Thousands demonstrate against austerity in London

A march in London against austerity and for a socialist alternative congregated at Portland Place today at midday.

Several thousand rallied and set off at around 1pm down Regent Street and on to Parliament Square.

The march represented a wide cross section of British society including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Jews.

The cry that often could be heard on this intentionally anti-austerity march was “Free Palestine” and indeed there were many Palestinian flags on display.

Zarah Sultana MP spoke at the Parliament Square rally, lending support to a 15% rise in nurses wages.

The march passed off peacefully and in good humour.

Johnny Mercer comments on the current Overseas Operations Bill

Johnny Mercer, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State and Minister for Defence People and Veterans has responded to enquiries about the Overseas Operations Bill currently going through the House of Lords to say:

“The UK remains committed to upholding international humanitarian and human rights law, including the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT). The UK does not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture for any purpose, and we remain committed to maintaining our leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. None of the measures in the Bill will erode the law or prevent the MOD from being held to account.

We will continue to take offences such as war crimes and torture extremely seriously. The Bill does not prevent investigations from taking place and prosecutors will continue to have discretion on whether to prosecute for criminal offences - including torture and war crimes - following an investigation, on the basis of the evidence and the circumstances of the case, and whether a prosecution would be in the public interest. We have included the "triple lock" of criminal measures in the Bill in order to give service personnel and veterans greater certainty that the unique pressures placed on them during overseas operations will be taken into account when decisions are being made about whether to prosecute for alleged historical offences. But it is important to note that the Bill does not act as a pardon, amnesty or statute of limitations, and any allegations of criminal offences will continue to be investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.”

The Bill has still yet to be ratified in its current form.

The Overseas Operations Bill continues its reading in the Lords

The Overseas Operations Bill is at its second reading in the House of Lords, at this point there is nothing the British public can do to stop its passing.

It hasn't reached the Committee stages yet, so it still isn't ratified in its original form.

In its original form it is alleged it provides a level of immunity for torture and war crimes, though Ben Wallace, the defence secretary denies that it will contravene the aims of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Liberty is very critical of this bill and have been following its passage through the houses very closely, as are many MPs now.

Labour came out strongly against the bill in its third reading in the House of Commons.

Everything now rests in the hands of the unelected second chamber.

Letter sent to Government over child food poverty

More than 50 public health directors, sector experts and healthcare professionals sent a letter  to Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock calling on Government to allocate additional funding to the Healthy Start scheme, which supports low-income families. 

The letter urges government to increase the value of the voucher to £4.25 a week. 

The value of Healthy Start vouchers has not increased since 2009.  

The letter addresses one of three key recommendations from the National Food Strategy and footballer Marcus Rashford’s #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign, alongside expansion of Free School Meals and holiday food provision. 

It is also part of Marcus Rashford’s petition, which more than 1 million people have signed to date. 

The Healthy Start scheme provides pregnant women and low-income families in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with children under four with free vitamins and food vouchers to purchase vegetables, fruit, pulses and milk. 

The letter urges the government to act as well as businesses. 

The letter asks to put £115 million/year of additional funding towards improving the Healthy Start scheme by implementing the recommendations proposed in Part One of the National Food Strategy:  

• Increase the value of Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 per week
• Expand the scheme to every pregnant woman and household with children under four in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefits 
• Fund a communications campaign costing £5 million 

“£3.10 is not a lot, it’s better than nothing of course, but a higher value would make a difference. If we had £4.25 a week from Healthy Start we could buy milk which would help, and more fruit and veg. It’s enough for a week, but only for one child and I have three.” Carolina, Southwark Healthy Start recipient

For the original article on this issue click here.

Marcus Rashford MBE petition hits 1 million

The petition to end child poverty started by Marcus Rashford's food foundation has hit 1 million signatures.

They are bringing growing pressure on the government to U-turn on the decision to vote against free school meals.

Anna Taylor, Executive Director of the Food Foundation said: "The petition shows just how many citizens want a lasting solution to child hunger.  

The Government must act without delay and implement the three recommendations in the National Food Strategy."

A number of establishments have already banned prominent Conservative MPs from their businesses for voting against the proposed bill to provide meals over the half-term.

Over 1000 organisations have also registered on the www.kidsmealsmap.co.uk designed to support families and show the businesses, local authorities and  community organisations who are providing free meals to vulnerable children over the October half term.  

The Food Foundation are also hoping that MP’s use it as an opportunity to visit projects in their local area who are on the front line in food provision to the most vulnerable families.

Link to petition: here

For the original article on this petition click here.

Tough new restrictions to hit London

London is entering “a short” tier two lockdown.

This means bars and restaurants for larger groups will be severely restricted, as households can’t mix in them.

Journeys should be reduced and indoor exercising is only allowed if household mixing can be avoided.

Single person households can bubble.

Schools, universities and places of worship can stay open.

So we can learn and we can pray, but we can’t socialise.

This really should be short, we don’t all pray.

However, Liverpool and Scotland have been enduring restrictions worse than this for longer.

Restrictions come into place tonight at midnight.

Marcus Rashford MBE launches petition on child food poverty

Marcus Rashford MBE, the Manchester United England International Footballer has today launched a Parliamentary Petition, calling on the General Public to pledge support to #endchildfoodpoverty. 

He has petitioned the government once before to U-turn on their decision to withdraw free school meals vouchers over the summer.

Marcus Rashford said: “Child food poverty in the UK is not a result of COVID-19.

In 2020, no child in the UK should be going to bed hungry, nor should they be sat in classrooms concerned about how their younger siblings are going to eat that day.”

He is asking for the government to commission three vital recommendations from the Government commissioned National Food Strategy:

Expansion of free school meals to every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 1.5 million 7-16 year olds.

Expansion of holiday provision (food and activities) to support all children on free school meals, reaching an additional 1.1 million children.

Increasing the value of the Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 per week (from £3.10) and expanding into all those on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 290,000 pregnant women and children under the age of four.

The #endchildfoodpoverty campaign is supported by the Child Food Poverty Task Force which was formed by Marcus Rashford, a further 20 charities and key names in the food industry. 

Data released by the Food Foundation today reveals 18% of 8-17 year olds (1.4 million children) reported experiences of food insecurity over the summer holidays.

6.3% of children said they were worried about going hungry during the October half term.

Rising numbers of families are struggling with an 11% (850,000) of children aged 8-17 reporting that either they or their families had visited a foodbank in the summer holidays.  This was over 60% higher in non–white British ethnic groups.

Link to petition here.

Covert Human Intelligence Bill passes the Commons

The Covert Human Intelligence Bill passed the House of Commons yesterday with a vote of 182 votes to 20.

A number of Labour MPs broke the whip to provide opposition to the bill.

Nadia Whittome has said in a statement that: “The Bill is a licence for the intelligence agencies to authorise its agents to commit even the most serious of crimes with immunity from prosecution.”

Two Plaid Cymru and one SDLP member stood in opposition alongside the Labour rebels.

Read the full debate.

Full details of the voting break down here.

The bill is yet to be ratified.

Commons passes bill critics say will breach international law

The Commons has voted to pass the Overseas Operations Bill, a bill that would allow British soldiers to escape prosecution for war crimes and torture.

A group of MPs led by Jeremy Corbyn defied the Labour Whip over the bill and as the Guardian has reported three MPs are no longer on the front bench as a result.

Freedom From Torture has shared Sonia Sceats’s, associate fellow in the International Law programme at Chatham House, tweet saying this is “disgraceful” and it “isn’t over”.

This move has been criticised by a British soldier and Shami Chakrabarti among others.

This is a damaging prospective blow to justice and challenges the aims of the UN Declaration on Human Rights.

This bill still isn’t yet ratified.

Extinction Rebellion Demonstration

Extinction Rebellion amassed at three o’clock outside the Bank of England to commence a Walk of Shame around the city.

Black Lives Matter activists were in attendance as well to speak to the assembled roughly 500 strong crowd of mainly white faces.

Chants of no justice, no peace were raised and there was a sign reading only in peaceful states is peaceful activism a crime.

During the rally outside the Bank of England a passer by cried “get a job losers”.

Undeterred the protesters went on to cry “check your privilege”.

They walked on to the Lloyds building to highlight the Lloyds historical profits made from slavery before singing Power to the People.

By this time seven police vans had amassed to follow the protesters.

By the time they reached the London Wall police started arrests, there were only two in total, seemingly for sitting down. 

The claim being made for arrests were they were being made under Covid restrictions.

Covid-19 now restricts gatherings of over 30 people.

Grade snobbery

As I suspected snobbery has worked its way into this year’s grading system.

See this tweet from Emily Pettite.

Keir Starmer has waded in to say: “Something has obviously gone horribly wrong with this year’s exam results.

Nearly 40% of young people have had their grades marked down and that’s thousands of young people whose opportunities could have been dashed.” 

Just because a school has performed badly in the past doesn’t mean it will always do so and students can beat the odds.

Black power rises again

Lewis Hamilton gave the black power salute at the Syrian Grand Prix this weekend.

It is interesting that he is doing it only now and not choosing to kneel.

Kneeling was the gesture favoured by Martin Luther King, while the fist in the air (black power salute) was popularised by the Black Panthers and Malcolm X.

Hamilton has said he is committed to fighting racism, full article here.

However, the salute he is choosing, though perhaps more powerful than kneeling, is attached to a violent and at times racist movement.

So what am I saying!

Simply that I hope Lewis Hamilton hasn’t fallen in with reactionary Black is best politics, as the Black Panthers sometimes suggest.

He is a symbol of black achievement and that in itself is a powerful force against racism, it could be argued he no longer has to put his fist in the air, but maybe he feels he does.

Cummings and Goings

Boris Johnson is insisting that Dominic Cummings acted legally in travelling 30 miles to a tourist town during lockdown.

The Prime Minister defended Cummings in saying he had special family considerations.

Labour's Shadow Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, Sarah Jones, pointed to the fact that single mums do not feel the need in the main to break these lockdown rules.

Dominic Cummings seems like Peter Mandelson able to keep a grip on power, despite countless transgressions.

He is possibly just too useful to Tory HQ, for them to worry about piddling little rules they have set for the whole country...

At the time of writing 108,287 people had signed a Change.org petition calling for his resignation.

Written sourcing the BBC and The Observer.

NHS Privatisation

Even as we clap the NHS the Tories are making plans to privatise it.

In a worrying new article TruePublica exposes Boris Johnson’s plans to privatise the NHS.

His stay in hospital clearly didn’t convince him of the benefits of a publicly run, publicly funded NHS; I mean they only saved his life.

We clearly need to do more than clap in these dark times.

Write to your MPs, tell them how much a publicly funded health service means to you.

Let’s not slide into the American model, Obama wanted to change it for a reason.

Antisemitism in the Labour Party

Momentum have accused Labour of sweeping antisemitism under the carpet, by postponing an investigation into a report into antisemitism in the party.

They have looked at the report already and report member’s not being expelled for displaying anti Semitic beliefs, in some cases members were holocaust deniers.

Momentum believe that whatever your political stripe in the Labour Party you should always stand up to antisemitism.

I am saddened at reports of antisemitism in the Labour Party, as I have always believed it to be an inclusive and multicultural political party.

I hope under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the Labour Party purges these anti Semitic members and moves forward to be the inclusive and forward thinking party I believe it to be.

Boris to be PM

Boris Johnson has been voted leader of the Conservative party, so he is set to replace Theresa May as PM.

He was congratulated in his win by none other than Donald Trump, proving all buffoons flock together.

He has promised Brexit by October and is willing to have no deal.

I for one hope Brexit never comes and I’m not looking forward to years under Boris.