ALAN SIMPSON
News from Somewhere Else
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“Everything we do during and after this crisis must be with a strong focus on building more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies that are more resilient in the face of pandemics, climate change, and the many other global challenges we face.” This call could have come from any of the Labour Leadership candidates,…
Coronavirus: A Very British Cull The nation is at war. Peacetime production has slumped, foreign travel collapsed, casualties rise. In every part of the country, people anxiously worry about how to avoid the enemy. This time, however, it is germs, not Germans, that we fear. Even the Germans are under attack. Medically, economically and politically,…
It didn’t have to be coronavirus. It didn’t have to be Storm Ciara (or Dennis, or Jorge). The delusions of neoliberalism stand at the edge of an implosion just waiting to happen. But, as with the Emperor’s New Clothes, global Leaders are too fearful to say that their economic model has been stripped naked. How quickly delusions crumble.
Where does Labour go now? Parliament starts the new decade with Labour still in a state of grief…and anger…about its crushing election defeat. It’s a good place to start. If we’re brutally honest, the real grief is not rooted in the depleted number of Labour MPs, nor in the personal tragedy defeat meant for Jeremy…
International lessons in decentralising Britain’s energy system Britain has to cut its carbon emissions in half within the coming decade to meet the IPCC and Paris climate targets. Decentralised energy will be a key to doing so. Since 2010, financial levers have been skewed in favour of the transnational, the unaccountable and e non-renewable. Smart…
At a time riven by contradictions and confusion, it is important to celebrate what’s worth celebrating. Labour’s pre-manifesto pledges – to build only zero-carbon homes from 2022, and to make 27 million homes energy efficient by 2030 – could mark the beginning of a climate politics General Election. Not before time. It isn’t just that…
Transformation Moment
My pamphlet 'Transformation Moment' is intended to support the case for a radical shift in energy thinking; as much about democracy as technology, and about 'systems' rather than just supply.
Incisive, insightful, honest. More than can be said of everything else thrown at Jeremy Corbyn. https://t.co/KqShfNVJzq
After the Apocalypse: only a different economics will work. https://t.co/4Qk4VWs7rp
I genuinely wish Boris a speedy recovery, but wish too that everyone else had the same speedy access to clinical care and a ventilator/respirator when it's needed.
We should wish Boris Johnson a swift recovery, while continuing to expose and criticise his government's failures on the pandemic and other issues.
If Labour has any sense now, they will grab Leo Murray to help re-write the script: one of the brightest, most innovative minds around.👍👍
During my brief stint trying to advise the Labour Party, I was baffled and dismayed to find that I could not persuade them to commit to simply banning grouse moor burning - even though it was heavily implicated in disastrous wildfires raging at the time https://t.co/pxDZ3uLLGA
"The government risks losing an offer from South Korea of 400,000 coronavirus test kits a week to a rival country because they have not yet been tested by Public Health England, it has been claimed."
They snooze. We lose. More people die.
UK risks losing offer of 400,000 Covid-19 testing kits a week
Government has delayed order of South Korean kits as they have not been tested, it is claimed
www.theguardian.com
One rule for the public, another for their own projects: government-funded @HS2ltd continues to exploit the pandemic by continuing with work whilst the country is distracted. Where is the concern for their workers or the public? @BorisJohnson #NHSnotHS2 @Hs2Rebellion
'Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly..' Support for action...sure. Cover for incompetent planning... not likely.
Just as Keir Starmer is about to be elected Labour leader, Boris Johnson invites opposition leaders to be involved the government’s coronavirus response 👇 https://t.co/se4TBAgJ2L
A decisive result. Now Kier needs a team able to address the post-Covid world. Yesterday's economics are dead, and so will Labour be if we can't reach into the radically different shape of tomorrow's. A time for the visionary.
Worth noting Keir Starmer won over 50% of the vote in every category: members, affiliates and registered supporters.
It’s a clear mandate and gives him the authority to reshape the shadow cabinet and the party.