Youth-Led Solutions For Myanmar’s Waste Crisis Amid Political Instability – Analysis

Yangon, Myanmar

 July 4, 2025

By Shwetaungthagathu Reform Initiative Centre

By Emilia Khine

Youth in Myanmar are addressing the worsening waste crisis through grassroots efforts and circular economy solutions despite political instability.

Key Takeaways:

1. Myanmar’s waste crisis is worsening due to weak governance, unsegregated waste in landfills, and over-reliance on short-term solutions instead of sustainable plans.
2. Youth-led initiatives, such as Yangon’s first Repair Café, are pioneering circular economy solutions and reviving sustainable practices.
3. To build long-term resilience, awareness campaigns must move beyond elite spaces and engage grassroots communities despite political instability.

How do people define waste? In the Oxford dictionary, waste is defined as materials that are no longer needed or used and are thrown away. If we no longer use or want the things, we easily discard them. However, the problem is that we never realize that we are the ones who are accountable for waste pollution.

The solid waste problem is a global issue that both developed and developing countries face severely. Why do you think the world is trying to take urgent actions to reduce the global waste generation rate? The reasons are, first, when waste, especially hazardous chemicals and non-biodegradable materials like plastic or e-waste, is dumped into landfills without proper treatment, it leeches harmful substances into the soil. Second, leachate that drains from waste can seep into groundwater or flow into rivers and lakes. Third, methane gas from decomposing organic waste in landfills contributes to global warming. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change and extreme weather. A poor waste management system weakens the balance of the entire ecosystem.

How developed countries address the waste issue

Developed countries find solutions in every possible way to reduce solid waste. Waste is generated at 0.74 Kg per person every day. On top of that, as cities become urbanized with rapid population growth, the World Bank estimates that waste generation will increase from 2.01 billion tonnes in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes in 2050. Styrofoam and plastic last at least 100 years and up to 1,000 years undecomposed. Since our world is limited in land management, imagine if single-use plastic and styrofoam containers cannot decompose for 1000 years, and we keep generating non-biodegradable waste, there will be no space in the world for us to set foot, eat microplastics, and live on the dumpsites. 

A proper way to sort out the problem is to segregate waste into biodegradable, recyclable, non-recyclable, hazardous, etc. After adequate segregation, recyclables can be recycled, organic waste can be composted for organic fertilizer, and energy can be generated from incinerating non-recyclable waste. Recycling the recyclable waste can reduce pollution caused by incineration or landfill dumping. Composting organic waste, producing vermicompost, and worm tea enriches soil health. Another way is to implement black soldier fly (BSF) farms. BSF larvae can eat food scraps five times their body weight and be used as nutritious animal feed.

A Singapore-based biotechnology company named Entobel implemented the ASEAN’s largest BSF farm in Vietnam in 2015. Entobel saves 185,000 metric tons of food waste from the food industry and by-products from agriculture farms going to landfills every year. The Black Soldier Fly is the most beneficial insect in converting leftover food scraps, agricultural by-products, and animal manure into high-quality protein that can displace animal feed.

Waste Problem in An Urban City, Yangon

Yangon is the largest city of Myanmar, with a population of over 5 million people. As Yangon became the economic hub and more urbanized, students, workers, and migrants moved to Yangon for better education, job opportunities, and other reasons. Yangon produces over 4,000 tons of solid waste every day. All the solid waste disposed of by Yangon residents finally ends up in the six major landfill sites: Htein Bin, Dawei Chaung, Shwe Pyi Thar, Dala, Mingalardon, and Seik Gyi Khanaung-To. The most significant one is the Htein Bin Final Disposal Site, which was caused by the tragic fire in 2018, which lasted for three consecutive days. The Htein Bin fire was a wake-up call for Yangon’s governing authorities and environmental activists, highlighting the severe consequences of poor waste management.

Both biodegradable organic waste and non-biodegradable waste materials, such as plastic, tin, and other waste, are dumped into the landfill without prior segregation. According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, methane gas emitted from landfills significantly exacerbates global warming potential by 28 times more than carbon dioxide over 100 years. On top of that, the leachate drain from the bottom of the landfill contaminates the soil and the underground water, resulting in liver and kidney damage, cancer, and congenital disabilities.

All landfill sites in Yangon were managed by the anaerobic method; hence, organic matter cannot decompose easily without oxygen, enhancing the methane emission to the atmosphere. In the intense heat of summer, the risk of fire outbreaks increases. After a desperate fire occurred in Htein Bin landfill in 2018, the UN-Habitat implemented a 4-year project for urgent improvement of Solid waste management in Yangon city, with funding from the Japanese Government and technical support from Fukuoka University. The project installed the Fukuoka (Semi-aerobic landfill ) method to reduce methane gas emission by installing ventilation pipes, allowing oxygen to reach the inner part of the dumpsite, which helps organic matter compost in a shorter time. Additionally, pipes with holes were laid at the base of the dumpsite to drain out and treat the leachate.

However, the Fukuoka method is not the ultimate solution we aim for. It is only a temporary measure to solve the open dumpsite problem. Our long-term goal is to achieve zero waste, which requires proper waste segregation: separating materials such as plastic, paper, organic, tin, electronic, etc, for effective recycling and resource recovery.

The Battle of Youth

Environmentalists, youth activists, and sustainability advocates are battling to reduce solid waste, raising awareness to segregate waste, and encouraging businesses to adopt circular economy practices. Youth activists especially play a pivotal role in addressing Myanmar’s waste management challenges through advocacy, education, and community engagement.

“As Yangon’s population grows, the waste disposal rate also increases. That’s why we need more landfill space for disposal. We should pay more attention to waste management. To reduce waste generation, we have to avoid buying unnecessary things and using single-use plastic, and reuse the materials instead of discarding them.’’ Ko Zin Min Htut, a founder of the ME TO Me project, shared his opinions on the waste management problem in Yangon. Moreover, it was found that 13% of the total solid waste discarded in Yangon was plastic waste.

Ko Zin Min Htut is currently contributing to running the first Repair Cafe in Myanmar in collaboration with Impact Hub Yangon and the Prevent Plastic+ organization. He said, “Saya Ko Kyaw Myat Soe, a founder of Impact Hub Yangon, and I met at a community engagement event where we discussed that we would like to promote a circular economy. The concept: repair plays a main role in the circular economy. Although Burmese people used to repair things in the past, the repair culture is disappearing today. People rarely repair and reuse them; they easily buy new ones instead of repairing them. That’s why we decided to launch a Repair cafe in Yangon. Surprisingly, our initiative was successful from the very first time. People brought their old clothes, broken coffee machines, and rice cookers, and repaired them with the help of the volunteer technicians.”

He also stated that the challenges they faced while running a repair cafe were that they needed more volunteers to repair several broken items. They warmly welcomed new repair volunteers interested in their initiative to create a more sustainable and better future.

He introduced the repair cafe Yangon, which was Myanmar’s first repair cafe. The world’s first repair cafe was started in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in October 2009. But now, the Repair Café movement has spread to 40 countries, with more than 3,000 Repair Cafés worldwide. Repairing things can reduce waste and save the raw materials, natural resources, and energy needed to make new products. Hence, it helps cut carbon emissions and move us towards a circular economy.

To conclude, as Myanmar is a war-torn developing country, poor governance slows down sustainable development measures and interventions. They have stalled because nationwide public movements were successfully held in public areas before the political instability. Foreign-funded NGOs, local CSOs, and youth independent organizations are still trying to raise public awareness and mitigate the solid waste problem in Yangon. However, there remains a knowledge gap between youths and elders, educated and uneducated, elite and grassroots, since awareness activities can be organized online or at exclusive venues like the American Center, Goethe Institute, which ordinary people are intimidated to participate in. Thus, activists should consider alternative ways of organizing more inclusive community-based events in the country’s unstable political situation.

• About the author: Emilia Khine is a Junior Research Fellow at the Sustainability Lab of the Shwetaungthagathu Reform Initiative Centre (SRIc). She is also currently interning at RecyGlo Myanmar, where she supports various environmental sustainability projects.

• Source: This article was published by The Sabai Times

Shwetaungthagathu Reform Initiative Centre

The Shwetaungthagathu Reform Initiative Centre (SRIc) is a hybrid think tank and consultancy firm committed to advancing sustainable development and promoting sustainability literacy in Myanmar. Through its Sustainability Lab, SRIc conducts public policy research and analysis to promote Sustainable Development in Myanmar and guide the country toward a sustainable future. SRIc also offers consultation, CSR strategy development, and Sustainability roadmaps focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). SRIc equips individuals and organizations with actionable strategies for sustainable growth through capacity-building programs, customized training, publications like Sabai Times, and outreach initiatives such as webinars and podcasts. By merging research insights with practical consultancy, SRIc fosters responsible business practices, develops CSR strategies, and creates sustainability roadmaps, contributing to local and global sustainability efforts.

Most young people unlikely to vote ReformUK poll finds, in blow to Nigel Farage

Basit Mahmood 

2 July, 2025 

Left Foot Forward


'Just because young people see Reform’s content doesn’t mean they’re buying into it.'

Reform UK are in for a shock! Despite Nigel Farage insisting that younger voters are being drawn to the far-right party, the evidence suggests otherwise.

A new poll for YouGov, carried out as part of a study with the University of Exeter, found that that nearly two-thirds (61%) of 18 to 30-year-olds said they were very unlikely to ever vote for Nigel Farage’s party.

Those asked were asked to rate on a scale of 0 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely) to say how likely they were to ever vote for each party.

The findings of the poll will be a blow to Farage, who has tried to broaden his appeal to younger voters, including via TikTok and on social media generally.

Yet HuffPost reports that ‘just 13% of the young voters under 30 gave Reform a score of 7 or higher’.

The University of Exeter’s Dr Stuart Fox said: “Reform’s aggressive social media strategy targets younger audiences with short-form videos and populist messaging.

“But just because young people see Reform’s content doesn’t mean they’re buying into it.

“In the year since the election, Labour has gone from dominating the youth vote to being in a three-way race with the Greens and Lib Dems. Reform, despite the headlines, isn’t even close – but that won’t worry the party.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn to found new Left-wing UK political party

Chris Jarvis 

July 2, 2025

Left Foot Forward

The two former Labour MPs are set to launch a new party

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BREAKING: Zarah Sultana has announced she is setting up a new political party with the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Sultana is a left wing MP who had the Labour whip suspended for voting for ending the two child benefit cap. She represents Coventry South.

In a statement posted on social media, Sultana said: “Today, after 14 years, I’m resigning from the Labour Party. Jeremy Corybn and I will co-leader the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country.”

Her statement concluded: “In 2029, the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism.

“Billionaires already have three parties fighting for them. It’s time the rest of us had one.”

Corbyn has yet to publicly confirm his involvement in the project. And despite Sultana’s claims, the Sunday Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund has posted on X: “I understand Jeremy Corbyn has not agreed to join the new left party with Zarah Sultana yet He is furious and bewildered at the way it has been launched without consultation.”

It is not yet clear which independent MPs Sultana is referring to who will be involved with the new political party.

However, it appears clear that John McDonnell (who is also sitting as an independent having had the Labour whip suspended) is not among them. He quoted Sultana’s post on X and said: “I am dreadfully sorry to lose Zarah from the Labour Party. The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave.”

The news has been evoking differing views on the left.

Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski (who is currently standing for the party ‘s leadership) said: “Anyone who wants to take on the Tories, Reform and this failing Labour government is a friend of mine. Looking forward to seeing what this looks like in practice.”

Labour MP David Taylor, meanwhile, said: “Went before she was kicked out, and good riddance”.

Labour NEC member Abdi Duale similarly posted on X: “Good riddance.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: UK Parliament – Creative Commons

Full list of UK Green Party leadership candidates revealed

Chris Jarvis

2 July, 2025 
 Left Foot Forward


Nine people are standing for the deputy leadership

Members of the Green Party of England and Wales will be electing a new leadership team this summer. While voting won’t open until August 1, nominations have now closed. And we now have a full list of candidates for both the party’s leadership and deputy leadership.

There are just two candidates in the running for the role of leader.

Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns are standing on a job share ticket. The pair are both MPs (for Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire respectively). Ramsay has also been co-leader of the party since 2021.

Their competition comes from Zack Polanski, the party’s current deputy leader. Polanski is also an elected member of the London Assembly.

If Ramsay and Chowns are elected as co-leaders, the party’s rulebook sets out that a single deputy leader will be elected. However, if Polanski is elected as a single leader, two deputy leaders will be elected, who must be of different genders to each other.

Despite the head to head race for the leadership, there are a whopping nine candidates for the deputy leadership.

The full list is as follows:Frank Adlington-Stringer (North East Derbyshire Councillor)
Mothin Ali (Leeds Councillor)
Thomas Daw (North Somerset Councillor)
Antoinette Fernandez (2024 Hackney North and Stoke Newington Parliamentary Candidate)
Alex Mace (Worcester Councillor)
Rachel Millward (Wealden Councillor)
Ash Routh (2024 Wakefield and Rothwell Parliamentary Candidate)
Ani Townsend (Bristol Councillor)
Chas Warlow (2024 Richmond Park Parliamentary Candidate)

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Matthew Phillip Long – Creative Commons

Keir “Sir U-Turn” Starmer on the Skids

Kenneth Surin

 July 1, 2025

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Photograph Source: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street – OGL

In a few days’ time the Labour party will be celebrating the first anniversary of its landslide 125-seat victory in the 2024 UK general election.

For now though there seems little to celebrate. Keir Starmer and his equally unappealing chancellor of the exchequer/finance minister Rachel Reeves have led Labour’s lurch from one U-Turn to another virtually from Day One. This is indicative of at least 2 things: (1) deficient policy-making; and (2) political antennae so defective they can’t pick up the political equivalent of an exploding megaton bomb.

When Labour has been in power historically, the UK’s overwhelmingly rightwing media has been quick to throw the muddy and hysterical “tax and spend” label at it in the hope that it will stick (a move certain Democrats in the US–  Zohran Mamdani in particular at this moment– will be thoroughly familiar with).

Anticipatory baulking at the likelihood of being called “tax and spenders” by the UK’s rightwing has pushed Starmer-Reeves into a corner.

Rather than taxing the rich to rescue a welfare system devastated by 14 years of Conservative austerity, a move consistently favoured in opinion polls, Starmer-Reeves have given paltry increases to a few welfare programmes while cutting several of the rest. They insist that their push for economic growth will create a supposedly prosperous UK that will then be able to fund a more ample welfare system. Understandably the public is not swayed by such nebulous imaginings about future “growth”.

Most of the Starmer-Reeves U-turns involve cuts to welfare that have had to be walked back. In the past month alone Starmer has U-turned on 3 occasions.

First, the government had axed in its 2024 Budget the one-time winter heating allowance of up to £300/$412 from 10 million pensioners, by turning what had been a universal policy into a means-tested one. The overall “savings” from this cruel measure were negligible, reflected in the U-turn’s cost of about £1.25bn/$1.70bn a year. It was Starmer’s holding out on rescinding this welfare cut for months, while committing to increased spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, rising to 5% of GDP in 2035, purely in order to conform to Trump’s diktat to NATO governments, that provoked the ire of Labour MPs. The increased defence spending will include bombers carrying nuclear weapons based in the UK for the first time since 1998— an obvious breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It was this abrupt military largesse that prompted his appalled MPs to pressure Starmer into making his U-turn on the winter heating allowance.

Starmer’s intransigence was said by his more diehard supporters to be a signal that Starmer-Reeves were prepared to be “tough” on limiting government spending, except of course when it came to the grovelling-before-Trump acquisition of new generation cyber weaponry.

Second, cuts were made to the Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which deprived 370,000 people of this support. The prospect of stroke victims unable to wash or dress themselves having budget cuts enacted on their backs was again too much for many Labour MPs—some of whom remarked pointedly that they did not enter politics to amplify the already wretched condition of the severely disabled. Also restored in this U-turn was the income of all those receiving the health element of Universal Credit, cuts which affected 2.2 million people.

 In the short term, Starmer and Reeves need £5bn/$7bn “savings” a year to balance the books and avoid increased borrowing, pleading that they inherited a £22bn/$30bn fiscal “black hole” from the previous Tory government which Labour now has to fix. This “black hole” was not mentioned when Starmer announced the massive boost to military spending. The recently abandoned benefits cuts were however said at the time to be a vital part of the financial and social “reforms” needed to deal with the Tory fiscal incontinence inherited by Labour. The U-turns on these “reforms” will certainly incur increased borrowing and/or taxation in the government’s Autumn Budget. Starmer has deferred such decisions until that Budget is announced in a few months’ time (October to be precise).

Another U-turn by Starmer involved the decision to hold a national inquiry into the child grooming gangs which prey on vulnerable teenage girls in a number of northern English cities (the police jurisdictions of Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire were mentioned in a report by Baroness Louise Casey which highlighted significant institutional failures in protecting children from sexual predation).

For months Starmer had dismissed calls for a such a national inquiry, arguing the issue had already been examined in a seven–year inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay. The matter is sensitive because the police had found a disproportionate numbers of men of Asian ethnicity (primarily Pakistani) among those arrested for group-based child sexual exploitation. The UK anti-immigrant far right is always willing to exploit such issues when it comes to stereotyping and marginalizing immigrant communities. Perhaps out of fear of being accused of  racism the organizations tasked with protecting children at risk from predation did not take these data about two-thirds of offenders being Asian into account during investigations.

Louise Casey said in a later interview that the data should be investigated as it was “only helping the bad people” not to give a full picture of the situation, before she went on to say: “You’re doing a disservice to two sets of population, the Pakistani and Asian heritage community, and victims”.

Whatever his motives, Starmer’s delaying over the child exploitation scandal has done nothing to detract from the “too little, too late” image that has been pinned on to him. Starmer has sunk precipitously in opinion polls, with Labour losing a lot of potential voters to the far-right Reform UK led by Nigel Farage.

Starmer made his U-turns in the hope this would dissuade some of the 126 Labour MPs – about a quarter of the parliamentary party – who signed up to a wrecking amendment that could bring down the government’s Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. A vote on the crucial second reading of the bill is due next Tuesday, and these MPs argue that the amended bill is still not good enough to merit their support. In particular they object to Starmer’s refusal to remove the two-child cap on child benefit imposed by the Tories when in power, and a restriction Starmer-Reeves place on the PIP allowance despite their U-turn, that is, the proviso that only those currently in receipt of PIP will benefit from its restoration—once Starmer’s bill becomes law, future PIP claimants will have their allowances reduced in line with the stricter eligibility rules of the originally intended bill. This results in what critics say will be an unjust two-tier welfare system based not on need but on the vagaries of time affecting the onset of one’s disability. Hence a quadriplegic parent disabled as a result of an accident on a construction site currently receiving PIP will benefit from the U-turn, but their child who becomes a quadriplegic from a car accident (say) after Starmer’s bill becomes law will suffer from the cut to PIP. Same disability, but discrepant benefit outcomes, so as the French would say: quelle justice!

Part of the blame for such chaotic stumbles are laid at the feet of Starmer’s Rasputin-like chief of staff, the Blairite Morgan McSweeney. It was McSweeney who masterminded Starmer’s coup in the party leadership race after Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation. It may be recalled that Starmer campaigned on upholding Labour’s election manifesto proposals (which were popular with the party membership) before dumping this commitment as soon as he was voted leader. McSweeney, behind the scenes, then orchestrated Starmer’s purge of the party’s social democrats. Quite simply: Starmer was campaigning on a false prospectus, in effect promising “Corbynism without Corbyn” before switching to outright Blairism when elected leader.

McSweeney was also one of the brains marshalling those Blairites who had sabotaged Corbyn at Labour HQ, after Corbyn came near to winning the 2017 general election, into his shadowy anti-left organization Labour Together. These Blairites had connived with a vicious rightwing-media character assassination of Corbyn, accusing him of antisemitism for being pro-Palestinian and being a former eastern bloc spy (even the BBC threw its weight behind the latter). But McSweeney found these Corbyn saboteurs to be good company in a move that matched any Trotskyite vanguardist infiltration of mainstream political parties.

Starmer, who is said by many who know him to have no real political convictions while red-hot with ambition, was not associated initially with McSweeney’s Labour Together. However Starmer, now on the verge of being a veritable Trojan Horse, was promoted by them to give the appearance of “continuity Corbynism” before espousing Blairism as soon as he was elected. This is amply documented in the book Get In: the Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

With the rise of Nigel Farage in the polls, seemingly at Starmer’s expense (Labour now has a 6-point poll deficit behind Farage’s Reform), Starmer has started to steal Farage’s racist and anti-immigrant electoral clothes, apparently at McSweeney’s instigation.

In May Starmer gave a speech about cutting immigration in which he said the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers” as a result of immigration. Starmer’s speech echoed the notorious “rivers of blood” speech delivered in 1968 by the anti-immigrant Tory MP Enoch Powell, a classics professor in a previous life, who referenced “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”, when voicing his feverish anxieties about immigration.

In typical fashion Starmer retracted his racist speech. In an interview published in the Observer newspaper Starmer said: “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell.

“I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either.

“But that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it”.

Oh dear, Starmer shows in these remarks how shockingly ignorant he is about the UK’s recent political history, and in any event he needs to give his speechwriters the boot, given that they were almost certainly drawn from the McSweeney operation.

The indication here is that Labour and Starmer are torn between 2 opposing electoral strategies.

On the one hand is the McSweeney approach designed to peel-off Labour voters who might defect to Nigel Farage. On the other is a broader strategy, said to be favored by the influential centre-right Labour minister Pat McFadden, which opts for an appeal to the national electorate instead of attracting those who might move to Farage in a general election.

For now the McSweeney strategy prevails with the ambitious leader lacking in political principles. However, if Labour continues to sink in the political ratings, its MPs may decide that Starmer is not up to the job. It is rumoured he’s been given a year to sort things out. Who knows what will happen, least of all the endlessly irresolute Starmer?

At the same time Labour lacks even the merest critique of capital, has no intention of deepening democracy by backing proportional representation, and refuses to take seriously the fucking of our planet as the despoliation of the environment and nature are given free rein.

Labour’s position is dire, and not just electorally. The only improvement for it on the horizon is getting rid of Starmer and his spectral eminence grise Morgan McSweeney.

Some of us who recall a better Labour still live in hope.

Kenneth Surin teaches at Duke University, North Carolina.  He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Why did the UK government botch the benefits bill so badly?

Helen Goodman 

2 July, 2025 
Left Foot Forward

Social security reform cannot pick up the pieces of policy failure elsewhere.

Helen Goodman was a Labour MP from 2005-19 and DWP Minister in Gordon Brown’s government. Helen now chairs Church Action on Poverty and is a Trustee at Z2K.

Just how did the government botch the Benefits Bill so badly? A question many of us have been asking. I think it’s because they’ve been insufficiently strategic. Social security reform cannot pick up the pieces of policy failure elsewhere.

Undoubtedly there are serious problems: the fact that one young person in eight is not in employment, education or training; that the cost of working age disability benefits is doubling in ten years; that the work capability assessment is a process many people find hard to negotiate with a high degree of failure. And the public finances are under strain while growth has stagnated. Treating the sick and disabled with dignity and compassion and rebuilding the public finances both matter, but, at least in the short term, they conflict.

The Chancellor has been emphasising the need to stick to her “fiscal rules”. Critics point to the way Chancellor Merz just increased his commitment to spend on defence, but Germany is in a totally different position from the UK- our government debt is now 100% of GDP- theirs is 60%, So our borrowing costs and interest rates could shoot up if there was a big unfunded relaxation. My 16 years in the Treasury have taught me that markets can turn nasty quickly.

But there’s also a political element to this- Britain has a population of 66m, currently, only 34m of us are in work. Every person in work has to produce enough to keep another person. Will these people continue to willingly pay taxes for the other half of the population- with the pressures on them of inflation and housing costs? Unless action is taken this will worsen- we have an ageing population: our inactivity levels have not recovered since Covid; immigration is unpopular with some sectors of the community. Tackling the underlying problems is a far better way to innoculate people against voting Reform than moving onto their territory.

So, can we reframe the issues to make them easier to resolve? It helps to consider that we have three quite different groups of people. First, 18-24 year olds with mental health problems- they have lost hope, they are out of work, they get depressed. Second we have people in their late 50’s and 60’s who have spent a lifteime doing manual work- the cleaner with arthritis in her knee, the HGV driver with back problems- they’ve always worked and paid in, but now the only work they’re trained to do is impossible. And thirdly we have people with lifelong disabilities and chronic conditions. Surely it doesn’t make sense to shove them all through one system? This is a bureacratic aprroach which seeks to make the people fit the system rather than the system fit the people.

Perhaps we can make more progress taking a holistic approach for each group.

First the young -with them despair and worklessness are intertwined. This matters, because they will carry a scarred youth through their life- the sooner it’s tackled the better. Changing the relative benefit rates and thus incentives between UC and UC plus the health element is surely right and that does mean cutting one to raise the other, but this is only ever going to be a small part of the story.

I don’t understand how much of the newly announced £1bn employment scheme will be spent on this group, but I was astonished to see that last year DWP put only £45m into “pilot” youth guarantee schemes. This is wholly inadequate, perhaps enough for 10,000. The Government should have a much bigger scheme up and running by now. In 2009 the last Labour Government launched a £1 billion Future Jobs Fund- we got it running in 6 months and it created 100,000 opportunities which grew to 200,000 till the Tories axed it. In my opinion the biggest mistake the government has made was the employers’ National Insurance increase, in particular cutting the lower earnings level- the point at which NICs kicked in. At a stroke they increased the costs of employing the lowest earners by 25%! I remain incredulous that they didn’t understand the employment impacts which are now working through as small businesses stop recruitment, some shed labour and the supermarkets speed up the introduction of those infuriating swipe machines at the checkout. These are the very entry level jobs young people need.

But a holistic approach means more- it means not flinching from regulating social media which draws people into an addiction to spending hours doom scrolling. It means sorting CAMHS-( I know this is underway-it is desperately needed) and it means reversing the horrendous cuts to Further Education. I know everyone thinks we’ve got to keep pouring money into universities’ R&D as the “future”, but we need to think about the 50% of young people who don’t go to university and the huge skills shortages we have in construction; net zero and social care. We need to tie together these missions- into a bigger picture- a bigger story and give informed careers advice

For older manual workers whose bodies can no longer take the strain of physical labour and irregular hours, it might be possible with some careful, supportive tailored help to retrain a proportion of this group, but punishing them with low benefits to incentivise them in communities where vacancies are few is wrong. Ten years ago when the Chancellor was Shadow DWP Secretary , I suggested to her that we restructure the old age pension so that everyone paid in for the same number of years instead of all retiring at the same age. Thus if you left school at 16 -in which case you’d be far more likely to do manual work- you might work to say 61, but if you had a degree and an office job you’d also work 45 years to 66. This would map onto the all too familiar health inequalities. She dismissed this out of hand as completely impractical. I don’t know why. Of course the Government Actuary would have to work out the detail, but it is the system the French operate and seems much fairer to me. Imagine if we had it now – some of what looks in our stats like inactivity would be what it truly is- retirement.

And then we have the third group- the group for whom PIP and was primarily designed- people with disabilities and chronic conditions. My heart sank when I saw Liz Kendall had employed Prof Paul Gregg as an adviser- for it was he who designed the work capability assessment and the dreaded descriptors in the first place. He was hardly likely to advise junking them and so we came to the inane proposal simply to change the number of points. The Timms review working alongside the disability sector holds far more hope of a good solution. The DWP orthodoxy is that the cost of admin should be minimised so money is spent on claimants- for example Child Benefit is ideal- one standard payment every year for 18 years. But in the case of people with disabilities a more personalised approach would make sense to assess needs for support whether through income, facilities grants or care, perhaps even coordinating with health and local authorities. This would cost more upfront, but it might save money in the medium term and it would certainly serve disabled people better.

What I have said here does involve spending money in the short term, I have written elsewhere about how we could shift to taxing capital and raise £35bn, but that is another story.

CANADA

Major indie band to pull all music from Spotify over founder’s links to defence firm

Chris Jarvis 

1 July, 2025 
t Left Foot Forward


"We don't want our music killing people"

A major indie band has announced it is removing its music from Spotify over the news that the streaming giant’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s investment firm has made major investments in the defence company Helsing.

Deerhoof – who have toured with the likes of Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Flaming Lips and Beck – made the announcement on their Instagram account on June 30.

In that post, the band said: “We’re taking Deerhoof off Spotify.

“”Daniel Ek uses $700 million of his Spotify fortune to become chairman of AI battle tech company” was not a headline we enjoyed reading this week. We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our successes being tied to AI battle tech.”

The statement went on to say: “Ai battle tech is clearly emerging as the hot new big ticket item for the super rich. It’s increasingly clear that the military and police exist primarily as the security detail for the billionaire class. The more of the killing you can get computers to do, the better your bottom line.”

Later, the band said: “Spotify is flushing itself down the toilet. Eventually artists will want to leave this already widely hated data-mining scam masquerading as a “music company.””

Helsing is a defence firm involved in producing military drones and artificial intelligence for battle scenarios.

According to data from Spotify, Derhoof have over 100,000 monthly listeners on the platform.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: ronaiandras – Creative Commons