With the Autumn Statement around the corner, His Majesty’s Treasury has called for policy suggestions from… the public. The Treasury took to Twitter/X last night to fish for ideas, perhaps because they don’t yet have any themselves. Desperate times call for desperate measures…
Did you know you can suggest policy ideas for the Autumn Statement?
— HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) September 25, 2023
Head to our representation portal by 5pm on Friday 13 October 2023 to submit your idea.https://t.co/FVbMy6dSLc pic.twitter.com/Rse7uUWxi3
Entries close on October 13th. Co-conspirators might want to offer some actual conservative ideas… maybe cutting taxes?
Some bold, punchy calls for the need to change the Geneva convention here, particularly to stop the abuse of economic migration:
“The Geneva convention was intended to protect individual people from persecution. A significant number of people who claim asylum are doing so for broadly economic reasons. So I think it is right we look at the framework, as indeed other European countries are doing.”
And another:
“Britain, like all European countries, had inherited the post-war, post-Holocaust system and sentiment on asylum … [that is] completely unrealistic […] The presumption: “that someone who claimed asylum was persecuted and should be taken in”] was plainly false; most asylum claims were not genuine. Disproving them, however, was almost impossible. The combination of the courts, with their liberal instinct; the European Convention on Human Rights, with its absolutist attitude to the prospect of returning someone to an unsafe community; and the UN Convention [Relating to the Status] of Refugees, with its context firmly that of 1930s Germany, mean that, in practice, once someone got into Britain and claimed asylum, it was the Devil’s own job to return them.”
Feisty. No doubt the likes of James O’Brien and Nish Kumar will be absolutely incensed, although wait until they hear who said them… New Labour’s immigration minister Phil Woolas in 2009, and Tony Blair himself in his autobiography. Jack Straw made the same arguments in 2000.* Suella’s speech was practically anodyne by comparison…
*Hat-tip: John Rentoul for reminding Guido of New Labour’s attitude.
A key organiser of the Black Lives Matter protest that led to the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue has confessed to committing fraud, as £30,000 in donations from supporters mysteriously disappeared. Xahra Saleem pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of power, as the money she raised on her GoFundMe page, which was supposed to go to youth charity Changing Your Mindset Ltd went straight into her pocket instead. The charity has since closed down…
The first charge blasts Saleem for her position in which she was supposed “to safeguard or not act against the financial interests of ABL Bristol”. Instead, she “dishonestly abused that position intending to make a gain, namely used the funds raised for [herself].” Saleem also allegedly swiped money from a second fundraiser page intended to cover the legal expenses of individuals facing charges following the protest. She’s pictured here outside the court…
Corbynista MP Apsana Begum has made an appearance alongside the 200 refuse collectors responsible for the piles of rubbish and swarming rats in London’s Tower Hamlets to back their strike action. Her constituents will no doubt be as pleased as Keir Starmer to see the Labour Party representative supporting the strike. The bin-men have been on strike since 18th September and joined a solidarity protest last week with striking NHS workers. There is frenzied talk of a new Winter of Discontent among residents…
Local businesses have taken to hiring their own bin collectors while the striking rubbish men reject a £1,925 pay increase and extend inaction until 15th October. Despite her constituents keeping their children off the streets for fear of rats, Begum praised the striking workers, saying “they’ve captured the attention of everyone in our area”. That’s one way of putting it…
Ed Davey has kicked off his conference speech with some kind of torturous stand-up routine. He tried warming up the crowd with an apology to the “clowning community“… and suggested he “used the wrong C word” when describing the Tories. Rayner’s called Tories “scum”, Davey’s suggesting they’re “c**ts”. Labour and the LibDems will get on like a house on fire in a coalition…
Nobody seems to have noticed the LibDems’ Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran dropped this absolute howler on Any Questions. Admittedly listening to the LibDems talk about Net Zero is a low priority for most people on a Friday evening. Perhaps Moran would have gotten away with it if Guido hadn’t rewound the tape…
Moran lamented how “economically illiterate” the government’s Net Zero changes are, and claimed we should be following the lead of the US… and China:
“You look at the States, where they’re already pumping billions of dollars towards this, you look at China, which is already ahead, actually we had an opportunity – we have still an opportunity – to forge an economy for the future… not only are the Conservatives intent on trashing today’s economy, they seem to want to also trash the future economy as well.”
Apparently China is “already ahead” on climate and Net Zero. This will, of course, be news to anyone living on planet Earth, where China accounted for a whopping 30.9% of carbon emissions in 2021, and is currently rated “highly insufficient” on climateactiontracker.org.
With a Net Zero target date of 2060, not 2050, they are, by a mile, belching out more emissions than anyone else, and building coal power projects faster than you can blink. “Already ahead” in that sense at least…
