BEST FOR BRITAIN'S
WEEKEND WIRE
Dear John,
It’s been a year since our very first Weekend Wire–we’ve seen three Prime Ministers, four Chancellors, and too many market freefalls to count. Let’s see if things have changed at all (other than which Tory is in charge) since then.
It’s your money and I’m spending it how I want
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement <[link removed]> of the Spring Budget on Wednesday was, to be fair to him, probably the least catastrophic Government fiscal announcement in a bit. As we’re all too aware, it can be hard for Tories to set out financial policy without crashing the economy, making the pound worth less than a cardboard cereal box badge and slashing their party’s polling numbers along the way.
The biggest-ticket announcement from the Budget was a seemingly welcome £4bn investment <[link removed]> in expanding free childcare for 1- and 2-year olds across England. However, as always with the Conservatives, they get you in the small print. It will not fully take effect until 2026, conveniently after the next election, and it’s less than half <[link removed]> of what the CBI says is necessary to provide quality childcare for all under-4s.
Other eye-catchers were an abolition of the lifetime allowances for pensions, which many attacked <[link removed]> as a “gilded giveaway” to the highest earners, and £6bn in extra defence spending <[link removed]>following the new AUKUS agreement.
Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith featured <[link removed]> on BBC Politics Live on Thursday to discuss the Budget, the childcare and pension allowance announcements announced in it, the positive effect <[link removed]> of migration to the UK, and the economic elephant in the room, Brexit <[link removed]>.
Fight to halt Anti-Asylum Bill continues <[link removed]>
This Monday, the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill passed <[link removed]> its second reading in the House of Commons.
As the vote took place, hundreds of demonstrators gathered <[link removed]> in Parliament Square demanding MPs to reject the Bill. Refugees, campaigners, and MPs addressing the crowd called for new safe routes to asylum, debunked the Government’s rhetoric around ‘illegal asylum seekers’ and expressed solidarity with refugees.
Despite the Bill’s passage at second reading, campaigners have pledged to keep fighting against its inhumane proposals. Best for Britain’s petition <[link removed]> for the Bill to be dropped has garnered nearly 30,000 signatures.
Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith called out the cruel and cynical politicking behind the Illegal Migration Bill in a HuffPost op-ed <[link removed]> this Tuesday.
Red card for Sunak
As Conservatives shouted themselves into a tizzy about Gary Lineker last weekend, the BBC bowed to pressure and announced he would be suspended from Match of the Day.
His fellow football pundits from Match of the Day and across the BBC immediately declared <[link removed]> they would not appear in solidarity, which led to a bizarre presenter-free show on Saturday night alongside a desperately cringeworthy, 'patriotic' Match of the Day on GB News <[link removed]>, which we spared ourselves the misfortune of watching.
As the Lineker row bubbled over, Best for Britain parked <[link removed]> a red card for the international law-breaking anti asylum Bill in front of the Houses of Parliament, the Home Office, and the Fulham vs Arsenal match at Craven Cottage in West London.
Tories calling BBC shots
In a news cycle dominated by debates over BBC impartiality, an exclusive report this week from The Guardian revealed <[link removed]> that the BBC regularly caved to pressure about editorial decisions from Downing Street during Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister.
Leaked emails and text messages uncovered editors requesting their staff avoid the word “lockdown” in their reporting around the beginning of the pandemic. Other messages to BBC staff cited complaints from Number 10 that their coverage was not critical enough of Labour, and even hailing reporters avoiding publishing too many stories about Jennifer Arcuri, who allegedly had an affair with Boris Johnson and had received favours from him during his tenure as Mayor of London.
Much like the policeman in Casablanca, we’re shocked, shocked, we tell you, to find that appointing a man who helped <[link removed]> Boris Johnson secure an £800,000 loan to head the public broadcaster has a chilling effect on its editorial independence.
Democratic backsliding! Everyone say ‘wheeee!’
Putting the Prime Minister’s mates in charge of the public broadcaster does fit neatly with the UK’s new national profile, according to the Civicus Monitor, which tracks the state of civic freedoms in countries. The UK has been downgraded <[link removed]> to “obstructed” on civil liberties, giving it the lowest rating <[link removed]> in Western Europe and putting it in the same category as Poland, Hungary, and South Africa.
Civicus cited <[link removed]> concerns about detention of climate protestors, hostile rhetoric from the Government toward human rights protections and civil society organisations, and new legislation like the Public Order Bill (of which Best for Britain defeated <[link removed]> some aspects) and the Strikes Bill as the reason for the downgrade.
Given the UK’s recent trend of government <[link removed]>-by-trolling <[link removed]>, there’s no indication this embarrassing downgrade will dampen the Home Secretary’s authoritarian posturing.
Georgians take to the streets
After a brief detente, massive industrial action took place across the UK this week, with over half a million of workers walking out <[link removed]> on Wednesday in one of the largest single-day strikes seen in the UK in decades.
The week opened with 72 hours of junior doctor strikes <[link removed]> brought about by years of pay stagnation and dangerous staffing shortages in the NHS. On Wednesday, the London Underground was shuttered by 24 hours of strikes, and 300,000 teachers took to the picket line, along with over 100,000 civil servants, 70,000 university staff, journalists and Amazon warehouse workers.
On Thursday, belatedly realising that negotiating is often a better strategy than threatening to revoke <[link removed]> the right of public sector workers to strike or publicly declaring <[link removed]> they don’t work hard enough, the Government announced that a deal on wage increases for NHS workers had been struck. The agreement includes <[link removed]> both a one-off payment this year and a subsequent 5% wage increase. Unions will now ballot their members on whether to accept the deal.
ICC names Putin in warrant
On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued <[link removed]> a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes.
Since Putin's regime launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a year ago, thousands of civilian deaths and the largest refugee crisis seen in Europe since the Second World War have resulted. Ahead of the ICC's warrant for Putin's arrest, new reports of deportations of Ukrainian children to reeducation camps in the far interior of Russia have led the UN to accuse <[link removed]> Putin of war crimes and caused international shock, even in the context of the war. Some Ukrainian parents have managed <[link removed]> to get their children back, but many more remain held in Russia.
Though Russia's foreign ministry dismissed the warrant, its issue marked yet another sign of Putin's increasing isolation on the international stage following the invasion.
Catastrophe Suisse
It’s starting to look a bit too much like 2008 for comfort again, and we’re not talking about the revival of skinny scarves.
Hot on the heels of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank <[link removed]> and the HSBC acquisition <[link removed]> of its UK arm, Credit Suisse <[link removed]> this week saw their shares tumble to dangerously low levels before the investment banker secured $54bn from the Swiss central bank. Shares subsequently bounced back somewhat after a shiver had run through markets around the world.
With the Chancellor’s Edinburgh reforms from December having loosened <[link removed]> many of the restrictions introduced post-crash to prevent a similar financial meltdown, the UK financial system could be set for a rodeo, and Jeremy Hunt has just thrown out the saddle.
After a year of reading these round-ups, do you feel smarter? Better-informed? More stressed? Or all of the above? From our end, it’s been a pleasure keeping you all up to date–here’s to another year! Of B4B keeping you up to date, not of this Government.
Best wishes,
Tommy Gillespie
Press Officer, Best for Britain
----
Best For Britain - United Kingdom
This email was sent to
[email protected]. To stop receiving emails: [link removed]
Created with NationBuilder - [link removed]
