The legacy of this crisis will be the concentration of economic and political power in ever fewer hands.
This time last year, in a cover story for the New Statesman , I warned that the global economy was heading for another recession, for which policymakers were ill-prepared. Eleven years after the 2008 crisis, the world
2020-03-26 14:03 | News | NewStatesman
Many states – now including the UK and US – are beginning to act in ways that contradict not just the neoliberal script, but the crisis management strategies of the global financial crisis. Bue Rübner Hansen asks why.
Things are moving incredibly fast. A week ago, Denmark’s Social Democratic government announced it would cover 75% of the wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off. I had hoped it would give
2020-03-26 14:03 | Analysis, Articles, coronavirus | NovaraMedia
On Monday evening, MPs approved the Coronavirus Bill. The legislation will give sweeping powers to the UK government in a bid to restrict further spread of the virus and reduce deaths. The bill was passed despite concern about civil liberties and the legislation’s potential impact on society’s most vulnerable. Notably , the Bill would bring about greater police powers to detain people suspected of having Covid-19 by enforcing individuals to provide biological samples and disclose their
2020-03-24 11:03 | Left Foot Forward, Bill, coronavirus | LeftFootForward
The UK media are starting to refer to Boris “BoJo” Johnson as the “part-time prime minister” or “invisible man”. Immediately after he won the general election in December BoJo took off with his latest mistress, Carrie Symonds, for a 2-week break (paid for by an unknown donor) on a private Caribbean island.
At the end of February, as parts of the UK were engulfed by record flooding, and the COVID-19 virus was starting appear, BoJo was nowhere to be
2020-03-18 08:03 | articles 2015 | CounterPunch
This isn't a budget any Labour chancellor should want to give, but it does present a new challenge for the party.
Some of the commentary on the Budget suggests that had Labour won the general election, a new chancellor would have presented a similar financial and economic package: focusing infrastructure spending on roads, neglecting to fix Universal Credit, failing to lift working
2020-03-13 16:03 | News | NewStatesman
Once again the government delayed making one of the most important decisions of all: how to reform social care?
When Boris Johnson became Prime Minister back in the sunlit uplands of July last year, he made a promise.
“My job is to protect you or your parents or grandparents from the fear of having to sell your
2020-03-13 16:03 | News | NewStatesman
‘Super Tuesday’ in the 2020 presidential election season is over and Senator Bernie Sanders’s time as the unlikely frontrunner for the Democratic nomination may have stopped just as quick as it began. Despite an unprecedented smear campaign coordinated by the party leadership and corporate media against him, the self-described “democratic socialist” not only managed to single-handedly de-stigmatize the latter as a dirty word in U.S. politics but at one point seemed like he had improbably overtaken former Vice President Joe
2020-03-10 05:03 | "The Left", Alexis Tsipras, Austerity | DissidentVoice
More than a century after the party was founded, it has turned to yet another man to revive its fortunes.
Last December, I hosted a New Statesman event to mark 100 years of women in the House of Commons. It was the night before the state opening of a new parliament, which would see vacancies filled at the
2020-03-06 15:03 | News | NewStatesman
In October 2015, Boris Johnson, then the mayor of London, and Mike Bloomberg, his former New York City counterpart, sat onstage at a conference in London and sang each other’s praises.
“I should say how much every current mayor — and there’s a lot of mayors here today — owes to you, for what you’ve done, the leadership you’ve shown,” Johnson said. He praised Bloomberg’s ban on smoking in certain public places in New York;
2020-03-05 18:03 | Politics | TheIntercept
With Monday’s 1000 point stock market plunge the internet has been set ablaze with discussion of a new crash looming on the horizon. The fact that such a chain reaction collapse was only kept at bay due to massive liquidity injections by the Federal Reserve’s overnight repo loans should not be ignored. These injections which began in September 2019, have grown to over $100 billion per night… all that to support the largest financial bubble in human history with global
2020-03-01 14:03 | 2008 Financial Collapse, Banks/Banking, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) | DissidentVoice
After three and a half years of acrimony, Brexit has become a reality. One very small but extremely powerful grouping within British society is likely to be delighted that the independence they have long desired has finally been achieved; alongside …
The post Post-Brexit Britain to be the “Largest and Most Destructive Tax Haven in the World” appeared first on Global Research .
2020-02-17 23:02 | English, tax haven, United Kingdom | GlobalResearch
A leading academic has claimed that an independent Scotland would be moved into the “fast-track line” to join the European Union. James Ker-Lindsay, professor at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science, told the Herald that Scotland would “almost certainly be moved to the fast track line.” He added: “Assuming the paperwork is all in order and there haven’t been many or significant divergences, one would expect it
2020-02-17 15:02 | Brexit & Foreign Policy, Brexit, EU | LeftFootForward
“People wanted to kick the government and Sinn Fein provided the shoe to do the kicking,” says Christy Parker, a journalist from the beautiful but de-industrialised town of Youghal in county Cork. He speaks of the “chasm” between the elite benefiting from Ireland’s impressive economic progress and the large part of the population that has been left behind. Youghal never recovered from the loss of its carpet and textile factories that flourished when I grew up there in the 1950s
2020-02-17 08:02 | articles 2015, Leading Article | CounterPunch
Boris Johnson , like Trump, is a phony populist. His political stepping stone to the position of PM was Brexit. He is a British blue blood raised au pair in the bucolic English countryside. Johnson identifies as a “conservative” but …
The post Britain’s OFCOM Regulating Social Media: The Beginning of the End of Free Speech appeared first on Global Research .
2020-02-17 02:02 | English, free speech, social media | GlobalResearch
The defense industry cooperation between Turkey and the United Kingdom will continue unaffected from Brexit, says businessman Osman Okyay, the head of Turkey-UK Business Council, adding that cooperation in the field can grow as the U.K. stand very interested to work with Turkey.
2020-02-16 23:02 | Turkey | Hurriyet
Israel has asked the UK to include illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the free trade deal being discussed between the two sides, Israel Hayom reported on Thursday.
According to the Israeli newspaper, Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen had written to his British counterpart, Conor Burns, informing him: “Most of Israel’s free trade agreements, such as the agreement with the United States, apply to the State of Israel, which is
2020-02-15 11:02 | Big Slide, Europe & Russia, Israel | MiddleEastMonitor
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furor over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years.
The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Soon Brexit will become a messy fait
2020-02-14 18:02 | Articles, Commentary, antisemitism | PalestineChronicle
In his 1787 farewell speech, George Washington warned, “… foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” Washington’s compatriots were more specific. Later in the same year, John Adams wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson sharing his apprehension “of foreign Interference, Intrigue and Influence.” Adams posited that foreign meddling correlates with election cycles. “As often as Elections happen,” Adams wrote, “the danger of foreign Influence recurs.”
The Founding Fathers’ premonition did not come out of
2020-02-14 17:02 | Articles, Commentary, Bernie Sanders | PalestineChronicle
Boris Johnson’s reshuffle leaves no doubt over his intention to reduce constitutional protections and judicial independence.
A constitution is the legal soul of a nation. It distills its values through a system of government, a vision of society and, most importantly, by setting down the rights of every citizen. For this reason, constitutions should be deliberated upon, negotiated and
2020-02-14 16:02 | News | NewStatesman
The UK economy is stagnant. Wages are depressed,
and the number of workers living in poverty has risen for third consecutive year. Some 14 million Brits
are in poverty
– more than one in five of the population, including four million children and two
million pensioners. The
government’s response is not to end wage freezes, control rents and
profiteering, restore local authority cuts or shackle tax avoidance by
corporations and the rich. It has instead opted for deregulation
2020-02-14 15:02 | Left Foot Forward, Public Services, corporations | LeftFootForward
Since Boris Johnson ’s election in December with an 80-seat majority, the government is in full swing to radically change Britain. Leaving aside Brexit, which will do just that, the government is now attacking the very institutions that uphold civil …
The post Prime Minister Johnson Upholds the Government’s ‘Revenge’ on Britain’s Judicial System appeared first on Global Research .
2020-02-14 15:02 | English, Boris Johnson, United Kingdom | GlobalResearch
The Labour leadership frontrunner beat Rebecca Long-Bailey in a ballot of the Corbynite rail union’s members.
Some railwaymen are on the pitch! They think it's all over! It is now! Keir Starmer has secured his fifth trade union endorsement of the Labour leadership race from the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association. Unlike most other affiliates, the Corbynite rail union chose to
2020-02-14 12:02 | News | NewStatesman
The NHS was one of the defining issues of the general election. As a doctor, I see the impact political decisions have on our health service on a daily basis – so I was glad to see all parties scrutinised on their proposals. On the whole, Labour did well at holding the Conservative Party to account on its abysmal record and they advanced bold, important policies such as free personal care for the over 65s, something that
2020-02-14 11:02 | Left Foot Forward, Public Services, general election | LeftFootForward
Appointing an attorney-general is one of the hardest jobs a Prime Minister has – but there are ways to make it easier.
Sacking Geoffrey Cox as attorney-general was always likely to lead to something of a downwards motion as far as his replacement goes. By any metric you care to name, Cox was one of the most qualified candidates for the
2020-02-14 11:02 | News | NewStatesman
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years.
The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Soon Brexit
2020-02-14 08:02 | articles 2015 | CounterPunch
Photograph Source: Book Catalog – CC BY 2.0
Much has been written about the murky world of the UK PR firm Cambridge Analytica – a company acting by stealth which furnished the propaganda behind successes like the election of Donald Trump along with the British vote for Brexit. One of the faces that Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica’s shadowy boss, liked to push was that of a young American women called Brittnay Kaiser .
2020-02-14 08:02 | articles 2015 | CounterPunch
Environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has just written the report ‘ Bayer Crop Science rules Britain after Brexit – the public and the press are being poisoned by pesticides ’. It has been sent to editors of major media outlets in the UK. In it, she outlines her concerns for pesticide regulation, health and the environment in a post-Brexit landscape. This article presents some of the report’s key points.
PM Boris Johnson is planning to do
2020-02-14 08:02 | articles 2015 | CounterPunch
What if every week was a non-stop series of public spectacles? One big-time show after another. Every night a blockbuster. Sunday brings us the Super Bowl.
Monday presents the undead Democratic Circus of the Iowa Caucuses, which slips past its time slot and far into the unforeseeable future.
Tuesday it’s the State of Union address pitting a tele-prompted demagogue in dark suit against a human paper-shredder in white.
Wednesday’s broadcast is an Impeachment Vote in the U.
2020-02-14 07:02 | articles 2015 | CounterPunch
Shutterstock
The victory by Ireland’s left-wing Sinn Fein Party in the Republic’s recent election has not only overturned some 90 years of domination by the island’s two center-right parties — it suddenly puts the issue of Irish reunification on the agenda.
While the campaign was fought over bread and butter issues like housing, the collapsing health care system, and homelessness, a united Ireland has long been Sinn Fein’s raison d’être . In the aftermath, party leaders
2020-02-13 17:02 | Democracy & Governance, Labor, Trade, & Finance, War & Peace | FPIP
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly …
The post Even with Corbyn Gone, Antisemitism Threats Will Keep Destroying the UK Labour Party appeared first on Global Research .
2020-02-13 14:02 | English, antisemitism, Jeremy Corbyn | GlobalResearch
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years. The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Source
2020-02-13 14:02 | Opinion, antisemitism, IHRA antisemitism definition | MondoWeiss
The lies keep coming in a propaganda war to keep the Brexit delusion going but reality brings us the truth – and this is exemplified no better than the delivery by the Johnson government of an unexploded economic time bomb. …
The post Johnson’s Administration Has Just Dumped an Unexploded Time Bomb in Our Midst appeared first on Global Research .
2020-02-13 14:02 | English, Boris Johnson, Northern Ireland | GlobalResearch
Keep our NHS Public has called a day of action on Saturday as the NHS reports ‘unprecedented’ delays after a decade of Tory cuts and sell-offs. The organisation has issued the following statement: Today’s latest monthly NHS situation reports predictably tell of an NHS under unprecedented strain. The number of urgent operations cancelled in December was 332. Added to this ‘there were 100,578 four-hour delays from decision to admit to admission this month, which compares
2020-02-13 13:02 | Announcement, News, A&E | Skwawkbox
The departure of a universally respected Northern Ireland secretary will make his successor’s job much harder.
Julian Smith has been sacked as Northern Ireland secretary. Why? That’s the question animating Stormont and Westminster this morning. Barely a month since overseeing the restoration of Northern Irish devolution after three years – an achievement that eluded both of his predecessors – the
2020-02-13 12:02 | News | NewStatesman
The chancellor’s exit is the prelude to the biggest change in how the British state runs itself since devolution – but it may be brief.
Sajid Javid has resigned as chancellor of the exchequer after being told that he could retain his position but that his special advisers would be replaced and absorbed into a joint Downing Street
2020-02-13 12:02 | News | NewStatesman
Revealing comments during Newsnight leadership debate Lisa Nandy during last night’s Newsnight debate Labour leadership hopeful Lisa Nandy has managed to attract some support among Labour members as the candidate most vocal about standing up for her leave-voting constituents. But in a less than a minute during last night’s Newsnight leadership debate, Nandy managed to set fire to her claim to any support among the party’s left-wing majority – and to any public appeal on
2020-02-13 11:02 | comment, BBC, contest | Skwawkbox
Julian Smith's dismissal as Northern Ireland secretary is being seen as inexplicable across Westminster – it isn’t.
Boris Johnson's first reshuffle is underway. The big story overnight is that this will be a reshuffle crafted with one eye on the next one, in which the junior ministerial ranks will be cleared out (or refreshed, if you're feeling kind) in order to conduct
2020-02-13 10:02 | News | NewStatesman
A leaking and briefing war has broken out in Labour circles about ground campaigning. This is quite transparently part of a wider proxy battle between defenders of “community organising” and those who favour the more traditional canvassing and voter identification models of local campaigning. One of the most frustrating things about this circular debate is that nobody ever bothers to ask our most successful Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) how they do it. Over
2020-02-13 10:02 | Left Foot Forward | LeftFootForward
Photograph Source: Meganesia – CC BY-SA 4.0
“Blame doesn’t help anybody at this time, and over-analysis of these things is not a productive exercise”
– Australian prime minister Scott Morrison
Media-inflected “fatigue” has been in the news recently.
“Impeachment fatigue” on the part of the public is cited as the context for the sham impeachment proceedings which allowed Republican senators to dump every remaining shred of principle in
2020-02-13 09:02 | articles 2015, Leading Article | CounterPunch
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years. The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Soon Brexit will become a messy fait accompli. But the
2020-02-13 04:02 | Anti-semitism, Board of Deputies of British Jews, Israel | DissidentVoice
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine. “Dr Beeching’s public relations campaign… presented the cuts as a harmless exercise in pruning underused railway lines,” writes Patrick Maguire (Observations, 7 February). “Pop culture offered an unwitting echo: Flanders and Swann’s 1963 song ‘Slow Train’ spoke of ponderous pointless journeys through
2020-02-12 17:02 | News | NewStatesman
Our divorce from the EU will leave us, like characters in a Dantean parable, lapping frantically at a lake of English wine.
Even in times as troubled as these, I don’t drink to forget: oblivion requires a vast quantity of alcohol and the memories just tend to return the next day, only exacerbated by the hangover. Instead, I drink to remind myself of
2020-02-12 17:02 | News | NewStatesman
The Conservatives are dominant but their plans are contradictory, seeking to fuse a shallow tech utopianism with national populism.
Anthony Trollope once remarked about the 19th-century Conservative Party: “No revolution stinks so foully in the nostrils of an English Tory as to be absolutely irreconcilable to him. When taken in the refreshing waters of office any such pill can
2020-02-12 16:02 | News | NewStatesman
The French economist and author of Capital and Ideology on Brexit, Labour’s defeat and the next crisis.
In an era of stagnant productivity, Thomas Piketty is a notable outlier. In 2013, the French economist released Capital in the Twenty-First Century , a 696-page critique of wealth and income inequality, which sold 2.5 million copies. Having
2020-02-12 15:02 | News | NewStatesman
The Intelligence and Security Committee needs to be reformed before the Russia report is released. How long will that be?
On the day after the general election, Boris Johnson sent a letter to the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). He wrote that there was nothing in their report into Russian interference that would compromise national security. As soon as the committee
2020-02-12 14:02 | News | NewStatesman
Turkey will be one of post-Brexit Britain’s top destinations for a trade deal after the European Union and the U.S., but despite the strong bilateral desire to strike a trade pact, experts are cool on the prospects of it happening anytime soon.
2020-02-12 14:02 | Economy | Hurriyet
The party is peculiarly contaminated by the legacy of abandoning its Leave voters and by a leader many voters considered morally beyond the pale.
An electorally viable Labour Party has first to understand its defeats over the past decade. This is a far from straightforward exercise because it shares predicaments with other European centre-left parties, while other problems are sui generis.
2020-02-12 14:02 | News | NewStatesman
You may argue the corporation got its election mix wrong, but you cannot deny it is the broadest free-speech hypermarket in the country.
One morning in the 1990s, I was on Start the Week with Norman Tebbit. As usual, Tebbit was railing about how awful modern Britain was. I interrupted to say I couldn’t understand why he so hated his own
2020-02-12 13:02 | News | NewStatesman