UK Politics VI - Will Britain Steir to Karmer Waters?

It is true when those opinions are "We should go and torch that building full of families".
Due to some careless Googling, algorithms are now inundating my feeds with stories like these:
A 45-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to an offence of stirring up racial hatred using images.
It is alleged that Jamie Michael, of Penygraig, Rhondda Cynon Taf, posted a video of himself on Facebook entitled “this is what I believe” on 31 July.
Newport Crown Court was told the video was “threatening, insulting or abusive, intending to stirring up racial hatred”
When he was charged, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was in “relation to the public disorder”. A trial date has been set for 3 February 2025.

Mr Michael, wearing a dark blue T-shirt, said “not guilty” when asked how he pleaded to the charge.
There were shouts from the public gallery when the judge told him he would be remanded in custody until his trial date.
Since the guy has not pleaded guilty, there will apparently be a trial - will the public get a chance to see the post(s) he made?
 
The man is just a lying authoritarian.

Which man ?

What's the deal with the pensions change by Keir Corportmer?

Lots of rumours, but we don't really know yet. We await the new Chancellor's, Rachel Reeves, budget.

Due to some careless Googling, algorithms are now inundating my feeds with stories like these:

It went further. It seems that a, presumably Islamic, man in Pakistan incited rioting against Islamic people in the UK.


 
My lawyer has advised me not to comment.
I need a lawyer like yours, one that will prevent me from speaking my mind at all, lest I incur in wrongthink:scan:
 
BBC Doing PR for Major Polluters

The BBC has produced dozens of films and articles for oil and gas companies, agricultural giants, fossil fuel states, and high-emission transport firms in recent years, DeSmog can reveal.

Experts say the BBC has been “greenwashing” the image of companies and countries contributing to global emissions by trumpeting their dubious climate credentials and promoting their favoured solutions to the crisis.

The content was produced by BBC StoryWorks, a studio that produces videos, podcasts, and articles paid for commercial clients, which it publishes on BBC channels outside the UK.

Branded content appears outside the UK on the BBC website – the most viewed news platform in the world – and on its non-UK broadcast channels, in a similar format to normal editorial output. However, branded content promotes the paying client and typically features interviews with the client’s senior executives. It is only distinguished by a disclaimer that it has been paid for by an external organisation.

BBC Studios – which includes StoryWorks – generated £1.8 billion of sales in the year 2023/24, according to the broadcaster’s annual accounts. The BBC‘s financial deficit is projected to reach nearly £500 million next year, with the licence fee – its primary funding source – having been frozen for several years by the last Conservative government.

Spoiler Quite long You may be better going to the original :
In recent months, the BBC has created content for a number of oil and gas companies, including the French fossil fuel company Engie, which owns a number of coal-fired power plants and relies heavily on gas for its energy production.

BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for liquified natural gas (LNG) companies, and has touted the energy source as a cleaner alternative to other fossil fuels. This is despite experts warning that the booming LNG industry could contribute more heavily to the climate crisis than the ongoing use of coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.

Agriculture accounts for 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and BBC StoryWorks has produced films for some of the world’s biggest food and farming firms, including Nestlé and Bayer, often promoting the disputed green technologies backed by the industry. As previously revealed by DeSmog, BBC StoryWorks has produced dozens of documentaries sponsored by the pesticide giant Corteva, publicising the technologies developed and sold by the firm.

Petrostates with a history of human rights abuses – including the imprisonment of journalists – have also been promoted by BBC StoryWorks.

An investigation by DeSmog and Drilled previously revealed that many of the world’s most trusted English-language news outlets regularly promote the fossil fuel industry’s narratives on climate-related topics. Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and the Washington Post all have internal commercial studios that create advertising content for fossil fuel firms.

The BBC is committed to science-led climate reporting and in 2021 signed the Climate Content Pledge, promising to do “more and better climate story-telling on screen across all genres.”

However, critics say that BBC StoryWorks is using the broadcaster’s reputation – including its role as a public service broadcaster – to make money from commercial content that often flouts its editorial values.

An investigation by DeSmog and Drilled previously revealed that many of the world’s most trusted English-language news outlets regularly promote the fossil fuel industry’s narratives on climate-related topics. Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and the Washington Post all have internal commercial studios that create advertising content for fossil fuel firms.

The BBC is committed to science-led climate reporting and in 2021 signed the Climate Content Pledge, promising to do “more and better climate story-telling on screen across all genres.”

However, critics say that BBC StoryWorks is using the broadcaster’s reputation – including its role as a public service broadcaster – to make money from commercial content that often flouts its editorial values.

In 2021, the broadcaster launched a “Humanising Energy” series “presented by” the World Energy Council, a global forum for sustainable energy development, followed by a second series in 2023.

The two series featured dozens of five-minute films paid for by individual firms, showcasing their supposed climate solutions. These films typically involved one-on-one interviews with people either creating or benefiting from these green innovations, as well as cinematic shots of the technologies being deployed.

Sponsors of films in the two Humanising Energy series included the fossil fuel companies Engie Brazil, Gasum (the largest distributor of LNG in the Nordic countries), CLP Holdings (which has said it won’t phase out its coal assets before 2040, and hasn’t committed to phasing out its gas assets), Mabanaft, and Invenergy, the energy services firm Voith, and the engine manufacturer Cummins.

All of these films touted the supposed climate credentials of the featured companies, without examining their contribution to global emissions or the viability of the featured technologies.

In January 2024, Cummins agreed to pay a record $1.7 billion fine – the second largest environmental penalty ever in the U.S. – after facing charges that it equipped roughly one million vehicles with devices that bypassed emissions sensors. The company didn’t admit wrongdoing.

Just a few months earlier, BBC StoryWorks produced a film for Cummins boasting of the firm’s efforts to help decarbonise commercial vehicles.

The Invenergy film focused on its construction of an LNG plant in El Salvador. While the content attempted to show how the plant was providing energy and jobs to the local community, it also tried to tout the environmental benefits of natural gas.

During the film, an Invenergy spokesperson suggested that natural gas generates 30 percent less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels, neglecting the fact that natural gas is composed largely of methane, which is over 80 times more potent than CO2 across a 20 year period. Even relatively small methane leaks during the process of extracting, shipping, and processing natural gas contribute significantly to global emissions.

One of the films in the Humanising Energy series – “The evolution of home energy” – promoted the role of hydrogen in supplying home heating. Yet, while green hydrogen is widely accepted as necessary for decarbonising heavy industry and other sectors where alternative renewable energy sources are unworkable, it is not considered viable for heating homes.

A peer-reviewed assessment of over 50 independent studies in 2024 concluded that hydrogen use in domestic heating is inefficient, costly and resource-intensive compared to other low-carbon options such as heat pumps.

The BBC StoryWorks film was paid for by DNV, a Norwegian company that claims to be “the world’s leading resource of independent energy experts and technical advisors”, including the oil and gas sector. DNV says on its website that it “delivers broad technical expertise and experience to enable hydrogen to play a key role in the energy transition”.

A DNV spokesperson said that, “While DNV does work with oil and gas companies and organisations across renewable energy production, it is not involved in the direct production or distribution of energy… Our approach to energy solutions is rooted in comprehensive research and rigorous testing, and our position as an independent third party is a central part of our identity and our work.”

The Humanising Energy series also featured two films advocating for the development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) – one paid for by the aviation giant Boeing, and one paid for by the energy and chemicals company Sasol alongside the gas company Linde.

SAFs have been criticised as being environmentally damaging and currently economically unviable. The Advertising Standards Authority this month banned a Virgin Atlantic advert for making the “misleading” claim that it had developed a “100 percent sustainable aviation fuel”.

In August 2022, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said that the amount of money invested by airlines in SAFs was “insufficient” and that it seemed as though the technology was simply “about burnishing airlines’ images” by inflating their environmental credentials.

Sasol told DeSmog that its SAF initiatives were not an example of greenwashing and that it believes SAFs hold the “promise to be an enabler of our own decarbonisation and contribute to decarbonising aviation.”

Aviation contributes approximately 2.5 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, yet BBC StoryWorks has produced content for a number of airlines in recent months and years, including Uzbekistan Airways (March 2024), China Southern Airline (2022), and Korean Air (2017).

BBC StoryWorks has also worked extensively with other polluting transport companies.

It produced an advertising campaign for the shipping and cruise company Cunard that appeared on BBC StoryWorks social media pages in July 2024. Europe’s 218 cruise ships emitted as much sulphur oxides as one billion cars in 2022.

BBC StoryWorks has also produced branded content for the car company Hyundai, as well as for Lexus, Volkswagen, and Jaguar. In addition, the studio has produced a six-part series paid for by the Indian multinational motorcycle company Royal Enfield.

Transport contributes roughly one quarter of all energy related greenhouse gas emissions, while outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause more than 3.2 million premature deaths worldwide every year.

“This important investigation reveals that BBC StoryWorks has been doing the greenwashing work of major polluting firms driving the climate crisis by obscuring their role and promoting their preferred ‘solutions’, however discredited by science,” Professor Newell told DeSmog.

Greenwashing is when a company falsely brands something as eco-friendly, green or sustainable. In 2017, the BBC itself produced a guide to the “seven ways to spot businesses greenwashing”.

BBC StoryWorks has also been paid to produce content for major agricultural polluters and their lobbyists. This content has often promoted the technological hacks that food and farming giants claim will reduce the sector’s emissions, rather than the more fundamental changes in production and consumption that scientists say will be crucial in limiting Big Ag’s climate impact.

In 2023, BBC StoryWorks produced an advertising campaign for the pesticides giant Bayer, the world’s second largest crop chemicals company, boasting of the firm’s efforts to facilitate “scientific breakthroughs”.

In addition, as part of a branded content series in late 2023 entitled “The Climate and Us”, BBC StoryWorks was paid by Bayer to produce a film on the digital apps helping farmers to monitor and reduce their emissions.

The film, which featured an interview with Bayer’s vice president of digital farming operations, promoted the firm’s technologies with no additional comment from experts on its efficacy, or Bayer’s stance on climate change.

According to the Pesticides Action Network, over a third of Bayer’s sales derive from products that are highly hazardous to the environment, animal or human health. (The methodology for this classification is strongly disputed by Bayer on the grounds that it uses different criteria to internationally accepted rules).

Bayer told DeSmog that it is “committed to ambitious sustainability goals and has a positive track record while recognising the ongoing challenge.”

Experts say that the overuse of chemical pesticides is harming the future of food production. Biodiversity is in sharp decline across the world, and numbers of birds and pollinators are plummeting in Europe.

Bayer, which makes almost $10 billion in agrochemical sales every year, has also faced millions of dollars in lawsuits over health issues allegedly related to its products, including from farmers.

In 2023, DeSmog revealed that BBC StoryWorks had produced three documentary series and 26 articles – viewed at least 65 million times – sponsored by Corteva, one of the world’s largest pesticide firms.

The BBC said that the Corteva-sponsored content, which focused on sustainable food production, was editorial in nature and not influenced by its corporate client. However, experts said the documentaries gave a “totally biased” picture of global food problems, while the content promoted a number of the technologies developed by Corteva.

BBC StoryWorks also produced two articles in 2023 paid for by Australian Dairy – the country’s industry trade group.

The first article promoted the supposed contribution of milk and dairy to a healthy diet, while the second advocated for “precision farming” – in other words, using technology to ensure that resources are used efficiently and to track climate impacts.

Scientists and health professionals agree that dairy products are not necessary for a healthy diet, and they agree that for people who are able to have a varied diet, lower meat and dairy consumption is healthier than diets higher in milk and dairy.

Experts also doubt that precision farming can be rolled out widely enough to meaningfully reduce agricultural emissions. The environmental group Friends of the Earth has said that: “Faced with global climate and biodiversity emergencies, better ‘optimisation’ of existing production processes cannot possibly go far enough to meet the challenges we face.”

According to a March 2024 Harvard Law paper, which surveyed more than 200 environmental and agricultural scientists, meat and dairy production must be drastically reduced – and fast – to align with the Paris Agreement. The report concluded that global emissions from livestock production need to decline by 50 percent during the next six years, with “high-producing and consuming nations” taking the lead.

Sophie Nodzenski, a senior campaign strategist on food and agriculture at Greenpeace International told DeSmog: “Tinkering with the status quo is no longer an option. Meat and dairy companies are climate killers. The livestock sector is one of the leading sources of human-made methane emissions, which move us faster and further past the 1.5C threshold, worsening global heating.

“Meat and dairy companies must stop misleading the public with pseudo solutions and focus on reducing their livestock herds drastically to bring down emissions instead. This reduction can give us a fighting chance against climate chaos.”

In 2023, BBC StoryWorks also produced content for the world’s largest food and drink company Nestlé, boasting of the company’s efforts to support sustainable farming through “regenerative agriculture”.

The film failed to acknowledge that Nestlé – whose 87.5 million tonnes of annual emissions are similar to those of Chilespent 14 times more on “marketing and administration” in the last year than it did on regenerative agriculture over the previous five years combined.

“Nestlé’s strong focus on using regenerative agriculture to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – one of Nestlé’s main strategies to achieve net zero – is not backed by robust scientific evidence,” Nodzenski said.

“Increasing carbon storage in soils, as well as forests and other vegetation, is necessary, but should not replace a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – one of the main sources of Nestlé’s emissions.”

The Nestlé film was part of a “Food for Thought” series backed by the trade body FoodDrink Europe, whose members feature major polluters including Cargill, Coca-Cola, and Unilever.

A Nestlé spokesperson said: “We continue to invest in and deliver on our net zero roadmap. By the end of 2023, we had reduced our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 13.5 percent in absolute terms since 2018. Our GHG reduction targets are third-party approved by the Science Based Targets initiative and include a 20 percent absolute cut by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030 covering all sources of agricultural emissions in our supply chain.

“We continue to ramp up our climate efforts using world class research and development, including via the Nestlé Institute for Agricultural Sciences.

“Nestlé has committed to invest $1.2 billion to pay premiums to farmers for ingredients grown using regenerative agriculture practices, provide technical assistance and support investment.”

Over recent years, BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for some of the world’s leading fossil fuel states, many of which have a poor record on human rights and press freedom.

This year’s flagship COP29 climate summit will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. The country is a petrostate with oil and gas production accounting for roughly half of its GDP and over 90 percent of its exports. The country, run under an authoritarian system with little effective political opposition, plans to increase fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade.

Azerbaijan’s government has also been accused by of a media crackdown by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch ahead of November’s summit, arresting 25 journalists and activists in the past year.

However, since November 2023, BBC StoryWorks has produced several adverts promoting Azerbaijan as a place to visit, while greenwashing its image.

For example, in December 2023, the studio released an advert paid for by the country’s space agency Azercosmos, attempting to show “How digitisation is changing the game for Azerbaijan’s quest for renewable energy.”

The advert was accompanied by an article claiming that Azerbaijan plans to transition “from an oil- and gas-based economy into a thriving modern hub.” The article did not mention the country’s plan to expand fossil fuel production, which contravenes globally agreed efforts to limit rising temperatures.

BBC StoryWorks has also produced content promoting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the host of the 2023 COP28 climate summit and another petrostate with a poor human rights record.

In 2023, the studio produced a branded content podcast series on behalf of Abu Dhabi Tourism, featuring five 20-minute episodes each “highlighting the message that Abu Dhabi [the capital of the UAE] is a destination for every kind of traveller”.

The series was shortlisted for a 2023 World Media Award and, in the award submission, the BBC said it “challenged preconceived notions and [positioned] the city as a cultural gem worth exploring”. The series was downloaded 115,000 times, according to the BBC.

The UAE derives roughly 40 percent of its income from oil and gas, and this isn’t the only time that BBC StoryWorks has produced content promoting the petrostate.

The Humanising Energy series featured an article entitled, “The rise of renewable energies in oil-rich regions”, which greenwashed the image of Gulf states.

The story stated that the UAE is “planning to increase oil production to more than five million barrels a day by 2030”, but said that the country “has been looking toward more sustainable energy sources”. It went on to say that “Clean energy projects are coming of age” in the UAE, “from record-breaking solar parks and green hydrogen to waste-to-energy plants”.

The UAE’s overall climate action has been rated as “critically insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project that monitors government climate action and measures it against the Paris Agreement.

Weeks before COP28, the country’s national oil company, ADNOC, awarded contracts worth $17 billion for the development of new offshore gas fields.

The Gulf state also has a poor record on human rights and press freedom. The UAE continues to arrest and imprison activists, academics, and lawyers who speak out against its monarchic rulers. UAE authorities also continue to discriminate against women, LGBTQ communities, and migrants.

According to Reporters Without Borders, “The government prevents both local and foreign independent media outlets from thriving by tracking down and persecuting dissenting voices.”

“The rise of renewable energies in oil-rich regions” article also attempted to promote the ways in which “women are playing an increasing role in the renewable energy sector”. The story cited the fact that women are leading green initiatives in Kuwait, and Jordan.

However, many Gulf states routinely discriminate against women. In Kuwait for example, the country’s personal status laws discriminate against women in matters of marriage, divorce, and child custody.

Despite this, BBC StoryWorks has frequently promoted the country. In December 2023, the studio published an advert from the Kuwait Fund, the country’s state-run development agency, boasting of its efforts to help “disadvantaged regions, women and minorities”.

Reporters Without Borders states that Kuwait’s censorship laws prohibit journalists “from criticising the government, the emir, the ruling family, its allies or religion”. In particular, it is “difficult for journalists to tackle migrant worker rights, women’s rights and corruption.”

Oil and gas revenues account for roughly 60 percent of Kuwait’s GDP.

BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for the petrostate Qatar, promoting the country as a tourist destination despite its record of discriminating against women and minorities.

BBC StoryWorks has a history of working for repressive regimes, including China. The U.S. publication Deadline reported in December 2022 that BBC StoryWorks had partnered with at least nine Chinese state-affiliated bodies, including a media outlet banned from broadcasting in the UK.

“Those commissioning and paying for this content are deliberately using the BBC’s brand to greenwash or whitewash their own reputations. It’s an exercise of cynical manipulation,” the BBC’s former Baghdad bureau chief Patrick Howse told DeSmog.

“Commissions like this are lucrative and therefore attractive to a corporation that has been deliberately and severely financially squeezed by the UK government over a long period. This has forced the BBC to seek money from wherever it can find it, and this poses a risk to its editorial independence and honesty, which will ultimately undermine the trust of the BBC’s audience.”


Storyworks5.jpg.avif
 
Greenwashing is disgusting...anyone caught in this scheme should be heavily prosecuted!
 
Ex-Network Rail chair threatened firm over engineer’s Euston criticism

The new rail minister threatened in a previous role to withhold public contracts from one of the UK’s largest engineering groups until it disciplined a senior engineer for raising concerns about safety at one of London’s busiest train stations.

In his former role as chair of Network Rail, Peter Hendy threatened Systra UK, which counts Network Rail among its main clients, with losing business not only from the public body but also its supply chain.

He told Network Rail officials to “deal with” the engineer, Gareth Dennis, and said the Systra CEO should be sent a “stop and desist” letter with a request for disciplinary action against Dennis.

In an email to Systra, Lord Hendy said “the allegation that Network Rail is running an unsafe operation is a serious one” and added: “Employees here know that what they say in the media reflects on their employment, and I should like confirmation that your employees understand that too.”

Six days after Hendy’s letter to Systra on 14 May, Dennis was placed on suspension while an investigation was carried out into his comments in an Independent article published a month earlier in which he raised concerns that overcrowding at Euston station was unsafe. Hendy’s complaint was cited in the suspension letter that Dennis received on 20 May.

Further emails show that on 24 May Dennis was offered a financial settlement to leave Systra on the condition that he sign an agreement with a confidentiality clause. He did not sign it, and on 8 July he was dismissed with four weeks’ notice after a disciplinary hearing.

Dennis, who has a one-year-old child, won the 2024 Young Rail Professionals distinguished service award. He said the minister’s intervention “exposes Hendy’s hypocrisy and the industry’s failure to address safety and accessibility issues”.

“His letter to Systra and his multiple emails to Network Rail executives where he discusses getting me sacked reveal what the rail industry and [its] leadership actually thinks about safety and accessibility,” said Dennis, a rail expert who also lectures at the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education.

Hendy’s emails and letter were written weeks before his apology to the Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson after she had to crawl off a train at London’s King’s Cross when staff failed to help her disembark. On Tuesday Lady Grey-Thompson said the apologies from Hendy and other transport executives were “nice … but don’t mean much”.

The letter reveals that Hendy asked for evidence and demanded that Salt tell him “what action you are taking” in relation to Dennis and attempted to gain leverage over Systra, which counts Network Rail as one of its main clients, by threatening to withhold public contracts.

“Finding a potential supplier criticising a possible client reflects adversely on your likelihood of doing business with us or our supply chain,” he wrote.

Hendy, who earned a knighthood in 2013 and later that year was revealed to have given free travel in the form of four £10 Oyster cards and a London 2012 badge to a prostitute with whom he had a nine-month affair, was chair of Network Rail from 2015 until he was brought into the Labour government and made a lord last month.

As a minister at the Department for Transport, Hendy is now in charge of reforming the UK’s railways and determining their future structure – a major government priority.

His letter to Systra came after he wrote a number of internal emails to officials at Network Rail a few days before.

On 15 April, Hendy wrote: “Dennis is a prolific consultant. Please check whether we have (I know we have) and or are currently employing him as we should stop. Accusing NR of operating the station unsafely is unacceptable and we should challenge his qualifications to say so. We shouldn’t leave him without challenge on this.”

On being told that Dennis worked for Systra, Hendy replied: “If he does we should write directly to their CEO with a stop and desist letter.”

Two days later Hendy sent another email to Network Rail officials saying Salt should be sent a “request for disciplinary action [against Dennis] as this is a serious and completely unproven allegation”.

On 24 April he wrote an email asking officials: “How did we deal with him?” In a later email he added: “You don’t answer the point about whether Dennis and Systra accept the point that your staff have a responsibility both to your own reputation and that of actual and potential customers … he’s a manager in the railway industry and he and you have responsibilities as a consequence.”

In September 2023 the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), a government regulator, had issued an improvement notice to Network Rail about overcrowding at Euston, warning: “You have failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events”.
 
Well, if the Tories can do it, then why can't everyone else?
 
The tories didn't get 34%, though. Corbyn got 40% and wasn't even the largest party in parliament.
They have won with about that.

eb76d0e7-b039-4e8c-8ae0-4e068573219e.png
 
Speaking about it, is there any political momentum to switch to something other than the FPTP system in the UK, or is it the kind of thing people complain about but don't push to change ?
 
Speaking about it, is there any political momentum to switch to something other than the FPTP system in the UK, or is it the kind of thing people complain about but don't push to change ?
There is always people who want change, but the way it works it is never in the interest of those with power.
 
Top Bottom