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Thursday, October 03, 2024

Starmer kills off Leveson two

I am currently reading James O'Brien's book 'How they broke Britain' in which he recounts how David Cameron was reported to have met with Rupert Murdoch's executives on 26 separate occasions during his first 15 months in office, while Gordon Brown and Tony Blair also worked assidiously to woo the media magnate.

Despite this chumminess, Cameron couldn't avoid setting up the Leveson Inquiry following the revelation that missing school girl, Milly Dowler's voicemail had been hacked by journalists working for the News of the World. 

However, none of the legislation needed to fulfil Leveson's recommendations ever materialised, while Leveson 2, which was goimg to investigate clandestine relationships and inappropriate connections between the police and journalists was finally buried by the 2017 Conservative election manifesto.

Effectively, all that evidence and work by the inquiry has disappeared into the ether, leaving litle changed in the way the media operates, the abuses and the close relationship between leading politicians and the so-called independent organisations that are meant to scrutinise them on our behalf. But wait, we have a new government, or do we?

The Guardian reports that Keir Starmer has dismayed press regulation campaigners by confirming he has no plans to revive the second part of the Leveson inquiry into the British newspaper industry.

The paper says that the prime minister told reporters on Thursday that other issues would take precedence: “We set out in our manifesto our programme for action for this government. We’ve laid that out in the king’s speech. That clearly sets out our priorities and the second half of Leveson is not among them":

Labour and News UK have declined to comment on claims that he reached an understanding before the election with the Murdoch family’s News UK, owner of the Times and the Sun, to avoid restarting the public inquiry.

Hacked Off, which campaigns for tougher press regulation, accused him of lacking the courage to stand up to newspaper owners: “Sir Keir Starmer promised a government of integrity. He cannot achieve that while failing to commit to proceeding with an unfinished inquiry into mass criminality across the most powerful industry in the country.”

The first part of Lord Leveson’s inquiry into press ethics took place more than a decade ago, in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World. After newspaper editors and victims of press intrusion were called to give evidence during 2011 and 2012, the high court judge produced a series of largely unfulfilled recommendations on how to regulate British newspapers.

The second part of the inquiry was due to examine the relationship between the media and the police, but was put on hold until the conclusion of a series of ongoing criminal investigations. This part – dubbed Leveson 2 – was then permanently cancelled by Matt Hancock, then culture secretary, in 2018 after lobbying from News UK, despite strong parliamentary backing for another inquiry.

Jeremy Corbyn pledged to revive the inquiry when he was Labour leader. But Starmer, who led the unsuccessful criminal prosecution of News UK boss Rebekah Brooks, has softened his party’s stance on press regulation. The Sun and the Sunday Times endorsed the Labour party ahead of the general election.
Everything has changed but nothing has changed, and it is the public who are the losers.
# posted by Peter Black : 6:00 AM  0 comments

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

Breeding for Britain

Tory Party conferences always have an air of unreality about them, especially when they take place in the middle of a leadership election, but rarely do they jump the shark and get as surreal as the current gathering of right wingers has managed this week.

If people thought Kemi Badenoch was off the wall in telling an interviewer that maternity pay is “excessive” and people should exercise “more personal responsibility", then clearly they should have paid more attention to what followed.

The London Economic website reports that a Conservative Party panel has discussed how to persuade women to “breed for Britain”:

According to Bylines Times reporter Adam Bienkov, a fringe meeting on immigration touched upon the matter of declining birth rates in the UK as they debated how to “grow more” social care workers.

It comes just hours after Kemi Badenoch, one of the leading candidates to replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party, suggested maternity pay was “excessive” in the UK and should be reconsidered in order to cut taxation.
I suppose asking people to have more sex to curb immigration is an improvement on the usual solurions that come from these gatherings. We just have to avoid thinking about them doing it.
# posted by Peter Black : 6:00 AM  1 comments

Tuesday, October 01, 2024

Fracking hell

Just when you thought that fracking was dead and buried in the UK, the Tories are proposing to revive the controversial method of drilling for gas.

The Guardian reports that senior Conservatives are considering pushing for a lifting of the moratorium on fracking in England to become party policy.

The paper says that Conservatives have criticised the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, for Labour’s election pledge to end new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, and some are mooting a return to experimenting with drilling onshore for gas in an effort to lower energy bills:

There has been a moratorium on fracking in England since 2019 because of earthquakes caused by the method. Experts say extracting gas from shale would take years, is far less accessible than once thought and would do little to reduce energy bills. To frack, shale rocks, containing tiny pockets of methane, are blasted with a mixture of sand, water and chemicals to create fissures through which the gas can escape, to be siphoned off at the surface.

Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy minister, is supporting the shadow housing minister, Kemi Badenoch, in the leadership race. He said the next Tory leader should bring back fracking.

“I do support fracking,” he told a fringe event at the conference. “I represent an oil and gas constituency that is dependent in its entirety on the oil and gas industry. The experts will tell you that they are already fracking in the North Sea. I know it isn’t currently party policy to frack but I don’t know what Kemi will do on it.”

The shadow energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, suggested she would back lifting the moratorium, telling the Guardian: “What I am backing is cheap energy no matter where it comes from. If there is evidence that fracking would provide cheap energy then we would look at it. But I think what everyone wants is low bills and cheap energy and we won’t rule anything out.”

Badenoch did not rule it out: “I am not laying out specific policies yet, but I know there are colleagues who want to lift the moratorium and we will discuss policies at a later stage.”

The issue is hugely controversial among the public and in the Tory party because of the disruption to communities caused by fracking, including earthquakes. It also counteracts pledges to reduce oil and gas use in the UK.

The former prime minister Liz Truss tried to bring back fracking during her short-lived tenure and a chaotic vote on the matter is seen as one of the reasons for the collapse of her government. Shortly after her administration fell, her successor, Rishi Sunak, confirmed he would keep the moratorium, and that remains Conservative policy.
Essentially then, the Tories are trying to recover support by adopting a policy that is deeply unpopular in the affected communities, that mines a greenhouse gas and thus is environmentally unsound, and which is supported by Liz Truss. What could possibly go wrong.
# posted by Peter Black : 6:00 AM  2 comments

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