against what the last Labour government did strategically? In summary, the plan stacks up poorly against what the last Labour government did. It will not fund in line with need; it will do some good on prevention but has important gaps; and wider government plans that we have seen so far suggest nothing that will produce the necessary impact on poverty.

Strategically, the plan is gravely flawed … and it hopes to make up for this with tactical reforms.

Unfortunately, it is planning to repeat the mistakes of the last Labour government.

So, what should the government do now?
What would it take to fix this plan?

The key lesson from last time was to get the strategy right. We need to fund in line with need, tackle poverty and make prevention effective.

We must also avoid the mistakes of the past; and the first step is to acknowledge them: we need a rapid but rigorous analysis of the tactics highlighted above.

These points should be obvious, but they sound almost impossible because the government has created red lines for itself which it is now afraid to cross.

I have sympathy: this government had a difficult inheritance. But it is nothing like as difficult as what Clement Attlee’s government faced in 1946.

What would have happened if Attlee had followed this government’s approach? After the war, debt:GDP stood at over 250%; more than half of national income had been diverted to the war effort and over 5 million people mobilised into the Armed Forces; 5% of national wealth had been destroyed, and 1% of the population lost.

Had Attlee been constrained by today’s fiscal rules, he would have had to shelve the Beveridge plan and the NHS would never have been born. Generations of Britons’ lives would have been blighted – and shorter.

Fortunately, Attlee’s government rose to the challenge, listened to Keynes and Beveridge, and created the NHS and the Welfare State, when it had been told that it would be economically irresponsible to try. And what was the economic cost? The UK enjoyed the most successful economic period in our history.

We must learn from Keynes, Beveridge and Attlee.

Mark is an economist and Visiting Professor at IE Business School.

Image credit: Lauren Hurley / Number 10 – Creative Commons

Former Tory PM slams Brexit as ‘an act of collective folly’ in outspoken attack

Basit Mahmood

Today
Left Foot Forward


“National interest was brushed aside by false hopes and promises. False hopes and promises that even a cabinet dominated by frontline Brexit enthusiasts was unable to deliver.”

A former Tory leader has slammed Brexit as an ‘act of collective folly’ in what amounts to an outspoken attack on his party after its decision to hold a referendum to leave the EU.

John Major said Britain’s “enemies celebrated and our friends despaired” at the result of the 2016 referendum.

His comments come as the economic harm caused by Brexit becomes increasingly clear. Earlier this week, a new study based on nearly a decade of data, found that Brexit had severely damaged the UK economy.

According to the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER), which has based its findings on a decade of data since the referendum, the UK’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) had fallen by as much as 8% from where it should be since 2016.

And according to new data released by the economists at Stanford University, the Bank of England, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has found that business investment loss by this year could be £275 billion or £400 billion.

Major accused senior Tories such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove of ‘spreading misinformation’.

The Huffpost reports Major as saying: “It left our country poorer, weaker and divorced from the richest free trade market that history has ever seen.

“National interest was brushed aside by false hopes and promises. False hopes and promises that even a cabinet dominated by frontline Brexit enthusiasts was unable to deliver.”

He added: “The nation saw Project Fear become Project Reality very easily. It’s no consolation that the majority of the public now overwhelmingly recognises that it was misled in their moments of triumph.

“Brexiteers predicted other countries would follow their lead and leave the European Union. None have. All saw only too clearly that Brexit was packed with disadvantages.”

Brexit caused UK GDP to reduce by 8%, new study finds

Basit Mahmood 

Yesterday
Left Foot Forward News


So much for the land of milk and honey promised by Brexiteers.

Yet another study shows that Brexit has severely damaged the UK economy, as the evidence of the economic harm done by the decision to leave piles up.

According to the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER), which has based its findings on a decade of data since the referendum, the UK’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) had fallen by as much as 8% from where it should be since 2016.

The NBER says that increased uncertainty and reduced demand following the decision to leave had an adverse effect on the UK economy. It states: “We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process.”

It comes after another report last week which found that UK business investment is 12 to 18 per cent lower than it would have been if Britain had stayed in the EU.

New data released by the economists at Stanford University, the Bank of England, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has found that business investment loss by this year could be £275 billion or £400 billion.

So much for the land of milk and honey promised by Brexiteers.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

Opinion

Hands off our BBC: Trump’s tug of war over the BBC narrative

Claire Jones 

Today
Left Foot Forward

A sloppy edit turns Trump into a crusader against bias, stepping in to protect us from a broadcasting corporation already leaning his way

The debate over the BBC’s misleading edit of Donald Trump’s Capitol Hill speech is quite a muddle. Trump is performatively posturing with a line about how the BBC has deeply wounded his reputation by wilfully presenting him as a ‘radical, aggressively stirring violence at the White House, when in fact he’s simply a benign, peace-loving moderate’.

Tangled in the rigging

The muddle begins with Trump effectively accusing the BBC of rigging his speech. However, the speech was itself delivered to support protests about the alleged rigging of the 2020 election results to steal victory from Trump.

Furthermore, Trump’s sob story is, arguably, a ruse to conceal his and his UK far-right accomplices’ intentions. Having persuaded the world that the BBC is hopelessly woke, the aim is then to either replace it with a suitable propaganda vehicle for the far-right, or transform it into a full-throttle far-right mouthpiece. So, Trump’s attack on the BBC is evidently also a rigged campaign with a (poorly concealed) agenda.

The BBC has apologised for its careless edit. But, predictably, Trump doesn’t want to lose this golden opportunity to trash an organisation he can present as dangerously insurgent. So he is ignoring the apology and steaming ahead with suing the BBC to the tune of $1bn – $5bn.

Toy throwing

After some debate, the BBC has decided to ‘do a Hugh Grant’ and ‘stand up to the US bully’, rather than backing off and instead perhaps offering an out-of-court settlement for Trump to add to his lucrative collection of extortions from other media organisations.

It’s worth saying that the honourable route is risky because it’s hard to see how a court case could avoid quickly leading to stand offs between the BBC and Trump over whether he was, in fact, instrumental in inciting violence on 6 Jan; also on whether the 2020 election was, in fact, egregiously stolen from him.

If Trump can’t even handle the notion that the BBC misreported him, he definitely won’t cope with this latest bete noir telling the world’s front pages that he incited violence and in service to specious lies about stolen elections.

Even if Trump loses the court case, which is likely, this ‘nasty truth-telling’ could trigger a toy-throwing meltdown, a comprehensive hate campaign that would make a mockery of Starmer’s carefully curated Trump appeasements.

We could find ourselves showered with all manner of punishments including an even bigger BBC penalty for taxpayers, a ceremonial tearing up of the UK tariff agreement, plus anything else this interfering child despot can conjure, from occupying Guernsey to designating our fishing fleets as drug cartels.

Bullies make terrible partners but separation is somewhere between unpleasant and horrendous. A neurotic, spiteful narcissist feeling cruelly spurned by his special friend is a loose cannon. It’s not that one should defer to bullies, only that we should strap in for some outlandish consequences.

The new bias

But aside from the debate over who is doing the rigging, who the real propaganda mouthpiece is here, and how to respond, there’s a further complication.

The UK commentariat has rallied quickly to the BBC’s side, earnestly appealing to its impartiality to counter Trump’s devious far-right onslaught. But the corporation isn’t impartial, at least, not any more.

The BBC news rightly deserves its traditional global reputation as a trusted voice of authority and fine journalism. But over the last 15 years it has lost its prized impartiality status. Why?

Leaning right

The right-wing has a little cache of cases to ‘prove’ that, in fact, the BBC is a left-leaning rag which Trump has rightly observed needs cleaning up. Aside from the editing fiasco, they roll out examples such as the BBC’s alleged anti-Israel bias and pro-Hamas reporting on Gaza.

But there are more compelling reasons for viewing the BBC as leaning the other way.

 Here’s five:

First, BBC bias has to be viewed in the context of the heavily right-wing makeup of its top team. To help deliver Brexit, Boris Johnson infiltrated the corporation with numerous Conservative figureheads. It is completely implausible to insist that key political appointments such as Robbie Gibb and Tim Davie have no influence on output.

Second, the BBC became increasingly vulnerable because of financial difficulties arising from ever-increasing competition with other forms of media and changing public tastes in news consumption. This fuelled a rightward shift because it became increasingly necessary to appease the dominant establishment view. So, journalistic independence began to shrink. As Lewis Goodall notes, BBC journalists were told to write “as if they had the Daily Mail on their shoulder”.

Third, and in line with the above, studies show numerous instances of right-wing bias: the BBC gave 33 times more attention to Israeli than Palestinian deaths in the Gaza conflict. Domestically, right-wing politicians generally receive over 50% more BBC airtime than left-wing politicians. Question Time is a clear example of massive BBC “over-platforming” of Reform.

Fourth, these instances are just part of a relentless daily drip-feed of anti-left commentary across platforms from a whole stable of BBC journalists. This subtle spread of bias is a ubiquitous feature of the BBC’s slanted reporting, setting “a tone across articles, topics and time, that is cumulatively formidable”.

Fifth, in attacking BBC left-wing bias, the far-right, insatiable as ever, is demanding its pound of flesh. The BBC’s attempts to appease the right can never go far enough. Shouting at the corporation for being ‘woke left’ when it’s already manifestly right-leaning is both an exercise in gaslighting and a flogging whip to make the horse canter rightwards even faster.

Newsflash: Trump gets it right

Thus we have a curious and even more complicated situation where we have to acknowledge that Trump’s accusation is partly correct. The BBC is biased, just not typically in the way he claims.

If we accept that the UK establishment’s assiduous defence of BBC impartiality is false then this puts the BBC in further jeopardy. As is so often the case with far-right attacks, they begin with little truths and build on these to create large bodies of lies. So, Trump will exploit this weakness in our defence to strengthen his campaign to destroy the BBC (as we knew it).

What next?

It’s right that the BBC hasn’t acquiesced to Trump’s demands. This would effectively have been to concede that his attack on the BBC as a leftie propaganda mouthpiece is fair. The BBC would then be considerably more vulnerable to being removed or drastically weakened with the floodgates opened to receive GB News style far-right content.

It would also have meant that the BBC is permanently on trial and every step of its reportage minutely examined with gestapo-style vigilance. Its journalists would become chilled to the bone and coerced into truly ugly right-leaning narratives that are far more explicit and extravagent than we’ve seen so far.

But nor should the outcome be that the UK stays resolutely behind a false defence of the BBC as impartial. This cannot stand and is just grist for the far-right’s mill.

A turning point

The Trump episode should provide a turning point. A fortuitous gap has appeared through the resignations of Director General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness. As Secretary of State for Culture and Media, Lisa Nandy must take this opportunity to fill this gap with independent directors and also replace Gibb with a non-political appointment. The government has to ensure that the top personnel at the BBC are genuinely independent and not guided by partisan interests.

The episode also calls for a public Levison-style inquiry involving government-funded scientific research into BBC reporting. It should cover the last 15 years and provide rigorous and comprehensive analyses of the true extent of bias in BBC news coverage and commentary.

Making the BBC great again

Taking these steps to put our own publishing house in order would be a patriotic reminder to the UK far-right that Trump has no right to interfere with our news corporations.

At the same time, Trump’s absurd attack also provides a long-awaited moment finally to get our most cherished and valuable news institution on a properly independent footing, away from the political intereference which, since Johnson’s tenure, has been steadily corrupting it, and away from the new threat of far-right take-overs.

In this age of disinformation, returning the BBC to its position as a global beacon of trustworthy news reporting would be one of the most worthwhile and democracy-preserving actions the government could possibly take.

Claire Jones writes and edits for West England Bylines and is co-ordinator for the Oxfordshire branch of the progressive campaign group, Compass

 BBC vs King Con

Mahir Ali 

Published November 19, 2025 

DAWN

NEITHER Donald Trump nor any of his associates expressed any righteous indignation over an episode of BBC TV’s Panorama when it was broadcast more than a year ago. After all, it wasn’t aired in the US.

Now that it has been brought to his attention, the American president has threatened to sue Britain’s public broadcaster for $1bn (perhaps even $5bn) for its editorial audacity in stitching together two tiny segments of his warm-up speech to the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. The words “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol” were separated by more than 50 minutes from the advice: “And we fight. We fight like hell.” By splicing together the 12-second segment, the BBC show is accused of suggesting that Trump explicitly invited the violence that followed.

Frankly, no one who listened to the entire speech or observed Trump’s subsequent actions could have come to a different conclusion. Shortly afterwards, the House of Representatives impeached him for a second time on that very basis. The BBC’s editing could have been more judicious, but it hardly qualifies as a billion-dollar error — or a substantial reason for heads to roll.

Hitherto, Trump has only tried suing US media entities (as part of a broad vendetta that stretches from individuals to universities), for facetious reasons, and corporations such as Paramount and Disney have caved in by donating millions to the future presidential library foundation. Reparations have also been extracted from Meta and YouTube. His $15bn suit against The New York Times for critical coverage has gone nowhere, much like his bid to sue The Wall Street Journal for revealing Trump’s salacious 50th birthday message to the paedophile and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.


The broadcaster is defensible, unlike Trump.

Any defamation case against the BBC filed in Florida (as Trump has indicated) is unlikely to bear fruit, given everything he has said about the events of Jan 6. Trump himself, mind you, is a media owner whose personal Truth Social feed is a relentless stream of pernicious blather (some of it potentially defamatory) alternating with self-aggrandising re-posts.

At the same time, it’s hard to empathise with the BBC, whose claims to independence and impartiality have often been suspect. The silly argument that the broadcaster must be doing something right if it regularly comes under attack from both the left and the far right continues to be occasionally regurgitated. But it can be said that since its inception more than 100 years ago, it has often been seen to be aligned with the British establishment.

Sure, it has every now and then incurred government wrath and faced takeover threats. Such instances mostly flowed from disputes within the ruling elite, rather than reflecting a nod towards popular discontent. For instance, robust reporting on the ‘dodgy dossier’ used to justify Britain’s participation in the 2003 military assault on Iraq followed secret briefings that indicated scepticism among the intelligence agencies about Baghdad posing an imminent threat. The Suez and Falklands wars also stirred a degree of BBC dissent (and a predictable backlash) for similar reasons.

The BBC’s global recognition testifies to its diminishing but still significant role as a conduit for Britain’s soft power. But no one can seriously deny that it has, over the decades, served as a home for many worthy journalists, and still does. Domestically, news operations are only one part of the media behemoth, and it has so far survived the challenges posed by new technologies and changing patterns of news consumption — plus a ser­ies of sex and paedophilia sca­­ndals.

Its biggest current challenge comes from cult­ure warriors such as board member Robbie Gibbs — a “proper That­ch­e­rite conservative” (by his own description), former Tory spin doctor and linked to GB News, who in 2020 rescued the Jewish Chronicle with undeclared resources — and others who wish to turn it another far-right outfit, or destroy it.

Political appointments to its executive cadre are the bane of the BBC, and its licence fee and charter. Among its various other missteps and follies, it has failed to adequately push back against charges of being unfair towards Israel, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary in the face of a genocide that echoes its hostility towards anti-fascist opinions in the run-up to World War II. Its pointless efforts to strike a ‘balance’ are reflected in the airtime offered to Nigel Farage and climate change denialists. Beyond its multifarious inadequacies in the news and current affairs sphere, there is much to cherish among its cultural output.

It remains to be seen whether the BBC can be rehabilitated as a relatively reliable source of news and views, but at least that is a possibility, however remote. Who could honestly make the same claim about King Con’s White House enterprise?

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025

BBC on the Rack

by Stuart Littlewood / November 17th, 2025

So Trump suddenly threatens to sue the BBC for $1 billion for a misleading splice-up of video clips broadcast over a year ago. A BBC news editor — Raffi Berg — is suing journalist Owen Jones for exposing his biased judgement in reporting Gaza war news. And two top knobs at the BBC, Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness, jump before they’re pushed.

The British public are angry enough at having to pay the BBC’s extortionate TV licence fee only to have biased news beamed at them. If Trump were to win his $1 billion claim he’d be paid off with licence payers’ money which would infuriate the public even more.

If Berg were to proceed against Jones it would open a whole new can of worms and magnify what’s already known about pro-Israel bias inside the state broadcaster.

And the departure of the two top post-holders from the BBC leaves too many iffy editors still in place and the bias problem still unresolved.

Mismanaging news standards

When, in November 2023, BBC senior management attended a meeting with at least 100 staffers to discuss coverage of Gaza, Deborah Turness called out, in an attempt to assert control of the meeting: “We’ve got to all remember that this all started on 7 October.” Erasing the decades of Israeli occupation before October 7 was a stunning example of how distorted the mindset of those at the top can be.

As for Berg, Mint Press points to his former employment with the US State Department’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit widely regarded as a CIA front.   “Berg is currently the subject of considerable scrutiny after thirteen BBC employees spoke out, claiming, among other things, that his ‘entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel’ and that he holds ‘wild’ amounts of power at the British state broadcaster, that there exists a culture of ‘extreme fear’ at the BBC about publishing anything critical of Israel, and that Berg himself plays a key role in turning its coverage into ‘systematic Israeli propaganda’.”

BBC journalists also claimed Davie and Turness stood in the way of change. Both were aware of concerns about Berg but ignored them.

And according to Owen, at a ‘listening session’ meeting between staffers and Tim Davie “they noted Berg’s history and associations as indicative of bias, pointing to instances where journalists’ copy had been changed prior to publication. They made specific requests: that stories should, as a rule, emphasize that Israel had not granted the BBC access to Gaza, that the network should end the practice of presenting the official Israeli versions of events as fact, and that the BBC should do more to offer context about Israeli occupation and the fact that Gaza is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of refugees forcibly driven from their homes beginning in 1948. While Davie told staff that management would ‘look into’ staff objections, to date no response ever came back.”

In response to a request for comment, the BBC said it unequivocally stood by Berg’s work and asserted that the BBC was “the world’s most trusted international news source” and its “coverage should be judged on its own merits and in its entirety. If we make mistakes we correct them.”

But complaints have continued, for example the use of emotional words like ‘massacre’ and ‘atrocities’ to describe Hamas’s attacks but not in reference to the slaughter perpetrated by Israeli forces. A failure to provide historical context, crucial omissions, and a lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims, were also mentioned.

Staffers acknowledged the pressure the BBC faces from pro-Israel lobbyists and emphasize that their sole objective was to uphold the BBC’s values of fairness and impartiality and to produce content “without fear or favour” — principles they felt had been cast aside in deference to Israeli narratives. The website, headed by Raffi Berg, was considered the BBC’s worst violator of editorial standards. They also raised concerns about Robbie Gibb, one of five people who serve on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee along with Davie, Turness, the Chairman of the Arts Council Nicholas Serota, and BBC Chair Samir Shah.

Gibb is responsible for helping to define the BBC’s commitment to impartiality and respond to complaints about the BBC’s coverage on Israel and Palestine. But between 2017 and 2019 he’d served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, and in 2020 he led a consortium to rescue the Jewish Chronicle from bankruptcy. He then joined the BBC board as a non-executive director while continuing his involvement with the Jewish Chronicle, saying in his Declaration of Personal Interests that he was the 100% owner of that newspaper until a venture capitalist took over in August 2024. According the Companies House Gibb was sole director of Jewish Chronicle Media from April 2020 to August 2024 and was succeeded by Ian Austin (Lord Austin of Derby) and Jonathan Kandel. The Jewish Chronicle Ltd was dissolved in February 2023. Gibb’s links to the Jewish Chronicle and its slavish pro-Israel stance were widely known, so it’s puzzling how he could ever have been thought sufficiently impartial for a key position managing the BBC’s editorial standards.

Openness and transparency are not BBC strong points either. Back in March campaigner Deborah Mallender, in a Freedom of Information request, asked the BBC:

(1) Is it true that your Chief of your Middle East desk Raffi Berg has collaborated with Mossad and worked for the CIA as per this widely distributed media report?
(2) How does that affect your claim of impartiality, unspun news and claims of upholding the integrity of professional journalism?
(3) Have you received any complaints from your own journalists about this employee?
(4) Have you received any communication from any politician about this appointment nationally or internationally? How many? Who communicated?
(5) Have you received any complaints from members of the public about this? How many?

The BBC’s reply?

“In response to parts 1 and 2 of your request, please be advised that we do not consider this to constitute a valid request under the FOI Act. The Act gives a general right of access to information that we hold in our records, e.g. in writing. We are not required to create new information to respond to a request, or to give a judgement, opinion or comment that is not already recorded. In response to parts 3, 4 and 5 of your request, please be advised that section 12 of the FOI Act states the BBC to does not have to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ (defined in the Fees Regulations) to comply with the request.”

Meanwhile, Trump has received an apology from the BBC for its “error of judgement”, and that should be enough. It is surely beneath any normal US president to pursue the broadcasting arm of an allied power for such a preposterous sum, though not in Trump’s case. Nor should the BBC even consider stroking this conceited man’s bloated ego and forking out one penny of British public’s licence fee money. On the other hand I would gladly pay that fee if the BBC were to force Trump to bring his action in the UK High Court. My understanding is that it must be done within 1 year and Trump is out of time. Case dismissed.

Stuart Littlewood, after working on jet fighters in the RAF, became an industrial marketing specialist. He served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and a member of the Police Authority, produced two photo-documentary books including Radio Free Palestine (with foreword by Jeff Halper), and has contributed to online news and opinion publications over many years. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.