“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”- John F. Kennedy
There is an inevitable truth in the words of JFK, its not a justification of violence but it is a warning of more protest and a rejection of a system that has overstretched in its intrusions onto peoples liberties and lives.
This is not a Left or Right issue, this is an issue that affects all people of all persuasions. Thomas Paine once said: “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.” in that light it’s understood ensuring our liberties are not taken from us or restricted in any way is ‘common cause’.
The British people are many things and have many layers of complexities but the one thing that binds us all is our freedoms, those hard fought battles from the Magna Carta of 1215 to the Human Rights Act 1998, were not given they were won.
Freedom of speech and the right to protest peacefully are protected by the law both the common law and the Human Rights Act 1998 cover these fundamental rights.
Common law stipulates our rights: personal security, personal liberty and private property, and auxiliary rights necessary to secure them, such as access to justice. Rights to a fair trial, right to open justice and to freedom of speech are recognised both in the common law and in the Convention of Human rights.
The British people will and must guard their freedoms fiercely, lest they be taken away.
What started as a non-violent demonstration in the city centre against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill turned ugly after hundreds of protesters marched from College Green to the New Bridewell police station.
The event was dubbed ‘Kill the Bill’, in reference to the attempts to stop the Government’s proposed law which would give police and the Home Secretary increased powers to stop protests.
The Bill also makes a special new law to protect monuments and statues, in the wake of the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, with the crime of damaging them punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Many protesters were wearing face masks and carried placards, including slogans such as “say no to UK police state” and “freedom to protest is fundamental to democracy” and “Kill the Bill”.
The protest was shared by many of Bristol’s leading campaign groups, including Extinction Rebellion and the city’s Black Lives Matter movement, but in the run-up to the event, Avon and Somerset police warned anyone thinking of taking part that they risked breaching coronavirus lockdown laws, that are still in force, and could be fined £200.
From videos, its quite clear the protest was conducted in a peaceful manner even though people quite rightly felt angry at the new legislation the Tory government are have introduced, however, at some point violence broke out and the scene turned ugly.
Zarah Sultana MPspeaking at Parament square last week stated.
At the beginning of the night the mood was generally lively but not aggressive.
There was broken glass across the road and some people had climbed on top of traffic lights but there was no police intervention.
The dense crowd eventually splintered, with some moving away to carry on drinking and listen to music.
The atmosphere among those who remained became more volatile.
Riot police in full protective gear formed a barricade in front of the station, but the officers didn’t engage with the protesters at all.
They stood by as their shields and vans were daubed with graffiti – some of it profane and some of it hostile towards the police themselves and Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Then the atmosphere took a marked turn when the first police vehicle was set on fire. Huge plumes of black smoke rose up from Bridewell Street.
A small number of protesters jumped on to the roof of a second police van, thumping on the glass as the officers tried to reverse.
Objects were being thrown by protesters into the crowd and still the police did not move from their positions.
As well as the police vehicles set on fire, others were smashed up and their tyres let down as the crowd chanted “shame on you”.
Police said perpetrators would be “identified and brought to justice”.
It is not clear if any arrests have been made but a spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said there would be “significant consequences for behaviour such as this”.
There is no justification for wanton violence and destruction wherever it comes from but its safe to say after the restrictions of lockdown and the injustice of this Bill it will be a very hot summer.
This bill can only lead to more civil unrest, it does not just effect the Left but all citizens.
The civil liberties group Liberty described the vote on Tuesday evening as a “dark stain on our democracy”, adding: “Our right to protest is not and should never be viewed as a gift from the state.”
George Galloway master orator gave the US senate committee a free lesson in truth and honesty.
Galloway at his best, delivering a blistering rebuttal to US Senators, while holding them to account is a must watch and can sit alongside any great political speech.
Washington, May 17 2005- George Galloway had been invited to speak and defend the climes by the US senate committee that Saddam Hussein’s government had given him the rights to buy 20 million barrels of oil to sell at a profit.
In an appearance that seemed to catch a Senate committee off-guard, George Galloway denied the accusations as “utterly preposterous” going on to point out the committee’s faults in their evidence and accusations.
Normally, the committee members dominate proceedings, armed with investigative material furnished by their handsomely financed staff, and expect respect bordering on veneration from those they summon. When the matter at hand is as contentious as the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, most witnesses appear with a phalanx of lawyers, advising them when to “take the Fifth” and thus avoid potentially incriminating testimony.
Not so George Galloway. Not a lawyer was in sight, and even if one had been whispering in his ear, he almost certainly would not have listened. Instead, he took the battle to his accusers.
It was one of those moments, a moment you realise you are listening to something very special, that pin-drop moment, within a few sentences the entire room along with the Senate committee were captured, listening intently, hanging on every articulated word. With the quiet confidence of a master of the art of rhetoric, George Galloway began to speak.
Now while I do not want to spoil all your fun by giving away all the great plot points, I do have to give you some context.
George Galloway, who was outspoken in his condemnation of the decision to go to war in the first place, had obviously upset a few people. There is no hiding from the fact that in his self-made film ‘The Killing of Tony Blair’ documentary a documentary made after the war, like millions of others he has no place in his heart for Tony Blair or “Tony Bliar” as he calls him.
The point is George Galloway with the ‘Stop the War coalition’ along with his comrades in arms Tony Benn, Lindsay German, John Rees, Andrew Murray, and Jeremy Corbyn, ostensibly took on the UK and US state apparatus in a big way fighting for us not to go to war over non-existent weapons of mass destruction that purportedly were hidden in an Iraqi bunker.
This blatant protest against the state had consequences and for many, this hearing of trumped-up charges was a consequence of telling the truth.
George Galloway being a canny Scot, however, was clever enough to use the committee’s invitation to testify under oath to turn the tables on his accusers, charging that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had “found me guilty” without having given him an opportunity to defend himself against allegations he had profited from the United Nations oil-for-food program.
“I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf,” he said. “The real sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians,” he continued, but “your own companies with the connivance of your own government.”
“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong – and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies,” Mr Galloway told Sen Coleman.
He insisted he had been a longer-standing opponent of Saddam Hussein than anyone questioning him.
“I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when the British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas,” he told the subcommittee.
“I have a better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do.”
A flamboyant orator and skilled debater, he also attacked United Nations sanctions against Iraq, the program, and, above all, the American-led war to topple Mr Hussein. The administration, he said, had based its invasion of Iraq on a “pack of lies” and was now trying to justify its actions with charges regarding the oil-for-food program and other allegations, which he called “the mother of all smokescreens.”
The then anti-war Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, in east London, told the Senate subcommittee it had made a “schoolboy howler” in its investigation of illegal Iraqi oil sales. He said it was attempting to divert attention from the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
In a defiant performance on Capitol Hill, George Galloway told Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican subcommittee chairman.
“I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice,”
But in fairness, no words can capture the Braveheart moment in the way Galloway took the senate committee to task better than watching the video of the event.
Galloway v the US Senate: Transcript of statement
Speaking truth to power… play the video.
George Galloway – 17 May 2005
George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption
“Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one – and neither has anyone on my behalf.
“Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
“Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are – let’s be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had ‘many meetings’ with Saddam Hussein. This is false.
“I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as “many meetings” with Saddam Hussein.
“As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country – a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.
“I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.
“You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.
“Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am ‘the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil’.
“Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that’s been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.
“Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.
“You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realise played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.
“There were 270 names on that list originally. That’s somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.
“You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I’ve never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he’s your prisoner, I believe he’s in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.
“I’m not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.
“And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].
“Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where’s the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.
“Now you refer at length to a company named in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I’ll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don’t know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.
“Whilst I’m on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don’t you think I have a right to know? Don’t you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?
“Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.
“You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph’s documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph’s documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 – never in my life. There could not possibly be documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.
“And yet you’ve allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.
“But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.
“Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you’re such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.
“In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there’s nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.
“The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It’s a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.
“Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life’s blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.
“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq’s wealth.
“Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq’s wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq’s money, but the money of the American taxpayer.
“Have a look at the oil that you didn’t even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.
“Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.”
Some people make a living, others make a killing. The Killing$ of Tony Blair
The story of Tony Blair’s destruction of the Labour Party, his well-remunerated business interests, and the thousands of innocent people who have died following his decision to invade Iraq.
The Tory peer Norman Tebbit’s admitted that he received regular briefs from special branch on the activities of trade unionists while he was a minister.
Norman Tebbit was one of Margaret Thatcher’s most fanatical disciple’s he opposed Labour and the trade unions with such zeal that he was once likened to a “semi-housetrained polecat”.
This came about during a debate in Parliament on 2 March 1978, Michael Foot labelled Tebbit a “semi-house-trained polecat” in response to a question from Tebbit asking if he accepted that the legislation being proposed that made it compulsory for people to join a Trade Union was an act of Fascism.
When he was made Lord Tebbit in 1992, he chose a polecat as one of the symbols on his coat of arms. Later, in the debate, Tebbit asked Foot whether he would “put a bridle on his foul-mouthed tongue”
For many Tebbit along with Thatcher symbolised the nasty arrogance of the Tory party both overcompensating in their ruthlessness, both trying to impress on their party they belonged.
in the 1980s. He was depicted as a leather clad skin head who dished out tough love to members of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet who didn’t tow the party line.
I was Margaret Thatcher’s minder, her enforcer
I was rather fond of my puppet in those days because he helped build me an image of a chap who wasn’t in things for his own sake. I was Margaret Thatcher’s minder, her enforcer. Lord Norman Tebbit
There is something very sinister about Tebbit’s admission, from it we can be certain that not only was the state spying on us then, that we have no doubt they are now! While still to come is the invasion and the attacks on our libities and privacy, legally this time through the #Spycops bill. Along with the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill it does seem we are leaving our democracy behind and entering a state of Authoritarianism.
The fact the #Spycops bill was passed without opposition by Starmer is one of the most frightening aspects of this parliament and does not bode well for our liberties and freedoms in times to come.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual
1984 Orwellian Dystopia
This was not a confession, but a boast!
The former employment secretary, a senior figure in Margaret Thatcher’s government, said the information was so detailed that he knew where trade unionists had gone on holiday.
He was speaking during a parliamentary Zoom meeting on Tuesday, hosted by Labour MP Richard Burgon to discuss the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Tebbit’s admission that he received regular briefs from special branch on the activities of trade unionists while he was a minister was said in a gloating manner. Richard Bergan MP stated:
“To Mr Tebbit this was not a confession, but a boast – something that, as a key Thatcherite and top Tory, he believes was a good thing.”
The probe, which is investigating abuses by officers in two secret police units, is also seeking to determine the extent to which spycops targeted and infiltrated trade unions and what was done with the intelligence gathered, including whether it was used for blacklisting.
All MPs and peers are free to attend such Zoom meetings, but Lord Tebbit’s presence surprised many.
Replying to a contribution by Blacklist Support Group’s Dave Smith, the Tory peer also revealed that he had held private talks with a former general secretary of the now-defunct electricians’ union EETPU about how to tackle left-wing trade unionists in the movement.
The EETPU, which is now part of Unite, was expelled from the TUC following its role in undermining the print unions in the Wapping dispute of 1986.
“Tebbit revealed what many of us had suspected for years: that senior officials in [the EETPU] had been colluding with the Tories and the British state security services to effectively spy on other trade unionists,” Labour MP John McDonnell, who attended the meeting, told the Morning Star.
“It was disgraceful treachery and betrayal of our movement, but not unexpected given the way in which the leaders of this union had done all they could to undermine working-class struggle in our country.”
Unite has called for Lord Tebbit’s admissions to be fully investigated, claiming they reveal the “first definite link” between undercover police officers and the government.
“This is why we are so gobsmacked over it,” Mr Smith told the Star. “For the last 10 years we’ve been doing this campaign, one of our key questions is, if the police were doing this … how high up the chain did it go?
“And clearly [Mr Tebbit] has been the first who has broken ranks and said: ‘Yes I was a member of the Cabinet and I was getting information supplied to me about union members’.”
Responding to the revelations, Unite said Lord Tebbit’s comments also raise further questions as to whether other secretary’s of state received similar briefings.
Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: “In the first instance the Mitting’s Inquiry into undercover policing has a clear duty to investigate exactly what information was passed to the government, about whom and for how long.
“Former ministers including Norman Tebbit need to account for their actions and explain why they approved of spying on entirely lawful organisations.”
Mr Beckett described the alleged collusion between the EEPTU and Lord Tebbit as “equally disturbing” and said that any official found to have colluded with blacklisters would be “subject to the union’s disciplinary process.”
Replying to a contribution by Dave Smith, of the blacklist support group, Mr Tebbit said that the level of briefing he received from the police was so detailed that he knew where trade unionists went on holiday.
Lord Tebbit also revealed that he held meetings with the general secretary of the electricians union EEPTU to discuss how to deal with “activists”. When Tebbit was secretary of state for employment from 1981-83, the leader of EEPTU was Frank Chapple.
Blacklisting
Following the discovery of the Consulting Association blacklist of construction workers in 2009, it was revealed that information on some workers could have only have been supplied by the police or the security forces.
The subsequent revelations about the undercover police organisation, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), and the way in which it infiltrated and spied on many Left-wing organisations including trade unions, provided further evidence that information they obtained was used to blacklist trade unionists.
Lone wolf?
Lord Tebbit’s revelations raise further questions about whether he was the only secretary of state to receive such briefings from special branch on trade unionists and how that information was obtained.
It is also vital to discover whether his Conservative successors in the role, Tom King, Lord Young, Norman Fowler, Michael Howard, Gillian Shepherd, David Hunt and Michael Portillo and members of the Blair government in similar positions received such briefings. It also needs to be clarified if such briefings still occur today and how the information is obtained.
Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: “Norman Tebbit’s shocking revelations have confirmed what trade unionists have always suspected: Not only were they spied on by undercover police information but that information was passed onto the highest levels.
“In the first instances the Mittings Inquiry into undercover policing has a clear duty to investigate exactly what information was passed to the government, about whom and for how long.
“Former ministers including Norman Tebbit need to account for their actions and explain why they approved of spying on entirely lawful organisations.
“The revelations on the collusion between a leader of EEPTU and Tebbit are equally disturbing. Unite has already instigated a barrister led investigation into concerns about potential collusion between officials and blacklisters, any official found to have acted in this manner will be subject to the union’s disciplinary process.”
Public Inquiry
Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “Norman Tebbit has revealed the first definite link between undercover police officers, the government, employers and the blacklisting of construction workers.
“It is absolutely essential that a full public inquiry is held to finally reveal the full truth behind blacklisting to reveal who was involved in ruining the lives of thousands of construction workers.”
The Labour Party candidate to defend Hartlepool in the upcoming by-election has apologised for his past “inappropriate” tweets, including one about “a favourite Tory milf”.
Dr Paul Williams said on Friday that he “wouldn’t dream of making comments like this now” after some of his less savoury Tweets to came to light.
The offending Tweet asks: “Do you have a favourite Tory MILF? Mind-blowing dinner table conversation”
The acronym MILF came into use after the cult classic American Pie, a sort of coming-of-age story about high school friendship and sex, gave us numerous cultural references. One of those “treasures” was the term “MILF,” or “Mom I’d Like To F*ck.”The term, used by one of the characters to describe another character’s mother, quickly gained momentum and became mainstream.
The fact it is mainstream is no reason to use such a derogatory term to women, to a mother, by a Doctor!
Taking into account this by-election has been called due to the resignation of the former Labour MP after alleged sexual harassment allegations and a former investigation by the Labour Party it seems Labour are falling before they start.
The former MP Mr Hill was suspended by Labour in September 2019 over allegations he sexually harassed a woman but had the whip restored to contest the general election two months later along with the fact Mr Hill resigned as an MP this week coming in the wake of reports that he used taxpayers’ money to fight a staff member’s claim of unfair dismissal, sexual assault and harassment, you have to wonder at how much joined-up thinking the Labour party use in selecting candidates.
Asked if use of the word ‘MILF’ was appropriate during a visit to Glasgow, Sir Keir said: “No it isn’t and Hartlepool is obviously a very important by-election for us.”
The by-election is seen as a key test of Sir Keir’s leadership as he seeks to defend a seat in Labour’s heartlands, with so much of it falling to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election.
Labour members appear to be furious that the selection process resulted in a shortlist of just one name – and no women. “Everyone is a feminist when it’s convenient,” one female MP reportedly told the Labour List website.
A party source described the move to longlist one candidate as “another Jenny Chapman special”, referring to Keir Starmer’s director of politics, who sources say wanted Williams as the candidate. The two were colleagues until 2019.
One member of Labour’s NEC told LabourListthat the decision not to put a diverse range of candidates to local members by shortlisting female and ethnic minority candidates was “pretty shocking”.
Sir Keir Starmer always one to break a promise, Tweeted last year during his leadership campaign: “The selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.”
That’s another out the window…
The selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.
No lessons are being learnt by the Labour Party, they didn’t listen then and the aren’t listing now!
It Beggar’s Belief that the labour Party would select an Arch-Remainer in a seat that voted to leave the EU by nearly 70%
A forgotten fact, the six seats Labour lost on June 8 2017, every one of them was a Brexit town, a leave voting constituency.
In the disastrous 2019 General election, Labour lost 54 English seats, 52 of those seats voted to leave the EU in 2016.
One of those seats taken by the Tories was Dr Williams’ constituency of Stockton South. The local authority area that includes the constituency is Stockton-on-Tees, voted 61.7% to Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.
Williams is an arch-Remainer and was a vocal advocate of a second Brexit referendum, while Hartlepool itself voted 69.6 per cent in favour of leaving the EU.
“Parachuting someone like that in is about the best thing they could do – for the Tories,” one local councillor in the town said.
While Hartlepool has voted for a Labour MP since the 1950s, many in the party appear to be resigned to the likelihood that it will become the latest northern seat to turn blue.
Mike Hill held onto the constituency in 2019 with a majority of just 4,000 – a figure halved from the 2017 election.
The Brexit party split the Tory vote, if the Brexit Party had not stood in the seat, and won 10,000 votes, the Tories would almost certainly have clinched victory.
Hartlepool named part of Teesside Freeport which will mark ‘rebirth’ of region and create ‘thousands of jobs’
Labour certainty won’t win on blaming Brexit.
Mayor Houchen said: “Future generations will look back on today and say this was the day Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool was reborn as an industrial powerhouse.
“The Teesside Freeport marks the start of us returning to our rightful place on the world stage as a global player in advanced manufacturing and engineering.”
You have to wonder at the lack of joined-up thinking from the Labour Party.
Instead Hartlepool are stuck with a failed former MP who has already been rejected by the people of the North East.
The new by-election – likely to be held on 6 May – will be seen as especially significant in London because it will offer an early indication of how voters feel the PM has handled the pandemic, while also providing an early assessment of whether Sir Keir is managing to reconnect with the party’s old heartlands.
The Conservatives are yet to announce their candidate.
Policing minister Kit Malthouse, charged a total of £4,000 on expenses for “bought-in services” between April and October last year.
Each of the claims mentioned work on his podcast “The Maltcast”, which he has published sporadically since February 2019.
He registered each claim with expenses authorities with variations on “Community focussed campaign planning, strategy and delivery including recording and editing podcasts”.
Mr Malthouse’s podcast has covered such topics as “Long Live Our Local Pub” and “Time to Legalise Assisted Dying?”, and appear to involve minimal editing and production.
He released a series of short ‘ Coronavirus community information’ episodes between March and May 2020, one of which saw him interview an engineering operations manager from grocery delivery service Ocado.
The most recent episode of the podcast was released in August – but Mr Malthouse continued to claim for podcast expenses until at least October.
Kit Malthouse The Maltcast YouTube channel totalled 10 subscribers that works out the cost to the public is at £400 a subscriber.
A Labour source said: “This is daylight robbery. The policing minister is paying for podcasts with taxpayers’ cash while freezing the pay of Britain’s bobbies.”
The Policing Minister did not declare who the payments were made to.
Between April 2019 and April 2020, Mr Malthouse claimed the same figure almost every month for “bought-in services”, but these were registered as “Parliamentary press and social media management.”
A spokesperson for Mr Malthouse said: “Mr Malthouse has correctly and properly declared his expenses inline with IPSA guidelines.”
The Mirror also reveal fellow ministers Anne Marie and Robert Buckland have both claimed £500 a month in expenses paid to high-end social media consultancy firm Westminster Digital.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) conducted its review after 13 EU states suspended use of the vaccine over fears of a link to blood clots.
The EMA found the vaccine was “not associated” with higher risk of clots.
But it said it would continue to study the possibility of such links.
It is up to individual EU countries to decide whether to re-start administering the jab. On Monday, the three largest EU members – Germany, France and Italy – said they were awaiting the results of the EMA investigation before deciding whether to resume their rollout of the jab.
The EMA held a special meeting to look into the connection between unusual blood clot disorders discovered in several cases after people had received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Germany, France, Spain and others temporarily halted vaccinations with the British-Swedish shot after EU member states reported 30 cases of blood clot disorders, including a rare and difficult-to-treat condition called cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT).
Some 5 million people have so far been administered the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the EU.
What did the EMA say?
Emer Cooke, the executive director of the EMA, said the AstraZeneca vaccine is a “safe and effective option to protect citizens from COVID-19.” The EMA said the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks after coming to a “clear scientific conclusion.”
At the same time, Cooke said the EMA could not “definitively rule out a link” between the vaccine and blood clots. The EMA will conduct additional scientific studies into the matter and recommended that leaflets about the vaccine include information about blood clot risks to raise public awareness.
No link between AstraZeneca and blood clots, UK regulator says
The EMA meeting comes after Britain’s health regulators said they found no direct link between the AstraZeneca shot and blood clots. The UK has continued to use the AstraZeneca jab, administering over 11 million doses to the British population.
“The available evidence does not suggest that blood clots in veins (venus thromboembolism) are caused by COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca,” the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said on Thursday.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is one of the cheaper options on the market. The WHO vaccine sharing initiative COVAX has relied heavily on the jab — which is being produced not-for-profit during the pandemic.
Unlike the BioNTech-Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, the AstraZeneca shot does not need to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, making it easier to store in less developed countries or less accessible areas.
Some 25 African countries have already been given doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX program. However, some of them have now joined the growing list of countries to suspend its use.
Experts have warned that this may hamper the battle against the virus in countries where people are already sceptical of the virus or of vaccines in general.
What has AstraZeneca said?
The company says there is no evidence of an increased risk of clotting due to the vaccine.
It said it had received 37 reports of blood clots out of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the EU and UK as of 8 March.
These figures were “much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size and is similar across other licensed Covid-19 vaccines”, it said.
The EU have been accused of playing political games
Von der Leyen under pressure to resign as EU Commission President over vaccine debacle
This crisis shows the limits of the leadership style that’s dominated EU politics a combination of expert-driven technocracy with crowd-pleasing populism, argues Lionel Laurent.
Whilst stopping the vaccine rollout with claims of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab casing blood clots the EU have also complained they are not receiving enough of the vaccine to vaccinate their member nations citizens.
The EU vaccination campaign is a mess, failing to outpace a fresh wave of Covid-19 infections that are straining hospitals and triggering more stay-at-home curbs. The European Union’s tally of average doses administered per 100 people stands at 11.8, well behind the U.S. and the U.K. at 34.1 and 40.5 respectively (though there is some divergence between the EU’s 27 members).
Even with four vaccines approved by EU regulators, governments are fumbling the logistics of getting needles in arms. Efforts to hold drugmakers’ feet to the fire oversupply shortfalls, while understandable, are turning bad-tempered, with threats to seize doses destined for export if necessary. This is all the more surreal given several EU countries suspended use of the AstraZeneca shot this week on weak medical evidence of blood-clot fears. Vaccines are being fought over, but not actually used.
Now the European Union has threatened to halt exports of Covid-19 vaccines to the UK.
In what appeared to be a veiled threat to the UK, following an ongoing row about the supply of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels the EU was seeking to block exports of coronavirus vaccines to countries with higher vaccination rates.
“We are exporting a lot to countries that are themselves producing vaccines and we think this is an invitation to be open, so that we also see exports from those countries coming back to the European Union,” Ms von der Leyen said.“The second point that is of importance to us: we will reflect on whether exports to countries who have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate.”
Ms von der Leyen, who has been under fire over the pace of the EU’s vaccination programme, said: “We want reliable deliveries of vaccines, we want increase in the contracts, we want to see reciprocity and proportionality in exports and we are ready to use whatever tool we need to deliver on that.“This is about making sure that Europe gets its fair share.”
In response, Downing Street urged the EU to “stand by its commitment” not to restrict exports of vaccines. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I would point you back to the conversation the Prime Minister had with Ursula von der Leyen earlier this year.
“She confirmed then that the focus of their mechanism was on transparency and not intended to restrict exports by companies where they are fulfilling their contractual responsibilities.“It remains the case we would expect the EU to continue to stand by its commitment.”
She accused the embattled pharmaceutical company of delaying Europe’s coronavirus vaccination campaign which has seen less than 5% of the population vaccinated.
“AstraZeneca has unfortunately under-produced and under-delivered, and this painfully, of course, reduced the speed of the vaccination campaign,” she told reporters.
Ms von der Leyen said the company originally pledged to deliver 90 million doses of its shot in the first three months of 2021, but later said it could only provide 40 million, then more recently only 30 million.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab disputed Ms von der Leyen’s assertions and said he was “surprised” the subject was being discussed..
“I think it takes some explaining, because the world’s watching. We’ve, all of us, including with our European friends, been saying throughout the pandemic, that you’d be wrong to curtail or interfere with lawfully-contracted supply,” Mr Raab said.
“We all said it last year on PPE. We’ve been saying it this year, on vaccines and other things.
“And it also cuts across the direct assurances that we had from the commission and indeed, which I followed up on this week and over the last few days, with Vice President Borrell and vice president Dombrovskis, and we were reliably informed that they weren’t aware of any plans to restrict lawfully contracted supply to the UK.
Von der Leyen under pressure to resign as EU Commission President over vaccine debacle
Ursula von der Leyen faced calls to immediately resign last week as MEPs turned on Brussels’ chaotic leadership. Dozens of MEPs also called on Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, to resign after being “humiliated” during a diplomatic trip to Moscow. One Estonian MEP Jaak Madison told the European Parliament that “there is no other solution than that the President of the Commission has to resign”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was also reportedly under pressure to resign her post, after the disastrous and shortlived decision to block vaccines traveling to the UK in January
The call to block vaccines entering the UK, after a dispute with drugmaker AstraZeneca over supplies of its vaccines, would have breached the Belfast Good Friday peace agreement by creating an internal border on the island of Ireland.
The EU quickly retreated from its position after a global backlash, with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove saying Brussels had recognised its “mistake”.
The EU may be too big to fail but its leaders are doing just that while putting its citizens at risk.
The Plan to crack down on protests passes first Commons hurdle despite civil liberties warning
Government plans to introduce new powers to crack down on protests have cleared the first hurdle in the Commons — despite warnings an “all-out assault” the right to demonstrate from civil liberties groups.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed its second reading 359-263 after it was overwhelmingly backed by Tory MPs.
There were no Tory rebels and only three Tory MPs did not vote either way: Anne Marie Morris, Desmond Swayne and Charles Walker.
It will now go into a committee stage where MPs will try to pick away at the most controversial elements of the proposed law before it is passed in full, and handed over to the Lords.
This bill is the second controversial Bill that strips away our liberties and Freedoms. However well-intentioned some aspects of the Bills may be, without proper opposition and scrutiny the bad parts just keep getting through.
Starmer’s policy of appeasement over opposition is a dangerous approach in democracy. It was exactly that policy of abstention and appeasement that allowed the controversial #SpyCops Bill to pass the commons. It was at that point Dan Carden felt he could no longer be part of Starmer’s front bench, after being ordered to abstain on the bill he resigned his post.
The bill will give any undercover intelligence source, including civilians, to commit any crime in the pursuit of intel and is widely expected to be used against unions and left groups, as well as giving a free hand to security forces for a repeat of behaviour like that which led to the ‘spycops’ scandal.
In a statement, Carden cited concerns about the impact on human rights of the ‘abuse of state power’:
“As a Liverpool MP and trade unionist, I share the deep concerns about this legislation from across the labour movement, human rights organisations, and so many who have suffered the abuse of state power, from blacklisted workers to the Hillsborough families and survivors.
Like a sister act we now have this new Bill
Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Billis a fundamental attack on our human rights… This effectively gives the power – lock, stock and barrel – to the police…
The bill mixes in some much needed changes but then adds the bits that take away are liberties.
What are the key measures on this new bill?
• The maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker will be doubled to two years, while a Police Covenant will be enshrined in law to protect serving and retired officers and their families. • Whole Life Orders for the premeditated murder of a child, which will also allow judges to give the maximum sentence to 18 to 20-year-olds in exceptional cases, such as for acts of terrorism leading to mass loss of life. • The ability to stop the automatic early release of offenders who pose a danger to the public and scrapping the automatic release halfway through a sentence of serious and violent sexual offenders. • Life sentences for killer drivers • Widening position of trust laws to make it illegal for sports coaches and religious leaders to engage in sexual activity with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care. • Increasing the maximum penalty for criminal damage to a memorial, from three months to 10 years. • Reversing bail reforms which have seen suspects accused of serious and violent crimes being released without restrictions and instead imposing conditions if they could pose a risk to victims, witnesses or the public. • Police could be allowed to obtain search warrants to help find human remains where a prosecution is not possible, such as where a suspect has died, is unfit to plead or has already been convicted in absence of a body.
Why is there renewed scrutiny of the bill?
It will significantly beef up police powers to crack down on protests.
What powers do police have now?
If the police want to place restrictions on a protest, they generally have to show it may result in “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.
They can also impose specific measures on the routes of marches.
When it comes to major events, such details are typically thrashed out with the organisers weeks in advance.
How will the bill change those powers?
Police chiefs will be able to put more conditions on static protests.
They will be able to:
Impose a start and finish time
Set noise limits
Apply these rules to a demonstration by just one person
Taken to an extreme, let’s say there’s an individual holding a protest placard, while blasting out their views on a speaker.
If they refuse to follow police directions over how they should conduct their protest, they could be fined up to £2,500.
It will also become a crime to fail to follow restrictions the protesters “ought” to have known about, even if they have not received a direct order from an officer.
At present, police need to prove protesters knew they had been told to move on, before they can be said to have broken the law.
The proposed law includes an offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance”.
This is designed to stop people occupying public spaces, hanging off bridges, gluing themselves to windows, or employing other protest tactics to make themselves both seen and heard.
One of the provisions of the legislation is giving police forces more powers to tackle “non-violent” protests which are significantly disruptive to the public or on access to parliament.
An offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” is included in the bill.
Someone commits this offence if they cause “serious harm to the public”, which can include “serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity”. If convicted, individuals could be hit with a fine or face a prison sentence.
Officers could also be given more powers to impose conditions on static protests, such as time and noise limits, as well as extending those rules to one-person demonstrations.
Officers could also be given more powers for tackling unauthorised encampments which interfere with the ability to use the land.
Stop and search powers could also be expanded, if plans for serious violence reduction orders get the go ahead.
This would mean it would be easier for police to carry out checks on individuals who have been convicted of carrying a knife before.
What are critics saying?
I have divided politicians into two categories: the Signposts and the Weathercocks. The Signpost says: ‘This is the way we should go.’ And you don’t have to follow them but if you come back in ten years time the Signpost is still there. The Weathercock hasn’t got an opinion until they’ve looked at the polls, talked to the focus groups, discussed it with the spin doctors. And I’ve no time for Weathercocks, I’m a Signpost man.
-Tony Benn
We admire signposts, not weathercocks. Labour voted against the legislation at its second reading. The fact is it was badly drawn-out legislation on Friday when Labour planned to abstain on the bill it was still bad legislation on Sunday when Labour flipped on abstention the ugly scenes at Sarah Everard vigil was the only factor that changed Sir Keir Starmer’s mind, not because he felt the bill was wrong but he thought a few more votes could be gained.
Although they support several measures in the bill, Labour argue it will impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
It comes despite outrage about parts of the wide-ranging, 176-clause Bill – especially 10 clauses relating to protests and camping.
The draft section on “public order” states that conditions can be imposed on demonstrations if the noise generated “may result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation” or may “have a relevant impact on persons in the vicinity of the protest”.
Police will be able to tell one-person protests to stop shouting and impose noise limits, start and finish times on gatherings.
The civil liberties group Liberty described the vote on Tuesday evening as a “dark stain on our democracy”, adding: “Our right to protest is not and should never be viewed as a gift from the state.”
The organisation’s head of policy and campaigns Sam Grant added: “We also have the right to live free from undue or discriminatory state interference. The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill seeks to undo these basic foundations of our democracy. It is an assault on basic civil liberties, and MPs should have rejected it outright.
“We cannot allow these powers to pass and while today’s vote is beyond disappointing, the bill still has a long distance to travel until it’s passed into law. We’re urging all those who are concerned about what is happening to basic civil liberties in this country to come together to stand up for our democratic values.”
The decision by Germany, France and Italy to suspend AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects is a “political one”, the director general of Italy’s medicines authority AIFA said on Tuesday.
“We got to the point of a suspension because several European countries, including Germany and France, preferred to interrupt vaccinations… to put them on hold in order to carry out checks. The choice is a political one,” Nicola Magrini told daily la Repubblica in an interview.
Magrini said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and that the benefit to risk ratio of the jab is “widely positive”. There have been eight deaths and four cases of serious side-effects following vaccinations in Italy, he added.
Aifa will take two to three days to collect all required data and once “doubts are cleared we can carry on at a faster speed than before,” Magrini said. –ROME (REUTERS)
Playing Politics, putting lives at risk.
Germany on Monday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the Health Ministry announced in a statement, with Italy, France and Spain following suit later in the day. Several other EU countries have also stopped use of the vaccine because of the possibility of blood clots.
The German Health Ministry described the move as a “precaution” on the basis of advice from the national health regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI). According to the Health Ministry, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will decide “whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine” pending an investigation.
EU regulator ‘firmly convinced’ that benefits of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risks
“We are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death outweigh the risk of these side effects,” EMA chief Emer Cooke told an online press conference.
“At present there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions. They have not come up in the clinical trials and they are not listed as known or expected side effects,” Cooke added.
Clinical trials had shown “very small numbers of blood clot developments”, she added.
The EU regulatory body is “fully convinced” that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh possible risks. Global health experts have been under growing pressure to answer questions over the safety of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot.
There is “no indication” that AstraZeneca vaccines are the cause of blood clots reported in some shot recipients, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) chief said on Tuesday.
The agency is “still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risk of hospitalization and death outweigh the risk of these side effects,” Executive Director Emer Cooke added.
Cooke said that an EMA evaluation of individual incidents is ongoing. It is expected to complete a full review on Thursday.
What are the concerns about the vaccine?
There are fears about the safety of the vaccine in some countries after several cases of blood clots or brain hemorrhages in people after receiving the inoculation. A small number of deaths have been reported.
The WHO, AstraZeneca, and the EMA have all insisted the AstraZeneca shot is safe, and that there is no link between the vaccine and reported blood clots. They say clots are not occurring in greater numbers or frequency than normally in the general population.
German cases are growing ‘exponentially’ again. A leading expert has warned an easing of restrictions has led Germany to the brink of a third wave. Intensive care doctors warn that partial lockdown measures must be put back in place.
The number of coronavirus cases in Germany grew 20% in the past week, as lockdown restrictions are gradually eased, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases (RKI) said Tuesday.
The figures were released as the country’s intensive care doctors warn of the need for an “immediate return” to partial lockdown to stave off a dangerous third wave of coronavirus cases.
France enters a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic
French Prime Minister Jean Castex told Parliament on Tuesday that France had entered a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the seven-day average of new cases rose above 25,000 for the first time since Nov. 20.
French health authorities reported 29,975 new cases on Tuesday, a 4.5% jump versus last Tuesday’s total and the sharpest week-on-week rise in a month and a half.
Like other EU countries, France has lagged far behind the United States or Britain in vaccinating its population.
What are the latest fears?
RKI epidemiologist Dirk Brockmann told German broadcaster ARD that the loosening of measures was particularly unhelpful given the exponential growth that has occurred with the British virus variant B117.
“We are exactly on the flank of the third wave. That can no longer be disputed. And, at this point, we have eased the restrictions and that is speeding up the exponential growth,” RKI epidemiologist Dirk Brockmann told German broadcaster ARD.
“It has been totally been irrational to loosen up here. It’s just fueling this exponential growth.”
“If you have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine within the last 14 days and you experience signs of skin or mucosal bleeding, you should see a doctor,” the Danish Medicines Agency said Monday. “This could for example be easy bruising — except for at the injection site, which is normal — or small red spots on the skin or bleeding that does not stop as normal.”
For its part, the EMA said Monday that these temporary suspensions are “a precaution taken in the light of their national situation while EMA investigates a number of events of blood clots in people who had received the vaccine.”
Many thousands of people develop blood clots annually in the EU for different reasons, the EMA noted. The number of such events overall in vaccinated people doesn’t seem to be higher than that seen in the general population.
However, it said, its investigations are ongoing, and the agency will “continue to communicate further as appropriate.”
Speaking alongside Gentiloni on Monday evening, Paschal Donohoe, Ireland’s finance minister, said the suspensions were “the right decision.”
“I believe any short term effects on economic activity that could be caused by what I hope is a temporary suspension of the use of one vaccine, I believe will be offset by the great prize of retaining confidence in how safe our vaccines are and in an effective vaccination program in the weeks and months to come,” he said.
Hartlepool Labour MP Mike Hill has resigned “with immediate effect”
It’s understood an investigation is ongoing against Mr Hill, although no further details have been released. Mr Hill was due to face an employment tribunal later this year into claims of “sexual harassment and victimisation”. He has denied the allegations.
The vote will be the first by-election since the ‘Red wall collapsed’ it will also be the first real test Sir Keir Starmer has faced since becoming Leader of the Opposition. Labour has held the seat ever since its formation in 1974 but saw its popularity in the constituency collapse two years ago when many other northern seats elected a Conservative MP.
The party’s share of the vote dropped 15 percent in the 2019 election with the Tories’ pledge to “get Brexit done” winning over voters in the traditional Labour seat.
Hartlepool voted by 69.5 percent to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
A Labour spokesman confirmed Mr Hill had resigned “with immediate effect.”
His decision to stand down comes following sexual harassment allegations against him, which he denies.
An investigation was ordered after a complaint was filed to officials into backbencher Mr Hill.
Hill was suspended from the party in September 2019 over the allegations he had made unwanted advances to a woman who worked in the Commons until this year – but he was reinstated a month later.
The alleged female victim has also contacted the police over her claims, which could spark an investigation by them.
Hill, 56, has been the MP for Hartlepool since the 2017 General Election.
A date for the Hartlepool by-election has not yet been set, but a could be held in just seven weeks time to coincide with the local elections taking place on May 6.
Thorntons will permanently close all of its UK stores after more than a century of trading, the company has announced.
The company said its decision, which was now the subject of consultation with employees, would affect 603 workers but said it hoped to redeploy some of those affected.
Thorntons said it was based not only on the impact of COVID lockdowns over the past year but factors related to the pandemic across the retail sector.
After 110 years of creating chocolate, Thorntons said the ‘obstacles’ Covid-19 has brought on the high street are ‘too severe’ to survive. However, the retailer said it has seen sales surge online and will now invest in its grocery supply business as part of the company-wide shake-up.
Adam Goddard, the company’s retail director, said it was clear Thorntons had to “evolve”.
He said in a statement: “Changing dynamics of the high street, shifting customer behaviour to online, the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and the numerous lockdown restrictions over the last year – especially during our key trading periods at Easter and Christmas – has meant we have been trading in the most challenging circumstances.Advertisement
“Unfortunately like many others, the obstacles we have faced and will continue to face on the high street are too severe and despite our best efforts we have taken the difficult decision to permanently close our retail store estate.”
Thorntons, which has been owned by Italian firm Ferrero since 2015, said online sales would be a key part of its strategy after it witnessed a 71% increase in net sales via digital channels over the past year.
If the government hopes to save the ‘Hight Street’ it must look at both taxation and rates along with incentives
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