Green energy tycoon and Labour bankroller, Dale Vince, is yet again putting profit before his own principles. This time, he’s facing opposition from local Green Party councillors over his proposed plan to develop a Stroud office building into 18 flats. Their list of environmental complaints is long and includes:
- Because there is no design and access statement, we assume the proposed development is non-sustainable and is not energy efficient.
- There is no consideration for double or triple glazing for soundproofing or sustainable energy.
- Cycle and recycling facilities are inadequate.
- There are no EV charging points.
- The flats are very mean in size.
Conservation experts also add that, without mitigation, the plans “do not adequately address the requirements of The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017″…
This is far from the first time Just Stop Oil-loving Dale has put his anti-growth ideals on the back burner. He also made £65 million selling ‘dirty gas’ and plans to launch his own fleet of jet-fuel burning domestic airliners. His eco-agenda increasingly seems to apply to others…
Labour have spent the past few days taking the Tories to task over taxpayer waste – painting over their own profligacy – and one attack line in particular required particular artistic licence. Yesterday, Labour Press tweeted out a criticism of the government spending £3,393 on 13 photographs. That works out to £261 per picture for the Government Art Collection (GAC).
📸 Which minister's department spent £3,393 of public cash buying 13 fine art photographs from The Tate Gallery?
— Labour Press (@labourpress) February 13, 2023
Why didn’t they use the 14,700 alternatives in the Government Art Collection? We can tell you the 1st answer, the 2nd remains a mystery
➡️ https://t.co/ujdIr20IWR ⬅️ pic.twitter.com/tS2x9VSVMM
Labour could have done with expanding their focus, as targeting such waste has left their own record overexposed. In 2008 the GAC spent a stunning £88,125 on American Tan XX by Gary Hume – it hung from May-September 2008 on the wall of Gordon Brown’s office. By Guido’s calculation’s that’s over 300 times more expensive / wasteful than the purchases they are criticising. Surely Damian McBride, the former SpAd turned PAd whom is said to be behind this week’s line of attack on government procurement, will surely remember seeing this picture hanging on the wall behind Gordon as he suffered another raging tantrum from the then Chancellor?
The Sun got an interesting briefing from the Shadow Chancellor’s office on Sunday night, revealing that Rachel Reeves is now backing a freeze of fuel duty to “help hard-pressed motorists”. Freezing fuel duty given current rates of inflation would cost the taxpayers around £6 billion…
Reeves told the paper:
“With so many families and businesses reliant on their cars, the government must rule out yet another fuel duty rise at the Budget to ease some of those pressures and prevent yet another shock to our economy.”
However given major questions about whether voters can trust a word Sir Keir’s Labour says, Reeves will struggle to explain why she appears to have performed such a volte-face on the issue of freezing fuel duty.
Responding to Rishi’s March 2020 budget, the then-backbencher Reeves slammed the government for spending £2.7 billion on “yet another fuel duty freeze”, despite COP26 in Glasgow being just around the corner:
“Yet what have we had in the Budget today? We have had £27 billion to invest in 4,000 miles of roads, and the fuel duty freeze, which costs £2.7 billion, but just £6 billion for local transport and a mere £140 million for a one-year extension of the electric vehicle grants. Frankly, that does not speak of a Government who recognise the scale of the challenge we face”
Later on, she tweeted that “yet another fuel duty freeze” was the sign the government “don’t recognise the challenge of the climate emergency.”
It wasn’t just Reeves slamming the government’s now-relatively modest spending on a fuel duty freeze. Lisa Nandy, the now-Shadow Levelling Up secretary also slammed the decision given:
“Car usage is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions – but instead of investment in low carbon transport, they’ve frozen fuel duty.”
We’re now supposed to believe the Labour Party sincerely believes in spending £6 billion on freezing fuel duty. Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides – provided voters can afford to fill up their cars…
Many viewers of ITV’s coverage of the World Cup Final were displeased with one instance of pre-match pontificating, and none more so than Lee Anderson. The MP took to Twitter to call out Gary Neville, who utilised his platform to proclaim “we’ve got a current government in our country who are demonising rail workers, ambulance workers and, terrifyingly, nurses”. Moralistic lectures don’t hit so hard when delivered from Qatari TV studios…
Another party political broadcast by a millionaire. Looks like ITV is on my banned list now. Talk about football Gary and keep your nose out of politics. You don't know what you're talking about. pic.twitter.com/LA0PXdp1hl
— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) December 18, 2022
Gary responded that he was pleased with Lee’s reaction, calling the Conservatives “the biggest set of charlatans to ever be in power!”. Lee didn’t take this attack lying down – he challenged Gary to stand against him in Ashfield. Neville rejected the offer, before getting another shot off:
You voted to stop children eating school meals in a pandemic! That ends any debate you will ever enter with anyone!
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) December 19, 2022
Though Anderson hit right back, pointing out that Gary, so keen to argue for workers’ rights, was less happy to practise what he preaches. His hotel employs British staff on zero-hours contracts. Quite the own goal.
Guido has found yet more instances of Gary’s low-pay double standards. Indeed reports that his hotel has wages at just £7.50 an hour, whilst Neville’s Salford City F.C. makes the most of unpaid labour to coach its women’s team. Gary also has held extensive investments in Malta, a country with its own problems with workers’ rights. “Detesting low pay” doesn’t extend to his own businesses…
Chris Bryant is giving a speech at the University of Westminster this evening on “truth, honesty and integrity.” In full, the ‘Civility in Politics 2022’ winner will talk on:
- The importance of truth, honesty and integrity in public office and in news reporting
- The role of algorithms in filtering news & their distorting effect on the truth
- How news providers stir up hatred and drive divisive agendas to generate clicks and the advertising revenue which follows
- Why it is essential that news publishers are bound by robust standards on accuracy – the integrity of our democracy relies on it
Chris Bryant should pause the pontificating until he spends some time on introspection…
Since Bryant won the civility in politics award – the irony of which Guido detailed here – he’s not stopped putting his foot in it.
A month after winning it he was forced to apologise for false claims he’d made in Parliament, the outcome of an unprecedented legal challenge that saw his parliamentary privilege come unstuck. Not just a minor false allegation – accusing Christopher Chandler of money laundering and being a Russian spy…
As Chris lectures students on how “news providers stir up hatred and drive divisive agendas”, he may want to think about his description of Liz Truss’s new batch of ministers:
“It feels like pretty much anyone with a brain, a conscience and a work ethic has been purged from government either by Johnson or Truss. It’s an empty vessel of a government – loud, noisy but dangerously vacuous.”
When he turns to “the importance of truth, honesty and integrity in public office”, he will surely mention his recent smearing of Tory MPs by falsely claiming – on the floor of the House – he had witnessed bullying in the voting lobbies the night of the fracking vote. He is yet to correct the record…
On the topic of calling on news publishers to be “bound by robust standards on accuracy”, he may choose to mention how even the BBC managed to show him up when he accused them of failing to mention Kate Andrews “is part of the [IEA]” when she appeared on Question Time last month. Of course she isn’t, and he didn’t back down when this inaccurate bullying of a female columnist was called out…
Anyone wanting to watch the speech can reserve a spot here. Guido, for one, will be giving it a miss…
As Labour leads the charge against fee-paying schools, Guido’s attention was drawn to one particularly brash intervention. Labour’s candidate for Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash, claimed on Twitter that private education was not charitable, adding there is “no justification” for tax incentives which “should be abolished”. This intervention may come as a surprise to those who know Jonathan. For not only was he educated at £5,000 per term Yarm School, he now teaches there…
Labour claims to be ready for government, though once again they’re showing an inability to practise what they preach. Fellow Yarm alumnus, Simon Clarke wrote Jonathan this report:
“It shows scarcely believable hypocrisy for Jonathan Brash, who teaches at Yarm School, to attack the very sector in which he is happy to be employed… Labour candidates like Mr Brash deserve A*s for double standards.”
You’d expect a keener sense of political awareness from Jonathan, he used to teach the subject after all…
