Making the news today....

[sime42]

This is going to be another horrendous one as the story unfolds. FFS.

 

Joel Le Scouarnec: France readies itself for child abuse trial of former surgeon

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Joel Le Scouarnec is accused of having abused hundreds of young patients, often while they were under anaesthetic.

 

 

[Mark J]

Another Angry Voice

 

Rachel Reeves "new approach" is just "more of the same"

In her latest economic speech Rachel Reeves claimed that "at the election people voted for a whole new approach". That’s possibly true, although a more realistic interpretation could be that Labour won by default because the Tories imploded, and millions stayed at home in despair at the lack of alternatives to the failing status quo.

Even if we accept Reeves’ interpretation of the election result at face value, it’s still deeply problematic.

If people "voted for a whole new approach" then where are the new ideas? Where are the policies designed to make life better for ordinary people? And why does Rachel Reeves’ economic rhetoric sound indistinguishable from the succession of Tory Chancellors who preceded her?

Let’s look at some of the Labour government core positions under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Austerity

One of the first things Rachel Reeves did was to launch another economically debilitating round of austerity cutbacks, pinning blame on the previous government for her actions.

That’s pretty much identical to George Osborne’s strategy in 2010, of blaming Labour’s supposed economic mismanagement for his ruinous programme of austerity cuts.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

Privatisation profiteering

Starmer’s Labour outright refuses to countenance taking vital services and infrastructure away from parasitical privatisation profiteers to run them as not-for-profit public services.

In fact Starmer’s health secretary Wes Streeting is salivating at the mouth at the prospect of carving the NHS open for even more private profiteering, to the benefit of several private health figures who have donated hefty sums to Starmer’s front bench.

Even Labour’s renationalisation of the railways is a sham which keeps the trains and freight services under the control of greedy private profiteers.

Labour are on the side of the privatisation profiteers, just like the Tories before them.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

Wittering on about "growth"

Rachel Reeves keeps going on and on about creating "growth" but without setting out any kind of realistic framework to get the economy growing in real terms, and without defining any redistribution strategy to ensure that any additional growth isn’t simply hoovered up by greedy corporations, exploitative landlords, financial speculators, and the tax-dodger brigade, leaving the rest of us even deeper in the mire of inequality.

Without redistribution policies Reeves’ "growth agenda" amounts to the same old trickle down economic bunk that neoliberal political grifters have been spouting for decades.

’Just let the rich get richer, and eventually some of it will trickle down to plebs like you’ - It didn’t work in the 1980s, it didn’t work in the Tory austerity years, and it’s not going to work now.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

Child impoverishment

One of Keir Starmer’s first acts as Prime Minister was to purge seven Labour MPs from the parliamentary party for the crime of voting to scrap the Tories’ diabolical poverty-spreading Two Child Policy.

Recent research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that child poverty is due to rise in England and Wales under Starmer’s leadership, due to Labour’s draconian welfare policies.

Meanwhile in Scotland, child poverty rates are set to fall as the SNP government works to mitigate the terrible consequences of Reeves’ poverty-spreading agenda.

If Labour were to follow the SNP example and scrap the Two Child policy, it’d raise 800,000 kids out of poverty, but they don’t want to do that because they’re too busy pandering to the rich.

Labour aren’t just sticking with Tory child-impoverishment policies, they’re wittering on about how growth is magically going to fix everything while a third of all British kids grown up in poverty.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

Welfare scapegoating

One of the most depraved things about the 2010-2024 Tory governments was the way they continually attacked the most vulnerable people in society. Not just whipping up public hate against the poor, the unemployed, and the disabled, but implementing cruel and draconian policies to drive the most vulnerable people in society deeper into destitution (Bedroom Tax, Two Child Policy, Benefit Sanctions, "Fit For Work" assessments …).

Rachel Reeves has been copying from the same Tory playbook by distracting from her own economic failings by whipping public resentment against disabled people, and pledging yet another round of austerity cuts to the disability welfare system.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

The panacea of deregulation

Reeves bangs on and on about deregulation, as if giving powerful corporations even more leeway to do whatever they like is magically going to result in prosperity for the rest of us.

Look at the Grenfell tragedy. Look at our rivers and coastal waters full of raw sewage. Look at the life-ruining Post Office Horizon scandal. Look at the outrageous P&O sackings. Look at the collapse of Carillion. Look at the orgy of corruption going on in Teesside.

Who on earth thinks that any of these things would be have been made better by even less regulation than there was?

And who can forget David Cameron endlessly fulminating against "red tape" and promising a "bonfire of regulations".

How is Reeves’ anti-regulation rhetoric any different from what came before?

Conclusion: "More of the same"

Brexit

Reeves only mentions Brexit once in her speech to say "we are pragmatic about the challenges that we have inherited from the last government’s failed Brexit deal".

But what does this even mean?

Keir Starmer whipped Labour MPs into backing Boris Johnson’s Brexit shambles, and he’s repeatedly insisted that the country is stuck with it now, and there’s nothing to be done to try and mitigate the damage.

How can anyone give a speech on "growth" without acknowledging the diabolical impact that Brexit has had on the British economy?

It doesn’t matter how many pensioners, children, and disabled people Reeves drives into destitution in her cruel and counter-productive austerity book-balancing exercises, when the Brexit sanctions we applied on ourselves are such a massive millstone on the UK economy.

Conclusion: "More of the same"

More of the same

In conclusion Reeves is pretending to offer the change that she says the British public wanted, but in reality whole swathes of her speech, and Labour’s policy agenda are indistinguishable from the rhetoric and policies of preceding Tory governments.

And when people are handed the cold gruel of "more of the same" when they’ve been promised that everything will change for the better, that’s the environment of disillusion that the extreme-right absolutely thrive in.

[Stubby]

Its looking more and more like Lucey Letby is innocent of murder after several medical experts could find no evidence of murder in any of the babies . Possible huge miss carriage of justice .  

[Mick Dempsey]

3 hours ago, Stubby said:

Its looking more and more like Lucey Letby is innocent of murder after several medical experts could find no evidence of murder in any of the babies . Possible huge miss carriage of justice .  

Yes, saw that.

Its crazy though isn’t it? I can’t see how they could get it wrong.

Can’t get my head round it.

[Mark J]

5 hours ago, Stubby said:

Its looking more and more like Lucey Letby is innocent of murder after several medical experts could find no evidence of murder in any of the babies . Possible huge miss carriage of justice .  

It is crackers. If the death penalty was a thing she'd probably be swinging by now. 

[Mick Dempsey]

He wants to do what now?

[Mark J]

15 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

He wants to do what now?

He's only been in the job for a month. This doesn't bode well. 

[sime42]

It's so simple, all it needs is for some nice real estate to be built, can't believe the issue hasn't been resolved before now. Crazy.

 

 

 

Trump's remarks on US 'take over' of Gazapublished at 07:07
07:07

What did Trump say about the US taking over Gaza?

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.

“Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.

“We'll do a real job. Do something different. Just can't go back. If you go back, it's going to be the same way it has for 100 years.”

A little later, Trump was questioned on what authority he has to remove the population of 1.8 million people from Gaza.

He replied: “I do see a long term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East, and everybody I've spoken to, this was not a decision made lightly.

“Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know.”

What did Trump say about resettling people who currently live in Gaza?

Shortly before their press conference, Trump spoke with Netanyahu in front of reporters in the White House, where he made these comments:

"If you look over the decades, it's all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years, it's all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed, not be knifed to death like what's happening in Gaza...

"I believe we can resettle, and I believe we can do it in areas where the leaders currently say no."

What did Trump say the solution in Gaza might look like?

At the end of the press conference, Trump spelled out his vision for how Gaza might look in the future:

"I envision people living there, the world's people. I think we'll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable.

"I think the entire world - representatives from all over the world - will be there, Palestinians also will live there, many people will live there...

"You have to learn from history, you just can't let it keep repeating itself. We have an opportunity to do something phenomenal. I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something so magnificent.

"We'll make sure that it's done world class, it will be wonderful for the people, Palestinians mostly we're talking about. And despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the King in Jordan and that Egypt will open their hearts and give us the kind of land that we need to get this done, and people can live in harmony and peace."

[tree-fancier123]

the european settlers moved native americans out the way, now one of the settlers descendents wants to clear some arabs off a piece of land.

Trump doesnt like it when its not the whites doing the land clearing - threatening to stop funding South Africa. The whites knew how to dominate by force during apartheid. In a fair world the Africans and Arabs could join forces, take the fight to Trump and invade Mar a Lago, level the site and grow crops.

But this isnt a fair world - its the natural world

Edited February 5 by tree-fancier123

[Steven P]

Would be a nice golf course along that coast, sunny with plenty of bunkers.

 

 

 

(only draw back is to do that the US would also need to step up and house 1.8 million Palestinian immigrants since none of the neighbouring states have ever wanted to do that, with many many barriers to them moving away from Gaza into neighbouring states.)