The British public should realise that Muslim scapegoats today, much like the Jewish, Irish or Black scapegoats used by demagogues yesterday, are not their enemies
Archiv: the British People
How many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed by UK arms?
Great picture of #UCU banners with trade unionists for #Palestine on Saturday’s #CEASEFIRE_NOW march in London. #Gaza
(10.12.2023)
Another absolutely huge demonstration in London for #Palestine. Stretching all the way from Bank to Whitehall! Sunak, Starmer and co listen up: we will continue to march until there‘s a ceasefire and justice for the Palestinians.
(November 9, 2023)
Huge majority oppose UK Government policy and support Israel/Hamas ceasefire – poll
(Oct 19, 2023)
Israel-Palestine war: UK poll finds 76 percent want an immediate ceasefire
(19.10.2023)
Only eight percent of respondents said there shouldn‘t be a ceasefire with 16 percent saying they didn‘t know.
The poll was conducted on 19 October by UK-based YouGov polling company and surveyed 2,685 adults.
Signal will leave the UK if the current version of the Online Safety Bill becomes law, says the company’s president
(01.09.2023)
„You know, the long-standing technical consensus, and this goes back before the 90s, but really flared up in the 90s during the first iteration of what we call the crypto wars, where you had the US government wanting backdoors into encryption algorithms. And the vast majority, I would say, of the technical community showing over and over again that technologically, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have a backdoor that only the good guys can access. Either it’s broken for everyone, or it works to preserve meaningful privacy.“
Taxpayer to hand over £150bn to Bank of England to cover QE losses
According to a quarterly report by the Bank on its asset purchase facility – the vehicle it uses to hoover up UK debt on financial markets – losses from bond purchases are poised to balloon by the early 2030s.
After the 2008 financial crisis, the Bank of England started purchasing UK government and corporate debt from financial institutions in an effort to stimulate the economy by pushing down yields.
UK government faces £150bn bill to cover Bank of England’s QE losses
(25.07.2023)
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Today is the biggest day of strike action in the history of the NHS. My question to those in positions of leadership: what side of history do you want to be on?
(06.02.2023)
Donate to support striking workers
As UNISON members continue to take strike action, the union is asking for donations to its strike fund
NHS Strikes: Nottingham NHS staff say ‘enough is enough after 10 years of below-inflation pay’
Nottingham NHS staff taking part in the biggest strike in the history of the service say they are suffering a ‘huge’ impact on their mental health because of their jobs.
Hundreds of nurses, healthcare assistants and clinicians took to picket lines across Nottinghamshire alongside paramedics, technicians, call handlers and other staff working for East Midlands Ambulance Service.
Upcoming strikes in Edinburgh as firefighters and teaching staff take industrial action
Here are the main public service strikes planned for the coming months, and the dates that these unions will be staging industrial action across Edinburgh.
Workers stage largest strike in history of Britain‘s health service
Nurses and ambulance workers have been striking separately since late last year but Monday‘s walkout involving both, largely in England, is the biggest in the 75-year history of the NHS.
Nurses will also walk out on Tuesday, ambulance staff on Friday, and physiotherapists Thursday, making the week probably the most disruptive in NHS history, its Medical Director Stephen Powis said.
UK could be moving towards de facto general strike as unions promise co-ordinated action
Union leaders have previously argued that walkouts by staff across multiple sectors would constitute a de facto general strike, the like of which has not been seen in the UK since 1926.
Only the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has the power to call a general strike, though its legality remains unclear after laws were tightened in the 80s.
The umbrella organisation which represents the majority of trade unions in the UK has a total of around 5.5million members.
Liz Truss’s legacy is going to be an answer nobody can quite remember in pub quizzes of the future. Wee floatin robot landlord in the Future Pub goes “who was PM for about 20 minutes when Queen Elizabeth died?” and we’re all going to scratch our microchips like “ahhh waaait…”
Tory MP ‚submits letter‘ calling for Liz Truss confidence vote amid backbench rebellion
The unnamed member of the parliamentary Conservative party told Bloomberg political editor Kitty Donaldson that they had handed in their letter to the 1922 committee on Sunday night.
While Tory MPs say letters have been going in for more than a week, this may be the first report of an MP personally admitting they have sent one themself.
Current rules give Liz Truss until next September before she can be ousted – but these could be changed by MPs.
Rebel Tories demand MORE U-turns on ‚mini-Budget‘ after plan to axe top 45p tax rate is ditched: Liz Truss CANCELS visit as ‚contrite‘ Kwasi Kwarteng vows he WON‘T quit ahead of crunch speech – while PM‘s ally says he warned Chancellor of market meltdown
– Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng backtracked amid threat of losing Commons vote
Tony Blair drängt auf digitale ID in Großbritannien
Ein Bericht des „Tony Blair Instituts for Global Change“ empfiehlt die Implementierung der digitalen ID, um die Probleme rund um illegale Einwanderung in Großbritannien „zu lösen“. Damit solle das „Asylproblem“ gelöst werden, wie es im Bericht heißt.
Nadine Dorries says Boris Johnson should remain in post because „the donors have spoken“.
(06.06.2022)
What about the will of the people?
New snap poll from @OpiniumResearch shows 59% think Tory MPs should vote to remove Johnson as leader today
‘Anyone but Boris’ majority could doom the Tories to electoral oblivion
Nightmare scenario of tactical voting could put several Cabinet ministers’ majorities at risk, including the Prime Minister’s
The country would be better off’: senior Tories urge Boris Johnson to quit
Ex-leader Michael Howard among Conservatives to call for resignation after byelection catastrophes
Britischer Premier unter Druck: Rückschläge – doch Johnson will bleiben
Und im südwestenglischen Devon, im Wahlkreis Tiverton und Honiton, errangen die Liberaldemokraten einen deutlichen Sieg in einem Wahlkreis, den die Konservativen seit mehr als 100 Jahren innehatten. Der neue „Lib Dem“-Abgeordnete Richard Foord erklärte, es sei Zeit für Premierminister Boris Johnson zu gehen:
Im ganzen Land schalten die Liberaldemokraten die Konservativen aus und gewinnen. Menschen, die ihr Leben lang konservativ gewählt haben, sind abgestoßen von Boris Johnsons Lügen und haben die Nase voll.
Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelensky cheered on Kyiv walkabout
Try walking about in a British city Johnson and see how many cheers you get
Nadine Dorries says Boris Johnson should remain in post because „the donors have spoken“.
What about the will of the people?
New snap poll from @OpiniumResearch shows 59% think Tory MPs should vote to remove Johnson as leader today
Boris Johnson’s ‘partygate’ fine will see him punished at the ballot box
According to a snap poll by YouGov, 57 per cent of British adults think Mr Johnson should resign for breaching the Covid rules. The same proportion also now want his Treasury protege to follow suit.
The Chancellor will be especially disheartened to discover that while 25 per cent of Tory voters want rid of Mr Johnson, the figure rises to 30 per cent when it comes to his own future in the party.
Rishi Sunak announcement: Every measure the Chancellor has unveiled to tackle the cost of living crisis today
Speaking to MPs in the Commons this morning, the Chancellor announced a £9bn support package of loans and tax relief, including a £200 energy rebate for every British household in October.
It comes as the energy regulator confirmed this morning that the price cap on energy bills for 22m households will jump by 54 per cent from April to about £2,000 a year because of soaring gas costs.
Our acceptance of a mass lock-in is more dangerous than any party
Let’s put aside for the moment the immediate furore over Boris Johnson’s future and the further flood of Downing Street festivity stories which may not be finished yet. We need to ask the question that must, given what has prevailed in our lives for the past two years, be most serious. How on earth did we get to a point where events and decisions which would once have been regarded as commonplace, even virtuous – an employer expressing good wishes to staff at a party, a child embracing elderly grandparents, a relative making regular visits to a dying hospital patient – became illegal?
Latest statistics on England mortality data suggest systematic mis-categorisation of vaccine status and uncertain effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination
(December 2021)
At first glance the ONS data suggest that, in each of the older age groups, all-cause mortality is lower in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Despite this apparent evidence to support vaccine effectiveness-at least for the older age groups-on closer inspection of this data, this conclusion is cast into doubt because of a range of fundamental inconsistencies and anomalies in the data. Whatever the explanations for the observed data, it is clear that it is both unreliable and misleading. While socio-demographical and behavioural differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated have been proposed as possible explanations, there is no evidence to support any of these. By Occam‘s razor we believe the most likely explanations are systemic miscategorisation of deaths between the different categories of unvaccinated and vaccinated; delayed or non-reporting of vaccinations; systemic underestimation of the proportion of unvaccinated; and/or incorrect population selection for Covid deaths.
MPs are losing their marbles over Omicron…we must remain serene like the Queen
Government scientific advisers are issuing blood-curdling warnings, again, about the NHS being overwhelmed.
There is overblown talk of life-or-death decisions on desolate wards emptied of afflicted staff.
Of new nationwide closures and a furlough.
And politicians themselves are falling like nine-pins.
Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is becoming a police state by stealth
(01.12.2021)
The government’s back-door amendments to the policing bill are tyrannical. We should be on the streets in our millions
Freut Euch, die Briten haben gesiegt. Wieder mal.
(30. Juni 2021)
Die Deutschen werden noch merken, was das für eine Befreiung auch für sie bedeutet.
Es ist wie früher, es ist wie im Faschismus: Hilfe muss von außen kommen.
Ein Lichtblick: Kassenärzte fordern Aufhebung aller Corona-Maßnahmen – „Es muss endlich Schluss sein mit Gruselrhetorik und Panikpolitik!“
Es klingt so, dass man es beim ersten Lesen gar nicht glauben will, und dann auch noch ein zweites Mal lesen muss, um sicherzugehen, dass man die Nachricht nicht missverstanden hat: Kein geringerer Verband als die Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung (KBV) sieht keinen Grund mehr für die Aufrechterhaltung der Corona-Maßnahmen. Das ist schon revolutionär genug in einer Zeit der „totalen Corona-Politik“.
„Freedom Day“ statt „German Angst“?
Dennoch fordert der Chef der Kassenärztlichen Bundesvereinigung (KBV), Andreas Gassen, die Aufhebung aller Corona-Beschränkungen zum 30. Oktober.
„Nach den Erfahrungen aus Großbritannien sollten wir auch den Mut haben zu machen, was auf der Insel geklappt hat“, sagte er der der „Neuen Osnabrücker Zeitung“. „Also braucht es jetzt eine klare Ansage der Politik: In sechs Wochen ist auch bei uns Freedom Day! Am 30. Oktober werden alle Beschränkungen aufgehoben!“
Looking back over the 20 years since US, UK and other Western troops were deployed to Afghanistan, do you think this did or did not achieve anything?
(13.08.2021)
Did achieve something: 23%
Did not achieve anything: 53%
Don’t know: 24%
Afghanistan war has cost Britain more than £37bn, new book claims
(30 May 2013)
Since 2006, on a conservative estimate, it has cost £15m a day to maintain Britain‘s military presence in Helmand province. The equivalent of £25,000 will have been spent for every one of Helmand‘s 1.5 million inhabitants, more than most of them will earn in a lifetime, it says.
By 2020, the author of a new book says, Britain will have spent at least £40bn on its Afghan campaign, enough to recruit over 5,000 police officers or nurses and pay for them throughout their careers. It could fund free tuition for all students in British higher education for 10 years.
Britain‘s war in Afghanistan cost taxpayers £22bn, as final pullout underway
(08.06.2021)
And the final cost is likely to be even higher because the bill disclosed by Defence Minister James Heappey only counts cash from a special Whitehall pot for the conflict.
Revealing the cost in a written parliamentary answer, Mr Heappey said: “As at May 2021, the total cost of Operation Herrick to HM Treasury Special Reserve is £22.2billion.”
UK military and civilian fatalities in Afghanistan 2001-2020
Published by D. Clark, Sep 21, 2020
Between UK October 2001 to March 2020 there have been 454 fatalities of military and civilians for the United Kingdom in Afghanistan under Operation Herrick. The years with the most fatalities were 2009 and 2010, with both years seeing more than a hundred deaths.
Hopes rise for herd immunity after Covid case numbers fall by half
Nearly 90 per cent of Scottish adults are estimated to have antibodies which protect against Covid-19, either through vaccination or previous infection, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Britain may be finally nearing the Holy Grail of herd immunity
(today)
Scientists say they are “puzzled” by the recent drop, blaming it on the heatwave, school closures, the Euros tournament ending, or a decrease in testing. It may even be the result of the “pingdemic” causing mass isolation and lowering transmission, they say, or else people are no longer being tested for fear of missing holidays.
Few straws have been left unclutched in the bid to explain the anomaly. Yet amid the bewilderment, few seem willing to consider the prospect that it is the vaccination programme which is doing most of the heavy lifting. Britain may be finally nearing the Holy Grail of herd immunity.
Turning the tide: Britain ‚on the cusp‘ of hitting herd immunity with 87 per cent now having antibodies against Covid plus third wave cases are falling in EVERY age group in England and infections drop for seventh day in a row to 27,734
Scientists at University College London estimate the total population‘s immunity is at 87 per cent, with the current threshold for herd immunity at 93 per cent due to the contagious delta variant.
Being so close to the threshold should make it harder for the virus to transmit.
Dr David Matthews, a virologist and coronaviruses expert from the University of Bristol, told The Telegraph: ‚In terms of herd immunity – by which we mean the virus has managed to reach everybody and therefore most people will have a level of immune memory – I suspect we‘re very close to it.
UK ministers urge public not to delete Covid app
According to the health department, the number of people using the NHS Test and Trace app to register at pubs, shops and other venues fell 10 per cent compared with the previous week — which has been seen as another sign of deletions.
Just over a fifth of people have the NHS Covid app and are using it properly, poll finds
(20.07.2021)
Forty per cent of respondents say they never had the app in the first place