British Grenfell disaster area and general election

This 28 November 2018 video from Britain says about itself:

On TyskySour, Emma Dent Coad MP spoke about the continued injustice for the people of Grenfell.

By Lamiat Sabin in London, England:

Saturday, December 7, 2019

‘Grenfell was more of a threat to the government than Brexit‘

Lamiat Sabin profiles EMMA DENT COAD who has a majority of just 20 in Kensington — Labour’s most marginal seat

KENSINGTON will be under the spotlight on election night in under a week’s time when millions of people will see if the once-Tory stronghold and one of the most diverse constituencies in the country will remain red.

Emma Dent Coad was just days into her new job when the 2017 Grenfell tragedy struck, and the pain of the catastrophe that killed 72 people is still very raw in the local collective consciousness.

I met her in Kensington where she was born and has lived for decades – on the same road where I have lived most of my life.

On the next road along stands the burnt-out shell of Grenfell Tower, the charred structure symbolising the dangers of deregulation and authorities’ woeful neglect of the working class.

“Grenfell was more of a threat to the government than Brexit — and it will be even more so in the second phase of the inquiry,” Dent Coad warned.

The second phase, starting next month, is expected to look into the actions, or inaction, of the Conservative-run Kensington and Chelsea Council, the tenant-management organisation, and the companies that supplied and fitted the flammable cladding.

Dent Coad has reported Sam Gyimah, her Liberal Democrat challenger and a former Tory MP, to the police for alleging that she had a role, as a local councillor at the time, in discussing the use of the cladding in the tower’s renovation.

She has stated that as a backbench opposition councillor she had not been on committees that would have made those decisions.

“Gyimah put me in danger actually, I had hundreds of death threats,” she said.

She also recalled that at a monthly Grenfell silent march, Gyimah “got it completely wrong” by placing himself at the front with survivors and the bereaved. She said Labour MPs always march at the back: “it’s not a gig.”

Dent Coad also described him as “entitled and disrespectful” for having repeatedly told residents that he gave up his East Surrey seat and a ministerial job in order to stand in Kensington.

Also out to unseat Dent Coad is Tory candidate and local resident Felicity Buchan. Rather than local issues, her campaign literature focuses on her pledge to the pro-EU constituency to “move on” from Brexit by embracing PM Boris Johnson’s deal, and promises to campaign to cut business rates and stamp duty.

For Labour, dozens of people have come from across London to canvass for Dent Coad, a hard-working, committed socialist who describes the volunteers as “absolutely amazing”.

On a cold, drizzly evening I bumped into a cluster of the canvassers who were accompanied by a reporter from Japan’s only communist newspaper, who said the constitiency is the subject of international focus owing to Kensington’s diversity and Labour’s slim majority.

Labour’s bedrock support is in the north of Kensington, where there is a higher concentration of social housing, which is home to Notting Hill Carnival and used to be the stomping ground of notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman.

The south of Kensington covers Kensington Palace and the “billionaire’s row” of mansions and embassies stretching up to Chelsea.

The choice for Kensington residents, when it comes down to it, is between Labour and a blue or yellow Conservative.

In the words of a canvasser, when I asked about what they thought of Gyimah: “He’s a Tory, that’s all you need to know.”

French workers keep fighting against Macron austerity

This 5 December 2018 video says about itself:

A nationwide strike brought much of France to a halt on Thursday as unions kicked off a massive protest against a pension overhaul by President Emmanuel Macron, which they say will force millions of people to work longer or face curtailed benefits.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain today:

French pensions strike enters second day as unions call for mass protests on Tuesday

SCHOOLS, transport and tourist attractions around France remained closed in many areas today as a mammoth public- and private-sector strike against attacks on pensions continued.

Following Thursday’s action, in which most public services were paralysed as over 800,000 workers marched against President Emmanuel Macron’s bid to restructure pensions, trade unions called for a second day of action to be held next Tuesday.

In certain services, such as the Paris Metro, the strike has been extended to Monday.

Trade union leaders say the action is open-ended and that they will not rest until the government backs down on plans it has not yet agreed to publish, but which unions say will mean a longer working life for most and a smaller pension.

Left-wing union federation CGT’s confederate secretary Catherine Perret said: “Everyone on the streets on December 10 for a new day of strikes, actions and protests. Workers have made their point — it is a question of [the government] withdrawing the reform project and opening negotiations.”

Though Mr Macron has stayed aloof — getting aides to brief the press that he is “calm and determined” — ministers, including those for health and education, have met trade union leaders for talks having been spooked by the scale of the action, which polls show is backed by around 60 per cent of the French public.

Sud-Rail trade union leader Christian Mahieux said that “because we do a socially useful job, when this work suddenly stops it is a real inconvenience” but praised the “strong support and understanding” striking rail workers had received from the public.

He said trade unions were determined to repeat the victories they won against neoliberal government attacks by three weeks of strike action in 1995 and by the two months of social unrest in 1986-7.

Commuter Eric Dao said the strike made him late for work but “it is justified because it is necessary to find better social solutions.”

At Paris’s Balzac school, where teachers struck for a second day, they released a joint statement saying the action “concerns all employees in the public and private sector and, later, our students.

“Pensions should be a definitive sign of respect for accomplishing years of work, which are often laborious and annoying,” they stated.

This 5 December 2019 French video is on the strikers’ demonstrations.

By Anthony Torres and Alex Lantier in France, 6 December 2019:

1.5 million march amid mass strike in France against austerity and inequality

6 December 2019

In the largest such industrial action to hit France in decades, tens of thousands of rail, government and education workers walked out on strike, as 1.5 million people marched or struck yesterday against plans by French President Emanuel Macron to slash pensions.

The strike is part of a broad international resurgence of class struggle against social inequality and military-police repression.

Striking workers in France are joining mass protest movements in Iraq, Lebanon, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Algeria, and strikes among US auto workers and teachers, as well as British rail workers. Yesterday in France, workers at the National Railways (SNCF), teachers, and workers in Paris mass transit, hospitals, airports, energy, ports, as well as students and lawyers marched together.

The strike demonstrated the enormous social power of the working class mobilized in struggle. Rail traffic was stopped across France, with just one in 10 high-speed trains (TGV) and 3 to 5 percent of Express Regional Trains running. According to SNCF management, 85.7 percent of train drivers and 73.3 percent of train controllers declared they were going on strike.

In Paris, mass transit also virtually stopped. The Independent Paris Transport Authority (RATP) announced 11 of 16 metro lines were shut, and only limited service available on the others.

Strikers blockaded fuel depots, and workers at 7 of France’s 8 oil refineries were on strike, threatening in the longer term to cause fuel shortages across the country.

According to statistics presented by the junior minister for the public service, Olivier Dussopt, 32.5 percent of government workers (including education, post office, and former France Telecom workers) joined the strike. Among schoolteachers, 51.15 percent of primary school teachers and 42.32 percent of secondary school teachers also went on strike. Many children stayed home, or had to be taken to emergency service centers run by city authorities.

Several major French airports were seriously impacted by the strike—including both major Paris airports, Nice, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux—due to strikes by multiple categories of workers, including air traffic controllers in the south.

The strike will continue in multiple industries during the coming days. Union sources said rail traffic would be badly affected until Monday, and airlines said they would cut 20 percent of their flights on Friday. Many teachers are expected to be on strike today. One truckers’ association, lOTRE, had announced last night that it would carry out 15 blockades today to protest against the Macron government’s tax hikes on fuel.

Strikers marched in the hundreds of thousands in gatherings organized across France. The unions announced 250,000 protesters in Paris, 150,000 in Marseille, 100,000 in Toulouse, 40,000 in Lille, and tens of thousands in Montpellier, Bordeaux, and Nantes, as well as 285,000 altogether in approximately 40 other cities. In several cities, authorities refused to provide to the press any figure whatsoever on the number of marchers. …

Well-known “yellow vest” protesters, including Éric Drouet, Priscilla Ludosky and Maxime Nicolle, had called on their supporters to join the protests.

Clashes broke out between security forces and protesters in several cities, including Lyon, Nantes, Rennes and Paris, where the security forces prevented large parts of the march from moving, then attacked them, first on Republic and then on Nation Square.

The Macron government had organized a massive police deployment—comparable to those for the largest “yellow vest” protests last December—but which was absolutely unprecedented for a social protest organized by the trade unions.

L’Express magazine reported that “overall, 108 security intervention units will be deployed across France: 60.5 mobile military police and 47.5 riot police. They will be overwhelmingly assigned, apart from the Paris area, to the south, southeast, and the north, leaving the north, the west and the southwest somewhat understaffed. 180 motorized teams of the BRAV (Brigades for the repression of Violent Action) will be deployed. In terms of technical means, six water cannon will be prepared for action, and three drones will overfly Paris.”

An anonymous high-ranking security official said he was “very worried” about the Paris protest and claimed that “we are in a pre-insurrectionary situation.”

In Paris, the security forces mobilized armored cars, water canon as well as soldiers and riot police armed with assault rifles to barricade the Elysée presidential palace and other state venues. Between 6,000 and 8,500 riot police were mobilized. At 8pm there had been 90 arrests, including 71 preventive detentions, in addition to 11,490 who had been preventively detained and searched.

The December 5 strike is the product of a new stage in the class struggle, with the radicalization of growing layers of the international working class. The call for the strike went from the SNCF, … after two major wildcat strikes shook the railways in the autumn, against SNCF privatization as well as wage cuts and the introduction of two-tier work. Once the call was launched, however, ever broader sections of workers tried to take the opportunity to join in a legally-approved strike.

This mobilization reflects broad, growing opposition to European Union (EU) policies—the public-sector wage freeze and drastic attack on pensions and other social rights. Macron is eliminating multiple special pension funds and moving towards retirement based on “points,” with no pre-set monetary value. The state has rejected aspirations for more social equality and better living conditions for workers with contempt, instead planning deep cuts to pensions, health care and other key programs.

There is widespread opposition among workers to the capitalist social order …

More broadly, none of the problems driving yesterday’s strike had a national character; all of them—low wages and social austerity, the exploitation of workers in understaffed workplaces, social inequality, military-police repression of any opposition to the diktat of the banks—are international problems that have mobilized tens or even hundreds of millions of workers internationally this year. Resolving these problems requires the expropriation of the billionaire financial aristocracy that dominates economic life through the international financial markets.

British children’s cold hungry Christmas under Johnson

This 2017 British Sky TV video says about itself:

Hunger in the school holidays: Millions of British children at risk

Up to three million British children risk going hungry during the school holidays because they don’t have access to free school meals, or are living in poverty.

That’s the findings of a new report by a panel of cross-party MPs, who say the problem can be solved.

They’re calling on the Government to direct money – raised by its sugary drinks tax — to fund local councils to help end the problem.

Sky’s Tom Parmenter has this special report.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain:

Friday, December 6, 2019

Nearly a million children will be deprived of warmth and food during Christmas, says charity

AN AVERAGE of three children in every primary-school class will spend Christmas without the necessities of warmth and nutritious meals, a charity has warned.

Almost a million children under the age of 10 will spend the two-week holiday without heating at home, a warm winter coat or fresh food.

In the absence of free school meals while schools are closed, struggling parents on low incomes are able to spend an average of just £2 a day on food per child, according to Action for Children, which analysed data from the Department of Work and Pensions and Office of National Statistics.

Leanne and her partner from Glasgow both work and have four children under 12.

She started to work part-time night shifts after the birth of her third child, but the family struggles to afford enough food, the charity said.

Leanne initially believed her family would be better off with her in work, “but then all the bills and taxes came in,” she said.

“Despite us both having an income, we had less than ever. I remember saying to my partner that we can’t afford to work.”

Leanne slipped into depression as the family struggled to pay the rent and she often skipped meals herself.

She said her children “were living off chips and plain pasta to fill them up, but it wasn’t healthy. They weren’t getting the fruit and veg they needed. But what else could we do?

“One day, I went to the Action for Children centre and just broke down. That was when my worker got me access to the foodbank. But I was so embarrassed. How was it fair that we are both working, and we are in the foodbank?”

The charity says demand for foodbanks is so high that it is planning to host unofficial foodbanks over the Christmas period, with the Trussell Trust already warning that it is expecting to have “more people than ever” using theirs.

Action for Children chief executive Julie Bentley said: “Politicians are telling us austerity has ended but every day at Action for Children our frontline services say child poverty levels are at the worst they can remember.

“The next government must deliver ambitious policies to end child poverty and bring in a National Childhood Strategy to give all our children a safe and happy childhood.”

Labour announced plans yesterday for “poverty proofing” schools by expanding provision of free breakfasts to all primary schools, and a pilot of the same scheme in secondary schools.

Outside of term time, a new programme would ensure children would have access to meals and sports in the evenings and holidays.

Labour in government would also extend free school meals at secondary school to every child whose family receives benefits, and also cap the cost of expensive school uniforms.

The party would also restore grants to help struggling families with uniform and equipment costs.

The axed Education Maintenance Allowance for teenagers from poorer families in further education would be restored and increased to £35 a week.

Labour’s announcements came as research from the Resolution Foundation think tank found that child poverty would rise to a 60-year high if the Tories’ manifesto was implemented.

This was labelled “a disgrace” by shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, who added that Labour would “tackle child poverty while driving up standards in schools by providing extra support to the children who need it most.”

Big anti-President Macron strike in France

This 5 December 2019 Euronews TV video says about itself:

Mass strikes and protests in France over pension reform | LIVE

Unions call for a national strike across the public and private sectors against French President Emmanuel Macron‘s proposed reform of the country’s pension system.

From daily News Line in Britain, 6 December 2019:

FRANCE is paralysed by a nationwide general strike by transport workers, teachers and other trade unions, supported by the mass of the working population.

This is a showdown between the whole of the working class and President Emmanuel Macron, backed by the ruling class and its armies of riot policemen.

Macron’s planned pension ‘reforms’ force workers to work longer for a smaller pension.

Yesterday, the main cities were at a standstill. …

The strike is open-ended and could last a number of days or weeks. It has drawn comparisons with the struggle between government and unions in November-December 1995, when the country was paralysed for three weeks.

The strikes will be a major test of whether Macron, who came to power on the back of a promise to transform France and wants to be a new Napoleon, has the political strength to push through his pensions plan, and fight the issue out with the working class, using hundreds of thousands of riot police and even the army for that purpose.

This 5 December 2019 video says about itself:

Several thousand people wait outside the “Gare de l’Est” train station in Paris before a march through the French capital to protest against a pension overhaul by President Emmanuel Macron. Unions say the planned reforms will force millions of people to work longer or face curtailed benefits.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Thursday, December 5, 2019

France paralysed by mass strikes against Macron‘s pension raid

FRANCE was shut down by strikes across the public and private sectors today as workers took action against President Emmanuel Macron’s attacks on pensions and the retirement age.

The Eiffel Tower was closed, trains did not run and aircraft were grounded as rallies took place in all the country’s major cities.

Schools and businesses did not function and the presidential palace was barricaded shut, with an extra 6,000 police deployed to the streets of Paris and 65 people arrested before the main Paris demo even began.

Marchers wore yellow vests in solidarity with the huge gilets jaunes movement against neoliberalism or red ones symbolising their trade union membership.

Health workers, students and environmental campaigners joined demonstrations to decry the “social crisis” provoked by Mr Macron’s neoliberal regime, which has attacked workers’ rights and launched a wave of privatisations.

Supportive unions included the CGT, Force Ouvriere, Solidaires, civil servants’ union the FSU and many more. Unions say the action is open-ended and they hope to force government concessions within a week. The Paris Metro strike will last at least until Monday, organisers said.

The movement has also received backing from most political parties, including the Socialists, Communists and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed on the left …

The conservative Republicans said they did not approve of the action, but were also opposed to Mr Macron’s pension raid.

A guide to the action by France Unbowed said Mr Macron was determined to lower the value of pensions and make men and women work longer.

“Why work longer when by retirement age one in two people is no longer employed anyway and an employee produces on average three times more than in 1970?” it asked. “Progress is not about working more and more.”

France Unbowed’s Adrien Quatennens said that “under the alibi of universality, the government is picking everyone’s pockets.” Party leader Mr Melenchon, who marched with strikers in Marseille, has warned that the government’s bid to standardise pension arrangements undermines collective bargaining agreements and pays no attention to specific circumstances in different lines of work.

Communist leader Fabien Roussel said the plans “attack the principle of solidarity that is the basis of French social protection,” being based on changes to pension calculations that “individualise” pension pots and which Mr Macron says will “encourage some people to work longer”.

Security guard Joseph Kakou had to walk an hour to get home because of the lack of transport, but he told reporters: “It doesn’t please us to walk. It doesn’t please us to strike. But we have to. We can’t work until we are 90 years old.”

This 5 December 2019 Deutsche Welle TV video says about itself:

Much of France has ground to a halt as the country experiences its biggest strike in decades over proposed pension reforms. Many people are taking to the streets and there’s severe disruption to rail lines, schools and hospitals. President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the retirement system would force workers to retire later or see their pensions reduced. Union leaders say they will continue the strike until Monday.

Translated from Dutch NOS radio, 5 December 2019:

The national action day was intended as a protest against President Macron’s plans to reform the pension system, but ended in an expression of general anger.

“What is striking is the fighting spirit of many demonstrators,” says correspondent Frank Renout in the radio program Nieuws & Co. “They have had enough of President Macron and think he is breaking down the social system.”

In Nanterre, a small town north-west of Paris, the correspondent noticed that people are willing to continue protests for a long time. “Eg, teachers, they say that the schools should stay closed if necessary.” …

The broad dissatisfaction can be seen in the diversity of action groups. In addition to union members, environmental activists from Extinction Rebellion also took to the streets …

Yellow vests also joined the protests. That movement organized massive protests last year; the group was eventually taken seriously by President Macron. An increase in the minimum wage was announced …

That there are now again large-scale demonstrations is, therefore, a setback for Macron. “The Elysée hasn’t responded yet, but you can imagine that Macron is following the protest with suspicion,” said Renout.

The current demonstrations are partly inspired by the gilets jaunes. “The protesters hope they can repeat the result of the yellow vests and hope that Macron will retreat again after new protests.”

A demonstrator from Nanterre, who spoke to Renout today, has little faith in that. “Macron is a puppet. Large capitalist corporations are pulling the strings. And if they will have had enough of him, then they will be looking for a new one.”

Shell, BP sabotage Paris climate agreement

28 February 2017

Shell Oil Company made Climate of Concern in 1991 as a warning against the dangers of climate change; then they ignored it.

Oil giant Shell has spent millions lobbying against action on climate change. Yet a video uncovered by journalism platform The Correspondent has revealed that the company was acutely aware of the dangers of global warming as early in 1991 when it produced a short documentary warning against the threat of global warming. Find out more here.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

The investments that oil and gas companies such as Shell and BP want to make in the coming five years make it impossible to achieve the Paris climate targets. Seventeen international environmental organizations, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, state this in a research report they presented at the climate summit in Madrid.

According to the researchers, between 2020 and 2024 the fossil industry is pumping more than 1.26 trillion euros into new oil and gas projects. The pumped-up fossil fuels are ultimately burned and CO2 is released and that greenhouse gas retains heat. According to the report, the projects that are planned for the coming five years are good for 148 gigatons of CO2. That is just as much as 1200 new coal-fired power stations.

According to environmental organizations, the earth will heat up by more than 1.5 degrees, perhaps even more than 2 degrees. It was agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement that global warming should be limited to “well below 2 degrees”, preferably about 1.5 degrees.

Incidentally, even with the existing oil and gas reserves, it is not possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, the researchers say. According to Friends of the Earth, the new study “clearly shows that there is no room for more oil and gas extraction“.

British cartoonist Dave Brown wil vote Labour

This 3 April 2017 video from Britain says about itself:

From the #AWEurope Business Insider Innovation Stage, an interview with Dave Brown, Political Cartoonist, The Independent.

By Dave Brown:

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Election 2019: Why I’m Voting Labour: Dave Brown, political cartoonist of the year, 2019

ON THURSDAY December 12, I’ll be voting Labour. God knows why, it’s very much against my best interests.

As a satirical political cartoonist, I make my living by lampooning those in power and those who seek to govern us. My daily bread depends on being able to strip away the carefully spun and tailored image the politician presents to us to reveal their true corrupt, venal, mendacious, nakedness.

Like the little boy in the fairy tale I point and say: “Look the emperor has no clothes…” though, for effect, I tend to add “…and he has a particularly tiny willy!”

So tell me why the hell would I want a modest, honest, reasonable and respectful man in number 10 when I could have an arrogant, Pinocchio-nosed, forked-tongued racist with his pants on fire?

I mean, where’s the fun in cartooning a man who wants to protect our NHS when I could be drawing Johnson and Trump as a pair of bloodied sawbones hacking the ailing patient to death?

Similarly, why would I want our trains brought back under public control when a top-hatted, blond Fat Controller and his billionaire chums running them off the rails is so much more fun to draw?

Imagine, if Iain Duncan Smith lost his seat to Faiza Shaheen, would the poor and disabled afflicted by universal credit really be better off without my regular depictions of the blood-sucking Nosferatu of Chingford?

It really is too bad of paupers to complain so much. Let them eat foodbank Jaffa cakes I say, it’s a small price if it allows me to lampoon Rees-Mogg and other out-of-touch Tories as Marie Antoinette.

Over the last three years I’ve become really good at drawing cliff edges, do you really want to take that away from me just because working people’s jobs might be dashed on the rocks of a Tory hard Brexit?

Do you realise how tough my life will be trying to find a visual metaphor for Corbyn’s pragmatism when, with a few strokes of my pen, I can give you Johnson flogging a dead unicorn?

And now I hear that danger to national security, Mr Corbyn, wouldn’t press the nuclear button. What? But my painted mushroom cloud is a thing of beauty! Oh, there might be some “collateral damage” you say, and it might include me…

Well, as I said, against my better judgement I’ll be voting Labour on Thursday December 12.

Bah humbug!

Dave Brown is the political cartoonist for The Independent.

Billionaire politician wants more taxes for poor people

This 3 December 2019 video from the USA is called [billionaire ex-Republican now Wall Street Democratic party presidential candidate] Michael Bloomberg: Raise Taxes On Poor People.

While billionaires in the USA already pay fewer taxes than poor people …