RED TORY

Britain's Keir Starmer plots painstaking path to power

Wed, 4 October 2023 


Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer speaks at an event in London
By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) - On June 7, a group of star-struck British lawmakers posted selfies with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons when the glam rocker visited parliament. Hours later, those from the opposition Labour party were summoned by senior members in charge of discipline and ordered to delete the posts and apologise.

In 2004, Simmons had been heavily criticised for calling Islam a "vile culture" and the Labour MPs were sent on their way with warnings about any posts or comments that strayed from Labour's line ringing in their ears, two told Reuters.

Welcome to Keir Starmer's Labour Party.

After Labour's worst defeat for 84 years in 2019 under left-wing veteran Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer - a human rights lawyer who became Britain's top prosecutor before turning to politics in his 50s - has instilled a culture of discipline in what was a deeply fractured party.

Taking lessons from centre-left parties in Australia and Germany, he has imbued Labour with a cautious and methodical approach in the race to be prime minister, hoping competence and pragmatism rather than any overriding ideology will be enough to oust the Conservatives, in power since 2010.

Ten people who have worked, studied or socialised with Starmer, 61, told Reuters he would press on with his systematic approach if he becomes prime minister in an election expected next year. A vote must be held by the end of January, 2025.

"The next stage is where we've got to be even tougher, even more focused, even more disciplined," Starmer said about the run-up to the election in a conversation on stage with Tony Blair at the former Labour prime minister's institute in July.

While Starmer's approach has not won over all hearts and minds within Labour, the party has a healthy 15-20 point lead in the polls and he remains ahead of Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the personality stakes.

"Thanks to Keir Starmer's leadership, voters see a changed Labour Party that is ready to change the country with a mission-driven government," a Labour spokesperson said when asked to comment for this story. "Everything we offer will be built on a bedrock of economic stability and a plan for growth."

'CORBYN WITHOUT THE MADNESS'

Named after the founder of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, Starmer was brought up in a staunchly left-wing household.

As a barrister, he often defended underdogs and worked to get people off death row around the world. He became a Labour lawmaker in 2015 at the age of 52, a year after he received a knighthood for his services to law and criminal justice.

Five years on, he inherited the party after its worst election showing since 1935. Corbyn's plan to transform Britain with public sector pay rises, higher company taxes and sweeping nationalisation, fell flat with voters and the party was dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism and a fudged Brexit policy.

Starmer was seen "by many who supported Corbyn's policies as Corbyn without the madness", said his friend and Labour lord, Charlie Falconer.

According to Claire Ainsley, who was Starmer's executive director of policy in 2020-22 and now directs a new project on centre-left renewal at the U.S.-based Progressive Policy Institute, his advisers looked to Germany and Australia for lessons on how to turn things around.

Olaf Scholz was trailing badly in the polls when he was nominated as candidate for the centre-left SDP ahead of federal elections in 2021, after which he became chancellor. Australia's Anthony Albanese took over as leader of the Labor Party after it lost an election in 2019 and became prime minister in 2022.

Both changed their fortunes by focusing on a handful of commitments - Starmer has five missions - and running a disciplined campaign, Ainsley said. This was a strategy Starmer not only took on board, it also suited his talents.

Several of the people close to Starmer described him as more of a methodical lawyer than an ideological politician, and said this coloured his approach after becoming leader.

Falconer said Starmer embarked on a four-stage plan: first getting rid of alleged anti-Semitism within the party; putting the organisation back on its feet; bringing the best Labour lawmakers into his "shadow cabinet"; and finally adopting policies to address Britain's needs.

Ainsley said after tackling the factionalism, morale and finances of the party, Starmer's plan was then to argue why the Conservative government was not fit to govern and finally present his "positive offer" to the public.

"He has done it systematically always with an eye to the strategic, and doing it with enormous self-discipline," Falconer said.

STEP BY STEP

It's a strategy Starmer learnt when he became Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) - essentially Britain's top prosecutor - in 2008, the people close to him said.

Then, he set goals for each of the years he had in front of him. The first involved travelling around the country to see how the different offices operated, then came reform, implementation and finally to prepare for his successor.

That was his instinct too when he became Labour leader but his plans were somewhat thwarted by COVID: his victory speech was delivered virtually from his living room.

Starmer later still went on his tour though, largely under the radar of television cameras, and would purposely talk to people who did not agree with Labour policies, Ainsley said.

"Corbyn would like to go to gatherings of the faithful. Keir does the opposite," she told Reuters.

Critics, especially those on the left of the party, complain this shows Starmer relies more on focus groups than ideology - and one shadow minister said they wondered whether he was bold enough to convince Britons to vote Labour.

Supporters say, however, it can only be an asset, describing him as someone of the left, as well as a pragmatist who assesses situations and draws conclusions.

For example, those on the left say Starmer has reneged on his leadership campaign pledges to uphold some of Corbyn's 2019 manifesto, such as the renationalisation of public utilities.

But Ainsley said he would have looked at the issue and decided "he is not convinced that the case for re-nationalisation in all cases at this particular point is there".

One person who worked with Starmer when he was advising the Policing Board to monitor the Police Service of Northern Ireland's compliance with the Human Rights Act said: "Everything he does, it's because he's thought carefully about what's going to get him to where he needs to be."

"He thinks about the best way to take people with him, or to take the people with him he needs to take with him."

'CHAMPION OF THE UNDERDOG'

It was while he was DPP that Starmer realised he had to become engaged in politics - and get into government - if he wanted to bring about real change, Falconer said.

But even after entering parliament, supporters and critics alike said he was still more of a lawyer than politician.

"As a lawyer you don't establish a coherent political position," said Falconer. "You have causes and his causes tended to be on the left. He was a real champion of the underdog and he was completely loyal to a series of causes."

Starmer often took on pro bono legal work, such as getting convicts off death row in the Caribbean. Working for free, he also played a key role in helping overturn the mandatory death penalty in Uganda, saving the lives of 417 people.

And working alongside lawyer Mark Stephens, they famously won an appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against the British government over the "McLibel" trial involving two environmentalists and fast-food chain McDonalds.

Now, his cause is getting Labour into power - and his pragmatism runs through his policy commitments.

With Britain's coffers all but empty, Starmer has issued a strong message to his top team: don't make any promises the party cannot prove can be funded.

Instead, they need to come up with ideas to make his five missions - economic growth, net zero, the health service, crime and education - work without increasing taxes.

That has led to courting business, as Blair did before the first of his three election victories in 1997.

Starmer's overreaching goal is to promote economic growth to try to increase tax receipts so Labour can help a public sector he says has been starved by years of Conservative austerity.

While cosying up to business is unpopular with the Labour left, people close to Starmer say even when he was a ring leader on the top deck of the bus to school, leading the laughter with other teenagers, there was a steeliness as well.

"He's clearly not worried about taking difficult decisions," said Andrew Cooper, who went to Reigate Grammar school near London with Starmer and was a former adviser to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

Cooper said Starmer was famed at school, and often mocked, for his stubborn obsession with British rock band Status Quo - and never turned to the trendier sounds of new wave or punk.

"This is not somebody who craves to be liked."

(Editing by David Clarke)

Safety first? Labour seeks to maintain poll lead at annual meet


Peter HUTCHISON
Wed, 4 October 2023 

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer announced his 'five missions' earlier this year (ANDY BUCHANAN)

Britain's Labour opposition gathers this weekend for its annual conference, with the centre-left party currently on course to return to power in a general election expected next year.

Labour, led by Keir Starmer, goes into the four-day event -- which starts on Sunday in Liverpool, northwest England -- well ahead of the governing Conservatives in opinion polls.

After this week's chaotic Tory conference, which hampered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's bid to kick-start a resurgence of his beleaguered party, experts say the primary objective of Labour's meet is a simple one: do nothing that jeopardises its lead.

"The main thing will be don't cock up. No hostages to fortune, no signs of dissension," political scientist Anand Menon told AFP.

Labour last held the keys to 10 Downing Street in 2010 and is readying itself to govern again following a vote that must be held by January 2025 at the latest.

Starmer, 61, has revived the fortunes of a party that suffered a landslide defeat to the Conservatives at the last election in 2019 under former far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, by pulling it back to the centre ground.

A recent European trip, including a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, was seen by many as Starmer projecting himself as a prime minister-in-waiting.

Labour has enjoyed double-digit poll leads for months, with Britain locked in a cost-of-living crisis and plagued by strikes, and with Tory infighting leading to three prime ministers in little over a year.

Recent surveys, though, have showed the gap narrowing after the announcement of populist policies by Sunak that attempt to draw clear dividing lines between the Tories and their opponents.

Starmer, a former chief state prosecutor, is regularly accused of being too cautious, and observers are keen to see whether he adopts a bolder stance in Liverpool.

"The only interesting thing I think will be the degree to which Starmer feels pressured into trying to be a bit more assertive in terms of spelling out a vision," Menon said.

Starmer has dropped several pledges made during his successful 2020 leadership bid, including plans to scrap university tuition fees, citing the economic climate.

Labour has also backed away from tax increases, allowing Conservatives to accuse Starmer of flip-flopping on several issues.

- Symbolic policies? -

Starmer has ruled out taking Britain back into the European Union but has pledged to seek "a much better deal for the UK" with the bloc. The post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation agreement struck by former premier Boris Johnson is due for review in 2025.

In July, he laid out his party's "five missions for a better Britain" that will form the backbone of its election manifesto.

They include making Britain a green energy superpower and building a national health service "fit for the future".

Political experts expect the Labour leader to put more flesh on the bones of these policies when he speaks at the conference Tuesday, which could be the last annual gathering of the party before voters go to the polls.

"One would expect one or two quite symbolic policies from the conference, things to associate Starmer with over the next few months. I think that will be important," Karl Pike at Queen Mary University of London told AFP.

But with opinion polls suggesting that only Labour can blow the party's chances now, Starmer may feel it is wiser to keep his cards close to his chest until nearer the election, which experts have speculated could occur in the spring or autumn of 2024.

Economic constraints mean Labour may also be reluctant to commit to major spending pledges they might not be able to meet if elected.

Starmer will also have to decide whether to engage with the Tories over so-called "culture wars" on immigration and gender rights, which interior minister Suella Braverman ramped up with her conference speech on Tuesday.

"The question for him is how safety first is he going to be, at the conference and over the next few months," said Pike.

"How much is it going to be about what Labour wants to do for the country? And how much is it going to be about just attacking the Conservatives?"

pdh/phz/js

Opinion

Labour leader Keir Starmer needs to avoid Rishi Sunak's immigration and benefits trap, while sticking to his guns over net zero – Barrie Cunning


Barrie Cunning

THE SCOTSMAN
Thu, 5 October 2023 


Labour leader Keir Starmer's speech to his party's conference will be particularly important ahead of the general election next year (Picture: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Every year, parties of all political colours hold their annual conference, which is an opportunity to press the reset button, spell out what’s wrong with the country and what they plan to do to change that, whilst rallying the troops for the forthcoming political fight. But whilst political conferences are important, the one that takes place just before a general election is without a shadow of a doubt the most significant, with the spotlight on both the current administration and the official opposition, as what they say often gives an indication of the main focus areas in the run-up to the election.

This week, Rishi Sunak gave his first speech as Conservative leader in which he attempted to present himself as the change candidate, somewhat distancing himself from his former Tory leader predecessors of the last 13 years by claiming that the status quo – or as he put it the “old consensus” – will no longer suffice and that he will “tell it as it is” and “lead in a different way”. He signalled a major move from what he described as “30 years of a political system that incentivises the easy decision, not the right one” – hence his decision to scrap the HS2 high-speed rail line in an effort to show decisive leadership and that he is the person to take Britain forward.

To me, this “tell it as it is” message is desperate stuff and on par with Jeremy Corbyn’s “straight-talking politics”, which means very little and delivers absolutely nothing. In the minds of voters, it is nothing more than just another political soundbite of the kind we have all become used to. But I’m all for telling Sunak how it is, and it can be summed up by putting the word ‘crisis’ after housing, NHS, education, and now key infrastructure projects.

But, let’s be honest, this is a government that’s on its knees, devoid of ideas, running out of breath, and resorting to the Thatcherite book of soundbites in nothing more than a throwback to the Tory heydays of the 1980s – “get on your bike” and find a job, Norman Tebbit drivel. But compound that with what they have been saying about immigration and tackling the small boats and the need to bring in stricter sanctions on benefit recipients, especially those on unemployment benefits, and it’s clear that they intend to fashion a narrative about fairness for the British people and that this will become the core Tory focus in the run-up to the election.

Contrast that with what Keir Starmer will say in his leader’s speech at the Labour conference in Liverpool next week, in which he is expected to talk about a positive vision for the country with a focus on fixing “broken Britain”, while also conveying a sense of hope for future generations. This is underpinned by a series of positive key messages that Labour has the back of the British people, British business and British industry and that no one will be left behind under Keir’s leadership as he will make the right decisions in the national interest. This is what the British public has been crying out for for a long time and that is the change that is needed, not Sunak’s self-perceived, made-up definition of the word ‘change’.

They say that being the leader of the opposition is the loneliest job in British politics, but all eyes will be on Keir as he spells out how, after 13 years of Conservative rule, the country is in need of change and that process starts with an incoming Labour government which has the energy, ideas, vision and determination to deliver the change that is needed with a commitment to tackling the cost-of-living crisis and providing the much-needed stability the UK needs.

Whilst it’s easy to say that the current government is out of touch, and I genuinely do think they are, the reality is that the conference speeches by Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have all the hallmarks of a focus-group analysis which will resonate with a certain cohort of the electorate. My main concern is that Sunak is laying the foundations for a trap which, if Labour isn’t careful, could end up being sprung.

What do I mean by this? Well, whilst I fundamentally disagree with anything the Tories stand for, they have put a marker down in policy terms that people can easily understand with regard to net zero, the need to reform welfare policy (although by reform we all know they mean punish those on benefits), and taking a tough, or in my opinion an inhumane, stance on immigration. All this is a prelude to what we can expect to become amplified over the next year, especially as we get closer to the election which they will hope will carry them over the threshold to form the next government.

At some point, media scrutiny of Labour’s policy position will intensify and it’s vital that Keir stays on track with our commitment to net zero but he will have to elaborate on our position in terms of how it will be achieved. He also needs to ensure he doesn’t get drawn into a debate that plays into the hands of the right-winger’s default narrative of blaming those on benefits or people coming to the UK to seek refuge.

Barrie Cunning is a former Scottish Labour party candidate and managing director of Pentland Communications

Calls for Brexit debate could cause policy row at Labour conference


Ben Quinn Political correspondent
Thu, 5 October 2023 

Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The constituency party of the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is among 30 backing a motion for debate at Labour’s conference that could open up a major argument about Brexit.

A motion from the Labour Movement for Europe, which calls for the party to make commitments including negotiating a visa system with the EU, is among those being considered for debate at the conference in Liverpool this weekend.

Supporters of Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, have been canvassing delegates to vote for different motions to be debated on the conference floor. The party’s largest centrist grouping, Labour to Win, has messaged supporters urging them to vote for six specific topics to be debated, including the NHS and Ukraine.

The hope is this will minimise controversy by sticking to policy areas agreed on behind closed doors in meetings of constituency Labour parties (CLPs), unions and others during national policy forum (NPF) discussions this year.

The message said: “It is essential that we all vote for these to ensure that supporters of the leadership have control of the conference agenda.” It goes on to say this would stop critics of the leadership, such as the Momentum group, introducing “unhelpful” motions.

Luke Akehurst, a co-director of Labour to Win, said: “We don’t want an argument at Labour party conference that would create unnecessary divisions as we head towards a general election. We are very happy with the text on Europe and a range of subjects that was carefully negotiated at the NPF.

“This is not about how I feel about Brexit or about how members feel. There is no way that having a debate about Europe would be in the party’s interests at this point. It could spiral off in any direction given, for example, the very divergent ways in which different constituencies voted in the referendum.”

Motions that the conference will debate and vote on will be announced on Sunday after delegates vote in a priority ballot that runs from late morning until after lunch.

The MP Stella Creasy, chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said: “There is clearly an interest amongst members in moving beyond the old debate about whether you can make Brexit work and whether we can rejoin.

“Keir has set out that we want a closer relationship with Europe so it’s understandable members want to discuss openly what Britain can negotiate in the first years of a Labour government. They know trade with Europe will be critical to the jobs and growth our country needs and want to show they share the public’s concern at the damage Tory Brexit has done.”

Andy Rontree, a councillor and member of Reeves’s Leeds West CLP, which is backing the motion, said it was not about opening up a debate on rejoining the EU but about improving the UK’s ties to Europe amid uncertainty over whether Britain could depend on the US were Donald Trump to become president again.

While the Europe motion may not make it through, other motions backed by unions are more likely to. They are understood to include motions committing the party to the “new deal for working people” – a set of proposals to deal with low pay, insecurity and disempowerment, but which some unionists and those on the left fear Starmer wants to dilute.

Hilary Schan, a co-chair of Momentum, said members and unions at conference would be putting forward urgent, popular policies such as public ownership of utilities, free school meals, mass council house building and the introduction of wealth taxes.

“If Keir Starmer once again chooses to ignore these voices, he won’t just be letting down his own party – he’ll be creating a rod for his own back amongst a public hungry for renewal,” she said.

SCOTLAND

Culture secretary admits world cycling event went £8m over budget days after £6.6m arts cut was revealed


Brian Ferguson
Thu, 5 October 2023 

Angus Robertson is Scotland's culture secretary. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Angus Robertson has admitted that a major cycling event has gone £8 million over budget – days after a £6.6 million cut for Creative Scotland was revealed.

Scotland's culture secretary suggested inflation was to blame for the extra costs for the UCI Cycling World Championships, which the Scottish Government had already committed £36 million to.

It has also emerged that Creative Scotland is facing a further £4 million worth of cuts from its budget.

Angus Robertson visits filming of The Rig at Bath Road studios in Edinburgh with Martin Compston and Emily Hampshire (Photo: comp)


The government had already upped its contribution for the cycling event, which was billed as the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world, from £30 million, after the overall budget soared to almost £60 million.

Mr Robertson was speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s culture committee as he was quizzed about the reinstatement of a 10 per cent funding cut for Creative Scotland, which he insisted would have “zero detriment” on arts organisations as the quango would be using its financial reserves to make up the cut.

Mr Robertson insisted that the need to provide extra funding for the 11-day cycling event, which brought together 13 existing cycling world championships for the first time, would be spread across government and would not be stripped out of his budget.

However in his letter confirming the cut for Creative Scotland, which has been published after a freedom of information request, Mr Robertson said he was unable to confirm £2 million for the Screen Scotland agency, £500,000 for Edinburgh's festivals and £2 million for Culture Collective, a network of 26 projects across Scotland.

He told Creative Scotland’s chief executive Iain Munro: “We are still assessing options for this and will confirm whether this funding can be released or not in due course.

The government, which originally revealed the £6.6 million cut in December, u-turned in February in the wake of an industry backlash.

Creative Scotland last week revealed that the cut had been suddenly reinstated in late September by Mr Robertson.

He and First Minister Humza Yousaf have previously suggested that public sector pay settlements and inflation were to blame for the spending pressures which led to the decision on Creative Scotland’s budget.

However Mr Robertson told the culture committee: “This year we saw funding from the Scottish Government and partners across the country to help deliver the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, which helped promote the health and wellbeing benefits of cycling, and drive wider economic and social benefits across Scotland.

"But due to increased costs, including inflation, the total funding provided by the government and partners is in the process of being finalised. Final costs will be confirmed in due course, but are in the order of £8 million.
"Government funding for the event prior to its completion was delivered through our major events budget. But since the conclusion of the event, any additional funding that may be required will be managed centrally.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “The government has an obligation to balance the budget each year and prioritise funding to deliver the best value for every taxpayer in Scotland.

"As a result of rising costs and pressure on budgets across government, made more challenging as a result of UK inflation, we are continuing to work with partners to ensure all public investment is used to deliver the maximum benefit for communities and organisations across Scotland.”

 

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8 hours ago  #News #Reuters #newsfeed

US President Joe Biden announced plans to use Trump-era funds to extend the wall on the US-Mexico border https://reut.rs/46jTxpu

White House defends the use of Trump-era funds to build border wall

Associated Press

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Biden administration's decision to waive 26 federal laws

Biden says he ‘can’t stop’ border wall construction, blames Congress for not ‘reappropriating’ funds

New York Post

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UK

Opinion

The Tories say 15-minute cities are sinister. That’s nonsense – here’s the truth


Kate Soper and Martin Ryle

THE GUARDIAN
Thu, 5 October 2023

Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Following hard on the prime minister’s defence of the drivers who are supposedly victimised by London’s Ulez extension, and Penny Mordaunt’s rubbishing of 20mph speed limits in Wales (currently in force in parts of her own constituency), we now have the transport secretary, Mark Harper, denouncing “sinister … so-called 15-minute cities”.

This dismissal of measures that provide safer, pleasanter and more sustainable urban living is being pressed in the name of “freedom”: the freedom of city-dwellers to live unharassed by meddling environmentalist do-gooders; the freedom, in Sunak’s words, of drivers “to use their cars to do all the things that matter to them” – a liberty supposedly under threat from the “anti-motorist” Labour party.

It is not difficult to counter this rhetoric, beginning with Sunak’s risible attempt to divide between “drivers” and a “woke” community that supposedly never gets behind the wheel of a car. Harper’s attempt to cast advocates of cleaner air and pedestrianised streets as lefty enthusiasts of totalitarian traffic management is equally ludicrous. Such a view of “things that matter” shows little concern for the safety of children and their need for space to play, or the peace of mind of parents and carers. Nor does it recognise those more complex human beings who drive and approve of the freedoms protected by “anti-motorist” laws, and are happy to obey them.

The idea of less car-dominated streets is hardly new. It is almost 50 years since the woonerven acquired legal status in the Netherlands; they are areas in which pedestrians and cyclists have priority over motorists. Vehicles can move at walking pace in – but not through – the woonerf, which is above all a convivial space where people can stroll, meet, talk and play. Municipalities across Europe, and even some in the UK, have been implementing similar schemes for decades.

It is barely believable that initiatives such as low-traffic neighbourhoods and the Ulez in London are under attack, at a time when rising carbon emissions make the greening of cities all the more urgent. Yet despite the vicious manner in which the Tories have begun to rail against these schemes, the Labour leadership has so far lacked the courage and imagination to make the case for them. Indeed, Labour reportedly ditched plans for a UK-wide Ulez extension after the Uxbridge byelection, and in response to recent Tory attacks has merely criticised the government record on potholes and petrol prices.

This is more alarming given the urgent need for politicians (and all of us) to focus, beyond the particular issue of cars in cities, on the policies essential to major ecological reconstruction. There are voices on the right calling for net zero to be deferred – or even abandoned, in the case of Nigel Farage – because getting there will be too painful. Left-of-centre politicians understandably, but implausibly, look to technological innovation to allow us to go on with our customary lifestyles: to turn up the air conditioning when it gets hot, to buy as many cheap flights and cars as we choose, to consume as lavishly as we can afford. Renewed and accelerated economic growth – partly engendered by the expansion of green production (for instance, of electric cars) – will supposedly ensure that everybody is getting better off, so nobody will mind if the richest 1% continue to own almost half the world’s wealth.

In the current framing of the debate on greening the future, neither side has suggested that we might not want to persist for ever in the exploitative and acquisitive way of life to which we have become accustomed. The consensus holds across the party political divide that we must at all costs preserve the consumerist lifestyle. However, to talk only of the pains of changed consumption is to ignore the many downsides to the “good life” of western affluence – the stress, time-scarcity, insecurity, pollution and toxic waste – and the benefits to be had from moving to a less growth- and work-driven way of living.

Creating a sustainable economic order will certainly require changes in the everyday lives of most people, especially in rich countries. (It will also require greater equality, and the promotion of collective rather than individual interests, which is why it should be especially a project of the left.) But such changes can be framed and pursued as enabling a more convivial, enjoyable and fulfilling existence. In reflecting on the wider politics of eco-transition, we can learn from the hopeful and, ultimately, hedonistic dynamic that has powered the development of woonerven and similar projects that aim for more livable towns and cities.

Related: Petrol and diesel engines are dying technology. The electric car age is inevitable | Ben Lane

A positive vision of a green renaissance is essential once we acknowledge that we are not entering a short period of adjustment, after which business as usual can resume, but embarking on a decades-long transition. Security and a good life for everyone will be the objective, on the basis of a circular and reproductive – and thus necessarily post-capitalist – economy. It is not reasonable to expect progressive politicians to declare that they already have a blueprint for this transition, let alone to spell out each step on the way.

But an imaginative vision of the society it might inaugurate is badly needed, at a time when our vision of the future, reduced to avoidance or mitigation of climate catastrophe, is devoid of utopian hope. If left-leaning politicians do not acknowledge the need for far-reaching transformation, and do not persuade voters to support the changes it will require, the populist right is poised to implement its own agenda: an agenda of defiant ecological inaction, plus the mobilisation via the culture war of resentment against anyone – migrants, “woke” ecologists and greens, cyclists, the scientific elite – who can be made scapegoats for the crises that lie in wait.

Kate Soper is emeritus professor of philosophy at London Metropolitan University. Her most recent book is Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism. Martin Ryle writes about politics and the environment. He is the author of the book Ecology and Socialism

UK

Opinion

Tory conference revealed a party that’s crumbling – and with Nigel Farage laying siege to its future

Owen Jones
Thu, 5 October 2023 

Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

A visit to Conservative party conference is like being transported to the recent past of another country. When the US Republicans were routed in 2008, the seeds of what they would become – a party defined by conspiratorial far-right populism – were being planted. The newly elected Barack Obama intended to establish a communist dictatorship with a Gestapo-like security force, claimed one Republican congressman. Fox News became a key engine of a new conspiracism, not least the notorious “birther” lie, falsely alleging the president was not a native-born American. The Republican establishment leaned into this fanaticism: take the salutary example of Liz Cheney, daughter of George W Bush’s vice-president, who defended the birther lie at the time. She helped feed a conspiratorial far right that found itself a demagogic figurehead in Donald Trump, whom she would later go on to denounce.

There was no shortage of Tory Liz Cheneys at conference. Take the transport secretary, Mark Harper, who took to the stage to endorse a conspiracy theory that, until now, has been the preserve of far-right internet trolls. The idea behind 15-minute cities could hardly be more innocuous: we should all be a 15-minute walk or bike ride away from everyday services we depend on, like GP surgeries, shops and banks. But Harper told the assembled faithful that local councils will dictate “how often you go to the shops”, “ration who uses the roads”, and then enforce it with CCTV surveillance. This is a lie, and Harper knows it. When his ministerial colleague, Andrew Bowie, subsequently defended this conspiratorial nonsense, arguing that voters were concerned that their “liberties were going to be infringed”, he must have known it was a hoax too.

‘The transport secretary, Mark Harper, took to the stage to endorse a conspiracy theory that, until now, has been the preserve of far-right internet trolls.’ 

Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Perhaps they believe that indulging far-right conspiracism will attract its delusional believers to the Tory fold, and prevent them defecting to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. A more likely outcome is this worldview will be legitimised and pave the way for more extreme politicians. This week in Manchester, Farage strode around the conference like a hungry crocodile, sizing up his prey. The rock-star reception he attracted suggests the faithful would quite like to be eaten. Farage has partly remoulded the Conservatives in his image by menacing them from the outside. It may well be that he will stick to his devastatingly successful strategy, using external leverage to keep coercing the Tories into adopting his agenda. If Farage successfully stands for parliament on his eighth attempt, this time wearing a blue rosette, the party will one day surely be his. He floated rejoining the party if the demagogic home secretary, Suella Braverman, takes the Tory crown: “at least I’d believe in some of the policies”, he said, when I spoke to him at conference.



It would be easy to dismiss this conference as revealing a party suffering a breakdown in advance of a shattering defeat. Tory delegates struggled to tell me what the Conservatives’ lasting achievements after 13 years in office even are. If so many at this flat, sparsely attended conference have given up, why should the rest of us fear a party enduring an identity crisis? Look again across the Atlantic. The Republicans, it was believed, became so unmoored from reality that permanent electoral Armageddon beckoned. Hillary Clinton’s team craved Donald Trump as their opponent for that very reason. And now? Just ask Cheney how that worked out.

So consider this for a scenario. Labour triumphs at the next election, but wins by default and with no enthusiasm for Starmerism in the tank from the start. Unlike 1997, the new administration rules a country defined by turmoil and decline, but offers no transformative policies to answer our multiple and overlapping crises. Disillusionment sets in, while the Tories complete their metamorphosis into loud, proud, brash rightwing populism, hoovering up votes from the disaffected. In the general election of 2029, a new model Tory party – flushed with British Trumpism – stages a stunning comeback.

Related: Our panel’s verdict on Rishi Sunak’s speech to the Tory party conference

True, this is not the US: your gut instinct may say it can’t happen here. But when, in the past, you looked in bemused horror at their culture wars, you may have assumed they’d never arrive on our shores – but they did. Farage marched through conference not as a hostile outsider, but as a conquering general. His mission is not yet complete, however, and a final prize may beckon.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

UK

Boris Johnson’s former food tsar attacks Sunak’s smoking ban: ‘Odd to prioritise cigarettes over fast food’


Archie Mitchell and Rebecca Thomas
Thu, 5 October 2023 


Boris Johnson’s former food tsar has launched an attack on Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, saying it is “odd” to prioritise tackling cigarettes over junk food, as health leaders pile pressure on the prime minister to do more to address the growing obesity crisis.

Henry Dimbleby told The Independent that smoking is “far less” of a health issue than a poor diet, adding that smoking rates among young people are already “in freefall”.

The celebrity chef and founder of the Leon restaurant chain said that whatever government is in power in 10 years’ time will be “crippled” by the obesity crisis, and called on the prime minister to do more to tackle the issue.

NHS bosses and a former Tory health minister are among a chorus of voices urging Mr Sunak to do more to curb junk food, which they say is fuelling an obesity epidemic.

It comes after Mr Sunak used his Conservative Party conference speech to announce a proposal that would effectively ban cigarettes for anyone now aged 14 or under, by raising the age at which it is legal to purchase cigarettes by one year every year.

Mr Dimbleby told The Independent: “It seems odd to choose to go after smoking when it is already far less of a health problem than poor diet. Smoking rates are in freefall among young people.

“By 2035, the NHS is forecast to spend more treating type 2 diabetes – just one diet-related health condition – than it does today on all cancers. And it isn’t just that our diet is making us sick. It is making us poor, too. The four most common conditions keeping 2.5 million people out of work are muscular-skeletal conditions, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and mental [illness].

“Three of those are directly caused by poor diet, and one is exacerbated by it. Whatever government is in power in 10 years’ time will be crippled by the social and economic problems caused by diet-related ill health, if we don’t act now.”

Mr Dimbleby’s intervention came after an irritable Mr Sunak defended the policy in a terse interview with the BBC, insisting that cigarettes are “different to a pack of crisps or a piece of cake”.

Henry Dimbleby said poor diets are making people sick and poor as he called on Sunak to act (Rex Features/Jason Alden)

Grilled over why he had undone plans to tackle obesity on the grounds of protecting people’s freedoms, Mr Sunak said smoking was “fundamentally different”.

The prime minister said smoking is “unequivocally the single biggest preventable cause of death, disability and illness in our society”.

But research from BioMed Central in 2021 showed that obesity now accounts for more deaths in England and Scotland than smoking among people in middle and old age. National strategies to address adiposity should be a public health priority, it said.

It follows Mr Sunak delaying measures contained in the government’s anti-obesity strategy until October 2025, saying that he “firmly believes in people’s right to choose”. The rules, which would have banned two-for-one junk-food deals, had already been pushed back and were originally planned to come into force this month.

Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, said Mr Sunak’s smoking ban had “diverted attention from obesity, which is actually far more serious in terms of early death”.

Mr Fry told The Independent that obesity is on course to overtake smoking as the leading cause of cancer.

Asked about the difference between banning smoking and restricting fast-food consumption, Mr Fry said: “Addiction is the crux here. You can be addicted to fast food, but you’re more likely to be addicted to smoking. And once it has gripped you, a lot of people suffer tremendously from it.”

He added that both are “fundamental public health issues” that need to be tackled. But he said: “The issue of fast food, and the fact that it’s got to such a degree now that it may well overtake smoking as a cause of cancer, in my opinion is far more serious.”

Former Tory health ministerJames Bethell also urged the PM to crack down on obesity, saying the smoking ban should be a “first step”. Lord Bethell told The Independent that, in order to address obesity, Britain needs “20 different measures, all of them quite complex”.

But he said Mr Sunak will “learn a lot” from the smoking ban, and insisted that health interventions “can really be popular”.

“It will remind Downing Street that the public are hard over on things like junk food levies, gambling levies and minimum prices for drinking,” he said.

The director of the Obesity Health Alliance, Katharine Jenner, said she was “delighted” that the PM had banned smoking for future generations, but that tackling obesity needs the same focus.

“If this government really is committed to seeing the next generation grow up healthily, they also need to tackle the flood of unhealthy food and drink in our supermarkets and on our high streets,” she said.

But she added that ministers have failed to implement their own laws to “stop children being relentlessly bombarded with manipulative advertising and promotions”.

“This is not about removing choice – it’s about making the healthy choice the easy choice,” she said, calling for restrictions on junk food advertising.

And Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said the health service would come under “unsustainable pressure” without action to tackle obesity.

“The prime minister’s intention to ban cigarette sales for younger generations is a powerful and important step, but it comes as his government has failed to implement its own food strategy, which recommended sugar and salt taxes and restrictions on advertising,” she said.

She said the decision was “hard to justify” given obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable death and causes a number of long-term illnesses.

“The government needs to tackle this issue head-on rather than hiding behind ‘nanny-state’ excuses,” she added.

Ukraine too corrupt to join EU, says Jean-Claude Juncker


James Crisp
Thu, 5 October 2023

Jean-Claude Juncker is not ringing the bell for Ukraine’s accession to the EU - Kenzo Triboullard/AFP

Ukraine is not ready to join the EU because it is “corrupt at all levels of society”, Jean-Claude Juncker, the former European Commission president, has said.

Mr Juncker said making “false promises” to Ukrainians over their candidacy to accede to the bloc would be “neither good for the EU nor for Ukraine.”

He also hit out at those whom he accused of telling Ukrainians they could be given a shortcut to becoming part of the EU.


“You shouldn’t make false promises to the people in Ukraine who are up to their necks in suffering,” he told Germany’s Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper

“I am very angry about some voices in Europe who are telling Ukrainians that they can become members immediately.”

Countries hoping to join the EU have to complete demanding reforms and take on swathes of European law before they are granted entry to the bloc, which can take more than a decade.

Among the reforms Kyiv must undertake are measures to fight corruption and money laundering in a process that is highly unlikely to be completed while the war continues.

Ursula von der Leyen, who took over from Mr Juncker as commission president in 2019, recently praised Ukraine for its progress in those reforms and has been more positive about Kyiv’s candidacy.

“Anyone who has had anything to do with Ukraine knows that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society. Despite its efforts, it is not ready for accession – it needs massive internal reform processes,” said Mr Juncker.

“We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. This cannot be repeated again.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has spearheaded an anti-corruption crackdown in Ukraine, equating corruption with treason.

The EU is reportedly prepared to give the green light for negotiations with Ukraine on its future accession to the bloc in December in a show of support for Kyiv.

Any enlargement of the bloc must clear the hurdle of winning unanimous approval of all existing members because it would also have major internal consequences.

Brussels will pay Kyiv £161 billion over seven years if it eventually joins, turning various members from “net recipients” to “net contributors” for the first time, a leaked analysis revealed earlier this week.

Earth hit by blast of energy from dead star so powerful that scientists can’t explain it


Andrew Griffin
Thu, 5 October 2023 

(PA)

Earth has been hit by a blast from a dead star so energetic that scientists cannot explain it.

The burst of gamma rays, originating in a dead star known as a pulsar, is the most high energy of its kind ever seen. It was equivalent about ten trillion times the energy of visible light, or 20 tera-electronvolts.

Scientists are unable to explain exactly what kind of a scenario could lead a pulsar to emit such intense energy, and the researchers behind the breakthrough say that it “requires a rethinking of how these natural accelerators work”.


Scientists hope that they can find yet more powerful energy blasts from pulsars, with a view to better understanding how they are formed.

Pulsars are formed when a star dies, exploding in a supernova and leaving behind a tiny, dead star. They are just 20 kilometres across, and spin extremely fast with a powerful magnetic field.

“These dead stars are almost entirely made up of neutrons and are incredibly dense: a teaspoon of their material has a mass of more than five billion tonnes, or about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza,” said Emma de Oña Wilhelmi, a scientist at the High Energy Stereoscopic System observatory in Namibia that detected the blast.

As pulsars spin, they throw out beams of electromagnetic radiation, throwing it out like a cosmic lighthouse. That means that someone in one spot – like the Earth – will see the radiation pulses flash in a regular rhythm as they spin past.

The radiation is thought to be the result of fast electrons that are produced and thrown out by the the pulsar’s magnetosphere, which is made up of plasma and electromagnetic fields that surround the star and spin with it. Scientists can search the radiation for different energy bands within the electromagnetic spectrum, helping them understand it.

When scientists previously did that with the Vela pulsar examined in the new study, they found that it was the brightest everseen in the radio band, and the brightest persistent source in the giga-electronvolts. But the new research found that there is a part of the radiation with even more high energy components.

“That is about 200 times more energetic than all radiation ever detected before from this object,” said co-author Christo Venter from the North-West University in South Africa. Scientists don’t know exactly how that could happen.


“This result challenges our previous knowledge of pulsars and requires a rethinking of how these natural accelerators work,” says Arache Djannati-Atai from the Astroparticle & Cosmology (APC) laboratory in France, who led the research. “The traditional scheme according to which particles are accelerated along magnetic field lines within or slightly outside the magnetosphere cannot sufficiently explain our observations.

“Perhaps we are witnessing the acceleration of particles through the so-called magnetic reconnection process beyond the light cylinder, which still somehow preserves the rotational pattern? But even this scenario faces difficulties to explain how such extreme radiation is produced.”

An article describing the findings, ‘Discovery of a Radiation Component from the Vela Pulsar Reaching 20 Teraelectronvolts’, is published today in the journal Nature Astronomy.