# The Heartlands Tribune > Independent working-class news, politics and analysis ## Posts - [Reasons to Leave the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/reasons-leave-eu/): Ten Reasons to Vote ‘Leave’ 1) Public monopolies in healthcare, energy and rail – all official Labour Party manifesto policies – are prohibited under Article 107 of the Lisbon Treaty (2009). Many respond by arguing that other EU countries have publicly owned state monopolies, but on closer inspection this is simply not the case in practice. This is because state providers of services must operate as private entities according to the rules of the EU Single Market and Articles 59 and 107(I) of the Treaty within member countries. In practice publicly owned companies must operate within a tightly controlled competitive context […] - [Second Referendum call](https://heartlandstribune.com/second-referendum-call/): Second referendum call If, and I do say ‘if‘ we are to have a second referendum it is incumbent on the nation and politicians not to allow the right-wing to set the agenda of leaving the EU, it would then be an agenda based on xenophobic and racism. The last referendum allowed them to dominate the entire arena with very little said or argument made from the Lexit perspective. If leave was to win again it should be because the people rejected the model of a UK within the EU not because the UK fell for the right-wing racist narrative. In […] - [Second Referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/second-referendum/): So You Want a Second Referendum. So You Want a Second Referendum. It is suggested that Labour party members overwhelmingly support a second referendum. That alone is disputable and Labour Heartlands would challenge the pollsters to be more geographically specific in their polls. It would be quite obvious that if a thousand Labour members or supporters in London, Liverpool or Manchester were surveyed the majority would be Remainers, demanding a referendum by any means necessary to get the country to remain within the EU. But if we took a poll in Sunderland, Doncaster, Bolsover, Derby, Port Talbot or any of the […] - [It started with a coup.](https://heartlandstribune.com/it-started-with-a-coup/): The Labour Party had just elected our new leader Jeremy Corbyn he entered the leadership competition as the Left underdog a token gesture by a predominantly centralist PLP. He was expected to fall at the first hurdle, the Parliamentary Labour Party felt secure in their power base from the New Labour of Blair to that moment they held the power that blocked all but their own centralist view. The one thing they did not see was that Jeremy Corbyn was the oasis in a desert of centralist parties a thrusting Left had all but lost hope of finding within our elected […] - [The proscription of Labours Lexit members](https://heartlandstribune.com/proscription-labours-lexit-members/): The proscription of Labours Lexit members In recent months the Labour forums have carried out a proscription on Lexit members any slight word or bite back at Remainers taunts have found the Lexit members on Facebook forums being kicked and in some cases the abusive insults thrown at Lexit supporters have been both bullying and condescending.  On one forum in particular even an Admin member baits anyone who offers a different view to her staunch remain view, she likes to post incisively “You voted for a Tory Brexit” like it was some sort of playground game, if the Lexiters tries to […] - [Barnsley Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/barnsley-brexit/): Labour do not betray the people! Why would a working class man from Barnsley part of the Labour Heartlands attack Labour and in particularly Keir Starmer. The answer is quite simple! 70% of Labour constituencies voted Leave. The Labour Heartlands the once proud industrial counties have been left disenfranchised. Successive governments have ignored their plight and now they demand more. The audience member said: “We are constantly being told by these elite politicians and she (pointing towards Nicky Morgan) has committed a really treacherous act last night against the Conservative Party. “But the lady on the other side (referring to Shadow […] - [Meaningful Vote](https://heartlandstribune.com/meaningful-vote/): EU Thinks Parliamentary Power Wastes of Time.   Conservative rebels inflicted a humiliating defeat on Theresa May in the House of Commons as they backed an amendment to her flagship European Union withdrawal bill over parliament’s right to a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal. European Union (Withdrawal) Bill – to amend Clause 9 of the Bill to require the final Brexit deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by Parliament  So much for a meaningful vote!   I agree it was a good win not for remain or Leave but for the country, a meaningful vote would have put […] - [Nationalisation ](https://heartlandstribune.com/nationalisation/): Nationalisation Jeremy Corbyn claimed a socialist manifesto might be restricted by the European Union’s rules on state aid if the UK tried to stay in the single market. On the 24th of September, Jeremy Corbyn told the Andrew Marr Show the single market “has within it restrictions in state aid and state spending. That has pressures on it through the European Union to privatise rail for example and other services.” The Remain camp would dismiss this and try to paint over the facts but it is clear to anyone who looks deeply enough that the EU is not in favour of Nationalisation or state […] - [Tony Benn](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn/): Tony Benn on the EU When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it. When asked his own thoughts about the European Union, Tony Benn did not do what most contemporary Labour Party personalities do today, Benn was very honest open and articulate. Instead of falsely trying to state or justify the virtues that an undemocratic EU allow the UK. He would make no […] - [Left Finally Waking Up To Eurozone Realities](https://heartlandstribune.com/left-finally-waking-eurozone-realities/): Is The Left Finally Waking Up To Eurozone Realities? The fact that the mainstream European left continues to believe, with some notable exceptions, that the European Monetary Union (and European Union) can be reformed in a progressive direction and transformed into a fully-fledged supranational democracy remains one of the most baffling mysteries of our time (though we attempt to offer an explanation here). This is why I was surprised to read a recent paper commissioned by Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy, and written by GUE/NGL advisor Emma Clancy entitled The Future of the Eurozone. The document is quite ground-breaking, in that it […] - [DENNIS SKINNER](https://heartlandstribune.com/dennis-skinner/): Dennis Skinner on the EU. The Beast of Bolsover stands head and shoulders above most Labour MP’s of today, he is a man of principle and dedication to the Labour values that the party was built on. In an interview with the Morning  Star Dennis skinner had this to say: “My opposition from the very beginning has been on the lines that fighting capitalism state-by-state is hard enough. It’s even harder when you’re fighting it on the basis of eight states, 10 states and now 28. “In the old days they could argue you might get a socialist government in Germany, […] - [Tom Barker](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-barker/): An extract from Tom Barker Book, TOWARDS A SOCIALIST BREXIT: JEREMY CORBYN,  THE EU & THE  BATTLE FOR LABOUR “For a start, it is worth pointing out that at present there is no appetite amongst the working class for a second referendum. This is evidenced by the complete wipe-out of the Liberal Democrats, who staked everything on a hard remain position in the General Election. Polls indicate that only a quarter of voters want a second referendum on the final deal with the EU. The number who want another in-out referendum ahead of that would undoubtedly be lower! The issue, then, […] - [They Could Not Break This Town](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-could-not-break-this-town/): Joe Solo & The Hatfield Brigade – They Could Not Break This Town Leslie Moore  When we decided to record this song which is going to be one of many planned each year until we have enough to fill a full album, we were mind full of the punitive measure`s continuing in many mining communities. We decided to sing about the fact that for all the deprivation, the poverty & punishment meted out across the coalfields as a result of our communities daring to stand and fight against the full might of the state for a decent future, we are still […] - [Merry Christmas From Hatfield Main](https://heartlandstribune.com/merry-christmas-hatfield-main/): Merry Christmas From Hatfield Main We are proud to announce the OFFICIAL VIDEO to accompany the single ‘Merry Christmas From Hatfield Main’ by Joe Solo & The Hatfield Brigade. It was shot on location at Central Club in Stainforth on October 30th 2016 as miners and their families from up and down the UK gathered to join a choir like no other in the spirit of community and solidarity. ‘Merry Christmas From Hatfield Main’ is released on download via all major outlets on Monday November 28th and all funds raised will go to those struggling to make ends meet in Food Bank Britain. […] - [PLAYING WITH DEMOCRACY](https://heartlandstribune.com/playing-with-democracy/): EU REMAINERS ARE PLAYING WITH DEMOCRACY Over the past few summers the British left have protested on the streets in various numbers in various cities and towns across the UK most notably in Manchester and London. The causes have been worthy and just. Austerity has unjustly targeted the poorest in society and if it wasn’t for government U-turns it would have also targeted the working poor yet the Government has had to U-turn on several policies including tax credits cuts, cuts to personal independence payments and ESA amongst other things. The Conservatives didn’t U-turn out of the goodness of their hearts, […] - [Lexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/lexit/): Lexit: The EU is a neoliberal project, so let’s do something different when we leave it Brexit affords the British left a historic opportunity for a decisive break with EU market liberalism. The Brexit vote to leave the European Union has many parents, but “Lexit” – the argument for exiting the EU from the left – remains an orphan. A third of Labour voters backed Leave, but they did so without any significant leadership from the Labour Party. Left-of-centre votes proved decisive in determining the outcome of a referendum that was otherwise framed, shaped, and presented almost exclusively by the right. A […] - [Labour history of the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-history-of-the-eu/): The EEC and the Single European Act The Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, took the UK into the EEC in January 1973 after President de Gaulle of France had blocked UK membership twice in the 1960s. This brought EEC membership to nine.  In a referendum in 1975 the UK electorate voted to stay in the EEC under renegotiated terms of entry. The first major Treaty change was the Single European Act, which created an internal market with voting by qualified majority (QMV) rather than unanimity. The Single Market was established at the end of 1992. It allowed over 280 pieces of […] - [The EU Today](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-today/) - [Four UK parties bid to force May to publish Brexit legal advice](https://heartlandstribune.com/four-uk-parties-bid-to-force-may-to-publish-brexit-legal-advice/): Four major U.K. political parties will band together to try to force Prime Minister Theresa May to publish the government’s legal advice on the Brexit deal, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The move could delay the crucial vote on the Brexit deal in the House of Commons and further undermine support for the agreement, whose prospects in parliament already look bleak. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose MPs prop up May’s minority Conservative government, will join Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party (SNP) in sending a letter on Monday that will accuse the government of being in contempt […] - [The UK is one of the least racist countries in the European Union](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-uk-is-one-of-the-least-racist-countries-in-the-european-union/): Brussels is blind to diversity ‘The report will be launched in the European Parliament on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Italian politician Cecile Kyenge, one of only three black MEPs in the 751-strong assembly. The MEP has argued that the EU has a gap in its equality strategy and has drafted a non-binding resolution to promote equality for an estimated 15 million people of African descent in the EU’ “if you want to see diversity in brussels look at the face of the cleaners” The lack of diversity within the EU parliament paints a very white picture. For an […] - [The Rise of the Machines: automation in the workplace and the case for a Universal Basic Income.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rise-of-the-machines-automation-in-the-workplace-and-the-case-for-a-universal-basic-income/): The Rise of the Machines: automation in the workplace and the case for a Universal Basic Income. (Dr. Keith Hussein) The current transfer of jobs from the physical to the virtual economy is a different sort of off-shoring, not to a foreign country but to a virtual one. If we follow recent history we can’t assume these jobs will be replaced either. – W. Brian Arthur In March 2017 the consultancy firm Pricewaterhousecoopers produced a report claiming that over 10 million British workers and their jobs are potentially at serious risk of being replaced by robots in the next fifteen years. […] - [Reflections of a Handmaid's Tale. Abortion punishable by death.](https://heartlandstribune.com/reflections-of-a-handmaids-tale-abortion-punishable-by-death/): The Handmaid’s Tale For anyone not aware of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 classic book or who hasn’t watched the series yet (DO IT – NOW!) the action is set in the religious military theocracy of Gilead, where radioactive pollution has rendered most of the female population infertile. To propagate the species, the remaining fertile women are conscripted as Handmaids, slave birthing vessels for its ruling class. Instead of using artificial insemination, a religious taboo, these handmaids must endure sex with their assigned commanders while their wives sit behind them, legs spread, treating the human being in front as a mere receptacle, a […] - [Don’t treat Italy like Greece, Spain’s Borrell tells Brussels](https://heartlandstribune.com/dont-treat-italy-like-greece-spains-borrell-tells-brussels/): ‘Italy cannot afford a second recession,’ warns the veteran Spanish Socialist, Josep Borrell. The European Commission should not respond to the budget spat with Italy the same way as it treated Greece, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said today. “It would be a big mistake for the European Commission to try to deal with Italy the same way they dealt with Greece, imposing a very tough constraint on the budget, a strong austerity policy, because Italy is not Greece,” Borrell said in an interview with POLITICO’s Ryan Heath. https://www.facebook.com/POLITICOeu/videos/658048887922224/ The Italian government, an alliance of the far-right League and anti-establishment 5Star Movement, wants […] - [Jeremy Corbyn- sells the industrial leaders of the CBI Labour's vision of a General Election and a Labour Lexit.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-sells-the-industrial-leaders-of-the-cbi-labours-vision-of-a-general-election-and-a-labour-lexit/): Labour will demand a General election. Jeremy Corbyn set out Labour’s “good Brexit plan” on Monday, saying that leaving the European Union must be the catalyst for a “radical programme of investment and real change” as the party steps up efforts to show it has an alternative to Theresa May’s approach. Speaking to business leaders at the CBI’s annual conference in London, Corbyn said May’s deal, published last week, would “leave the country in an indefinite halfway house without a real say over our future”. Labour’s, “a good Brexit plan for this country is not just about what can be negotiated […] - [Your Right To Know – the case against the Government’s Brexit deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/your-right-to-know-the-case-against-the-governments-brexit-deal/): Labour Heartlands: We have published this interpretation from the ERG on the Government Withdrawal Agreement for the UK’s exit from the European Union. In the interest of an informed society. We do not take any stance on their assessment or credibility, We do not necessarily agree or disagree but we have linked both the full version to the agreement and the conclusion BrexitCentral have claimed. BrexitCentral states: Four days after the release of the 585-page draft Withdrawal Agreement for the UK’s exit from the European Union, the European Research Group (ERG) of eurosceptic Conservative MPs today publishes a concise guide making […] - [Some try to tell you leaving the EU takes us closer to the Far Right!](https://heartlandstribune.com/some-try-to-tell-you-leaving-the-eu-takes-us-closer-to-the-far-right/): “Others will tell you the truth!” Remaining part of the EU is will not stop far-right, they have become the establishment and it is worrying!  “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again. There’s no final victory and there’s no final defeat” – Tony Benn Germany’s Far-Right AfD Party Now Polls Second. The rise of the Far Right across Europe! In last September’s elections, In Germany watched the AfD became the first far-right party to win seats in the Bundestag in more than half a century, becoming the official opposition to Merkel’s ruling “grand coalition” of conservatives and social […] - [The Revolution will not be televised due to cancellations!](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised-due-to-cancellations/): The entire referendum and process is been played out like a badly conducted social experiment. It as shown the political glass for what they are and the people for what we have become. From the point of first calling the referendum, it was a game, a game of politics within one political ideology that of the Tories that than extended encompassing the entire nation. like most games the elites play, it went too far and they lost control but slowly through social control, misinformation, truths lies and fear they are regaining bringing us all back to the fold. It has broken […] - [Labour’s Socialist Realism](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-socialist-realism/): Our economy is rigged in favour of a wealthy elite. We need a new approach: an economics for the many. LUKE SAVAGE. A new book of essays edited by UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell makes the case for economic democracy and charts the increasingly transformative thinking of Corbyn’s Labour Party. “. . . A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege, class or background, but on the equal worth of all. And New Labour, confident […] - ["The United Nations’ special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights is touring not Bangladesh nor Sudan but the UK"!](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-united-nations-special-rapporteur-on-extreme-poverty-and-human-rights-is-touring-not-bangladesh-nor-sudan-but-the-uk/): The UN Special Rapporteur’s preliminary findings on the UK. During our 12-day visit, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has investigated the Government’s efforts to tackle poverty in the UK, the impact of austerity measures, Universal Credit, Brexit, and an increasingly digital government on people living in poverty. Professor Philip Alston is the current Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Council and undertakes the following main tasks: (1) conducting research and analysis to be presented in separate thematic reports to the Human Rights Council […] - [UK's backup power subsidies are illegal, European court rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/uks-backup-power-subsidies-are-illegal-european-court-rules/): Britain’s main energy policy for keeping the lights on has been thrown into chaos after a European court revoked state aid clearance, raising fears about security of supply. The government said its “capacity market” scheme, which pays power plant owners subsidies to guarantee they are available to generate electricity through winter, had been suspended immediately following the ruling. Up to £1 billion in payments that were due to be made this winter now cannot be made, denying many energy companies a major source of income and casting doubt on whether their plants can still be relied on if needed. The ruling […] - [UK and EU negotiating teams have agreed on a Brexit withdrawal deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-and-eu-negotiating-teams-have-agreed-on-a-brexit-withdrawal-deal/): UK and EU negotiating teams have agreed on a Brexit withdrawal deal which Theresa May will present to her Cabinet on Wednesday. The UK government has confirmed reports that May’s most senior ministers will read the details of the agreement this evening before a special Cabinet meeting at 14:00 (GMT) on Wednesday. An agreement between the UK and EU over how to prevent a hard border with Northern Ireland over Brexit was reached during intensive negotiations held on Monday and Tuesday, sources told BI. Brexit talks had been at an impasse for weeks over the question of how a hard border […] - [Myths, Lies and The Strange Rise of ‘Tommy Robinson’](https://heartlandstribune.com/myths-lies-and-the-strange-rise-of-tommy-robinson/): LOUISE RAW looks at the reality behind the far-right activist of many identities WE used to no-platform fascists in this country: now, it seems, we build them platforms. At the Old Bailey on the 23rd of last month, far-right poster boy Tommy Robinson strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage — in this case, a literal one, complete with powerful sound system audible streets away, and constructed right outside the Central Criminal Court by permission of the City of London’s Corporation and Police. All the flotsam and jetsam of the far right were gathered for Robinson’s mini-Nuremberg moment: Ukip and […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: 'We Can't Stop Brexit'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-we-cant-stop-brexitwe-cant-stop-brexit/): Interview with Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn believes that politics have left young people behind. In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, he speaks about Brexit, the crisis of social democracy in Europe and the uphill battle to unite his party. Interview Conducted by Jörg Schindler The man upon whom the hopes of young men and women in Britain rest enjoys taking pictures of drain covers and making jam. He wears baggy blazers and, when necessary, smuggles English cheese into his Mexican vacation lodgings. In other words, he leads the averagely eccentric lifestyle of your standard British retiree. Except that […] - [Macron criticizes ‘ultra-liberal’ Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/macron-criticizes-ultra-liberal-europe/): Macron performs political somersault and bashes the EU for failing to protect workers. WORKER-BASHING French President Emmanuel Macron did a political somersault, attacking the European Union for failing to protect the less well off as it pushes its neoliberal agenda. In his first appearance on a radio talk show since he was sworn in, the increasingly unpopular French president came out swinging against an EU he is better known for defending. His scarcely credible change of heart followed a humiliating national opinion poll signalling that his Republique En Marche party is running second in voting intentions in the run-up to next May’s elections […] - [Macron's plan to pay tribute to Nazi collaborator Pétain](https://heartlandstribune.com/macrons-plan-to-pay-tribute-to-nazi-collaborator-petain/): President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday it was “legitimate” to pay tribute to Marshal Philippe Petain, who led the French army to victory in World War One’s Battle of Verdun but decades later collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War Two. With the country poised to fall to German forces in the second world war, Pétain was appointed prime minister of France. His administration, based in the unoccupied part of the country known as Vichy France. The French Vichy turned back the clock on emancipate Jews and collaborated with the Nazis and their deportation and extermination of the Jews. French background After […] - [Powerhouse or Doss house? The Tories' plan for Manchester](https://heartlandstribune.com/powerhouse-or-doss-house-the-tories-plan-for-manchester/): In support of the People’s Assembly’s Britain is Broken tour launching on November 28, the Morning Star is printing regional reports on the effects of austerity. Here MARTIN HALL of People’s Assembly Manchester looks at the impact on his city The imposition of austerity measures as a neoliberal response to the crisis of 2008 has had multiple effects, not least upon the industrial north, which was already reeling from the effects of Thatcherism, in particular due to the loss of its industrial base. A particular effect of this has been the rise in homelessness in Manchester, which has gone up 41 […] - [Even the elite cannot hide their shock at inequality](https://heartlandstribune.com/even-the-elite-cannot-hide-their-shock-at-inequality/): BROADCAST journalist Jeremy Vine posted a remarkable tweet at the weekend, confirming the ivory-towered existence that he and other highly paid BBC staff enjoy. “This graphic is insane. I keep staring at it and thinking there must be something wrong. The gap between people in the poorest parts of Britain, and the richest,” he confessed. This graphic is insane. I keep staring at it and thinking there must be something wrong. The gap between people in the poorest parts of Britain, and the richest. (via @INorBY2020) pic.twitter.com/IkSKHTJ7GW — Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) November 3, 2018 The graphic came from The Economist, based […] - [Three NHS managers have been sentenced to a total of 14 years in jail for stealing £822,000 from a health board in Wales](https://heartlandstribune.com/three-nhs-managers-have-been-sentenced-to-a-total-of-14-years-in-jail-for-stealing-822000-from-a-health-board-in-wales/): Mark Evill, 47, Howells, 65, and Cope, 43, received jail sentences at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court. Mark Evill, 42, was jailed for seven years and has been disqualified as acting as a director for seven years. Robert Howells, 65, received a sentence of 4 years. A third defendant, Michael Cope, 43, was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The three men worked for Powys Teaching Health Board’s estates department. The three men were employed as managers with Powys Teaching Health Board. The court heard the trio abused their positions to help award Evill’s bogus construction company with contracts from Powys Teaching […] - [Tory councillors complaint, Labour council shows the cost of Tory cuts!](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-councillors-complaint-labour-council-shows-the-cost-of-tory-cuts/): Tory opposition councillors complaining about ‘Political’ banners in Old Market Square Nottingham. The Banners are prominently placed in the Old market square showing the general public the extent of Tory cuts on Nottingham’s schools. The banners emphasise the amount in real terms of Tory cuts on education showing Nottingham school’s will see a reduction funding of £10.9 million or £296 per pule less by 2020. The Labour-run council said the banners are consistent with policies adopted by the council, and that it is raising awareness of an important issue affecting thousands of families. But Conservative councillors said it is a ‘pointless’ […] - [WHY ARE SOME LABOUR MPs STILL CALLING FOR A 2nd REFERENDUM?](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-are-some-labour-mps-still-calling-for-a-2nd-referendum/): The simple answer would be that they wish to stay in the EU. But with Theresa May about to put a Remain deal on the table, the answer may not be so obvious. The Brexit divisions within the Tory Party are essentially because May’s Chequers package was a soft Remain option. This included an EU-U.K. Free Trade area, with a “common rule book” for industrial goods and agricultural products, that is, effectively remaining in the Single Market. It also refers to a “combined customs territory”, that is, remaining in the Customs’ Union. And it proposed a UK-EU “Joint Committee” to oversee […] - [New Caledonia Referendum: Voting for independence from France](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-caledonia-referendum-voting-for-independence-from-france/): People living in New Caledonia will fight for independence from France. They’re preparing for a referendum on Sunday. Since September 1853, the cluster of islands became French. Around 175,000 New Caledonians, can cast their vote. Roch Warmytan is the leader for the independence party FLNKS. He says, “This colonizing state, the French state, this state that colonized millions of people, this state that participated in unnamed massacres, this state, it is there and it doesn’t want to let go” The country is situated in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia, and around 20,000 kms from France. Sunday’s vote is key […] - [Ex-Goldman bankers and Jho Low face US charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/ex-goldman-bankers-and-jho-low-face-us-charges/):  Bankers will always be Bankers! The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday charged two former Goldman Sachs bankers and Malaysian financier Jho Low with conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund, the first U.S. criminal charges stemming from one of the biggest financial frauds in history. It is stated about $4 billion disappeared from Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund. The charges against the former Goldman bankers, Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, were announced by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Also charged was Jho Low, the Malaysian financier whom prosecutors have depicted as being a mastermind of a scheme to misappropriate […] - [Portuguese business pushes for Brexit deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/portuguese-business-pushes-for-brexit-deal/): Portugal’s exports to the UK could drop by over a quarter due to Brexit, study shows. LISBON — Portuguese exports to the United Kingdom could fall by over a quarter because of Brexit, wiping up to 1 percentage point off the country’s economy, according to a study from the Confederation of Portuguese Business (CIP). Speaking at the launch of the report, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva assured business leaders the government is working to minimize the Brexit impact. He expressed hope a deal with the U.K. could be struck by the time European Union leaders meet for a crucial mid-December summit. “Our top priority is to do all […] - [Austerity Road](https://heartlandstribune.com/austerity-road/): Hammond’s case is empty The budget pays lip-service to Labour policies but with no intention of actually ending austerity, says ROBERT GRIFFITHS It’s a “jam tomorrow” Budget from Chancellor Philip Hammond and is unlikely to fool millions of people who are struggling to get by. They see and experience local services continuing to deteriorate, whether it’s longer waiting times in the NHS, cancelled operations, the closure of facilities for the elderly and young people, school requests for parental donations, the extinguishing of street lights at night or the disappearance of community police officers. It appears as though the main purpose of […] - [U-turn on Universal credit but it won't stop the roll out!](https://heartlandstribune.com/u-turn-on-universal-credit-but-its-wont-stop-the-roll-out/): The Tory Budget today unveiled a U-turn over Universal Credit – pouring £1.7billion a year more into the stricken benefit. The Rollout needs to stop and real life issues fixed before it continues to cause more problems for both working and non working families. Chancellor Philip Hammond finally acted after furious MPs including his own Tories warned families were being driven to rent debt, food banks and the brink of suicide. “I recognise the genuine concerns. First the implementation of this programme, it is an enormous undertaking. I have already delivered £3.5bn to help with the transition, today I can go […] - [Labour has urged MPs to unite in opposing the budget.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-has-urged-mps-to-unite-in-opposing-the-budget/): Labour has urged MPs to unite in opposing the budget if it does not include plans to halt the rollout of the much-criticised universal credit. In an interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, McDonnell said: “What we’re saying – and it’s not just me, it’s the National Audit Office, it’s large numbers of charitable organisations – halt the rollout of universal credit to stop these people being forced into poverty. “And I’m saying to other political parties, if [Hammond] doesn’t halt the rollout of universal credit, we’ve got to vote this budget down. We’ve got to stop him forcing people into […] - [£350m Government bailout for delayed Crossrail](https://heartlandstribune.com/350m-government-bailout-for-delayed-crossrail/): The government has given London Mayor Sadiq Khan a £350m loan to cover additional costs caused by delays to the Crossrail project. The financial help for the capital’s new railway was revealed in a written statement to parliament by Transport Minister Jo Johnson on Friday. Earlier this year, it was announced the new £15bn route through central London will open almost a year later than planned. Crossrail’s initial opening date was December this year, but its central section now won’t run until autumn 2019. The extension was said to have been required for “final infrastructure and extensive testing”. London will bear […] - [Yemen in danger of big famine – NO PROFIT IN PEACE!](https://heartlandstribune.com/yemen-in-danger-of-big-famine-no-profit-in-peace/): HALF of Yemen’s population are facing “pre-famine conditions,” a United Nations report warned today as the war-ravaged country’s humanitarian catastrophe deepens. The UN humanitarian chief has warned “there is a clear and present danger of an imminent and great big famine engulfing Yemen”. Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that this famine would be much bigger than anything any professional in this field has seen during their working lives. He said “the situation is now much graver” than when he warned of famine in Yemen at the beginning of 2017 and again last November. That is because “of the sheer number […] - [Tory MEP leader tells German Socialist MEP that Nazis ‘want the same things as you’](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mep-leader-tells-german-socialist-mep-that-nazis-want-the-same-things-as-you/): HERE is a famous often-used quote, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Tory MEP leader tells German Socialist MEP that Nazis ‘want the same things as you MEP Syed Kamall, the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), said Nazis subscribed to a “left-wing ideology” and “want the same things” as Socialists do. His lack of history and education gives a whole new dimension to why we need better education and more so better politicians.   Members of European Parliament in Strasbourg reacted with rage after Kamall,response to an earlier speech by German MEP Udo […] - [Chuka Umunna: ‘Remain campaigners must drop calls for new Brexit vote’](https://heartlandstribune.com/chuka-umunna-remain-campaigners-must-drop-calls-for-new-brexit-vote/): In 2016 Chuka Umunna urged Remain campaigners to abandon calls for a second referendum or risk being seen as a metropolitan elite “who think they know best”. In an interview with the Evening Standard, the influential Labour backbencher urged fellow pro-EU campaigners to show more respect for the 17 million who voted for Brexit. He also Said there are now “no safe Labour seats” after the rise of UKIP, whose new leader Paul Nuttall has vowed to target Labour’s heartlands. Chuka  goes on to blame the Blair government’s decision to allow free migration from Poland and Bulgaria for the discontent that led […] - [The creeping privatisation of healthcare](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-creeping-privatisation-of-healthcare/): Problematic EU policies and the corporate lobby push Privatisation in its various guises is “spreading across Europe’s health services like a rash”, writes John Lister of Keep Our NHS Public and Health Campaigns Together. EU member states’ health systems are broadly split between those based on employment-related health insurance and those financed via general taxation. But both have been subject to political and policy pressures, including from the EU-level, that have created conditions conducive to a growing role for private sector companies in this traditionally public service. Squeezing profits for shareholders out of health services risks deteriorating working conditions; worse pay, reduced staff levels, greater workloads, […] - [The EU ‘people’s vote’ has already taken place — and the people voted Leave](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-peoples-vote-has-already-taken-place-and-the-people-voted-leave/): THERE is a particular poignancy in seeing politicians who ignored up to two million people marching against mass slaughter in Iraq now insisting that a smaller number on London’s streets demanding another EU referendum merits consideration. “This isn’t the Brexit we voted for,” many declare. Of course it isn’t, because yesterday’s mobilisation was organised by those who opted for Remain. They didn’t want any form of Brexit. Their patronising demand for a “People’s” Vote, with its implication that extraterrestrials or farm animals voted to leave first time round, oozes New Labour marketing style. Whereas obstacles were placed in the way of […] - [Pedo gangs and racists off our streets: The working class has no use for liberal hand-wringing](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-working-class-has-no-use-for-liberal-hand-wringing/): The left is making errors that have allowed the far right a hearing among ordinary people they should never have been gifted, writes ALEX BIRCH STEPHEN YAXLEY-LENNON has been freed on bail. Describing his terrifying eight weeks in prison as “mental torture,” he has immediately exploited his own children’s grief in a highly effective propaganda video showing his return from jail. We can now expect the British far right to take a stab at serious rejuvenation. For the last few years British fascism has been exhausted. Dogged by its own internal divisions, lack of direction and policies, and repeatedly humiliated in […] - [Corporations Global Masters the Road to 21st Century Serfdom.](https://heartlandstribune.com/corporations-global-masters-the-road-to-21st-century-serfdom/): The majority of the richest bodies in the world are transnationals, not government’s, poverty campaigners recently stated. The top 10 corporations brought in a combined wealth of more than £2.3 trillion in the past year, it found. The most recent figures show a continued trend where corporations are rapidly outstripping nations financially. Walmart, Apple, and Shell all accrued more wealth than developed countries such as Russia, Belgium, and Sweden last year. The figures have been released to put pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May to stand up to corporations at the upcoming United Nations summit at Geneva. The aim is to […] - [Impending EU-Tory neoliberal stitch-up must be undone](https://heartlandstribune.com/impending-eu-tory-neoliberal-stitch-up-must-be-undone/): This weekend crunch negotiations are taking place in Brussels ahead of next week’s EU summit. The outcome is unpredictable. On both sides the stakes are high — and they largely concern the financial interests of banks and big business. What they are definitely not about is the right of working people to exercise democratic control over their economy. On this the deal has already been done. It is set out in Theresa May’s white paper. Prior to the negotiations the British government had already made it crystal clear that the right-wing neoliberal philosophy of the EU will continue to be enforced […] - [The EU Brexit negotiations and Ireland – the empire strikes back.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-brexit-negotiations-and-ireland-the-empire-strikes-back/): DOUG NICHOLLS looks at the desperation of the EU Brexit negotiators and their threat to Ireland JOSE MANUEL BARROSO was president of the EU and now works for Goldman Sachs. This two-way traffic between Goldman Sachs and EU functionaries has a long history — as long ago as the ’30s Wall Street started to promote the idea of a federal Europe with a single currency, rendering nation states redundant. It’s quite natural for him therefore to refer, as he does, to the EU as the “European empire.” That was the idea all along, as the papers behind Ted Heath’s lies that […] - [Melenchon: France should renegotiate EU treaties or leave!](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-should-renegotiate-eu-treaties-or-leave/): FRENCH socialist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said that France should leave the EU if it proves impossible to renegotiate treaties that are “incompatible” with his party’s socialist programme. Withdrawal from European Treaties.  A vocal critic of the European Union, Jean-Luc Mélenchon supports an immediate exit of the current treaties, whether it be hand-in-hand with other countries with the option of renegotiating a new framework of cooperation, or independently. He also urges the French people to respect the decision by the UK to leave the European Union. France would seek to facilitate Brexit without “any spirit of vengeance or punishment”. He dubbed President […] - [The Front-Page Flop](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-front-page-flop/): For years, the Tories have relied on slavish support in the press to sell their austerity politics. But in the age of social media, this strategy has diminishing returns. News that the leader of a political party wants supporters of another party to vote for her shocked the editors of the Observer so much that they put it on the front page this Sunday, describing it as “extraordinary.” The observer headline read: Theresa May bids for centre ground with appeal to Labour voters Prime minister says the Tories are the only option for moderates Prime Minister Theresa May’s article had little news value, merely repeating […] - [Decades of putting City spivs before manufacturing jobs has cost us dear](https://heartlandstribune.com/decades-of-putting-city-spivs-before-manufacturing-jobs-has-cost-us-dear/): THE threatened closure of the Appledore shipyard, which has lost the contract to build two navy frigates, looms large in the minds of the yard’s workers and those in its supply chain. Unite’s Steve Turner put it in context: “The loss of the contract to Italian yard Fincantieri has exposed the vulnerability of the Appledore site, while government delays to the Type 31e frigates and an obsession with offshoring the construction of three fleet support ships for our naval carrier fleet is threatening jobs across the UK.” Building a skills base for a large modern manufacturing economy creates a virtuous circle […] - [Third Journalist in a year murdered while investigating EU Corruption.](https://heartlandstribune.com/third-journalist-in-a-year-murdered-while-investigating-eu-corruption/): Bulgarian television reporter Viktoria Marinova has become the third journalist to be murdered in the European Union in the last year and the fourth since the start of 2017. The 30-year-old’s body was found dumped near the Danube River in the town of Ruse, northern Bulgaria, on Saturday. Police said she had been beaten, raped and strangled. It is not known if Marinova’s murder is linked to her journalism work. Investigators are still trying to trace potential witnesses and establish a motive for her killing. However, Bulgarian media reported that Marinova recently interviewed Romanian journalists who were investigating politicians and businessmen for alleged corruption […] - [Unite warns Tories will 'shipwreck' our shipbuilding industry](https://heartlandstribune.com/unite-warns-tories-will-shipwreck-our-shipbuilding-industry/): The government’s lack of clear commitment to shipbuilding could kill off the industry in Britain, defence workers warned. Unite, which represents shipyard workers, said ministers’ lack of solid support for maintaining a British base for naval construction is creating anxiety in shipbuilding communities. The union expressed particular fear over the future of shipbuilding in Appledore, North Devon, where the shipyard has lost a significant works contract to Italian firm Fincantier, and in Belfast, where government hesitation over agreeing new construction contracts is causing widespread concern. The union also criticised the Tories’ “obsession” with offshoring shipbuilding despite Britain having the capacity for […] - [Britain’s economy dangerously unprepared for the fourth industrial revolution](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-economy-dangerously-unprepared-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/): Britain ‘dangerously unprepared’ for technological revolution, McDonnell warns JOHN MCDONNELL has said that short-term profiteering and lack of investment has left Britain’s economy dangerously unprepared for the fourth industrial revolution that centres on emerging technologies. The shadow chancellor was speaking ahead of a protest outside London’s Royal Exchange yesterday calling for financial sector reform. He said: “I’m worried that the City of London isn’t listening and what we have is a system whereby the productive elements of the economy that are creating wealth are being diverted into property speculation and not addressing the real need and the fundamentals of our economy. […] - [She's a Fracking Traitor, Former Labour MP Natascha Engel](https://heartlandstribune.com/shes-a-fracking-traitor-former-labour-mp-natashia-engles/): The pro-fracking former Labour MP, Natascha Engel, is the new commissioner for shale gas, the government announced yesterday. Ms Engel initially opposed fracking when Ineos announced plans to explore for shale gas in the village of Marsh Lane in her constituency in January 2017. She later visiting shale gas sites in Pennsylvania and switched sides in the debate. Within months, she lost her seat in the general election to the Conservative, Lee Rowley, who opposed fracking in the constituency. It was the first time the area was held by the Conservatives since 1935. Engel ran a lacklustre campaign for the 2017 General election where at […] - [Today’s Labour Party reflects Keir Hardie’s vision for change](https://heartlandstribune.com/todays-labour-party-reflects-keir-hardies-vision-for-change/): RICHARD BURGON considers the enduring relevance of the Labour Party’s founder and first leader RECENTLY reading Bob Holman’s excellent biography Keir Hardie – Labour’s Greatest Hero? has caused me to reflect upon how valuable the life, politics and ideas of the Labour Party’s founder and first leader can be as a tool for socialist political education and a spur to action for all our party’s members in the situation we face in 2018. Hardie was in many ways ahead of his time — as an internationalist and opponent of war and imperialism, as a voice for the working class in its […] - [McJobs and the Low Wage Economy Cost Us All!](https://heartlandstribune.com/mcjobs-and-the-low-wage-economy-cost-us-all/): When it comes to their wages, McDonald’s workers around the world are not “Loving It” – and they haven’t been shy about expressing their discontent over the past years. In April, 2016 fast food workers led the most global strike in history. It took place in 300 cities, in more than 40 countries in every region of the globe. It was a day of action against what activists called “McJobs” – low-wage, precarious work. And it caught the attention of the world. These protests have continued to both highlights the plight of low wage workers and the strength of solidarity throughout […] - [Out of step, Out of time and soon to be Out of office!](https://heartlandstribune.com/out-of-step-out-of-time-and-soon-to-be-out-of-office/): Theresa May enters the Tory party conference dancing! Yes, that really is the headline in the media today even though to the less keen-eyed viewer it could have been mistaken for a tumble. It was only the track Dancing Queen playing that confirmed to most it was not actually was not. It would be funny if it was not so embarrassing! The Tories seem to thrive in creating the most cringe-worthy moments for posterity, between Theresa May and Gavin ‘shut up and go away’ Williams and they are topping the charts. It would be fair to say Theresa May accelerates in […] - [Enemy of the People!](https://heartlandstribune.com/enemy-of-the-people/): No one likes to be told that the truth may not be the only truth! No one likes their worldview to be upset and not many people get pleasure in creating this upset. But sometimes when you see a path clearly laid out, a path that will lead to the unravelling of the Party, your Party, then it’s your duty to speak out against those who would wish to call themselves the majority. It brings to mind the play An Enemy of the People, Henrik Iben`s 1882 play, pits the enlightened and persecuted minority against the ignorant, apparently invincible majority. Dr Tom […] - [Nasty McVey suggests her own party's benefit cuts are "fake news" in shameless conference speech!](https://heartlandstribune.com/nasty-mcvey-suggests-her-own-partys-benefit-cuts-are-fake-news-in-shameless-conference-speech/): The Work and Pensions Secretary launched her attack despite cuts being well-documented by experts and her predecessor Iain Duncan Smith. BRAZEN Esther McVey caused uproar after she claimed that benefit cuts were “fake news” during a hysterical attack on the left. The Work and Pensions Secretary used her keynote address at the Conservative Party conference to attack growing support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, while also shamelessly stating that Conservatives “have never spent more on those with disabilities and long-term health conditions” despite well-documented massive benefit cuts. She said: “If you were to believe everything you heard from Labour […] - [Jeremy and John’s Labour can deliver the radical economic change we need!](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-and-johns-labour-can-deliver-the-radical-economic-change-we-need/):   Ten years on from the financial crash, Labour showed at its conference this week that it understands the scale of change needed, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE We recently marked the 10th anniversary of the financial crash and as Labour conference met last week, keynote speeches from leader Jeremy Corbyn, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy Rebecca Long-Bailey MP showed that – unlike the Tories – Labour understands both the reasons for this crisis plus the radical approach and policies needed to improve people’s life and stop this happening again. In contrast, if […] - [The Digital Age for a Victorian Age Tory Party!](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-digital-age-for-a-victorian-tory-party/): This incompetent Government have not only embarrassed the UK at the very start of their conference, that usually does not happen until the speeches but it may well have cost the UK potential investment. After all if they cannot get their own digital security right how will they promote trust in potential investors to the UK. The government have spent heavily in cyber security justifying the 1.9 billion to entice major investment from Global corporations this fiasco with the conference App will be just the news investors will need not to bother! This was the announcement in November 2016. The Chancellor, […] - [70% of Labour Constituencies Voted to Leave the EU!](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-constituencies-voted-to-leave-the-eu/): 70% of Labour Constituencies voted to Leave the EU! David Mallon delegate from Blyth valley CLP. David Mallon talked passionately at the Labour Party conference imploring the Labour Party not accept the People’s Vote. David told the conference in no uncertain terms what supporting a people’s vote would mean to the people of his constituency. David’s constituency of Blyth valley was just one of the 70% of Labour constituencies that voted to leave the EU. David invited the conference to “come to Blyth valley the area of Blyth valley the rundown abandoned constituency telling in a clear message for too long […] - [Keir Starmer has a very short memory or he just hopes we do!](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-has-a-very-short-memory-or-he-just-hopes-we-do/): Top Jeremy Corbyn aide ‘yelled in fury’ when Keir Starmer went off-script in Brexit speech There were plenty of reasons why! Jeremy Corbyn has worked relentlessly at trying to create a Labour Party people can trust, with politicians we can trust Keir Starmer seems to have missed the brief. Starmer’s conference speech advocating a second referendum that would include the question of remain was pure self-indulgence, worst it was pure hypocrisy and a complete reverse to his house of commons speech on respecting the result of the referendum. Sir Keir Starmer Quote: We lost the referendum. Yes, the result was close. Yes, […] - [Corbyn can deliver Brexit!](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-can-deliver-brexit/): The conference has finished and after a rousing, fantastic speech with standing ovations, Jeremy Corbyn told Theresa May: if you can’t negotiate that deal then you need to make way for a party that can we have spread the word. The Labour party are ready to rebuild Britain. His calls for a general election were greeted with rapturous applause in the hall. The Labour leader made a call to those outside the party to join Labour in what he called the “new political mainstream”. Corbyn truly picked up the ball after a fantastic opening by John McDonnell on Monday laying out […] - [Public Ownership of Gas and Electricity](https://heartlandstribune.com/public-ownership-of-gas-and-electricity/): This policy is to be sold to us by projecting an unjustified optimism about the Community, and an unjustified pessimism about the United Kingdom, designed to frighten us in. – Tony Benn Public ownership of gas and electricity is destined to become a cherished aim of the Labour Party. For years under privatisation, the swindling of the consumer has gone hand-in-hand with outrageous profit-taking by the corporate giants, to the loss of the public purse. Far from helping customers through keen competition, the main effect of energy privatisation has been – like austerity – a redistribution of wealth from the have-nots […] - [Keir Starmer Just Broke The Labour Party.](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-just-broke-the-labour-party/): Social media is rife on the Remain forums heralding Keir Starmer as the New party leader. In one speech Starmer has managed to not only lose the support of countless Labour constituencies that voted to Leave the EU but managed to complete the Chicken coup of 2016. Labour’s Brexit spokesman has insisted the party could back another referendum that offered voters the chance to stay in the EU. Sir Keir Starmer used the second referendum composite vote to make his turning point political speech he stated without party support or policy the party would back a second referendum and a remain […] - [A Tale of two Speeches!](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-tale-of-two-speeches/): On Mondays news brought us these headlines:   Labour’s new Brexit referendum would not offer option to remain in EU, says John McDonnell. A new referendum must exclude any option to remain in EU, says Len McCluskey The Unite general secretary said, “including the option could push Labour voters to the Tories”. It does not take a genius to see that both these statements are forward thinking and would place Labour has the frontrunner in any General election. While not endorsing overturning the referendum Labour would be allowing the people if it came to the crunch a real referendum on the […] - [John McDonnell The Red Meat of a Socialist Manifesto.](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-mcdonnell-the-red-meat-of-a-socialist-manifesto/): John Mcdonnell laid out the plans for a Post Brexit Labour government. His speech carried the audience towards a vision of a democratic workplace where workers would share and the reap the fruits of your labor. The shadow secretary quoted clause IV that was first introduced into the Labour party in 1918 but removed under the Blairite take over. There are echoes in history how the right of the Party have always wanted to remove clause iv. Read more on Clause IV In the 1950’s Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell thought clause IV was outdated but his attempts to get it reformed […] - [The People's Vote is an Attack on Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-peoples-vote-is-an-attack-on-corbyn/): Anyone who thinks the People’s vote is about a second referendum should look very closely at who is running the so called People’s Vote and to what end. The People’s vote is probably one of the most cynical attempts to both undermine our democracy and at the same time force the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn into an uncompromising position. Jeremy Corbyn has rightly said from the initial result of the referendum that the Labour Party respects the result of the referendum, there has been no diversion from Jeremy Corbyn on this issue. He has relentlessly been an anchor of democracy […] - [Zombie Prime Minister.](https://heartlandstribune.com/zombie-prime-minister/): May’s Chequers deal was doomed from its very concept! Everyone and their dog realised this on it first announcement, that’s everyone but Theresa May! There were a few hints, half the cabinet either resigning or looking like they had just eaten a sour grape was a good tell. She could have even taken the hint when both Remainers and Leave supporters turned their noses up at this unworkable deal but she refused to look beyond her own delusions. May continued like the walking dead with her own particular brand of arrogance she ignored all the signs. There is no need to […] - [Housing crisis but see how this brave woman confronts the issue](https://heartlandstribune.com/housing-crisis-but-see-how-this-brave-woman-confronts-the-issue/): Homelessness and the Housing crisis is not exclusive to the UK. Dublin is undergoing a terrible Housing crisis but see how this brave woman confronts the issue: Probably the bravest Traveller woman in Dublin today! Despite the fact, Margaret is on her own and without any real support from anyone and sadly that is also including “Traveller Support Groups” And still in all Margaret refuses to be silenced by anyone, Margaret will never give up on her kids and never too proud to fight to the end!. Margaret who had travelled across Dublin with her two kids in the hope that […] - [BMW Headlines hiding the true story and it is not Brexit.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bmw-headlines-hiding-the-true-story-and-it-is-not-brexit/): BMW Headlines hiding the true story and it is not Brexit. When the European Commission announced a cartel probe into the German car industry yesterday, most people here even didn’t find out. The news ran on El Economista in Mexico, on CNBC in the United States and on Radio Chisinau in Moldova. BMW is to be investigated by the EU in a major cartel probe. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager launched a landmark cartel probe Tuesday into concerns that Germany’s leading carmakers conspired to limit the development of clean emissions technology. In the aftermath of the Dieselgate scandal, the investigation is a decisive […] - [Retirement ages set to rise EU wide by 2050](https://heartlandstribune.com/retirement-ages-set-to-rise-eu-wide-by-2050/): Retirement Ages in Member States. In the EU15 states, the general retirement age is 65 years. In most new Member States, the retirement age will be raised to the same level over the next decade. Denmark, France, Germany and Spain have decided to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 years, while the goal is 68 years in Britain and Ireland. For the main part, the changes in retirement ages will occur in the 2020s. In Finland, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia, the retirement age will be linked to the development of the expected life expectancy. In […] - [14 million people, 4.5 million of them children, are living in poverty.](https://heartlandstribune.com/14-million-people-4-5-million-of-them-children-are-living-in-poverty/): Theresa May. You work for us. SORT IT! 14 million people, 4.5 million of them children, are living in poverty. A study by The Social Metrics Commission has discovered that over 14 million people, 4.5 million of them children, are living in poverty. The investigation also discovered that 12% of the total UK population is in “persistent” poverty, having spent all or most of the last four years below the breadline. The statistics, by Social Metrics Commission, have been gathered from a new measure to calculate social disadvantage. The commission’s chair, Philippa Stroud, said: “We want to put poverty at the […] - [The European Union must turn into a major sovereign power](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-european-union-must-turn-into-a-major-sovereign-power/): “The European Union must turn into a major sovereign power on the global stage making the world in its image,” Jean-Claude Juncker has said, setting out plans to make Europe militarily and economically independent from its traditional ally the US. In his state of the union speech, titled ‘The Hour of European Sovereignty’, the European commission president appealed to MEPs and heads of government to give the EU the powers and characteristics traditionally restricted to states.  If that is so here a few questions for the EU from a Left perspective. Does that mean the EU will have equal pay across the EU? […] - [NEC election results are a Clear endorsement of Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/nec-election-results-are-a-clear-endorsement-of-jeremy-corbyn/): Today’s NEC results give a clear indication that Labour Party members want to remove the last ligatures of New Labour from its machinery. The Machinery is the NEC. The long night of the Blairites is now on the descent, it has now entered the witching hour where the struggle for the Labour Parties soul will be finally relinquished by the right of the PLP. The Labour Party is clearly setting its foundations as the Party of the People, a Party of clear dividing lines from that of the Tories. That indistinguishable face of the past has caused a mass exodus of both […] - [The Bevanites and the Gaitskellites](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bevanites-and-the-gaitskellites/): This subject is, of course, relevant to modern day politics within the Labour Party, especially at this current time when we have MP’s such as Frank Field resigning from the Labour MP and the constant talk about a split in the Labour Party. I fundamentally believe that the current Labour Movement must learn from the mistakes from this time period if it is to succeed in the future and deliver the programme that the working classes of the United Kingdom desperately need. What is happening now in the Labour Party is rather similar to what happened in the late 1950’s. Instead of the Blairites […] - [Steve Hedley. Opinions.](https://heartlandstribune.com/steve-hedley-opinions/): Steve Hedley. Senior Assistant General secretary of the RMT. Giving Labour Heartlands his personal views on some aspects of the left and the state of play today. My union was amongst the very few to have backed Brexit. We did so because we see the European Union as a boss’s organisation which institutionalises the free movement of capital, labour, the free market. The resultant neo liberal system based on privatisation and deregulation are clearly advantageous to the capitalist class and detrimental to the workers and our organisations the trade unions. Markets previously closed to private capital and rapacious profit making continue […] - [The Great Betrayal.](https://heartlandstribune.com/great-betrayal/): A petition was raised by a Momentum member to call for Jeremy Corbyn to back the ‘People’s Vote’ AKA a second referendum. This could be the worst betrayal in recent Political history.  Momentum’s entire reason d’être is to support Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. I have been a Momentum member since early 2016. In 2018 I was a candidate for the NCG, and see Momentum the main reason for joining Momentum to support Jeremy Corbyn, help move the Labour party back to its traditional place of the Left and campaign for both Jeremy Corbyn and a socialist Labour Party. Our […] - ['You say Wreath I say Plaque’](https://heartlandstribune.com/you-say-wreath-i-say-plaque/): ‘You say Wreath we say Plaque’   Binyamin Netanyahu calls out for unequivocal condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn for being present or in the vicinity of a wreath-laying for Munich terrorists. Jeremy Corbyn has said he was present but not involved at a wreath-laying for individuals behind the group that carried out the Munich Olympic massacre, a partial admission that has led to a row with Israel’s prime minister. The Labour leader had been asked if Palestinian leaders linked to the Black September terror group were also honoured at a memorial event he attended in Tunisia in 2014, at which victims of […] - [Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour vs. the Single Market](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyns-labour-vs-the-single-market/): IF THE NEXT LABOUR GOVERNMENT IS TO BE TRULY TRANSFORMATIVE, IT HAS TO FREE ITSELF FROM THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE SINGLE MARKET. In recent weeks there has been intense debate in Britain about the Labour Party and the ongoing Brexit process. Advocates of the European Union have sought a range of concessions from the party leadership ranging from another vote on Brexit, to continued membership of the single market and Customs Union, and focusing on Brexit at party conference. Underpinning this campaign to change Labour’s position on Brexit has been a barrage of articles arguing that European Union or single market rules […] - [No pasarán](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-pasaran/): “They shall not pass” I heard some chanting behind me about” Tommy” then felt something smash on the left side of my face seconds later my partner was hit in the ribs by a flying metal chair launched by Tommy Robinson supporting thugs. It was a glorious Saturday and it was around three in the afternoon, I was enjoying my second pint with my partner Bridget, one of our branch secretaries Kym and a trade union activist nearing retirement age Mike. We had been to a counter protest to the pro Trump /free Tommy Robinson demo where I had the honour […] - [Brexit No-Deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-no-deal/): Reality Check Brexit, the ‘Cliff Edge’ and possible implications of a final ‘No-Deal’ The liberal-left commentariat and its beleaguered but ever vocal public supporters continue their stubborn push for a coveted second referendum or ‘People’s Vote’ on the final Brexit deal despite all of the legal complexities and obvious political crisis this would cause. This view is largely fed by a constant stream of hysterical and often apocalyptic warnings in The Guardian and The Independent that foresees airliners grounded, Dover lorry parks clogged and empty supermarket shelves. Nevertheless, it crystallises some very real fears held by many Labour supporters who have been […] - [WHY I’M A LEFT WING NATIONALIST AND SO SHOULD YOU](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-im-a-left-wing-nationalist-and-so-should-you/): WHY I’M A LEFT WING NATIONALIST AND SO SHOULD YOU BY A ROMANIAN IMMIGRANT Once we clear the candy floss from the utopia in the Leftie mind we see multiculturalism for what it is Cheap labour in one direction and Americanisation in the other — internet sage There’s a viral post on Facebook that tells the white working class man — “the gammon”, that immigrants are not the cause of austerity, which is true. The post also suggests current levels of immigration are no problem at all and shouldn’t be controlled, unless you are a racist. This isn’t true at all. In fact, this idea, endorsed […] - [May fiddles Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/may-fiddles-brexit/): May Fiddles Brexit May was a Remainer, of course, so we understand that she does not have an ideological investment in Britain leaving the EU. But she should have had an ideological investment in the UK and more so in democracy. No matter your stance Remainer or Brexiteer no one voted to become a vassal state. Even the arch remainer and Anti Corbyn extremist Peter Mandelson writes: “Britain, in effect, would be entrapped and the more you think through the implications the more the whole thing looks less like a soft Brexit than a national humiliation. He goes on to say […] - [The Definition of Insanity](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-definition-of-insanity/): The Definition of Insanity By Toby Peacock In the summer of 2016, the only progressive credential needed was voting remain. The racists of UKIP and the old Tory bigots were lining up to vote leave so the only option must be to accept the EU, despite its flaws, and vote to stay in. After all, perhaps after a narrow remain vote, Britain will be able to forge a campaign to reform the EU from within? Fast forward two years, the racists and the bigots won. Our country has gone to the dogs. The gleaming light of the EU is getting further […] - [Brexit to Lexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-to-lexit/): Corbyn right not to back EEA – it blocks a socialist UK Rebel Labour MPs are working against our radical program The Lords amendments last week exposed the divide in the Labour Party on Brexit. With regards to the EEA amendment, to which Labour whipped to abstain, 90 Labour MPs broke the whip, with 75 voting for the EEA. Laura Smith even went so far as to resign from the front bench to vote against the EEA and respect her constituents. Sadly many MPs on the right of the party such as Phil Wilson, Conor McGinn and Bridget Phillipson used their […] - [Down the Rabbit Hole](https://heartlandstribune.com/down-the-rabbit-hole/): British Political Parties Being Dragged Down The Rabbit Hole UK political parties are now truly being dragged into the Rabbit Hole of Madness, Middle East Hatred, Anti-Islamic or Antisemitic, It’s a case of Pick your Poison! Both Labour and the Tories are being pulled into the conflict of hatred. One bottle of poison prescribed by Baroness Warsi says: The Muslim Council of Britain has now called on the Tories to launch an independent inquiry into allegations of Islamophobia. The group said the last month had seen weekly incidents of Islamophobia from Conservative representatives and candidates. Baroness Warsi told Sky News the issue was […] - [Fool me once.](https://heartlandstribune.com/fool-me-once/): On the 21st of April, Chemical weapons inspectors entered the Syrian town of Douma to gather evidence of the alleged poison gas attack, that is said to have taken place there. It was reported. The Syrian government is believed to have used chlorine gas on its own people. This lead to a U.K. French and U.S bombing run that caused upset and fear around the western world of an escalated war. Thankfully one that never happened. France’s President Emmanuel Macron says he has “proof” that the Syrian government attacked the town of Douma with chemical weapons before carrying out an attack […] - [Going Back to Our Roots](https://heartlandstribune.com/going-back-to-our-roots/): [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_title margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” size=”1″ content_align=”left” style_type=”default” sep_color=””] To beat the Tories, Labour needs to win in areas where Ukip has faded away   [/fusion_title][fusion_text] Paul Mason on the local elections. If this were […] - [Muddy waters](https://heartlandstribune.com/muddy-waters/): Again we see the right MPs within the Labour Party going against the Party and the leadership. Jeremy Corbyn set out Labour’s Brexit position on the customs union in February this year, seemingly bringing to end months of confusion over where the party stood on the issue. He said Labour would seek “a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union to ensure that there are no tariffs with Europe”. The Labour party’s divisions on Brexit will be laid bare today, as a group of up to 50 of its peers prepare to back an amendment on future membership of the EEA (European Economic Area). The […] - [It's Only Words](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-only-words/): May Day Chesterfield May Day. Chesterfield May Day celebrations are the largest outside London and today we were privileged to listen to a speech made by Unite the Unions leader Len McCluskey. My views on Len McCluskey’s speech: Len McCluskey used his speech to talk about change and hope, a shared feeling across the country. There is a new hope that has been inspired by Jeremy Corbyn and change that together we can all make happen. Paying tribute to Tony Benn while being in his old constituency of Chesterfield, he continued speaking of Tony Benn and how Benn was a firm […] - [Man in the Mirror](https://heartlandstribune.com/man-in-the-mirror/): Jeremy Corbyn critic Chuka Umunna has called for an inquiry into Labour’s local election campaign. Mr Umunna said the advances which could be expected at this stage in the electoral cycle under a “divided and incompetent” Government had failed to materialise. Link to article here. Live on national television, once again Chuka was premature in his criticism, demanding an independent inquiry into Labours local election results. The results were only in mid-flow that afternoon when Chuka already smelt blood. It was another deliberate attempt to undermine the Left of the Labour Party and in particular Jeremy Corbyn. Taking into account Chuka’s […] - [Local elections](https://heartlandstribune.com/local-elections/): Labour’s ‘best London results since 1971’ Despite the Toxic Right of the Labour Party adding to the negative mix on MSM over AS. Millions of voters have been to the polls in a night that as seen Labour gains and the best result in London’s local elections for the Party since 1971. Jeremy Corbyn’s party had high hopes ahead of the first ballot box test since last year’s snap general election. And in some areas it lived up to them – seizing Plymouth off the Tories and knocking out the Tories’ only Greater Manchester foothold of Trafford. 2018 Election Result: “With […] - [You Messed Around I Caught You Out Howzat?](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-good-bye-well-howzat/): Amber Rudd boasted to Theresa May about setting an “ambitious but deliverable” target for kicking out illegal immigrants Yet Ms Rudd flatly denied removals targets existed when she appeared before MPs last week. Her former deputy, Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis, today admitted he had seen a bombshell memo over targets for deporting illegal immigrants – targets she denied existed despite being copied in on the document. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: “The Tories’ shameful attempts to cover up their mess must end. Clearly there were targets, and Amber Rudd was aware of them. “Theresa May has sent Minister after Minister […] - [Labour Party civil war: Just Go Walk Out The Door!](https://heartlandstribune.com/just-go-walk-out-the-door/): The right of PLP needs to go! This is a Labour Party as been in a civil war. The Blairites are not representative of the Party or the Working class they are bringing the Labour Party into disrepute with their constant attacks on the Leadership and all who support Jeremy Corbyn. From the moment Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the Labour Party in September 2015 the Labour Party as been in a civil war. This was first seen the Monday morning after the referendum to leave the EU.  (see our post It started with a coup.) There have been […] - [RUDD MUST GO!](https://heartlandstribune.com/rudd-must-go/): Amber Rudd incompetent or conveniently forgetting? RUDD MUST GO! The Home office and it’s ministers need to stop playing with people’s lives the Windrush generation are British citizens not faceless numbers. Amber Rudd was told about migrant removal targets, leak reveals Exclusive: Secret memo contradicts home secretary’s claim she was unaware of targets Amber Rudd’s insistence that she knew nothing of Home Office targets for immigration removals risks unravelling following the leak of a secret internal document prepared for her and other senior ministers. The six-page memo, passed to the Guardian, says the department has set “a target of achieving 12,800 enforced […] - [One Law for the Rich and One for the Poor.](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-law-for-the-rich-and-one-for-the-poor/): Why is it that there’s one law for the rich and one for the poor? “There are currently about 3250 people examining benefit fraud while there are only 300 HMRC people examining the fraud by those that are wealthy tax dodgers. Many of whom give a lot of money to the Tory Party. Why is it that there’s one law for the rich and one for the poor?” Quote from -Labour MP Dennis Skinner Let’s see that in action….. The British government refused to assist a French investigation into suspected money laundering and tax fraud by the UK telecoms giant Lycamobile […] - [Board of Deputies not the only Voice in Town](https://heartlandstribune.com/board-of-deputies/): Jenny Manson, Co-Chair Jewish Voice for Labour Jeremy Corbyn meets leaders of one group of the Jewish community ‘The Board of Deputies of British Jews’ amid an ongoing row about the rise of anti-Semitism among Labour supporters. Let’s be very clear this is one group of the Jewish community and not all Jewish community groups feel the same way. While they are representative of some British Jews they are not representative of all British Jews. There are lots of groups that represent British Jews and it seems their views are less hostile towards Labour. The Labour Party that as lead the fight […] - [Mandatory Reselection](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandatory-reselection/): Mandatory Reselection, Democracy in practice.  The current process of ‘trigger ballots’ is far from adequate to choose our representatives. We believe that any such ‘checks and balances’ should be abolished. Members should have the right to easily choose who should represent them and their constituency. We need a system of true mandatory selection. Quite simply, everybody who wants to stand as MP (including the sitting MP), should have to put themselves forward to the local members who should decide in a democratic and transparent vote. Labour MPs are not independents, solely elected by their constituents. They are selected by the Labour […] - [War who is it good for](https://heartlandstribune.com/war-who-is-it-good-for/): War who is it good for? On Friday the 13th of April or more precisely the early hours of Saturday morning a joint operation was carried out in response to the alleged chemical attack on Syrian civilians by the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad. Although no concrete evidence was presented or due process carried out, OPCW experts were 24 hours away from taking samples from victims and site of alleged attack in Douma. However the President of the United States after a series of confusing Twitter tweets suggesting he would or would not be bombing Syria finally made a live statement […] - [Momentum For the Many](https://heartlandstribune.com/momentum-for-the-many/): Momentum For The Many Momentum NCG Momentum should in all cases work towards what Jeremy Corbyn termed a more open honest politics, after all, are we not the vanguard of the Left and in support of Jeremy Corbyn along with his ethics. If we stoop to low tactics for whatever reason does this not reduce our high ground when we call out Tory underhand play? How can we report on issues that we believe affects an open honest democracy and fight against a fixed system if we appear to be fixing the system in just the same way? Then it must be […] - [Oppose antisemitism and malicious accusations by supporters of the Tory Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/oppose-antisemitism-and-malicious-accusations-by-supporters-of-the-tory-party/): Jewish Socialists’ Group statement The Jewish Socialists’ Group expresses its serious concern at the rise of antisemitism, especially under extreme right wing governments in central and Eastern Europe, in America under Donald Trump’s Presidency and here in Britain under Theresa May’s premiership. The recent extensive survey by the highly respected Jewish Policy Research confirmed that the main repository of antisemitic views in Britain is among supporters of the Conservative Party and UKIP. This political context, alongside declining support for the Tories, reveals the malicious intent behind the the latest flimsy accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. These […] - [Jewish community leaders issued a set of demands](https://heartlandstribune.com/jewish-community-leaders-issued-a-set-of-demands/): Jewish community leaders issued a set of demands. Jewish community leader Jonathan Arkush has made a number of demands before meeting Jeremy Corbyn to discuss antisemitism in the Labour party. They have said they are ready to meet Corbyn but the list of demands they want are to be met before agreeing on a time and place. These demands include the expulsion of Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor who has been suspended after refusing to withdraw claims that Jews collaborated with Hitler. On Tuesday, Arkash said: “Ken Livingstone really cannot remain. His views are shameful and disreputable. He will have […] - [THE MURAL: FALSE PROFITS](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-mural/): This is the Mural plotters are using to attack Jeremy Corbyn. The largely-fictitious ‘anti-Semitism-in-Labour’ controversy is clearly never going to be allowed to die. I have no doubt more examples will be brought to public attention in the final days before the Local Elections in May, and most accusations will stem from heavily-distorted information, just as Mike Sivier can testify from what happened a year ago. In case anyone is just back from a five-day holiday to Mars, the present storm of outrage is about a notorious mural on Brick Lane in London. The artist who painted the mural is an American called […] - [Lexit Let Down](https://heartlandstribune.com/lexit-let-down/): Is it capitulation or politicking. Jeremy Corbyn developed the Labour Party’s policy on Brexit at a speech in Coventry. Jeremy used the speech to outline Labour’s new stance that it would seek to remain in a customs union with the European Union after we formally leave next year. Labour’s shadow secretary of state for trade Barry Gardiner once described such a position as reducing the United Kingdom to a “vassal state”. This new policy means that after we leave the European Union we would need to negotiate a new treaty with the European Union to establish this arrangement. Jeremy also said […] - [EU Rules incompatible with Labour’s manifesto](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-rules-incompatible-labours-manifesto/): EU Rules incompatible with Labour’s manifesto! In the debate around Labour’s position on Brexit, siren voices on the left assert the single market — sometimes called the EU internal market — does not prevent governments creating nationalised industries and utilities. For example, when French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced a temporary renationalisation of the “STX France” shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, blocking Italian firm Fincantieri’s takeover of France’s military infrastructure for warship and aircraft carrier construction, some opponents of Brexit hailed the move as evidence that the EU is neutral on the question of nationalisation versus private ownership of industry. However, French Economy Minister […] - [EU Single Market Rules and a UK National Investment Bank](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-single-market-rules-uk-national-investment-bank/): EU Single Market Rules and a UK National Investment Bank EU Single Market Rules and a UK National Investment Bank Tarrant and Biondi make the case that ‘EU state aid rules do not prevent a future Labour Government from introducing necessary radical reform of the economy’ and are largely present to prevent ‘the ruinous beggar-thy-neighbour macro-economic policies of the 1930s’ (Tarrant and Biondi, p1, 2018).However, their argument has certain important omissions that are not included in the discussion. Of particular concern is the Labour Party manifesto policy of creating a National Investment Bank  (NIB) with a £500 billion capitalisation program to […] - [Tony Blair MI5 SPY](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blair-mi5-spy/): Jeremy Corbyn is a communist spy! Says who? Again we see the establishment showing their true colours and it’s tainted with a touch of fear. Both the right wing MSM and even the right wing of the Labour party are enjoying a moment of “utter carry on” reminiscent of a Sid James and the carry on classics.The theory is throw enough mud and something will stick. It’s not just the gutter press either right wing Labour MP’s snigger at the idiotic attempts while whispering to each other in a conspiratory manner working on their next attack to bring down Jeremy Corbyn. It was not […] - [Children in absolute poverty across UK hits 3.7 million after increases of 200,000 in a year](https://heartlandstribune.com/children-in-absolute-poverty-across-uk-hits-3-7-million-after-increases-of-200000-in-a-year/): Annual Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show 4.1 million children were living in relative poverty after housing costs in 2017/18, around the same as the year before. More than 2 million (53%) are under five, up from 51% a year earlier. 700,000 children in “severe” poverty, up from 600,000. And the number of children in absolute poverty, a different measure, rose by 200,000 to 3.7 million. The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, said: “It is surely wrong, in a just and compassionate society, that so many children are growing up in poverty. A record 2.9 million children from working […] - [We don’t abstain on the Union: DUP will not back Theresa May’s Brexit deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-dont-abstain-on-the-union-dup-will-not-back-theresa-mays-brexit-deal/): Nigel Dodds “We don’t abstain on the Union” But does that mean they will vote against it? The DUP has confirmed it will not support the Prime Minister if she tables another meaningful vote on her withdrawal agreement in parliament and crucially, it will not be abstaining as has been mooted. Focus has been on the DUP and how it will move after Theresa May pledged to stand down as Prime Minister if her deal gets the support needed to pass in the Commons. A number of Brexiteers have announced they will back the Prime Minister in the wake of her […] - [Parliamentarians have some serious thinking to do](https://heartlandstribune.com/parliamentarians-have-some-serious-thinking-to-do/): As this phase of the Brexit process grinds towards its excruciating conclusion, mercifully, we might finally be about to learn what can command a majority among MPs in the House of Commons. On Monday night, Members of Parliament indicated to Theresa May that they want to wrestle Brexit out of the government’s hands and take control of the process. This means indicative votes on Wednesday, in which the Commons will likely coalesce around a softer version of Brexit. This could cause Leave-supporting MPs to be more forceful trying to hold the line on the result to leave the EU in what […] - [A Dark Day for Internet Freedom – Article 13 and the EU Digital Single Market](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-dark-day-for-internet-freedom-article-13-and-the-eu-digital-single-market/): The European Parliament has today approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive including the controversial Article 11 and Article 13 (which has now been renamed Article 17) by 348 to 274 votes against the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts. These new laws which require force platforms such as YouTube and Facebook to filter or remove copyrighted material from their websites will come into effect from 2021. Julia Reda, a German MEP and long-time vocal opponent of the move, described the decision as a ‘dark day for internet freedom’. Germany has been at the head of […] - [A New Beginning – The Death of Neoliberalism](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-new-beginning-the-death-of-neoliberalism/): In Mexico on 18th March 2019, Neoliberalism was, -to all intents and purposes, -abolished by President Obrado, in favour of a new economic plan. This means that -at long last, -the first country in the world to outlaw Neoliberalism, has finally raised its head above the parapet. It also means, that the evil economic policy of pillage and prosper, privatisation and corruption, -an evil monster which should never have been released from the bowels of Mother Earth, -will hopefully be consigned to history. The nightmare existence brought about by Privatisation, coupled with its partner Corruption, -for both actions go hand in […] - [MOTION AGAINST WATSON PASSED BY CLPS](https://heartlandstribune.com/motion-against-watson-passed-by-clps/): A model motion being widely circulated over social media is gaining traction this follows a massive petition to remove Tom Watson as Labour Party deputy Leader. When seven Labour MPs formally announced that they were leaving the party to form the Independent Group on 18 February, it didn’t take long for deputy Labour leader Tom Watson to release a video about their departure. In his statement, Watson lamented that his colleagues had decided to leave and suggested that there should be a reshuffle of Labour’s front bench, to accommodate the ‘Social democratic traditions’ of the party. Three weeks later, on the […] - [I’m Labour’s NEC youth rep – and I won’t be at the People’s Vote march tomorrow](https://heartlandstribune.com/im-labours-nec-youth-rep-and-i-wont-be-at-the-peoples-vote-march-tomorrow/): A few weeks ago, the Evening Standard carried four full-page advertisements for a People’s Vote march, claiming to represent the views of young people – a move that would have cost the organisation an estimated £500,000. Having spent the summer offering deceitful misrepresentations to the press of the Brexit views held by Unite, Unison and Momentum members, in an effort to pervert the democratic structures of those organisations, the People’s Vote campaign now takes to the streets again. The protest urges opposition to a coming crisis, where MPs will decide whether to “make our country poorer”, “trash our vital public services” and “wreck the […] - [What’s in Theresa May's Brexit deal and why is it so unpopular?](https://heartlandstribune.com/whats-in-theresa-mays-brexit-deal-and-why-is-it-so-unpopular/): Twice this year the UK parliament has voted down the Brexit deal  Parliamentary approval is one of the conditions necessary for its terms to take effect. Without it, the default legal position is that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union without an agreement. The turmoil in the House of Commons forced the government to seek a delay to its scheduled departure. In response, the EU has offered the UK a choice of two short extensions to the original exit date of March 29 – which depend on whether or not the deal is ratified. The agreement deals with the […] - [Confession of a remainer](https://heartlandstribune.com/confession-of-a-remainer/): Lianne Powell Labour Party member and activist gives her take on Brexit.  Lianne Powell is an admin on one of the UK largest Jeremy Corbyn supporting Labour Party forums with over 63 thousand members. Her everyday experience both online and off gives her a unique point of view. Everyday she sees the battles and arguments surrounding the Brexit debate. Her efforts in trying to moderate sometimes highly charged emotional debate leads to a more nuanced opinion. While trying to moderate between the two camps Lianne expresses her own conclusion… So.. I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while and I […] - [EU Court defends the ECB’s right to cover up its illegal closure of Greece’s banks](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-court-defends-the-ecbs-right-to-cover-up-its-illegal-closure-of-greeces-banks/): The EU no democracy, no transparency its all reflected in a Greek tragedy The European Union Court delivered its verdict: European citizens cannot be allowed to find out whether the ECB acted legally in closing down Greece’s banks in June 2015. Why? In the wording of the three judges, because such disclosure would affect the ECB’s “space to think in 2015 and also after 2015”. If this sounds like an Orwellian decision, it is because it is an Orwellian decision. On 29th June 2015 the ECB decided to close down Greece’s banks. Why? The ECB acted in a naked attempt to prevent the newly-elected Greek […] - [Toyota to build new Suzuki car at Burnaston factory](https://heartlandstribune.com/toyota-to-build-new-suzuki-car-at-burnaston-factory/): Toyota will start manufacturing hybrid cars for Suzuki at  its UK factories, it has been confirmed. The plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire, is part of a global deal to share resources, which was announced by the car makers. Based on the Corolla, the new car will have engines made in Wales and electrical components from Japan. It will not lead to extra jobs or investment but will make the factory more efficient, the firm said. Toyota’s UK managing director Marvin Cooke said: “This is good news for our UK plants and demonstrates Toyota’s trust in the capability of our workforce to deliver […] - [The EU believes delaying Brexit until June 30 would entail "serious legal and political risks"](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-believes-delaying-brexit-until-june-30-would-entail-serious-legal-and-political-risks/): Theresa May requests Brexit extension to June 30th May has asked the European Union for a short extension of the Brexit deadline. But it’s unclear whether EU officials will accept a deadline after European parliamentary elections in May. May told MPs at PMQ’s. “As prime minister I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than the 30th of June,”  “I have therefore this morning written to President Tusk, the president of the European Council, informing him that the UK seeks an extension to the article 50 period until the 30th June,” she said. May also said she would ask Parliament […] - [Why Leave supporters celebrate Bercow's ruling](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-leave-supporters-celebrate-bercows-ruling/): Leave voters rejoiced at the ruling knowing full well that withdrawal agreement was a bad deal. It should also kill any second referendum. The Speaker’s decision to rule out a third meaningful vote unless the Government changes its approach to promoting Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal seems to most of us to be plain common sense since nothing appears to have changed from the last two motions. By invoking the so-called 1604 rule, Bercow has thrown down the gauntlet to Theresa May and her Government. The only way forward for them is to either change the standing orders of the Commons […] - [Tory Austerity really does hit the most needy](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-austerity-really-does-hit-the-most-needy/): Teachers know best: They know they are not getting the funding from Tory run Derbyshire County Council to do their best. A Chesterfield school teacher and governor have slammed Derbyshire County Council for not providing enough funding for kids with special educational needs. Sharon Smith, a teacher at Brampton Primary School in Chesterfield, said the school has a £54,000 shortfall in funding for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). What is SEND? Some children and young people may require more help to learn and develop than children and young people of the same age. If this is the case […] - [The EU must get its own house in order, according to Oxfam’s analysis five EU countries](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-must-get-its-own-house-in-order-according-to-oxfams-analysis-five-eu-countries/): The EU must get its own house in order, according to Oxfam’s analysis five EU countries Tax havens are fuelling an inequality crisis that sees 8 people own the same wealth as the poorest half of the planet. We must work together and call on world leaders to end their use, once and for all. Tax havens deprive countries and their citizens of hundreds of billions of dollars, fuelling inequality and poverty. The EU will soon release a blacklist of tax havens operating outside the EU, and issue sanctions for those listed. However, power politics means that several significant tax havens […] - [Gilets Jaunes seek new momentum "Acte 18"](https://heartlandstribune.com/gilets-jaunes-seek-new-momentum-acte-18/): Gilets jaunes protesters across France plan to present an “ultimatum” to President Emmanuel Macron for “Acte 18”, as the Grand Débat ends, and more protests begin. The Acte 18 movement coincides with a number of other planned protests, including the “March of the century” on climate change, and a “solidarity march” against police violence and “State racism”. This Saturday also marks four months since the start of the gilets jaunes protests, as the 18th consecutive weekend of the movement. The intention to send a clear message to Mr Macron comes after several weeks of declining numbers at the protests. According to official figures from the ministry of the Interior, there […] - [A manifesto of hate. How European ideas motivated Christchurch killer](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-manifesto-of-hate-how-european-ideas-motivated-christchurch-killer/): Europe can’t turn a blind eye to the Christchurch killings. The self-described ‘fascist’ may have picked up ideas during a trip to France in 2017. By NICHOLAS VINOCUR   Even though the attack happened on the other side of the world, the man who carried it out declared that he started his planning after a trip to France — inspired by ideas that have filtered into right-wing discourse across the European Union. The links were on display in a 73-page manifesto that the white supremacist, who called himself Brendon Tarrant on Twitter, posted to explain why he had killed 49 Muslim […] - [Mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand what we know!](https://heartlandstribune.com/mass-shooting-at-two-mosques-in-christchurch-new-zealand-what-we-know/): At least 49 people were killed and 20 seriously injured in mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch Friday, in a carefully planned and unprecedented attack that has shocked the usually peaceful nation. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, called the incident a terrorist attack in a Friday press conference, saying the suspects held “extremist views” that have no place in New Zealand or the world. The attacks targeted two mosques in central Christchurch at lunchtime local time Friday. A total of 48 people, including young children with gunshot wounds, were admitted to Christchurch hospital for […] - [EU hands Erdogan's regime £1.2bn as part of its ‘shameful’ refugee deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-hands-erdogans-regime-1-2bn-as-part-of-its-shameful-refugee-deal/): EU to give Turkey 1.5 billion euros in aid for Syrian refugees in 2019. Ask whether Turkey itself is a safe country for refugees. European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said on Thursday the EU would dedicate 2 billion euros ($2.27 billion) in aid for Syrian refugees in 2019, including 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for those living in Turkey. Brussels and Ankara agreed on a deal two years ago that aimed to cut the influx of Syrian refugees arriving in Greece from Turkey. According to the deal, the EU promised to allocate a total of 6 billion euros in […] - [Vince Cable to stand down as Lib Dem leader in May](https://heartlandstribune.com/vince-cable-to-stand-down-as-lib-dem-leader-in-may/): Vince Cable has revealed he will stand down as leader of the Liberal Democrats in May. The 75-year-old, who has been leader of the party since 2017, said: “I indicated last year that once the Brexit story had moved on, and we had fought this year’s crucial local elections in 9,000 seats across England, it would be time for me to make way for a new generation. After Tim Farron stepped down to spend more time debating the ins and outs of gay sex, Vince Cable took the reins. Their main aim to push for yet another EU referendum their only […] - [MPs support Brexit delay but reject second referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-support-brexit-delay-but-reject-second-referendum/): People’s Vote campaign asked Labour not to back a second referendum! The earlier vote, proposing a ‘second referendum’ was voted down! The amendment put down by former Tory MP Sarah Wollaston  It was defeated by 334 votes to 85, a majority of 249. The call was put in an amendment by former Tory now Independent Group MP Sarah Wollaston. The fate of the amendment was sealed after the People’s Vote campaign asked MPs who back the referendum not to back it and Labour said it would abstain. The master of spin, Alastair Campbell, a leading figure in the so called ‘People’s Vote’ campaign, claimed it […] - [Article 50 vote: MPs debate Brexit delay and second referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/article-50-vote-mps-debate-brexit-delay-and-second-referendum/): John Bercow has chosen the following amendments to be voted on tonight:   AMENDMENT H: Wollaston – Instructs the PM to request an extension of Article 50 in order to hold a second referendum. AMENDMENT I: Benn – Extend Article 50 to find a way forward with majority support, by taking control of parliamentary time on 20th March. AMENDMENT E: Corbyn – Extend Article 50 to avoid leaving without a deal, and to provide parliamentary time for the House to find a majority for a different approach. AMENDMENT J: Bryant – Prevent the government from holding another Meaningful Vote as it […] - [Parliament votes to reject no-deal Brexit. But it's not legally binding](https://heartlandstribune.com/parliament-votes-to-reject-no-deal-brexit-but-its-not-legally-binding/): MPs have voted to reject leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement. Theresa May said there was a “clear majority” against a no-deal Brexit but the “legal default” was that the UK would leave without a deal on 29 March if no deal is reached. MPs will now get a vote on delaying Brexit, said the prime minister. That vote will take place on Thursday, and if it is passed – and the EU agrees to it – the UK will not leave the EU as planned on 29 March. In another night of high drama in the Commons, MPs voted […] - [Brexit vote results: Find out how your MP voted](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-vote-results-find-out-how-your-mp-voted/): MPs have rejected Theresa May’s Brexit plans for the second time in a crushing defeat for the Prime Minister.   MPs voted 391 to 242 against Mrs May’s Brexit deal. It sparked growing talk of a General Election. Theresa May confirmed a free vote will be held tomorrow on a no deal exit.  In packed scenes in the lobby MPs voted with their feet to decide on the direction of Brexit. In January, the prime minister suffered a larger 230-vote defeat over her Brexit deal. After the result of the Commons vote was announced, Mrs May confirmed she would push ahead […] - [TTIP reloaded: big business calls the shots on new EU-US trade talks](https://heartlandstribune.com/ttip-reloaded-big-business-calls-the-shots-on-new-eu-us-trade-talks/): Two years after the suspension of the highly controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), EU member states and the European Commission are preparing mandates for new trade negotiations with the US. But not much has changed: once again corporate lobby groups roam the corridors of EU negotiators working to set the agenda for the talks, while the European Commission covers over its links with big business. In July 2018 US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker launched “a new phase in the relationship between the United States and the European Union”. Since then, EU and US officials have been […] - [City of London: The shocking study no mainstream media outlet dared to publish](https://heartlandstribune.com/city-of-london-the-shocking-study-no-mainstream-media-outlet-dared-to-publish/): A seriously important and highly credible study was published five months ago last October. It was completely ignored by all of the mainstream media. Not one took the opportunity to publish the stunning revelations for fear of what might happen if they did. The report has unpalatable political consequences for the government – in fact, both Labour and Tory are implicated by the exposure of this colossal crime. By Robert Woodward – TruePublica: On the 5th October the 2018 SPERI report was published. The Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute made some stunning statements. Its first paragraph stated that – “(this report) suggests that the total cost […] - [Is an EFTA/EEA Deal the Solution to the Present Brexit Impasse?](https://heartlandstribune.com/is-an-efta-eea-deal-the-solution-to-the-present-brexit-impasse/): Calls have reached fever pitch for another referendum or ‘People’s Vote’ with a ‘remain’ option on the ballot in the last few weeks. This has combined with a full-blown offensive by the centre-left metropolitan press who have published a slew of poll data claiming that the majority of people would vote remain in any re-run. These articles include such spurious claims as ‘Voters want to remain in EU by 12-point margin as Brexit opposition reaches new high, poll finds’  (The Independent 17/01/2019) ‘Three quarters of newly eligible voters would back remain in second poll’ (The Guardian 10/04/2019). However, this doesn’t automatically […] - [To save Honda’s workers and the planet we should buy it!](https://heartlandstribune.com/to-save-hondas-workers-and-the-planet-we-should-buy-it/): Sounds radical? Or just downright common sense? Honda assembly plant will close down seeing thousands out of work; job losses no one wants. These skilled workers that trained in TPS (Toyota Production System) are highly motivated, intelligent, and experienced in all aspects of motor manufacturing and vehicle assembly. The UK government should not only ensure these workers retain their jobs but that the country also retains their skills. To do that the Government should buy the Honda plant bringing it into public ownership and make British vehicles green and efficient, and fit for the 21st century. Whats more we should be […] - [Blame it on the Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/blame-it-on-the-brexit/): Brexit a convenient scapegoat!  Brexit has become the scapegoat for everything including a shortage of au pairs as headlined by the so called ‘People’s vote’ backing liberal Newspaper like The Guardian with headlines that make common people chuckle “Au Pair Shortage Sparks Childcare Crisis For Families”. There is also the Independent and Evening Standard’s run on the article that states “Brexit News Latest: fears over shortage of donated sperm after Britain leaves European Union” We know of course that the UK economic downfall is due to Brexit. Why – because we are told so by the same news media that think […] - [Hartlepool Labour party votes to oppose second Brexit referendum.](https://heartlandstribune.com/hartlepool-labour-party-votes-to-oppose-second-brexit-referendum/): The Labour party in Hartlepool vowed it will not support a second referendum on Brexit. Hartlepool Constituency Labour Party (CLP) voted against such a vote on the UK’s membership of the European Union and has formally advised Hartlepool’s MP Mike Hill to vote against any legislation that would trigger it. A motion that was passed at the party’s AGM on Saturday says 69.6% of Hartlepool voters supported leave in the 2016 national referendum, and that Mr Hill was elected on a manifesto stating Labour’s commitment to honour the referendum result. It added polls demonstrate ‘little to no change’ in public opinion […] - [A second referendum will not heal the Brexit divisions](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-second-referendum-will-not-heal-the-brexit-divisions/): The Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was decisively rejected by Parliament in the biggest Government defeat in our history. – Emma Lewell-Buck MP When the deal comes back before MPs next week I will of course be looking closely at it. I stand by the commitment made to you in 2017 that I would respect the outcome of the referendum. My voting record in Parliament reflects that. I have not voted for any amendments that would result in a second referendum, nor do I intend on doing so in the future. A second referendum will not heal the current divisions in the […] - [Home secretary Sajid Javid calls for extra police funds to tackle knife crime](https://heartlandstribune.com/home-secretary-sajid-javid-calls-for-extra-police-funds-to-tackle-knife-crime/): Theresa May insists police cuts have ‘no direct correlation’ to knife crime Vs Javid: government must give police more resources to tackle knife crime Sajid Javid has said the government must listen to police chiefs’ demand for more resources after they asked the home secretary for emergency cash to fund an immediate rise in the number of officers in England to tackle knife crime. Javid met chief constables from seven of the areas worst affected by knife crime on Wednesday to discuss solutions to the problem, which has been described as a national emergency. No immediate money from government was forthcoming […] - [EU anti-money laundering Blacklist blocked.](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-anti-money-laundering-blacklist-blocked/): Plans for a European Union money-laundering blacklist stalled after objections by all but one of the bloc’s 28 governments. The Commission last month published a list of 23 countries that it says are too lax on money laundering, including Saudi Arabia, Panama, and several American territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands. The list, which needs the support of both the European Parliament and Council of the EU to come into effect, generated intense backlash and behind-the-scenes lobbying from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. A unanimous majority of European Union member states have moved to block a new EU money-laundering blacklist that includes Saudi Arabia […] - [The Centre Strikes Back](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-centre-strikes-back/): The end of February was quite an explosive time within the Parliamentary Labour ranks and over the coming weeks it’s going to get worse in the branch and constituency meetings. Many people thought that the centrist dads would have given up the game and gone and  joined the new Independent group, yet that has not proven true. The shabby press conference and vanilla attraction of the new centrist group didn’t exactly shake the foundations of the British political establishment as they had hoped it would. If anything, it gave members something different to talk about rather than the Brexit policy and […] - [Members pass motion calling for Chris Williamson's reinstatement](https://heartlandstribune.com/members-pass-motion-calling-for-chris-williamsons-reinstatement/): Labour members in Sheffield have passed a motion calling for suspended Labour MP Chris Williamson to be immediately reinstated. Party activists in Sheffield Hallam Constituency Labour Party overwhelmingly passed a resolution claiming that Mr Williamson has been a victim of false allegations of antisemitism. The statement said that Mr Williamson’s comments, in which he said the Labour Party has “backed off far too much” and has been “too apologetic” about allegations of antisemitism when it had done more than other parties to fight it, did not downplay concerns about antisemitism. The branch said the real problem was that it was a way […] - [Labour general secretary Jennie Formby rebukes Tom Watson in letter to Labour MPs](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-general-secretary-jennie-formby-rebukes-tom-watson-in-letter-to-labour-mps/): Jennie Formby has sent an email to Tom Watson, copying in all Labour MPs and Lords, rebuking him  for seeking to personally “log and monitor” complaints made by the parliamentary Labour party about antisemitism and abuse within the party. In it she lays out the Labour Party’s formal complaints process and accuses him of having “decided, without consultation and without regard to existing processes,” to forward complaints to his private email address. It comes after Watson’s announcement on Monday that he would personally take charge of antisemitism and bullying complaints. In an email to all MPs, he said that he would “like to […] - [A second Brexit vote will destroy what little trust is left in British politics](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-second-brexit-vote-will-destroy-what-little-trust-is-left-in-british-politics/): Repeat vote would reinforce sense of insignificance in dejected electorate Once lost, trust is very hard to earn back. And while lies, false promises and spin have long been staples of political life, there has always been at least the semblance of trust between politicians and their populaces. But the Brexit vote has revealed just how untrustworthy our political representatives are in Britain. Last year the great and the good of the British political elite celebrated the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave the vote to propertied women of a certain age. And yet, in the same […] - [On-Line petition to remove as Tom Watson Deputy Leader gathers momentum!](https://heartlandstribune.com/on-line-petition-to-remove-as-tom-watson-deputy-leader-gathers-momentum/): A petition that states “No Confidence in Tom Watson MP as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party!” is gathering momentum. this comes after the suspension of the Labour MP Chris Williamson over remarks about the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. Tom Watson is seen to be the primary person behind the suspension of Chris Williamson Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has accused suspended MP Chris Williamson of being “deliberately inflammatory” Watson said: “I’ve seen his recent contributions that have appeared online and was very concerned it was almost like he was being deliberately inflammatory, deliberately trying to cause offence to people who […] - [MPs to enjoy above-inflation 2.7% pay rise, bringing basic pay to almost £80,000](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-to-enjoy-above-inflation-2-7-pay-rise-bringing-basic-pay-to-almost-80000/): MPs are to receive a 2.7% pay rise, taking their basic salary for 2019/20 from £77,379 to £79,468, it has been announced. The £2,089 hike, effective from April 1, is well above the current inflation rate of 1.8% on the main CPI measure. It follows a 1.8% boost to MPs’ pay last year, 1.4% in 2017, 1.3% in 2016 and a big increase from £67,000 to £74,000 in July 2015. MPs’ pay is linked to average rises in the public sector, as determined by the Office for National Statistics. £79,468 MPs’ annual basic salary from April 1 2019 Chairs of Commons committees […] - [We stand with Chris Williamson.](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-stand-with-chris-williamson/): “We’ve done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any political party.” Chris Williamson’s remarks at the Momentum event were obtained by the Yorkshire Post. To applause from those present, Mr Williamson said: “The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. “I have got to say I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… “We’ve done more to actually address the scourge of antisemitism than any […] - [Jeremy Corbyn faces shadow ministerial resignations over second referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-faces-shadow-ministerial-resignations-over-second-referendum/): It is incredibly disappointing to see the Labour party bow down to remain pressure in suggesting it would support a second referendum. Party policy is to leave the EU, Labour’s conference composite motion was always an ‘OPTION’ for a Second referendum, not a ‘POLICY.’ It now appears to many outside the predominantly remain London centric bubble that the Labour Party does not respect their vote or views on leaving the EU. LINK Perception is everything. It does not matter that the amendment the Labour Party are proposing is an exit strategy, an alternative deal to leave the EU. The suggestion of […] - [Why Socialism is Sexy Now](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-socialism-is-sexy-now/): Future Socialism In July 2017, the Carbon Majors Report was released, which highlighted that the top 100 companies in the world were responsible for 71% of carbon emissions. This is seriously damaging to the welfare of the planet and is causing climate change. This is often uncharted territory for many, but we must unite with environmentalists – and other pressure groups – to take on yet another threat posed by capitalism. Encouraging recycling and banning fracking is only the tip of the ever-melting iceberg. Taking account of this, and of the economic catastrophe that neoliberalism has brought upon this world, socialists […] - [Tell me again how the EU protect workers rights!](https://heartlandstribune.com/tell-me-again-how-the-eu-protect-workers-rights/): EU equality agency not treating employees equally, court rules EU equality agency not treating employees equally, court rules the Gender institute wrongly paid temporary workers less than permanent staff, judgement says. An EU agency dedicated to promoting equality has not been treating its employees equally, according to a court ruling. The Lithuanian court ruled last week in favour of five former employees of the European Institute on Gender Equality (EIGE) who said the Vilnius-based agency has for years exploited the status of “temporary employees” to pay them less than normal EU staffers. The ex-employees filed the court case against the institute’s employment […] - [Is it Brexit or Judgement Day?](https://heartlandstribune.com/is-it-brexit-or-judgement-day/): Looking in from Germany Nemanja Rujevic gives his views and opinion on Brexit. DW’s Nemanja Rujevic wonders, why all the panic over Brexit? Listening to EU media and politicians, one might think that the British will be washed into the Atlantic in a biblical flood once they leave the bloc. Recently, a German television station presented its viewers with the story of a desperate mother in London who believes the medicine that her daughter with a severe disability needs will be unavailable when Britain leaves the European Union. A crying mother is a great hook, and, with a little talent, journalists […] - [Brexit! Great for hiding the inconvenient truth.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-great-for-hiding-the-inconvenient-truth/): The So called people’s vote have had their greatest success in diverting attention from the real issues of Austerity to the machinations of project fear. Letting the Tories of the hook! Within this small funny tinge group they all claim to have abandoned the parties that gave them their political seat and status for any and all number of reasons but the one common thread that binds them all together. ‘The People’s vote’ and trying to stop Brexit. What was always clear was the fact the so-called People’s vote would never have removed the Tories from power nor would it have […] - [Nye Bevan: A political malaise following upon the failure of Socialists to use the sovereign power of their parliaments to plan their economic life](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-political-malaise-following-upon-the-failure-of-socialists-to-use-the-sovereign-power-of-their-parliaments-to-plan-their-economic-life/): Nye Bevan’s view on the EEC now the EU  The long history of British governments using the EU to constrain the policy choices of their domestic rivals. Given this history, it is not surprising that British politics is now in crisis, since the original temptation which was put in front of post-war politicians – that they could lock in their own policies for their country in near perpetuity – is still there. The best prospect the Left has of preventing the Right ‘locking in’ a neo-liberal economy for years to come is actually the hardest Brexit that can be contrived. There […] - [Sophie Scholl and the White Rose](https://heartlandstribune.com/sophie-scholl-and-the-white-rose/): Beheaded by the Nazis at age 21, Sophie Scholl died fighting against tyranny. Sophie Scholl lamented these words before she was guillotined by the Nazis. “SUCH A FINE, SUNNY DAY, AND I HAVE TO GO,” “BUT WHAT DOES MY DEATH MATTER, IF THROUGH US THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE AWAKENED AND STIRRED TO ACTION?” Her last words were: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people […] - [The Independent Group vs the People!](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-independent-group-vs-the-people/): In the midst of splits and political meltdown, a way forward for Labour The resignation of eight Labour MPs and three Tories from their parties in order to form a reactionary “Independent” Group in the House of Commons is a clear indication that the present Parliamentary system is in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Holding the fractured system together looks like mission impossible. A strategy to renew and extend democracy is essential, especially for the Labour Party if it is to succeed in ousting the Tories and coming to power. At the heart of the matter are two major issues: […] - [The deserters should face the ballot box, voters demand](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-deserters-should-face-the-ballot-box-voters-demand/): They stood on a Labour Manifesto, The People voted for Labour representatives in parliament not independent MP’s The petition calling for MPs who resign their party whip to automatically trigger a by-election deserves support — but it should prompt a broader debate about democratising British politics. The departure of seven longstanding Jeremy Corbyn critics on Monday is no cause for panic, and is certainly no cause for indulging the dishonest pitch from deputy leader Tom Watson demanding that Labour “change direction.” The “Independent Group” has no policies — that was embarrassingly clear from Chuka Umunna’s radio interview with Nick Robinson today […] - [Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said a second referendum was “not the best option”.](https://heartlandstribune.com/shadow-chancellor-john-mcdonnell-said-a-second-referendum-was-not-the-best-option/): Labour would only back a second referendum ‘in extremis’ The shadow chancellor cooled hopes that Jeremy Corbyn is moving towards backing another public vote, stating it was still “not the best option”. “Let’s get a deal done – that’s the most important thing for me,” Mr McDonnell told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Instead, he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr the party would continue pushing for a Brexit deal which keeps the UK in a customs union. The party says its position, as agreed at its conference in September, is to seek a deal which includes a custom’s union, single market access and protects […] - [The only way to save Democracy is to leave the undemocratic EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-only-way-to-save-democracy-is-to-leave-the-undemocratic-eu/): The European Union is one of the chief enemies of democracy in the world today. Britain should leave it, with or without a Brexit deal. “In Britain, you vote for a government and therefore the government has to listen to you.And if you don’t like it you can change it.” But in Europe, all the key positions are appointed not elected. The Commission, for example, all appointed not one of them elected”.  -Tony Benn The European Union is one of the chief enemies of democratic politics, and therefore the mass of people, in the world today. Its central purpose is to […] - [May handed another defeat in parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/may-handed-another-defeat-in-parliament/): Westminster have voted against the government’s motion to send the PM back to the EU for final negotiations. The defeat means May has almost no support left to negotiate in Brussels. After two years of failing to get anything significant regarding Brexit through parliament, the government of Prime Minister Theresa May had launched a last desperate plea on Thursday. The government’s main motion: May hoped to have parliamentarians approve a motion that acknowledges her progress in negotiations with the European Union, voicing support for her to go back to Brussels seeking more amendments to the divorce deal, most likely related to the […] - [The EU Trade Deal that will see the NHS Sold Off!](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-trade-deal-that-will-see-the-nhs-sold-off/): The EU’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada could unleash a wave of corporate lawsuits against Canada, the EU and its member states – including through the Canadian subsidiaries of US multinational corporations. This is the result of an in-depth analysis of CETA’s investor rights by Corporate Europe Observatory and 14 other environmental NGOs, citizens’ groups and workers unions from both sides of the Atlantic. CETA and the NHS CETA is very much about ‘liberalisation’ or opening up services to investment from international investors. If a member state does not exclude services in a trade agreement like CETA, it’s […] - [Labour Party is going to take the UK out of the European Union](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-is-going-to-take-the-uk-out-of-the-european-union/): The Labour peer Lord Maurice Glasman tells B4B how Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is going to take the UK out of the European Union As the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell finally reveal their pro-Brexit hand Lord Maurice Glasman tells B4B why he believes the Labour party has the right leaders at the right time and how history will judge them well. Glasman says Corbyn is a Bennite, a left-wing leader in a pro-EU party, and that he and McDonnell have had “a very, very, difficult balancing act to pull off”. [fusion_youtube id=”_AUZEr3tBHQ” alignment=”center” width=”” height=”” […] - [Donald Tusk: Special place in hell for Brexiteers without a plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/donald-tusk-special-place-in-hell-for-brexiteers-without-a-plan/):   Tusk jolted many in the U.K. by suggesting there is a “special place in hell” for British officials who promised it was possible to quit the EU, without knowing how to accomplish it. European Council President Donald Tusk has spoken of a “special place in hell” for “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely”. He was speaking after talks with Irish leader Leo Varadkar in Brussels. Brexit-backing MPs reacted with anger to the comments, accusing Mr Tusk of “arrogance”. Downing Street said it was a question for Mr Tusk “whether he […] - [Another Britain Is Possible](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-britain-is-possible/): The Left must meet this moment in history with a bold plan to remake our economy — or someone else will. By Grace Blakeley Theresa May and Michel Barnier do not agree on much. They’ve locked horns over the customs union, transition arrangements, the Irish border, and almost everything else up for grabs in the Brexit negotiations. But there is one thing they do see eye to eye on: the need to prevent a socialist Labour government from coming to power and implementing a sweeping programme of economic reform.It has long been an open secret that the European Research Group and other […] - [Meet the woman who rented hotel rooms for homeless in Chicago during dangerous polar vortex](https://heartlandstribune.com/meet-the-woman-who-rented-hotel-rooms-for-homeless-in-chicago-during-dangerous-polar-vortex/): “Maybe they didn’t know how to or where to start to help, so I’m glad that I was able to be that vehicle,”   A Chicago woman’s act of kindness helped homeless people stay warm during this week’s dangerous polar vortex. Candice Payne impulsively charged 20 hotel rooms on her credit card before it snowballed into a lifesaving effort by a group of strangers, CBS Chicago  reports. Payne booked the hotel rooms after realising how life-threatening the sub-zero temperatures would be for the Chicagoans without homes. She posted about it on social media and soon the donations and offers to help bring food came flooding in. […] - [Rough sleeping on the rise and the Government are looking the other way!](https://heartlandstribune.com/rough-sleeping-on-the-rise-and-the-government-are-looking-the-other-way/): More than 4,600 people slept rough on the streets of England last year. According to official figures released today after the UK had its coldest night of the winter. Local authorities estimated around 4,677 people slept rough on a single night last autumn, according to data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This was up 2,909 since comparable records begun in 2010, but marked the first decrease of the decade, with a 2 per cent drop since 2017. Across England, the number of rough sleepers rose by 13 per cent in London, 60 per cent in Birmingham […] - [EU 'risks pushing Venezuela towards civil war' after parliament recognises Guaido](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-risks-pushing-venezuela-towards-civil-war-after-parliament-recognises-guaido/): European Parliament recognises Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim President The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday recognizing Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim president, and called on EU countries to support him until new “free, transparent and credible” presidential elections could be held. The resolution — initiated by the European People’s Party — was backed by 439 votes to 104, with 88 abstentions. EU ‘risks pushing the ‘Oil Rich’ Venezuela towards civil war’  In an interview, the Ambassador of Venezuela to the EU, said this will fuel tensions in the country and asks the European member states to act with […] - [Second Brexit Referendum Would 'Fail The Public', Labour's Angela Rayner](https://heartlandstribune.com/second-brexit-referendum-would-fail-the-public-labours-angela-rayner/): British people do not want a second EU referendum or a delay to Brexit, senior Labour frontbencher Angela Rayner has said. The shadow education secretary said politicians will have “failed the public” if they ask voters to give their views on EU membership again. Corbyn has so far been reluctant to support a second referendum but is facing pressure from some of his own MPs and party members to do so. Rayner also revealed she would vote to stay in the EU if there was a second poll but described a narrow victory for Remain as the “the worst case scenario”, […] - [The Irish Border is not a Political Bargaining Chip](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-irish-border-is-not-a-political-bargaining-chip/): The Irish Border is not and should never be used as a political bargaining chip But everyone should be very clear, whether they are in London, Dublin, Brussels or Belfast. Northern Ireland’s constitutional position cannot and should not be used as a bargaining chip. Customs experts have been ignored. Only last Monday, speaking to the Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, the previous head of the World Customs Association, Lars Karlsson, clarified and reinforced his frequently expressed view that modern technology can do the job (here). Hans Maessen, a Dutch customs specialist, also testified that technical solutions could work to ensure […] - [Labour MP threatened with being 'gunned down' and called a 'f****** traitor'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-threatened-with-being-gunned-down-and-called-a-f-traitor/): A Labour MP said she has been threatened with being “gunned down” on the day a top Metropolitan Police officer warned about a “creeping rise” in far-right extremism as a result of Brexit. But this threat appears to come from a remainer intent on a second referendum. Melanie Onn, MP for Great Grimsby, shared on Twitter the message she received from a member of the public, who had given the name Helen. It read: “‘You are a f****** traitor you silly f****** bitch. We will remember your actions you spineless shit. Watch your back or you will not be forgiven. TRAITOR.’” […] - [CWU union chief Dave Ward comes out fighting against a second referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/cwu-union-chief-dave-ward-comes-out-fighting-against-a-second-referendum/): Communication Workers Union general secretary Dave Ward, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, says a public vote would “damage democracy” A union chief and close ally of Jeremy Corbyn has come out fighting against a second referendum on Brexit. CWU general secretary Dave Ward today claims a ‘People’s Vote’ would “damage democracy” and “give more space to the far right”. In a blunt opinion piece on Mirror.co.uk, the posties’ union chief hit out at its supporters from Tory MP Anna Soubry to Labour’s Chuka Umunna. And he accused them of fighting for a “status quo, the establishment knows best” mentality. Mr Ward is understood […] - [Labour's composite motion was always an 'OPTION' for a Second referendum, not a 'POLICY.'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-composite-motion-was-always-an-option-for-a-second-referendum-not-a-policy/): Beware of fair-weather friends pushing the Party into an untenable position. The Labour members and supporters who feel the Labour party should be promoting a second referendum must realise that at this point in time a second referendum is the worst of all options for the Labour Party. Ignoring the fact a second referendum is no guarantee of delivering the results any camp would be happy with Remain or Leave. The only real result would be prolonging this Tory Government and undermining both democracy and Jeremy Corbyn, along the way losing vast amounts of Labour supporters and even members. Yes, I […] - [Tom Watson: Mr Speaker that is not a mere flesh wound.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-mr-speaker-that-is-not-a-mere-flesh-wound/): Tom Watson gave a cold, brutal assessment of Theresa May’s failure to lead Britain out of the EU [fusion_youtube id=”A4IbU3BCMjU” alignment=”center” width=”” height=”” autoplay=”false” api_params=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=””][/fusion_youtube] “The country feels genuinely sorry for the Prime Minister,” he said. “I feel sorry for the Prime Minister. “But she cannot confuse pity with political legitimacy”. He said: “No-one doubts her determination, which is generally an admirable quality. “But misapplied it can be toxic. And the cruellest truth of all is that she doesn’t possess the necessary skills, the political skills, the empathy, the ability and most crucially the policy to lead this country […] - [Is a German Recession Inevitable?](https://heartlandstribune.com/is-a-german-recession-inevitable/): Europe’s austerity is a political decision to go into recession It looks like Europe is heading into recession, multiple economists say. Germany and Italy may already be in “technical recession.” Last week, three of Europe’s biggest economies produced a horrible set of manufacturing numbers for November: Industrial production: Italy: down 1.5% Spain: down 1.5% Germany: down 1.9% Here are those numbers over time: The tragedy is that the contraction is being helped along by a deliberate political choice made by Europe’s own governments: Their effort to rein in deficit spending, to cut fiscal stimulus, and to balance their budgets in the 10-year […] - [Today's Brexit vote is a historical point for the UK follow the format with this guide](https://heartlandstribune.com/todays-brexit-vote-is-a-historical-point-for-the-uk-follow-the-format-with-this-guide/): The big Brexit vote is upon us and all bets are on Theresa May’s deal being rejected by MPs. That will trigger days and weeks of Westminster horse-trading over how, when and maybe even whether the U.K. leaves the EU. Here’s your guide on how to watch the fiendishly complicated political bust-up play out: When will the vote happen? The vote, rescheduled from its original date of December 11, will take place on Tuesday, January 15, most likely at around 7 p.m. local time or shortly thereafter. Exact timings will depend on proceedings in the House of Commons. A further postponement […] - [The Month when Project Fear became Project Hysteria](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-month-when-project-fear-became-project-hysteria/): “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself” For the last two and half years since the EU Referendum result was announced left-leave voters have been subjected to a deluge of insults and accusations on social-media sites as well as the opinion pieces and comments sections of established liberal-left newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent. As we enter 2019 nothing has deepened the social and economic divide and convulsed the party more than the EU referendum, where the sheer contempt that centrist and liberal members have for working class leave voters has been laid bare for all to […] - [Without a clue! Brexit secretary denies UK seeks Article 50 extension.](https://heartlandstribune.com/without-a-clue-brexit-secretary-denies-uk-seeks-article-50-extension/): ‘The government’s policy is to leave on the 29th of March,’ Stephen Barclay says. Theresa May’s government is not seeking to extend Article 50, according to U.K. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay. Asked three times if he denied a report in the Telegraph that U.K. officials are “putting out feelers” in Brussels about an extension, Barclay told the BBC’s Today program Tuesday morning: “Yes, I can be very clear that the government’s policy is to leave [the EU] on the 29th of March.” Contriditions a the norm it seems! Britain’s Digital Minister Margot James told the BBC Monday that an extension may be sought if May’s deal […] - [Yellow vests: France to crack down on unsanctioned protests](https://heartlandstribune.com/yellow-vests-france-to-crack-down-on-unsanctioned-protests/): French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has announced plans to punish people who hold unsanctioned protests after seven weeks of anti-government unrest. His government wants to draft new legislation that will ban troublemakers from protests and clamp down on the wearing of masks at demonstrations. He said 80,000 members of the security forces would be deployed for the next expected wave of protests. Drawing an overall assessment of the dispute, Edouard Philippe said that 5,600 people were placed in custody and some 1,000 convictions have been pronounced by the court since the beginning of the mobilization on November 17, 2018. Protesters smashed down the gates to […] - [Yellow vests first incidents during mobilizations in paris and in the provinces](https://heartlandstribune.com/yellow-vests-first-incidents-during-mobilizations-in-paris-and-in-the-provinces/): Several gatherings of yellow vests are held everywhere in France for the act 8 of the movement. The majority of the demonstrations are taking place for the moment in the peace even if some incidents broke out in Paris. In sharp decline in recent weeks, the Yellow Vests had called to revive the mobilization through an act 8 this Saturday. Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon … For this first mobilization of the year 2019, the protesters gathered around the symbolic places of the big cities, insensitive to the concessions of the executive and to the great national debate which must take place. open in mid-January. In Paris, two […] - [Theresa May "nothing has changed" Reality Theresa May "you have changed nothing "](https://heartlandstribune.com/theresa-may-nothing-has-changed-reality-theresa-may-you-have-changed-nothing/): Having pulled the vote once already, May is now in the last-chance saloon. She has spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and is expected to make more diplomatic calls to her European counterparts ahead of the recommencement of parliamentary debate on her deal next week. Theresa May is back at work after the holidays — but, as the prime minister is fond of saying, nothing has changed. May left Westminster in December assuring MPs she was working on new, last minute add-ons to the Brexit deal that the U.K. parliament is due to ratify in two weeks’ time, ahead of the country’s […] - [Yellow Jackets leader arrested in France](https://heartlandstribune.com/yellow-jackets-leader-arrested-in-france/): Activist Eric Drouet accused of organizing protest without getting authorities’ permission. Yellow Jackets activist Eric Drouet, who has emerged as a leading figure in the French anti-government movement, was arrested in Paris on Wednesday evening, according to national media reports. Drouet, a truck driver, is accused of the “organization of an event without prior notification” for an event that took place in the French capital that night, French prosecutors said. Drouet was detained near the Champs-Elysées, where a few dozen activists gathered at his instigation, Le Figaro reported. Police also detained Drouet last month during Yellow Jackets protests for carrying an unauthorized weapon — a […] - [GRAYLING'S STEAMBOAT WILLIE MICKEY MOUSE DEAL](https://heartlandstribune.com/graylings-steamboat-willie-mickey-mouse-deal/): Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has defended the government’s choice of a UK company with no ships as one of the providers of extra ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The transport secretary said he would “make no apologies for supporting a new British business” after widespread criticism of the award of the contract to the British firm Seaborne Freight, which has never previously operated a similar service. Mr Grayling said he would make no apologies for “supporting a new British business”. The firm, Seaborne Freight, won a £13.8m contract to run a freight service between Ramsgate and Ostend. But […] - [What is Jeremy Corbyn's view on Brexit?](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-is-jeremy-corbyns-view-on-brexit/): Jeremy Corbyn’s interview on Euronews gives a clear and frank analysis of the Labour Parties Brexit position. Corbyn explains how Labour hope to achieve a general election, on winning that election how the Party will negotiate a deal to ensure that people will not be worst off after we leave the EU. The interview was open frank and honest. It does not play into the People’s vote campaign that has built itself upon false promises to its supporters. Jeremy tells how a second referendum will not happen, that just the process and the time constraints make this an impossibility, Corbyn explains […] - [Brexit offers the possibility for socialists to lead a political transformation](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-offers-the-possibility-for-socialists-to-lead-a-political-transformation/): The immediate task before us is to leave the EU and to break the constraints on democracy that it represents. THE history of the British left is one of crises that promise victory but result in domination by the right. In my lifetime I have lived through the stagflation of the ’70s, the miners’ strike in the ’80s, Black Tuesday in the ’90s and then the crash of 2008. All seemed to promise radical change, yet this did not happen. On the contrary. In response to successive democratic defeats, Labour adopted a strategy of the subordination of national democracy to finance […] - [Faux Left feign outcry at Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/faux-left-feign-outcry-at-jeremy-corbyn/): Labour Party leader follows Labour Party Policy The faux Left feign outcry at Jeremy Corbyn for nothing more than saying he would carry out Labour Party Policy and see the result of the 2016 referendum complied with in accordance with the Labour Party manifesto and the composite motion of the 2018 Labour Party conference. Give it a rest, please! It has always been Labour Party Policy to respect the result of the Referendum, we have our own Brexit policy and in the event of a General election, we would pursue that policy. There is nothing shocking about this anyone suggesting the […] - [Taking down the arguments for a second referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/taking-down-the-arguments-for-a-second-referendum/): Despite voting Remain, CHELLEY RYAN does not find any of the main arguments for a ‘People’s Vote’ convincing, dealing with them one by one OFTEN in politics we feel things on a deeply visceral level. It’s not unlike music, where a song either moves us to tears or leaves us cold. And, like music, the same song will affect people differently — but in the case of political differences, families, friendships, communities and even, as in the case of Brexit or the referendum on Scottish independence, whole countries can be torn apart. Our country will take a long time to heal […] - [The race for skilled labour, Germany and the UK off the starting blocks.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-race-for-skilled-labour-germany-and-the-uk-off-the-starting-blocks/): Disposable Workers: Today’s Reserve Army of Labor Both Germany and the UK will import Labour rather than invest in People. Yesterday both the UK and Germany announced new immigration rules both focused on attracting skilled workers from outside the EU Business leaders have long lobbied the governments of both countries to ease immigration legislation, arguing that parts of the economy are being stifled by a lack of workers and that the long-term effects could be irreversibly damaging. In Germany the new law will also allow skilled immigrants to come to look for work, as long as they have an appropriate qualification, […] - [The People’s Vote Illusion](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-peoples-vote-illusion/): Pundits are pushing Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party to back a second Brexit referendum. They should be careful what they wish for. Even the dogs in the street know Theresa May can’t get her Brexit deal through Parliament. But what should Labour’s position be in case of complete constitutional deadlock? The position of Corbyn’s opposition party has attracted more attention than the position of the government. Little scrutiny is aimed at the sitting government as they tear their party to pieces. Centrist journalists and commentators Instead aim their criticisms entirely at the Labour Party. Anything that goes wrong — the botched Universal Credit benefits […] - [Universal Credit an import from Germany we can do without!](https://heartlandstribune.com/universal-credit-an-import-from-germany-we-can-do-without/): Universal Credit an attack on the working class. Universal credit along with all its failures, along with the hardship to all it touches from the unemployed to the working poor even the disabled is still been rolled out worts and all. We still see it continue to plague the nations poor. Roll out is a failure even the cost is terrifying. Why don’t they just stop it? Is it just bad planning? A glitch in such a big project that will be rectified later after the rollout? Don’t hold your breath this thing is designed that way! When you understand where this […] - [‘Yellow Vest’ pro-Brexit protesters block Westminster Bridge](https://heartlandstribune.com/yellow-vest-pro-brexit-protesters-block-westminster-bridge/): THOUSANDS of British Yellow Vest protestors were meant to swarm on London today as part of the Britain is Broken rally, but reports claim only around 1000 people actually turned up. They then stopped outside Downing Street, with pro-Brexit chants heard. Chants of ‘Brexit now!’ were shouted by the Brexiteers as Theresa May holds crunch talks with EU leaders trying to improve the Withdrawal Agreement. Shortly before 2pm they blocked Tower Bridge. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said they were aware of the protest and added there were not any arrests. After being moved on, protesters walked down Whitehall, gathering outside Downing […] - [The EU Army: EU, Founded as a Project of Peace, Plans Military Future](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-founded-as-project-of-peace-plans-military-future/): The mood in the European Union on military affairs is undergoing a seismic shift. The Myth of the EU being a project of Peace just died a death. Policymakers across the Continent now say that hard power — long viewed as antithetical to the EU’s raison d’être — is now essential to the bloc’s survival. Yesterday a very dangerous step towards a new military bloc was taken. European Parliament votes to give €13 billion subsidy to arms companies via European Defence Fund (13 December 2018) This sets major precedent, with Europe having only funded civilian projects The advisory group that initially developed the policy […] - [Why the British said no to Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-the-british-said-no-to-europe/): Don’t turn your back on traditional working-class voters who backed Leave. Three years on with constant attack by both our own comrades within the Labour Party and the middle class centralist telling the working class leave voters that we did not know what we voted for, that we have changed our minds they even tell us we want a second referendum because the facts have changed “nobody voted to be poorer” they say. Here is the fact we knew exactly what we voted for and have not changed our minds. While it is true we did not vote to be poorer […] - [Theresa May to face vote of no confidence from Tory MPs](https://heartlandstribune.com/theresa-may-to-face-vote-of-no-confidence-from-tory-mps/): UK Prime Minister Theresa May will face a vote of no confidence in her leadership later on Wednesday. Conservative MPs will vote between 18:00 GMT and 20:00 GMT. The challenge to Mrs May’s position comes after the required 48 letters calling for a contest were delivered. Mrs May, who has been prime minister since shortly after the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016, has faced criticism in her party for the Brexit plan she has negotiated. The prime minister is expected to make a statement in Downing Street today. Guide: Rules for the challenge to Theresa May Who […] - [A left-wing Brexit is possible – if we play it right, we could change the whole of society for good](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-left-wing-brexit-is-possible-if-we-play-it-right-we-could-change-the-whole-of-society-for-good/): Britain was the first advanced industrial economy to provide a laboratory for neoliberal policies. Now it can be the first to re-emerge, blinking, into the sunlight “ Stagnant real wages, exploding inequality, poverty and hunger, collapsing public services, social atomisation, environmental destruction – the dashboard warning lights on Britain’s economy have been blinking for long enough. And yet only with Brexit did political elites sit up and pay attention. The vote to leave the European Union, accomplished in the teeth of an overwhelming establishment consensus favouring the status quo, was a true Peasants’ Revolt, a gigantic act of political retribution against a […] - [Macron upsets his EU masters with his attempted appeasement of the people](https://heartlandstribune.com/macron-upsets-his-eu-masters-with-his-attempted-appeasement-of-the-people/): Santa Claus came early for millions of French people on Monday. But will it break EU Budget rules? President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to buy off a nationwide protest movement with much needed measures for low-paid workers and retirees is likely to come at a cost — inflating the budget deficit, pushing the national debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product and reneging on EU commitments to fiscal discipline. EU Budget rules are yet another reason to leave the EU, it is extremely unlikely Labours ambitious spending plans would ever meet the stringent requirements of the EU. Brussels has insisted it would sanction […] - [What Germany wants, is what Theresa May gets](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-germany-wants-is-what-theresa-may-gets/): Theresa May visited Berlin to try and save the Brexit deal. It was both a wasted trip and embarrassing to the UK This runs down where Germany stands on the issue. It has a vested interest in avoiding a hard Brexit but an even bigger one in a strong EU. The EU takes precedence Together with France, Germany is the main proponent and driving force of the European Union. Thus the primary principle in Berlin’s Brexit policy has been to prioritize the welfare of the bloc. The EU, and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier, speaks on behalf of all member states […] - [The extraordinary moment Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle picks up the mace](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-extraordinary-moment-labour-mp-lloyd-russell-moyle-picks-up-the-mace/): The extraordinary moment Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle picks up the mace and walks it over the line during proceedings in the House of Commons. The parliamentary mace symbolises royal authority,; without it the House cannot meet or pass laws. Tory MPs could be heard calling for him to expelled and he was asked to withdraw from the chamber immediately   “It was a spur-of-the moment decision. I probably decided a minute or two beforehand.   “It was at that moment where I heard the Government say ‘tomorrow’ [to defer the Brexit debate] – which means never – and everyone shouted ‘no’, literally […] - [Theresa May you're "frit"](https://heartlandstribune.com/theresa-may-yourfrit/): The British Prime minister doesn’t know if she is on this earth or fullers! But what we do know for sure is she is “frit” The British Prime minister doesn’t know if she is on this earth or fullers! But what we do know for sure is she is “frit”  The ‘beast of Bolsover’ Labour MP Dennis Skinner He said: “Doesn’t the Prime Minister realise that she’s handed over power, not to people in this House,but she’s handed over power to the people she’s going to negotiate with – over in Europe. Labour MP Dennis Skinner addressed the PM and accused her of handing […] - [Government funded Secret Scottish-based office led infowars attack on Labour and Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-funded-secret-scottish-based-office-led-infowars-attack-on-labour-and-jeremy-corbyn/): State of Deception: Is this the smoking gun a UK’s own Watergate! Tories secretly used Government funds and Military assets intended to protect the nation in order attack Jeremy Corbyn and Labour Party via military assets in the one way media and fake social media accounts created by the military. Explosive leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal the organisation’s Integrity Initiative is funded with £2 million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. reported in the Daily Record A secret UK Government-funded infowars unit based in Scotland sent out social media posts attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. On the surface, […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: EU support for austerity opens door to far right](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-eu-support-for-austerity-opens-door-to-far-right/): Jeremy Corbyn urged Europe’s Socialists Friday to challenge the political establishment and team up with like-minded leftists to check the rise of “fake” right-wing populists. EU support for austerity and failed neoliberal policies have caused serious hardship for working people across Europe,” Corbyn said in a speech to the annual congress of the Party of European Socialists in Lisbon. It had “damaged the credibility of European social democratic parties and played a significant role in the vote for Brexit. He added that Europe must come together to fight against the rise of right-wing and neoliberal policies. Failing to do so “will […] - [French yellow vests: Rage against the machine!](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-yellow-vests-rage-against-the-machine/): The Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) movement in France is at a turning point. In the face of building radicalism, which now threatens the very survival of his government The organised working class has begun to enter the struggle (although the labour union leaders have dragged their feet), as have students, who are occupying their institutions in solidarity and raising their own demands. But despite Macron’s attempt to defuse the situation, the explosion of anger and frustration at years of austerity and inequality has acquired a logic of its own, and it will not be easy to put the genie back in […] - ['Foodbanks are not just a photo opportunity for Tory MPs' says Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/foodbanks-are-not-just-a-photo-opportunity-for-tory-mps-says-jeremy-corbyn/): Jeremy Corbyn launched a devastating tear down of the government’s welfare policies telling MPs that “foodbanks are not just a photo opportunity for Conservative MPs.” In a stinging attack the Labour leader accused the Tories of creating a “hostile environment” for those on benefits. He referred to a string of photographs of Tory MPs at foodbanks in their constituencies which have been promoted on social media in recent weeks. Mr Corbyn was visibly angered when the Prime Minister dismissed again the findings of the UN Special Rapporteur who said the Government’s policies and drastic cuts were “entrenching high levels of poverty […] - [Unite leader warns Labour against backing second EU referendum](https://heartlandstribune.com/unite-leader-warns-labour-against-backing-second-eu-referendum/): The Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, has privately told Labour MPs the party should have severe reservations about backing a fresh Brexit referendum, saying voters could see it as a betrayal. The deep scepticism from one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest and most powerful supporters is likely to unnerve MPs and campaigners hoping the party is warming to the idea of a fresh Brexit vote. McCluskey met around two dozen MPs in the House of Commons on Tuesday, where he voiced fears about the impact that backing a second Brexit vote would have on Labour. The private intervention comes at a fractious time for the party, […] - [UK Government Brexit legal advice confirms MPs’ fears](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-government-brexit-legal-advice-confirms-mps-fears/): Yanis Varoufakis once said: Brexit is like Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like but you can’t really leave’ Britain might struggle to leave the EU bloc, due to the complexity of the negotiations and the inflexibility of EU institutions, Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, has warned. Varoufakis, known as a fierce Eurozone critic, compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles. “You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can’t really leave,”  Today we see that prediction become a reality.  Legal advice provided to the Cabinet on […] - [Nigel Farage Quits UKIP](https://heartlandstribune.com/nigel-farage-quits-ukip/): Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has quit the party after disagreements with the current leadership. Farage, who is also a member of the European Parliament, wrote Tuesday that “we are now just a few days away from the most ill-judged political event I have ever been aware of in British politics. The very idea of Tommy Robinson being at the centre of the Brexit debate is too awful to contemplate.” Farage said that “with a heavy heart, and after all my years of devotion to the party, I am leaving UKIP today. There is a huge space for a Brexit party […] - [Government found in contempt of parliament over Brexit legal advice.](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-found-in-contempt-of-parliament-over-brexit-legal-advice/): THE UK GOVERNMENT ministers have been found in contempt of parliament after a vote in the House of Commons this evening. A vote of 311-293 in favour of the motion was passed. This vote effectively means that the entire legal advice must be published. The motion which was voted on was: “That this House finds ministers in contempt for their failure to comply with the requirements of the motion for return passed on 13 November 2018, to publish the final and full legal advice provided by the attorney general to the cabinet concerning the EU withdrawal agreement and the framework for […] - [Speaker John Bercow ‘Arguable case’ contempt committed over Brexit legal advice](https://heartlandstribune.com/speaker-john-bercow-arguable-case-contempt-committed-over-brexit-legal-advice/): Commons Speaker John Bercow has told MPs he believes there is an “arguable case that a contempt has been committed” by the Government over Brexit legal advice. Mr Bercow made the comments in response to demands from Labour, the DUP and four other opposition parties, which had complained that the summary legal advice released on Monday did not comply with a Commons resolution agreed on November 13. He said: “The letter that I received from the members mentioned at the start of this statement asks me to give precedence to a motion relating to privilege in relation to the failure of ministers […] - [Attorney General Geoffrey Cox Facing ‘Contempt Of Parliament’ What are they hiding?](https://heartlandstribune.com/attorney-general-geoffrey-cox-facing-contempt-of-parliament-what-are-they-hiding/): Chris williamson MP asks a straight question to the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox after he failed to comply with MPs’ demands Theresa May’s top law officer is facing possible suspension from the House of Commons after he refused to publish secret legal advice on her Brexit plans. Labour, the DUP, SNP and Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru triggered historic ‘contempt of Parliament’ proceedings against Attorney General Geoffrey Cox after he failed to comply with MPs’ demands. Just eight days before the big vote on the deal, Cox sparked anger when he published only a “legal position” on Monday, rather than the “full legal […] - [Letter to America: Do not let Trump make you regressive be the beacon of hope and the land of the free](https://heartlandstribune.com/letter-to-america-do-not-let-trump-make-you-regressive-be-the-beacon-of-hope-and-the-land-of-the-free/): Trump tells Democratic congresswomen of colour to go back to where they came from. In the 21st century however improbable it seems one man who holds the highest office of the land that of the president the united states can in a couple of tweets strip bear the facade of what should be the most civilised democratic country in the free world to show the ugly face of bigotry and racism. It is very difficult sometimes to express thoughts and feelings on Donald Trump due to the position he holds. You can report on what he says or actions he takes […] - [Laura Pidcock's passionate and powerful speech at Durham Miners Gala](https://heartlandstribune.com/laura-pidcocks-passionate-and-powerful-speech-at-durham-miners-gala/): Despite driving rain, North-West Durham MP Laura Pidcock gave a barnstorming speech, electrifying the tens of thousands of sodden socialists with powerful oratory. She railed against the prospect of Johnson-led Government, stressing the importance of a unified opposition at the 135th Durham Miners’ Gala on Saturday afternoon. Ms Pidcock said: “Thatcher’s neo-liberal free market dogma reveals fresh wounds every single day and with the blink of an eye through clever legislation and the propaganda of the papers and the greed of the powerful they have sucked the colour out of our communities. “So many of our schools have been sold off […] - [How is our Sheffield Lad getting on with the realities of Brussels](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-is-our-sheffield-lad-getting-on-with-the-realities-of-brussels/): What’s disappointed me in my first two weeks in Brussels A freshman MEP from the British Green Party on what’s wrong with the EU capital. In my first two weeks as a member of the European Parliament, I’ve stumbled into a baffling realisation. Next to nobody in Brussels has any clue what the European Union truly stands for — beyond a flag and an anthem — and more crucially, where it is heading. And that includes the EU leaders and senior officials soullessly waddling through the corridors of power. When I arrived in the EU capital, I expected to find it brimming with […] - [Jeremy Corbyn is the only person who is speaking for the whole nation](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-the-only-person-who-is-speaking-for-the-whole-nation/): A Labour government can unite working-class Leavers and Remainers – all of whom are suffering under Tory austerity Britain, says Unite leader LEN McCLUSKEY while today’s Durham Miners’ Gala is always a highlight of my year, every time I come here my mind goes back to the evil of Margaret Thatcher and how she set out to destroy the miners. That memory isn’t such a highlight. It’s 35 years since the beginning of the miners’ strike and the start of Thatcher’s programme to close the pits and we see the lasting impact of the biggest act of industrial vandalism ever. The […] - [Tom Watson: Out of order but what’s new for a man set on bringing the Labour Party down.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-out-of-order-but-whats-new-for-a-man-set-on-bringing-the-labour-party-down/): Tom Watson again brings the Labour Party into disrepute and fails to carry out due process before engaging in a public attack on a Labour official who is taking sick leave while undergoing chemotherapy. Many Labour members are embarrassed and disgusted in Tom Watson behaviour his quick to condemn attitude without due process as once again brought the Labour Party into disrepute. Preliminary investigations into the Panorama program, “Is Labour Anti-Semitic?” would have exposed deep concerns into the factual bases and the evidence that appeared to be nothing but hearsay brought into question. Evidence given by disreputable characters who have been […] - [NEC lobby in solidarity with Chris Williamson](https://heartlandstribune.com/nec-lobby-in-solidarity-with-chris-williamson/): The renewed suspension of Chris Williamson MP is a travesty of justice! #Istandwithchriswilliamson Labour Heartlands stand in solidarity with LRC and Labour Against the Witchhunt Please come along to show your solidarity with the only MP who has dared to stand up to the witch-hunters. The only one who has defended members wrongly accused and vilified. Now it’s our turn to stand with him! Please bring banners and placards. This meeting of the NEC is crucially important, because it will in all likelihood decide to overturn the decision of the NEC panel and send Chris’ case to the National Constitutional Committee, […] - [Kate Hoey: Prominent Brexiteer says she will stand down as Labour MP at next election](https://heartlandstribune.com/kate-hoey-prominent-brexiteer-says-she-will-stand-down-as-labour-mp-at-next-election/): Prominent Labour Brexiteer MP Kate Hoey has announced she will stand down at the next election. The former minister tweeted a letter to her constituents saying that, after 30 years representing the Vauxhall constituency, she would “not seek re-election as a Labour candidate”. She wrote: “Until the next general election I will of course continue every single day to give my all to help constituents in Vauxhall and to campaign for policies that make life better for residents. “I will carry on until a general election serving with the energy, honesty and integrity that I have tried to bring to public […] - [Jaguar Land Rover to build new electric cars in the UK](https://heartlandstribune.com/jaguar-land-rover-to-build-new-electric-cars-in-the-uk/): The new models will be build in the West Midlands, protecting the livelihoods of thousands of British car workers Jaguar Land Rover is to build a range of electric cars in the UK, safeguarding thousands of jobs and delivering a huge boost to the industry after a series of setbacks in recent months. Investment will be made at the firm’s factory in Castle Bromwich, West Midlands, with other sites and supply companies benefitting from the development. Jaguar Land Rover says the first electric vehicle to be produced at the Birmingham factory would be Jaguar’s flagship saloon, the XJ. An all-electric version […] - [Watson avoids leadership challenge from Williamson: Now the member's must act.](https://heartlandstribune.com/watson-avoids-leadership-challenge-from-williamson-now-the-members-must-act/): Watson avoids leadership challenge from Williamson: Now the member’s must act to save the Party Was it luck, design, or self-preservation form Tom Watson and his centrist in getting Chris Williamson MP re-suspended from the Labour Party in what was an unprecedented and unwarranted move by the NEC or just an outright old fashioned plot to stop a deputy leadership challenge from the Left? It could be any of the above but one thing is for sure Tom Watson managed to avoid a  future deputy leadership challenge from Chris Williamson. Labour Heartlands was informed by close associates of Chris Williamson that […] - [Jeremy Corbyn calls for civil service inquiry after health claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-civil-service-inquiry-after-health-claims/): Corbyn hits back at ‘nonsense’ ill health reports as he calls for investigation into civil service Jeremy Corbyn has called for a government investigation after a national newspaper reported claims about his health, allegedly based on information from civil servants. Mr Corbyn said it is “very concerning” that civil servants had briefed the Times with details of his health as he rubbished the claims. Anonymous civil servants reportedly told the newspaper that the 70-year-old could be forced to stand down because he was not up to the job “physically or mentally”. In a statement issued to the press, Mr Corbyn said: […] - [Activists ask leaders at G20 to urge Japan to uphold commercial whaling ban](https://heartlandstribune.com/activists-ask-leaders-at-g20-to-urge-japan-to-uphold-commercial-whaling-ban/): As Japan prepares to relaunch its commercial whaling practices, environmentalists have called for leaders at the G20 summit to speak up. Japan stopped commercial whaling more than 30 years ago. Celebrities Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais and scientist Jane Goodall are among more than 100 activists and conservation charities calling for leaders to use the G20 Summit to confront host Japan over its plans to continue commercial whaling. Letters have been sent to all G20 leaders, urging them to stage an “international whaling intervention” at the summit and push for an end to all commercial whaling, a group statement said. The plea comes ahead […] - [Defence Forces join EU battle groups next year](https://heartlandstribune.com/defence-forces-join-eu-battle-groups-next-year/): Dáil votes to have Defence Forces join EU battle groups next year A motion on the participation of the Defence Forces in a German-led battle group next year has passed in the Dáil. The battle group will include personnel from Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia and the Netherlands. They will be on stand-by for six months from July 2020. Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Defence Paul Kehoe brought a memo to Cabinet on the proposed participation. EU battle groups are multinational, military units that are part of the European Union’s military rapid reaction capacity. The group, made up of about 1,500 […] - [I stand with Chris Williamson: Watson and his vigilante's must go.](https://heartlandstribune.com/i-stand-with-chris-williamson-watson-and-his-vigilantes-must-go/): #istandwithchriswilliamson The Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, and 90 of the party’s MPs and peers have demanded that Jeremy Corbyn withdraw the whip from Chris Williamson in the escalating row about antisemitism. Watson is the lead signatory claiming on behalf of the Labour Party and stating to Jeremy Corbyn that “We cannot overstate the depth and breadth of hurt and anger” at the readmission of the Derby North MP against the advice of the officials after Williamson had suggested the party was “too apologetic” about antisemitism. “It is clear to us that the Labour party’s disciplinary process remains mired by the […] - [Labour should think twice before betraying its Labour Heartlands.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-should-think-twice-before-betraying-its-labour-heartlands/): Labour Parties EU stance: The Good the Bad and the Ugly Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn met union leaders this week to discuss a shift in the party’s position on a second Brexit referendum. Corbyn has already conceded that Labour will support a referendum on any Brexit deal. But he did not say what Labour thinks should be on the ballot paper, or what Labour’s voting advice would be. He went no further than saying that a second referendum would need to contain “real choices” for both Leave and Remain voters. This seems not to be good enough for the centralist in the Party who are determined to […] - [Labour MP Chris Williamson readmitted after four-month suspension](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-chris-williamson-readmitted-after-four-month-suspension/): Welcome back Chris!   Derby North MP was suspended in February has been lifted on Wednesday by a three-person NEC panel on anti-semitism. Mr Williamson issued with a formal warning after being found to have breached the party’s rules. Mr Williamson was served with a “notice of investigation” four months ago after it emerged he told a meeting of Sheffield Momentum that Labour had been “too apologetic” over its anti-semitism problem. To applause from those present, Mr Williamson said: “The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. “I have […] - [Southern Water hit with record £126m penalty after 'serious failures'](https://heartlandstribune.com/southern-water-hit-with-record-126m-penalty-after-serious-failures/): British water and power firms are trying to soothe nerves over nationalisation in the event of a Labour government,it is exactly incidents like the blatant disregard for both its customers and the environment carried out by Southern Water that strengthens the nationalisation argument. Southern Water let down its customers and operated in a way completely counter to the public expectations. Jeremy Corbyn has said the state would take control of water, electricity, gas and railway operators, as well as the Royal Mail and the Royal Bank of Scotland if Labour wins power. The privatisation of utilities, which began in the 1980s […] - [Veteran ex-minister standing down as Labour asks the question of reselection](https://heartlandstribune.com/veteran-ex-minister-standing-down-as-labour-asks-question-of-reselection/): Poplar and Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick announces he won’t stand for re-election MPs are to confirm their intention for the next election as the first step in the “trigger” selection process. Jim Fitzpatrick is the first Labour MP to declare he will not be standing in the next General election. Labour Heartlands have campaigned for the Last 18 mouths to bring in Open selection, Open selection is a possess where every MP must stand to be reselected. Jim Fitzpatrick said he would not fight the next election in the Poplar and Limehouse seat. Labour HQ asked if I’ll stand again, here […] - [Brexit: Don’t blame the Russians the referendum was a democratic vote.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-dont-blame-the-russians-the-referendum-was-a-democratic-vote/): Facebook: Nick Clegg says ‘no evidence’ of Russian interference in Brexit vote There is “absolutely no evidence” Russia influenced the Brexit result using Facebook, the company’s vice-president, Sir Nick Clegg, has said. The former deputy PM told the BBC the company had carried out analyses of its data and found no “significant attempt” by outside forces to sway the vote. Instead, he argued that “the roots to British euroscepticism go very deep”. the roots to British euroscepticism go very deep. Clegg admitted he is a passionate remainer and wanted the results to go the other way. ‘Remainer Conspiracy to undermine democracy’ […] - [Tom Watson sticks to his diet but still serves pie in the sky.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-sticks-to-his-diet-but-still-serves-pie-in-the-sky/): Tom Watson claims the Labour Party must become a remain Party In a message to his Future Britain group of MPs and peers, which is backing its own centre-left set of policy approaches, he claims: “Many people in this group have contacted me following the Brexit shadow cabinet that took place this week and ahead of the key shadow cabinet that will next week decide the future of Labour’s policy on Brexit, and in particular whether the party will campaign to remain in a referendum on any future deal. He also claims that the shadow cabinet briefing written by party strategists dangerously underestimated […] - [The case for unionising the army](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-case-for-unionising-the-army/): Military trade unions are very well established and respected as a social partner in some European countries, for example in Denmark where they are part of the joint council system existing since 1949. More than 90% of the military employees are members of the unions. From a Danish perspective, political leadership is necessary to ensure that soldiers enjoy democratic fundamental rights and freedoms – especially as their task is to protect democracy. Unfortunately, the situation of military personnel is more problematic in countries like Italy and Spain, where participants reported that associations have difficulties to gain a representative status which would ultimately […] - [Boris Johnson: police called to loud altercation at potential PM’s home](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-potential-pms-home/): Police were called to the home of Boris Johnson and his partner, Carrie Symonds, in the early hours of Friday morning after neighbours heard a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging. The argument could be heard outside the property where the potential future prime minister is living with Symonds, a former Conservative party head of press. Boris Johnson’s bid to become prime minister was thrown into chaos as it emerged police were called to the home he shares with partner Carrie Symonds. As Mr Johnson geared up to go head to head with his challenger for the Tory crown, Jeremy […] - [Mark Field: Minister suspended after allegations of assault.](https://heartlandstribune.com/mark-field-minister-suspended-after-allegations-of-assault/): Mark Field has been suspended as a Foreign Office minister after grabbing a female Greenpeace activist at a black-tie City dinner. Mr Field has said he regrets confronting Janet Barker and marching her away as protesters interrupted a speech by the chancellor. But he said he had been “genuinely worried” she may have been armed. Ms Barker told the BBC she would not go to the police, but said the MP should go to anger management classes. Footage of the incident has been widely shared on social media, with several Labour politicians calling for Mr Field to be sacked. A Downing […] - [Brexit is not an expression of hard-right politics](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-is-not-an-expression-of-hard-right-politics/): Clive Lewis described our leaving the European Union as a “hard-right Tory project”. In a LabourList article last week, Clive Lewis described our leaving the European Union as a “hard-right Tory project”. It is important to make one thing abundantly clear: there is no such thing as a hard-right Tory Brexit. There is just leaving the EU. A decision made in a democratic and free referendum in which a majority of people – 17.4 million – voted to leave the EU is not an expression of hard-right politics, however convenient it is for Labour Remainers to smear it in this way. Nor is it […] - [UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia declared unlawful by court of appeal](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-declared-unlawful-by-court-of-appeal/): Theresa May has expressed disappointment over the court’s ruling and said her government would seek permission to appeal. Campaigners say the UK-Saudi arms deal violates international humanitarian law. A court of appeal in London on Thursday declared the sale of weapons by the UK to Saudi Arabia unlawful because of the Yemen conflict. The court accepted the challenge brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) that accused the UK government of licensing the arms sale when there is a clear risk that the weapons use could breach international humanitarian law. In its judgement, the court ruled that “the process of decision-making […] - [Corbyn: “We have committed to respecting the result of the referendum”](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-we-have-committed-to-respecting-the-result-of-the-referendum/): Jeremy Corbyn confirmed at the special Brexit meeting of the shadow cabinet today that Labour is now committed to a public vote on any Brexit deal. But not to supporting Remain. Although there was widespread speculation that Labour would be shifting its position on Brexit, the Labour leader made clear at the gathering of opposition frontbenchers this afternoon that the party is still “committed to respecting the result of the referendum”. Addressing the shadow cabinet, Corbyn said: “We have committed to respecting the result of the referendum, and have strongly made the case for an alternative plan for Brexit as the […] - [To defeat the far right, the left must embrace a socialist and internationalist Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/to-defeat-the-far-right-the-left-must-embrace-a-socialist-and-internationalist-brexit/): Paul Mason advocates that Labour must become the party of remain. To do this he suggested the Labour Party must convince the Labour Heartlands to relinquish our democratic vote, our assertion of democracy, our demand to self-government. Mason claims: Framing a no-deal Brexit as a threat to the future of state-funded healthcare should be easy, since President Trump, in one brainless soundbite, provided ammunition that will haunt the Tories at election time. Whether it’s Hunt, Gove or Johnson, the blunt question – will you rule out American ownership of our NHS hospitals after Brexit? – could be a killer one. Mason […] - [Bullingdon Boy Boris Johnson maintains Lead in Race for Leadership](https://heartlandstribune.com/bullingdon-boy-boris-johnson-maintains-lead-in-race-for-leadership/): Dominic Raab knocked out of Tory leadership race Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson continues to lead the field with 126 votes among MPs. Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab was knocked out of the race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party following a vote by Tory MPs this evening. Boris Johnson, who has committed to leaving the European Union on October 31 with or without a deal, continued to lead the field, securing more support and the backing of 126 MPs. His tally was 12 more than the 114 he secured in last week’s ballot. His main challenger in […] - [Electoral fraud allegations at Peterborough by-election investigated by police](https://heartlandstribune.com/electoral-fraud-allegations-at-peterborough-by-election-investigated-by-police/): Police are investigating five allegations of malpractice relating to the Peterborough by-election, which Labour won by 683 votes. Three of the allegations relate to postal votes, one is of bribery and corruption and the fifth is of a breach of the privacy of the vote, Cambridgeshire Police said. Labour candidate Lisa Forbes was elected after the by-election on June 6, with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in second place. Peterborough Council said on June 10 that it received one unconfirmed report regarding alleged bribery prior to polling day. This was referred to police and no further action will be taken, the authority […] - [Iran prepares to violate uranium limit in nuclear deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-prepares-to-violate-uranium-limit-in-nuclear-deal/): Iran Says It Will Break Uranium Stockpile Limit In 10 Days The Islamic Republic has signalled its intention to exceed limits on uranium enrichment under the deal. Iranian officials said European guarantors still have time to save the accord before it surpasses “the 300 kg limit.” Iran will break the uranium stockpile limit set by Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in the next 10 days, the spokesman for the country’s atomic agency said Monday while also warning that Iran could enrich uranium up to 20% — just a step away from weapons-grade levels. The announcement by Behrouz Kamalvandi, timed for […] - [France launches national civic service for youth](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-launches-national-civic-service-for-youth/): Two decades after France ended conscription, the government has launched a program targeting young people. The government is hoping to “increase the cohesion and resilience of the nation” with the service. France launched a new national service, SNU, on Sunday, which will see thousands of teenage volunteers spend 10 days learning first aid, how to read maps and other key skills, reported French newspaper Le Monde. The service – a project put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron – envisions developing patriotism and national cohesion among 15- and 16-year-old’s two decades after France ended military conscription for men. According to the government, the […] - [UK plans to deploy marines to Persian Gulf: report](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-plans-to-deploy-marines-to-persian-gulf-report/): The United Kingdom will send elite forces to the Gulf of Oman to protect its warships amid rising tensions with Iran, according to The Sunday Times. The planned deployment follows Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers, which the U.S. has blamed on Iran. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Friday said the U.K. would make its own assessment, but believed the U.S. claim that Tehran was behind the incident. One hundred Royal Marines are expected to be deployed “within weeks” to join naval ships operating from the U.K.’s new naval base in Bahrain, The Sunday Times reported, citing unnamed military sources. […] - [UN Urges Independent Probe in Strait of Hormuz Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-urges-independent-probe-in-strait-of-hormuz-crisis/): UN chief Antonio Guterres has called on all actors in the region to “avoid a major confrontation.” The US and UK have accused Iran of attacking tankers transiting through the Persian Gulf. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday called for an independent investigation into apparent attacks on tankers transiting through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. “We believe it is very important to avoid, at all costs, a major confrontation in the Gulf,” said Guterres in New York. “At the present moment, we don’t see a mechanism of dialogue possible to be in place.” The US and UK have […] - [Hypocritical ‘casual racist Sugar’ supports ‘casual racist Johnson’s bid to become Tory leader' in hopes of stopping anti racist Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/hypocritical-casual-racist-sugar-supports-casual-racist-johnsons-bid-to-become-tory-leader-in-hopes-of-stopping-anti-racist-corbyn/): Sugar has claimed Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister would be “good news” as the public would vote for him over “horrible” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Never mind the fact last October Lord Sugar said the Boris Johnson “should be imprisoned, or at least prosecuted”. Today he “seriously backs” him for Prime Minister The ex-Labour peer said he “seriously backs” the frontrunner to be the next Prime Minister. without an ounce of hypocrisy, he said “Boris is actually quite liked by the population” and “anybody who can stop Corbyn being elected, I would back them.” It comes eight months after Lord […] - [Paul Embery has spent 20 years as a dedicated trade-union official, 'sacked for free speech'](https://heartlandstribune.com/paul-embery-has-spent-20-years-as-a-dedicated-trade-union-official-sacked-for-free-speech/): Paul Embery has spent 20 years as a dedicated trade-union official, fighting for better rights, conditions and pay for firefighters with the Fire Brigades Union. But today he revealed that he has been kicked off the union’s national executive and banned from office for two years. I believe the decision to be an obvious political one. The case against me was easily shredded at my internal hearing. Announcing on Twitter Paul Embery a leading campaigner for democracy and #Lexit stated: I am disappointed to report that I have been kicked off the national executive of my union – @fbunational – and […] - [Bullingdon Boy Boris Johnson takes lead in Tory leadership race](https://heartlandstribune.com/bullingdon-boy-boris-johnson-takes-lead-in-tory-leadership-race/): The UK seems set once again to witness the catastrophic effects of Etonian-elitist rule, another Bullingdon boy coverts the wooden bench. The iron throne of Westminster. Cameron, Osborn now Johnson something stinks and its not the crackling of pork. This illusion of democracy, a charade made to resemble fairness in a rigged system. In a modern democracy are we about to see using Boris Johnson’s own words “Without a mandate from the British people It is a scandal to move from one prime minister to another.” Without a mandate from the British people It is a scandal to move from one […] - [Digital totalitarianism: The US demands your social media profile](https://heartlandstribune.com/digital-totalitarianism-the-us-demands-your-social-media-profile/): George Orwell’s 1984 Wasn’t a Government Instruction Manual, it was a Dire Warning to Us George Orwell. 1984. The internationally acclaimed dystopian best seller that some say depicted a prophetic view and a chilling warning to us all. The dire consequences for man, when propaganda is at its height; for when a government rules with an ironclad fist. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The three phrases printed within the first few pages of chapter one, ring loudly in this current state of chaos. The U.S. State Department has announced that anyone requesting a visa to travel to the […] - [Margaret Hodge says that tuition fees and reversing austerity are 'bribes' to the electorate.](https://heartlandstribune.com/margaret-hodge-says-that-tuition-fees-and-reversing-austerity-are-bribes-to-the-electorate/): Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP has been slammed after a video emerged of her claiming that her own party’s manifesto pledges to scrap tuition fees and reverse the last decade of Tory cuts – policies which she stood on in the 2017 General Election and which helped to increase her majority by over 8,000 votes – are not the way to win elections. Her claims that the manifesto was “whole range of unrealistic promises”, is probably the most insulting statement a Labour Party MP could make. She also seems to shares the former Progress member and chair Chuka Umunna opinion on […] - [Boris Johnson: “Without a mandate from the British people” It is a scandal to move from one prime minister to another.](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-without-a-mandate-from-the-british-people-it-is-a-scandal-to-move-from-one-prime-minister-to-another/): If Boris is a man of his word we can look forward to a real People’s vote a General Election Boris made his feelings known and quite public in relation to how he feels about the passing of the countries highest position from one body to the next without the decency of being democratic elected with a “mandate from the British people” into that position. In this case it seems we fully agree with Boris and look forward to him calling a General election.   Writing about the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, who took over from Tony Blair without an […] - [Brexit offers the possibility for socialists to lead a political transformation](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-offers-the-possibility-for-socialists-to-lead-a-political-transformation-2/): The immediate task before us is to leave the EU and to break the constraints on democracy that it represents. THE history of the British left is one of crises that promise victory but result in domination by the right. In my lifetime I have lived through the stagflation of the ’70s, the miners’ strike in the ’80s, Black Tuesday in the ’90s and then the crash of 2008. All seemed to promise radical change, yet this did not happen. On the contrary. In response to successive democratic defeats, Labour adopted a strategy of the subordination of national democracy to finance […] - [We’ll keep £39B Brexit payment, says Boris Johnson](https://heartlandstribune.com/well-keep-39b-brexit-payment-says-boris-johnson/): ‘I truly believe only I can steer the country between the Scylla and Charybdis of Corbyn and Farage and onto calmer water.’ Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to be next British prime minister, said he wouldn’t hand over the £39 billion Brexit bill to Brussels until he got a better deal. The former foreign secretary told the Sunday Times about his Brexit plans, which include: Holding on to the Brexit divorce payment until Brussels agrees more favourable terms; scrapping the Northern Ireland backstop; changing the Brexit negotiating team so that Cabinet ministers are in charge; guaranteeing the rights of the 3.2 million EU citizens living in the U.K.; […] - [Brussels puts Italy on notice for breaching EU spending rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/brussels-puts-italy-on-notice-for-breaching-eu-spending-rules/): Italians are tired of living under austerity. That could be a big problem for the EU. The European Commission took the first step in launching a disciplinary process against Italy over the populist government’s defiance of EU spending rules. The move came six months after the Commission and the Italian government struck a compromise to avoid triggering the process, which could lead to a €3.5 billion fine, although Brussels has shied away from imposing such penalties in the past. The Commission’s decision to launch the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP), a program intended to bring government spending back in line with EU […] - [More regrets for Michael Gove: It's not just the cocaine](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-regrets-for-michael-gove-its-not-just-the-cocaine/) - [Who is in the running to be the next prime minister and what's their view on Brexit?](https://heartlandstribune.com/who-is-in-the-running-to-be-the-next-prime-minister-and-whats-their-view-on-brexit/): Theresa May steps down as the leader of the Conservative Party leader on Friday (June 7), kick-starting a contest among numerous hopefuls looking to replace her as prime minister. She will remain in Downing Street as caretaker prime minister until next month when the Tory leadership race concludes. The outcome will determine the country’s direction in the run-up to October 31, the revised date for the country’s scheduled departure from the European Union. EU leaders agreed on an extension of several months after Theresa May failed repeatedly to get the negotiated exit deal through the UK parliament. So who has thrown […] - [Automakers cut 40,000 jobs globally in past 6 months](https://heartlandstribune.com/automakers-cut-40000-jobs-globally-in-past-6-months/): As global auto sales slow after a decade of growth, carmakers are girding for a deeper downturn by slashing payrolls. Ford has confirmed plans to close its engine plant at Bridgend in South Wales by September 2020, saying it faced becoming “economically unsustainable” in the world’s drive for electric vehicles. The company ruled out a Brexit link after it made the formal announcement, saying that consultations on its proposals had begun with its 1,700 staff and their representatives.   Stuart Rowley, president of Ford Europe, told reporters: “This action has nothing to do with Brexit and the simple way to think […] - [UK-US trade deal: NHS 'not on the table'](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-us-trade-deal-nhs-not-on-the-table/): Donald Trump has performed a dramatic U-turn on his claim that the National Health Service must be “on the table” in negotiations on a trade deal between the UK and America. The US president sparked a furious backlash from politicians on Tuesday by insisting the NHS would be up for grabs in any negotiations after Brexit. Donald Trump has said he doesn’t see the NHS “being on the table” in any future trade negotiation between the UK and US, following earlier comments in which he said, “everything is on the table”. The US president clarified his remarks during an interview with […] - [Corbyn to Trump: I will defend health service from US companies](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-to-trump-i-will-defend-health-service-from-us-companies/) - [Emily Thornberry: Trump is a ‘sexual predator’ and ‘racist’](https://heartlandstribune.com/emily-thornberry-trump-is-a-sexual-predator-and-racist/): ‘A state visit is an honor, and we don’t think that this president deserves an honor,’ says shadow foreign secretary. Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry says U.S. President Donald Trump “is a sexual predator” and “a racist,” and “it’s right to say that,”  Speaking to the BBC’s “Today” radio program about Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to boycott Trump’s U.K. state visit this week and instead address an anti-Trump protest rally, Thornberry said it is the appropriate response to the American president. “A state visit is an honor, and we don’t think that this president deserves an honor,” Thornberry said. “He is […] - [Labour Roots campaign launch: ‘It's our future’](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-roots-campaign-launch-its-our-future/): LABOUR launched a groundbreaking grassroots campaign for radical change over the weekend, in readiness to take on the Tories in a general election. The Labour Roots project, which opened in Leeds on Saturday, will give half a million party members, and the public, the chance to have their say on a future Labour government’s commitment to tackling key issues including the NHS, public services, education, housing, the environment and the rise of the far right. Saturday’s launch involved hundreds of party members, community and campaign groups at packed events across the city, culminating in a rally at Leeds University’s students’ union […] - [Julian Assange Is Suffering Psychological Torture, U.N. Expert Says](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-is-suffering-psychological-torture-u-n-expert-says/): United Nations Special Rapporteur: Julian Assange is being tortured  A United Nations expert on torture said on Friday that an examination of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a British prison showed an alarming deterioration in his mental and physical state, and he sharply rebuked Britain, Sweden and the United States for “ganging up” on Mr. Assange. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture and ill treatment, Nils Melzer, said the examination in early May revealed that Mr. Assange’s “capacity to focus and coordinate have been clearly affected” by his imprisonment. “He was extremely jumpy and stressed,” Mr. Melzer said in […] - [Lisa Nandy MP: In Labour constituencies like mine, the idea of a second EU referendum is absurd](https://heartlandstribune.com/lisa-nandy-mp-in-labour-constituencies-like-mine-the-idea-of-a-second-eu-referendum-is-absurd/): As the Labour Party scrambles to clarify their Brexit position after a dismal performance in the European elections, Labour MP Lisa Nandy warns against a second referendum.  If we’ve succeeded in bringing the country together over Brexit, it’s in the view shared by many leave and remain voters alike that politicians are, collectively, making a mess of it. In Wigan, home to many remain voters and far more leavers, that feeling is expressed frequently. People have different views on what should happen next. Very few on either side seem to have changed their minds. But almost universally on the doorstep questions […] - [Peter Willsman Points the finger at the Israeli embassy: Whats behind the claims.](https://heartlandstribune.com/peter-willsman-points-the-finger-at-the-israeli-embassy-whats-behind-the-claims/): Labour suspends Pete Willsman NEC member over claims of antisemitic remarks Pete Willsman was recorded claiming the Israeli embassy was behind some antisemitism he also talked of an Israeli agent had infiltrated the Labour Party. Where would Pete get such an idea? Is it just conspiracy or is there bases of his accusation and reasoning? In 2017 Al Jazeera Investigations exposes how the Israel lobby influences British politics. A six-month undercover investigation reveals how Israel penetrates different levels of British democracy. Episode One: In part one, Al Jazeera Investigations reveals how pro-Israel groups are trying to influence Britain’s youth. Episode Two: In part […] - [EU could slap 3 billion euro fine on Italy for excessive debt: Salvini](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-could-slap-3-billion-euro-fine-on-italy-for-excessive-debt-salvini/): The European Commission could impose a 3 billion euro fine on Italy for breaking EU rules due to its rising debt and structural deficit levels, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Tuesday. An intensifying dispute between Italy and the European Union hit financial markets on Tuesday, with investors bracing for another budget showdown between Rome and Brussels. European stocks and the euro were both trading lower during afternoon deals, following reports the euro zone’s third-largest economy could soon face disciplinary steps from the EU’s guardian of healthy public finances. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said Tuesday that Rome could be hit […] - [Labour are heading for an Exodus](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-are-heading-for-an-exodus/): Throughout the Labour Heartlands there is a sense of abandonment! A clear victory for the Brexit Party on their single issue of leaving the EU yet, somehow the mainstream media along with all the other remain pundits are trying to make out this is a win for remain and the people’s vote. This knee jerk reaction from the Labour Party very much seems to suggest Labour is moving from it’s fence-sitting splintered behind to that of backing a so-called people’s vote in all circumstances. The Labour Party look set to abandon the Labour Heartlands. If the Labour Party do take the […] - [Open Letter To The Labour NEC: We Have No Confidence In Tom Watson As Deputy Leader Of The Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/open-letter-to-the-labour-nec-we-have-no-confidence-in-tom-watson-as-deputy-leader-of-the-labour-party/): Watson’s Animal Farm This is not the first time members have attempted to quell the divisionary tactics or the wanton abuse Tom Watson thinks he can wield while using the title and the position of deputy leader of the Labour Party. He is beginning to look more and more like a parody character of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Tom Watson obviously cast as the main protagonist Napoleon. Watson seems to think Labour Party rules can be overturned, manipulated or just damn right ignored. He is walking roughshod over Labour Party policy and calling for a second referendum in all circumstances ignores […] - [Angela Merkel: Talks on anti-Semitism and Growing populism](https://heartlandstribune.com/angela-merkel-talks-on-anti-semitism-and-growing-populism/): Germany’s rise of the Greens anti-Semitism and the Far right. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been conspicuously quiet in recent weeks. She rarely gives interviews as it is, let alone to foreign media. Now, though, she has sat down with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. In case you were wondering: Angela Merkel is still chancellor of Germany. In fact, if all goes to plan and the grand coalition of her Christian Democrats (CDU), their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD) doesn’t implode prematurely, her tenure is set to run until 2021, when the country goes to […] - [Brexit: Boris Johnson ordered to appear in court over £350m claim](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-boris-johnson-ordered-to-appear-in-court-over-350m-claim/): The PM contender will face allegations he lied before the EU referendum over how much money the UK sent to the EU each week. Boris Johnson has been ordered to appear in court over claims he lied by saying the UK gave the EU £350m a week. The Tory leadership candidate has been accused of misconduct in public office after making the claim during the 2016 EU referendum campaign. It is a private prosecution launched by campaigner Marcus Ball, who crowdfunded £200,000 for the case. Mr Johnson’s representatives have called the case a “stunt” that is being “brought for political purposes”. […] - [Alastair Campbell expelled from Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/alastair-campbell-expelled-from-labour-party/): Tony Blair’s former spin doctor says he has been expelled from the Labour Party after voting for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections. Labour’s rules make support for a rival candidate an ‘auto-exclusion’ event. Campbell will, of course, have been well aware of this fact when he announced it. Alastair Campbell, a lead campaigner for another Brexit referendum, said he was “sad and disappointed”. He said he voted Lib Dem “to try to persuade Labour to do the right thing”, but “always will be Labour” and appeal. A Labour spokesman said supporting another party was “incompatible with membership”. Mr Campbell […] - [Expel Alistair Campbell from the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/expel-alistair-campbell-from-the-labour-party/): Alistair Campbell made it quite clear he no longer supports the Labour party. Since Jeremy Corbyn became the leader of the Labour party he as used his unwarranted access to the media in overt attempts not only to undermine the Jeremy Corbyn but the Labour Party in general. This final straw of his openly supporting and voting for a political organisation that stands against the Labour Party breaks Labour Party rules and should be an automatic expulsion from the Labour party in accordance with Labour party rules. As per Chapter 2 of the Labour Party Rules, this petition is raised to […] - [EU Elections Data Live Elections Visualised](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-elections-data-live-elections-visualised/): European Elections Data, Visualised Millions of people across the EU are electing a new European Parliament, in a vote likely to reflect a shift in the Continent’s political balance. French far right beats Macron in EU election Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally scored a first-place finish in the EU election in France, besting President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance list, according to early projections of the French vote — a major victory for populist, Euroskeptic forces. National Rally, a rebranding of Le Pen’s National Front party, scored about 24 percent of the vote, compared to roughly 22.5 percent for Macron’s centrist-liberal party, […] - [Jeremy Corbyn calls for an immediate General Election](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-an-immediate-general-election/): Theresa May is right to resign. She’s now accepted what the country’s known for months: she can’t govern, and nor can her divided and disintegrating party. Whoever becomes the new Tory leader must let the people decide our country’s future, through an immediate General Election. Theresa May is right to resign. She’s now accepted what the country’s known for months: she can’t govern, and nor can her divided and disintegrating party. Whoever becomes the new Tory leader must let the people decide our country’s future, through an immediate General Election. — Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 24, 2019 Jeremy Corbyn gave a damning indictment […] - [The EU Voting System how it works](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-voting-system-how-it-works/): In England, Scotland and Wales the voting system for the European elections is the d’Hondt system of proportional representation – regional closed list. In Northern Ireland the system is Single Transferable Vote. Since 1999 voters in Britain have elected MEPs under a proportional representation system. The European Parliamentary Elections Act of that year introduced a regional list system with seats allocated to parties in proportion to their share of the vote. In the last elections, in 2014, all MEPs in the European Parliament were elected under some form of proportional representation. Differences exist between Member States for example in the methods used (eg. Droop quota, d’Hondt system, Single Transferable […] - [Out-of-control knife crime: it has to stop](https://heartlandstribune.com/out-of-control-knife-crime-it-has-to-stop/): IT’S A SHOCKING FACT that every twelve minutes in every hour throughout the year someone is a victim of a crime in which a bladed or sharp object is used. There is a pandemic of deadly violence plaguing our communities in Britain. Young people are involved in everspiralling murderous acts against each other, often using knives. They are leaving behind a trail of slaughtered bodies and devastated families. At the same time, out of touch, privileged Westminster politicians are consumed by the toxic issue of Brexit and fail to tackle the youthon- youth violence emergency. Figures for this year alone of […] - [Andrea Leadsom quits: Resignation letter in full](https://heartlandstribune.com/andrea-leadsom-quits-resignation-letter-in-full/): Commons leader Andrea Leadsom has resigned from the government amid a backlash against Theresa May’s Brexit plan from Conservative MPs. Here is her resignation letter in full: Dear prime minister I am proud to have served in your government since 2016, first as your environment secretary and for the last two years as leader of the House of Commons, and pay tribute to the excellent work of my civil servants in both roles. More recently, setting up the new complaints procedure, putting in train the restoration of the Palace of Westminster, introducing proxy voting for MPs, proposing a new strategy to […] - [British steel should be nationalised](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-steel-should-be-nationalised/): British steel should be nationalised and the Government award them the full contract for HS2 Labour has urged the government to nationalise British Steel in order to protect jobs and the steel industry. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the collapse of British Steel would have a “devastating impact” on Scunthorpe. British Steel is on the verge of administration as it continues to lobby for government backing, sources say. The UK’s second-biggest steel maker had been trying to secure £75m in financial support to help it to address “Brexit-related issues”. If the firm does not get the cash it would put 5,000 […] - [British Steel to collapse: No EU state aid to save it.](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-steel-to-collapse-no-eu-state-aid-to-save-it/): British Steel is on the verge of administration as it continues to lobby for government backing, sources say. The UK’s second-biggest steel maker had been trying to secure £75m in financial support to help it to address “Brexit-related issues”. If the firm does not get the cash it would put 5,000 jobs at risk and endanger 20,000 in the supply chain. Company sources said that the direction of talks with the government would become clearer in the coming hours. British Steel’s main plant is at Scunthorpe, but it also has a site in Teesside. The request for emergency financial support from […] - [Nigel Farage: The Brexit Party and the people who put him on top.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nigel-farage-the-brexit-party-and-the-people-who-put-him-on-top/): Don’t blame the working class who vote for the Brexit Party. Blame the Westminster Remain Bubble! All political parties and hues are to blame for this. When the Labour party used the loyal votes of Britain’s industrial working class to parachute in political and cultural elites, it had devastating effects on working class people’s political and cultural exclusion. So did the banking crisis and the ensuing cruel Conservative party austerity policies. Yet these facts are seen as irrelevant and petty by those who are now desperately trying to overturn the referendum result. Westminster, the media, and the academic world – all of which are […] - [In the fight against climate change words have power](https://heartlandstribune.com/in-the-fight-against-climate-change-words-have-power/): Guardian newspaper tells staff to avoid saying ‘climate change,’ use ‘climate emergency, crisis or breakdown’ instead “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” The Guardian newspaper is officially changing its language concerning climate change, opting to call it instead “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown.” Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner advised the staff in an email Friday that the phrase “climate change” should be avoided because it […] - [Details of EU Brexit talks with Blair and Soros kept secret](https://heartlandstribune.com/details-of-eu-brexit-talks-with-blair-and-soros-kept-secret/): No transparency from the EU on the Blair, Soros, Moscovici Brexit talks. Asked by the EUobserver website about a discussion between George Soros, Tony Blair and Pierre Moscovici during the last forum in Davos, the European Commission would have hidden the content, in order to protect a “decision-making process”. According to the news site EUobserver , which specialises in news from the European Union (EU), the European Commission has deliberately concealed, in part, the content of a meeting at the 49th World Economic Forum in Davos  between Billionaire George Soros, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici. The three protagonists would have […] - [Our man on the ground, British General 'we don't see an increased threat' from Iran.](https://heartlandstribune.com/our-man-on-the-ground-british-general-we-dont-see-an-increased-threat-from-iran/): The deputy commander of the US-led military coalition against ISIS said Tuesday “there has been no increased threat from Iranian backed forces in Iraq and Syria.” UK Major Gen. Chris Ghika, a calm head and clear perspective. UK Major Gen. Chris Ghika told Pentagon reporters that the Iran-backed groups are one of many threats faced by the coalition, but said there has been no increase in the dangers they pose. Unnamed US officials have said there has been an increased threat from Iran and Iranian-backed forces against US forces in the Middle East, including Iraq and Syria. “There are a range of threats […] - [Watson, you have no mandate.](https://heartlandstribune.com/watson-you-have-no-mandate/): Tom Watson has today defined Labour as a Remain and Reform party. This is not Labours official position well documented in both the 2017 Manifesto and the October conference decision. It’s an affront to the 5 million Labour leave voting socialists and a Labour Party that promised to respect the result of the referendum and reflected this in its manifesto. His announcement does nothing but create more division, making the EU elections a barometer for a second referendum will only succeed in splitting the Labour vote. It leaves the overwhelmingly Brexit supporting Labour constituencies no other choice than to vote for […] - [Tony Blair urges remain Labour supporters to vote for 'other remain Parties'](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blair-urges-remain-labour-supporters-to-vote-for-other-remain-parties/): Tony Blair in a outspoken attack on Brexit advocates that remain voters should vote for “unequivocal remain parties!” Tony Blair urges Labour supporters put off by the party’s “equivocation” to vote for one of the “unequivocal” Remain parties The former prime minister and leading campaigner for a second referendum says Labour’s “destructive indecision” of trying to face both ways “pleased no one” and let down the country. But he urges Labour supporters put off by the party’s “equivocation” to vote for one of the “unequivocal Remain parties” – the Lib Dems, Change UK, Greens, Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru. Mr […] - [The sheer hypocrisy of Guy Verhofstadt and the Lib Dems](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-sheer-hypocrisy-of-guy-verhofstadt-and-the-lib-dems/): Guy Verhofstadt claims Turkey is moving closer to dictatorship after calling a second vote. In a Tweet his condemnation of Istanbul’s election being cancelled reveals a “double standard” on Brexit in Brussels. Verhofstadt, the Liberal ALDE group’s leader in the European Parliament, said the decision to annul Istanbul’s municipal vote, after an opposition candidate was elected mayor, has pushed the country closer to dictatorship. “This outrageous decision highlights how [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s Turkey is drifting towards a dictatorship,” wrote Verhofstadt, [fusion_code]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[/fusion_code] Verhofstadt is one of ALDE’s top candidates in the European election. he claims: “Under such leadership, accession talks are impossible. […] - [MPs must speak out on criminal probe into DWP death links, say activists](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-must-speak-out-on-criminal-probe-into-dwp-death-links-say-activists/): MPs have been asked why they are failing to speak out to back calls for a police investigation into alleged criminal misconduct by ministers and civil servants that may have led to the deaths of benefit claimants. In brief Jodey Whiting suffered curvature of the spine and a brain cyst Family say she was unaware of appointment she was meant to have Inquiry found DWP should have visited her before axing benefits Grieving mother Joy wants to prosecute department over her death Joy Dove’s voice shakes when she recalls her daughter’s reaction after she was sent a letter by the Department for […] - [Government broken promises on rough sleeping cutting fund by up to £80m](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-broken-promises-on-rough-sleeping-cutting-fund-by-up-to-80m/): Labour accuses Theresa May of ‘backtracking’ on ‘badly needed’ money to tackle homelessness The government has been accused of slashing homelessness funding by up to £80m after scaling back proposed taxes on foreign property investors. Broken promises Theresa May last year announced plans to charge overseas buyers of UK homes up to 3 per cent more stamp duty in a bid to stop them driving up British property prices. The prime minister said in September the surcharge could raise up to £120m, to be spent on tackling rough sleeping. Last year the Tory unveiled plans following concerns that foreign buyers have been taking […] - [40 people under investigation in Rotherham child sexual exploitation probe](https://heartlandstribune.com/40-people-under-investigation-in-rotherham-child-sexual-exploitation-probe/): Detectives investigating child sexual exploitation in Rotherham have arrested or interviewed 40 people over the past two months. The 38 men and two women were questioned following allegations made by 13 victims about sexual abuse against them between 1997 and 2015, the National Crime Agency said. The arrests are part of the ongoing Operation Stovewood investigation. An NCA spokeswoman said the people arrested are aged between 29 and 53 and are from Sheffield, Rotherham, Leeds, Dewsbury, and Maidstone in Kent. All have been bailed or released under investigation pending further inquiries. The spokeswoman said the victims were aged between 11 and […] - [UK confirms participation in EU elections in May](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-confirms-participation-in-eu-elections-in-may/): For the first time, the UK acknowledged it will take part in the upcoming EU elections, as there was not enough time for the government to get its Brexit deal approved. PM Theresa May said she deeply regretted the move. Despite talks with the Labour Party to try to find an alliance to get the Brexit withdrawal agreement through Parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s deputy David Lidington conceded on Tuesday there was not enough time left to get the deal through the assembly. “It is regrettably not going to be possible to finish that process” before May 23, Lidington said […] - [One million species to go extinct 'within decades'](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-million-species-to-go-extinct-within-decades/): Relentless global pursuit of economic growth is driving the collapse of life on Earth, landmark UN study says. One in eight of all Earth’s plants, insects and animals are at risk of extinction, many within decades, because of human activity, a huge coalition of the world’s leading scientists announced. An “unprecedented” one million species will die out because of the relentless pursuit of economic growth, coupled with climate change, said a report published on Monday by the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). “This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to […] - [Leaders Are Failing Human Rights. I Know Because I Was in Charge of It.](https://heartlandstribune.com/leaders-are-failing-human-rights-i-know-because-i-was-in-charge-of-it/): I spent four years defending human rights at the U.N. — and they’ve never been more at risk. [fusion_code]PGNlbnRlcj48aWZyYW1lIHRpdGxlPSJOZXcgWW9yayBUaW1lcyBWaWRlbyAtIEVtYmVkIFBsYXllciIgd2lkdGg9IjQ4MCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMjEiIGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyPSIwIiBzY3JvbGxpbmc9Im5vIiBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW49InRydWUiIG1hcmdpbmhlaWdodD0iMCIgbWFyZ2lud2lkdGg9IjAiIGlkPSJueXRfdmlkZW9fcGxheWVyIiBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm55dGltZXMuY29tL3ZpZGVvL3BsYXllcnMvb2Zmc2l0ZS9pbmRleC5odG1sP3ZpZGVvSWQ9MTAwMDAwMDA2MzA2MTQzIj48L2lmcmFtZT48L2NlbnRlcj4=[/fusion_code] In the video Op-Ed above, a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, argues that world leaders are weak, shortsighted and mediocre, and no longer willing or able to defend human rights. Abuses used to be called out and stopped, and human rights offenders had something to fear. Today, they are met with silence instead. –Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein speech warning of the Far right populist take over of the EU  [fusion_youtube id=”2FgipIiN4nQ” alignment=”center” width=”” […] - [ECJ: multinationals before citizens](https://heartlandstribune.com/ecj-backing-of-investment-courts-places-multinationals-above-citizens/): ECJ backing of ‘investment courts’ places multinationals above citizens The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has concluded that including a so-called Investment Court System in the EU-Canada free-trade agreement is “compatible with EU law” – a ruling that ignores the gross injustices corporate tribunals inflict on EU citizens and the environment. In an opinion released earlier this week, the European Court of Justice ruled that the controversial Investment Court System (ICS) introduced in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada was “in principle, compatible with EU law”, noting that “since those tribunals stand outside the EU […] - [Why has the European Commission not investigated Lux Leaks tax deals?](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-has-the-european-commission-not-investigated-lux-leaks-tax-deals/): The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is a global network of more than 220 investigative journalists in 80 countries who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories. The  ICIJ gave us the Panama Papers, was a collaboration of more than 100 media partners they are now asking what as happened to the other tax scandal the LUX Leaks? Almost five years ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published its Lux Leaks investigation, exposing how some of the world’s largest corporations cycled billions of dollars through Luxembourg so as to avoid paying huge amounts of tax — taxes that otherwise could have ended up in the […] - [Jeremy Corbyn is calling on MPs to accept their “historic duty” and declare a national climate emergency](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-calling-on-mps-to-accept-their-historic-duty-and-declare-a-national-climate-emergency/): What is a ‘climate emergency’ – and what are MPs voting on today? MPs are set to debate a Labour motion for Parliament to declare an emergency and pledge to act “with commensurate urgency” to tackle rising temperatures and wildlife loss. It also calls on the government to set a new target to reach net zero emissions before 2050, boost renewable energy, low carbon technology and green jobs, and bring in urgent measures to restore nature and cut waste. ‘It is a great first step because it sends a clear signal that we are in a crisis and that the ongoing climate and […] - [Tony Benn: I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-i-cannot-hand-away-powers-lent-to-me-for-five-years-by-the-people-of-chesterfield/): Tony Benn: on Democracy and the EU Tony Benn recognised that the Maastricht Treaty was a capitulation by the British government to an unelected EU commission speaking as the elected member of Parliament and representative of Chesterfield he stated: I have five questions that I ask people who have power, and I recommend them to the House. If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions: That last question is crucial. We cannot get rid of Jacques Delors; we cannot get rid of the [European] […] - [Labour Second referendum remains just an option on the table.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-second-referendum-remains-just-an-option-on-the-table/): It was a clear victory for Corbyn and the Labour Party Brexit plan Jeremy Corbyn’s victory at a meeting of Labour’s NEC (National Executive Committee) has been confirmed. Corbyn’s position on Brexit for the party’s European Parliament manifesto won easily, in spite of the unavoidable absence of a number of left NEC members. The result is a humiliating defeat for deputy leader Tom Watson, who had tried to orchestrate pressure on the Labour Party to support a second referendum in all circumstances. But a row erupted when Jeremy Corbyn’s aides did not hand out hard copies of the manifesto. Tom Watson left this […] - [Tom Watson follow the money](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-follow-the-money/): Watson is accepting donations of thousands of pounds from a businessman who also finances opponents of the Labour leadership Tom Watson criticised for taking money from Change UK funder Sir David Garrard He accepted £10,000 from retired property developer Sir David Garrard on April 12. Mr Watson said the donation was to “support my office as deputy leader of the Labour Party.” However, Mr Garrard also dished out £10,000 to Joan Ryan on March 21 — a month after she abandoned Labour to help form The Independent Group (TIG), now known as Change UK. Ms Ryan — who cited “demonisation and delegitimisation” […] - [EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK REVEALS IT MADE HUGE PROFITS FROM THE EUROZONE CRISIS](https://heartlandstribune.com/european-central-bank-reveals-it-made-huge-profits-from-the-eurozone-crisis/): The European Central Bank just revealed it made 61 billion euros of profits out of its intervention in crisis hit countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Since last year, Positive Money Europe has been very active in raising awareness of the fact that the European Central Bank made on the back of the Greek crisis. According to our research, based on fragmented information disseminated across various report from the ECB, the IMF and other public agencies, we estimated the ECB had made 18 billions euros of profits. New data revealed by the ECB few weeks ago not only confirm […] - [Why some on the Left are calling for a 'People's Boycott' of the EU elections](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-some-on-the-left-are-calling-for-a-peoples-boycott-of-the-eu-elections/): For the first time in its 99 year history, the Communist Party (CP) has called on members and supporters to campaign for a boycott of an election in Britain, in this case, the EU election on 23 May. Labour Heartlands will be conducting a number of articles expressing the Left position on the EU elections the first of these takes a look at the CPB position who are running a  Boycott on the EU elections. Writing exclusively for Labour Heartlands Phil Katz, Eastern district secretary explains the CPB position and why the Boycott. The CP political committee (PC), reviewing the message […] - [Change UK: Same Old Hypocrisy](https://heartlandstribune.com/change-uk-same-old-hypocrisy/): Change UK: Second candidate resigns in 24 hours, after ‘crazy black wh***’ remarks emerge Joseph Russo, who was revealed by the pro-European party as the lead candidate in Scotland, will no longer stand. A Twitter post from his account said: “Black women scare me. I put this down to be chased through Amsterdam by a crazy black wh***”. A number of offensive tweets between 2010 and 2013 were unearthed on his account. In 2012, a post referred to the arrest of former pop start Gary Glitter for historic child sex offences, saying it “smacked of the police targeting low hanging fruit”. Glitter was found guilt […] - [Tories 'shocking' tweet claiming poor parents can feed kids on £10 a week](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-shocking-tweet-claiming-poor-parents-can-feed-kids-on-10-a-week/): The magic delete button did not stop the screenshot that is still being circulated The tweet – which has now been removed – continues to be the source of much fury on the social media platform Conservative party Twitter account has caused outrage after publishing a message saying parents who cannot feed their children on £10 a week “don’t know how to feed their children well”. The now-deleted tweet sent by the Bath Conservative party also called parents unable to make do on such a budget “dysfunctional”. The tweet also refers to Jack Monroe, a British food writer and hunger relief campaigner, […] - [The Extinction Rebellion: A Farting Cow, the Destroyer of Worlds](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-extinction-rebellion-a-farting-cow-the-destroyer-of-worlds/): The Extinction Rebellion protesters are doing a great job with disruption. Now the establishment needs to offer solutions. I take my hat off to the protesters; they are highlighting this most important issue we face today, ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’, the environment, the planet and the place we all live. But to sell the idea of change, we need to feed the capitalist machine with the alternatives. The only alternatives they will listen to are the ones that will still feed their never-ending, unquenchable greed. Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane, or even […] - [Global press freedom under threat, says Reporters Without Borders](https://heartlandstribune.com/global-press-freedom-under-threat-says-reporters-without-borders/): Across Europe and much of the world, journalists are facing increased hostility, but progress in Africa is a sign for hope. That’s according to the latest World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. For the first time in three years, North Korea evaded the wooden spoon: The country is no longer ranked last in Reporters Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index published Thursday. Instead, it is Turkmenistan that has captured the bottom spot in 2019. Once again, Norway tops the global ranking, followed by Finland and Sweden. The UK has risen in the world press freedom rankings, but […] - [Brexit identities: how Leave versus Remain replaced Conservative versus Labour with a growing divide](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-identities-how-leave-versus-remain-replaced-conservative-versus-labour-with-a-growing-divide/): The Brexit culture war in numbers Brexit’s impact on the UK electorate is bad news for the two main parties. The Brexit culture war is gathering pace — and it is bad news for both the main parties. According to a new tracker poll of battleground constituencies for Britain’s protracted exit from the European Union is continuing to polarise the electorate, making it harder for Labour and the Conservatives to reach the voters they need to take power at the next election. With the two main parties all-but tied on around 40 percent of the vote in recent polls, both are […] - [EU-US trade talks move forward: Trump brings a basket of tasty chicken](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-us-trade-talks-move-forward-trump-brings-a-basket-of-tasty-chicken/): Brussels cleared the hurdle Thursday for launching trade talks with the United States No waiting for Brexit for your CHLORINE CHICKEN It’s been two years since the suspension of the highly controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), EU member states and the European Commission are squaring up for round two in new trade negotiations with the US. To start on Monday Almost a year after EU leaders first offered a limited trade agreement to U.S. President Donald Trump, the bloc’s ambassadors reached an “agreement in principle” on negotiating directives that authorize the European Commission to start talks. EU ministers are […] - [We've lost faith in the political system](https://heartlandstribune.com/weve-lost-faith-in-the-political-system/): 75% of people say the main political parties are so divided within themselves that they cannot serve the best interests of the country.  The audit by the Hansard Society also found that faith in the UK political system has dropped to a 15-year low amid a Brexit-induced political crisis. There is an intensifying feeling of public “powerlessness and disengagement” towards Britain’s system of governance, according to the report, for which 1,198 adults were interviewed in the last two months of 2018. More than half of the British voters questioned in a new survey want “a strong leader willing to break the […] - [Labour could be ‘finished’ if it backs second EU referendum, party chairman warns](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-could-be-finished-if-it-backs-second-eu-referendum-party-chairman-warns/): Labour chairman Ian Lavery warned that the party could be “finished” if it backs a second referendum. Mr Lavery reportedly told leader Jeremy Corbyn that Labour’s future was bleak if it failed to deliver on the result of the 2016 vote during a shadow cabinet meeting. After the government bottled the original Leave date of March 29 Britain is currently due to leave, with no withdrawal agreement, on October 31. Mr Lavery’s intervention came after MPs wrote to the leader calling for and against a second referendum. Labour Party MPs representing the Labour Heartlands have urged leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to go […] - [Brexit: Talks between Corbyn and May break down](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-talks-between-corbyn-and-may-break-down/): BREXIT talks between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn broke down after Labour accused the Tories of failing to offer any “real change or compromise”. According to a spokesman for the Opposition, the Prime Minister, who infuriated her party when she asked for negotiations with Labour, was unwilling to actually negotiate with Labour. Corbyn’s spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the government has not offered real change or compromise. “We urge the Prime Minister to come forward with genuine changes to her deal in an effort to find an alternative that can win support in Parliament and bring the country together.” “We are disappointed that the government has not offered real change […] - [EU Parliament approve ‘no-deal Brexit’ visa waiver for UK citizens](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-parliament-approve-no-deal-brexit-visa-waiver-for-uk-citizens/): The European Parliament on Thursday approved a law allowing Britons visa-free travel to the bloc even in the event of a “no deal” Brexit, despite outrage in some quarters over the status of Gibraltar. Britain is due to leave the European Union, perhaps as early as next week, but the law will allow British visitors 90-day trips to the Schengen passport-free zone. Implementation will depend on Britain according EU citizens reciprocal rights, but it has said it will do so and the principle of the law has broad support. The bill passed by EU lawmakers triggered a bitter row in Brussels, […] - [Labour MPs Call for Jeremy Corbyn to Deliver on Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mps-call-for-jeremy-corbyn-to-deliver-on-brexit/): Labour Party MPs have urged leader Jeremy Corbyn to go the “extra step” if there is a chance of agreeing to a Brexit deal in talks with Prime Minister Theresa May. Theresa May, deal to leave the European Union has been rejected in parliament three times, has turned to Corbyn in a last-ditch bid to get the support of his Labour Party for an agreement she signed with the bloc’s leaders in November. Corbyn has welcomed the talks, but the invitation poses a threat for his divided Labour Party – some members and MPs are demanding a second referendum on any […] - [Corbyn and the Labour Party being setup to play Patsy](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-and-the-labour-party-being-setup-to-play-patsy/): On the eleventh hour now it seems like we are entering a form of cross-Party talks that will lead to a consensus on how we leave the EU. In a statement from Downing Street, Mrs May said she wanted to agree a plan with Mr Corbyn and put it to a vote in the Commons before 10 April – when the EU will hold an emergency summit on Brexit. If they do not agree a single way forward, she proposed putting a number of options to MPs “to determine which course to pursue”.The PM said: “This is a difficult time for […] - [Back to the Future with Common Market 2.0](https://heartlandstribune.com/back-to-the-future-with-common-market-2-0/): The Labour Party will order its MPs to support the so-called Common Market 2.0 plan during tonight’s indicative votes, a sources say. What is Common Market 2.0: The plan would pave the way for a much softer Brexit than that preferred by many in Theresa May’s Conservative Party, as it retains strong economic ties to the EU. It also has a strong nod to history. The UK joined what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 – and voted to remain a member in a 1975 referendum. The leader of the Conservative party, Margaret Thatcher, then in opposition, was an […] - [Tory Lib Dem Austerity still hitting hard and it's no April fools](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-lib-dem-austerity-still-hitting-hard-and-its-no-april-fools/): Households to face inflation-busting price hikes from April 1 Consumers are to be hit by a raft of inflation-busting price hikes on April 1 as increases in the cost of household utilities and essentials such as stamps take effect. Some 11 million households on poor value standard variable energy tariffs are facing a collective £1.3 billion bill increase after 23 suppliers raised their prices to meet Ofgem’s latest price cap. Up to 3.6 million households with prepayment gas and electricity meters will also see the cap on their energy tariffs increased by the regulator by an average £106 per year. These […] - [The battle is won. The war rages on.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-battle-is-won-the-war-rages-on/): Derby North MP Chris Williamson has won his High Court case the Labour Party acted unlawfully in re-suspending him. Chris Williamson was suspended in February after The Yorkshire Post published a video of him addressing the ongoing concerns of the Labour Party and its handling of anti-Semitism allegations. He was readmitted to the party and issued with a formal warning following a hearing of a National Executive Committee (NEC) anti-Semitism panel in June After the NEC ruling to readmit Chris Williamson Tom Watson lead a petition to have Chris Williamson readmission overturned. The decision and ruling by a three-person disciplinary panel […] - [Brexit deal can be done by October 31, Ireland says after 'positive' Johnson meeting](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-deal-can-be-done-by-october-31-ireland-says-after-positive-johnson-meeting/): A Brexit deal could be clinched by the end of October to allow the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in an orderly fashion, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said after what he called a very positive meeting with Boris Johnson. After Brexit descended into a public row between London and Brussels earlier this week, Johnson, the British prime minister, met Varadkar at Thornton Manor in Cheshire on Thursday in a last ditch bid to avert an acrimonious divorce or another delay. The outcome seemed to be a total reversal of the bad feelings and negative build up seen earlier […] - [Misspent and missing: The Billions from European Union funds](https://heartlandstribune.com/misspent-and-missing-the-billions-from-european-union-funds/): More than €4 billion of European Union money has been misspent, squandered or cannot be accounted for, according to the EU’s court of auditors. More than 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) of European Union funds were misspent last year, EU auditors estimated in a report released on Tuesday, which highlighted poor checks in receiving states on how the bloc’s funds are invested. This can be added to the 9 billion lost to fraud over recent years. The annual assessment is likely to fan the heated debate about the bloc’s next seven-year budget which Germany, the largest contributor to it, wants to […] - [The US: Latest betrayal of the Kurds as Turkey launches military offensive in Syria](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-us-latest-betrayal-of-the-kurds-as-turkey-launches-military-offensive-in-syria/): Turkey launches military offensive in Syria, days after Trump announced pullback of US troops US President Donald Trump is being roundly condemned by bi-partisan voices in Washington and around the world for “selling out” the Kurds in Syria. Turkey began a planned military offensive into northeastern Syria on Wednesday, launching airstrikes and artillery fire across the border just days after the Trump administration announced it was pulling US troops back from the area. The operation is aimed at pushing Kurdish forces — who were a key ally of the US in the fight against ISIS — away from Turkey’s border. Turkey’s […] - [Parliament Has Been Prorogued As No-Deal Brexit imminent](https://heartlandstribune.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-as-no-deal-brexit-imminent/): Parliament has been prorogued for six days as the UK faced the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Johnson last month secured an order from the queen to suspend parliament for a month until October 14. He was accused of using the procedural device of ‘prorogation’ for political purposes to curtail MPs’ ability to scrutinise the government’s Brexit plans. But the Supreme Court ruled the September 10 to October 14 prorogation unlawful, meaning the session had not technically ended at all. Instead, MPs returned to the House of Commons on September 25 to resume parliamentary business. Parliament has now prorogued (been suspended) […] - [EU leaders fail to commit to climate neutrality by 2050](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-leaders-fail-to-commit-to-climate-neutrality-by-2050/): Despite there been more Green MEP’s in the European parliament than at any time the EU roll back on its promise climate neutral by 2050 Three central and eastern European countries blocked a new EU climate change target, undermining global action to cut carbon emissions. EU leaders had hoped to commit all the union’s member states to going carbon neutral by 2050 at a summit in Brussels, but in the end only 25 out of 28 countries were on-board. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic all refused to support writing the target into the EU’s strategic programme for 2019-24. A planned […] - [Socialist Antonio Costa wins Portugal election](https://heartlandstribune.com/socialist-antonio-costa-wins-portugal-election/): Portugal’s socialist prime minister António Costa declared victory in national elections early Monday, saying he would continue to govern in a coalition nicknamed the ‘Geringonça’ or ‘contraption’. The Socialist Party (PS) gained support but failed to secure enough seats for an outright majority. It means the Socialist Party must negotiate a new deal with one or both of his far-left allies in the previous legislature, although he said he would also talk to the new People-Animals-Nature party (PAN) party. “The Portuguese liked our arrangement,” Costa told cheering crowds of supporters. “We will see if it’s possible.” His main challenger, Social Democrats […] - [Swinson Analytica: The Lib Dems are using data to profile every voter in UK – and give you a score](https://heartlandstribune.com/swinson-analytica-the-lib-dems-are-using-data-to-profile-every-voter-in-uk-and-give-you-a-score/): The Liberal Democrats are profiling every voter in the country by rating their political preferences. Sky News can revealed how the LibDems seem be copying practices used Cambridge Analytica. The percentage ratings – there are at least 42 in total, although the identity of only 37 are known – estimate whether someone voted Leave or Remain in the 2016 EU referendum and predict how they would vote if there was a second poll in 2019. Other scored characteristics include “Likelihood of being a Labour voter in 2019”, “Likelihood of being a core Lib Dem” and “Net difference in likelihood of voting […] - [Why the Left Should Embrace Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-the-left-should-embrace-brexit/): Remainers claim that Brexit will be an economic apocalypse. But it provides the opportunity for a radical break with neoliberalism. Nothing better reflects the muddled thinking of the mainstream European left than its stance on Brexit. Each week seems to produce a new chapter for the Brexit scare story: withdrawing from the EU will be an economic disaster for the UK; tens of thousands of jobs will be lost; human rights will be eviscerated; the principles of fair trials, free speech, and decent labor standards will all be compromised. In short, Brexit will transform Britain into a dystopia, a failed state […] - [What part did the EU play in raising women's pensionable age?](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-part-did-the-eu-play-in-raising-womens-pensionable-age/):   Women born in 1950’s or later now have to wait longer to claim their pensions in order to bring them into line with men. Annick Masselot, Roberta Guerrina and Bridgette McLellan explain how the UK implemented an EU directive requiring the sexes to be treated equally for social security purposes. They argue that although, on average, women are worse-off in old age and many regard the change as retrograde, the principle of gender equality stands. This is a fairly complex issue that requires a detailed understanding of European and Member States’ competencies on issues of social insurance and welfare. So what is at stake […] - [Knife attack at Paris police headquarters, 4 dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/knife-attack-at-paris-police-headquarters-4-dead/): A knife attack on the Paris police headquarters on Thursday left at least four people dead and at least one police officer injured, according police union sources. French outlets reported the attack was an administrative officer at the Directorate of Intelligence of the Prefecture of Police. The attacker: The attacker, who was an administrative officer employed by police, was shot dead. There is not yet any indication of motive. Television pictures showed multiple emergency service vehicles at the location near Notre Dame Cathedral. The area was sealed off and the local metro station, Cite, closed. The incident occured at the Ile de la Cite, the major island in […] - [Boris Johnson publishes new Brexit plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-publishes-new-brexit-plan/): Boris Johnson has proposed creating two new borders around Northern Ireland in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock with Brussels Johnson wrote to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, insisting the entire U.K. should leave the EU customs union on the current Brexit deadline of October 31. That would mean a customs border between Northern Ireland and Ireland which Johnson said could be managed through electronic checks away from the border and physical checks at the premises of traders, as well as at other sites that could be located anywhere in Northern Ireland or Ireland. But he said Northern Ireland should […] - [The Case for Mandatory Reselection: All Labour MPs should be 'Triggered'.](https://heartlandstribune.com/all-labour-mps-should-be-triggered/): The Case for Mandatory Reselection: Strengthening Democracy and Accountability in the Labour Party In the realm of politics, where the will of the people should reign supreme, it is imperative that elected representatives not only embody the desires and aspirations of their constituents but also remain accountable to them. Sadly, recent events within the Labour Party have demonstrated a disconnect between MPs and their members, leading to unnecessary divisions and eroding the Party’s reputation. The phenomenon of MPs crossing the floor or defecting to other parties has become all too familiar, leaving their constituents feeling neglected and betrayed. Take, for example, […] - [The Benn Act is not a ‘surrender Act,’ it is the conformation of our past parliamentary capitulation.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-benn-act-is-not-a-surrender-act-it-is-the-conformation-of-our-past-parliamentary-capitulation/): There is much ado about Boris Johnson and others referring to the Benn Act as a Surrender Act. We must recognise that this Act is not the surrender Act. Boris Johnson is way off the mark. The question we should be asking is that by design or fault? After all, it would not fit his new role as Tory prime minister defender of the people if the people realised that the surrender Act as been a series of surrenders by Tory prime ministers and Tory governments. No, the Benn Act is not a surrender act! The Benn Act is much worst […] - [Labour confirm they'll scrap Universal Credit with £3bn rescue plan for the poor](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-confirm-theyll-scrap-universal-credit-with-3bn-rescue-plan-for-the-poor/): Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed the DWP benefit will be ditched under Labour – starting with £3billion in emergency reforms to scrap the benefit cap, two-child limit, benefit sanctions and five-week wait Jeremy Corbyn MP, Labour Party Leader, will today announce that Labour (Saturday) will scrap Universal Credit, calling the flagship Tory welfare reform “inhumane” and an “unmitigated disaster”. Speaking at a rally in Chingford and Woodford Green, the seat currently held by Iain Duncan Smith MP – the architect of Universal Credit – the Labour Leader will set out Labour’s plans to replace Universal Credit with a social security system that […] - [An insurgent Labour cannot keep putting off an election](https://heartlandstribune.com/an-insurgent-labour-cannot-keep-putting-off-an-election/): LABOUR should not be receiving taunts from government frontbenchers that the party is “too cowardly” to vote for a general election. It certainly should not be facing such mockery on the very day it winds up a conference that showcased the party’s huge size, ambitious programme for power and the passion and dedication of its activists. Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right that Labour cannot merely be the party of either the 52 per cent who voted Leave in 2016 or the 48 per cent who voted Remain. A government cannot deliver radical change without being supported across that divide. Labour’s programme […] - [New Commission: Shadows of corruption and conflicts of interest](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-commission-shadows-of-corruption-and-conflicts-of-interest/): The EU commission a web of corruption Some of the candidates put forward to become the new European Commissioners are of concern due to potential conflicts of interest – from share ownership in fossil fuels and finance to overly close relationships with business – and corruption probes, while MEPs complain of a lack of a robust transparency process to properly scrutinise the interests of the Commissioners-designate. UPDATE: Today Sidenote MEPs in the legal affairs committee agreed to block Commissioners-designate Laszlo Trocsanyi, from Hungary, and Rovana Plumb, from Romania, from passing on to the hearings stage. MEPs agreed with our assessment of […] - [Greed of the Thomas Cook fat Cats](https://heartlandstribune.com/greed-of-the-thomas-cook-fat-cats/): High-flying bosses creamed off £47 MILLION in pay and perks in the years before travel firm collapsed – leaving 156,000 stranded From the Costas to Cuba: Thomas Cook passengers bed down in airports while the lucky few board planes home as Government’s £100m Operation Matterhorn to rescue 156,000 stranded holidaymakers begins There are more than 1,000 repatriation flights planned, which will cost at least £100 million to fund. The rescue effort started on Monday, when around 15,000 holidaymakers were flown home on an estimated 61 flights, after the travel company went bust. The other 150,000-plus tourists will be brought home over […] - [Labour to stay neutral on second referendum as Corbyn wins conference vote](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-to-stay-neutral-on-second-referendum-as-corbyn-wins-conference-vote/): Delegates voted on the three Brexit motions – one saying Labour should campaign for Remain in another referendum, one neutral motion, and one saying there should be a special one-day conference to decide its position after an election. Jeremy Corbyn’s policy on Brexit has triumphed at Labour conference, as members endorsed his stance to stay neutral while negotiating a new deal. The party voted against a motion which would have seen Labour backing Remain in any future referendum. But there was confusion as the votes were called, as the chair of the proceedings faced calls for a recount. Labour’s position on […] - [Building a new Britain outside the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/building-a-new-britain-outside-the-eu/): We need to ensure that Labour understands the socialist arguments against the EU if it is to negotiate any new deal credibly, argues LAURA SMITH MP When all the dust has settled, most expect Labour’s Brexit policy will end up as a commitment to negotiate an alternative deal with the EU and to then put that deal to the public in a “confirmatory vote” with Remain on the ballot paper. This is an extraordinary shift. Only two years ago, we mobilised to fight a general election, promising to respect the referendum without even committing to a transition period, let alone membership […] - [Tom Watson saved by Jeremy Corbyn: Move to abolish deputy post ditched.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-saved-by-jeremy-corbyn-move-to-abolish-deputy-post-ditched/): Jeremy Corbyn has quashed a motion at his party conference to oust Labour deputy, Tom Watson, by abolishing the position. Late Friday night Jon Lansman, founder of the pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum, tabled a last-minute motion at the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) on Friday night, calling for Watson’s job to be scrapped. “We just can’t afford to go into an election with a deputy leader set on wrecking Labour’s chances.” A Momentum source said: “No one person is more important than beating Boris Johnson, ending austerity and tackling the climate emergency. “Labour members overwhelmingly want a deputy leadership election, […] - [Tom Watson: There's the door, don't wait to be pushed.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-theres-the-door-dont-wait-to-be-pushed/): A motion to remove Tom Watson as Deputy leader was launched with a bid to abolish the post of deputy leader. Jon Lansman, founder of the pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum, tabled a last-minute motion at the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) on Friday night, calling for Watson’s job to be scrapped. “We just can’t afford to go into an election with a deputy leader set on wrecking Labour’s chances.” “We just can’t afford to go into an election with a deputy leader set on wrecking Labour’s chances.” A Momentum source said: “No one person is more important than beating Boris […] - [Climate strikes sweep the globe](https://heartlandstribune.com/climate-strikes-sweep-the-globe/): Millions of people took to the streets in cities around the world on Friday to call for action against climate change, in what has been dubbed the largest climate protest ever. The demonstrations — scheduled to continue for a week — were planned in over 150 countries. Protesters marched on low-lying Pacific islands under threat from rising seas, and in cities from Warsaw to Melbourne, from Nairobi to London and hundreds of other places; #GlobalClimateStrike, #FridaysForFuture, #ClimateChange were top trending topics on Twitter. The marches come ahead of Monday’s U.N. climate summit in New York, where Secretary-General António Guterres will cajole national leaders to boost their emissions reductions promises for 2030 and […] - [Eddie Dempsey: A reply to Owen Jones — Keep it comradely.](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-reply-to-owen-jones-keep-it-comradely/): Eddie Dempsey: In the past week, Owen Jones surprised me by making me the subject of a blog post in which he attempted to sketch a caricature of me as a peddler of nativist fantasies about a supposed ‘white working class’. This comes off the back of a series of slurs against me orchestrated by Clive Lewis, who compared me to the fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley (the irony may have been lost on Clive, given Mosley’s well-known support of European unity against ‘dark Africa’), and Novara commentator Ash Sarkar, who withdrew from speaking at a Peoples’ Assembly rally — citing […] - [Lib Dems: Filthy Liars Exposed](https://heartlandstribune.com/lib-dems-filthy-liars-exposed/): Koser Saeed joined the campaign to end female genital mutilation here is how it unfolded  1. 6th Jan 2015, I signed a Change.org petition supporting a campaign to end female genital mutilation (FGM) and got a thank you note from Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone 2. 8th Jan 2018, I get an email from Nick Clegg making the case for why people should support the Lib Dems and explaining why their campaign to end FGM is so important. 3. 29th Jan 2015, another email from Lynne Featherstone talking about how important it is that we should be doing everything we can to end […] - [Racism row overshadows Liberal Democrats conference](https://heartlandstribune.com/racism-row-overshadows-liberal-democrats-conference/): If you are going to stand for election a clear message and a winning cause will always curry favour. But insulting your voters is not a winning strategy. The Liberal Democrat conference was overshadowed by a racism row after one of its candidates claimed people in North Devon voted to leave because it didn’t have a “lot of ethnic minorities”. Kirsten Johnson, the Lib Dem candidate for North Devon, told BBC Radio 4: “Demographically its 98 per cent white, people aren’t exposed to people from other countries, they don’t travel a lot and I think there is a slight disconnect that […] - [The EU Gravy Train keeps chugging along: EU President-elect and Commission nominees face questions over corruption and scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-gravy-train-keeps-chugging-along-eu-president-elect-and-commission-nominees-face-questions-over-corruption-and-scandal/): Several nominees including the president-elect herself will soon face questioning from authorities President-elect Von der Leyen and some of her nominees are likely to be grilled in the coming weeks and months by investigators and parliamentary committees as part of ongoing inquiries in Brussels or in their home countries that in some cases threaten to derail their candidacies. Opposition parties in the German Bundestag have agreed to launch a parliamentary investigation into former Defense Minister and now EU President-elect Ursula von der Leyen’s role in a spending scandal involving her ministry’s allocation of lucrative contracts. Lawmakers from the Greens, Left Party […] - [Len McCluskey: Boris Johnson less Churchill, more ‘Wreck-it Ralph’](https://heartlandstribune.com/len-mccluskey-boris-johnson-less-churchill-more-wreck-it-ralph/): Len McCluskey, the leader of Britain and Ireland’s largest union, Unite placed Johnson firmly in place stating Johnson was less like Churchill, more ‘Wreck- it Ralph’ in a call to arms ahead of an expected general election. McCluskey called on the trade union movement to lead the political, industrial and community resistance to Boris Johnson’s hard-right government, saying that only Labour will build an economic alternative that will bring security and equality to our communities. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said:  “Colleagues, Jeremy Corbyn’s commitments last week to a real industrial strategy and serious economic plan were music to my ears. […] - [Leaked German military documents detail plans in case of EU collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/leaked-german-military-documents-detail-plans-in-case-of-eu-collapse/): A leaked German defence document has revealed the country’s long-term concerns over the stability of the European Union and depicts a possible future of surging extremism and terrorist activity. The Bundeswehr (German military) document, published by Der Spiegel newspaper, outlines six plausible scenarios the German state may have to deal with by 2040. The 120-page paper, titled Strategic Perspective 2040, predicts outcomes including the collapse of the EU, the disintegration of “the West”, divisions in Europe where some countries become increasingly allied to Russia, an increase in US isolationism, and China increasingly engaged in a cultural standoff with the Western world. For the first […] - [No-deal Brexit: Operation Yellowhammer](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-deal-brexit-operation-yellowhammer/): The U.K. will face a reduction in the availability and choice of food, pushing up prices in a Brexit “worst-case” scenario, according to a U.K. government document published Wednesday. The government released a five-page “Operation Yellowhammer” summary, after MPs voted to force its release on Monday using an ancient parliamentary device known as a Humble Address. The government sought to resist the publication of the Operation Yellowhammer document, but lost a vote on the issue in the Commons on Monday, prior to the suspension of Parliament, so it was compelled it to do so. The Operation Yellowhammer document said: “The UK reverts […] - [The impenetrable mysteries at the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit stance](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-impenetrable-mysteries-at-the-heart-of-jeremy-corbyns-brexit-stance/): As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit, “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he seems unable, under the pressure of varying advice from different quarters, to decide on the stance he should take on Brexit. This is surprising, given that all the evidence suggests that he is a eurosceptic from a long way back. My own impression of him in the days when we were […] - [Laura Pidcock: Ministry of Employment Rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/laura-pidcock-ministry-of-employment-rights/): Laura Pidcock speech to TUC Congress Laura laid Labour’s transformative plans for a Ministry of Employment Rights at TUC Congress. On social media laura said: ” It was great to be amongst the movement and so many friends. I’m truly excited about these plans and how our legislative changes will shift the balance of power in workplaces and in turn, change the lives of workers across the UK. Bring it on.‬” LAURA PIDCOCK INTERVIEW SKY NEWS   Laura Pidcock MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, speaking at TUC Congress full speech: Thank you very much to everyone […] - [TOM WATSON: Facing Trigger Ballot Deselection Meeting](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-facing-trigger-ballot-deselection-meeting/): Tom Watson is facing a vote on Tuesday evening to decide whether he should be ‘Triggered‘ If Triggered he will face a full selection contest against other prospective candidates for the seat. First reported by squawkbox an email has gone to members of Friar Park branch informing them of the meeting this Tuesday at the Millennium Centre, Friar Park Road, WS10 0JS starting at 7pm The agenda for the meeting will be: AGENDA Welcome by Chair and introduction of Executive Committee member to oversee proceedings Report from Door Steward on members present (Any eligible member arriving after this point will not […] - [Parliament Shutdown Begins Tonight](https://heartlandstribune.com/parliament-shutdown-begins-tonight/): Boris Johnson is accused of using the procedural device of ‘prorogation’ to curtail debate on Brexit. Parliament will be suspended at close of business on Monday, a Government spokesperson said. Johnson last month secured an order from the queen to suspend parliament for a month until October 14. He was accused of using the procedural device of ‘prorogation’ for political purposes to curtail MPs’ ability to scrutinise the government’s Brexit plans. The prime minister’s official spokesman confirmed at a daily briefing on Monday morning that the suspension, which under the queen’s order can begin between Monday and Thursday, would commence on […] - [France says no to further delay on Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-says-no-to-further-delay-on-brexit/): French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has rejected any further delay to Britain’s exit from the EU, currently scheduled for 31 October but clouded by political turmoil in London. “In the current circumstances, it’s no! We are not going to go through this every three months,” Le Drian said Sunday on French TV, Le Grand Rendez-vous Europe1/CNEWS/Les Echos. “The [British] say that they want to put forward other solutions, alternative arrangements so that they can leave,” Mr Le Drian said, referring to the Irish backstop logjam. “But we have not seen them and so it is ‘no’ – let the British authorities tell us the […] - [Amber Rudd quits cabinet and Conservative party](https://heartlandstribune.com/amber-rudd-quits-cabinet-and-conservative-party/): Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has quit the Cabinet and Conservative Party saying she cannot “stand by” while “loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled”. In her resignation letter, she said she no longer believed leaving the EU with a deal was the government’s “main objective”. She described the sacking of 21 Tory MPs on Tuesday as an “assault on decency and democracy”. Johnson removed the whip from two former chancellors and Winston Churchill’s grandson after they voted to give Opposition MPs control of the order paper and start the process of blocking a no-deal Brexit. Rudd says: “I have resigned from […] - [John Mann quits as Labour MP to become full time Tory anti-semitism tsar and attack dog](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-mann-quits-as-labour-mp-to-become-full-time-tory-anti-semitism-tsar-and-attack-dog/): John Mann quits as Labour MP just in time for a general election to become full time Tory Party anti-semitism tsar and attack dog His resignation falls just in time for a General election where he can use all the power and voice of his new Government role created and appointed for him by the Tory Party as government’s anti-semitism tsar. With only weeks before a likely General Election, he confirmed: “I’m not prepared to stand as an MP with Corbyn as leader.” This is a prelude of what we can expect from Mann and his biased opinion on both the […] - [Labour cannot be a party of Remain if it is serious about radical change](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-cannot-be-a-party-of-remain-if-it-is-serious-about-radical-change/): Brexit has energised the centrist political forces that want to remain in the EU, but they have little to show for their efforts. Michael Wilkinson (LSE) argues that Labour should avoid flirting with Remainism if it wants to be the party of radical change and defeat Boris Johnson. The divisions underlying Brexit are deep and complex, and cut across various social and ideological cleavages. They have revealed splits not only between but within the political parties which are meant to mediate differences and contribute to the production of a political will. They reflect regional and generational as much as traditional Left-Right divides. And […] - [Brexit: House of Lords approves bill to block no deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-house-of-lords-approves-bill-to-block-no-deal/): The House of Lords has approved a bill that aims to block the possibility of a no deal Brexit happening in October. The bill is expected to pass into law on Monday. The unelected upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, approved a bill on Friday which seeks to block the possibility of a no deal Brexit in October. The bill will force Boris Johnson to delay Brexit if no deal has been agreed with the EU by October 31. The legislation was approved without a formal vote in the House of Lords. The bill is expected to be signed […] - [Remain: Labours Road to Perdition](https://heartlandstribune.com/remain-labours-road-to-perdition/): This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. W.Shakespeare. Often as socialist, we are told we should not be patriotic that to be against the EU is to turn our backs on internationalism. To be a socialist leave supporter we are accused of nationalism, racism and xenophobia. I cannot help my patriotism, I served my country in its armed forces along with the hundreds of thousands of working-class boys, men and women before me. Patriotism is not a bad thing. Many would […] - [Johnson to trigger vote for election after Commons defeat](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-to-trigger-vote-for-election-after-commons-defeat/): An embarrassing defeat for the government could consequently see the UK pushed into a general election. MPs vote by 328 to 301 to take control of the Commons agenda tomorrow, paving the way for a bill designed to block Boris Johnson from taking the UK out of the EU without a #Brexit deal After MPs back a bid to take over the Commons agenda in order to pass legislation blocking a no-deal Brexit Boris Johnson says “I don’t want an election but if MPs vote tomorrow to stop negotiations… then that would be the only way to resolve this” Labour rebels […] - [TRUMP STYLE: Hilary Benn publish plan to prevent no-deal Brexit on Twitter](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-style-hilary-benn-publish-plan-to-prevent-no-deal-brexit-on-twitter/): Labour MP Hilary Benn tweeted a copy of the proposed legislation, which is supported by MPs from across the political spectrum, including former Tory ministers Alistair Burt, Philip Hammond and David Gauke. 1/8 The European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill 2019 pic.twitter.com/16cmhdRkOp — Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) September 2, 2019 A cross-party group of British MPs today published a draft bill which would force the prime minister to request a three-month extension to Brexit negotiations if a deal is not agreed between the EU and the U.K. by October’s European Council. MPs will apply to take control of the schedule of the House of […] - [Unite leader Len McCluskey says union will support Labour MPs who vote for a Brexit deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/unite-leader-len-mccluskey-says-union-will-support-labour-mps-who-vote-for-a-brexit-deal/): Len McCluskey has indicated that Unite will work to protect any Labour MPs who vote for a new Brexit deal if they face deselection by party members for doing so. Unite will support Labour MPs who vote for a new Brexit deal Leader Len McCluskey says union will back MPs – even on the right if the are faced with deselection The general secretary of the Unite trade union, and a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn, offered to defend MPs to the right of the current party’s socialist ideology. The remarks from the trade union boss will come ahead of a […] - [Eddie Dempsey calls for unity against Boris Johnson after 'no-platform' bid by Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar](https://heartlandstribune.com/eddie-dempsey-calls-for-unity-against-boris-johnson-after-no-platform-bid-by-owen-jones-and-ash-sarkar/): Media’s Ash Sarkar announced she has pulled out of speaking at an upcoming People’s Assembly demo, apparently because she couldn’t bear to share a platform with pro-Brexit trade unionist Eddie Dempsey. RMT activist Eddie Dempsey insisted that “bringing people together to call a general election” should be the left’s priority after two activist journalists pulled out of a rally because of his presence. Ash Sarkar and Owen Jones said they would no longer speak at Tuesday’s People’s Assembly rally calling for a general election after an attack on Twitter by Pete Radcliff, who was expelled from Labour in 2016 for supporting […] - [EU to Steal Johnson's Thunder](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-to-steal-johnsons-thunder/): EU to ‘withdraw’ current deadline for Brexit and remove no-deal option Gordon Brown has said the European Union will next week “withdraw” the current deadline for Brexit and remove any excuse for no-deal on October 31. According to an article in the Herald by Tom Gordon The former Labour Prime Minister said his belief was based on talks with EU leaders in recent days. In particular, he said he understood that France’s President Macron, the prime mover behind the October 31 deadline when it was agreed in April, no longer insisted upon it. He said President Macron had demanded a six-month […] - [Police Frogmarch out Canary who leaked Yellowhammer.](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-frogmarch-out-canary-who-leaked-yellowhammer/): Former Philip Hammond aide frogmarched out of Downing Street by police after she was accused of being the Canary that leaked the Brexit secrets from operation Yellowhammer. Sounds like a film and as all the makings to of being a scene in the sequel to the film Brexit: The Uncivil War. but no, this actually happened here in the 21st century UK. Coming less than 24 hours after Boris Johnson prorogued parliament an act that some top politicians are calling a coup an act that as brought together cross-party politicians to condemn in a way that not even Austerity that is […] - [Queen accepts request to suspend Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/queen-accepts-request-to-suspend-parliament/): Queen accepts request to suspend parliament as Johnson accused of staging ‘coup d’etat’ The government is set to suspend parliament from the second week of September for almost five-week end with a Queen’s Speech on 14 October. MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit are furious, reaction coming from several who are accusing Boris Johnson of acting like a “tin-pot dictator”. Jeremy Corbyn said it was “a threat to our democracy” and has written to the Queen requesting an urgent meeting. The European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt called the move “sinister”. Mr Johnson responded by claiming the suspension was necessary because […] - [Government asks Queen to suspend Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-asks-queen-to-suspend-parliament/): Boris Johnson announced he will suspend parliament for almost a month ahead of the October 31 Brexit date. In a letter to all Conservative MPs, he said he has asked the queen to end the current session during the second week of September, before reopening it on October 14. Johnson claimed a Queen’s Speech would take place after the suspension, on 14 October, to outline his “very exciting agenda”. But it means MPs are unlikely to have time to pass laws to stop a no-deal Brexit on 31 October. But the Boris Johnson said it was “completely untrue” to suggest the suspension was motivated […] - [Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition leaders agree plan to stop no-deal Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-and-other-opposition-leaders-agree-plan-to-stop-no-deal-brexit/): A vote of no confidence pushed back. The Labour leader invited the Westminster parties to a crunch meeting in his Commons office to discuss tactics on how to prevent Boris Johnson from crashing the UK out of the bloc without a deal. Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition leaders have agreed to try to stop no-deal using ‘legislation’ after efforts to agree on installing a caretaker prime minister floundered. Labour was forced to change tack and accept alternatives to its plan to install Jeremy Corbyn as a caretaker Prime Minister. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has told the BBC’s World at One […] - [Malnutrition cases treated by the NHS have almost trebled under Tory government](https://heartlandstribune.com/malnutrition-cases-treated-by-the-nhs-have-almost-trebled-under-tory-government/): Starvation diseases seen in poor countries have almost trebled in Britain under the Tories. Malnutrition cases treated by the NHS have risen from 2,893 to 8,537 since 2009. One disease on the rise is kwashiorkor, which causes the swollen ­bellies familiar in reports from famine-stricken countries. Starvation diseases seen in poor countries have almost trebled in Britain under the Tories. A severe form of malnutrition caused by an extreme lack of protein, usually found in developing countries, it is almost always fatal if not treated or if treatment is started too late. figures released by government while MPs are on holiday, […] - [UK-US Trade Deal: NHS off the Table](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-us-trade-deal-nhs-off-the-table/): UK-US Trade Deal: NHS off the Table Trump’s officials are “very enthusiastic” about the prospect of a trade deal – or a series of mini agreements – and want to make progress quickly. But the British side is adamant it wants to secure the right deal rather than a quick agreement, even though it is seen as a major post-Brexit prize. A UK Government spokesman said: “Of course we want to move quickly, but we want to get the right deal that works for both sides.” Trump’s officials have privately been making clear they would be “100%” behind a no deal […] - [EU orders Greece and Ireland to transpose rules on opening rail passenger market](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-orders-greece-and-ireland-to-transpose-rules-on-opening-rail-passenger-market/): The EU pushing it’s privatisation of rail across EU members countries steps up a gear with its 4th railway package What is the 4th railway package?The 4th railway package aims to remove the remaining barriers to the creation of a single European rail area. The proposed legislation would reform the EU’s rail sector by encouraging competition and innovation in domestic passenger markets. The European Parliament rubber stamped the ‘market pillar’ of the EU’s Fourth Railway Package which means that train operators must have complete access to the networks of member states to operate domestic passenger services. The European Council had already […] - [We do not get our Human rights from the EU.](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-do-not-get-our-human-rights-from-the-eu/): THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT IS A UK LAW PASSED IN 1998. IT LETS YOU DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS IN UK COURTS AND COMPELS PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS – INCLUDING THE GOVERNMENT, POLICE AND LOCAL COUNCILS – TO TREAT EVERYONE EQUALLY, WITH FAIRNESS, DIGNITY AND RESPECT. The Human Rights Act protects all of us – young and old, rich and poor. Hundreds of people use it to uphold their rights and achieve justice every year. WHO CAN USE THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT? The Human Rights Act may be used by every person resident in the United Kingdom regardless of whether or […] - [Emma Lewell-Buck MP: Our Merchant seaman are being let down by the Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/emma-lewell-buck-mp-our-merchant-seaman-are-being-let-down-by-the-government/): The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is the lifeline for our Royal Navy, crewed by highly skilled Merchant Seaman they refuel, rearm and resupply Royal Navy ships around the world, serving in major conflicts and delivering aid in humanitarian crises. They play an integral role in keeping us and others around the world safe and defending our nation’s security. However, the hard work of the RFA has been consistently undermined by this Government, who have refused to pay the nearly 2,000 merchant seafarers employed by the RFA a fair wage. RFA pay has been victim to the Government’s successive pay freezes and […] - [Ireland threatens to oppose Mercosur trade deal amid Amazon fires](https://heartlandstribune.com/ireland-threatens-to-oppose-mercosur-trade-deal-amid-amazon-fires/): PM Leo Varadkar asks Jair Bolsonaro’s government to ‘honor its environmental commitments.’ As wildfires rage through the Brazilian Amazon, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has said Dublin will vote against a trade deal between the European Union and South American trade bloc Mercosur unless Brazil takes action to protect the rainforest. Varadkar said in a statement he was very concerned at the record levels of rainforest destruction, and said the Irish government would closely monitor Brazil’s environmental actions in the two years until the Mercosur deal is ratified. “There is no way that Ireland will vote for the EU-Mercosur Free Trade […] - [North set to receive £2,389 less per person than London on transport](https://heartlandstribune.com/north-set-to-receive-2389-less-per-person-than-london-on-transport/): Northern passengers are right to be angry at the Rail North-South Divide. The north still uses old Pacer trains, built from the body of buses, that were intended to be merely a short-term solution to a shortage of rolling stock in the 1980s.  While we see the new electric Class 710 trains gliding across the southern skylines commuting workers into the capital. The massive investment continually rolled out favouring London gives little chance for any respite in building a modem infrastructure outside London. The disproportionate investment makes a mockery of the concept and creation of a Northern powerhouse again reality shows […] - [Boris Johnson in Paris for Brexit talks with Macron](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-in-paris-for-brexit-talks-with-macron/): France’s President Emmanuel Macron will host his British counterpart Boris Johnson for a working lunch to discuss Brexit and Iran ahead of the G7 meeting in France this weekend. Boris Johnson is in Paris a day after Berlin offered a glimmer of hope that an agreement could be reached to avoid a chaotic “no deal” Brexit. Speaking of the looming threat that Britain could crash out of the European bloc without an exit agreement in place, Johnson said: “Of course, I want a deal. And I think we can get a deal – and a good deal.” But he added: “It […] - [Sir David Attenborough wades into Brexit debate saying people 'fed up' with EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-david-attenborough-wades-into-brexit-debate-saying-people-fed-up-with-eu/): Sir David Attenborough has said that many people in the UK are ‘fed up’ with the European Union. The naturalist and broadcaster said the EU may not have paid enough attention to what people care about and has allowed itself to do things that irritate people. He said that some people in South America and Africa ‘are faced with hideous problems, meanwhile we are occupied with these silly squabbles about Brexit.’ ‘I think that the irritation of the ways in which the European community has interfered with people’s lives on silly levels or silly issues has irritated a lot of people […] - [Italian PM Conte resigns](https://heartlandstribune.com/italian-pm-conte-resigns/): ‘This government ends here,’ prime minister tells parliament. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced his resignation Tuesday, setting the country on an uncertain political course that could lead to a snap election or a new governing alliance. Conte’s move preempted a confidence vote that had been expected to take place 12 days after Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party and Italy’s interior minister, called for such a motion. In an hour-long speech at the Italian Senate on Tuesday afternoon, Conte launched a scathing attack on Salvini, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, who is thought to be […] - [Beware of the yellow Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/beware-of-the-yellow-tories/): Aristotle said that, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”  But what happens when all the Parts are rotten? In the late 1970s it was the Liberals under David Steel who broke the Lab-Lib Pact which began the fall of the then Labour government. They voted with Margaret Thatcher to bring down the Labour government in the famous no-confidence debate in 1979 which led to 18 years of Conservative government. The liberals were no friends of the Labour movement then, and they are no friends of the Labour movement now. In 2010 the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg entered into […] - [1 million EU citizens granted right to reside in UK after Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/1-million-eu-citizens-granted-right-to-reside-in-uk-after-brexit/): Polish, Romanian and Italian nationals sent most applications under settlement scheme, according to Home Office. About 1 million of the roughly 3 million EU27 citizens living in the U.K. have obtained the right to reside in the country after Brexit through the British government’s new EU settlement scheme. According to figures released by the Home Office today, 951,700 citizens from European Economic Area countries and Switzerland had obtained settled or pre-settled status (for those who will have been living in the country for five years by December 30, 2020) as of July 31. Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis said registrations hit […] - [Turkey's military pension fund in exclusive rescue talks to take over British Steel](https://heartlandstribune.com/turkeys-military-pension-fund-in-exclusive-rescue-talks-to-take-over-british-steel/): British Steel: provisional deal with Turkish bidder could save 4,000 jobs Full transfer of ownership to pension fund Oyak expected to take place before end of year Ataer, a unit of Oyak which looks after the pension pots of Turkey’s military personnel, had entered into exclusive talks with advisers to the government who have been running the auction of the ailing steelmaker on behalf of the Official Receiver. British Steel, whose largest manufacturing site is in Scunthorpe, collapsed into insolvency in May after the government chose not to give £30m to the company under its then-owner, Greybull Capital. The Turkish military […] - [Israel bans entry to two Muslim US congresswomen over their criticism](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-bans-entry-to-two-muslim-us-congresswomen-over-their-criticism/): The left-leaning Muslim congresswomen are outspoken critics of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians and support the so-called BDS movement, which advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They are also sharp critics of US President Donald Trump, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told CNN on Thursday of Israel’s decision to ban Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from entering the country. The announcement came shortly after Trump said Israel would be showing “great weakness” by allowing them to enter the country. “The plan of the two Congresswomen is […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: Caretaker government to block 'no-deal' Brexit. RSVP](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-caretaker-government-to-block-no-deal-brexit-rsvp/): Jeremy corbyn wants to oust Boris Johnson so he can head a “strictly time-limited” caretaker government. In a letter to party bosses and other senior backbench MPs, Corbyn said he would “seek the confidence of the House [of Commons] for a strictly time-limited temporary government.” Corbyn wrote to the Westminster leaders of the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, which are all supportive of a second EU referendum, urging them to back him as a temporary premier after a vote of no confidence. He also wrote to Tory backbenchers Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Nick Boles […] - [Len McCluskey: It's an inconvenient truth. 'We lost the referendum'](https://heartlandstribune.com/len-mccluskey-its-an-inconvenient-truth-we-lost-the-referendum/): Len McCluskey lays it bare for the Labour MPs that cannot accept the result of the referendum. “It’s an inconvenient truth to some people but we lost we lost the referendum and therefore having lost at referendum it’s why Labour just a year later in 2017 adopted a manifesto that Tom Watson and other Remainers embraced and said, “yes we will fight on this platform and the platform they fought on was that we would take Britain out of the European Union now they seem to have forgotten all about that.” Asked for confirmation of what Len McCluskey wanted was to […] - [THE WALMART WEB: ASDA'S Tax dodging parent company](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-walmart-web-asdas-tax-dodging-parent-company/): How the World’s Biggest Corporation Secretly Uses Tax Havens to Dodge Taxes Walmart is the world’s largest corporation. It truly is the poster child for corporate America and boasts an annual revenue of $482,000,000,000. What people are often not aware of, is that Walmart is stripping capital out of countries where it was earned and laundering it through a complex web of subsidiary companies in tax havens around the world. Currently, it is estimated that there is upwards of $76,000,000,000 hidden in these tax havens. This corporate behaviour is seldom seen in retail, but due to Walmart’s global reach, they have […] - [Leicestershire mum 'didn't have cancer enough' to receive benefits](https://heartlandstribune.com/leicestershire-mum-didnt-have-cancer-enough-to-receive-benefits/): A mother of three said she was told by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she “didn’t have cancer enough” when she applied for benefits. A single mum-of-three claims she was told by the Department of Work and Pensions that she “didn’t have cancer enough” when she applied for benefits after being diagnosed with stage three cancer. Katie Larn was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in November last year and medics immediately set her on a treatment programme which included regular chemotherapy sessions. The 29-year-old said: “I went to the doctors feeling breathless and thinking I had a chest infection, […] - [Swiss Banker Pleads Guilty in $1.8 Billion tax-dodging investigation](https://heartlandstribune.com/swiss-banker-pleads-guilty-in-1-8-billion-tax-dodging-investigation/): The former head of banking giant HSBC’s private Swiss unit has pleaded guilty in France to helping wealthy clients hide $1.8 billion. Peter Braunwalder, who led HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland) from 2000 until his retirement in 2008, was fined $560,000 and received a one-year suspended sentence, according to reports by Bloomberg and AFP. Braunwalder’s guilty plea comes one year after HSBC agreed to pay France $353 million to settle allegations as part of the same tax-dodging investigation. In a separate case this week, the HSBC’s Swiss unit agreed to pay $329 million in Belgium to settle a criminal probe involving similar accusations as the bank faced in […] - [PASSPORT TO PIMLICO : London to go it alone with Pro Remain Party ‘Londependence’](https://heartlandstribune.com/passport-to-pimlico-london-to-go-it-alone-with-pro-remain-party-londependence/): New Pro remain party urges ‘self-governance’ for London A new remain party called the ‘Londependence party’ has registered with the Electoral Commission they are urging backers to vote for the separation of London from the rest of the UK. The Londependence party will run a campaign of “self-governance” for the capital, saying Brexit dragged the city into a “humiliating mess”. Party leader Geoff Hinkley said: “In the wake of the Brexit vote, Londoners need to determine their own destiny. We have paid too much for too long.” In a video statement broadcast on the party’s website, he claimed: “Brexit was supposed […] - [A Broad Front in Name Only](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-broad-front-in-name-only/): Saturday saw the launch of a new left-wing pro-Brexit campaign, Leave-Fight-Transform (LeFT) in the pages of the communist newspaper the Morning Star. It’s hard to tell at this early stage if LeFT adds anything to the 2016 Lexit alliance of rail unions RMT and ASLEF, foodworkers’ union BFAWU, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers’ Party, Labour Heartlands, Counterfire and others. Of course, the campaign has time to grow, especially if new Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government breaks its promises and seeks another extension – or if the pro-Remain Labour Party comes to power before the October […] - [Economist Larry Elliott on Project Fear: predictions of food and medicine shortages.](https://heartlandstribune.com/economist-larry-elliott-on-predictions-of-food-and-medicine-shortages/): Elliott explains why he thinks the EU has failed British voters and why it and neoliberalism hasn’t been good for working people. Economist Larry Elliott tells Labour explains why predictions of food and medicine shortages if the UK opts for a no-deal Brexit are part of Project Fear Mark2 In this podcasts the economist Larry Elliott, economics editor at the Guardian newspaper, tells us why he originally supported Brexit and why he still believes leaving the EU will be good for the UK economy. Elliott explains why he thinks the EU has failed British voters and why it and neoliberalism hasn’t […] - [Sick Asda worker claims manager came to door to get her to sign new contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/sick-asda-worker-claims-manager-came-to-door-to-get-her-to-sign-new-contract/): Asda has been accused of sending a manager to the home of a sick worker in a bid to have them sign a controversial new contract. The Sunday Mail revealed last week how staff had been threatened with the sack if they refused to agree to the new terms that cut paid breaks and reduced holiday entitlement. Hundreds of employees who will be worse-off want to retain their existing conditions. Asda has denied asking managers to visit the homes of employees without permission. But the husband of one worker, who didn’t want to be named, said: “My wife had been off work […] - [BMW: To push ahead with plans to build electric mini in UK despite chances of a 'No deal Brexit'](https://heartlandstribune.com/bmw-to-push-ahead-with-plans-to-build-electric-mini-in-uk-despite-chances-of-a-no-deal-brexit/): BMW to accelerate through Brexit crunch at electric Mini plant The luxury carmaker is sticking with plans to build the electric car in the UK. German automaker BMW will move ahead with plans to produce an electric version of its iconic Mini at a factory in Oxford from November, despite potential post-Brexit chaos in importing key components from the Continent. While the e-Mini will be put together at the Cowley site, which employs around 4,500 people and already builds the conventionally fuelled Mini, the drivetrain — a crucial part transferring power to the car’s wheels — will still be imported from […] - [Pass the Duchy: Luxembourg’s grand plan to legalize cannabis](https://heartlandstribune.com/pass-the-duchy-luxembourgs-grand-plan-to-legalize-cannabis/): While others are dealing with medical cannabis, Luxembourg wants to become the first in the EU to legalize recreational weed. Luxembourg has ambitions to legalize recreational cannabis and convince other European countries to do the same. Sure, you can already pick up some weed in the coffee shops of Amsterdam or in Catalonia’s decriminalized cannabis social clubs. You won’t be arrested for carrying a few grams in countries such as Belgium. Luxembourg, however, wants to go further and become the first country in the European Union to make cannabis completely legal. Its health ministry is slated to unveil a proposal to start the legislative […] - [Leave – Fight – Transform: Founding Statement](https://heartlandstribune.com/leave-fight-transform-founding-statement/): From Amazon warehouses to Belfast’s shipyards, workers are demanding a break — a break with the failed system of austerity, neoliberalism and capitalism. The last 40 years have been an era of declining real wages, attacks on trade union and workers’ rights, austerity, abuse of migrants, the hollowing out of democracy and an escalating environmental crisis. Working-class people across the world are demanding an alternative to this failed status quo. History shows that if the left does not offer a transformative alternative to capitalism in crisis, the false prophets of the right will step in with their empty promises and reactionary […] - [A Motion for the Creation of a Veterans & Families Network within the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-motion-for-the-creation-of-a-veterans-families-network-within-the-labour-party/): Labour’s five pledges to support the armed forces. Lets pledge one more and support this motion Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said: “We have an important duty to ensure that our armed forces, our veterans, and their families, have the very best support. But after nearly a decade of cuts and privatisation our Forces and their families are paying the price. “The Conservative government has cut the pay of our servicemen and women, outsourced services to private companies, and left many living in service accommodation with leaking roofs, broken boilers and appliances that don’t work. “We make our […] - [British Steel rescue nears following reports of £300m Government support](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-steel-rescue-nears-following-reports-of-300m-government-support/): The government has agreed to provide financial support to British Steel potentially worth hundreds of millions of pounds, paving the way for Turkey’s military pension fund to secure the company’s immediate future. Although no deal has been finalised, Labour Heartlands understands the Government has agreed to provide a £300m package of support to British Steel. Ataer Holding is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Turkey’s state military retirement scheme Oyak – also the largest shareholder in Turkish steel group Erdemir. This would give Turkey’s military pension fund Ataer Holding a formal period of exclusivity within which to complete a takeover of the UK’s second-largest […] - [Italian government on verge of collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/italian-government-on-verge-of-collapse/): ‘Useless to go ahead with daily quarrels’: Italy’s coalition government on brink of collapse A government collapse would cause major uncertainty for the European Union; Italy is the third-largest economy in the eurozone and is the EU’s fourth most populous member. Italy has also not yet nominated its candidate for the next European Commission.  Italy’s ruling League party said on Thursday the only alternative to the current government was a fresh election, as it ruled out another cabinet reshuffle in the wake of growing policy differences with its coalition partner, 5-Star. The right-wing party said in a statement it was “useless […] - [Harland and Wolff: Unions are calling for the yard to be nationalized](https://heartlandstribune.com/harland-and-wolff-unions-are-calling-for-the-yard-to-be-nationalized/): Northern Ireland shipyard workers occupy yard that built the Titanic Workers at Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, have occupied the 158-year old shipyard to protest against its closure. The 130 workers, members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliates Unite and GMB, are calling for the yard to be nationalized. The yard was put up for sale in December 2018 due to serious financial problems at its Norwegian parent company, Dolphin Drilling, and has so far failed to find a buyer. Harland & Wolff workers have vowed to remain on site until a solution is found, pressing government […] - [Rage against the machine: Labour party members and supporters stand in solidarity with Chris Williamson MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/rage-against-the-machine-labour-party-members-and-supporters-stand-in-solidarity-with-chris-williamson-mp/): Despite his suspension from the Party Chris Williamson remains one of the Labour Party’s most popular MPs The demonization of Chris Williamson by groups, factions, MP’s and even individuals within the Labour Party machine has been unprecedented and without justification. If anti-Semitism has not been weaponized before it certainly is right now. More accurately the accusation of being anti-Semitic certainly has. The presumption of innocence is the legal principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty yet in the halls of Westminster along with individuals including Labour MPs and lobby groups this very principled system of British justice has been […] - [Golden Handshakes for Theresa May’s failed ministers cost taxpayers nearly £850k](https://heartlandstribune.com/golden-handshakes-for-theresa-mays-failed-ministers-cost-taxpayers-nearly-850k/): Golden handshakes for Theresa May’s ministers cost taxpayers nearly £850k Taxpayers paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds in golden handshakes during the chaotic Theresa May premiership — including to Boris Johnson and many of his new top team. According to analysis by the Politico website, more than £360,000 was paid out in severance to MPs and peers serving in government. The sums paid to advisers who also lost their jobs at the same time brings the total cost to nearly £850,000. Almost £850,000 was paid out to ministers who quit their jobs, were fired or who lost their seats at […] - [From the Tesco fraud trial: Accounting scandal to bumper profits yet still 4,500 jobs must go](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-the-tesco-fraud-trial-accounting-scandal-to-bumper-profits-yet-still-4500-jobs-must-go/): Tesco to cut 4,500 jobs across 153 Metro stores Around 4,500 staff at Tesco are set to lose their jobs in the latest round of redundancies at the UK’s biggest supermarket. The majority of workers will go from Tesco’s Metro stores, with other positions going at some Express and larger stores, the company announced. Bosses want to overhaul the Metro stores, which are bigger than Express stores but smaller than larger supermarkets, saying that shoppers tend to use them for top-up shops, rather than buying bigger baskets. ‘Cost pressures’ The company said the Metro format was originally designed for larger, weekly […] - [Asda workers 'forced to sign' new contracts or 'face the sack'](https://heartlandstribune.com/asda-workers-forced-to-sign-new-contracts-or-face-the-sack/): Thousands of Asda workers told to sign “punitive” new contracts or face the sack Workers at the grocer will be protesting on 14 August over new contracts that will see their holiday allowances cut and paid breaks scrapped [vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/KdaCtzlBRlo” align=”center”] Documents reveal the supermarket giant will terminate the employment of anyone who turns down the revised terms. One staff member has told how she will lose eight days’ annual leave and be left £500 a year worse off. Documents seen by the Sunday Mail reveal the American-owned supermarket giant will terminate the employment of anyone who turns down the revised […] - [Tories: 'will order inquiry into Islamophobia allegations'](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-will-order-inquiry-into-islamophobia-allegations/): The Tory Party will order an independent inquiry into allegations of Islamophobia within its ranks, the chairman has confirmed. But James Cleverly was criticised for saying the party must agree a definition of Islamophobia first. Earlier this year, the Tories rejected a definition created by a cross-party group of MPs and backed by several other parties, including Labour. Tory peer Baroness Warsi accused her party of “political hypocrisy”. She said Labour had used exactly the same argument around a definition when it was accused of failing to tackle anti-Semitism, and her Tory colleagues had “rightly criticised” them for that. “And yet we are […] - [Janner and Proctor demand Labour suspend Tom Watson over Operation Midland role](https://heartlandstribune.com/janner-and-proctor-demand-labour-suspend-tom-watson-over-operation-midland-role/): It is clear he used the issue of child sexual abuse to promote his position within The Labour Party to Deputy Leader. Harvey Proctor has written to the Labour Party urging them to suspend Tom Watson over his role in the Operation Midland scandal, as he revealed he has received death threats following the conviction of fantasist Carl Beech. In a letter to the Party’s general secretary, Jenny Formby, the former Tory MP accused Mr Watson of breaching Labour’s membership code and also bringing the party into disrepute. Mr Watson has been widely criticised after it emerged he met Beech in […] - [Trump toasts US-EU Trade deal on beef imports](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-toasts-us-eu-trade-deal-on-beef-imports/): Donald Trump has announced an agreement to open up European markets to more US beef exports. From France to Ireland farmers are protesting EU trade deals. CETA and The South American Mercosur trade deal. Now today the US EU have announced a new trade deal. Obviously no consideration for the Farmers that are already protesting the other two controversial trade deals that will lose farmers their livelihoods. Donald Trump has announced this agreement to open up European markets to more US beef exports. During the announcement on Friday at the White House, Trump said the the deal would lower trade barriers […] - [Remain and Regret](https://heartlandstribune.com/remain-and-regret/): The Labour Party is risking a golden opportunity if it goes down the dead-end Remain road. WRITING in 1975, on the eve of the last big referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union (European Community as it then was), the great historian of the English working class EP Thompson noted that there were “some sillies” in the labour movement who did not understand the nature of the EC. As such, they thought that joining would facilitate the advance of socialist and working-class interests. As Thompson astutely pointed out, joining the EC would do the exact opposite, and would put the […] - [DWP admits it spent £225k of public money on controversial Universal Credit adverts](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-admits-it-spent-225k-of-public-money-on-controversial-universal-credit-adverts/): The advertising campaign in the Metro newspaper was condemned as misleading Just over £225,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent on a series of adverts for Universal Credit, it has been revealed. Advertising watchdogs are investigating the ‘myth-busting’ campaign on the new welfare scheme, which was run in the Metro newspaper. The DWP denied the controversial adverts were misleading – but has come in for severe criticism on the issue. And it tonight admitted how much public money it had blown on the ads, the Mirror reports. After a string of requests by MPs, DWP minister Will Quince confirmed: The final cost […] - [Leaving the European Union is the necessary goal of the Left in Britain.](https://heartlandstribune.com/leaving-the-european-union-is-the-necessary-goal-of-the-left-in-britain/): Why No Deal Is the Real Deal: Brexit and the Politics of the Interregnum Brexit has returned to our politics after the months of lockdown, government confusion and societal panic. The essential point remains the same, the capacity of the state to pursue an industrial policy and change the direction of the economy in favour of those places and people abandoned by globalisation. Labour will not be able to govern effectively without leaving the constraints of EU Treaty Law and should seize this moment to articulate the possibilities for democracy and economic renewal that leaving the EU brings. Leaving the European […] - [Police share information about disabled people and other activists who take part in protests with the DWP](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-share-information-about-disabled-people-and-other-activists-who-take-part-in-protests-with-the-dwp/): Police force admits agreement to share information about protesters with DWP Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has admitted that it has a written agreement to share information about disabled people and other activists who take part in protests with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Disabled activists have expressed alarm at the confirmation, which came despite previous denials by the force and DWP that any such agreement existed. They said the existence of the agreement was a clear blow to the right to protest of disabled people who claim benefits. spying on disabled protesters and passing on their details onto the […] - [UK Police Enter Bahraini Embassy in London as Protester Scales Roof](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-police-enter-bahraini-embassy-in-london-as-protester-scales-roof/): Video footage posted on Twitter shows the man, named by fellow protesters as Moosa Abd Ali, on the Embassy roof before disappearing from view. authorities entered the Bahraini embassy in London late Friday, arresting a protester who claimed he was beaten by embassy staff after clambering onto the roof. Video footage posted on Twitter shows the man, named by fellow protesters as Moosa Abd Ali, scaling on the roof before disappearing from view. Abd Ali earlier wrote on his Twitter page that he was demonstrating against the execution of two men, named by him as Shiite citizens Ali Al-Arab and Ahmed […] - [A 'No Deal Brexit' will be the EU's fault](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-no-deal-brexit-will-be-the-eus-fault/): If we leave the EU without a deal, it will be the EU’s fault and they will be damaging themselves Austin Mitchell former Labour MP for Great Grimsby lays bare a “No Deal” and places the fault firmly at the feet of the EU. Austin writes: The clamour against “No Deal” is Remain’s fig leaf. Nothing to do with reality, it’s based on the assumption that an EU, which Remainers love so much and paint as the only force for good in a darkening world, will crucify Britain, try to wreck our economy, try to dictate who our government should be […] - [Nissan to double global job cuts to over 10000](https://heartlandstribune.com/nissan-to-double-global-job-cuts-to-over-10000/): Nissan warns of profit plunge, set to unveil 10,000 job cuts Nissan Motor Co Ltd (7201.T) warned on Wednesday that first-quarter profit tumbled around 90% percent, a day before it is expected to announce more than 10,000 job cuts as the crisis deepens at Japan’s second-largest automaker. Japanese media reported that the job cuts were likely to hit factories in South America and other regions where Nissan has low profitability. This is not Brexit related and like all motor manufacturing companies a global downturn as produced restructuring throughout. Nissan has also struggled to improve poor profit margins in the US, the […] - [Bullingdon Boy: Boris Johnson becomes UK unelected prime minister](https://heartlandstribune.com/bullingdon-boy-boris-johnson-becomes-uk-unelected-prime-minister/): Boris Johnson will become Britain’s next prime minister after being elected leader of the Conservative party, defeating Jeremy Hunt in the party’s leadership contest. The former mayor of London, who has long cherished an ambition to lead his country, won the contest by 92,153 votes to 46,656, with 66% of the vote. Turnout was 87.4% among 159,320 party members. Johnson will not take office formally until Wednesday afternoon. Theresa May will face her final prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons before tendering her resignation to the Queen. Johnson will then go to Buckingham Palace himself for his appointment to […] - [Jeremy Corbyn unequivocally condemns any form of Antisemitism](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-unequivocally-condemns-any-form-of-antisemitism/): ‘No Place For Antisemitism’ Antisemitism has no place in our Party. Hatred towards Jewish people has no place in our society. These are the opening headings on a new website the Labour Party have set up to both educate and combat Anti-Semitism. Today members receive emails along with a video from the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the video Corbyn unequivocally condemns any form of antisemitism, he announcing his determination to stamp out not only racism and bigotry but the particular form of racism known as anti-semitism. In an email sent out to party members introducing the new site headlined: […] - [Shadow justice minister Gloria De Piero quits Labour frontbench stating 'lack of tolerance' and 'Grim abuse from remainers'](https://heartlandstribune.com/shadow-justice-minister-gloria-de-piero-quits-labour-frontbench-stating-lack-of-tolerance-and-grim-abuse-from-remainers/): Labour’s shadow justice minister Gloria De Piero has quit its front bench and decided not to stand at the next general election, saying she is worried about the party’s “lack of tolerance”. Ms De Piero, who is the MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, said she had received “grim” online abuse. Gloria De Piero campaigned for Remain in a strongly pro-Brexit seat but does not support a second referendum. Speaking to members on Friday, Ms De Piero said a “lack of tolerance for different viewpoints in the Labour Party frankly worries me”. “We have to have respect for each other, even if […] - [10 Labour Heartlands MPs 'Ready To Back No-Deal Rather Than No Brexit At All'](https://heartlandstribune.com/10-labour-heartlands-mps-ready-to-back-no-deal-rather-than-no-brexit-at-all/): Ex-Corbyn frontbencher Emma Lewell-Buck fears blocking a Labour government and putting Nigel Farage in Number 10. It is important that MPs are honest with their constituents. Emma said: As a Labour MP I believe the best thing for our country would be a Labour Government. She goes on to say: “This is not about protecting my own seat. Ignoring the referendum result, disregarding democracy and failing to deliver Brexit as the two main parties promised would hand seats to the Brexit Party, life under them or a Tory/Brexit Party coalition would be a far worse scenario than any Brexit one for […] - [Labour Sack Shadow Brexit Minister Dianne Hayter Over Corbyn 'Hitler' Comparison](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-sack-shadow-brexit-minister-dianne-hayter-over-corbyn-hitler-comparison/): Party calls comment “truly contemptible, and grossly insensitive to Jewish staff”. Labour has sacked shadow Brexit minister Dianne Hayter after she compared Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership to “the last days of Hitler”. Shadow Brexit Minister Dianne Hayter compared the “bunker mentality” of the Labour leader and his inner circle with the 1930s Nazi regime at a meeting on Tuesday. truly contemptible, and grossly insensitive to Jewish staff The party has now sacked the party’s deputy leader of the Lords and called her comments “truly contemptible, and grossly insensitive to Jewish staff”. Hayter had been criticising Corbyn over his handling of the anti-Semitism crisis facing the […] - [Steve Bell Asks the Guardian 'is it that you don't want to offend poor Tom but are quite happy to offend Poor Jeremy'](https://heartlandstribune.com/steve-bell-asks-the-guardian-is-it-that-you-dont-want-to-offend-poor-tom-but-are-quite-happy-to-offend-poor-jeremy/): The Guardian and Steve Bell are heading for the rocks, it seems. Paradoxically it’s over the Guardian banning his new cartoon strip. It shows Tom Watson as the ‘antisemite-finder general’. Too close to the bone for the Guardian, which has been cheerleading the same witch-hunt Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell emails staff about Tom Watson-Benjamin Netanyahu piece which wasn’t run today, complaining about the Guardian’s “mysterious editorial line that has been drawn around the subject of antisemitism and the infernal subject of ‘antisemitic tropes’”: Why in today’s paper as the Guardian published a highly partisan and personal insulting (to the leader of […] - [Ursula von der Leyen: Elected European Commission president under a cloud of corruption and scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/ursula-von-der-leyen-elected-european-commission-president-under-a-cloud-of-corruption-and-scandal/): The European Parliament on Tuesday elected Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission — the first woman to hold the EU’s top executive job. Von der Leyen, the candidate of the center-right European People’s Party and a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, will be the first German to lead the bloc in more than a half-century, since Walter Hallstein served from 1958 to 1967. Center-right nominee becomes first woman to lead EU. Von der Leyen won 383 votes in a secret ballot, only a little above the absolute majority of 374 she required to be elected. She […] - [Labour leadership: Richard Burgon confirms he's standing for deputy leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-richard-burgon-confirms-hes-standing-for-deputy-leader/): Richard Burgon, who has been an MP in Leeds since 2015, has said he will stand to be Labour’s deputy leader. The shadow justice secretary tweeted: “After a break and discussion with MPs and party members, I’m announcing that I’m standing to be Labour’s Deputy Leader.” Mr Burgon, who is the MP for Leeds East, wrote in a recent article that thinks it is a mistake to focus blame on Jeremy Corbyn for the party’s dire performance in the general election. Prior to becoming an MP, Burgon worked as a solicitor. He specialised in employment rights for ten years at Thompsons […] - [UK election result only adds to country's problems](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-election-result-only-adds-to-countrys-problems/): All the opinion polls indicated the Conservative Party would win the U.K. General Election on Dec. 12, but few people expected the Boris Johnson-led Tories to achieve an absolute parliamentary majority of 80. Labour, with only 202 MPs of its own at Westminster, faces its lowest presence since 1935, and this is being seized upon by leader Jeremy Corbyn’s numerous and influential adversaries spanning politics, big business, military and media to lobby for his immediate departure. After all, they have never been reconciled to the spectacle of a long-standing Marxist heading one of Britain’s two established parties of government. Hence the […] - [US strikes 5 facilities in Iraq and Syria](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-strikes-5-facilities-in-iraq-and-syria/): US forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against five facilities the Pentagon says are tied to an Iranian-backed militia blamed for a series of attacks on joint US-Iraq military facilities housing American forces. The death toll from the drone attacks by the United States against Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq stands at 25, with 51 people injured, the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, said in a statement in the early hours of Monday morning. Earlier, Hashd al-Shaabi reported of 19 people killed and 35 others injured. The number of casualties may grow, as some remain in […] - [New WikiLeaks documents expose doctoring of chemical weapons report to justify 2018 attack on Syria](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-wikileaks-documents-expose-doctoring-of-chemical-weapons-report-to-justify-2018-attack-on-syria/): OPCW official ordered removal of report disproving Syria chemical attack claims: Wikileaks The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded in March that chlorine was most likely used in the suspected April 2018 attack on the city of Douma, which lies on the northeastern outskirts of the Syrian capital. Three countries – the United States, the United Kingdom and France – carried out airstrikes against Syrian government targets, justifying their assault by claiming that the chemical weapons were allegedly used by the Syrian Army. Wikileaks revealed that the OPCW’s redacted version of the so-called fact-finding report on Douma’s events […] - [Netanyahu’s son calls for British Diplomats’ expulsion](https://heartlandstribune.com/netanyahus-son-calls-for-british-diplomats-expulsion/): In an undiplomatic rant by Yair Netanyahu calls for British diplomats expulsion from Israel The son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for UK diplomats to be “kicked out” of Israel after the British Consulate in Jerusalem referred to the Palestinian territories as occupied. Yair Netanyahu, who is known for his outbursts on social media, made the comments late on Friday after the British consulate announced that Prince Charles would be making his first visit to the area in January. “God willing you guys will be kicked out of Israel soon,” the 28-year-old son of the embattled Israeli premier […] - [Knighted Duncan Smith: The man that brought misery to thousands and laughed during benefits debate](https://heartlandstribune.com/knighted-duncan-smith-the-man-that-brought-misery-to-thousands-and-laughed-during-benefits-debate/): Iain Duncan Smith knighthood a reward for ‘a legacy of cruelty’ 135,000 kids won’t have a home to call their own this Christmas while Ian Duncan Smith gets his knighthood. The UN Special Rapporteur’s Professor Philip Alston findings on the UK. During his 12-day investigation into extreme poverty and human rights found the Government’s efforts had been instrumental in exasperating poverty and inequality, brought about with the impact of austerity measures, Universal Credit and an increasingly digital government making it inaccessible for people living in poverty. Philip Alston said the government was preoccupied with reducing welfare dependency.  “The era of connectivity […] - [Google doc going viral: Calling on Ian Lavery MP to stand for Labour Party leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/google-doc-going-viral-calling-on-ian-lavery-mp-to-stand-for-labour-party-leader/): A Google document that thousands of Labour party members have signed is being circulated across social media asking Ian Lavery to stand for Labour Party leader. Ian Lavery is seen by many in the Labour Heartlands as the only Labour parliamentarian able to reunite the Party and win back our lost regions. Many Labour voters are very resentful of the so-called ‘Waitrose bubble remain MPs‘ that even against Labour party policy used this election to campaign to remain within the EU. MP’s like Emily Thornberry who not only openly pushed a for a second referendum and a remain position but used […] - [600-gallon oil spill causes emergency in Galapagos](https://heartlandstribune.com/600-gallon-oil-spill-causes-emergency-in-galapagos/): Ecuador takes emergency steps to contain Galapagos oil spill Emergency teams in the Galapagos Islands are working to contain a 600-gallon oil spill after a cargo vessel overturned while being loaded with containers early Sunday, local officials said on Twitter. Ecuador officials announced Sunday that a fuel spill in the Galapagos Islands, caused when a barge sank carrying 600 gallons of diesel fuel, was “under control.” Authorities had activated emergency protocols earlier Sunday to contain the environmental impact of the spill in the Galapagos archipelago, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to one of the most fragile ecosystems on […] - [Tesco stops production at Chinese factory after prison forced labor claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/tesco-stops-production-at-chinese-factory-after-prison-forced-labor-claims/): Tesco says it has suspended production at a Chinese factory following allegations that prisoners were forced to pack charity Christmas cards. The allegations came to light after the Sunday Times reported that Florence Widdicombe, aged six, from Tooting, south London, opened a box of charity Christmas cards from the supermarket and discovered a plea for help inside one of them. The message read: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qinqpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.” It also urged the reader of the message to contact Peter Humphrey, a former journalist […] - [LABOUR'S U-TURN ON THE REFERENDUM WAS THE PRIMARY FACTOR IN RETURNING A TORY GOVERNMENT](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-u-turn-on-the-referendum-was-the-primary-factor-in-returning-a-tory-government/): Labour’s U-turn on the 2016 referendum promise gave away the election to the Tories. In 2017 the Labour Party fought a General Election campaign around an exciting and popular manifesto that was a strategic re-statement of left wing social democracy. It rejected the economics and politics of austerity. It championed those ‘left behind’ and advanced a programme for the downward transference of wealth and power. Labour’s strategy was encapsulated in the slogan, “For the Many not the Few”. Jeremy Corbyn was the leader. He and Labour were committed to honouring the 2016 EU referendum result. In 2019 Jeremy Corbyn was still […] - [German Politician Files Criminal Complaint Against EU President Von der Leyen Over Wiped Phone](https://heartlandstribune.com/german-politician-files-criminal-complaint-against-eu-president-von-der-leyen-over-wiped-phone/): A German politician has filed a criminal complaint over the erasure of data from a mobile phone owned by Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, when she was Germany’s defence minister. Tobias Lindner, a member of the Bundestag from the opposition Green party, filed the complaint against unnamed individuals over suspected deliberate destruction of evidence, German media reported on Saturday. The criminal complaint over the erasure of data from a mobile phone owned by Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, when she was Germany’s defence minister. Members of a German parliamentary committee investigating the scandal cried […] - [Brexit clarity helped Germany avert recession: German economy minister](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-clarity-helped-germany-avert-recession-german-economy-minister/): German Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier believes that everything will be fine: Brexit, the economy, the grand coalition.  Whether Brexit or a trade war with the USA: For Peter Altmaier, the biggest concerns of the German economy have vanished for now. Increased clarity about Britain’s planned departure from the European Union has helped Germany avert the danger of a recession, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in remarks published on Friday. Altmaier also said he expects trade tensions between the United States and the European Union to ease. Donald Trump and the European Commission have imposed tariffs on traded goods and […] - [International court prepares to investigate 'war crimes' in Palestinian territories](https://heartlandstribune.com/international-court-prepares-to-investigate-war-crimes-in-palestinian-territories/): In brief, I am satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip International prosecutors are set to look into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories, which might include both Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli PM Netanyahu slammed it as a “dark day for truth and justice.” The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Friday her team plans to launch an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, drawing a sharp rebuke from Israel. In a statement, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Besouda said there was […] - [Brexit bill passes Commons vote: Johnson compares Brexit to Prometheus chained to the Tartarian crag.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-bill-passes-commons-vote-johnson-compares-brexit-to-prometheus-chained-to-the-tartarian-crag/): The legislation enables the UK’s exit from the EU on January 31. The House of Commons voted in favour of Boris Johnson’s amended Brexit bill, bringing the U.K. one step closer to leaving the EU by January 31. In a vote Friday, MPs voted 358 to 234 in favour of the legislation, which implements the Brexit deal agreed with the EU into British domestic law. Johnson urged parliament to come together and not consider the Withdrawal Agreement Bill as a victory for only one side of the debate. “This is the time when we move on and discard the old labels […] - [Tories launch Brexit-focused plan for government](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-launch-brexit-focused-plan-for-government/): Brexit took a central role as the Queen officially opened parliament after the general election and announced the government’s program for the year ahead. The Queen read out by the program in the House of Lords during a tradition known as the queen’s speech, This includes seven crucial pieces of Brexit legislation that the House of Commons will need to pass in order to fulfil Boris Johnson’s plans. “My government’s priority is to deliver the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on January 31,” the queen said in her statement prepared by Downing Street. “My ministers will bring forward legislation […] - [Labour doesn't need a Leader; We need a plan.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-doesnt-need-a-leader-we-need-a-plan/): The Labour party just suffered a major defeat and lost the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. All kinds of people out there are trying to cast a judgement on why this happened but we all know it comes down to being a remain party that would not honour the result of the referendum in the eyes of millions of traditional Labour voters in the North. I say that as a remainer currently forced to eat humble pie. I’m from Carlisle and something of a traveller having lived in seven of the constituencies across this region; Copeland, Penrith, Carlisle, Newcastle, Durham, Middlesbrough and […] - [The real face of the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-real-face-of-the-eu/): This is the real face of the EU the LeFT should stand united in rejecting not listening to Tony Blair and Blairites like Peter Mandelson, Roland Rudd, Alastair Campbell and raving mad Lord Adonis. Anyone on the Left that still advocates we should reject the people and remain in the EU are truly enemy’s of the people. You can make countless arguments on economic grounds but they apply to trade. The fact is no one as ever suggested we do not trade with the EU not even the likes of Farage would go that far. But if the Blairites think they […] - [Labour must take 'The Road to Wigan Pier' if it wants to win back the people](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-must-take-the-road-to-wigan-pier-if-it-wants-to-win-back-the-people/): Labour has suffered its worst general election results in living memory with dozens of seats that the party had held for decades falling to the Conservatives. The Road to Wigan Pier part 2. The Labour Heartlands the Red wall has crumbled. Election night has been a night of loss not only of constituencies but the loss of hope and aspirations for millions. The Labour Party offered ‘Jam today,’ real change. An opportunity to take this country forward into a new future where a persons first waking thoughts aren’t how they can survive another day or week on the bread line, how […] - [The Labour Heartlands: Ground Zero of the Brexit Class War](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-heartlands-ground-zero-of-the-brexit-class-war/): The Labour Heartlands will decide the most important election in the United Kingdom’s recent history.  It was once the old traditional Labour Party Heartlands, but Brexit has changed everything. The Red map of the Labour Party has declined from Scotland to Kent, it came after years of false promises and centrist politics by the Blairites and Brownites. It came after our trust in politicians dropped to its lowest, following illegal wars and the expenses scandal. But more so it came after the very real feeling of neglect and the loss of touch between the people and the Westminster bubble. Since the […] - [Lets get Maria Carroll elected as Labour MP for Carmarthen East](https://heartlandstribune.com/lets-get-maria-carroll-elected-as-labour-mp-for-carmarthen-east/): Labour’s Candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr Maria Carroll as battled against the odds to give Labour an opportunity of not only returning a Labour MP but the first-ever female MP for her constituency.  Maria Carroll’s fight and determination to bring about social change in Carmarthenshire as been a battle. Funding issues hampered Carmarthen East & Dinefwr Labour Party’s effectiveness. However, Maria’s small but dedicated team have pushed to get Labours message out on the doorstep bringing it to a touch of becoming a winnable seat.  Maria is a Corbanysta a Left-wing candidate, she is determined to make a difference to […] - [Boris Johnson takes reporter's phone and refusal to look at a photo of child on NHS hospital floor](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-takes-reporters-phone-and-refusal-to-look-at-a-photo-of-child-on-nhs-hospital-floor/): Boris Johnson grabbed a reporter’s phone and refused to look at a photograph of a four-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia, forced to lie on a hospital emergency room floor as he waited for a bed. The prime minister was confronted with the image of Jack Williment-Barr laid on a pile of coats while awaiting treatment for suspected pneumonia at Leeds General Infirmary. Sarah Williment covered her son, with coats to keep him warm as he waited for a bed on Tuesday, eventually waiting for five hours on a ward trolley before a bed was found at 3am. Boris Johnson was asked […] - [The EU won't stop NHS privatisation: Removing the Tory government will](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-wont-stop-nhs-privatisation-removing-the-tory-government-will/): Four days before the end of the general election campaign Chesterfield Royal Hospital confirm they are to outsource ‘essential’ service to private company Bosses at Chesterfield Royal Hospital have confirmed they are to outsource an ‘essential’ service to a private company. The trust which runs the hospital says it has ‘completed a thorough and lengthy review process’ to determine how its medical device management and decontamination services should be provided in future. Board members had discussed a business case that outlined how the wholly-owned subsidiary would operate in July this year. Described as ‘one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had […] - [What’s the difference between the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/human-rights/): What’s the difference between the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights? Here’s a handy survival guide.  Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU). We did not vote to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). They are completely different body’s and organisations. The European Convention on Human Rights is a Human rights organisation and has 47 member countries all signatories of the Human rights act. 47 European states which have entered into a legal undertaking to comply with the Convention and have agreed to supervision of their compliance by the European Court of Human Rights. The European […] - [General election 2019: Andrew Neil's challenge to Johnson](https://heartlandstribune.com/general-election-2019-andrew-neils-challenge-to-johnson/): The BBC’s Andrew Neil has issued a challenge to Conservative leader Boris Johnson to take part in a half-hour general election interview with him. Mr Johnson is the only one of the main party leaders not to agree to be interviewed by Mr Neil. Here is the full text of the BBC presenter’s monologue: “And that concludes our fourth leaders’ interview for the general election of 2019. There is, of course, still one to be done. Boris Johnson. The prime minister. “We have been asking him for weeks now to give us a date, a time, a venue. As of now, […] - [Wilson's White Heat of Technology: Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution ](https://heartlandstribune.com/white-heat/): Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution will create one million green jobs and 886,000 climate apprenticeships in the transition to a low-carbon economy. This will be supported by the introduction of a National Education Service, providing cradle-to-grave education for all, free at the point of use, which will help people to reskill for the new, low-carbon economy we need to be working towards. The launch of a National Transformation Fund is further proof of Labour’s commitment to our planet, with £250 billion ringfenced for investment in green industry, and in tackling climate change. The promise of an Electric Vehicle […] - [A clarion call to end imperialism and change the world](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-clarion-call-to-end-imperialism-and-change-the-world/): While Trump blasts French President Emmanuel Macron at NATO meeting planned to show unity, Chris Williamson examines a new vision for the UK and its role in NATO with a Labour Government NATO leaders gathered in London to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary, starting with a royal reception at Buckingham Palace, they appear united —28 to 1 — against the French president. Or 29 to 1, counting North Macedonia, which is attending as a guest but is already approved to join NATO. Add in Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and it’s 30 to 1 around the leaders’ table. Their condemnation of Macron helped […] - [135,000 kids won’t have a home to call their own this Christmas](https://heartlandstribune.com/135000-kids-wont-have-a-home-to-call-their-own-this-christmas/): A child becomes homeless every eight minutes, report finds A report by charity Shelter warned that 183 children lose their homes every day in the UK. National homelessness charity, Shelter, has found 183 children – enough to fill two double-decker buses – lose their homes per day. The “Generation Homeless” report released on Tuesday is the first time the charity has been able to uncover the rate at which children are made homeless, as opposed to more general figures. The report found child homelessness is at its highest rate since 2006 and at least 135,000 children will be living in temporary […] - [Facebook takes down Conservative ad that featured BBC content](https://heartlandstribune.com/facebook-takes-down-conservative-ad-that-featured-bbc-content/): The Laura Kuenssberg and Huw Edwards footage could damage the perceived perception of impartiality, says BBC It may be hailed ‘The Brexit Election’ but the role of social media and tactics used by political parties have become one of the key talking points as voters prepare to head to the polls. Early this week the BBC demanded the Conservatives take down Facebook adverts featuring footage of its journalists Laura Kuenssberg and Huw Edwards, arguing that their inclusion could damage perceptions of the corporation’s impartiality. The short clip begins with Kuenssberg saying the words “pointless delay to Brexit”, in footage taken from […] - [Safe in whose hands: Comparing Johnson's and Corbyn's voting record on terrorism, crime and security](https://heartlandstribune.com/safe-in-whose-hands-comparing-johnsons-and-corbyns-voting-record-on-terrorism-crime-and-security/): Terrorism has been an enduring theme of threat that the UK has faced, over decades, from many different sources. We must question our politicians on how they have voted on terrorism, crime and security. Looking at the way our politicians vote on these most important issues helps the public understand who really does have our best interest at heart. Koser Saeed looks at both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn examining their voting records on voting record on terrorism, crime and security the results are contrary to the general perception the public are given to believe and in some cases the yea […] - [Johnson pressured on jail terms after London Bridge attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-pressured-on-jail-terms-after-london-bridge-attack/): Johnson pressured on jail terms after London Bridge attack The London Bridge attack pushed law and order towards the top of the British political agenda on Saturday, with days to go before a snap election, after police said the assailant had previously been convicted of terrorism offences but freed early from prison. Boris Johnson was personally warned about risks of freeing terrorists but said there was ‘no money’ to deradicalise them, ex-top prosecutor says Damaging claim comes as solicitor for London Bridge attacker says he asked for help to turn away from terrorism – but was not given any A former […] - [Suffering for the cause of self-determination is better than suffering at the hands of a foreign master.](https://heartlandstribune.com/suffering-for-the-cause-of-self-determination-is-better-than-suffering-at-the-hands-of-a-foreign-master/): Remainer amnesia and the rejection of reality For decades, no issue has come close to Brexit in terms of its ability to inflame political passions. European Council President, Donald Tusk’s comments last February about a ‘special place in hell’ for those who promoted Brexit is indicative of the low opinion of many Remainers for Brexiteers. The situation in universities is similar. The assumption is that you will be pro remain and everyone talks to each other accordingly. I am a relatively young, leftist academic, an immigrant to the UK and married to a Greek. I am also strongly critical of the […] - [London Bridge: Attacker Known to Police and Wearing Electronic Tag](https://heartlandstribune.com/london-bridge-attacker-known-to-police-and-wearing-electronic-tag/): Two people were killed and three more were injured in a terrorist attack near London Bridge on Friday, police have confirmed. The suspect was wrestled to the ground by passersby and shot dead by officers. Cressida Dick told a press conference the stabbing attack, which has been declared a terrorist incident, began at an event at Fishmonger’s Hall. Within five minutes of being called officers confronted the suspect – who was shot dead by police – she said. The attacker is understood to have been wearing an electronic tag when he staged the attack after being released from prison for terrorism […] - [EU Tax avoidance legislation rejected](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-tax-avoidance-legislation-rejected/): EU Tax avoidance draft bill fails in Council vote 12 EU countries reject move to expose companies’ tax avoidance. The proposal would have forced firms to reveal profits made and taxes paid in each EU country. Effort to force global companies to publish tax details torpedoed in Brussels as Luxembourg lead the charge against the EU tax transparency legislation, Luxembourg on Thursday successfully spearheaded an effort to block a draft bill that would force multinational companies to publish where they pay taxes and make profits. The new reporting rules were proposed three years ago to crack down on tax dodging after the Panama Papers […] - [General election 2019: DUP manifesto vows to oppose Johnson's Brexit deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/general-election-2019-dup-manifesto-vows-to-oppose-johnsons-brexit-deal/): The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will not support the Tory Brexit deal but seek further changes to Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, if he remains prime minister after the general election. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party launched its general election manifesto Thursday with a promise to oppose the Brexit deal Boris Johnson clinched with Brussels. The DUP — which propped up the Conservative government in Westminster after Theresa May lost her majority in 2017 — refused to support the Brexit deal struck by Johnson because it would entail checks on some goods travelling to the rest of the U.K. The deal would […] - [Hillsborough Disaster: What kind of system do we live in, when 96 people are killed and no one is held responsible.](https://heartlandstribune.com/hillsborough-disaster-what-kind-of-system-do-we-live-in-when-96-people-are-killed-and-no-one-is-held-responsible/): Hillsborough verdict: David Duckenfield cleared of manslaughter of 95 Liverpool fans Duckenfield, a retired chief superintendent, 75, denied the gross negligence manslaughter of 95 Liverpool supporters at the FA Cup semi-final on April 15 1989 Ninety-six men, women and children died following the crush on the terrace but, under the law at the time, there can be no prosecution for the death of the 96th victim Tony Bland as he died more than a year and a day after the disaster. Christine Burke tearfully spoke from the gallery after the verdict was delivered and said that the 96 were unlawfully killed […] - [All aboard the EU gravy train as the new commission confirmed](https://heartlandstribune.com/all-aboard-the-eu-gravy-train-as-the-new-commission-confirmed/): Meet the commissioners the ‘best of a bad lot’ controversy, scandal including the appointment of the former boss of Atos now running the internal market of the EU promoting free movement of people, goods, services and capital. The European Parliament previously rejected three of von der Leyen’s candidates from France, Romania and Hungary, whose governments then had to find replacements. She also caused controversy when she announced a portfolio that she initially called “Protecting our European Way of Life.” After heavy criticism from the left that it pandered to right-wing populism and was misleading, it was replaced by the title “Promoting […] - [Tory MP candidate caught getting friend to pose as anti-Labour swing voter](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-candidate-caught-getting-friend-to-pose-as-anti-labour-swing-voter/): Ashfield’s Conservative candidate Lee Anderson caught setting up door-knock with friendly voter more disinformation from the Tory ministry of truth. Lee Anderson, who is standing in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, is shown in a MailPlus video knocking on a door to a voter called “Steve” and introducing himself. Steve says he will back Mr Anderson. However, the encounter seems to have been set up in advance, as journalist Michael Crick shows a clip of Mr Anderson arranging the door knock over the phone while standing away from the camera. Anderson, forgot he was wearing a live microphone while he phoned his friend to set […] - [General election 2019: Labour pledge to make good on WASPI injustice](https://heartlandstribune.com/general-election-2019-labour-pledge-to-make-good-on-waspi-injustice/): WASPI women do it with Labour. John McDonnell pledged £58bn to right an historical ‘injustice’ Compensating women who believe they lost out financially due to state pension age changes will be expensive but there is a need to right the “injustice”, says Labour’s John McDonnell. The shadow chancellor made his comments to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme as the party pledged, if it wins the election, to make payouts to those affected, which could total £58bn over five years. Nearly four million women born in the 1950s have been affected by the change to raise the state pension age […] - [Doctors warn Julian Assange 'could die' in British jail](https://heartlandstribune.com/doctors-warn-julian-assange-could-die-in-british-jail/): More than 60 doctors have written an open letter saying that Julian Assange’s health has deteriorated so much that the WikiLeaks founder’s life is in danger inside a British jail. The WikiLeaks founder is serving a 50-week sentence in Belmarsh Prison ahead of an extradition hearing in February to the United States on alleged espionage charges. The 48-year-old Australian citizen is currently serving a 50-week sentence in a top-security prison outside London for jumping bail. He is fighting extradition to the US after he has served this sentence, where he is wanted on charges of violating the Espionage Act in connection […] - [How Swinson betrayed Remainers 29 times- It's not 'remain' she wants, its power](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-swinson-betrayed-remainers-29-times-its-not-remain-she-wants-its-power/): Jo Swindon’s Christmas wish yet another coalition with the Tory’s Out of these 29 separate important votes relating to Brexit and the EU, Swinson abstained 27 times and voted in line with Boris Johnson for the other two. For those that have got over the shock and are no longer dazed by the Lib Dem abandonment of a second referendum the so-called ‘People’s vote,’ it has now become blatant that the Lib Dems have used the People’s vote project to garner support, not for remain, no, support for its all but redundant Party the Lib Dems themselves. It cynically used the […] - [Question Time leaders special: Corbyn clear winner](https://heartlandstribune.com/question-time-leaders-special-corbyn-clear-winner/): No matter which way you spin it, Jeremy Corbyn came out the clear winner in tonight’s Question time leaders special. The question time leader special opened with a new format resembling an American TV type roast, rather than the tame Q&A we are used to. at first viewers could have been forgiven for thinking this was a setup waiting for a fall with hard questions hitting Mr Corbyn. However this gave Corbyn the opportunity to shine and make his point on the real issues that matter. The first question was whether businesses should be frightened of his party. Corbyn says “no”. Big […] - [UK ignores EU disciplinary action over failure to appoint commissioner](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-ignores-eu-disciplinary-action-over-failure-to-appoint-commissioner/): EU Commission set a deadline of Friday midnight for the British government to respond. The U.K. government is refusing to respond to an EU disciplinary procedure over London’s refusal to nominate an EU commissioner. The European Commission had set a deadline of Friday midnight for the British government to respond to the so-called infringement procedure, in which the U.K. is accused of violating EU law by refusing to put forward a nominee. It came after the UK’s ambassador to Brussels, Sir Tim Barrow, told incoming EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen that Mr Johnson would not be appointing one because […] - [Labour’s Manifesto: Lost opportunities, lost possibilities](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-manifesto-lost-opportunities-lost-possibilities/): The launch of Labour’s Manifesto today only intensifies a tragic sense of missed opportunity. Instead of sailing into battle with the wind behind us in transforming our political and economic settlement in favour of workers and those most abused and neglected by the domination of the rich and the most advantaged, we have the wind against us and there is a gaping hole in our ship. Our manifesto is committed to nationalising water and rail and providing free broadband for all. It has an industrial strategy based around renewing skilled work and redistributing investment to the neglected parts of our country. […] - [The Ministry of Truth concerns itself with with lies: Tories set up fake Labour manifesto website](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-ministry-of-truth-concerns-itself-with-with-lies-tories-set-up-fake-labour-manifesto-website/): The Tories have launched a fake Labour manifesto website in another bid to confuse and mislead voters ahead of the general election. A website with the web address “labourmanifesto.co.uk” was launched moments before the party’s manifesto launch in Birmingham. The governing party paid Google to promote the website labourmanifesto.co.uk towards the top of its results for people searching for the opposition plan. It is the latest underhand tactic to have been employed by the Tories, who were earlier this week accused of running an authoritarian-style disinformation campaign to confuse voters about opposition plans. It is pure Orwellian echoing the the pages […] - [Labour announces 'manifesto of hope'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-announces-manifesto-of-hope/): Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to take on “vested interests” in society as he set out a radical programme to invest in public services, tackle climate change and re-nationalise key utilities. Few set-piece events fall more squarely on a politician’s home turf than a manifesto launch, so standing ovations and hearty cheers from the audience are par for the course. But this was still a confident launch from Corbyn, buoyed by a raucous crowd in perhaps one of his strongest performances of the campaign to date. The Labour leader said his manifesto – titled “It’s time for real change” – was full […] - [Labour manifesto to include £100bn investment in Scotland over next decade](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-manifesto-to-include-100bn-investment-in-scotland-over-next-decade/): Labour will pledge to invest £100 billion in Scotland over the next decade as Jeremy Corbyn unveils the Labour party’s manifesto ahead of next month’s General Election. It marks an increase from the £70 billion previously announced by shadow chancellor John McDonnell. The figure based on policy commitments will include £20 billion of National Investment Bank funds plus £30 billion from the National Transformation Fund and £50 billion in Barnett consequentials. Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard hailed the move, saying it would transform Scotland’s “public services, our industries and wider infrastructure”. Labour’s proposed Scotland investment £20 billion of National Investment Bank […] - [Extinction Rebellion co-founder calls Holocaust 'just another fuckery'](https://heartlandstribune.com/extinction-rebellion-co-founder-calls-holocaust-just-another-fuckery/): The Extinction Rebellion founder says genocides are “like a regular event” in history. Hallam tells THE TIME the Germans’ attitude to the Holocaust is holding them back. Roger Hallam co-founder of Extinction Rebellion has sparked anger in Germany after referring to the Holocaust as “just another fuckery in human history”. Hallam has been accused of downplaying the Nazis’ genocide of 6 million Jews by arguing in an interview that the significance of the Holocaust has been overplayed. In the interview with the weekly Die Zeit, in which he referred to the Holocaust several times, Hallam said: “The fact of the matter is, […] - [Maltese tycoon held over murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia](https://heartlandstribune.com/maltese-tycoon-held-over-murder-of-anti-corruption-journalist-daphne-caruana-galizia/): Malta: police detained one of the country’s most prominent businessmen on Wednesday in connection with an investigation into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The yacht of Yorgen Fenech, a leading hotelier and director of the Maltese power company, was intercepted on a course out of the country and forced back to port. Malaise officials have not yet released details on whether Fenech faces any charges, but authorities would have 48 hours to decide on them. Fenech’s name was on leaked documents as a source of income for companies named in the Panama Papers, a financial scandal Caruana Galizia was […] - [Sweden drops Assange rape investigation](https://heartlandstribune.com/sweden-drops-assange-rape-investigation/): Swedish authorities are ending their investigation into an allegation of rape against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the country’s deputy chief prosecutor has announced. Swedish prosecutors have said that though the accusations are “credible,” there is not enough evidence to indict the Wikileaks founder. Assange’s main concern now is fighting extradition to the United States. Deputy director of public prosecution Eva-Marie Persson made the announcement at a news conference in Stockholm on Tuesday. Although officials said they believed the women’s claims to be “credible,” they have now said that there does not appear to be enough evidence for an indictment. This follows […] - [Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn clash over Brexit in first UK election TV debate](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-and-jeremy-corbyn-clash-over-brexit-in-first-uk-election-tv-debate/): The two party leaders took questions from the audience in a debate broadcast on ITV. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have clashed over Brexit in the first TV election debate of the campaign. Jeremy Corbyn said Labour would “get Brexit sorted by giving you, the people, the final say”. Boris Johnson promised to “end this national misery” and said Labour offered “only division and deadlock”. The two leaders also locked horns over the NHS, trust and leadership, the future of Scotland – and the Royal Family. Johnson said he would “absolutely” have a trade deal agreed with the EU by the […] - [Lib Dems and SNP lose TV election debate court case](https://heartlandstribune.com/lib-dems-and-snp-lose-tv-election-debate-court-case/): Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon will not take place in debate on ITV. Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon will not be taking part in a televised election debate on Tuesday after the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party lost a court appeal. The decision by the High Court of England and Wales means Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn will be the only leaders taking part in the ITV debate on Tuesday. The Lib Dems and SNP had argued that the debate would be unfair to them and to the electorate, as well as unlawful. But the judges ruled ITV’s decision was […] - [How the free movement of capital across the EU led to the decimation of workers’ rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-the-free-movement-of-capital-across-the-eu-led-to-the-decimation-of-workers-rights/): DENNIS SKINNER MP – HOW THATCHER FORGED THE CAPITALIST EU ‘When I hear Tories and the purple-faced UKIP go on now about Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians coming to Britain to work, I think back and remember what Mrs Thatcher did.   She signed the 1986 Single European Act to create the free market of people.   She was championing the eastwards expansion of the European Union into the former Soviet satellites. She wanted the EU to embrace that part of the world to roll back the Iron Curtain, and stick it to Mikhail Gorbachev and Communists.   The Single Market was […] - [A Rigged System: 26 Individuals own as Much as the Poorest 50% of Humanity](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-rigged-system-26-individuals-own-the-same-as-poorest-50-of-humanity/): A little more than 10 years since the 2008 financial crisis, the number of billionaires has doubled. Public good OR Private wealth? Oxfam briefing paper – January 2019 Our economy is broken, with hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top. The number of billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis and their fortunes grow by $2.5bn a day, yet the super-rich and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades. The human costs – children without teachers, clinics without medicines – are huge. Piecemeal private […] - [210,000 homeless children in England](https://heartlandstribune.com/210000-homeless-children-in-england/): There is an estimated 210,000 children in England that do not have a safe home, a report from Bleak houses suggested. Growing up in a stable, healthy and secure home is so important for any child. Yet we know there are thousands of children in England who are living in homeless families, stuck in poor quality temporary accommodation, often with low prospects of finding something permanent. There are many others who are at risk of ending up homeless. There are around 4 million children in the UK growing up in poverty. And those poverty rates have risen for every type of […] - [European Parliament approves Atos Boss Thierry Breton for EU Commissioner](https://heartlandstribune.com/european-parliament-approves-atos-boss-thierry-breton-for-eu-commissioner/): The European Parliament approved French Commissioner-designate Thierry Breton as EU Commissioner for the Internal Market portfolio on Thursday. MEPs on have confirmed Thierry Breton, France’s nominee for the internal market portfolio, following his hearing in the European Parliament, according to Parliament officials. Approval for the French nominee comes a month after the Parliament rejected Sylvie Goulard, France’s first choice for the post, over legal and ethical concerns in a blow to French President Emmanuel Macron. Breton succeeded in alleviating concerns about potential conflicts of interest linked to his extensive background in the private sector, including at the helm of tech company […] - [Germany narrowly avoids recession](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-narrowly-avoids-recession/): GDP figures released this morning show Germany has narrowly avoided slipping into recession. The Federal Statistical Office announced this morning that the economy had grown by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2019. A recession is often defined as two consecutive quarters of declining economic activity. The unexpected results were largely down to a rise in private and state consumer spending as well as a small rise in exports after a period of slowdown. Around 50% of Germany’s GDP is export-based, making it one of the most export-reliant economies in the world and leaving it especially susceptible to global economic fluctuations. […] - [Royal Mail: No right to strike](https://heartlandstribune.com/royal-mail-no-right-to-strike/): Royal Mail has won its legal battle to prevent a postal strike after the High Court backed its application for an injunction. The Communication Workers Union were defiant and angry at the court ruling and rightly so with 110,000 workers backing you up they gave a message to the establishment saying: The High Court has ruled against us. Genuinely this is an utter outrage. 110,000 workers vs the establishment. We will be live shortly. Stand strong. We will not be moved #WeRiseAgain The decision is a setback for union plans to stage strikes in the run-up to the general election and […] - [Boris Johnson heckled by residents of Stainforth the bit you wont see on the TV](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-heckled-by-residents-of-stainforth-the-bit-you-wont-see-on-the-tv/): Everyone’s living in poverty … kids are living on the streets Boris Johnson received a little more than just a frosty reception when he met flood victims and the communities helping them in Stainforth South Yorkshire today. Boris Johnson arrived in Stainforth to take a photo opportunity by meet the community members who are helping their flood-hit neighbours of Fishlake, doing what communities do best when the establishment fails them, they help each other. The photo opportunity did not go to plan Johnson was also confronted by locals eager to tell him about flooded homes one resident who told him his […] - [Brexit Party implodes after 'The Sir Nigel dodgy deal’ with Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-party-implodes-after-sir-nigel-dodgy-deal-with-tories/): Nigel Farage ‘offered peerage’ days before standing down Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats Nigel Farage’s decision to unilaterally stand down more than half the Brexit party’s candidates has prompted fury from Brexit Party candidates and supporters The cry of “betrayed and establishment stitch up have been tweeted directly to Farage” after he announced he would be pulling out of all 317 Conservative-held seats. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage had planned to run candidates in 600 seats after Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected its offer of a “Leave alliance” to deliver Brexit. But Mr Farage announced on Monday that his party […] - [Brexit: Atos Boss EU Commission nominee gets green light on finances](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-atos-boss-eu-commission-nominee-gets-green-light-on-finances/): The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee today approved the financial declaration of Atos boss Thierry Breton, France’s nominee for the European Commission. Atos Boss controversially gets green light on EU commission position after he pledged to stay away from decisions directly involving his former company Atos and to avoid conflicts of interest. Thierry Breton was until 4 days ago CEO of the Atos? Atos are linked to thousands of deaths in the UK. About 1,600 working-age disabled people are dying every year after having their claim for disability benefits rejected, the government has been forced to admit. In the United Kingdom, […] - [Israeli settlement products must be clearly labelled, rules European court](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-settlement-products-must-be-clearly-labelled-rules-european-court/): The European Union’s top court has ruled that EU countries must oblige retailers to identify products made in Israeli settlements with special labels, in a ruling likely to spark anger in Israel. The European Court of Justice ruling clarifies labelling rules for Israeli settlement products sold in France specifically – but could have repercussions in the rest of the EU Foods from Israeli settlements must be identified as such with special labelling, the EU’s top court has ruled. Consumers must be able to take ethical considerations in their purchasing decisions, it found. Simply indicating that goods originate in the state of […] - [Labour Party Brexit: We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-brexit-we-know-what-happens-to-people-who-stay-in-the-middle-of-the-road-they-get-run-down/): Labour’s approach to this general election has followed the same course for the last 3 years. It as tried in vain to be all things to all people on the Brexit issue. Walking the middle road while making overtures to both Remain and the Leave camps yet committing to neither. Now the ‘so-called remain alliance’ and the ‘so-called leave alliance’ have out flanked the Labour party both these alliances have one ambition to win Labour seats. To be fair I voted twice for Jeremy Corbyn not only because I thought he was an honest politician but because I believed in his […] - [Spanish Socialist Workers Party wins election but falls short of majority](https://heartlandstribune.com/spanish-socialist-workers-party-wins-election-but-falls-short-of-majority/): The Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won Spain’s election Sunday with 120 seats, but fell short of gaining the parliamentary majority. “We’ve won the election and we’re going to work for a progressive government as of tomorrow,” Sánchez told supporters at the party’s headquarters in Madrid. “Our project is to form a stable progressive government led by the @PSOE to make policies for the benefit of the majority,” acting Prime Minister and PSOE leader Pedro Sanchez said in a tweet. “All Parties must act with generosity and responsibility starting tomorrow to unlock the country.” The conservative Popular Party (PP) closed the […] - [Chris Williamson: ‘I resigned from Labour to spend more time fighting for socialism’](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-williamson-i-resigned-from-labour-to-spend-more-time-fighting-for-socialism/): CHRIS WILLIAMSON explains to the Labour Heartlands readers why he has decided to stand in Derby North as an independent I am standing as an independent in Derby North, on a policy platform that will be the most Corbyn-friendly of any candidate in the country. We have a strong campaign team and hundreds of volunteers, locally and from around the country. We have experience, local credibility and local knowledge on our side. The Labour Party should stand aside in Derby North and allow its members to campaign for me. Imposing a new candidate at this stage is unfair on CLP members […] - [Germany to renew its military might.](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-to-renew-its-military-might/): Germany to Be a Bigger Military Power Than Russia Germany plans to boost its armed forces to more than 200,000 soldiers by 2025, the latest sign that Berlin is committed to rebuilding its military after decades of neglect. Even a modest boost to German defence spending means radical changes to the world order. The German Army should be deployed proactively abroad, German defence minister said. She has pledged to bump defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2031, which could make Germany the third largest defence spender in the world. In an announcement by Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany finally pledged to reach […] - [Chris Williamson MP: Resigns from the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-williamson-mp-resigns-from-the-labour-party/): I’ll be standing as an independent candidate for Derby North to fight for social justice, internationalism and socialist values. Today after the Labour Party NEC panel failed to lift Chris Williamson’s suspension which would have allowed him to continue as the Labour Party candidate for Derby North in the coming general election. Mr Williamson made a statement in which he resigned from the Labour Party. In his resignation letter Chris Williamson continued to proclaim his support and solidarity for the hundreds of socialist loyal to Jeremy Corbyn and his transformative socialist anti-imperialist worldview who have been the victims of what as […] - [‘It’s an absolutely corrupt system’: How EU farm subsidies are abused by oligarchs and populists](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-an-absolutely-corrupt-system-how-eu-farm-subsidies-are-abused-by-oligarchs-and-populists/): The European Union spends £50.71 billion a year subsidising agriculture. But a chunk of that money emboldens strongmen, enriches politicians and finances corrupt dealing. A recent report alleged government officials in Hungary and the Czech Republic misused €59 billion in farming subsidies that money meant for farming was used to prop up “oligarchs and political patrons” in central and eastern Europe. EU officials have defended the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its rules after an investigation exposed corrupt and politicised use of the subsidies in parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The EU today denied its £51billion agriculture budget is used to […] - [General election: It beggars belief, Chris Williamson will not be allowed to stand for the Labour Party.](https://heartlandstribune.com/general-election-it-beggars-belief-chris-williamson-will-not-be-allowed-to-stand-for-the-labour-party/): Chris Williamson will be standing as a candidate for the people. Chris Williamson will not be allowed to stand as a candidate for the Labour Party after NEC ruling. Members of Labour’s ruling NEC suspended Chris Williamson, the MP for Derby North in February after he claimed that Labour had been “too apologetic” in response to criticism of its handling of antisemitism allegations. The Derby North MP was readmitted to Labour and issued with a formal warning following a hearing of Labour’s National Executive Committee antisemitism panel in June. This immediately created an angry backlash from Tom Watson Labour’s deputy leader […] - [Royal mail workers are in for the fight of their lives](https://heartlandstribune.com/royal-mail-workers-are-in-for-the-fight-of-their-lives/): Royal mail workers are in for the fight of their lives, workers and unions are pitted against ‘Rico Back’ a German businessman appointed as CEO at Royal Mail in 2018. Last month, postal workers voted overwhelmingly to back industrial action in a dispute about job security, conditions and alleged bullying. Three-quarters of the CWU’s 110,000 members voted – 97.1% supported strikes. Royal Mail employs 140,000 people in the UK. Relations between Royal Mail and the union deteriorated amid disagreement over the implementation of the four pillars agreement, a deal reached between the two parties last year. The Communication Workers Union has given […] - [When the people demand democratic reform empires crumble](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-the-people-demand-democratic-reform-empires-crumble/): The demonstration that took down East Germany On November 4, 1989, a cabal of East German creatives and intellectuals demanded democratic reform. The result was an enormous demonstration that catalysed the fall of the Berlin Wall. By November 1989, rumours had long been flying that change was inevitable in communist East Germany. Citizens were turning their backs in droves on the politically and economically bankrupt state. Week after week in Leipzig, thousands demanded the right to travel without restrictions and freely express themselves. Even Erich Honecker, once the most powerful man in East Germany, relinquished his post as head of the […] - [Tory MP accused of sexually assaulting a Labour MP in a Commons bar](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-a-labour-mp-in-a-commons-bar/): Tory MP Ross Thomson quits after grope claim by Labour MP Paul Sweeney Thomson denies any wrongdoing but announced he would not contest his seat at the coming general election. Mr Sweeney, who is the MP for Glasgow North East, told the Scottish Mail on Sunday he was left feeling “mortified” by the alleged attack in the Strangers’ Bar at Westminster. Labour MP Paul Sweeney claimed the Tory MP Ross Thomson ‘tried to stick his hand down my trousers when he was so drunk he could barely stand’ in Commons bar. Paul Sweeney said he was ‘paralysed’ with shock after Ross […] - [Banned: Its about fracking time](https://heartlandstribune.com/banned-its-about-fracking-time/): Britain will impose an immediate stop on fracking, the government announced on Saturday, saying the industry risked causing too much disruption to local communities through earth tremors. The government has banned fracking with immediate effect in a watershed moment for environmentalists and community activists. Ministers also warned shale gas companies it would not support future fracking projects, in a crushing blow to companies that had been hoping to capitalise on one of the new frontiers of growth in the fossil fuel industry. The decision draws a line under years of bitter opposition to the controversial extraction process in a major victory […] - [ASDA: Saturday Mass Sackings Deadline Extended by Bosses](https://heartlandstribune.com/asda-saturday-mass-sackings-deadline-extended-by-bosses/): Asda gives workers more time to sign new contracts before facing the sack Asda on Friday gave shop floor workers more time to sign new employment contracts or face dismissal in a bitter dispute over changes to contracts. As the Saturday deadline for signing approached, Asda said the workers would have a seven-day “cooling off period” to change their minds before losing their jobs. Chief Executive Roger Burnley wrote to staff, saying almost 120,000 employees had signed up to the more flexible contract and fewer than 1,000 had not. “On Saturday, once the closing date has passed, we will write to […] - [Oxfam slams shameful European Parliament vote against search and rescue](https://heartlandstribune.com/oxfam-slams-shameful-european-parliament-vote-against-search-and-rescue/): The European Parliament has voted against a resolution supporting more search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. The European Parliament failed to commit to protecting human life in the Mediterranean. MEPs actively voted to maintain a ‘fortress Europe’ status quo that has seen thousands of men, women and children drown simply for seeking sanctuary. “While the EU wax lyrical about the ‘four freedoms’ of the EU, including the freedom of movement, they are ready to side with their right-wing EU colleagues to ensure these values don’t extend to those fleeing destitution, war and persecution.” The collection of EU ruling far-right and […] - [General election 2019: Jeremy Corbyn vows to transform UK by tackling wealthy elite and fixing Brexit impasse](https://heartlandstribune.com/general-election-2019-jeremy-corbyn-vows-to-transform-uk-by-tackling-wealthy-elite-and-fixing-brexit-impasse/): Jeremy Corbyn vowed to “transform” Britain by taking on “the few who run a corrupt system” as he kicked off Labour’s election campaign. The party leader promised to “rebuild” public services and hit out at “tax dodgers, dodgy landlords, bad bosses and big polluters”. In a speech, Mr Corbyn called the 12 December poll a “once-in-a-generation chance to transform our country”. Flanked by members of the shadow cabinet, he said: “You know what really scares the elite? What they’re actually afraid of is paying their taxes. So in this election they’ll fight harder and dirtier than ever before. They’ll throw everything […] - [Trump, Johnson: Brexit deal ‘STOPS’ US-UK trade agreement](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-johnson-brexit-deal-stops-us-uk-trade-agreement/): Boris Johnson as not only failed to deliverer Brexit by midnight tonight his deal also ‘precludes’ US-UK trade agreement. Johnson, who today marks this 100th day in office, previously claimed he would rather “be dead in a ditch” than extend Brexit beyond October 31, before requesting a fresh delay from the EU. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn took aim at the prime minister, saying: “Boris Johnson has spent months promising we’d leave the EU today. The failure to do so is his and his alone.” To add insult to injury Donald Trump said Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal would prevent the U.K. from […] - [Labour cannot have a manifesto that promises radical change if we are to remain in the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-cannot-have-a-manifesto-that-promises-radical-change-if-we-are-to-remain-in-the-eu/): We cannot have a manifesto that promises radical change if we are to remain in the EU Any manifesto will be restricted to what we can and can’t do while ever we are a member of the EU. Perhaps the Labour Party manifesto will be a manifesto of alternatives, two manifestos? Manifestos one, only achievable if we leave the EU .A radical manifesto of change bringing in a winning formula that breaks monopoly capitalism while allowing the working class a level playing field to advance their lives. A manifesto that contains a policy of 100% nationalisation one where we see mail, […] - [Labour backs UK election in December](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-backs-uk-election-in-december/): The Labour Party will back a December election, Jeremy Corbyn said Tuesday. Labour’s condition for support, that a no-deal Brexit is ruled out, “has now been met,” Corbyn told a meeting of his shadow Cabinet. “I have consistently said that we are ready for an election and our support is subject to a no-deal Brexit being off the table,” he said. “We have now heard from the EU that the extension of Article 50 to 31 January has been confirmed, so for the next three months our condition of taking no-deal off the table has now been met.” Corbyn pledged to […] - [Labour MP Keith Vaz facing six-month suspension for offering to buy cocaine for male escorts after drug and sex probe](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-keith-vaz-facing-six-month-suspension-for-offering-to-buy-cocaine-for-male-escorts-after-drug-and-sex-probe/): Labour MP Keith Vaz “disregarded” the law by “expressing a willingness” to help buy cocaine for male prostitutes, the Commons standards body has found. It said there was “compelling evidence” he offered to pay for a class A drug and had paid-for sex in August 2016. It is recommending he be suspended for six months after he was “evasive and unhelpful” during the investigation. Mr Vaz would not comment on his future but said he was receiving treatment for a serious mental health condition. Not fit to sit and Judge Keith Vaz, who sat in judgement on the NEC panel which […] - [MPs reject 12 December election plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-reject-12-december-election-plan/): Boris Johnson fails in third attempt to call early general election Johnson falls short of two-thirds parliamentary majority required to call snap poll Boris Johnson has lost his third bid for a general election, after Labour abstained and he failed to reach the two-thirds majority of MPs he needed for a poll. THE RESULT WAS 299 FOR AND 70 AGAINST. Boris Johnson is now expected to back a Liberal Democrat plan to change the law in order to secure an early election, although the parties do not yet agree on a date. The Lib Dems want a date of 9 December […] - [BREXIT FLEXTENSION: EU agrees to delay Brexit until January 31](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-flextension-eu-agrees-to-delay-brexit-until-january-31/): The EU has agreed a three-month Brexit ‘flextension’ until January 31st 2020, which gives the UK the option of leaving before then if the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified The European Union on Monday agreed to give the United Kingdom a Brexit extension until January 31, European Council President Donald Tusk wrote on Twitter. Though the decision still has to be formally confirmed by letter, the former Polish prime minister tweeted that the 27 member states were in agreement. “The EU27 has agreed that it will accept the UK’s request for a #Brexit #flextension until 31 January 2020. The decision is expected […] - [Meet the suits behind the 'People’s Vote Campaign' and 'Open Britain'](https://heartlandstribune.com/meet-the-suits-behind-the-peoples-vote-campaign-and-open-britain/): The masks slip as the People’s vote are shown to be an anti-Corbyn pro-business front. The so-called People’s vote are in chaos after falling out at the top table. It has revealed their true nature. Now a public row has broken out at the top of the People’s Vote campaign for another EU referendum. Media chief Tom Baldwin has accused chairman Roland Rudd of putting “a wrecking ball” through the campaign.Mr Baldwin said he had been fired by Mr Rudd – but would be going in to work as normal. Mr Rudd denied firing Mr Baldwin, saying he “he has an […] - [Brexit election: Lib Dems and SNP get the jump on Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-election-lib-dems-and-snp-get-the-jump-on-labour/): The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party have joined forces in a bid to trigger a 9th of December election. Leaving Labour out in the cold both of the small opposition parties trying to portray Labour as the Party that is stopping any meaningful progress in the continued Brexit impasse. Both Parties minor Parties have written to EU Council President Donald Tusk asking him to grant the requested three-month extension of a Brexit date. The parties say they reject Boris Johnson’s election offer, which they believe would include time for him to “ram through” his Brexit Bill. But they support […] - [After abandoning Kurds, US to send troops to Syria oil fields](https://heartlandstribune.com/after-abandoning-kurds-us-to-send-troops-to-syria-oil-fields/): Secretary of Defence Mark Esper said the Pentagon was considering sending troops and armoured vehicles to protect oil fields, controlled by Syrian Kurds, which might fall into the hands of the “Islamic State.” At a gathering of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, Mark Esper said that the US would send reinforcements to Syria to secure oil fields, just weeks after President Donald Trump’s abrupt order to significantly scale back the US troop presence. Though Trump repeatedly says he is pulling out of Syria, the reality on the ground is different. “We are now taking some actions … to strengthen our position […] - [Ruth Davidson urged to quit Holyrood over 'unethical' £50k second job](https://heartlandstribune.com/ruth-davidson-urged-to-quit-holyrood-over-unethical-50k-second-job/): The former Scottish Tory leader will pocket the extra cash for 24 days work on top of her £63,579 MSP wage. Ruth Davidson has been called on to quit as an MSP after taking on a “unethical” £50,000 a year second job with a London PR firm. The ex Scottish Tory leader will top up her £63,579 MSP salary with a £2,000 a day advisory role at Tulchan Communications. Scottish Labour MSP Neil Findlay plans to lodge a Member’s Bill in the Scottish Parliament to ban MSPs from having second jobs. He accused Ms Davidson of bringing the parliament “into disrepute” […] - [Atos Boss to be EU Commissioner](https://heartlandstribune.com/atos-boss-to-be-eu-commissioner/): Emmanuel Macron has nominated the longtime CEO of outsourcing company Atos to be France’s new EU commissioner. The French president’s office said on Thursday morning that Thierry Breton would be France’s new pick, after his first choice was rejected by MEPs. A former finance minister under Jacques Chirac, Mr Breton went on to run Atos from 2009 onward. If confirmed by the European Parliament he would be in charge of the EU’s single market. Who is Thierry Breton: Breton currently heads, Atos the controversial company behind DWP assessments. In the United Kingdom, from 1998 – 2015 Atos Healthcare was at the […] - [Brexit: Johnson to ask Parliament to hold general election in December](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-johnson-to-ask-parliament-to-hold-general-election-in-december/): The government will seek a general election on December 12 — but hurdles remain. The motion needs to be backed by two-thirds of UK MPs in Parliament, which would require support from Labour. By refusing the opposition parties are seen to be propping up a Zombie Tory Government and continuing the Brexit deadlock. And to the many millions suffering this Tory parties reign of austerity in a country where More than 17,000 people have died waiting for a decision on their disability benefit in the last five years who can blame them. For most there last best hope as been the […] - [Argos staff Christmas bonus cut to just £5 by boss on £3.9 million](https://heartlandstribune.com/argos-staff-christmas-bonus-cut-to-just-5-by-boss-on-3-9-million/): Workers’ anger at move by chief executive who merged firm with Sainsbury’s in £1.4bn deal Argos workers have seen their Christmas bonus halved by the company boss who was filmed singing “We’re in the money” when the firm merged with Sainsbury’s. Workers will see their annual gift go from £10 to just £5 to bring it in line with the amount put in the Sainsbury’s workforce festive pay packet, reports the Mirror . The millionaire boss caught on camera singing “We’re in the money” has halved Argos staff’s Christmas bonus to just £5. Workers used to get £10 towards a seasonal bash before […] - [Johnson to call a general election if Brexit bill timetable not approved](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-to-call-a-general-election-if-brexit-bill-timetable-not-approved/): The government will abandon its Brexit bill if MPs vote down its three-day timetable to get it through Parliament. Speaking in the Commons, Mr Johnson said: “If Parliament refuses to allow Brexit to happen and decides to delay everything until January or possibly longer the bill will have to be pulled. “There will be no further business for parliament and will move to an election before Christmas.” The PM said Parliament had been “caught in a deadlock of its own making”, and he would “in no way allow months more of this”. But opposition MPs called the threat to pull the […] - [Keir Starmer should come clean: The real threat to the NHS and workers' rights comes from the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-should-come-clean-the-real-threat-to-the-nhs-and-workers-rights-comes-from-the-eu/): Keir Starmer constantly claims a hypothetical trade deal with the US will bring about a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and sell out our NHS. The truth is the EU trade deal CETA is the real danger that sees corporations trumping Governments demanding access to our public service contracts at the risk of being sued for loss of profit or for not complying and refusing contracts, much the same way as Virgin Care did recently over NHS contracts. In November 2016, Virgin Care sued six Surrey clinical commissioning groups, NHS England and Surrey County Council after it lost out […] - [EU free movement policy unfortunately doesn’t extend to non-EU refugees who arguably are more in need of it.](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-free-movement-policy-unfortunately-doesnt-extend-to-non-eu-refugees-who-arguably-are-more-in-need-of-it/): EU border policies have turned the sea into a refugee graveyard, civil migrant rescue fleet charges The EU’s border policies have turned the Mediterranean Sea into a refugee graveyard, NGOs charged today after photos emerged of some of the people who died in a recent shipwreck six miles off the coast of Lampedusa. The people pictured on the sea bed by the Italian coastguard drowned after the wooden boat carrying approximately 70 people sank on October 6. It is not known how many people perished that night but only about 40 people were rescued. French charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which […] - [Labour pledges to set up state drug company and scrap prescription fees](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-pledges-to-set-up-state-drug-company-and-scrap-prescription-fees/): ‘Nobody should be worried about being able to afford the medicines they need,’ says Jeremy Corbyn A Labour government would establish a state-funded generic drug manufacturer to make life-saving medicines affordable to all, Jeremy Corbyn has announced. Jeremy Corbyn then continued to explain that private drugs companies will be required to keep prices down as a condition of receiving public funding for research. A Quid Pro Quo working relationship. A Labour government would set up a “publicly owned generic drugs manufacturer” and scrap prescription fees, the party has said. Jeremy Corbyn has also promised that it will tackle the funding crisis […] - [Labour should accept the deal and direct the outcome by winning power in a general election.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-should-accept-the-deal-and-direct-the-outcome-by-winning-power-in-a-general-election/): The Labour Party need to stop its procrastination on a GE there are millions who are suffering under this Tory regime right now! Labour are failing the poor and needy by not grasping the opportunity to act. The deal empowers parliament not the Tory Party to define workers’ rights, environmental standards and consumer protections. Labour should not be opposing this deal. The Labour Party should be working on how to get elected. After which the Labour Party can decide what direction this country takes, how workers’ rights, environmental standards and consumer protections are managed and built into law, only via the […] - [Former Conservative minister who grabbed protester at Mansion House to quit as MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-conservative-minister-who-grabbed-protester-at-mansion-house-to-quit-as-mp/): Mark Field, the former Tory minister who controversially manhandled a female environmental protester at the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech, is to quit as an MP. He told his local party in Cities of London and Westminster, where he had a majority of just 3,148 over Labour at the 2017 general election, that he will not be a candidate at the next election. Announcing his decision, he said he was proud of his reputation as a “moderate, consensual MP, invariably keen to work effectively across party lines to the benefit of constituents and communities alike”. He cited disagreements with the handling of […] - [The Brexit deal explained as EU president Juncker says he 'rules out' further Brexit delay](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-brexit-deal-explained-as-eu-president-juncker-says-he-rules-out-further-brexit-delay/): We have a deal, and there is no need for prolongation The president of the European Commission has insisted there can be no further delay to Brexit now that a new deal has be struck by the UK. Jean-Claude Juncker said there would not be “any kind of prolongation” to Brexit and that “it has to be done now”. “We have concluded a deal and so there is not an argument for further delay. It has to be done now,” Mr Juncker told reporters on the doorstep of the European Council summit in Brussels. “We have a deal. The British prime minister has to make […] - [Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman quits Labour blaming Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and antisemitism](https://heartlandstribune.com/liverpool-riverside-mp-louise-ellman-quits-labour-blaming-jeremy-corbyns-leadership-and-antisemitism/): In the wake of a general election Louise Ellman quiets the Labour Party just after a no confidence motion was raised against her earlier this month Dame Louise Ellman has quit the Labour Party blaming Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership after more than 20 years serving as the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside. Sharing a statement published on Wednesday night, the MP tweeted that she could “no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM”. Louise Ellman, was the subject of an emergency meeting of her constituency Labour party earlier this month, when members of Riverside’s Executive Committee gathered to discuss […] - [EU demands Johnson address Brexit deal doubts within hours as end game plays out](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-demands-johnson-address-brexit-deal-doubts-within-hours-as-end-game-plays-out/): Michel Barnier: ‘Narrow path’ to Brexit deal still open EU chief negotiator told ministers there is 1 day left to agree a new text with the UK ahead of the European Council summit. European officials have said they need the hard details of a Brexit withdrawal deal within hours rather than days, ahead of an EU leaders’ summit. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said three issues needed resolution. EU negotiator Michel Barnier on Tuesday said it was “high time” for Britain to “turn good intentions into a legal text,” ahead of the EU leaders summit later this week. Barnier told a […] - [UK suspends arms sales to Turkey](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-suspends-arms-sales-to-turkey/): The Government freezes new arms licences to Turkey while it carries out a review of military exports to the country. The move follows the US betrayal of the Kurd’s and the following invasion of northern Syria by Turkey last week. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the U.K. government continues to monitor the situation in Syria “very closely.” “No further export licences to Turkey for items which might be used in military operations in Syria will be granted while we do so,” she said. “My department will take into account any developments in the operations in Syria as part of our […] - [Catalan protesters march on Barcelona after jail verdicts for separatists](https://heartlandstribune.com/catalan-protesters-march-on-barcelona-after-jail-verdicts-for-separatists/): Catalonia leaders jailed for sedition by Spanish court Spain’s Supreme Court has sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition over their role in the 2017 independence referendum. Three other defendants were found guilty of disobedience and fined but will not serve prison sentences. The 12 politicians and activists had all denied the charges. A new arrest warrant was also issued for former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who is living abroad. Puigdemont fled to Belgium after declaring Catalonia’s independence from Madrid in October 2017 following a referendum on secession that was ruled illegal. Carles […] - [Norway: Rail workers hold national strikes over EU rail privatisation](https://heartlandstribune.com/norway-rail-workers-hold-national-strikes-over-eu-rail-privatisation/): Norway hit by train strike over EU regulations Trains across Norway stopped for two hours on Thursday as employees walked out to protest against the implementation of the EU’s 4th Railway Package, a set of legislative texts designed to complete the single market for rail services. Protesters said the rules would weaken train services in Norway and have announced more strikes for 31 October. Norway is bound to follow EU rules due to its EEA membership. Railway employees all over Norway walked off the job to protest implementation of the latest package of EU rules and requirements. The strike not only brought all […] - [Labour NEC elections: No cage for this Bird](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-nec-elections-no-cage-for-this-bird/): After grassroots outrage at her suspension, Palestine solidarity campaigner and Left-wing Jewish Labour Councillor Jo Bird is back in the race to be elected to Labour’s ruling national executive. Birkenhead Councillor Jo Bird,, was the leading Left candidate for the NEC when earlier this week she was suspended by the Labour Party during the nominations phase of the by-election for the National Executive Committee. Jo Bird, who is running in the ongoing Labour National Executive Committee election with the support of Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Representation Committee and Labour Left Alliance, was suspended from Party membership. The result of which […] - [Labour deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon Keeping 'socialist policies'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-deputy-leadership-candidate-richard-burgon-keeping-socialist-policies/): Labour deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon insists Labour’s “socialist policies” were not the reason for the defeat in the 2019 general election while Sir Keir Starmer claimed different The main reason Labour lost the 2019 general election was because Brexit “overshadowed traditional party loyalties” says Richard Burgon For many of us who who don’t try to flinch from the truth or those that shirk it to remove themselves from responsibility understand fully the reason why we lost the 2019 General election was not for any other reason than the Sir Keir Starmer vote losing second referendum, many observers would have you believe […] - [We’re backing Tanbir Siddique for Labour Party SW Regional Executive Committee BAME Representative](https://heartlandstribune.com/were-backing-tanbir-siddique-for-labour-party-sw-regional-executive-committee-bame-representative/): Tanbir Siddique gave Labour Heartlands member’s his reasons why we should back him and vote him onto the South West Regional Executive Committee position of BAME Representative we hope you will too. “The Labour Party has been the natural home of black, Asian minority ethnic (BAME) voters for generations – it certainly was for my grandparents and parents who were Labour voters before me. Equality and diversity have always been at the heart of Labour policy with minimum wage, civil partnerships, gender equality and maternity rights. Following the rapid rise in membership under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour now has an estimated 72,000 […] - [Emily Thornberry is knocked out of the Labour leadership contest after failing to gain enough votes to make it onto the final ballot](https://heartlandstribune.com/emily-thornberry-is-knocked-out-of-the-labour-leadership-contest-after-failing-to-gain-enough-votes-to-make-it-onto-the-final-ballot/): Emily Thornberry was knocked out of the Labour leadership race after failing to meet the criteria The Shadow Foreign Secretary failed to garner enough nominations from local Labour branches to go forward to a vote of party members. The Islington South and Finsbury MP needed 33 constituency parties to nominate her but had reached only 31. Just hours before the deadline closed on Friday night it became apparent that she would fail to get the backing from the required 33 constituency Labour parties to send her through to the last round. It leaves the leadership contest as a three-way race between […] - [Defender 2020: War games on EU soil denounced as sabre-rattling](https://heartlandstribune.com/defender-2020-war-games-on-eu-soil-denounced-as-sabre-rattling/): The EU is prepared to spend billions on the military but not for civil projects NATO’s Defender Europe 2020 is war against Russia role-play, no matter what they tell you Britain may have just left the European Union but the country’s Navy was the first to arrive for US-led war games over the next six months across Europe. The Royal Navy was busy on Monday offloading heavy military vehicles in the Belgian port of Antwerp. The vehicles will be involved in the Defender-Europe 2020 exercises, which will see the biggest deployment of US troops – some 20,000 personnel – to Europe […] - [Labour Party NEC Elections: We're backing Keith Hussein for BAME](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-nec-elections-were-backing-keith-hussein-for-bame/): BAME NEC representative The election for the BAME NEC representative positions on the NEC of the Labour Party will take place in line with the election for Leader, Deputy Leader and the NEC CLP representatives that are currently vacant. Labour Heartlands members are supporting Keith Hussein, here is what he as to say about himself and why he is best suited to the position for the NEC BAME Representative. Labour has always been at the forefront of advancing equalities legislation, challenging discrimination, and providing opportunity for full participation in society. We also have more elected Black Asian and Minority Ethnic MPs […] - [Sajid Javid resigns as chancellor](https://heartlandstribune.com/sajid-javid-resigns-as-chancellor/): On the day Boris Johnson shakes up his ministerial team the prime minister suffers a major resignation. Sajid Javid has resigned as chancellor after refusing to sack his aides in a stunning row with the prime minister. Former chief secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak has replaced Mr Javid, telling journalists as he entered the Treasury that he was “delighted to be appointed” and had “a lot to get on with”. On a day when there were expectations of only a moderate shake-up of Boris Johnson’s government – little more than two months after the Tories’ general election success – Mr […] - [The Final Speech from The Great Dictator words as relevant today as they were in 1940](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-as-relevant-today-as-they-were-in-1940/): The Great Dictator Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940. Charlie Chaplin’s famous portrayal of fictitious dictator Adenoid Hynkel, a thinly-veiled version of Hitler, made waves around the world when he premiered the 1940 comedy, “The Great Dictator.” Some call it the greatest speech ever made. This remix puts Charlie Chaplin’s climactic address from “The Great Dictator” into present-day context, showing how the spirit of liberty, brotherhood, and equality that defeated fascism seven decades ago must be urgently reclaimed. Democracy calls for the people to take a stand and fight for their beliefs around dinner tables, in […] - [New Hampshire: Bernie Sanders, its the 'beginning of the end' for Donald Trump](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-hampshire-bernie-sanders-its-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-donald-trump/): Bernie Sanders: New Hampshire, today we have a chance to finish what we started four years ago and send a powerful message to the billionaire class. We won New Hampshire, and now the establishment is going to throw everything at us. After the chaos of the Democratic caucuses in Iowa last week, all eyes were on New Hampshire on Tuesday night to see if a clear winner can emerge from the slew of presidential candidates. Bernie Saunders was that winner. US democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thanked New Hampshire voters for his primary win and described it as ‘the beginning of the […] - [Coronavirus: Disease Officially Named COVID-19 By The World Health Organisation](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-disease-officially-named-covid-19-by-the-world-health-organisation/): As Coronavirus death toll surpasses 1,000 the World health authorities name the virus COVID-19. The new coronavirus disease that was first identified in Wuhan has received an official name from the World Health Organization: “COVID-19.” “COVI” comes from coronavirus. The “D” stands for disease. The 19 represents 2019, the year the virus was first identified, in December. The director general of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that the new name makes no reference to any of the people, places or animals associated with the coronavirus. The goal was to avoid stigma. Under international guidelines, the W.H.O. “had to […] - [Home Office proceeds with planned deportation flight to Jamaica despite court order](https://heartlandstribune.com/home-office-proceeds-with-planned-deportation-flight-to-jamaica-despite-court-order/): The flight took off at 6.30am this morning despite a Court of Appeal judge ordering the Home Office not to deport many of the detainees amid concerns over their access to legal advice It is not known how many people were on board or where the plane took off from. The court order on Monday stopped the government deporting some of those due to leave, amid concerns they may not have had access to legal advice. Chancellor Sajid Javid said no British nationals or anyone protected by the court ruling were on the flight. All of those being deported are Jamaican […] - [Campaigners claim victory in bid to stop 50 deportations to Jamaica](https://heartlandstribune.com/campaigners-claim-victory-in-bid-to-stop-50-deportations-to-jamaica/): The government has received a blow to its plans to deport about 50 people to Jamaica after one of two legal actions to try to halt the scheduled flight succeeded. The court of appeal made the ruling in an emergency out-of-hours hearing on Monday night, ordering the Home Office not to remove anyone scheduled to be deported from two detention centres near Heathrow on the 6.30am flight to Jamaica on Tuesday There has been a problem with the O2 phone network in the Heathrow detention centres since last month so many detainees have not been able to exercise their legal right […] - [Irish elections: Left-wing nationalist party Sinn Féin to push to form government](https://heartlandstribune.com/irish-elections-left-wing-nationalist-party-sinn-fein-to-push-to-form-government/): Left-wing Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein has demanded to be part of the next Irish government after an election that leader Mary Lou McDonald described as a ballot box “revolution”. A seismic election in Ireland has reshaped the traditional electoral landscape, with the left-wing nationalist party Sinn Féin surging into first place ahead of the traditionally dominant Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for the first time in the history of the republic. McDonald vowed to work with like-minded parties to form Ireland’s next ruling coalition after a sensational performance in the country’s general election that challenges the 90-year power duopoly of […] - [Labour Leadership: ‘Starmer Analytica’, Labour accuses Sir Keir Starmer’s campaign team of data hacking](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-starmer-analytica-labour-accuses-sir-keir-starmers-campaign-team-of-data-hacking/): The Labour party has formally reported members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team to the Information Commissioner, accusing them of hacking into the party’s membership database The Labour party has formally reported members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team to the Information Commissioner, accusing them of hacking into the party’s membership database, the BBC has learned. The allegations were made against two members of Sir Starmer’s team – one of them is his compliance official. They were passed to the Information Commissioner’s Office on Thursday. A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party takes its legal responsibilities for data […] - [Political shamrock in a 3-way tie, Irish election, exit polls](https://heartlandstribune.com/political-shamrock-in-a-3-way-tie-irish-election-exit-polls/): Election 2020 exit poll: FF 22%, FG 22%, SF 22% – three-way tie for share of vote Hung Dáil almost certain when election votes counted. Leading parties may struggle to form a majority, setting the stage for difficult coalition talks. Voters in Ireland returned no clear winner in Saturday’s election, exit polls indicated. There was a three-way split, with incumbent Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party on 22.4 percent, Fianna Fáil on 22.3 percent, and Sinn Féin on 22.2 percent of first preference votes, according to an exit poll by Ipsos MRBI for Irish media organisations. The result indicates the […] - [Coronavirus: Five Brits in French ski resort catch virus](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-five-brits-in-french-ski-resort-catch-virus/): Britons catch virus at French ski resort Five British nationals including a child caught coronavirus at a ski chalet in France. During their stay at the Contamines-Montjoie resort in Savoie, the group came in contact with another British national who had recently been in Singapore, French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn said Saturday.  Health officials said two apartments at the resort were being examined and that the infected were staying at a hospital in the region and were in good condition.  The group have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus at a mountain resort in France, after staying in the same chalet with a person who had […] - [DWP: Links to 69 benefit claimant suicides - and there are almost certainly more](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-links-to-69-benefit-claimant-suicides-and-there-are-almost-certainly-more/): A National Audit Office report reveals the scores of tragic cases that have been quietly investigated since 2016 – and warns even that total could be the tip of the iceberg The Department of Work and Pensions is facing calls for a public inquiry after it was revealed that it had carried out 69 investigations into suicides of benefit claimants over the past six years – and that it was likely that the true number of cases could be far higher. The National Audit Office (NAO) inquiry foundthe figure did not represent the true number of benefit-related suicides, in part because […] - [Greenpeace warns over hidden climate cost of ‘eco-friendly’ chicken](https://heartlandstribune.com/greenpeace-warns-over-hidden-climate-cost-of-eco-friendly-chicken/): Greenpeace says demand for soybeans that are used to make poultry feed is helping to drive destruction of South American forests. British consumers swapping red meat for chicken as part of a greener lifestyle may be unwittingly contributing to the razing of rainforests, Greenpeace said. With sales of chicken rising in Britain, the environmental pressure group warned of the hidden climate impact of raising the birds, whose feed is mainly grown in South America. That, says Greenpeace, means rising consumption could further endanger the rainforests, which are already shrinking by millions of hectares each year. “I really don’t think consumers are aware […] - [Kirk Douglas, Hollywood legend and star of Spartacus dies at 103](https://heartlandstribune.com/kirk-douglas-hollywood-legend-and-star-of-spartacus-dies-at-103/): Announcing father’s death, son Michael Douglas says square-jawed star of Paths of Glory and Lust For Life leaves legacy ‘that will endure for generations’ The stage and screen actor was well-known for a range of roles, including the 1960 classic Spartacus, in which he played the titular character. Born in New York in 1916, he rose to prominence during Hollywood’s “golden age”, earning his first Oscar nomination for the 1949 boxing story Champion. He was also the father of Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas. Michael said in a statement: “It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas […] - [Regardless of today's vote, Trump will remain impeached forever.](https://heartlandstribune.com/regardless-of-todays-vote-trump-will-remain-impeached-forever/): Today, the US Senate voted to acquit President Trump on two articles of impeachment. The Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment Wednesday, marking the inevitable and historic end to a bitterly fought, divisive impeachment trial that will reverberate into the 2020 election and shape Trump’s presidential legacy. But the final day of the Senate’s impeachment trial was not without suspense: Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, found the President guilty of abuse of power, becoming the first senator in US history to vote to remove from office a president from the same party. On the […] - [Trolls attacked Labour MP Tracy Brabin for showing a shoulder. She shut them down with a single tweet](https://heartlandstribune.com/trolls-attacked-labour-mp-tracy-brabin-for-showing-a-shoulder-she-shut-them-down-with-a-single-tweet/): Tracy Brabin struck back against online trolls who criticised her for baring her shoulder in Parliament. Was it just a distraction from a very serious question? Tracy Brabin, Labour member of Parliament (MP) and shadow culture secretary, received abuse on social media after her shoulder became exposed during a debate in the House of Commons on Monday. One Twitter user questioned whether her outfit was “appropriate attire” for Parliament.Brabin responded by tweeting her surprise that anyone “could get so emotional over a shoulder.” The MP also wrote: “Sorry I don’t have time to reply to all of you commenting on this […] - [Universal Credit roll-out delayed again, because people are too ‘scared’ to claim it](https://heartlandstribune.com/universal-credit-roll-out-delayed-again-because-people-are-too-scared-to-claim-it/): Labour calls for Universal Credit to be scrapped, as the public lose faith in the new benefits system. Full roll-out of the Government’s controversial Universal Credit scheme has been delayed again and is now not expected to be completed until September 2024, it has been reported today. According to the BBC, ministers have delayed roll-out of the new benefit system because too many people are “scared” to move to it. The delay adds an extra £500 million to its spiralling cost. Universal Credit rolls six social security benefits, including tax credits and housing benefit, into one single monthly payment. The Department […] - [Electric future: Britain to ban new petrol and hybrid cars from 2035](https://heartlandstribune.com/electric-future-britain-to-ban-new-petrol-and-hybrid-cars-from-2035/): Tory says never trust a Tory Johnson’s launch of COP26 was marred by a stinging attack on the prime minister by the summit’s former head Clare O’Neill who was sacked from the post last week. Johnson declined to answer any questions on O’Neill, but last week the government said the role would be filled by a minister. A government source suggested her replacement would most likely to announced in a wider reshuffle of government posts expected this month. O’Neill, a former energy minister, accused Johnson of a lack of leadership and said he had admitted to her he did not understand […] - [French knife attacker was a trainee soldier who had recently converted to Islam](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-knife-attacker-was-a-trainee-soldier-who-had-recently-converted-to-islam/): A knife attack at a French police barracks was carried out by a trainee soldier who stabbed officers having reportedly made a phone call to say he was inspired by ISIS. It follows a recent spate of knife attacks across Europe by extremists seemingly motivated or claimed by terror groups. There are fears that recent statements by ISIS and Al Qaeda could be causing such attacks with the latter releasing a video on Sunday calling for stabbings with household knives in message seemingly directed at Western Muslims. #StreathamTerrorAttack: As #jihad groups get squeezed, we’ll see this more. New #alQaeda video out […] - [Streatham attack: Emergency terror law to end early prisoner release](https://heartlandstribune.com/streatham-attack-emergency-terror-law-to-end-early-prisoner-release/): The government will introduce emergency legislation to prevent terrorists from automatically being released from prison before serving all of their sentence. Justice secretary Robert Buckland also said those jailed for terror offences will have to appear before the parole board before they can be released. He made the announcement the day after Sudesh Amman, 20, was shot dead by police after stabbing two people in what is believed to have been an Islamist-inspired attack in Streatham, south London on Sunday afternoon. Mr Buckland said the latest attack made the case “for immediate action”. Under the emergency legislation, terror prisoners, including ones […] - [French police shoot knife man who entered police station](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-police-shoot-knife-man-who-entered-police-station/): French police shot and wounded a man armed with a knife after he challenged officers inside a police station in eastern France on Monday, a spokesman for the national Gendarmerie said. The assailant, who wounded one officer’s hand, was taken to hospital. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear, the spokesman said. The officer, who has not been named, also fired a tear gas canister at the individual before firing two shots in Dieuze, Moselle, this afternoon. The attacker was injured in the abdomen and transported to hospital for treatment, although the severity of his injuries is yet to […] - [Coronavirus: China accuses U.S. of whipping up panic over virus, as Pakistan resumes flights](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-china-accuses-u-s-of-whipping-up-panic-over-virus-as-pakistan-resumes-flights/): China accused the United States on Monday of whipping up panic over a fast-spreading coronavirus with travel restrictions and evacuations as Chinese stocks plunged on the first day back from the extended Lunar New Year holiday. The death toll in China from the newly identified virus, which emerged in Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei, rose to 361 as of Sunday, up 57 from the previous day, the National Health Commission said. The World Health Organisation (WHO) last week declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and it has since spread to 23 other countries and regions. The first […] - [Johnson talks tough on post-Brexit trade deal, Barnier warns of a 'cliff edge' no-deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-talks-tough-on-post-brexit-trade-deal-barnier-warns-of-a-cliff-edge-no-deal/): Boris Johnson insisted the U.K. will not engage in a “race to the bottom” on competition standards after Brexit. On the first working day of his administration in the post-Brexit world, he laid out his negotiating terms for where trade talks with the European Union go from here. His stance was clear saying: “Well folks, I hope you’ve got the message by now. We’ve made a choice. We want a comprehensive free-trade agreement similar to Canada’s, but in the unlikely event that we do not succeed, our trade will have to be based on our existing withdrawal agreement with the EU.” […] - [London terror attack suspect named having been recently released from prison](https://heartlandstribune.com/london-terror-attack-suspect-named-having-been-recently-released-from-prison/): Suspect in London attack was recently released from prison – police In a statement, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D’Orsi said: “At approximately 2:00 pm today, Sunday the 2nd of February, two people were stopped in Streatham High Road, Lambeth. Armed officers who were part of a proactive counter-terrorism surveillance operation and were following the suspect on foot were in immediate attendance and shot a male suspect dead at the scene. The suspect had been recently released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for Islamist-related terrorism offences. The officers saw that a device was strapped to his body and […] - [Coronavirus: More Than 14,000 Cases Confirmed, First Death Outside China Recorded in Philippines](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-more-than-14000-cases-confirmed-first-death-outside-china-recorded-in-philippines/): The first coronavirus death outside China’s borders A man has died of the coronavirus in the Philippines, the first confirmed fatality outside China. The patient was a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected. He appeared to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said. More than 300 people have died in the outbreak so far, the vast majority from Hubei. More than 14,000 people have been infected. Countries around the world have announced strict travel restrictions against visitors flying in from China, even as the World Health Organisation (WHO) […] - [Police say they have shot man in south London in terrorism-related incident](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-say-they-have-shot-man-in-south-london-in-terrorism-related-incident/): Police shoot man dead after London stabbing incident described as terrorism Police shot dead a man in south London on Sunday after two people were stabbed in what police described as a terrorism-related incident. Armed officers shot the man in Streatham, a busy residential district south of the River Thames. “The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related,” the police said on Twitter. Police said later the man they had shot had been pronounced dead, and two people had been wounded. “We await updates on their condition,” police said, adding the scene of the incident was now […] - [EU: Post-Brexit budget cuts to poorer nations and food banks](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-post-brexit-budget-cuts-to-poorer-nations-and-food-banks/): Poorer countries are angered at proposals by the Commission to cut their aid money A day after the European Union waved goodbye to Britain, some of Europe’s poorest nations urged the bloc’s leaders not to implement a “sharp and disproportional” cut to their aid money in the next long-term budget. The European Union provides aid known as cohesion funds to member states in the south and east to help them invest in development and catch up with richer peers to the north and west. But various proposals by the so-called “frugal” countries, including paymaster Germany in September, seek to reduce the size of the cohesion funds and […] - [Tony Benn - Britain must Leave the EU to restore Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-britain-must-leave-the-eu-to-restore-democracy/): Today marks a new age for the United Kingdom, after 3 and half years we have our democracy back At 11 p.m. on Friday — midnight in Brussels, Britain will officially depart from the European Union, 1,317 days after voting in favour of leaving the bloc in a referendum that plunged the country into a three-year-long debate over its future. The Accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities took effect on 1 January 1973. It’s been 47 years since the UK was taken into the ECC by the Tory Party. A move carried out for the sake of short […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: Brexit is day for 'reflection, not celebration'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-brexit-is-day-for-reflection-not-celebration/): Jeremy Corbyn declared Brexit day should be a day of reflection. But gives a stark warning to other EU countries about the rise of the Far-right “It’s a very important day for everybody, whether they voted Leave or Remain because it is deciding the future direction of our country. And we need to ensure that we do maintain good trade relationships with Europe, we do not tear up all the conditions and agreements we’ve received, and we don’t fall into the arms of free trade deals with the United States Corbyn said the country must mull over the reasons why Britons […] - [This is what it looks like when American Nurses go on strike.](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-is-what-it-looks-like-when-american-nurses-go-on-strike/): 8000 Healthcare workers protest through the streets of Seattle On Tuesday morning, nearly 8,000 nurses, nursing assistants, lab workers, environmental service technicians, dietary workers, clerks, and other hospital staff launched their first-ever strike — in a healthcare labor stoppage their union is hailing as the largest of its kind in the nation in at least five years. The workers, members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, have been protesting their region’s largest medical center, Swedish-Providence, which has resisted their demands for increased staffing levels and higher wages over nine months at the bargaining table. There is a universal fight, a Class struggle, a […] - [Coronaviruses: WHO declares global emergency as China virus death toll reaches 170](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronaviruses-who-declares-global-emergency-as-china-virus-death-toll-reaches-170/): The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday it was declaring the China coronavirus outbreak that has killed 170 people in China a global emergency, as cases spread to 18 countries. The United States reported its first case of person-to-person transmission. Experts say cases of person-to-person transmission – which have also been detected outside China in Germany, Vietnam, and Japan – are especially concerning because they suggest greater potential for the virus to spread further. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told a news conference in Geneva that recent weeks have witnessed an unprecedented outbreak which has been met by an unprecedented […] - [US-UK: Pompeo backs 'Five Eyes' intelligence sharing despite UK decision on Huawei](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-uk-pompeo-backs-five-eyes-intelligence-sharing-despite-uk-decision-on-huawei/): U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo endorsed Britain’s role on Thursday in a privileged system for sharing U.S. intelligence, playing down a rift over London’s decision to allow a Chinese firm to help build its new mobile phone network. On a highly symbolic visit to Britain the day before its exit from the European Union, Pompeo said the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network was “strong”, and would remain in place despite Britain’s decision this week not to exclude Huawei from supplying 5G telecoms equipment. He also said Britain would be “at the front of the line” for a post-Brexit trade deal […] - [Tears and cheers as EU lawmakers give final nod to Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/tears-and-cheers-as-eu-lawmakers-give-final-nod-to-brexit/): The European Parliament gave final approval to Britain’s divorce from the European Union on Wednesday, paving the way for the country to quit the bloc on Friday after nearly half a century and delivering a major setback for European integration. After an emotional debate during which several speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October, more than three years since Britons voted out. Thirteen MEPs abstained and the chamber then broke into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish folk song of farewell. Britain’s 73 departing EU lawmakers headed […] - [Train fat cats receive £1.2 billion in share payouts as rail network crumbles](https://heartlandstribune.com/train-fat-cats-receive-1-2-billion-in-share-payouts-as-rail-network-crumbles/): Taking back the railways is going to be a tough track but there is an argument for Nationalisation even the Tory’s can’t ignore Nearly 30 years ago the Spitting Images show forecast exactly this, “Down go the standards, up go the fares and only fat bastards will soon own the shares. Out go the regions, the unprofitable routes, just leaving commuter trains crammed full of suits….. the private contractors making their pitch, the Tory supporters all making it rich. The bankers, the brokers, the PR men too, the only ones who will lose out are YOU” Today “Firms who provide trains […] - [Global dissatisfaction with democracy has reached a record high, research claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/global-dissatisfaction-with-democracy-has-reached-a-record-high-research-claims/): The political landscape has drastically changed all across the world over the past decade, with traditional political parties failing to franchise their core electorate, which in turn has slowly migrated towards alternative parties that have sprung up from seemingly nowhere. If ten or twenty years ago a clear distinct ideology was adopted by all parties, be them on the right or left of the political spectrum, nowadays more and more politicians are adopting a “populist” approach when building up their support. But why? what is populism? First off, we must understand something quite important – in the West, populism came as […] - [Britain nationalises Northern Rail after years of disruption](https://heartlandstribune.com/britain-nationalises-northern-rail-after-years-of-disruption/): Ailing train operator Northern Rail is to be renationalised, the government has announced. It will be taken back into public ownership on 1 March, transport secretary Grant Shapps announced. The “operator of last resort”, part of the Department for Transport (DfT), already manages the LNER franchise, which runs services from London to cities in north east England. The decision follows the transport secretary’s announcement at the start of January that the beleaguered train operator would be stripped of its franchise following “unacceptable” performance. An operator of last resort is a business in the United Kingdom that operates a railway franchise in the event that a train […] - [Mafia rake in millions from EU farm subsidies scam](https://heartlandstribune.com/mafia-rake-in-millions-from-eu-farm-subsidies-scam/): The cost of EU corruption: To put that figure into a global context it could end world hunger Italian police have broken and dismantled a massive Mafia operation in Sicily which had been defrauding the European Union of millions of euros in funds destined to farmers. Since 2013, the Tortorici Mafia — named after a town in the mountainous Nebrodi area in the island’s northeast — had defrauded about 10 million euros ($11 million) from the EU, said, prosecutors. A total of 94 people were arrested in early-morning raids and 151 agricultural businesses tied to Mafia members were seized, authorities said […] - [France on the edge: Police vs firefighters - Battle of the emergency services](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-on-the-edge-police-vs-firefighters-battle-of-the-emergency-services/): Police clashed with firefighters at a protest in Paris on Tuesday. Thousands of firefighters attended the protest in the French capital, asking for an increase of their hazard bonus, which has not changed since 1990. The Police deployed tear gas and water cannon against firefighters the witnessed six firefighters being arrested during the clashes, while three police were injured, according to reports. “There is real anger and the problem is we’re not listened to,” Eric Brezault, a 46-year-old firefighter from southern France told Reuters. “That’s why people are getting more angry and it’s starting to get violent.” Police fired tear gas […] - [Coronavirus: China says WHO chief against virus-related evacuations, as countries plan pull-outs](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-china-says-who-chief-against-virus-related-evacuations-as-countries-plan-pull-outs/): The head of the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday he was confident in China’s ability to contain a new coronavirus that has killed 106 people and that he did not think foreigners should be evacuated, China’s foreign ministry said. A growing number of countries have said they will evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people and the epicentre of the outbreak. A chartered plane taking out U.S. consulate staff was set to leave Wuhan on Wednesday, a spokeswoman at the U.S. embassy in Beijing said. Some space was being offered to other U.S. citizens. India […] - [Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day: Auschwitz survivor returns to death camp for final time](https://heartlandstribune.com/holocaust-victims-remembrance-day-auschwitz-survivor-returns-to-death-camp-for-final-time/): 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz and International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day Edith Notowicz first saw Nazi SS doctor Josef Mengele when she arrived at the Auschwitz extermination camp in May 1944, after several days crammed into a cattle train so packed that by journey’s end she and her family had to sit on the dead. “He was in his military uniform, carrying a conductor’s baton and waving it in the air, whistling, as he was sorting us out – left, right, left, right – deciding who would live and who would die,” […] - [Let’s have a Guaranteed Living Wage for all Carers – they deserve it!](https://heartlandstribune.com/lets-have-a-guaranteed-living-wage-for-all-carers-they-deserve-it/): An army of Carers are overworked, undervalued unappreciated but more so underpaid. Carers save the economy £132 billion per year, an average of £19,336 per carer. 5 million people in the UK are juggling caring responsibilities with work – that’s 1 in 7 of the workforce. However, the significant demands of caring mean that 600 people give up work every day to care for an older or disabled relative. Facts & figures 1 in 8 adults (around 6.5 million people) are carers Every day another 6,000 people take on a caring responsibility – that equals over 2 million people each year. 58% of carers […] - [Len McCluskey: Labour's defeat due to referendum policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/len-mccluskey-labours-defeat-due-to-referendum-policy/): Len McCluskey claimed Labour’s election defeat last month was “virtually, solely down to Brexit” and defended the party’s policies on other matters. Mr McCluskey said he believed that Labour lost the election because of its stance on Brexit and that he had tried to warn Corbyn that the policy was jeopardising their chances of winning. “It was predominantly Brexit and some of us were,including myself, were pointing this out to the leadership for over 12 months. “The more that Labour slid into being perceived as a Remain party the more we were saying that there would be consequences in our heartlands […] - [Labour Leadership: We're backing Burgon](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-were-backing-burgon/): We’re backing Richard Burgon for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party   When Richard Burgon pitched himself as a unity candidate for deputy leader of the party. The Labour Heartlands breathed a small sigh of relief knowing a champion of the working class, a standard bearer in the fight for both civil and workers rights had thrown his hat into the ring. When shadow justice secretary and Leeds East MP made his case for choosing to run in the race. He said there was a need to bring together different sides of the party while figuring out exactly how Labour’s policies, including […] - [Assange's Solitary Confinement Ends Following Pressure From Fellow Prisoners](https://heartlandstribune.com/assanges-solitary-confinement-ends-following-pressure-from-fellow-prisoners/): Prisoners’ revolt and pressure from legal team and campaigners forces Belmarsh to move Assange out of solitary. Assange’s forced isolation and lack of access to proper medical care in Belmarsh prison has been heavily criticised by the UN expert on torture, as well as by dozens of medical professionals who have demanded that he be transferred to a proper teaching hospital for examination. Prison authorities have removed Julian Assange from solitary confinement in what has been described as a “huge” and “important” victory by Joseph Farrell, WikiLeaks‘s Ambassador and section editor. The “dramatic climb-down” by Belmarsh prison authorities followed intense pressure both […] - [Coronavirus outbreak: First confirmed cases in Europe as France declares two infections](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-outbreak-first-confirmed-cases-in-europe-as-france-declares-two-infections/): France confirmed on Friday its first two cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with one patient being hospitalised in Paris and the other in the southwestern city of Bordeaux. Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told a news conference these were the first two confirmed cases in Europe and that more cases were likely to occur in France. Earlier, the charity SOS Medecins said it had treated a patient of Chinese origin who was showing symptoms of a fever and who said he had been in contact with people from Wuhan province in China, epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. Buzyn said this patient was 48 years old […] - [Labour leadership: Unite endorses Rebecca Long-Bailey](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-unite-endorses-rebecca-long-bailey/): Labour leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey has won the endorsement of the Unite trade union, taking her one step closer to the members’ ballot. Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, emerged from an all-day meeting of the union’s ruling executive to say it was their overwhelming view that “Becky has both the brains and the brilliance to take on Boris Johnson. “She’s incredibly committed; very, very strong in her beliefs and her vision, for winning back our heartlands, but also speaking about the aspirational needs of the whole of our nation,” he added. The union will also back Richard Burgon for the vacant […] - [Morrisons supermarket axes 3,000 managers in huge shake-up](https://heartlandstribune.com/morrisons-supermarket-axes-3000-managers-in-huge-shake-up/): British supermarket group Morrisons  plans to cut 3,000 management jobs as part of a workforce restructuring that will create 7,000 frontline jobs in its stores, it said on Thursday. All of the company’s 492 UK stores will retain an overall manager but departmental roles – such as beers, wines and spirits managers – will be axed and managerial responsibilities for positions lost will be taken on by fewer managers with a broader remit. “Whilst there will be a short period of uncertainty for some managers affected by these proposals, we will be supporting them through this process and there are jobs […] - [Brexit bill receives royal assent and becomes law](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-bill-receives-royal-assent-and-becomes-law/): Brexit bill receives royal assent and becomes law as EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act The Brexit bill has received royal assent. It is now an act of parliament, the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act.The United Kingdom has passed the legislation to make the current Brexit deal with the European Union official UK law, paving the way for the country’s exit from the EU on January 31. The bill implementing Britain’s exit deal with the European Union officially became law on Thursday ahead of the country’s departure from the bloc on January the 31st. next week. The legislation passed its final parliamentary stage on […] - [EU president the former German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen says: Europe needs 'credible military capabilities'](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-president-the-former-german-defence-minister-ursula-von-der-leyen-says-europe-needs-credible-military-capabilities/): In a key speech the EU president von der Leyen made a pitch for an EU Army Von der Leyen said: The EU is a master of rebuilding but must develop hard power — “credible military capabilities” — to influence world events, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. She stressed that these capabilities will be complementary to NATO and “different.” “We must also do more when it comes to managing crises as they develop,” von der Leyen said in a keynote speech at the annual gathering of billionaires and business titans in Switzerland. […] - [China's Wuhan shuts down transport as global alarm mounts over virus spread](https://heartlandstribune.com/chinas-wuhan-shuts-down-transport-as-global-alarm-mounts-over-virus-spread/): The latest death toll in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, rose to 17 Deaths from China’s new flu-like virus rose to 17 on Wednesday, with more than 540 cases confirmed, leading the city at the centre of the outbreak to close transport networks and urge citizens not to leave as fears rose of the contagion spreading. The previously unknown coronavirus strain is believed to have emerged from an animal market in the central city of Wuhan, and is suspected by Chinese officials to originate from illegally traded wildlife. Cases have been detected as far away as the United […] - [European shares drop from record high on threat of U.S. auto tariffs](https://heartlandstribune.com/european-shares-drop-from-record-high-on-threat-of-u-s-auto-tariffs/): U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose high tariffs on imports of cars from the European Union if the bloc doesn’t agree to a trade deal. Trump has previously made threats to place duties on European automobile imports, with the intent of receiving better terms in the U.S.-Europe trade relationship. Trump has delayed imposing the tariffs a number of times. “I met with the new head of the European Commission, who’s terrific. And I had a great talk. But I said, ‘look, if we don’t get something, I’m going to have to take action’ and the action will be […] - [South Western Railway 'not sustainable' and could come into public sector](https://heartlandstribune.com/south-western-railway-not-sustainable-and-could-come-into-public-sector/): South Western Railway’s (SWR) finances indicate it is “not sustainable in the long term”, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said. The operator’s financial performance has been “significantly below expectation” since the franchise began in August 2017, he said, blaming poor punctuality and reliability combined with slower revenue growth. Whilst warning that SWR, which made a pre-tax loss of £139m in the year to March 2019, has “not yet failed to meet their financial commitments”, Mr Shapps said his department “must prepare suitable contingency measures”. That could mean issuing a new short-term contract to SWR’s owners – FirstGroup and MTR – or […] - [Tax avoidance, evasion costs EU 170 billion euros a year](https://heartlandstribune.com/tax-avoidance-evasion-costs-eu-170-billion-euros-a-year/): European Union member states lose 170 billion euros (£143 billion) a year due to tax avoidance and evasion, a Polish state think-tank said in a report due to be discussed later on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. The report, from the Polish Economic Institute, also proposed that the European Commission should have powers to sanction as “EU tax havens” countries that benefited from what it called artificial profit-shifting by companies. “Losses resulting from the use of international transactions for tax fraud and tax avoidance reduce EU Member States’ revenues by around 170 billion euros annually,” Piotr […] - [Israeli troops kill three Palestinians in Gaza border attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-troops-kill-three-palestinians-in-gaza-border-attack/): Israeli troops on Tuesday shot and killed three Palestinians,  Israeli troops claim the Palestinians threw an explosive towards them after attempting to cross the border from neighbouring Gaza, Israel’s military said. The military said troops had cordoned off an area near the southern end of the Palestinian coastal enclave after spotting “three suspects” crossing the frontier. “(They) searched the area towards the suspects who hurled a grenade or explosive device at the troops,” who then opened fire on the three Palestinians, the military said in a statement. A military spokeswoman confirmed they were killed. Two of the Palestinians killed were aged […] - [UK government suffers fourth defeat on Brexit legislation in House of Lords](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-government-suffers-fourth-defeat-on-brexit-legislation-in-house-of-lords/): Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government suffered a fourth defeat on its Brexit legislation when members of parliament’s upper chamber voted on Tuesday to ensure protections for child refugees after Britain leaves the European Union. Johnson’s Conservatives won a large majority in the lower chamber, the House of Commons, in a Dec. 12 election and earlier this month lawmakers there quickly approved the legislation needed to ratify his exit deal with Brussels. But the House of Lords, where Johnson’s government does not have a majority, made three changes to the legislation on Monday, including over the rights of EU citizens after Brexit. […] - [Labour leadership: Jess Phillips quits race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-jess-phillips-quits-race-to-succeed-jeremy-corbyn/): Jess Phillips has dropped out of the Labour leadership contest, leaving four candidates in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.  In a video message to her supporters she stated: “Sending a message to everyone who has backed me, to all who have joined in and joined up – I promise that your voices will still be heard. We all have a role to play in changing our party and our country.” The Birmingham Yardley MP argued the next leader had to be able to unite the whole Labour movement. She said she had to “be honest” with herself – “that person […] - [Half a billion unemployed or underemployed worldwide: UN report](https://heartlandstribune.com/half-a-billion-unemployed-or-underemployed-worldwide-un-report/): Insufficient paid work affects almost half a billion people. A new United Nations report shows more than 470 million people are unemployed or underemployed globally. The report said a lack of access to decent jobs is contributing to social unrest — and warns that worse is to come. A lack of decent work combined with rising unemployment and persisting inequality is making it increasingly difficult for people to build better lives through their work, according to the latest edition of the ILO’s global report on employment and social trends. The global unemployment rate remained relatively stable during the 2010s, according to […] - [Trump's Senate trial begins as a polarised America looks on](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumps-senate-trial-begins-as-a-polarised-america-looks-on/): Donald Trump’s impeachment trial begins in earnest in the Senate on Tuesday in a rare use of the constitutional mechanism for ousting a president that has only deepened the polarisation of U.S. voters ahead of presidential elections in November. Democrats have called on the Senate to remove the Republican president from office, describing him as a danger to American democracy and national security. Trump and his lawyers have decried his impeachment, saying he has done nothing wrong and that Democrats are simply trying to stop him from being re-elected. The televised trial is expected to hear opening arguments in the Republican-controlled […] - [Four protesters, two policemen killed as Iraq unrest resumes](https://heartlandstribune.com/four-protesters-two-policemen-killed-as-iraq-unrest-resumes/): Iraq sees an escalation of civil unrest  Six Iraqis including two police officers were killed and scores were wounded in Baghdad and other cities on Monday in clashes with security forces, medical and security sources said, as anti-government unrest resumed after a lull of several weeks. Three protesters succumbed to their wounds at a Baghdad hospital after police fired live rounds in Tayaran Square, the sources said. Two protesters were shot by live bullets while a third was hit by a tear gas canister, they said. A fourth demonstrator was shot dead by police in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala, […] - [UK to introduce tougher jail terms for convicted terrorists after London Bridge attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-to-introduce-tougher-jail-terms-for-convicted-terrorists-after-london-bridge-attack/): The UK will introduce tougher jail sentences for convicted terrorists and will end early release as part of a series of measures to strengthen its response to terrorism, the government said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to make changes after an attack near London Bridge in November in which Usman Khan, a convicted terrorist who had been released early from prison, killed two people. Khan had been sentenced to a minimum of eight years in prison in 2012 with a requirement that the parole board assess his danger to the public before release. He was set free in December […] - [3 Rockets Hit Baghdad's Green Zone Near US Embassy: Security Sources](https://heartlandstribune.com/3-rockets-hit-baghdads-green-zone-near-us-embassy-security-sources/): Three Katyusha rockets fell inside Baghdad’s Green Zone which houses government buildings and foreign missions, Iraqi police sources. The three rockets were launched from Zafaraniyah district outside Baghdad, the sources told Reuters, adding that two rockets landed near the U.S. embassy. Sirens could be heard across the zone immediately after the rockets made impact. #Breaking “Rocket attack alarms sounding off multiple times on the #US #Baghdad Embassy Complex and Union III. Heard the booms myself on Union III. Speakers telling all to take shelter immediately.” pic.twitter.com/F1lpbWm9RE — Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) January 20, 2020 The US has blamed Iran-backed paramilitary groups for […] - [France civil unrest: Police tear gas crowds during new anti-Macron yellow vests protests in Paris](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-civil-unrest-police-tear-gas-crowds-during-new-anti-macron-yellow-vests-protests-in-paris/): Tear gas, arrests in new anti-Macron protest in Paris Demonstrations have been carried out in the French capital every Saturday since November 2018 French police fired tear gas and arrested several people on Saturday as thousands of Yellow Vest anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Paris, showering the security forces with a hail of projectiles. Demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing the police, President Emmanuel Macron and his pension reforms that have triggered the longest French transport strike in decades. This was the latest of the weekly demonstrations held every Saturday by the yellow vest movement since November 2018, and which have […] - [EU former ambassador suspected of spying for China named as Gerhard Sabathil](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-former-ambassador-suspected-of-spying-for-china-named-as-gerhard-sabathil/): Three suspects are under investigation including a former EU diplomat and two lobbyists. It’s the first case in recent years to bring concrete allegations of spying by China against Germany and the European Union. News of an investigation into a former senior EU diplomat suspected of spying for China is sending shockwaves through Brussels’ closely interlinked circles of lobbyists, officials and politicians. While no one has been charged in the probe taking place in Germany and Belgium, officials and lobbyists in the EU capital are already discussing the potential impact of the bombshell revelation that an EU veteran employed by a […] - [EU Parliament picks Guy Verhofstadt for 'New President' role to set the future of the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-parliament-picks-guy-verhofstadt-for-new-president-role-to-set-the-future-of-the-eu/): MEP Guy Verhofstadt will become president of the “Conference on the Future of Europe,” an exercise to consider how the EU should be reshaped, according to a deal between European Parliament leaders. The former Belgian prime minister is to have German conservative Manfred Weber as his deputy. Germany and France drawn up a blueprint for a two-year “Conference on the Future of Europe” aimed at overhauling nearly all aspects of how the EU functions, including possible treaty changes if need be, with a goal of making the bloc “more united and sovereign,” A new European Empire Guy Verhofstadt described at the […] - [Labour Leadership: Deluded Sir Keir Starmer in 'DENIAL' over Labour's Heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-deluded-sir-keir-starmer-in-denial-over-labours-heartlands/): Sir Keir Starmer has warned against blaming Labour’s historic election defeat on its 2019 campaign alone. NEWSFLASH STARMER, WE BLAME YOU. The leadership candidate claimed the party had been losing votes in its Heartlands for a “long time” and had lost four general elections in a row. People wanted “fundamental change” but did not trust Labour to deliver it, he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. He goes on to say: “We need to unify the party and I think I can do that,” he said. “We spent far too much time fighting ourselves and not fighting the Tories. Factions have been […] - [Labour Leadership: Muslim council of Britain's 'Ten Pledges' Adopted](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-muslim-council-of-britains-ten-pledges-adopted/): The contenders for the Labour Leadership contest have adopted the ‘Ten pledges’ from the Muslim council of Britain. Back in November 2019, the Muslim Council of Britain launched its election policy platform, in which it called on all political parties to commit to a series of 10 key pledges, with Islamophobia being the key priority. The report, along with identifying a number of policies on a range of issues from the NHS to national security, details the issues surrounding Islamophobia which are most pertinent to British Muslims. In particular, the MCB found 3 in 4 Muslims are most concerned about the […] - [Flybe: government agrees rescue deal for troubled airline](https://heartlandstribune.com/flybe-government-agrees-rescue-deal-for-troubled-airline/): The Government has struck a deal with the airline’s shareholders after crisis talks over the future of Flybe amid fears 2,000 jobs could be lost if the company collapsed Ministers agreed to work with Flybe to figure out a repayment plan for a significant tax debt that is thought to top £100m. Meanwhile, the firm’s owners have agreed to pump more money into the loss-making airline. Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said the deal would keep the company operating. More than 2000 jobs in the UK were at risk if the company was to follow Thomas Cook into collapse. Flybe would be […] - [Burying the Truth of Child Exploitation and Rape: Successive Governments, Police forces, and Social Services have Betrayed the British Public.](https://heartlandstribune.com/burying-the-truth-of-child-exploitation-and-rape-successive-governments-police-forces-and-social-services-have-betrayed-the-british-public/): A police chief has apologised to the children abused by grooming gang his officers failed to bring to justice and said he is “personally disgusted” the children were not cared for. This is not ancient history or an isolated case, more than 18,700 suspected victims of child sexual exploitation were identified by local authorities in 2018-19, up from 3,300 five years before. Labour Heartlands looks at the GMP inquiry and Sajid Javid promise of a review into the characteristics of grooming gangs in 2018. Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins spoke after a damning report revealed the gangs of predominately […] - [We have a deal on Brexit: Ireland to hold snap election in February](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-have-a-deal-on-brexit-ireland-to-hold-snap-election-in-february/): Varadkar “I have to acknowledge that circumstances have changed. We have a deal on Brexit and in many ways that was the big job of this government.” Varadkar says now is the best time for a vote as February 8th polling date set. Ireland will hold a snap general election next month, the country’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told his cabinet Tuesday morning. Irish media reported that the vote will be held on Saturday, February 8. Varadkar is expected to ask the Irish president to dissolve parliament later on Tuesday. Varadkar last week suggested that a snap election may be called soon, […] - [Scottish independence: Johnson rejects Sturgeon's indyref2 demand](https://heartlandstribune.com/scottish-independence-johnson-rejects-sturgeons-indyref2-demand/): The UK government has formally rejected a call from Scotland’s first minister for a second independence referendum. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a referendum would “continue the political stagnation Scotland has seen for the past decade”. Johnson also referred to the fact that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had previously pledged that the 2014 referendum would be a “once in a generation” vote“. Ms Sturgeon tweeted that the Tories were attempting to “deny democracy”. She said Mr Johnson’s formal refusal of her request for a referendum to be held later this year was “predictable but also unsustainable and self defeating”, and insisted […] - [Labour leadership: From Corbyn’s 10 pledges of socialist change to 10 damaging pledges of an outside religious organisation.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-from-corbyns-10-pledges-of-socialist-change-to-10-damaging-pledges-of-an-outside-religious-organisation/): All five of the Labour leader candidates have signed up to the Board of Deputies’ undemocratic, divisive and damaging list of pledges. Once we all flocked to the Labour Party inspired by Corbyn’s pledges to renationalise public services, end austerity and build council homes. Now the right-wing Board of Deputies which has absolutely nothing to do with the Labour movement is writing our pledges for us and the Corbyn successor candidate has already signed up to them. The Board of Deputies of British Jews is a self-appointed organisation who represent only a proportion Jews in the UK, believed to be composed […] - [Labour leadership: Five candidates through as nominations close](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-five-candidates-through-as-nominations-close/): It’s now a five-horse race for the Leadership position The leadership hopefuls passed the first hurdle after gaining the nominations of 22 MP and MEP colleagues. Sir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry are the remaining candidates. Emily Thornberry will join four other candidates on the ballot to become the next Labour leader, after winning the support of enough MPs and MEPs. The shadow foreign secretary passed the threshold of 22 backers less than 10 minutes before nominations closed. She was helped by Clive Lewis quitting the race – with several of his backers switching to back […] - [Clive Lewis Pulls Out Of Labour Leadership Contest](https://heartlandstribune.com/clive-lewis-pulls-out-of-labour-leadership-contest/): Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips or Emily Thornberry are still in the race. Clive Lewis has pulled out of the Labour leadership race, saying he was “standing aside in the spirit of pluralism, diversity and generosity”. Abandoning his leadership bid on Monday, Mr Lewis said: “At this stage, it’s clear that I won’t get on the ballot.” Mr Lewis required another 18 nominations from MPs or MEPs to reach the 22 threshold required by Monday’s 2.30pm deadline. The candidates to succeed Jeremy Corbyn have until 2.30pm on Monday to reach the threshold. Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa […] - [Iran: Mass protests call for leaders to resign](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-mass-protests-call-for-leaders-to-resign/): Crowds in Tehran call on leadership to resign after Tehran admits it mistakenly downed airliner with 176 people aboard. In a second day of protests the Iranian people turn up heat on their leaders. Protesters in Iran’s capital gathered on mass chanting: “They are lying that our enemy is America, our enemy is right here,” the demonstrators chanted as they took to the streets of Tehran. At the same time, the UK ambassador has denied taking part in the protests and decried his arrest, saying it was illegal. Tehran admitted to accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian airliner. Protesters in the country […] - [The State vs Democracy Catalonia : European Parliament strips jailed Catalan leader of his seat](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-state-vs-democracy-catalonia-european-parliament-strips-jailed-catalan-leader-of-his-seat/): Jailed Catalan separatist leader Oriol Junqueras is to be stripped of his seat in the European Parliament, the assembly’s president said Friday. Oriol Junqueras is a name that will surely go down in history as being a leader of the Catalan quest for independence from Spain. More than two years ago, he was the legal, legitimate and elected vice president of Catalonia, contributing decisively to calling a referendum of self-determination. Now, he could also be remembered as a key shaper of Europe. In December, Europe’s top court the ECJ ruled that Junqueras should have enjoyed immunity as an MEP and been […] - [French Strikes: Macron calls a 'Temporary Halt' to his pension reforms but the people will not stand down.](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-strikes-macron-calls-a-temporary-halt-to-his-pension-reforms-but-the-people-will-not-stand-down/): ‘La mobilisation’ the French strike against pension reforms continue after Macron makes a temporary climb down. With clouds of tear gas and smashed store windows punctuating the urban landscape of France, the French government made their first major concession on Saturday backing down to the unions protesting its pension reform plan. Macron has temporarily Scraped his proposal to raise the retirement age in France but the people and unions are not buying it.  Faced with an unrelenting protest over proposed changes in France’s pension system, officials withdraw a move to raise the full-benefit retirement age to 64 from the present 62. […] - [Amazon threatens to fire employees who speak out on climate change](https://heartlandstribune.com/amazon-threatens-to-fire-employees-who-speak-out-on-climate-change/): The company warned two employees that they could be terminated if they continue to speak out publicly about the business. An Amazon spokesperson said employees are “encouraged to work within their teams” and can suggest “improvements to how we operate through those internal channels.” A group of Amazon employees say the company has threatened to fire them for speaking out against the company’s environmental policies. In a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said that several employees were contacted by legal and HR representatives, who said they were in violation of the company’s external communications policy. […] - [Chris Williamson makes the case for a real grassroots movement](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-williamson-makes-the-case-for-a-real-grassroots-movement/): Join the Resistance with Chris Williamson Chris Williamson examines the Labour Party and why we lost the general election while making a compelling case for why the LeFT needs a real grassroots movement. The election defeat last year requires serious consideration about how best to respond. Rightwingers in the Labour Party have been falling over themselves to administer the last rites to Corbynism and establishment media hacks are anticipating a return to the neoliberal consensus. How did we get here? The outcome of the 2015 general election was a shattering blow, a majority Tory government had been elected for the first […] - [UNISON: A Democratic deficit and failure to consult members in 'Labour Leadership' endorsement of Sir Keir Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/unison-a-democratic-deficit-and-failure-to-consult-members-in-labour-leadership-endorsement-of-sir-keir-starmer/): Growing anger amongst UNISON members at the lack of consultation and not been allowed their say. The union failed to consult members arrange hustings or offer any form of consultancy in who the union would support for the Labour Leadership race. Members in an open later to the UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis suggested the union was incredibly premature in its decision to back Sir Keir Starmer. We also note that In 2015 and 2016 UNISON carried out hustings (see video below) and a substantial consultation process, so why not in 2020? The decision to back Sir Keir Starmer was taken […] - [Northern Ireland: Government to restart and restore powersharing at Stormont](https://heartlandstribune.com/northern-ireland-government-to-restart-and-restore-powersharing-at-stormont/): Sinn Fein to re-enter power sharing in Northern Ireland Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald has announced that the party has agreed to back a deal to restore powersharing at Stormont – a move that confirms the return of devolved government in Northern Ireland after a three-year absence. Mary Lou McDonald said: “Sinn Fein has met today and has taken the decision to reenter the powersharing institutions and to nominate ministers to the powersharing executive. We believe that the changes that have been achieved in the negotiations in the last year build on what was agreed in February 2018. We now […] - [Labour leadership: Gardiner won't make bid as four Labour MPs secure enough backers to formally run](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-gardiner-wont-make-bid-as-four-labour-mps-secure-enough-backers-to-formally-run/): The Labour leadership race has widened after three more MPs joined Sir Keir Starmer by making it through the first round. Rebecca Long Bailey, Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy all reached the threshold. They now have to pick up enough support from either local parties or the unions to make it onto the ballot paper. Barry Gardiner has confirmed he will not be running for leader after four of his colleagues secured enough nominations to formally run for the top job. A few hours after it was confirmed, Mr Gardiner, who had been weighing up his position, released a statement confirming […] - [Brexit legislation passes Commons hurdles After Year of Gridlock](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-legislation-passes-commons-hurdles-after-year-of-gridlock/): Boris Johnson’s Brexit legislation cleared its final hurdle in the House of Commons, putting an end to the parliamentary gridlock that cost his predecessor Theresa May her job. Members of Parliament voted 330 to 231 in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which now passes to the upper House of Lords. Johnson wants the measures passed into law before the end of the month so the U.K. can leave the European Union on Jan. 31 and he can deliver on his election campaign promise to “get Brexit done.”   This bill will secure our departure from the European union “It is […] - [Pentagon: Iran launches more than a dozen ballistic missiles at 2 Iraqi bases](https://heartlandstribune.com/pentagon-iran-launches-more-than-a-dozen-ballistic-missiles-at-2-iraqi-bases/): Iran threatens to attack inside America if US responds to missile attacks In its Telegram channel, Iranian Revolutionary Guard says the “Pentagon reports that the US will respond to Iran’s attacks.” IRGC then says in a footnote, “This time we will respond to you in America” The Pentagon confirmed that Iran launched missiles at US military and coalition forces in Iraq. Iran launched more than a dozen missiles at two Iraqi bases that hold US troops in what appears to be retaliation for the American airstrike that killed a top Iranian general last week, the Pentagon said Tuesday. A US official […] - [Labour leadership: Jeremy Corbyn won't endorse any of the six candidates](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn-wont-endorse-any-of-the-six-candidates/): Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not be endorsing a candidate to replace him as Labour leader. When asked whether he had made up his mind, he said: “I won’t be saying who I’ll be voting for.” It comes as six leadership hopefuls set out their stall at a meeting of Labour MPs at Westminster. The MPs need to get the backing of at least 20 of their colleagues to get on to the ballot paper. The winner will be announced on 4 April. Sheffield City region mayor and MP Dan Jarvis has, meanwhile, ruled out a leadership bid. Shadow business […] - [Rebecca Long Bailey: Jeremy Corbyn a perfect '10' while ignoring the argument on Open Borders](https://heartlandstribune.com/rebecca-long-bailey-jeremy-corbyn-a-perfect-10-while-ignoring-the-argument-on-open-borders/): Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long Bailey has given Jeremy Corbyn a “10 out of 10” rating but insisted she was not the “continuity candidate” to replace him. Rebecca Long Bailey, who announced her leadership bid on Monday evening following weeks of speculation, is being viewed by many as the candidate who will carry the torch of Corbynism into the next election. We review Rebecca Long Bailey opening gambit for the Leadership of the Labour Party and question her view on ‘Open Borders’  Bernie Wilcox asks: Does migration cause a drop in wages for the lower paid? How can the laws of […] - [Ian Lavery confirms he will not be standing for the Labour Party leadership.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ian-lavery-confirms-he-will-not-be-standing-for-the-labour-party-leadership/): Ian Lavery MP just  realised a statement on Social media stating he will not stand as Labour Party Leader. Mr Lavery made this statement on Facebook at 23:10 Monday night:  “URGENT STATEMENT: ‪I have just released a statement regarding the Leadership of the Labour Party. It has been truly humbling to receive so much support from our fantastic members and my Labour Party colleagues. Please read the full statement below ?‬ Over the last couple of weeks, it has been humbling to receive so much support from members and colleagues who have encouraged me to stand for leader of the Labour party. […] - [Ian Lavery 'Seriously Considering' Bid To Be Labour Leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/ian-lavery-seriously-considering-bid-to-be-labour-leader/): Labour party chairman Ian Lavery is “seriously considering” running to become the party’s new leader. The Mirror reported a spokesperson confirming the MP for Wansbeck’s interest in a bid for the party’s top job after Jeremy Corbyn quit following last month’s election disaster.  Lavery, a former general secretary of the National Union of Miners and seen as on the left of the party, will likely be seen as a ‘continuity Corbyn’ candidate if he does decide to run. Lavery is seen by the majority throughout the Labour Heartlands as the only candidate that could win back the lost regions. The incredible online support […] - [Angela Rayner to stand in Labour deputy leadership race](https://heartlandstribune.com/angela-rayner-to-stand-in-labour-deputy-leadership-race/): Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has announced she is joining the contest for Labour’s deputy leader. With a battle cry of ‘We must win or die’ Angela Rayner now enters the contest for deputy Labour leader. She is the fourth Labour MP to declare her intention to run, alongside Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler and Khalid Mahmood. The rules for the deputy and leadership contests will be decided at a meeting of the party’s ruling body later today. Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Sir Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry have formally entered the race to replace outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn. Shadow business […] - [Iraq parliament passes resolution to expel US-led coalition troops from country](https://heartlandstribune.com/iraq-parliament-passes-resolution-to-expel-us-led-coalition-troops-from-country/): The Iraqi parliament has voted for a resolution to ask the government to end the agreement to host US troops in Iraq. The move would essentially oust US troops and all other foreign troops from Iraq. Iraq’s parliament passed on Sunday a resolution telling the government to end the presence of foreign troops in Iraq and ensure they not use its land, air, and waters for any reason. “The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting Islamic State due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory,” the resolution read. […] - [Jess Phillips Day Job Moonlighting for a Tory Peer](https://heartlandstribune.com/jess-phillips-confirms-labour-leadership-bid-does-that-mean-she-will-give-up-her-job-moonlighting-for-a-tory-peer/): Jess Phillips is ‘not the answer to what’s wrong in British Politics,’ she is part of the problem. The notion of “speaking truth to power” is odd when you think about it. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, “power” already knows the truth; Well here is a little bit of truth about Jess Phillips. The centrist MP announced her Labour leadership bid on Friday night. The tabloids heralded her as the “outspoken Birmingham Yardley MP Ms Phillips who calls for “a different kind of leader.”  Well, she is certainly outspoken but not quite in the way she would like herself portrayed, […] - [Trump’s got his war with Iran](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumps-got-his-war-with-iran/): The question now is not whether the two countries are at war. It’s what kind of war they’re about to wage and how many people are going to die as a result. The US killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani could be seen as nothing other than an act of war with untold consequences. The question is how, when and where Iran will strike back and whether that triggers a wider conflagration. This is the inescapable result of President Donald Trump’s order to assassinate Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, arguably the most powerful military leader in the Middle East, […] - [Vegans deserve same legal protection as religious people, judge rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/vegans-deserve-same-legal-protection-as-religious-people-judge-rules/): A judge has ruled that ethical veganism qualifies as a philosophical belief protected under UK law. A TRIBUNAL judge has ruled he is “overwhelmingly satisfied” that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief and is therefore a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. Jordi Casamitjana said he was sacked by the League Against Cruel Sports after raising concerns that its pension fund was being invested into companies involved in animal testing. The 55-year-old, from London, claims he was unfairly disciplined for making this disclosure and that the decision to dismiss him was because of his philosophical belief in ethical veganism. Jordi […] - [US kills Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in targeted airstrike](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-kills-iranian-commander-qassem-soleimani-in-targeted-airstrike/): The United States killed Iran’s top general in pre-dawn armed drone strike at Baghdad’s airport on Friday — triggering warnings of a “dangerous escalation” in the region. Now Iran’s leader vows revenge on US after Soleimani’s killing, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” against the United States after the killing in Iraq of Qassem Soleimani, a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards. A near legendary figure in Iran, Soleimani headed the elite Quds force and was widely credited with significant victories against Islamic State across the region. He was killed in a U.S. airstrike as his vehicle left […] - [10 Myths That Give a Benign View of the EU: From ‘Workers Rights‘ to Keeping the Peace in Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/10-myths-that-give-a-benign-view-of-the-eu-from-workers-rights-to-keeping-the-peace-in-europe/): “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ” ― George Orwell 1. THE MYTH OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE  • The predictions of economic Armageddon were based on forecasts by the Treasury, Bank of England and Office for Budgetary Responsibility. Projections by these bodies are notoriously wrong. All 3 failed to forecast the 2008 crash, or its consequences. • The forecasts were not that there would be a crash when we left but rather that the U.K. economy would crash immediately as a result of a market reaction to […] - [Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to seek immunity from corruption charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/__trashed/): Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he will seek immunity from corruption charges. After being indicted on graft charges, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now said he will request parliamentary immunity. The move could seriously delay criminal proceedings against him. The Israeli prime minister was charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in November. He has denied any wrongdoing. In a televised address, Netanyahu repeated his claim that he is the victim of an unfair conspiracy. The move means criminal proceedings against him will be delayed for months since a trial cannot be held once a request for immunity has […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms 'worsen'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-moved-to-intensive-care-as-symptoms-worsen/): Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care in hospital after his coronavirus symptoms “worsened”, Downing Street has said. A spokesman said he was moved on the advice of his medical team and is receiving “excellent care”. Mr Johnson has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputise “where necessary”, the spokesman added. The prime minister, 55, was admitted to hospital in London with “persistent symptoms” on Sunday. A No 10 statement read: “Since Sunday evening, the prime minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus. […] - [Remember when Tory MPs cheered after blocking a pay rise for NHS nurses](https://heartlandstribune.com/remember-when-tory-mps-cheered-after-blocking-a-pay-rise-for-nhs-nurses/): Public sector pay cap: The pay rate had been frozen at one per cent since 2010, seven long years. Every Tory MP except one voted against Labour’s motion, which came during Theresa May’s stint as prime minister. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was accused of “milking” the NHS for votes at the time. Conservative and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MPs have voted down Labour’s attempts to reverse the long-running freeze on public sector pay. The pay rate for workers in the public sector has been frozen at one per cent rises since 2010 and Labour tabled an amendment of regret to the […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson is taken to hospital 'as a precaution' 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-is-taken-to-hospital-as-a-precautionf-10-days-after-testing-positive-for-covid-19/): He tested positive for Covid-19 on March 26 and has been self isolating since. Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital ten days after testing positive for coronavirus, Downing Street announced tonight. The Prime Minister, who is still suffering from the symptoms of the disease, will undergo tests at an unknown London hospital as a precaution. A Downing Street spokesperson said: ‘On the advice of his doctor, the Prime Minister has tonight been admitted to hospital for tests. “This is a precautionary step, as the Prime Minister continues to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus ten days after testing positive for the […] - [Jurgen Klopp: Don't ask me about coronavirus, ask the experts.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jurgen-klopp-dont-ask-me-about-coronavirus-ask-the-experts/): Liverpool’s wealthy owners under fire for using tax payers money but there is no arguing with the logic of Jurgen Klopp There is so much truth and compassion in what Jurgen Klopp manager of Premier League club Liverpool had to say but it didn’t make the question of tax payer funding go away. Liverpool’s wealthy owners have come under fire from former star players for their decision to furlough some non-playing staff during the coronavirus pandemic. It is reported that some 200 staff are affected and they will receive 80 percent of their salary through a financial rescue scheme introduced by […] - [The Politics of mediocre: Sir Keir Starmer elected as UK opposition Labour leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-politics-of-mediocre-sir-keir-starmer-elected-as-uk-opposition-labour-leader/): The Labour party has elected Keir Starmer as its new leader. Starmer will replace Jeremy Corbyn, who announced he would step down after a bitter defeat at the last election that saw sweeping gains for the ruling Conservatives. The change in leadership comes as the country battles its own coronavirus crisis and amid calls to improve public services, such as the National Health Service currently under strain. Starmer with just a touch of irony pitched himself as a unity candidate amid continued divisions in the party. Starmer was amongst the MPs that carried out the 2016 coup against the former Labour […] - [Coronavirus: Trump says 'ALL' uninsured people will get free coronavirus treatment](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-trump-says-all-uninsured-people-will-get-free-coronavirus-treatment/): Trump Says Hospitals Will Be Paid for Treating Uninsured Coronavirus Patients The Trump administration will use a federal stimulus package to pay hospitals that treat uninsured people with COVID-19 as long as they agree not to bill the patients or issue unexpected charges. The money would be drawn from a $100 billion fund to help hospitals respond to the crisis that hospital groups expected would be spent on their more immediate financial needs. This money comes from the wider $2 trillion stimulus bill intended to rescue the coronavirus-battered economy. – but it will not be used to re-open Obamacare exchanges. President Trump announced […] - [The EU to suspend tariffs on medical equipment](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-to-suspend-tariffs-on-medical-equipment/): The EU has offered a temporary suspension on tariffs for medical equipment The temporarily suspend of tariffs and value-added tax on imported protective medical equipment is a response to the worsening Covid-19 crisis The UK can now buy medical equipment tariff and vat free! This includes masks and protective gear, as well as testing kits, ventilators and other medical equipment. The move comes after several EU governments pushed the commission to authorise the suspension of both levies and tariffs at national level. A letter sent to the EU commission stated: “As we are facing one of the most serious public health […] - [Coronavirus: Second U.K. nurse dies in the fight against COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-second-u-k-nurse-dies-in-the-fight-against-covid-19/): Sadly, Aimee O’Rourke became the second U.K. nurse to die from contracting COVID-19 in the last 24 hours Aimee O’Rourke was being treated at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Kent where she worked. Aimee O’Rourke, believed to be a mother of three, was treated for COVID-19 at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate, Kent, where she worked. It was unclear whether she had any underlying health conditions before contracting coronavirus. One of her daughters, Megan Murphy, said in a post on Facebook: “It was us 4 against the world! Now us 3 will pull together […] - [Coronavirus: Chesterfield NHS frontline workers get a rousing salute of the Blues and twos](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-chesterfield-nhs-frontline-workers-get-a-rousing-salute-of-the-blues-and-twos/): Showing solidarity and support for NHS Frontline workers Chesterfield Police gave a heartfelt salute to NHS staff. The national salute to honour the NHS staff working hard through the coronavirus outbreak was once again heard throughout the U.K. People on their doorsteps take the time to clap their support. It just takes one minute standing on your doorstep to show the NHS and care workers that we appreciate the commitment, courage and selflessness that has been exhibited by all our health workers. However Chesterfield’s Police officers took that minute a step further in showing appreciation for NHS staff at the Royal […] - [Coronavirus: To win the war on COVID-19 Frontline workers must come first](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-to-win-the-war-on-covid-19-frontline-workers-must-come-first/): Around the world health care workers are being infected with coronavirus. Across Western Europe, health care professionals have used the language of war to describe the struggle against the coronavirus, which has left some hospitals on the brink of collapse. If health care workers are the soldiers on the front lines, they should be given every protection no matter the cost. In any war if the frontline falls, we all do! NHS workers must be tested constantly to keep everyone safe. Only 2,000 NHS frontline workers out of about half a million have been tested for coronavirus so far, despite up […] - [Coronavirus: Trump accepts medical aid from Russia has U.S. death toll surpasses China’s](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-trump-accepts-medical-aid-from-russia-has-us-death-toll-surpasses-chinas/): Putin sending medical supplies to help U.S. fight coronavirus The death toll in the United States from the new coronavirus outbreak has surpassed the official tally in China, with more than more 3,400 fatalities recorded, according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University. That means the US now has the third highest death toll after Italy and Spain, and the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world with more than 175,000. Further restrictions on movement are being considered in the US to curb the spread of the virus, with the country now reporting twice the number of cases as […] - [Coronavirus: Spain hit with over 9,000 new infections and 849 deaths in 24 hours, while Belgium sees Europe's youngest victim](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-spain-hit-with-over-9000-new-infections-and-849-deaths-in-24-hours-while-belgium-sees-europes-youngest-victim/): Spain has announced another sombre record in the number of people killed by the coronavirus. Its latest daily bulletin released on Tuesday announced 849 fatalities in the previous 24 hours — bringing a total of 8,189 deaths overall. Confirming the worst day so far since the start of the outbreak, the authorities said the number of new infections had risen by over 9,000 in a day. The increase is 3,000 more than the previous day. News from Italy ‘encouraging’ On Monday authorities in Italy announced a daily death toll of 812 deaths in 24 hours, bringing the total to 11,500 fatalities […] - [Coronavirus: Migrant workers in India sprayed with bleach](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-migrant-workers-in-india-sprayed-with-bleach/): Outrage as health workers spray migrant workers with disinfectant, amid fears their exodus is spreading the virus. Indian health workers caused outrage on Monday by spraying a group of migrants with disinfectant, amid fears that a large scale movement of people from cities to the countryside risked spreading the coronavirus. Footage showed a group of migrant workers sitting on a street in Bareilly, a district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, as health officials in protective suits used hose pipes to douse them in disinfectant, prompting anger on social media. Nitish Kumar, the top government official in the district, said […] - [Coronavius: PM adviser Dominic Cummings becomes latest govt official to self-isolate](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavius-pm-adviser-dominic-cummings-becomes-latest-govt-official-to-self-isolate/): Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings is in self-isolation after showing coronavirus symptoms, No 10 has confirmed. He started developing symptoms over the weekend and will be staying in contact with the rest of the Downing Street team during his quarantine period. Boris Johnson’s spokesman said on Monday that Mr Cummings had not yet been tested. On Friday, the prime minister became the first leader of a major world power to test positive for the virus. A Whitehall source confirmed a report by the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves that Cummings was still communicating with No 10. Three days ago Cummings was […] - [German state financial minister kills himself over coronavirus ‘despair’](https://heartlandstribune.com/german-state-financial-minister-kills-himself-over-coronavirus-despair/): Thomas Schaefer , German state minister reportedly kills himself as coronavirus hits economy German state finance minister took his own life after expressing “despair” over how to handle the economic fallout from coronavirus, an official said. The body of a man identified as Thomas Schäfer, the finance minister of the German state of Hesse, was found on a high-speed train line in the town of Hochheim between Frankfurt and Mainz, police confirmed Saturday. The presence of a body on the tracks was first reported by witnesses to paramedics, who were unable to initially identify the remains due to the extent of […] - [Labour's working class discontent.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-working-class-discontent/): Class politics is back and with a vengeance. In 1997 Labour’s John Prescott declared that ‘we’re all middle class now’ thus echoing the wishful thinking of many university-educated professionals who joined Blair’s New Labour believing forlornly that class distinctions was at long last finally dead and buried, never to return again. How wrong they were. Clearly, with austerity, food banks, precarious employment and rising wealth inequality, we’re not all middle class now. This and other such wishful thinking such as ‘there’s no longer a working class’ is an often repeated sentiment and mantra that throughout the decades has always proved to […] - [Coronavirus EU: Capitalism has failed the people: we cannot go back to where we were before.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-eu-capitalism-has-failed-the-people-we-cannot-go-back-to-where-we-were-before/): Austerity kills: Commission demanded cuts to public healthcare spending 63 times from 2011-2018 Irish GUE MEP Mick Wallace said health services had been “hollowed out” across Europe at a time when their services were “needed more than ever.” Mick Wallace MEP a member of the European united Left didn’t hold back in is condemnation of the EU. Mick Wallace gave a few home truths to an organisation that Tony Benn once declared, was the “only constitution in the world committed to capitalism.” They place serious restrictions on public ownership, committing member states to open up public services to competition. Wallace in a […] - [Coronavirus: Matt Hancock tests positive for COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-matt-hancock-tests-positive-for-covid-19/): Health Secretary Matt Hancock claims he has tested positive for coronavirus. Following the news that Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus, the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, has also confirmed he has the virus. In a tweet he says:”Following medical advice, I was advised to test for #Coronavirus. I‘ve tested positive. Thankfully my symptoms are mild and I’m working from home & self-isolating. Vital we follow the advice to protect our NHS & save lives#StayHomeSaveLives“ Following medical advice, I was advised to test for #Coronavirus. I‘ve tested positive. Thankfully my symptoms are mild and I’m […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson tests positive for COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-tests-positive-for-covid-19/): Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus. The prime minster tweeted: “Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus. “I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus. “Together we will beat this. #StayHomeSaveLives.” Downing Street said Mr Johnson had been tested on the advice of his chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, having been experiencing “mild symptoms” on Thursday. “The test was carried out in No 10 by NHS staff and the result of the test was positive,” the statement added. Over […] - [COVID-19 ORIGINS SHOULD PROMPT LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY REVIEW](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-origins-should-prompt-livestock-industry-review/): The UK branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA UK) reported that scientists believe contact with live animals or the flesh of slaughtered animals may be the source of the Covid-19 pandemic. The virus is similar to other coronaviruses, like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and all three are spread from animals to humans. These coronaviruses are ‘zoonotic diseases’, meaning they jump from animals to humans. In fact, research suggests that most emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. Filthy factory farms, abattoirs, and meat markets threaten the health of every human being […] - [Christchurch shootings: Terrorist Brenton Tarrant pleads guilty to 51 murders](https://heartlandstribune.com/christchurch-shootings-terrorist-brenton-tarrant-pleads-guilty-to-51-murders/): Tarrant is responsible for the worst terrorist massacre in New Zealand, carried out in two mosques in 2019 Tarrant is accused of the two deadly attacks on mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch a year ago has pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism He had previously denied the charges and was due to go on trial in June. The gun attacks at two mosques sent shockwaves around the world. In the wake of the killings, New Zealand brought in stricter gun laws. The 29-year-old supremacist attacker, who has […] - [Coronavirus: Spain overtakes China in total death toll](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-spain-overtakes-china-in-total-death-toll/): Spain and Italy once again announced high numbers of fatalities on Wednesday as countries across Europe continued to battle the spread of coronavirus Spain reported 738 new deaths in one day on Wednesday while Italy announced 683. The two countries have the highest fatality rate in the global pandemic. The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic “threatens the whole humanity”, the United Nations director-general Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday, as Spain surpassed China in the overall number of COVID-19 deaths. Spain has exceeded this Wednesday the figure of 3,000 deaths with coronavirus, with 3,432 deaths since the start of the outbreak […] - [Nearly half a million apply for Universal Credit in nine days](https://heartlandstribune.com/nearly-half-a-million-apply-for-universal-credit-in-nine-days/): As almost half a million people rushed to apply for Universal Credit over the last nine days, the Department for Work and Pensions has redeployed thousands of staff to help go through the claims. As almost half a million people rushed to apply for Universal Credit over the last nine days, the Department for Work and Pensions has redeployed thousands of staff to help go through the claims. Tonight, officials have claimed the system is “standing up to the challenge” and that they’re taking “urgent action to boost capacity”. But will people making claims have to wait weeks for the cash […] - [Coronavirus: A 21-year-old woman with no pre-existing health conditions dies after contracting COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-a-21-year-old-woman-with-no-pre-existing-health-conditions-dies-after-contracting-covid-19/): A 21-year-old woman is believed to be the youngest person with no pre-existing health conditions to have died after contracting coronavirus in the UK. Chloe Middleton, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is believed to have died from COVID-19 on 21 March. Her mother, Diane Middleton, wrote on Facebook: “To all the people out there that thinks it’s just a virus please think again. “Speaking from a personal experience this so-called virus has taken the life of my 21-year-old daughter.” Her aunt, Emily Mistry, said Chloe had “no underlying health issues”. She wrote on social media: “My beautiful, kind-hearted niece, Chloe, has passed […] - [Coronavirus: India orders 'complete lockdown' of its 1.3 billion population](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-india-orders-complete-lockdown-of-its-1-3-billion-population/): Modi Orders 3-Week Total Lockdown for All 1.3 Billion Indians With four hours’ notice, India’s prime minister announced that no one could leave their homes for 21 days — the most severe step taken anywhere in the war against the coronavirus. In a televised address on Tuesday night, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced that for the next 21 days, almost one fifth of the world’s population should “forget what going out means”. He said that the entire country will be under lockdown for 21 days which he said is required to break the cycle of infection. “Every state, every union […] - [Coronavirus: 12,000 former NHS workers returning to the frontline while emergency hospital to open as death toll rises](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-12000-former-nhs-workers-returning-to-the-frontline-while-emergency-hospital-to-open-as-death-toll-rises/): Hancock to launch a scheme inviting up to 250,000 people to volunteer to contribute to the fight against coronavirus. Matt Hancock “Today we launch NHS volunteers. We are seeking a quarter of a million volunteers, people in good health to help the NHS, for shopping, for the delivery of medicines and to support those who are shielding to protect their own health.” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Government is launching a new scheme to recruit 250,000 volunteers to support the NHS through the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking at the Government press briefing, Mr Hancock said more than 35,000 extra NHS staff […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson announces strict lockdown across country](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-announces-strict-lockdown-across-country/): Boris Johnson addresses the nation its ‘Lockdown’ Boris Johnson: “The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades – and this country is not alone. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer And so tonight I want to update you on the latest steps we are taking to fight the disease and what you can do to help. And I want to begin by reminding you why the UK has been taking the approach that we have. Without a huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus, there will […] - [Coronavirus: Pandemic is 'accelerating', says World Health Organisation](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-pandemic-is-accelerating-says-world-health-organisation/): The World Health Organization (WHO) said the coronavirus pandemic was accelerating as the latest figures showed more than 350,000 were infected by the virus with cases in almost every country in the world. WHO’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised that countries needed to use more offensive measures to combat the “heartbreaking” pandemic including testing and contact tracing. He said countries can not win just by “defending”. They have to “attack” as well. The WHO said that testing was key, and while commending countries for being able to test so quickly, they insisted that all suspect cases need to be […] - [Coronavirus: A 12-year-old girl is on a ventilator and fighting for her life, she had no pre-existing conditions.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-a-12-year-old-girl-is-on-a-ventilator-and-fighting-for-her-life-she-had-no-pre-existing-conditions/): A girl known only as Emma is hooked up to a ventilator in isolation at an Atlanta hospital having tested positive for the coronavirus. Emma, a 12-year-old girl, is “fighting for her life” in the Children’s Healthcare of Atalnata-Scottish Rite Hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to her cousin. Justin Anthony who told CNN that Emma was diagnosed with pneumonia on March 15 and tested positive for coronavirus on Friday night. As of Saturday, she was on a ventilator and is currently in stable condition, Anthony said. Emma had no pre-existing conditions. She has not travelled recently and it’s unknown […] - [Coronavirus: London books hotel rooms for the homeless to self-isolate](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-london-books-hotel-rooms-for-the-homeless-to-self-isolate/): London’s rough sleepers to be offered hotel beds to self isolate with an Initial trial of 300 central London rooms made available “Homeless Londoners will benefit from vital protection against the coronavirus, as Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, with the support of the British government, has secured 300 hotel rooms where they will be able to self-isolate over the next weeks”, the London City Hall announced in a press release. An operation to bring homeless people to hotel rooms started Friday night and will continue throughout the weekend. The 300 rooms are located in two Intercontinental London hotels and the people will […] - [Coronavirus: New supermarket opening times](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-new-supermarket-opening-times/): Major supermarkets have changed their opening hours and rules in response to the coronavirus outbreak, in an effort to curb panic buying Asda, Aldi, Tesco, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Iceland have changed their opening hours and rules in response to the coronavirus outbreak reported first in the Mirror Supermarkets have released their new opening times in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Panic buying has left many shops short of stock, forcing the Government to loosen restrictions on supermarkets to ensure essential goods are available. All of the major supermarkets, including Asda, Aldi, Tesco, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Iceland, have now changed […] - [Coronavirus: 8,000 more hospital beds and 20,000 staff given over to the NHS from the private sector](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-8000-more-hospital-beds-and-20000-staff-given-over-to-the-nhs-from-the-private-sector/): The COVID-19 crisis helps create a truly national health service, all working together to combat the greatest threat currently facing mankind. In an unprecedented move the private health service will hand over staff and hospital beds in a not for profit move, joining forces in the fight against Covid-19 Nearly 20,000 fully qualified staff will join the NHS response to coronavirus pandemic after a deal with the private sector which will include 8,000 more hospital beds being made available. The extra resources, now secured by the health service, will not only be available to treat coronavirus patients, but will also help the […] - [Coronavirus: Government to pay up to 80% of workers' wages](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-government-to-pay-up-to-80-of-workers-wages/): The government is to pay the wages of employees unable to work due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In a radical move aimed at protecting people’s jobs the government today laid out a series of measures to help affected workers. It will pay 80% of wages for employees unable to work due to the coronavirus pandemic, worth up to £2,500 a month. The “unprecedented” measures would stop workers being laid off due to the crisis, chancellor Rishi Sunak said. Firms have warned the virus could see them collapse, wiping out thousands of jobs, as life in the UK is put on hold. […] - [Coronavirus: See how this community came together while carrying out Social distancing](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-see-how-this-community-came-together-while-carrying-out-social-distancing/): If you do not want the Army on the streets restricting your movements, if you want to stay safe and healthy, if you want others to remain healthy then do your civic duty and practice Social distancing. Governments around the world are advising people to socially distance themselves in order to reduce pressures on health services and stop the spread of coronavirus Covid-19. Social distancing does not mean you have to be a prisoner in your own home. Social distancing is about being responsible to yourself and community at large.  Social distancing isn’t some external concept that applies only to work […] - [Coronavirus: 'COVID Support Force'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-covid-support-force/): The Defence Secretary announces new measures to put service personnel and Reservists on standby to support public services in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The UK military have had a history of supporting civilian services and authorities. From manning the famous Green goddess fire engines providing fire cover in a number of fire strikes, notably in 1977 and 2002 to the present day lumping sandbags for makeshift flood defences in the recent flooding crisis around the UK. This time the military are called upon to sure-up wherever they are needed and keep Britain running. This is a war footing and only […] - [Coronavirus: Italian army called in as crematorium struggles to cope with deaths](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-italian-army-called-in-as-crematorium-struggles-to-cope-with-deaths/): The Italian city of Bergamo, one of the worst-hit by the coronavirus outbreak, is having to transport its dead out of the city as its crematorium is struggling to cope.  Army vehicles have been brought in to move dozens of coffins from Bergamo to other regions, according to Ansa news agency. The wealthy city, northeast of Milan in Italy’s Lombardy region, has recorded at least 93 coronavirus-related deaths as cases continue to grow relentlessly each day. The mayor of Bergamo, Giorgio Gori, said the true number of related deaths could be higher as many people with COVID-19 symptoms had died before […] - [Windrush scandal: Home Office showed 'institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness' towards race](https://heartlandstribune.com/windrush-scandal-home-office-showed-institutional-ignorance-and-thoughtlessness-towards-race/): The Home Office showed “ignorance and thoughtlessness” on the issue of race, a review of the Windrush scandal says. The long-awaited review comes after some of those who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries were wrongly told they were in Britain illegally. There was a “profound institutional failure” which turned thousands of people’s lives upside down, it said. Warnings about the “hostile environment” policy were “not heeded”, the review concludes. The review, commissioned after people with a right to live in the UK were wrongfully detained or deported to the Caribbean, finds that those affected were let down by “systemic […] - [COVID-19 SHOWS WE NEED TO PRESS THE RESET BUTTON ON OUR BROKEN POLITICAL SYSTEM](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-shows-we-need-to-press-the-reset-button-on-our-broken-political-system/): The Covid-19 emergency has brought into sharp relief the woeful inadequacies of the neoliberal capitalist system that has been favoured by successive governments for over 40 years. What it illustrates is that capitalism is a cancer and the only way to deal with cancer is to cut it out. The last four decades in particular, have seen our public service infrastructure being rundown and used as a cash cow for faceless corporations to make a quick buck. These sharks prioritise financial gain over public service. The most worrying manifestation of this trend is the way in which the NHS has been […] - [UK schools will close down on Friday as the coronavirus pandemic rapidly spreads across Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-schools-will-close-down-on-friday-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-rapidly-spreads-across-britain/): Schools in the UK are to shut from Friday until further notice as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. Schools will close except for looking after the children of keyworkers and vulnerable children, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said. This academic year’s exams will not go ahead in England and Wales; decisions are due to be made in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nurseries, private schools and sixth forms are also being told to follow the guidance to close their doors. Scotland and Wales earlier said schools would close from Friday while schools in Northern Ireland will close to pupils today and […] - [Coronavirus: If it's ‘war’ on coronavirus then we should put a war effort in and nationalise all private hospitals](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-if-its-war-on-coronavirus-then-we-should-put-a-war-effort-in-and-nationalised-all-private-hospitals/): Spain has nationalised all of its private hospitals the UK should do the same This is a government on a wartime footing: a government calling for a collective national effort as Boris Johnson would do ‘whatever it takes’ – warning of even more extreme measures to come. Nationalising private hospitals is not extreme its life saving and essential. Hospitals have been told to cancel non-urgent surgery and free up beds as they prepare for large numbers of Covid-19 patients. In a letter to senior managers and hospital trusts, NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens and NHS chief operating officer Amanda Pritchard […] - [Coronavirus: Renters to be protected from eviction](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-renters-to-be-protected-from-eviction/): The government will bring forward emergency legislation to protect private renters from eviction, Boris Johnson has said. Tenants were “worried sick” they might not be able to pay rents if they fell ill, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said at Prime Minister’s Questions. On Tuesday, the chancellor promised mortgage “holidays”, £330bn in loans and £20bn in other aid. Jeremy Corbyn urged the PM to protect private renters in “the interests of public health”, adding Britain’s 20 million private renters were “worried sick” about missing payments if they became ill, lost pay or had to self-isolate. It came after Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced […] - [Coronavirus: Serbian President Vucic "European solidarity does not exist"](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-serbian-president-vucic-european-solidarity-does-not-exist/): “European solidarity does not exist…The only country that can help us is China. For the rest of them, thanks for nothing.” The upset was clear to see as Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić on Sunday blasted the European Union for refusing to export medical equipment to Serbia in the midst of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Serbia is currently applying to become an E.U. member. “European solidarity does not exist. That was a fairytale on paper,” Vučić said after proclaiming a state of emergency in his country. “As of today, as you know, we cannot even import goods, according to the European Union’s […] - [Coronavirus: Chancellor unveils £350bn lifeline for economy 'Whatever it takes'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-chancellor-unveils-350bn-lifeline-for-economy-whatever-it-takes/): Chancellor Rishi Sunak reveals new action as he says the UK has “never, in peacetime, faced an economic fight like this one”. The support needed was “on a scale unimaginable only a few weeks ago”, Sunak said: “This is not a time for ideology and orthodoxy, this is a time to be bold – a time for courage.” The chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £350bn package of loans and grants to help Britain cope with the lockdown of large parts of the economy, as he warned the country was facing a threat to its prosperity unmatched in peacetime. It includes […] - [Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has been temporarily released from jail in Iran](https://heartlandstribune.com/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-has-been-temporarily-released-from-jail-in-iran/): Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been temporarily released from prison in Iran as 85,000 prisoners are freed in an attempt to fight #COVID19 She has been freed for two weeks, but must wear an ankle tag as a condition of her release, according to Sky News. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport while travelling to show her young daughter, Gabriella, to her parents in April 2016. She was sentenced to five years in prison over allegations, which she denies, of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government. She was later afforded diplomatic protection by the UK Government, which argues that she […] - [ESSAYS OF HOPE](https://heartlandstribune.com/essays-of-hope/): In February 2019, Chris Williamson was suspended from the Labour Party for his comments about the party’s response to criticism over its handling of allegations of Anti-Semitism, reported the main stream media. Chris, a long term supporter of Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had the audacity to suggest that to apologise for, “false allegations” was not actually a very good idea. His crime was further compounded in the eyes of the political right for showing solidarity with others who had already been suspended. After a hearing, Chris was readmitted to the party. The right wing media, along with a gaggle of establishment […] - [Coronavirus: Face-to-face health assessments for benefits suspended amid outbreak](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-face-to-face-health-assessments-for-benefits-suspended-amid-outbreak/): Claimants on disability benefits will no longer be required to attend face-to-face assessments. The change also covers health checks for Universal Credit. The temporary move, effective on Tuesday 17 March 2020, is being taken as a precautionary measure to protect vulnerable people from unnecessary risk of exposure to coronavirus as the country’s response ramps up in the ‘delay’ phase. We will ensure those who are entitled to a benefit continue to receive support, and that new claimants are able to access the safety net. It affects claimants of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), those on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and some […] - [Coronavirus: Stay at home, says president Macron as the world steps closer to curfew](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-stay-at-home-says-president-macron-as-the-world-steps-closer-to-curfew/): All of France should stay at home from 12 noon on Tuesday, President Macron announces, in bid to control spread of virus as cases spiral. Are we heading for curfews? There are active discussions within the Trump administration to encourage a possible “curfew” across the nation in which non-essential businesses would be encouraged to close by a certain time each night in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the matter. France to lockdown as UK told ‘avoid contact’ “We are at war”, says Macron ‘Stay at home’ from 12noon tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17, […] - [Coronavirus: BBC delays licence fee changes as over-70s to be told to self-isolate for months](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-bbc-delays-licence-fee-changes-as-over-70s-to-be-told-to-self-isolate-for-months/): The BBC is to delay TV licence fee changes for the over-75s until August in light of the coronavirus situation. Free TV licences for up to 3.7 million people had been due to be scrapped on 1 June, but that has been put back to 1 August. These are “exceptional circumstances” and “now is not the right time”, BBC chairman Sir David Clementi said. He added: “We are fully focussed on delivering our services to the public at this difficult time.” - [Coronavirus: Downing Street to give daily update on fight against outbreak](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-downing-street-to-give-daily-update-on-fight-against-outbreak/): The government is to hold daily televised press conferences to update the public on the fight against coronavirus, Downing Street has said. From Monday, Boris Johnson or a senior minister will address the media to ensure people are informed about how to protect themselves. It follows criticism of No 10 for an apparent lack of transparency over its plans to stem the spread of the virus. It comes as Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed that every Briton over the age of 70 will be told “within the coming weeks” to stay at home for an extended period to protect themselves. A […] - [Coronavirus: The Labour Leadership election should be postponed; it is irresponsible to do anything other.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-the-labour-leadership-election-should-be-postponed-it-is-irresponsible-to-do-anything-other/): Unless the Labour Party can guarantee the health and wellbeing of the officials and tellers the Leadership election should be cancelled Coronavirus continues its rapid spread, confounding efforts by global leaders and medical experts in their efforts to control it or even understand its method of transmission with any real certainty. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, and many countries are grappling with a rise in confirmed cases. Governments are in disarray while medical experts have still not come to a consensus in how to control the spread of CODIV-19, how it is […] - [Coronavirus: Isolation for over-70s 'within weeks'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-isolation-for-over-70s-within-weeks/): Elderly could be quarantined for four months in ‘wartime-style’ mobilisation to combat coronavirus Every Briton over the age of 70 will be told “within the coming weeks” to stay at home for an extended period to shield them from coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said. He told the BBC the advice will not come into force just yet but when it does it will last “a very long time”. It comes as 14 more people have died in the UK after testing positive for the virus, bringing total deaths to 35. Manufacturers will be asked to make extra NHS ventilators, […] - [Coronavirus: Spain goes into lockdown viral video echos an apocalyptic move](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-spain-goes-into-lockdown-viral-video-echos-an-apocalyptic-move/): Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the nation on Saturday evening to announce the moves being taken in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. Spain reported some 2,000 new coronavirus cases and more than 100 deaths over the last 24 hours. The new figures raise Spain’s number of COVID-19 death toll to 288 with more than 7,700 people infected.  From Sunday on, the country’s 46 million citizens can only leave their homes to buy groceries and pharmaceutical products, go to the bank or hospital, or to take care of dependents. While on the street, they must be unaccompanied at all […] - [Coronavirus: Trump declares national emergency over coronavirus as the world locksdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-trump-declares-national-emergency-over-coronavirus-as-the-world-locksdown/): As the epidemic spreads, countries across the world struggle to contain the outbreak and protect their economies. Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Friday that he vowed would swiftly scale up the country’s lagging ability to test coronavirus patients. Trump said the move will free up $50 billion for states and allow the federal government to waive certain regulations to more quickly test and care for patients. He also trumpeted private sector partnerships that he claimed would lead to drive-thru testing sites across the country. “To unleash the full power of the federal government under this effort today, I’m officially […] - [Basic protective measures against the new coronavirus](https://heartlandstribune.com/basic-protective-measures-against-the-new-coronavirus/): This is a definitive guide based on best recommendations from the World health organisation and the UK Government. Telling people with a high temperature or cough to self-isolate for a week will have the “biggest impact” in the fight against coronavirus, the UK’s chief science adviser says. Sir Patrick Vallance called the latest government advice a “big intervention”. It comes as the World Health Organization declared Europe the epicentre of the pandemic, and said about 5,000 people have died globally. In the UK, the virus has killed 11 people, including one in Scotland. As of 21:00 GMT there have been 798 confirmed cases […] - [Coronavirus: Europe is now epicentre of pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-europe-is-now-epicentre-of-pandemic/): The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that Europe had now become the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, with more daily cases being reported than at the height of the outbreak in China, where the virus first began. He added that more than 123,000 cases had been reported, with 5,000 deaths. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said that the timing of when the COVID-19 virus would peak globally was not easy to predict, however the trajectory of the coronavirus in each country would depend on how they respond and how they react to their first cases. She […] - [Coronavirus: English local elections postponed for a year](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-english-local-elections-postponed-for-a-year/): Local and mayoral elections in England will be postponed for a year to May 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak. Downing Street said it would be impractical to hold the elections as planned, as they would come during the peak of the spread of the virus. Polls were due in 118 English councils, the London Assembly and seven English regional mayors. Voting was also due to take place for the London mayor and police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. It comes after the Electoral Commission said on Thursday the elections should be delayed until the autumn to “mitigate” the […] - [‘Not a single EU country’ responded to Italian plea for help with coronavirus](https://heartlandstribune.com/not-a-single-eu-country-responded-to-italian-plea-for-help-with-coronavirus/): Rome’s requests for face masks and medical gear have been met with silence. A top Italian official knocked the European Union for leaving Italy’s plea for medical assistance unanswered while the coronavirus outbreak cripples the country. Italy’s permanent representative to the EU, Maurizio Massari, wrote an op-ed in Politico on Tuesday asking for aid from EU members. The Italian official said that while the EU has ignored Italy’s requests for aid, China has begun assisting Italy bilaterally. “Italy, the European country struck hardest by the coronavirus, has done everything it can to contain and manage the epidemic,” Massari wrote. “We must ensure, under EU coordination, the supply […] - [Coronavirus: Brexit talks could be held via video link](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-brexit-talks-could-be-held-via-video-link/): The second stage of Brexit negotiations could be held via videoconference because of coronavirus, the U.K. and EU have confirmed. According to a joint statement, the next round of trade talks between the U.K. and the EU, which was due to take place in London next week, will not happen “in the form originally scheduled.” The U.K. government insist there will be no extension to the transition period. Negotiators were expecting to conduct discussions from March 18 in the U.K. capital, while the joint committee to oversee the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement was scheduled to meet on March 30. But […] - [Coronavirus: Ireland all schools, colleges and childcare facilities to close until March 29](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-ireland-all-schools-colleges-and-childcare-facilities-to-close-until-march-29/): Measures to combat spread of Covid-19 to begin this evening and last until March 29th Schools, colleges and other public facilities are set to close in the Republic from this evening for at least two weeks in response to the spread of coronavirus. Speaking from Washington DC on Thursday Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the measures being announced today would remain in place until March 29th and would be kept under review. NEW MEASURES Schools, crèches, childcare facilities and all higher level education facilities to close Cultural institutions to close Indoor gatherings of more than 100 people should be cancelled Outdoor gatherings of more […] - [Coronavirus: Donald Trump bans all travel from mainland Europe to US for 30 days. United Kingdom and Ireland exempted](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-donald-trump-bans-all-travel-from-mainland-europe-to-us-for-30-days-united-kingdom-and-ireland-exempted/): Trump blames the EU for not acting quickly enough and claims US coronavirus clusters were “seeded” by European travellers. Trump said the ban would apply only to countries in the Schengen economic and travel zone, and that the United Kingdom and Ireland would be exempted. He also later clarified in a tweet that cargo and goods would not be affected by the ban. The US president said the sanctions will come into effect from midnight – but will not apply to flights from the UK. In a rare address from the Oval Office, Trump said the European Union had “failed to […] - [Coronavirus latest: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-latest-who-declares-coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic/): The World Health Organisation on Wednesday declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. There are 122,000 cases, more than 4,500 deaths, the agency said, and the virus has found a foothold on every continent except for Antarctica. “We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday. “Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this coronavirus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what […] - [#MeToo: Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in prison](https://heartlandstribune.com/metoo-harvey-weinstein-sentenced-to-23-years-in-prison/): Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison Wednesday in a New York courtroom. Two and a half years after multiple instances of sexual misconduct came to light, a court in New York has sentenced the former film mogul Harvey Weinstein to 23 years. The revelations had triggered the #MeToo movement. The announcement of the sentence on Wednesday not only ended a court trial. The verdict signifies success and, ideally, at least partial satisfaction for scores of women who claim to have been sexually harassed by Weinstein. It marks an interim conclusion to a dirty system of power, dependency and […] - [Budget 2020: A catch up budget, Chancellor unveils £30bn coronavirus package](https://heartlandstribune.com/budget-2020-a-catch-up-budget-chancellor-unveils-30bn-coronavirus-package/): Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a £30bn package to help the economy get through the coronavirus outbreak. Mr Sunak announced a £30bn stimulus package to ease the impact of the virus, including cutting small business rates to zero this year. He pledged a £500m boost for self-employed workers hit by the outbreak – but stopped short of demands to extend statutory sick pay to all. It comes as junior health minister Nadine Dorries revealed she tested positive for Covid-19 after falling ill on Friday. He is abolishing business rates for many firms in England, extending sick pay and boosting NHS funding. […] - [Poachers Kill World’s Only White Female Giraffe And Her Calf In Kenya](https://heartlandstribune.com/poachers-kill-worlds-only-white-female-giraffe-and-her-calf-in-kenya/): Conservationists say the killings are a “blow to tremendous steps taken by the community to conserve rare and unique species”. According to conservationists, rangers found the bodies of the female and her calf in a village in north-eastern Kenya’s Garissa County. One other white giraffe, a male birthed by the late mother, is still alive and is thought to be the only remaining white giraffe in the world. The killing has been described as “a blow to tremendous steps taken by the community to conserve rare and unique species” as well as “a wake-up call for continued support to conservation efforts”. […] - [Coronavirus: Health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-health-minister-nadine-dorries-tests-positive/): Health minister Nadine Dorries says she has tested positive for coronavirus. She said in a statement that as soon as she was informed she took all the advised precautions and has been self-isolating at home. “Public Health England has started detailed contact tracing and the department and my parliamentary office are closely following their advice.” It comes as a sixth person died from the virus in the UK, which has a total of 382 cases. The 62-year-old is the first British politician to have contracted the virus, which has infected more than 118,000 people worldwide and lead to more than 4,200 […] - [Labour Leadership: He who pays the piper calls the tune](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-he-who-pays-the-piper-calls-the-tune/): Campaign donors “always expect to be paid back in the end”, says Long-Bailey Rebecca Long-Bailey has said that campaign donors “always expect to be paid back in the end”, and suggested that who funds your campaign gives an “indication of what your politics are and who’s going to be influencing you”. She stresses she won’t attack the other candidates. “It’s wrong to be nasty about people who are within your own party. If you want to have a go with them do it in private, but don’t do it in public.” But she could not hold back at pointing to the […] - [Coronavirus: Iran releases 70,000 prisoners as toll rises Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is not amongst them.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-iran-releases-70000-prisoners-as-toll-rises-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-is-not-amongst-them/): Iran releases about 70,000 prisoners because of coronavirus: judiciary chief Iran has released approximately 70,000 prisoners because of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, according to Mizan, the news site of the judiciary. “The release of the prisoners, to the point where it doesn’t create insecurity in society … will continue,” he said. Raisi did not specify if or when those released would need to return to jail. The coronavirus outbreaks in China and South Korea appear to be slowing, as countries elsewhere in the world adopt drastic measures to try and stamp […] - [Not one lesson learned: Sir Keir Starmer won't rule out campaigning to rejoin EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/not-one-lesson-learned-sir-keir-starmer-wont-rule-out-campaigning-to-rejoin-eu/): Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leadership frontrunner, has declined to rule out campaigning to rejoin the EU in the years ahead. Appealing to Remain voting metropolitan cities, Sir Keir Starmer refused to rule out a future campaign to rejoin the EU. Starmer hopes to maintain support from the large predominant remain membership, detracting from the questions on who is actually funding his Leadership campaign. These questions are intensifying and have become embarrassing to the frontrunner, the questions just wont go away. How a future Labour Party Leader who advocates rejoining the EU could ever possibly think they could unify the Party […] - [Labour chair Ian Lavery piles pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to reveal who is funding leadership campaign](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-chair-ian-lavery-piles-pressure-on-sir-keir-starmer-to-reveal-who-is-funding-leadership-campaign/): Labour chairman Ian Lavery has piled pressure on Keir Starmer to reveal a full list of who is bankrolling his campaign to be party leader. Ian Lavery said he had been “inundated” with emails from members “demanding transparency within our party”. He also said he was seeking a meeting with Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, on the matter. “As chair of the party I’m steadfastly on record regarding the absolute need for total transparency within our party, and that certainly includes the need for members seeking high office to disclose their financial donations. “Candidates for the leadership should do so as […] - [Austerity contributed to rise in murders in Britain, Home Office report says](https://heartlandstribune.com/austerity-contributed-to-rise-in-murders-in-britain-home-office-report-says/): The rate of murders and manslaughters has soared by 39% from 2015 to 2018. And while reduction of police numbers may not have been a driver, it was likely a “contributing factor”, according to government research Budget cuts to police contributed to the rising number of murders in Britain, an official report has found. Home Office research named the falling number of police officers since 2010 were a “contributory factor”, alongside drugs and terror attacks. “The evidence suggests that levels of police resources and the activities pursued can drive homicide trends,” said a report released on Thursday. “If all else is […] - [Coronavirus: Northern Italy to quarantine 16 million people](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-northern-italy-to-quarantine-16-million-people/): More than a quarter of Italy’s population have been placed in mandatory quarantine as the government attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Italy’s prime minister has said at least 16 million people are now in mandatory quarantine in Lombardy region and also in 14 provinces. Italy has witnessed a surge in new coronavirus cases, prompting new measures to stave off the outbreak. Rome has enacted sweeping measures to limit mobility and assembly in the region of Lombardy and 14 nearby provinces. The lock-down will last until early April. The dramatic escalation in the country’s efforts to contain the new […] - [Labour in Check-Mate - The Political Vagrancy of the Working Class](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-in-check-mate-the-political-vagrancy-of-the-working-class/): Dr Lisa McKenzie – that rare thing – a working class woman with a platform within academia and on the media, who uses it to resurrect, agitate and educate on social class, just posted about how we in Labour have the balance of concern all wrong.  In our language, we would say it’s arse about face.  Here’s why I agree with her and thank her for challenging us on it. Within the Labour Party membership, we have so much more to say about Palestine and the Environment and the Trans debate than we do about the enforced political vagrancy of our […] - [Coronavirus: Will COVID-19 exacerbate drugs shortage in Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-will-covid-19-exacerbate-drugs-shortage-in-europe/): Coronavirus: Panic in Europe over ‘acute’ drug shortages  Supply chains for drugs are vulnerable in the EU and Europe as a whole, and that was true even before COVID-19 broke out. Shortages point to systemic problems and more often than not involve China. Last year a quarter of patients in France were unable to get their prescriptions because of a shortage of drugs, a situation that doctors said was putting patients at great risk. French doctors and pharmacists reported shortages in the supply of a range of crucial drugs including cancer. But that was in October of last year — at a time when most people had probably never heard of a […] - [Coronavirus: HSBC evacuates Canary Wharf office after confirmed coronavirus case](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-hsbc-evacuates-canary-wharf-office-after-confirmed-coronavirus-case/): HSBC has evacuated parts of its Canary Wharf office after a confirmed case of coronavirus. The UK bank has cleared its research department, according to people familiar with the matter, after an analyst contracted the Covid-19 virus. HSBC is in the process of “deep cleaning” the affected part of the office, one person said. If marks the first case of the respiratory illness at a major financial institution in the UK and comes in the same week that professional services firm Deloitte said a member of its London team was suffering from the virus. The research analyst told bosses at the weekend and […] - [Flybe: Collapses two months after government announces rescue](https://heartlandstribune.com/flybe-collapses-two-months-after-government-announces-rescue/): Flybe collapses after ministers reject call for another £100 million rescue package The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority confirmed on Thursday morning that Europe’s biggest regional carrier had fallen into administration following the decision not to provide a £100m state loan. Flybe, Europe’s largest regional airline, has collapsed with the loss of more than 2,000 jobs, less than two months after the government announced a rescue deal. Ministers agreed in January to support the firm with a multi-million pound package that asked shareholders to put more into the business while the Government deferred an outstanding £106m air passenger duty bill. The impact […] - [Sir Keir Starmer keen to Blame Corbyn and a Left manifesto detracting from his own vote losing Brexit policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-keen-to-blame-corbyn-and-a-left-manifesto-detracting-from-his-own-vote-losing-brexit-policy/): Sir Keir Starmer is keen to detract any blame from himself on the historical Labour defeat of the 2019 general election. Sir Starmer claims Jeremy Corbyn came up on the doorstep more than Brexit, however, the reality is Labour lost their MPs in 60 constituencies, many long-perceived as safe red seats, 52 of those seats were Labour leave voting seats. No matter how you spin it or try to use post-truth facts it was Labour’s vote losing Brexit policy and specifically the second referendum aspect that witnessed those 52 seats not voting Labour. Where Sir Keir Starmer has declared that the […] - [Coronavirus: Sick pay from day one but low paid workers miss out](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-sick-pay-from-day-one-but-low-paid-workers-miss-out/): Boris Johnson said sick pay will start being paid from day one, not after four days of sickness – but it still won’t be available yet to those who earn less than £118 a week Statutory sick pay laws will be changed in emergency legislation to help people with Coronavirus. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announce the £94-a-week payment will be available from day one, not after four days of sickness as the law currently says. But Jeremy Corbyn slammed the changes for not going far enough – because restrictions remain in place barring sick pay to 2million low paid workers. The […] - [Civil servant took an overdose after being bullied by Priti Patel](https://heartlandstribune.com/civil-servant-took-an-overdose-after-being-bullied-by-priti-patel/): A former aide to Priti Patel ‘took an overdose after claiming she was being bullied by the minister’ Priti Patel has been hit with fresh bullying claims after it emerged a former aide took an overdose and received a £25,000 payout after accusing her boss of victimisation. In October 2015, the then employment minister was said to have lashed out at the female staffer in an ‘unprovoked level of aggression’. The woman was later told by an official she was being sacked because ‘she [Ms Patel] doesn’t like your face,’ according to the BBC.   Legal correspondence seen by the BBC alleges the […] - [Priti Patel: Investigation launched into bullying allegations against home secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patel-investigation-launched-into-bullying-allegations-against-home-secretary/): The government is to investigate whether Home Secretary Priti Patel has breached the ministerial code, amid allegations of bullying. Cabinet office minister Michael Gove confirmed the inquiry after an urgent question from Jeremy Corbyn. It comes after bullying claims were made by the ex-top civil servant in Ms Patel’s department. Mr Corbyn said he believed Ms Patel – who has previously denied she mistreated staff – should be sacked. Sir Philip Rutnam, the Home Office’s most senior official, resigned on Saturday citing a “vicious and orchestrated” campaign against him. Jeremy Corbyn: Government ‘led by bullies’ Jeremy Corbyn said if the “serious […] - [Coronavirus: Action plan agreed at emergency COBRA meeting](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-action-plan-agreed-at-emergency-cobra-meeting/): The spread of coronavirus in the UK is “likely”, Boris Johnson has said, but a plan has been agreed to tackle it. Johnson said people “should go about business as usual” at the moment, adding that the UK was “well prepared” and further details would be announced in the coming days and weeks. Ministers from every government department met in the cabinet office this morning to agree the plan as the number of UK cases hit 40. Meanwhile, the EU has raised the coronavirus risk level in member states to “moderate to high”. The four new UK cases had all travelled […] - [Richard Burgon says Jeremy Corbyn would be three years into government if not for 'disloyal and disgraceful' Labour MPs](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-burgon-says-jeremy-corbyn-would-be-three-years-into-government-if-not-for-disloyal-and-disgraceful-labour-mps/): Burgon in an open honest interview that puts other so-called Left MP’s to shame also points out the fact Labour lost the general election because of Brexit not any socialist policies In an interview with the Mirror, the left-wing candidate for Labour’s deputy leadership explains why he thinks the party should double down on giving members the final say – and argues MPs are ‘seduced’ for ‘forget their roots’ The Shadow Justice Secretary shot to prominence is an unwavering defender of Jeremy Corbyn and the left-wing politics which also propelled the Labour Party into having the biggest membership of any European […] - [Labour leadership: Jeremy Corbyn calls on Sir Keir Starmer to reveal who is funding his leadership campaign](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn-calls-on-sir-keir-starmer-to-reveal-who-is-funding-his-leadership-campaign/): Jeremy Corbyn has called on Keir Starmer to reveal who is financing his Labour leadership campaign. Mr Corbyn said it was “very important” for party members to know exactly where candidates’ funding was coming from before they decide who to vote for. Sir Keir has been under pressure since Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy both published all the donations they have received above £1,500. In a surprise intervention, the outgoing Labour leader also insisted he will not be “disappearing” when his successor is unveiled, and said that if he is offered a frontbench job under the new leader, he would prefer […] - [The Fire Brigades Union have released videos criticising Sir Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fire-brigades-union-have-release-videos-criticising-sir-keir-starmer-and-lisa-nandy/): The FBU released the first in a series of videos criticising Sir Keir Starmer and Lisa Nanny, starting with one that highlights the participation of their failed 2016 ‘coup’. The party-affiliated, left-wing FBU, which nominated Long-Bailey for the leadership and Richard Burgon for the vacant deputy post, has made three ads in support of their favoured contenders. The first, was released, focusing on the leadership challenge against Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 that was precipitated by mass frontbench resignations. Rebecca Long-Bailey stepped up to become a shadow cabinet member at the time. “We’ve got a carefully coordinated coup planned to create the […] - [Homelessness: Rough sleeping five times higher than the Tory government claim](https://heartlandstribune.com/homelessness-rough-sleeping-five-times-higher-than-the-tory-government-claim/): Has London mayor Boris Johnson made a bold pledge to end rough sleeping in the capital by the end of 2012. Homelessness is now five times worse in the UK than the government admits, according to figures that reveal more than 28,000 people were recorded sleeping rough in a year. Campaigners have accused ministers of “seriously misleading” the public by providing an “unreliable undercount” of people sleeping on the streets. The latest official rough sleeping figures, which the government calculates based on a one-night snapshot, show 4,677 people were sleeping on the streets in England in 2018 – down 2 per cent on the year before but 165 per […] - [Sir Keir Starmer is the Only Candidate Not to Back More Social Housing](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-is-the-only-candidate-not-to-back-more-social-housing/): How Labour’s leadership candidates responded to council housing pledges At the heart of the housing crisis in England is the failure of successive governments to build enough social rent council homes. We all see the impacts of this failure every day, in the harrowing statistics on housing and homelessness, in the cases that we see on the television, and with the increasing amounts of rough sleepers that we see on our daily commutes. The party must take significant steps to ensure that any future Labour government tackles the housing crisis head-on. Council responses to a freedom of information (FoI) request show nearly […] - [DWP bosses who cut benefits causing poverty awarded £1m bonus by the Tory government](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-bosses-who-cut-benefits-causing-poverty-awarded-1m-bonus-by-the-tory-government/): Senior officials at the Tory Government’s benefits-cutting department have pocketed over £1m in bonuses. Poverty has soared under the Tory Government but DWP civil servants have pocketed extra cash. Civil servants were rewarded for their performance, even though critics believe the DWP has increased poverty. Labour MSP Mark Griffin said: “Under the Tories we have witnessed our social security system being cut to the bone, with those most in need hit hardest. Senior civil servants, who implemented these policies, receiving such huge bonuses year after year is shocking. However, it is those who brought those policies into being, the Tories, who must shoulder […] - [Coronavirus: Europe Prepares for Pandemic as Illness Spreads From Italy where paranoia is spreading faster than any virus.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-europe-prepares-for-pandemic-as-illness-spreads-from-italy-where-paranoia-is-spreading-faster-than-any-virus/): COVID-19 latest: Don’t ‘panic’ says EU health chief as cases climb faster than China Europe must not “give in to panic” over the spread of COVID-19, the EU’s health commissioner warned on Wednesday as countries scrambled to contain the biggest cluster of infections outside Asia. Greece and Brazil confirmed their first coronavirus cases, a day after the virus spread to Switzerland, Austria, Croatia and mainland Spain — and the WHO announced more new infections outside China than inside for the first time. “This is a situation of concern but we must not give in to panic,” Stella Kyriakides said in Rome. […] - [Sir Keir Starmer willing to break the rules to let expelled Blairite friends back into the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-willing-to-break-the-rules-to-let-expelled-blairite-friends-back-into-the-labour-party/): Sir Keir Starmer has called for Alastair Campbell to be allowed back into the Labour Party after he was booted out for backing the Liberal Democrats. Starmer said the party should instead focus on tackling anti-semitism as he signalled he would readmit Tony Blair’s former communications chief. Mr Campbell, an avowed opponent of Brexit who was Downing Street director of communications under Mr Blair, was expelled from Labour last May after he revealed that he had voted for the pro-EU Lib Dems at the European elections. The Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, a supporter of the Blairite run ‘People’s vote’ was […] - [Politicians and Police ‘turned blind eye’ to Westminster child abuse claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/politicians-and-police-turned-blind-eye-to-westminster-child-abuse-claims/): Westminster ‘turned blind eye to child sex abuse claims for decades,’ report finds A report into sexual abuse against children by politicians says that Westminster “actively shielded” suspects from investigation. One of the alleged perpetrators was the private secretary to Margaret Thatcher. Political parties, police and prosecutors turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse of children and actively covered up allegations over decades, an independent inquiry found on Tuesday. The inquiry did not find evidence of an organised paedophile network. The inquiry examined the years between the 1960s and the 1990s. The report found there had been “significant failures by Westminster institutions […] - [Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian president ousted during Arab spring, dies at 91](https://heartlandstribune.com/hosni-mubarak-egyptian-president-ousted-during-arab-spring-dies-at-91/): Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled as president in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising after 30 years of authoritarian rule, died Tuesday, state television said. He was 91 and had been hospitalised for several weeks. Mubarak became a symbol of thuggish and brutal authority after taking power in 1981 following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. His reign was marked by the emergence of a paranoid and cruel police state supported by a network of sprawling military businesses and corrupt crony businessmen. Many Egyptians see echoes of Mubarak’s style of leadership in their current leader, the former general Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Mubarak […] - [Sir Keir Starmer: The Trilateral Commission and Jeffrey Epstein](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-the-establishment-candidate-the-labour-leadership-race-and-the-trilateral-commission/): The Washington Post is the publication that brought to light ‘The Watergate scandal’ it revealed to its American readers a conspiracy that shook a nation, The same newspaper also brought to light the truth about the ‘Trilateral Commission’ an organisation with dark connections to what’s termed the ‘Deep State’ the title of that publication was: ‘BEWARE THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION!‘ Behind closed doors, they meet hidden away. Some call them “the shadow government,” “the Establishment,” the “global elite” that runs the world. They call themselves simply … The Trilateral Commission. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about the Trilateral Commission. This 47-year-old […] - [The MP's that nominated Sir Starmer for the Labour Leadership are the same MP's that voted for the Iraq war](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-mps-that-nominated-sir-starmer-for-the-labour-leadership-are-the-same-mps-that-voted-for-the-iraq-war/): ‘An act of military aggression launched on a false pretext’ a ‘stain’ on the Labour Party These were the words to describe one of the worst episodes in British history. Jeremy Corbyn tore into Tony Blair after the Chilcot report delivered a devastating verdict on the Iraq war. The Labour leader said the invasion was an ‘act of military aggression launched on a false pretext’ and argued that it had been illegal. In a second speech to activists and victims’ families, Mr Corbyn made a fulsome apology for Labour’s role in the conflict. Mr Corbyn said: ‘There are no more important […] - [Coronavirus: Evacuated Britons arrive in the UK from the coronavirus-hit cruise ship](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-evacuated-britons-arrive-in-the-uk-from-the-coronavirus-hit-cruise-ship/): British nationals evacuated from a coronavirus-hit cruise ship in Japan have arrived at a hospital where they will spend the next two weeks in quarantine. Meanwhile local hospitals see coronavirus quarantine pods at the ready. Coaches carrying 30 British and two Irish citizens arrived at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral on Saturday evening. The group had travelled from an airbase in Wiltshire after leaving Tokyo on a flight late on Friday night. They have so far tested negative for the virus. Evacuees from the Diamond Princess got to Arrowe Park Hospital – where they will spend another two weeks – just […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: If offered a positions, he'll be 'happy to serve' in Rebecca Long-Bailey's shadow cabinet](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-if-offered-a-positions-hell-be-happy-to-serve-in-rebecca-long-baileys-shadow-cabinet/): Jeremy Corbyn has said he would consider serving in the shadow cabinet if offered a job by his successor as Labour leader. The Labour leader said he acknowledged his party had lost the election but he was proud of the campaign they had fought. Mr Corbyn said that Brexit was a “chasm that was too great for us to cross during that election” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t rule out serving in the shadow cabinet under the party’s next leader Speaking on a visit to flood-affected areas of Pontypridd in south Wales, Mr Corbyn says he would be “happy to serve […] - [Solidarity with UCU members 'OUT' on strike for 14 days in pay and pensions row](https://heartlandstribune.com/solidarity-with-ucu-members-out-on-strike-for-14-days-in-pay-and-pensions-row/): Staff at 74 universities across the UK are beginning a 14-day strike over pensions, pay and conditions. Workers at universities across Britain kicked off 14 days of strikes on Thursday in a battle for the future of education. UCU union members are fighting over pay, equality, workloads, contracts and pensions. Mark, a striker at Queen Mary, University of London, said the issues “could describe any workplace in the country”. Workers at 74 universities plan to strike for 14 days throughout February and March. Those at 57 institutions began the action with a two-day strike on Thursday. There were big picket lines across Britain, with […] - [Freedom of Movement: The plight of Europe's 'euro orphans' and the dark side of FOM](https://heartlandstribune.com/freedom-of-movement-the-plight-of-europes-euro-orphans-and-the-dark-side-of-fom/): Children Growing up without their parents the plight of the EU ‘euro orphans’ As the European Union has expanded eastward, hundreds of thousands of children have been turned into orphans in all but name. They grow up without their parents, who have no choice but to work in rich, Western European countries of a lack of work options and opertunities back home. Thousands of Eastern Europeans are leaving their country every year, trying their luck in another European country. Thousands of children are left behind to live with their grandparents, aunts and uncles or neighbours. More than half the children grow […] - [Immigration: No visas for 'Low-skilled' migrant workers after Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/immigration-no-visas-for-low-skilled-migrant-workers-after-brexit/): Low-skilled workers would not get visas under post-Brexit immigration plans unveiled by the government. The UK’s immigration system has “for too long” focused on “low skilled workers” coming to the country, the Home Secretary said, as the Government announced plans to overhaul the rules after Brexit. Priti Patel said the new points-based immigration system will focus on the “bright and best” coming to the UK. The changes are designed to cut the number of low-skilled migrants entering Britain from the beginning of next year, after Brexit, but aim to make it easier for higher-skilled workers to get UK visas. A policy […] - [Zero hour contracts hit record high as almost a million have no guaranteed work](https://heartlandstribune.com/zero-hour-contracts-hit-record-high-as-almost-a-million-have-no-guaranteed-work/): New figures reveal almost 1 million workers are on zero-hour contracts in the UK, amid growing concern about the rise of insecure jobs among the youngest and oldest workers. Trade unions claimed the government had “failed to crack down on unfair employment practices” as official figures showed a 15% spike in workers on zero-hour contracts in the past year to near record highs. Some 974,000 people in employment, are on the contracts where workers are on call but not guaranteed any work, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures released on Tuesday. THAT’S 9% OF ALL WORKERS UNDER 25 NOW HAVE NO […] - [Coronavirus: From bats to pangolins, how do viruses reach us?](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-from-bats-to-pangolins-how-do-viruses-reach-us/): Pangolins may be the latest link in the coronavirus outbreak, but as with SARS and MERS, bats are the most likely original source of the deadly virus. Scientists believe bats’ unique genetic quirks make them ideal hosts. There are many questions about the novel Coronavirus that remain unanswered, such as “how does the virus spread?” and “where did it originate?” Now, Chinese-based researchers say they think the pangolin — a scaly, otherwise harmless mammal that eats ants — may have spread the virus to humans. As the deadly coronavirus sweeps across the globe, killing over a thousand, halting cruise ships and prompting border […] - [Eugenics are back on the menu for the Tory’s: The Working class better start to organise.](https://heartlandstribune.com/eugenics-are-back-on-the-menu-for-the-torys-the-working-class-better-start-to-organise/): Dominic Cummings called for “misfits and weirdos” to apply for jobs in Downing Street and the applicants certainly meet that criteria. Andrew Sabisky, one of the hires, the 27-year-old researcher, who reportedly describes himself as a “super forecaster”, has been brought in to work as a contractor on Downing Street projects. Sabisky has a history of horrific comments many in support of Eugenics, these comments which campaigners have said draw parallels to Nazi ideology, were uncovered over the weekend. This includes a comment on Mr Cummings’s blog in 2014 in which Mr Sabisky said existing vaccination laws could pave the way […] - [Man arrested and multiple injuries after stabbing in Reading town centre](https://heartlandstribune.com/man-arrested-and-multiple-injuries-after-stabbing-in-reading-town-centre/): Two people have been rushed to Royal Berkshire Hospital with stab wounds, while a man has been arrested. A man has been arrested and multiple people have been rushed to hospital following a stabbing at a park in Reading, Thames Valley Police has confirmed. The incident took place near near Forbury Gardens, a park in the town centre, at around 7pm on Saturday. In a statement, Thames Valley Police said: “Officers arrested a man at the scene who is now in police custody. “A number of people sustained injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment. “There is a police cordon […] - [Systemic racism in practice: The EU's Pale and stale top team to hold a debate on racism.](https://heartlandstribune.com/systemic-racism-in-practice-the-eus-pale-and-stale-top-team-to-hold-a-debate-on-racism/): The outbreak of protests across Europe following George Floyd’s death continues to resonate on the continent. The EU cannot sit idly by while capital cities are seeing their monuments and statues toppled. The mass protest by its citizens who are demanding the recognition of a shameful and unjust period in history where capitalist constructs brought about the enslavement and use as a commodity of other humans, other people, this has continued even after the enlightenment and abolition of slavery and is now reflected within systemic racism within European institutes and society. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen announced a meeting will […] - [Richard Burgon: Labour was "SMASHED" in 2019 because of Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-burgon-labour-was-smashed-in-2019-because-of-brexit/): It was Brexit and the second referendum that lost Labour the general election, not socialist policy’s. Richard Burgon, Labour MP and former shadow justice secretary tells Mark Dolan that his party’s position on Brexit “ended up being a disaster”. He states Labour almost won in the 2017 general election but added “in the 2019 general election…we got smashed”. Mr Burgon blamed this on the shift in policy between 2017 and 2019. Whilst discussing the recently released report into Labour’s election performance, Mr Burgon also referenced a recently leaked ‘report’ which he said contained allegations about a number of unelected officials in […] - [BLM: George Washington is Down](https://heartlandstribune.com/blm-george-washington-is-down/): George Washington statue in portland was toppled, then covered in burning U.S. flag The George Washington statue was toppled by protesters in Portland, Oregon, on the night before Juneteenth, which marks the day in 1865 when all slaves were freed from slavery. Juneteenth started as a Texas state holiday but is now celebrated annually throughout the United States, the date commemorates the Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were now free. A U.S. flag was seen burning at the head of the statue […] - [Government abandons contact-tracing app in favour of Apple and Google model](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-abandons-contact-tracing-app-in-favour-of-apple-and-google-model/): NHS will switch to an alternative design by tech giants, says Matt Hancock in latest embarrassing U-turn When the United Kingdom released its coronavirus app in early May on the Isle of Wight, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said people testing the digital tracing tool were “at the forefront of helping Britain get back on her feet.” Two months later the government has abandoned the centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pounds on technology that experts had repeatedly warned would not work. In an embarrassing U-turn, Matt Hancock said the NHS would switch to an alternative designed […] - [Chris Williamson: We may have lost parliament but support and solidarity can unite the left.](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-williamson-we-may-have-lost-parliament-but-support-and-solidarity-can-unite-the-left/): LEGAL FIGHTING FUND LAUNCHED TO HELP FIGHTBACK AGAINST RACISTS AND FOSSILISED PARTY ESTABLISHMENTS. If anyone thought the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn would see an end to the witch-hunt, the evidence of the last few months shows the opposite is happening.  If anything, it is actually intensifying, which is why I am relaunching the Left Legal Fighting Fund.   The political situation on both sides of the Atlantic means that the prospects for electoral socialism have dimmed.  Fossilised old guard political party establishments – in Labour and the US Democrats – have stood in the way of the transformation that millions of […] - [Israel's Annexation of the West Bank Condemned by UN](https://heartlandstribune.com/israels-annexation-of-the-west-bank-condemned-by-un/): Almost 50 UN human rights experts have condemned Israel’s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, calling it a “vision of a 21st Century apartheid”. UN human rights experts said on Tuesday that Israel’s plan to annex significant parts of the occupied West Bank would violate international law banning the taking of territory by force, and urged other countries to actively oppose it. A joint statement, signed by nearly 50 independent experts, voiced dismay at US support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “unlawful” plan for de facto annexation of land the Palestinians seek for a state. Israel has occupied […] - [Labour backs Priti Patel plan to jail protesters for vandalising war memorials](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-backs-priti-patel-plan-to-jail-protesters-for-vandalising-war-memorials/): Labour would back new law to protect war memorials with 10-year jail terms for vandals, says shadow home secretary Labour will back a plan by the government to jail people who deface war memorials and other monuments, the party’s shadow home secretary has said. Under plans being considered by Home Secretary Priti Patel and cabinet colleagues, vandals could face 10-year prison sentences if convicted. The proposed new law comes as gangs of far-right football hooligans mobilised across the country on Saturday to “protect” war memorials from anti-racism protesters, who they mistakenly believed were systematically targeting them. The new law could also […] - [Black Lives Matter protests: UK far-right groups clash with police while doing 'Nazi salutes' in front of the cenotaph](https://heartlandstribune.com/black-lives-matter-protests-uk-far-right-groups-clash-with-police-while-doing-nazi-salutes-in-front-of-the-cenotaph/): Far-right protesters were filmed doing ‘Nazi salutes’ in front of the cenotaph war memorial in London The ‘MYTH’: There were siren calls sent across the land to all Englishmen true, protect our heritage our history the statues too. However, the reality of the situation showed that for those few that did turn out all pretence at disguising their intent behind an imagined cause became transparent it was just plain old thuggery. This is not Patriotism or anything that remotely looks like it. Standing in front of a war memorial doing a Nazi salute makes you a traitor. It’s an insult to […] - [Coronavirus: Fresh cluster sparks partial Beijing lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-fresh-cluster-sparks-partial-beijing-lockdown/): Eleven residential estates in the Chinese capital have been sealed off after dozens of new cases emerged, linked to a meat market. Parts of Beijing were placed under lockdown on Saturday as six new domestic Covid-19 coronavirus cases were reported, fuelling fears of a resurgence in local transmission. People were prevented from leaving their homes at 11 residential estates in south Beijing’s Fengtai district after most of the cases were linked to a nearby meat market, city officials said in a press briefing. Beijing’s first Covid-19 case in two months, announced on Thursday, had visited Xinfadi meat market last week and […] - [I will stand in solidarity but I won't be bending the knee](https://heartlandstribune.com/i-will-stand-in-solidarity-but-i-wont-be-bending-the-knee/): The act of taking the knee is a powerful symbol for an American. But for the British working class its an act of submission. The U.S. is a vehemently patriotic country and for many that patriotism can often cross over into nationalism, driven more by racial and ethnic superiority than a love of country patriotism then becomes the flag bigotry hides behind. The U.S.A. flirts with a nationalist, ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. America first is not just a mantra its a way of life. President Donald […] - [#GTTO: Get The Tories Out!](https://heartlandstribune.com/gtto-get-the-tories-out/): Get The Tories Out! is a rallying cry for many people on the left – a social media slogan that reflects real world campaigning. The author of Why NOT Trust the CONservatives? Andrew Godsell has amassed the views of 16 Labour supporters, expressed recently on Twitter, giving them a more permanent form in this book of essays. “Get The Tories Out! Our Socialist Media Campaign” Godsell analyses the reasons for Labour’s historic defeat and shows the way that a radical mass movement can regain the political initiative from the Tories. The Conservatives won the 2019 General Election, with a majority of […] - [Coronavirus: Failure has a number and it's 50,000](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-failure-has-a-number-and-its-50000/): The death toll in the U.K. now stands at 50,413, second only to the U.S, the UK is the sick man of Europe On Friday 27 March 2020, statisticians at Imperial College London said their new best guess for the UK deaths was 5,700 – compared with 28,000 in Italy and around 46,000 in Spain. Mr. Powis, the medical director at NHS England, said “UK coronavirus death toll under 20,000 would be ‘good result’ But Mr. Powis goes on to say even under 20,000 would only be achieved if people “really lock down and hone down on what we have been […] - [While we are in the mood for the Abolition of slavery let's focus on the EU and Libya](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-we-are-in-the-mood-for-the-abolition-of-slavery-lets-focus-on-the-eu-and-libya/): Black Lives Matter Bristol pulled down a 17th century slave trader’s statue and throw it into the harbour, will that anger now be directed on 21st century slavers and those that are complicit? For the pro-EU remain voting stronghold of Bristol the statue was a controversial image and for many it venerated a man that made his fortune on the brutal enslavement of other humans. There have been many petitions in the past to have the statue removed coming to nothing. Many people argue that Edward Colston parliamentarian, philanthropist, slave trader was just a man of his time. In contrast on […] - [Trump says he's ordering National Guard to begin process of withdrawing from Washington DC](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-says-hes-ordering-national-guard-to-begin-process-of-withdrawing-from-washington-dc/): Peaceful protest results in National Guard withdrawing. Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning that he has ordered for the National Guard to start the process of withdrawing from Washington, DC, after days of peaceful protests. “They will be going home, but can quickly return, if needed. Far fewer protesters showed up last night than anticipated!” Trump tweeted. Roughly 5,000 National Guard troops had been called to patrol the nation’s capital — 3,900 out-of-state National Guard troops from 11 states, and 1,200 DC-based Guard troops — — amid ongoing protests over the police killing of George Floyd, a black man who died at […] - [George Floyd death: Protesters pull down statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-floyd-death-protesters-pull-down-statue-of-17th-century-slave-trader-edward-colston/): Long-overdue: A slave trader’s statue in Bristol has been torn down and thrown into the harbour during a second day of anti-racism protests across the UK. It comes after largely peaceful demonstrations in London on Saturday ended in some clashes with police. But thousands of protesters massed for a second day outside the US embassy in London before moving towards Whitehall. Other protests have been taking place in Manchester, Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In Bristol, protesters used ropes to pull down the bronze statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th Century slave trader, who has been a source of controversy in the city […] - [Violence erupts at anti-racism protest in London](https://heartlandstribune.com/violence-erupts-at-anti-racism-protest-in-london/): Violence has erupted in London after a group of Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with the police – with bottles thrown and mounted officers charging down Whitehall. It came after a largely peaceful day of demonstrations against racism across the UK following the killing of George Floyd in the US. Sky News correspondent Mark White was at the scene on Whitehall – near Downing Street and The Cenotaph. He said the atmosphere had started to shift in the area, where around 400 to 500 people had gathered, and then “just after the thunderstorm… the crowd started throwing bottles and other objects at the […] - [Trump: ‘Don’t be proud, call in National Guard, this is a great day for George Floyd’](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-dont-be-proud-call-in-national-guard-this-is-a-great-day-for-george-floyd/): Trump tells governors to ‘call in National Guard’ while saying “this is a great day” for George Floyd. Donald Trump must suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome but its America he embarrasses At a Rose Garden event at the White House on Friday morning, Trump offered praise for members of the District of Columbia’s police department, the Secret Service and the National Guard for swiftly clamping down on demonstrators in the city. Protests reached an inflection point on Monday night, when officers from a number of law enforcement agencies wielded batons and chemical agents to forcibly clear an area north of the White […] - [Animal Rights: China Reclassifies Dogs As pets, not livestock](https://heartlandstribune.com/animal-rights-china-reclassifies-dogs-as-pets-not-livestock/): The move follows a total ban on the consumption and trade of dogs and cats in Shenzhen last week. The Humane Society has dubbed the measure a “potential game changer.” China’s agricultural ministry has just removed dogs from the national list of livestock, and has reclassified dogs as pets. The new set of guidelines comes as part of the broader nationwide crackdown on the wildlife industry after the coronavirus pandemic. The move has been welcomed by conservationists who have long campaigned for greater protection of dogs, but some critics have pointed out that legal loopholes for eating dogs may still exist. […] - [Iran debates 'honour killings' after death of 14-year-old sparks outrage](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-debates-honor-killings-after-death-of-14-year-old-sparks-outrage/): Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called for new protections for women after a 14-year-old girl was beheaded by her father in a so-called “honour killing,” sparking outrage in the country. The recent murder of an Iranian girl by her own father has highlighted women’s inequality and the country’s antiquated legal system. But religious authorities continue to oppose change. In late May, a village in northern Iran was the scene of a particularly horrifying crime when 37-year-old Reza Ashrafi beheaded his own daughter in a so-called honour killing. While similar cases are often kept quiet by the family, this one drew widespread […] - [Tom Watson peerage rejected](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-peerage-rejected/): Former deputy Labour leader’s nomination believed to have been rejected over his support for allegations of a paedophile ring at Westminster made by a fantasist who was later jailed The Independent suggested Mr Watson was rejected for a peerage after he highlighted the claims of fantasist Carl Beech, who later went to jail, who claimed a paedophile ring had operated in Westminster. The claims led the Metropolitan Police to conduct dawn raids on the homes of the late military chief Lord Bramall, the late Lord Brittan and former MP Harvey Proctor. Harvey Proctor, a former Conservative MP smeared by the allegations, […] - [George Floyd killing: Who wouldn't want to rage against killer cops?](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-floyd-killing-who-wouldnt-want-to-rage-against-killer-cops/): George Floyd died in circumstances that are horrifyingly familiar. On Monday last week, he was was arrested quietly, after a call was made alleging that he cashed a bad cheque. Phone footage taken moments later shows a police officer’s knee pinning Floyd’s neck to the ground. The last nine minutes of George Floyd’s life were spent in excruciating pain, pleading for his life. ”I can not breathe,” “Don’t kill me”.” Bystanders begged the officers to relent as they witnessed what was tantamount to a summary public execution. White woman calls police when black birdwatcher asks her to leash her dog in […] - [Coronavirus: The Tory gamble that could see thousands more die.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-the-tory-gamble-that-could-see-thousands-more-die/): The Government are gambling with our lives, scientists warn that lockdown measures ‘lifted too soon in England’, UK Some scientists advising the British government are warning that a planned move to ease COVID-19 lockdown measures in England risks being implemented too soon. Several members of the UK government’s scientific advisory group have voiced concerns after an expert in infectious diseases spoke out to say the move was “dangerous”. Two more have warned respectively that the lid on a “boiling pan” is being lifted, with the risk that the country may “lose control again”. Sir Jeremy Farrar, Professor John Edmunds and Professor […] - [George Floyd killing: Trump threatens to unleash the unlimited power of the Military as US cities brace for further unrest](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-floyd-killing-trump-threatens-to-unleash-the-unlimited-power-of-our-military-as-us-cities-brace-for-further-unrest/): Trump said he was willing to use the military if state leaders don’t get “tougher” on anti-police brutality protests. The unrest began after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and has since spread across the US. Trump said on Saturday that the federal government was considering using the military to intervene in protests over the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. “We have our military ready, willing and able,” Trump told reporters before departing for Florida. “We can have our military there very quickly.” On Twitter, Trump wrote the federal government will use “the unlimited power of our military” as […] - [Making History: NASA and SpaceX Launch Astronauts to Space!](https://heartlandstribune.com/making-history-nasa-and-spacex-launch-astronauts-to-space/): Elon Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX launched two Americans, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida After being delayed by bad weather, the Falcon 9 rocket has lifted off from Florida — the first launch of astronauts into orbit by a private firm. It’s also NASA’s first human spaceflight from US soil in nearly a decade. Watch history unfold on Saturday, May 30, as NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the International Space Station. This mission marks the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 that humans will […] - [George Floyd killing: Outrage spills across America](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-floyd-killing-outrage-spills-across-america/): Protests, some violent, have escalated across the United States with people angry at the killing in police custody of unarmed black man George Floyd. One police officer has been charged with murder. Derek Chauvin is being held at the Ramsey County Jail in St. Paul, according to Bureau of Criminal Apprehension spokesperson Jill Oliveira. When asked why Chauvin was not being held in Hennepin County, where the death of George Floyd occurred, “The BCA communicated with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, which was dealing with potential threats to their facilities at the time of the arrest, they directed us to book […] - [Trump announces US withdrawal from the World Health Organization](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-announces-us-withdrawal-from-the-world-health-organization/): Trump says U.S. to withdraw from World Health Organization and announces new broadsides against Beijing Donald Trump on Friday said he is terminating the U.S. relationship with the World Health Organization, making good on his threat to withdraw from the U.N. health agency he’s blamed for mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. Trump also says U.S. will no longer treat Hong Kong as separate from China in move that could have major economic implications. On Friday in an extraordinary broadside at the Chinese government, Trump accused China of a comprehensive “pattern of misconduct” and ordering U.S. officials to begin the process of revoking […] - [Silent 'Doctors not martyrs' protest outside No10 during Clap for Carers](https://heartlandstribune.com/silent-doctors-not-martyrs-protest-outside-no10-during-clap-for-carers/): A group of doctors in scrubs and masks held a ‘Doctors not martyrs’ banner outside Downing Street in a show of support for the over 200 NHS staff who have died from coronavirus The group of Doctors in surgical scrubs and masks silently knelt outside a gated-off Downing Street while displaying a banner which said: “Doctors not martyrs.” Journalist Ben Smoke posted images of the silent demonstration on his Twitter page, including one “striking moment” as the doctors stared down the armed police on the other side of the gate. “They laid a wreath and then left,” the HUCK magazine contributing editor said. […] - [Christmas really did come to leave voting Sunderland: Nissan makes U.K. European HQ](https://heartlandstribune.com/christmas-really-did-come-to-leave-voting-sunderland-nissan-makes-u-k-european-hq/): A Boost for Britain! Nissan says car making in Europe will be centred at its Sunderland plant Brexit voters are, of course, mostly fools who don’t know what is good for them – in contrast to all those Remain voters with their degrees and analytical skills. But none are so dim-witted as those in Sunderland who, like turkeys voting for Christmas, chose a course of action which will inevitably lead to them losing their jobs at the city’s Nissan plant. Or so the story goes. However, it turns out that Sunderland’s Nissan workers are defiantly not quite so stupid as the […] - [Lufthansa says 'unable to approve' coronavirus rescue due to EU's harsh state aid conditions](https://heartlandstribune.com/lufthansa-says-unable-to-approve-coronavirus-rescue-due-to-eus-harsh-state-aid-conditions/): Airline giant Lufthansa said it cannot approve a German state rescue over fears that conditions imposed by Brussels would be too harsh. The EU’s conditions “would lead to a weakening of the hub function at Lufthansa’s home airports in Frankfurt and Munich,” the Group said in a press release. Coronavirus-hit airline Lufthansa on Wednesday said its supervisory board was “unable to approve” a €9 billion ($9.9 billion) rescue plan from the German government because of fears that conditions imposed by Brussels over accepting the support might be too stringent. “Conditions currently indicated by the EU Commission … would lead to a weakening […] - [#LabourLeaks: No amount of forensic investigations will change the facts, members want justice.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labourleaks-no-amount-of-forensic-investigations-will-change-the-facts-members-want-justice/): And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. George Orwell 1984 With not much to go on the new buzzword to describe Sir Keir Starmer is ‘Forensic’ the word is supposed to reflect his arguably questionable time as Director of public prosecutions. We are supposed to swallow the idea of Sir Keir Starmer being ‘Forensic,’ a word that conveys an image of applying a scientific method and technique to an investigation but the reality is, it is an excuse for […] - [They really do think they're above us and the rules don't apply: Illegal lockdown birthday party at Tory MP's house](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-really-do-think-theyre-above-us-and-the-rules-dont-apply-illegal-lockdown-birthday-party-tory-mps-house/): Police broke up an illegal lockdown bank holiday birthday party at the house of a Tory MP Rob Roberts The family of a Conservative MP have been reminded of the coronavirus lockdown guidelines following reports police broke up an illegal birthday party at his house. Delyn MP Rob Roberts confirmed his family were “reminded of the guidance set out by the government”, which still currently forbid people to visit others in their homes. He added he was “200 miles away” in London at the time. The Daily Mirror reported that two people were asked to leave Mr Roberts’s home in North […] - [The hypocrisy of both the press and government officials has become an embarrassment to the British public.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-hypocrisy-of-both-the-press-and-government-officials-has-become-an-embarrassment-to-the-british-public/): It looks very much like the bad old days of the Paparazzi are back. When you think rules don’t apply to you! The hypocrisy of government and the press knows no bounds. The press is flouting all social distancing rules to get a story about a government adviser who broke the social distancing rules. The rules he helped make. It is quite right that Dominic Cummings faces disciplinary procedures and even losing his job if that is the ruling of the procedure. But it is not right for the press to also carry out a “do as we say not as […] - [Hong Kong: Tear gas fired as thousands protest new security law](https://heartlandstribune.com/hong-kong-tear-gas-fired-as-thousands-protest-new-security-law/): Police have fired tear gas and deployed water cannon and armoured trucks as thousands of demonstrators turned out to reject Beijing’s latest plan. The protests are the biggest flare-up since Hong Kong’s COVID-19 lockdown. Hong Kong police fired tear gas on Sunday to disperse anti-government protesters as thousands took to the streets to oppose Beijing’s proposal to impose new security laws on the city. Black-clad protesters were seen chanting pro-democracy slogans in the city’s busy shopping districts of Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, demanding “Liberate Hong Kong,” “Stand with Hong Kong” and “Revolution of our times.” Police fired tear gas after they had warned […] - [Flouting the law: Dominic Cummings investigated by police breaking lockdown rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/flouting-the-law-dominic-cummings-investigated-by-police-breaking-lockdown-rules/): DOMINIC Cummings was investigated by police after flouting coronavirus lockdown rules by travelling more than 250 miles away from his home in London. Boris Johnson’s top aide Dominic Cummings was investigated by police after breaking the Government’s own lockdown rules according to a joint investigation with The Mirror and The Guardian. Cummings started suffering from a bout of Covid-19 at the end of March which left him self-isolating with his wife and son for two weeks. Downing Street claimed he was in quarantine in his London home but a report has revealed that he was actually 250 miles away in the […] - [Coronavirus: "Led by the science." Schools in England should not reopen on June 1](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-led-by-the-science-schools-in-england-should-not-reopen-on-june-1/): June 1 is “too early” for schools to reopen, a former government chief scientific adviser has said. Schools in England should not reopen on June 1 because there is “no clear evidence” that it is safe for them to do so, an independent group of scientists warned on Friday. The Independent Sage committee, which is separate from the government’s official advisers and is chaired by the former government chief scientist Sir David King, says new modelling of coronavirus shows the risk to children will be halved if they return to school two weeks later than ministers propose. Delaying until September would […] - [Germany to enforce stricter meat industry regulations following coronavirus outbreaks and migrant worker exploitation.](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-to-enforce-stricter-meat-industry-regulations-following-coronavirus-outbreaks-and-migrant-worker-exploitation/): The new rules agreed by the German government take aim at the meat industry’s widespread use of subcontractors and seeks to bolster the rights of migrant workers. Germany has agreed a proposal to ban the use of temporary workers at slaughterhouses following a spate of coronavirus infections. Hundreds of people working at abattoirs across Germany and France have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks. Many workers have arrived from Romania on flights chartered by farmers. Migrant worker exploitation. Renate Künast, the food policy spokesperson for the Greens and former agriculture minister, said that the meat industry and subcontractors have taken […] - [Johnson drops NHS fee for migrant healthcare workers in humiliating U-turn](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-drops-nhs-fee-for-migrant-healthcare-workers-in-humiliating-u-turn/): 24 hours ago Mr Johnson told MPs that imposing the immigration health surcharge on foreign-born NHS workers was “the right way forward”. The Royal College of Nursing demanded its removal after revealing that UK nursing staff born overseas would have to work for a whole month to pay off the fee when it rises from the current £400 to £624 for adults and £470 for children in October. The Prime Minister said yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) that the surcharge would not be dropped as it would leave a £900m hole in the NHS budget. However, a Number 10 spokesman […] - [Coronavirus: Spain makes masks compulsory in public, including outdoors](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-spain-makes-masks-compulsory-in-public-including-outdoors/): Spaniards over the age of six now have to wear masks in any indoor or outdoor public area where social distancing is impossible. Madrid is hoping the order will keep a lid on new infections.  Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government would distribute 6m masks, mainly at transport locations, and give another 7m to local authorities. Health Ministry says they are needed for indoor public spaces and outdoors when impossible to keep two metres apart Spain’s government has made it mandatory for people to wear masks in any indoor or outdoor public spaces where they cannot keep two meters apart […] - [Charges against VW bosses to be dropped after dodging trial with an out-of-court settlement of €9 million](https://heartlandstribune.com/charges-against-vw-bosses-to-be-dropped-after-dodging-trial-with-an-out-of-court-settlement-of-e9-million/): Market manipulation charges against VW bosses to be dropped Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess and supervisory board chief Hans Dieter Poetsch have avoided trial over “market manipulation” allegations with an out-of-court settlement of €9 million, the company said. Volkswagen chief executive Herbert Diess and supervisory board chief Hans Dieter Poetsch have avoided trial over “market manipulation” allegations with an out-of-court settlement of nine million euros, the German car giant said Tuesday. “According to the assessment of the supervisory board, it is in the best interest of the company for the proceedings to be terminated,” VW said. It therefore agreed to pay €4.5 […] - [Leaving the EU and entering a new economic paradigm](https://heartlandstribune.com/leaving-the-eu-and-entering-a-new-economic-paradigm/): Despite being a Remainer, CHRIS WILLIAMSON former Labour MP now believes what really matters is how we enact modern and visionary socialist policies outside of the EU In a democracy, we don’t always get the result we want, however. I believe we must respect the result of the 2016 referendum, even though the margin of victory was relatively narrow. That’s how democracy works. I lost my parliamentary seat by just 41 votes in 2015, before winning it back with a majority of more than 2,000 in 2017. Being voted out by such a small margin, from a constituency in my home […] - [France reports 70 COVID-19 cases among schoolchildren](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-reports-70-covid-19-cases-among-schoolchildren/): Coronavirus flare-ups force France to re-close some schools At least 70 cases of coronavirus have been reported among pupils in nursery and primary schools in France since May 11, when 1.4 million children returned to their schools. Some schools were opened last week and a further 150,000 junior high students went back to the classroom Monday as further restrictions were loosened by the government. The move initially spelled relief: the end of homeschooling for many hundreds of thousands of French parents, many whom were also maintaining their jobs by working from home. But French Education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer sounded the alarm […] - [Coronavirus: A parents first duty is to their child and to keep them safe.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-a-parents-first-duty-is-to-their-child-and-to-keep-them-safe/): “Schools must reopen for sake of children”, claims Gavin Williamson. Williamson’s statement to the nation’s parents claimed to have the best interest of our children at heart. He hoped that his title of ‘Secretary of State for Education‘ would give credibility to his diktat. The reality is parents cannot trust the lives of their children to the words of this recently disgraced minister. “It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.”- Niccolo Machiavelli The same minister who little over a year ago was sacked from his former position as Defence Secretary. A ‘Defence minister’ irresponsible enough in […] - [Lansman to step down as Momentum chair but remain on Labour NEC](https://heartlandstribune.com/lansman-to-step-down-as-momentum-chair-but-remain-on-labour-nec/): Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum, the grassroots organisation set up in 2015 to support the left wing of the Labour party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, has announced he will step down from his role as chair of the group. Jon Lansman has called for “a new generation” to lead Momentum, announcing that he will not contest Momentum’s upcoming elections and will step down as chair of Momentum. In an article for Labour List he says that he is “enormously proud of what Momentum has achieved” including electing Jeremy Corbyn twice, mobilising hundreds of thousands of members to campaign for […] - [Nurses are looking at a two year pay freeze while MP's received £10k to work from home](https://heartlandstribune.com/nurses-are-looking-at-a-two-year-pay-freeze-while-mps-received-10k-to-work-from-home/): ‘Now is not the time to discuss pay rise for nurses’, says Matt Hancock The Health Secretary said he was “sympathetic to the argument” as nurses battle to keep patients safe from coronavirus Without hesitation MPs accepted the offer of £10,000 in expenses to help cover their working from home costs during the coronavirus pandemic. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority issued updated guidance which states every MP can access an extra £10,000 to boost their office costs budget to pay for things like laptops, for staff and electricity. The additional cash will be available until March next year and in addition […] - [It's taken 33 London bus drivers killed by COVID-19 for the government to recognise how vulnerable public services workers are.](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-taken-33-london-bus-drivers-killed-by-covid-19-for-the-government-to-recognise-how-vulnerable-public-services-workers-are/): Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps told the nation it is our ‘Civic duty’ to avoid public transport This comes far to late for the 33 London bus drivers killed by COVID-19. These public facing workers all died during the lockdown period while public transport was less frequently used. Across TfL, a further 10 underground and railway staff have died. A veteran train driver said he feared infections will soar following Sunday night’s “phased exit” announced by the Johnson government, “Once the increase in passengers takes place, social distancing rules are impossible to maintain. The station and platform staff are already […] - [Coronavirus: WHO warns 'this virus may never go away'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-who-warns-this-virus-may-never-go-away/): A top World Health Organization official cautioned against hoping for a vaccination that would end the pandemic, noting that populations around the world will have to learn to live with it. Speaking at a briefing on Wednesday, WHO emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan warned against trying to predict when the virus would disappear. He added that even if a vaccine is found, controlling the virus will require a “massive effort”. Almost 300,000 people worldwide are reported to have died of coronavirus, and more than 4.3m cases recorded. “It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just […] - [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lands in Israel for annexation talks](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-lands-in-israel-for-annexation-talks/): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel on Wednesday on a one-day trip that included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partner Benny Gantz. He did not meet with Palestinian leaders. What was so urgent and sensitive, in the middle of a virus pandemic, that America’s top diplomat had to make a 16-hour trip to Israel instead of simply picking up the phone? The key, officials and experts said, was in the timing. It came on the eve of Israel’s seating its new government, one that appears divided over the urgency of annexing about 30 percent of […] - [UK railway worker dies from Covid-19 after being spat on](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-railway-worker-dies-from-covid-19-after-being-spat-on/): Belly Mujinga, 47, was spat at on the concourse at Victoria Station, central London. A railway ticket office worker has died from Covid-19 after being spat on while she was working at Victoria station in central London. Belly Mujinga, 47, was working with a colleague when a member of the public assaulted them, spat and coughed over them and said he had the novel coronavirus, said her union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), in a statement Tuesday. Mujinga, who had an underlying health condition, was working for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) on the station concourse at the time of the incident on […] - [Boris Johnson: Unlocking the Lockdown 'it's as clear as mud'](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-unlocking-the-lockdown-its-as-clear-as-mud/): We did all the reading, but it’s still as clear as mud. Under fire for lack of clarity over its lockdown exit plan, the Tory government set out more details in an attempt to clear things up. The publication of a 50-page document followed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s televised address to the nation on Sunday evening, which was widely criticised for lacking precision. A broadcast round by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Monday morning ahead of the document’s release added to the confusion when he appeared to contradict the prime minister’s assertion that anyone who is able to work safely should return to their jobs on Wednesday, not […] - [Boris Johnson unveils alert system for England](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-unveils-alert-system-for-england/): Boris Johnson speech muddled and confusing Boris Johnson has unveiled a “conditional plan” to reopen society, allowing people in England to spend more time outdoors from Wednesday. The PM also said people who could not work from home should return to the workplace – but avoid public transport. He said a new Covid Alert System with five levels would govern how quickly lockdown restrictions could be eased. He hoped the next step “at the earliest by 1 June” would be for some primary pupils to return to school in England. In an address to the nation, Mr Johnson said this stage […] - [EU wants bloc's borders sealed until June 15](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-wants-blocs-borders-sealed-until-june-15/): Coronavirus: EU wants bloc’s borders sealed until June 15 The European Union’s external borders should remain shut for another month until June 15 due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a recommendation from the bloc’s executive. “Despite progress in many European countries, the situation worldwide is very fragile,” European Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas said. The EU’s first priority is reinstating total freedom of movement within its own borders before it allows visitors from outside, the commission said in a statement. “Restrictions on free movement and internal border controls will need to be lifted gradually before we can remove restrictions at the […] - [EU defends censorship of letter in Chinese newspaper](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-defends-censorship-of-letter-in-chinese-newspaper/): The EU admits it allowed China to censor coronavirus material before it was published EU officials have backed a decision to accept China’s censorship of a letter that ran in a Chinese newspaper. A sentence referencing China as the origin of the coronavirus outbreak was removed before publication. The European Union on Thursday defended its decision to consent to Chinese censorship of a letter co-written by the bloc’s 27 ambassadors, ahead of its publication in Chinese media. The opinion piece appeared in China’s English-language newspaper China Daily on Tuesday, but a sentence that linked the initial source of the coronavirus outbreak to China was removed. Censored […] - [Sir Keir Starmer constantly repeating a lie to create the ‘illusion of truth’](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-repeating-a-lie-to-create-the-illusion-of-truth/): Repetition makes a statement seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Understanding this effect can help you avoid falling for propaganda. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels, it seems a shame a Labour Party Leader is using the same technique once carried out by such evil men on its own membership. Sir Keir Starmer is employing a technique that among psychologists known as the “illusion of truth” effect. If repetition was the only thing that influenced what we believed we’d be in […] - [Coronavirus: UK lockdown extended for 'at least' three weeks](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-extended-for-at-least-three-weeks/): Dominic Raab warns changes to lockdown restrictions will be ‘modest’ Speaking at a press conference Raab, who is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson while he recovers from COVID-19, said the government’s scientific advice suggests it is necessary to extend the transition because the data is providing a “mixed and inconsistent picture,” with infections still likely to increase in some parts of the country. Therefore ‘Lockdown restrictions’ in the UK will continue for “at least” another three weeks as it tackles the coronavirus outbreak, Dominic Raab has said. The foreign secretary told the daily No 10 briefing that a review […] - [New Banksy artwork appears at Southampton hospital](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-banksy-artwork-appears-at-southampton-hospital/): Banksy’s latest artwork is featured in a hospital Banksy created a new piece titled Game Changer for the Southampton General Hospital. The image shows a young boy having cast aside his superhero toys to play with a nurse doll. He has discarded his Spiderman and Batman model figures in favour of a new favourite action hero – an NHS nurse. The nurse’s arm is outstretched and pointing forward in the fashion of Superman on a mission. She is wearing a facemask, a nurse’s cape, and an apron with the Red Cross emblem (the only element of colour in the picture). The […] - [Venezuela broadcasts video of captured US mercenary](https://heartlandstribune.com/venezuela-broadcasts-video-of-captured-us-mercenary/): Detained American tells Venezuela state TV he plotted Maduro’s capture Venezuelan state television broadcast on Wednesday a video of captured American Luke Denman, in which he said he was instructed to seize control of Caracas’s airport and bring in a plane to fly President Nicolas Maduro to the United States. Venezuelan authorities on Monday arrested Denman, another US citizen, Airan Berry, and 11 other “terrorists” in what Maduro has called a failed plot coordinated with officials in Washington to enter the country via the Caribbean coast and oust him. “Donald Trump is the direct chief of this invasion,” Maduro said in […] - [Coronavirus: Scientists say a more contagious mutant strain is spreading](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-scientists-say-a-more-contagious-mutant-strain-is-spreading/): Investigators Say They’ve Found More Contagious Strain of SARS-CoV-2 that can reinfect. Scientists say they have identified a mutation in coronavirus which they believe means a more contagious strain has been sweeping Europe and the US – and could even reinfect those who already have antibodies. A research paper from scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, not yet peer-reviewed, reports that one strain of the novel coronavirus has emerged in Europe and become dominant around the planet, leading the researchers to believe the virus has mutated to become more contagious. The bold hypothesis, however, was immediately met with skepticism by many infectious-disease experts, and there […] - [Coronavirus: Top government scientist resigns from SAGE after breaking lockdown rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-top-government-scientist-resigns-from-sage-after-breaking-lockdown-rules/): It’s an old story ‘It’s one rule for us, another one for them’… Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling helped shape Britain’s coronavirus lockdown strategy, has quit as a government adviser after flouting the rules by receiving visits from his lover at his home. Ferguson runs the group of scientists at Imperial College London whose projections helped persuade ministers of the need to impose stringent physical distancing rules, or risk the NHS being overwhelmed. In a statement on Tuesday, he said he was resigning his post on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), over an “error of judgment”. The Daily Telegraph […] - [Coronavirus: A working class mothers lockdown time to reflect.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-a-working-class-mothers-lockdown-time-to-reflect/): Lockdown, Home-School and Class I volunteered to write a daily diary for a week, as part of a study being run by Dr Lisa McKenzie, who is a social scientist and lecturer at Durham University and who was part of the team that conducted the Great British Class Survey.  Lisa is a working class academic, woman and mother.  I am a working class politician, woman and mother.  A working class female in a position of any level of influence within this society is something to be, so for your lockdown pleasure and entertainment, here is DAY ONE of my home education […] - [Coronavirus: UK is Europe’s worst-hit country, as official death toll tops 32,000](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-uk-is-europes-worst-hit-country-as-official-death-toll-tops-32000/): The UK now has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, according to official statistics. A total of 32,375 deaths involving Covid-19 have now been registered across the UK – outstripping the death toll in Italy of 29,079. This is statistic reflects not only the systematic failings of this Tory government in their slow response to lockdown and provision of PPE but the hurt and loss felt by countless family members of the 32k UK victims of Covid-19 The high death toll could increase political pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who waited longer than other European leaders to order a lockdown to […] - [Trade minister Conor Burns resigns after making 'veiled threats' to a member of the public](https://heartlandstribune.com/trade-minister-conor-burns-resigns-after-making-veiled-threats-to-a-member-of-the-public/): Trade minister Conor Burns dramatically quit today after a sleaze report found he abused his status as an MP in a dispute between his father and a company.  A close ally of Boris Johnson has resigned as a trade minister after being found to have used his position to try to intimidate a member of the public. Conor Burns, the minister of state for trade policy, was found by the standards committee to have made veiled threats while attempting to intervene in his father’s dispute over a loan. A Downing Street spokesman said Burns had resigned following a report from the […] - [Coronavirus: Johnson prepares post-lockdown plan with new workplace rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-johnson-prepares-post-lockdown-plan-with-new-workplace-rules/): Boris Johnson will set out his plan to ease a nationwide coronavirus lockdown next Sunday, media reports said, as new guidance emerged on how to maintain social distancing in workplaces. Stay-at-home orders imposed in late March are up for review on Thursday in Britain, one of the worst hit countries in the COVID-19 pandemic, but the government has already said the measures will be eased only gradually. Hot desking will be curtailed, staff canteens will stay closed and lifts kept half-empty in workplaces across the country under Boris Johnson’s plan to ease the lockdown in the coming weeks. The proposals are […] - [Freedom of Speech Award honours journalists persecuted for coronavirus reporting](https://heartlandstribune.com/freedom-of-speech-award-honours-journalists-persecuted-for-coronavirus-reporting/): Intimidation, violence, arrests: Around the world, journalists face harassment or persecution for their coverage of the COVID-19 crisis. DW honors their work by presenting them with this year’s Freedom of Speech Award. Deutsche Welle is presenting journalists from four continents with this year’s Freedom of Speech Award for their coverage of the coronavirus crisis. The recipients are being honored on behalf of all media professionals around the world who are publishing independent information about the coronavirus pandemic while working under difficult conditions. “At a moment of a global health emergency, journalism serves a crucial function, and each journalist bears great responsibility,” […] - [Filmmaker who mocked Egypt's President Sisi dies in prison aged 22](https://heartlandstribune.com/filmmaker-who-mocked-egypts-president-sisi-dies-in-prison-aged-22/): An Egyptian filmmaker detained without trial for over two years for making a music video that mocked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi died on Saturday at a maximum-security prison complex, two rights lawyers said. Attorney Ahmed el-Khwaga said his 22-year-old client Shady Habash died in Cairo’s Tora Prison complex. He said the cause of death was not immediately clear. There was no immediate comment from the Interior Ministry, which oversees Egypt’s prison system. Police forces arrested the young filmmaker in March 2018 after he directed a music video by Ramy Essam, an Egyptian musician exiled in Sweden. The video featured a song […] - [Coronavirus: The UK death toll up by 621 to 28,131 as the world total rises to over a quarter of a million](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-the-uk-death-toll-up-by-621-to-28131-as-the-world-total-rises-to-over-a-quarter-of-a-million/): The UK has today announced another 621 coronavirus deaths, taking Britain’s official fatality toll to 28,131 – edging the country closer to becoming the second-worst hit nation in the world. The new figures, put out by the Department of Health and Social Care on Saturday, came as local government secretary Robert Jenrick said 1,129,907 coronavirus tests had been carried out in the UK, including 105,937 on Friday. Officials also recorded another 4,806 cases, with more than 180,000 Britons having now been infected since the crisis hit the UK in February – but a lack of testing means potentially millions of cases […] - [Kim Jong-un appears in public: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"](https://heartlandstribune.com/kim-jong-un-appears-in-public-the-reports-of-my-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/): The North Korean dictator, 36, is reported to have he attended a completion ceremony at a fertiliser factory in Sunchon, a city in South Pyongan Province, according to Yonhap. The reports originated in North Korean state media and have not been independently verified. Sister Kim Yo Jong also attended and no pictures of the visit – thought to be a ribbon-cutting ceremony- have been released. “The completion ceremony of the Suncheon Infertilizer Factory, which stands out as the main fertilizer production base, was held on May 1, which is the international holiday of workers around the world,” CCB said, according to […] - [Coronavirus: Nurses block Westminster Bridge demanding proper PPE](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-nurses-block-westminster-bridge-demanding-proper-ppe/): “WE ARE NOT DISPOSABLE NOBODY GOES TO WORK TO DIE” Nurses at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s hospitals in London block Westminster Bridge on International Workers Memorial Day, in anger at the advice being given out by Public Health England on PPE, and the awful response of the government in supplying PPE. The action here was even more impressive because the nurses here were mainly ICU nurses who already have it – but are fighting for others to get the same protection. Tens of thousands of people across the UK have now died with coronavirus, including more than 100 NHS staff and […] - [Captain Tom Moore made up to colonel on his 100th birthday](https://heartlandstribune.com/captain-tom-moore-made-up-to-colonel-on-his-100th-birthday/): Captain Tom Moore, who raised more than £29m for the NHS by walking laps of his garden, has been made an honorary colonel on his 100th birthday. The promotion comes alongside a personal letter from Her Majesty and the new Colonel has also been re-presented with his Second World War Defence Medal ahead of next week’s VE Day celebrations. And, along with the usual cake and champagne, there’ll be two flypasts to mark his big day today – by Army Air Corps helicopters as well as a Spitfire and Hurricane in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. As well-wishers across the […] - [Life After The Labour Party: Activists Are Challenging The Status Quo](https://heartlandstribune.com/life-after-the-labour-party-activist-are-challenging-the-status-quo-grassroots-movements-are-growing/): The Rebellion That Never Died: How the Left is Reinventing Itself Beyond Labour” “Revolutions don’t begin with a bang—they start with a whisper. And right now, across Britain, that whisper is growing louder.” The political tremor that once threatened to be an earthquake has now subsided. From all four corners of the kingdom, the establishment breathes an audible sigh of relief. The quake has faded; the lion’s roar is silent. No longer does the mob chant of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” echo across the land to shake the worldview of the bourgeoisie. Many are leaving the Labour Party. The numbers don’t lie. […] - [Nearly 100 frontline workers have died of COVID-19, now families to be given financial compensation](https://heartlandstribune.com/nearly-100-frontline-workers-have-died-of-covid-19-now-families-to-be-given-financial-compensation/): Now families of NHS and social care staff to receive £60,000 if loved one dies of coronavirus The families of NHS and social care staff who die of coronavirus in the course of their “essential frontline work” will receive a £60,000 payment, Matt Hancock has announced. At the government’s daily coronavirus press conference, the health secretary revealed that of the 21,092 people who had died of coronavirus in UK hospitals, 82 were NHS colleagues and 16 worked in social care. “I feel a deep personal sense of duty that we must care for their loved ones,” he said. Mr Hancock, announcing […] - [Coronavirus Alert: Rare syndrome attacking UK children](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-alert-rare-syndrome-attacking-uk-children/): NHS doctors have been warned to look out for a rare but dangerous reaction in children that may be linked to coronavirus infection. A coronavirus-related syndrome among children may be emerging in the UK, a health alert sent to GPs suggests. An urgent alert sent out to GPs said that intensive care departments in London and other parts of the UK have been treating severely sick children with unusual symptoms. This includes “multi-system inflammation” with flu-like symptoms. Some, but not all, tested positive for coronavirus. It is unclear how many children have been diagnosed with the new syndrome, although the numbers […] - [Coronavirus: No let up to the Lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-no-let-up-to-the-lockdown/): Boris Johnson says this is moment of maximum risk Boris Johnson has claimed the UK is “beginning to turn the tide” on coronavirus but said a relaxation of lockdown would “risk a second major outbreak”. On his return to work following his treatment for Covid-19, a virus he described as an “invisible mugger”, the prime minister said social distancing was working, but said now is the “moment of maximum risk”. Speaking from outside Downing Street, where he has not been seen in public since being taken to hospital on April 5, Mr Johnson said the UK is “coming to the end […] - [Saudi Arabia ends death penalty for minors and floggings](https://heartlandstribune.com/saudi-arabia-ends-death-penalty-for-minors-and-floggings/): Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors, according to a statement Sunday by a top official. The decision comes on the heels of another ordering judges to end the practice of flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service and bringing one of the kingdom’s most controversial forms of public punishment to a close. King Salman’s son and heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seen as the force behind the kingdom’s loosening of restrictions and its pivot away from ultraconservative interpretations of Islamic law known as Wahhabism, which […] - [Coronavirus: Military to test key workers in mobile units](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-military-to-test-key-workers-in-mobile-units/): Armed forces will collect swabs from care homes, police stations and prisons across UK The British military is to begin operating mobile coronavirus testing units that will travel to care homes, police stations and prisons across the UK. At least 96 new pop-up facilities, which will travel to care homes, police and fire stations, prisons and benefits centres, are due to be running by May. It comes as the government looks to reach its target of carrying out 100,000 tests per day by Thursday. The units will test essential workers and vulnerable people in areas where there is “significant” demand, the […] - [Kim Jong Un in ‘vegetative state,’ Japanese media report says](https://heartlandstribune.com/kim-jong-un-in-vegetative-state-japanese-media-report-says/): North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un is in a “vegetative state” after he underwent heart surgery earlier this month, a Japanese magazine says. The weekly Shukan Gendai reported Friday that a Chinese medic sent to North Korea as part of a team to treat Kim believed a delay in a simple procedure left the leader severely ill, Reuters reported. North Korean media hasn’t mentioned Kim’s health or whereabouts, even though reports by other media have sparked international speculation about his well-being. The Chinese expert told the magazine that Kim clutched his chest and fell to the ground on a visit to the countryside earlier this […] - [Some national governments are saying 'NO' to bailouts for tax dodging companies. Have the Tory's got the gonads to do the same.](https://heartlandstribune.com/some-national-governments-are-saying-no-to-bailouts-for-tax-dodging-companies-have-the-torys-got-the-gonads-to-do-the-same/): Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich” and here we are again. The coronavirus outbreak has derailed the global economy, governments and big business are looking at the tried and tested policy of bailouts. After all we must ensure the continuality of ‘the too big to fail lie’. People on the left and right agree that government assistance is needed to avoid an economic catastrophe. On the individual level, many people already struggling in this austerity environment have lost jobs. Many more will. The best short term policy is to ensure people […] - [China puts city of 10million under lockdown in an effort to stop a second wave of COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/china-puts-city-of-10million-under-lockdown-in-an-effort-to-stop-a-second-wave-of-covid-19/): The city of Harbin has been placed into lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus after a student from New York reportedly returned to the city and infected 70 people with the disease Harbin now has China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak after the highly contagious virus was first detected in Wuhan late last year. All public gatherings have been banned in Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province, after an uptick in novel coronavirus cases were recorded in the city. Seven locally transmitted infections were recorded in Heilongjiang on Tuesday, according to China’s National Health Commission, prompting authorities to ramp up […] - [World Cup 2006 corruption trial to quietly pass statute of limitations](https://heartlandstribune.com/world-cup-2006-corruption-trial-to-quietly-pass-statute-of-limitations/): Alleged world cup fraudsters saved by the final whistle Three former German football officials and ex-FIFA Secretary General Urs Linsi look set to escape any ruling on the Swiss trial over German 2006 World Cup corruption. The former German football officials and ex-FIFA Secretary General Urs Linsi were put on trial last mouth in Switzerland over suspicions that Germany bought votes to obtain the 2006 World Cup. The five-years-long investigation that lead to the trial was launched after German magazine Der Spiegel in 2015 revealed the scandal involving a 6.7 million euro (US$7.6 million) payment made to FIFA in 2005 by […] - [UN warns of 'biblical' famine due to Covid-19 pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-warns-of-biblical-famine-due-to-covid-19-pandemic/): An additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of 2020 as a result of the outbreak and its economic ramifications. The head of the U.N. food agency warned Tuesday that, as the world is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it is also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action isn’t taken. Famine in as many as three dozen countries is “a very real and dangerous possibility” due to ongoing wars and conflicts, economic crises and natural disasters, World […] - [Coronavirus: Hazard pay for essential public workers on the front lines](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-hazard-pay-for-essential-public-workers-on-the-front-lines/): “It’s the working class, who need to bring the bread home, who go out and take the risks.” This pandemic really does discriminate, not only does Coronavirus disproportionately affects the poor & vulnerable, it puts the working class on the frontline everyday. Frontline workers do not have the luxury to work from home. Essential public workers including all NHS staff, Police officers, the fire brigade, social services, care home workers, care assistants & carers, supermarket workers, counsel workers that have public facing jobs are all being subject to disproportionate risk just by doing their job. These people do not have a […] - [Multiple people dead in Canada shooting rampage](https://heartlandstribune.com/multiple-people-dead-in-canada-shooting-rampage/): At least one police officer has died and another wounded after a gunman went on a 12-hour shooting rampage in Canada’s Nova Scotia province. The suspect was later shot dead by police. An armed man in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia shot dead multiple people, including at least one police officer, during a 12-hour rampage, local media reported on Sunday. Another police officer was injured in the incident that took place in the coastal town of Portapique, 130 km (80 miles) north of the provincial capital, Halifax. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dubbed it “a terrible situation.” “My heart goes out […] - [A Tribute to Captain Tom Moore who raised more than £23 million for NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-tribute-to-captain-tom-moore-who-raised-more-than-23-million-for-nhs/): The 99-year-old war veteran has raised more than £23m for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic by walking 100 lengths of his garden before his birthday. Capt Tom Moore, originally from Keighley in West Yorkshire, initially planned to raise £1,000 through the challenge. His story, and his positivity captured the hearts of thousands who dug deep to support Capt Tom’s efforts, he gave a message to the world “remember things will get better!” he says and for many watching his noble cause for just one instant they did. As a result he has now raised a staggering £23million for the NHS, […] - [Time To Say No Thanks To Business As Usual](https://heartlandstribune.com/time-to-say-no-thanks-to-business-as-usual/): Mandy C : Sleepless in Cheshire. Sky News, Al Jazeera and RT have been decent enough companions through periods of sleep disturbance during lockdown. It’s interesting because sometimes it’s possible to get a feel for the next day’s Corona news plot-twist ahead of anyone who is managing to sleep well through this weird bunch of circumstances. A couple of wakeful nights ago, the narrative seemed to be switching to ‘difficult choices’.  The reporting was to the point, as usual and centring around the dire state of the economy the world over as a result of COVID-19 and lockdown.  The emphasis was […] - [#LabourLeaks: The Labour Party's GLU created a 'new Stasi system to spy on members'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labourleaks-the-labour-partys-glu-created-a-new-stasi-system-to-spy-on-members/): If members don’t understand the implication and implicit ethos of what the staff of the Labour Party GLU have done then they should read the leaked documents. In a free democratic country, no matter your political views, people should find this terrifying. To grasp the full gravity of the Labour leaks it must be understood, “If her majesty’s opposition has ‘intentionally’ thrown two elections, that’s not just a matter for Labour but for the whole country. “You don’t have a democracy if you do ‘NOT’ have an opposition party trying to win.” YOU DON’T HAVE A DEMOCRACY IF YOU DO NOT […] - [Coronavirus: Social distancing to stay 'until a vaccine is found'](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-to-stay-until-a-vaccine-is-found/): Until there is a vaccine no one is safe! It must and should be made clear, until there is a vaccine any lifting of social distancing will leave people open to catching the virus. This could ultimately result in death or the spreading of COVID-19 creating a second wave of the pandemic. There is now a global race to to create a vaccine, with many different pharmaceutical and research institutes vying to be the first to create it. On March 20, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that there are 44 COVID-19 vaccine candidates. But scientists say it will take […] - [Fred Hampton: Power Anywhere Where There’s People](https://heartlandstribune.com/power-anywhere-where-theres-people/): A Speech By Fred Hampton POWER ANYWHERE WHERE THERE’S PEOPLE!Power anywhere where there’s people. Power anywhere where there’s people. Let me give you an example of teaching people. Basically, the way they learn is observation and participation. You know a lot of us go around and joke ourselves and believe that the masses have PhDs, but that’s not true. And even if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference. Because with some things, you have to learn by seeing it or either participating in it. And you know yourselves that there are people walking around your community today that have all […] - [The Labour Party is Institutionally Treacherous](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-is-institutionally-treacherous/): The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. Recent revelations have shown what many members and supporters of the Labour Party have always known, We did not just lose a general election, we were betrayed by saboteurs, Lords, MP’s and Staffers. “The Labour Party is institutionally treacherous”. These people have destroyed the hopes, dreams and aspirations of millions of socialists. They have not only squandered away the best hope the Left had in changing society from this fixed system. They removed a chance to end Austerity, to change the misery imposed on universal credit sufferers or […] - [Trump halting funding to World Health Organization](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-halting-funding-to-world-health-organization/): The US president has been critical of the international organization for its handling of the coronavirus. Donald Trump on Tuesday night said he would halt funding to the World Health Organization while his administration reviews the group’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. He’s been increasingly critical of the organization’s early response to the health crisis as he’s sought to deflect criticism over his administration’s slow response to the outbreak. Trump attacked the organization for opposing early travel restrictions to China and accused WHO of being overly deferential to the Chinese early in the outbreak, even though Trump himself often hailed the […] - [Coronavirus: One in five deaths now linked to COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-one-in-five-deaths-now-linked-to-covid-19/): One in five deaths in England and Wales are linked to Covid-19, will spring slow the spread of this virus? The Office for National Statistics data showed the virus was mentioned on 3,475 death certificates in the week ending 3 April. It helped push the total number of deaths in that week to more than 16,000 – a record high and 6,000 more than expected at this time of year. Normally the number of deaths falls as winter ends. This is because there is less flu circulating. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, which is caused by the coronavirus, there has been […] - [Hillsborough police commander David Duckenfield received over £2m in legal aid](https://heartlandstribune.com/hillsborough-police-commander-david-duckenfield-received-over-2m-in-legal-aid/): ‘CLEARED’ Hillsborough police commander David Duckenfield got nearly £2.5million legal aid. By the time his first trial for manslaughter collapsed last year Duckenfield had received around £650,000 in legal aid. By the time his second trial started the bill had shot up to £1,913,942, with £464,095 doled out during the court case. Duckenfield, 75, was in charge of the 1989 FA Cup semi in Sheffield when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death. Victims’ families were only granted state aid 20 years later. The families had tirelessly campaigned for justice raising money to fight for an open honest enquiry into the […] - [Corbyn sabotaged: Labour antisemitism investigation will not be sent to equality commission](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-sabotaged-labour-antisemitism-investigation-will-not-be-sent-to-equality-commission/): A report found factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials “a litany of mistakes”. Ever since Jeremy Corbyn took the British Labour Party by storm in September of 2015, moving it in a more progressive direction, the old guard tried various tactics to delegitimize Corbyn in order to retake power. One tool the Labour Party right-wing used is to undermine Corbyn and his supporters is a constant barrage of anti-Semitism accusations. Corbyn and the Left movement within the Labour Party openly demanded an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Conservatives within the Labour Party exploit the fact that not […] - [Robert Jenrick: My manor's a home from home, from home.](https://heartlandstribune.com/my-manors-a-home-from-home-from-home/): Downing Street has backed a minister who travelled 150 miles from London to a property he owns in rural Herefordshire during the coronavirus lockdown. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick’s 17th-century Grade I listed country manor house is not listed as his residential home. Days after chairing a government news conference in Westminster to reinforce the “stay at home” message, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick appeared on Sky News via video link from the seventeenth century manor house he owns in the hamlet of Eye. This is despite the Nottinghamshire MP’s website stating his family live 120 miles away in his constituency of Newark as […] - [Italy says number of doctors killed by coronavirus passes 100](https://heartlandstribune.com/italy-says-number-of-doctors-killed-by-coronavirus-passes-100/): One hundred Italian doctors have died of the novel coronavirus since the pandemic reached the country in February, Italy’s main doctors’ association said on Thursday, with analysts estimating that 10 percent of those infected in Italy work in healthcare. “The number of doctors who have died because of Covid-19 is 100 — perhaps even 101 at the moment, unfortunately,” a spokesperson for the association, known as the FNOMCeO, told AFP. The toll includes retired doctors the government began calling in a month ago to help fight a coronavirus that has officially claimed a world-topping 17,669 lives in Italy. “We can longer allow our doctors, our health […] - [Coronavirus: Doctor who urged PM to provide protective gear dies of COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-doctor-who-urged-pm-to-provide-protective-gear-dies-of-covid-19/): Abdul Chowdhury, the latest doctor to die of coronavirus, warned PM Johnson to provide NHS workers with adequate PPE. A British doctor who warned United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson that health workers on the front line did not have enough personal protection equipment (PPE) has died of COVID-19. Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, a 53-year-old consultant in the urology department at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Romford, worked for the NHS for more than 20 years after migrating from Bangladesh. He died on Wednesday aged 53 after spending 15 days in hospital. On 18 March he wrote a message to Boris Johnson asking […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson out of intensive care but remains in hospital](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-out-of-intensive-care-but-remains-in-hospital/): Boris Johnson has been moved out of intensive care but remains in hospital, Downing Street has said. Mr Johnson has been receiving treatment for coronavirus at St Thomas’ Hospital in London since Sunday. No 10 said he “has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward, where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery”. Mr. Johnson was hospitalised on Sunday evening after a 10-day bout with the virus, and transferred to the intensive care unit on Monday after his condition deteriorated. On Thursday, his office said the prime minister, 55, had been moved […] - [Coronavirus could drive half a billion people into poverty worldwide, warns Oxfam](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-could-drive-half-a-billion-people-into-poverty-worldwide-warns-oxfam/): Nearly half of all jobs in Africa could be lost without urgent action, says charity More than half a billion more people could be pushed into poverty unless urgent action is taken to bail out poor countries affected by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, Oxfam has warned. Oxfam’s new report ‘Dignity Not Destitution’ presents fresh analysis which suggests between six and eight per cent of the global population could be forced into poverty as governments shut down entire economies to manage the spread of the virus. This could set back the fight against poverty by a decade, and as much as […] - [Bernie Sanders quits US presidential bid to take on Donald Trump](https://heartlandstribune.com/bernie-sanders-quits-us-presidential-bid-to-take-on-donald-trump/): Bernie Sanders drops out of the 2020 race, clearing Joe Biden’s path to the Democratic nomination Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, clearing Joe Biden’s path to the Democratic nomination and a showdown with President Donald Trump in November. Sanders made the announcement in a call with his campaign staff, his campaign said. Sanders’ exit caps a stunning reversal of fortune following a strong performance in the first three states that voted in February. The nomination appeared his for the taking until, on the last day of February, Biden surged to a blowout victory in South Carolina that set […] - [Coronavirus: EU science chief resigns, slamming bloc’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-eu-science-chief-resigns-slamming-blocs-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/): The European Union has confirmed that the head of its top science organisation has resigned in frustration at the height of the coronavirus crisis. Mauro Ferrari, an Italian-American scientist who has led the European Research Council since January, said he had resigned following a dispute over the EU’s approach to the crisis — stating he has “lost faith in the system.” In a statement given to the Financial Times, Professor Ferrari — described as a pioneer in nanomedicine — said he had “been extremely disappointed by the European response” to the pandemic. He complained about running into institutional and political obstacles as he […] - [Coronavirus: France’s COVID-19 death toll passes 10,000 mark](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-frances-covid-19-death-toll-passes-10000-mark/): France’s COVID-19 death toll jumped by more than 1,400 and passed the 10,000 mark on Tuesday. France has become the fourth country to register more than 10,000 deaths due to coronavirus, while New York reported 731 new fatalities, the highest overnight jump since the beginning of the outbreak. French authorities said that 597 people have died in hospital in one day, bringing the total of deaths in hospital to 7,091, while 3,237 have died in nursing home, with 820 new deaths in the last 24 hours. Edouard Philippe warned that restrictions imposed on French citizens to battle the spread of the […] - [Labour MP shows why Labour will never be a credible Party again: Labour MP brands Brexiteers ‘absolute sh*tbag racist w*nkers’ during Rule Britannia row](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-shows-why-labour-will-never-be-a-credible-party-again-labour-mp-brands-brexiteers-absolute-shtbag-racist-wnkers-during-rule-britannia-row/): Labour MP Neil Coyle has branded Brexiteers “sh*tbag racist w*nkers” during a late night tweet on the BBC’s decision to play a wordless version of Rule Britannia at this year’s Last Night of the Proms. It seems Labour has not learnt from its humiliating 2019 general election defeat, a defeat without a doubt due to Sir Keir Starmer’s vote losing second referendum policy. A policy that witnessed Labour losing 52 leave voting constituencies in the once impenetrable Red wall of the traditional Labour Heartlands. How Labour thinks attitudes and insulting remarks are a formula to win those seats back is just […] - [More scapegoats for Williamson: DfE perm sec Jonathan Slater sacked over A-Level row](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-scapegoats-for-williamson-dfe-perm-sec-jonathan-slater-sacked-over-a-level-row/): The Department for Education’s most senior civil servant has been ousted following the exams fiasco as Boris Johnson called for “fresh official leadership”. Johnson has been accused of ‘avoiding responsibility’ after the Department of Education’s top civil servant ‘agreed to stand down’ following the government’s exams fiasco. Jonathan Slater, who became the department’s Permanent Secretary in May 2016, is set to stand down on 1 September, the Government has announced. In a statement, the DfE said the Prime minister had ‘concluded that there is a need for fresh official leadership’ after thousands of students’ had their A-level and GCSEs results downgraded […] - [Face coverings U-turn for England’s secondary schools: Governments U-turns on children's safety causes loss of confidence and confusion](https://heartlandstribune.com/face-coverings-u-turn-for-englands-secondary-schools-governments-u-turns-on-childrens-safety-causes-loss-of-confidence-and-confusion/): Secondary pupils in England will have to wear masks in school corridors in local lockdown areas of England, after the government reversed its guidance. Head teachers in any secondary school will also have the “flexibility” to introduce masks in their schools. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says it follows updated advice from the World Health Organization. But that advice is over three days old. “At each stage we have listened to the latest medical and scientific advice,” said Mr Williamson. The Department for Education says it is keeping its recommendation against using face coverings – but that schools can make their own […] - [Ofqual chief Sally Collier quits after A-level results fiasco: Someones got to 'carry the can' and Williamson is not honourable enough to do so.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ofqual-chief-sally-collier-quits-after-a-level-results-fiasco-someones-got-to-carry-the-can-and-williamson-is-not-honourable-enough-to-do-so/): Ofqual chief Sally Collier has quit in the wake of the A-level results fiasco which saw ministers forced into a U-turn on grades. The exam watchdog said its under-fire chief regulator had “decided that the next stage of the awarding process would be better overseen by new leadership” after shelving a controversial process which saw nearly 40% of students’ grades revised down in the wake of exams being cancelled by Covid-19 restrictions. “The Ofqual Board has agreed temporary support arrangements with Ofsted to support the ongoing work on this summer’s GCSE, A level and vocational qualifications, including appeals and autumn exams, […] - [Schools reopening: 'No ifs, no buts' these two 'COVIDIOTS' are putting our children's health at risk](https://heartlandstribune.com/schools-reopening-no-ifs-no-buts-these-two-covidiots-are-putting-our-childrens-health-at-risk/): Both Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer are insisting children go back to school while ignoring the health risks. Parents have a right to be worried after both Party leaders have made compelling cases and guarantees about the safety of the nation’s children returning to school during this coronavirus outbreak but then we learn children and teachers in Scotland have tested positive in less than two weeks after schools reopening proving there is a clear health issue. The public are told how dangerous this virus is, how contagious and life threatening but on the other hand we are given conflicting information […] - [Belarus: Protesters flood Minsk demanding 'The Last Dictator' Lukashenko resigns](https://heartlandstribune.com/belarus-protesters-flood-minsk-demanding-the-last-dictator-lukashenko-resigns/): “There is no respect for society or freedom in Belarus” On the streets of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, there have been weeks of protests against Alexander Lukashenko, sometimes called the “last dictator in Europe.” Sparked by his obvious attempt to falsify an election and undercut any opposition to his 26-year rule, the protests have expanded to sporadic strikes and unprecedented calls for Lukashenko’s removal. While Belarus today appears to be undergoing an awakening similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protests, it is highly uncertain if this outpouring of discontent can oust the dictator from his post. This can only happen if […] - [Nursing homes were bullied into accepting Covid patients from hospitals, damning report finds](https://heartlandstribune.com/nursing-homes-were-bullied-into-accepting-covid-patients-from-hospitals-damning-report-finds/): Local managers imposed unlawful do not resuscitate orders on residents. The QNI asked nurses working in all community and social care settings to submit case studies that show how their service has adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings are damning. Nursing homes were put under “constant” pressure to accept patients with coronavirus while being regularly refused treatment from hospitals and GPs for residents who became ill at the height of the Covid crisis, a landmark study has revealed. A report by the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) found homes were told hospitals had a blanket ‘no admissions’ policy at the height of the […] - [Coronavirus deaths pass 800,000 worldwide](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-deaths-pass-800000-worldwide/): Global coronavirus deaths hit the 800,000 mark on Saturday, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, with nearly 23 million cases worldwide. The US is the hardest hit country, accounting for almost 5.6 million cases and over 175,000 fatalities, followed by Brazil, Mexico, India and the UK per number of deaths. The largest epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic remains the Americas, accounting for over half of the global cases. The pandemic could force 45 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean into poverty, 37% of the region’s population, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the […] - [Russian dissident Alexei Navalny arrives in Berlin for medical treatment](https://heartlandstribune.com/russian-dissident-alexei-navalny-arrives-in-berlin-for-medical-treatment/): Vladimir Putin critic and prominent Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, currently in a coma, has landed in Berlin to receive medical treatment. His supporters believe he was poisoned; the Kremlin denies this. Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny landed at Berlin Tegel airport after being airlifted from a hospital in Omsk, Russia. He is being treated for suspected poisoning at Berlin’s Charite hospital. The plane with Alexei Navalny lying in a coma landed on Saturday morning at 8:46 a.m. on the military section of Berlin’s Tegel Airport. His wife Julia flew with him, it was said. The German military brought him to the […] - [GMAE: Greater Manchester Against Evictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/gmae-greater-manchester-against-evictions/): Labour Heartlands support GMAE: “Stop the Evictions” The government promised nobody would lose their homes due to coronavirus. We demand they honour their promises, and provide permanent solutions for tenants. The date the eviction ban was due to end will be marked by a protest on Monday 24th August, 1pm, outside the Civil Justice Centre, 1 Bridge Street West, Manchester M60 9DJ. Representatives will be available for interview from 12:30pm. GMAE is a coalition of grassroots organisations fighting to prevent evictions, keep tenants in their homes, and prevent homelessness across Greater Manchester, including Greater Manchester Tenants Union, Greater Manchester Law Centre, […] - [Ban on evictions for renters extended by four weeks ministers bow to pressure to avoid 'devastating homelessness crisis'](https://heartlandstribune.com/ban-on-evictions-for-renters-extended-by-four-weeks-ministers-bow-to-pressure-to-avoid-devastating-homelessness-crisis/): Eviction ban ‘to be extended by a month’ The ban on evictions for renters in England and Wales in response to the coronavirus pandemic has been extended until 20 September, amid extended pressure from peoples movements and charity campaigners fighting to save people from losing their homes. Housing bodies and charities welcomed the news, with Citizens Advice saying: “We’re really pleased the Government has stepped in to keep its promise that no renter will lose their home because of the coronavirus pandemic – for now at least.” From Monday, courts were due to resume cases put on hold for five months owing to […] - [Alexei Navalny to be flown to Germany after suspected poisoning](https://heartlandstribune.com/alexei-navalny-to-be-flown-to-germany-after-suspected-poisoning/): A German NGO is sending an air-ambulance with a coma-specialist team to pick up Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. An ambulance aircraft with a team specialised in treating coma patients is due to leave Germany to pick up stricken Russian dissident Alexei Navalny on Thursday evening, the Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation said. Alexei Navalny was taken seriously ill while on a domestic flight. Navalny, who is among President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was hospitalised in the city of Omsk — some 2,200 kilometres (1,367 miles) east of Moscow — after he lost consciousness during a flight to Moscow and his […] - [Manchester bomber's brother jailed for at least 55 years](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchester-bombers-brother-jailed-for-at-least-55-years/): Hashem Abedi was found guilty of murder for encouraging and assisting Salman Abedi. A man who helped his brother carry out a horrific suicide attack aimed at children who had attended an Ariana Grande concert more than three years ago has been jailed. Hashem Abedi was found guilty of murder for encouraging and assisting Salman Abedi. The court sentenced Hashem Abedi, the younger brother of the suicide bomber who set off an explosion at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, to a minimum of 55 years in jail. His brother Salman Abedi died in the blast, which killed 22 people and […] - [130,000 homeless children stuck in B&Bs and temporary shelter](https://heartlandstribune.com/130000-homeless-children-stuck-in-bbs-and-temporary-shelter/): Some 129,380 children were in temporary accommodation on March 31 – the highest figure recorded since summer 2006 There is now a total of 129,380 children who are homeless, that is around 50,000 more than five years ago, which is a rise of 59 per cent – according to government statistics by homelessness charity Shelter. If compared to the end of 2017, it means that 3,000 more children are believed to be homeless. The staggering estimate includes the small number of children sleeping rough and living in insecure temporary accommodation. The number is up 3.1% on last year and is the […] - [Migrant crossings: 16-year-old Sudanese boy found dead on French beach after attempt to cross English Channel](https://heartlandstribune.com/migrant-crossings-16-year-old-sudanese-boy-found-dead-on-french-beach-after-attempt-to-cross-english-channel/): A Sudanese teenager has died trying to cross the English Channel, French authorities revealed on Wednesday. The announcement was made on Twitter by Marlene Schiappa, minister for citizenship, who wrote: “Profound sadness: a 16-year-old Sudanese migrant who disappeared at sea last night has been found dead on Sangatte beach this morning”. Marlène Schiappa, France’s citizenship minister, said the boy – who was carrying identification papers – had disappeared at sea overnight and was found dead on Sangatte beach. “This unbearable tragedy moves us even more with [French interior minister] Gérald Darmanin against smugglers who take advantage of the distress of human beings,” she wrote […] - [Nearly 20,000 households made homeless during pandemic and more to come](https://heartlandstribune.com/nearly-20000-households-made-homeless-during-pandemic-and-more-to-come/): Freedom of Information data from councils exposes a surge in homelessness since April – despite a nationwide ban on evictions. An estimated nearly 20,000 households across England have been made legally homeless during the coronavirus pandemic despite a nationwide ban on evictions, according to data compiled by the New Statesman. Freedom of Information responses from 212 councils across England show 22,798 households who applied for support after 1 April this year were found to be legally homeless. As these figures only cover around two-thirds of English local authorities, the true England-wide total is estimated to reach around 33,000 homeless households during the pandemic. (One in three local […] - [Matt Hancock unveils National Institute for Health Protection](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-hancock-unveils-national-institute-for-health-protection/): Hancock: ‘We did not go into this crisis with the capacity for a response’ Government unveils its new National Institute for Health Protection, setting out his plans, Hancock admitted that the country did not go ‘into this crisis with the capacity for a response to a once in a century-scale event’. The UK Government has created its new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP), which will start work immediately, with a single command structure to advance the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the new organisation, the efforts of Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace will be brought together, as […] - [Cameron's Crony Baroness Dido Harding: To run agency replacing Public Health England](https://heartlandstribune.com/camerons-crony-baroness-dido-harding-to-run-agency-replacing-public-health-england/): Tory’s rewarding failure, you have to wonder why… Baroness Dido Harding, a Conservative peer who heads up England’s widely criticised test-and-trace system, is to run the new institute that will replace Public Health England, after the controversial decision to axe the agency. Harding will be named as the chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, which will be charged with preventing future outbreaks of infectious diseases, despite the poor performance of NHS test and trace, which she has led since May. Her appointment, which the health secretary, Matt Hancock, is due to confirm on Tuesday in a speech on the […] - [People Power: A-levels and GCSEs U-turn as teacher estimates to be used for exam results](https://heartlandstribune.com/people-power-a-levels-and-gcses-u-turn-as-teacher-estimates-to-be-used-for-exam-results/): Education Secretary Gavin Williamson: “I am sorry for the distress this has caused” A-level and GCSE students in England will be given grades estimated by their teachers, rather than by an algorithm, after a government U-turn. It follows uproar after about 40% of A-level results were downgraded by exams regulator Ofqual, which used a formula based on schools’ prior grades. GCSE results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland come out on Thursday. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson apologised for the “distress” caused. Mr Williamson said students and parents had been affected by “significant inconsistencies” with the grading […] - [A-level results: 'it's a mess' as exams appeal guidance withdrawn](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-level-results-its-a-mess-as-exams-appeal-guidance-withdrawn/): A-level exam results fury grows as Ofqual suddenly suspends appeals policy Students are vowing to hold the government to account over the A-level results row as the exams regulator for England suddenly suspended its own policy on exam appeals. Around 280,000 students saw their grades fall by one grade or more following the introduction of a new algorithm, which was put in place after the coronavirus lockdown led to exams being cancelled. But students have been left furious by the new system, with many losing their places on their chosen courses after not meeting the required grades. The exams regulator is […] - [A-level results: Exams in chaos after Ofqual about-turn on grade guidance](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-level-results-exams-in-chaos-after-ofqual-about-turn-on-grade-guidance/): Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson defends exam grading system, ignoring calls to scrap downgrades for A-levels Exams regulator Ofqual has said it is reviewing its guidance published on Saturday on how to appeal A-level and GCSE grades using mock exam results. It comes just hours after Ofqual explained what constitutes a “valid” mock exam for students appealing against A-level results in England. The regulator has now suspended that criteria, and further information will be published “in due course”. Almost 40% of A-level grades were marked down from teachers’ predictions. Neither A-level nor GCSE students were able to sit public exams this year because of […] - [Coronavirus: Medical examiners 'will review the deaths' of more than 600 health and care workers who caught Covid-19 in the UK amid Tory PPE fiasco](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-medical-examiners-will-review-the-deaths-of-more-than-600-health-and-care-workers-who-caught-covid-19-in-the-uk-amid-tory-ppe-fiasco/): More than 625 NHS staff and social care worker deaths have been linked to coronavirus Investigations have been launched into the deaths of hundreds of NHS and care workers who had Covid-19 to see if they were properly protected, it emerged today. Ministers have asked medical examiners to review the deaths of all frontline health and social care staff who died while fighting the first wave of the epidemic in England and Wales. The review, which was launched last month, will look to determine if the victims caught the infection as a result of their work and if they had access […] - [Labour Civil war: 'The first rule of Starmer's Labour' don't talk about, Panorama settlement, EHRC, IHRA,#LabourLeaks](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-civil-war-the-first-rule-of-starmers-labour-dont-talk-about-panorama-settlement-ehrc-ihralabourleaks/): Local parties warned against speaking out against Panorama settlement, EHRC, IHRA Labour’s local chairs and secretaries were last night warned by the party centrally that their online meetings should not discuss a number of specified sensitive topics related to both the Party’s Panorama out of court settlement and the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The party’s top official also explained that motions seeking to “undermine or contradict” the court statements by Labour in the Panorama libel case would “create a risk of further legal proceedings”. Against legal advice, Sir Keir Starmer made an out of […] - [Coronavirus: UK-France quarantine Holidaymakers face rush to return](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-uk-france-quarantine-holidaymakers-face-rush-to-return/): Home by 4 a.m. or face 14-day’s quarantine Thousands of British citizens holidaying in France face travel chaos to get home and avoid 14 days of quarantine on their return. France has vowed to reciprocate after the UK reimposed the quarantine regulation. The UK government declared the change, which will likely spark a mass exodus among the estimated half a million British holidaymakers currently in France, after a rise in coronavirus cases there. The British government has said all travellers from France and the Netherlands will again have to quarantine for 14 days, triggering a likely mass exodus among the estimated 160,000 UK citizens currently […] - [The Tory Class Divide: Downgraded A-level students urged to join possible legal action](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-tory-class-divide-downgraded-a-level-students-urged-to-join-possible-legal-action/): Ministers under pressure to review A-level results There is a growing backlash at how almost 40% of grades in England were cut by regulator Grade the student, not the school: threat of legal action unless Ofqual fix unfair A-level and GCSE grading algorithm Students affected by the mass downgrading of A-level results in England have been urged to join a possible legal action against the Department for Education and the exams regulator. Digital rights organisation Foxglove is threatening to take legal action against Ofqual – the government body that regulates qualifications, exams and tests in England – on the grounds that the algorithm being […] - [Germany to honour anti-Nazi hero Sophie Scholl with coin](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-to-honour-anti-nazi-hero-sophie-scholl-with-coin/): Beheaded by the Nazis at age 21, Sophie Scholl died fighting against tyranny. Sophie Scholl of the White Rose honoured for her resistance to Nazi tyranny. Students Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested and executed in 1943. The students and their friends had distributed leaflets calling on people to resist the Nazi regime. Today, they remain symbols of moral courage. The Nazi Party executed student Sophie Scholl in 1943 for her role in the White Rose resistance group. Now seventy-seven years on the German government is set to release a special coin next year, marking her 100th birthday. Anti-National Socialism political […] - [Stonehaven: One dead other's left with 'Serious injuries' after ScotRail train derailment in Aberdeenshire](https://heartlandstribune.com/stonehaven-one-dead-others-left-with-serious-injuries-after-scotrail-train-derailment-in-aberdeenshire/): A person has died today after a ScotRail train derailed and crashed near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. Industry sources confirmed the death to The Scotsman and said there were fears of a second fatality. Today’s incident happened after an Inter7City train from Aberdeen to Glasgow had turned back after encountering a landslide, and then reportedly hit another one. Pictures from ScotRail derailment are grim… pic.twitter.com/JihjtfmWzL — Philip Haigh (@philatrail) August 12, 2020 A major incident has been declared and about 30 emergency service vehicles – including air ambulance support – have been called to the scene. Smoke was seen coming from the […] - [UK officially in recession for first time in 11 years](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-officially-in-recession-for-first-time-in-11-years/): The UK economy suffered its biggest slump on record between April and June as coronavirus lockdown measures pushed the country officially into recession. The economy shrank 20.4% compared with the first three months of the year. Household spending plunged as shops were ordered to close, while factory and construction output also fell. This pushed the UK into its first technical recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of economic decline – since 2009. The UK economy has officially entered recession after figures showed a second quarter of contraction GDP was down a shocking 20.4 per cent in the three month to […] - [Democracy denied: EU threatens sanctions over Belarus election and aftermath](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-threatens-sanctions-over-belarus-election-and-aftermath/): Belarus isn’t often in the news — except for elections. That’s when President Alexander Lukashenko and his supine parliament score unbelievable margins of victory. This usually sparks protests at home and finger-wagging from abroad. The rule since 1994 is that nothing much changes and, after a brief bout of turbulence, things again go quiet. Lukashenko likes to win. He’s won reelection six times, making him Europe’s longest-ruling non-royal leader. His lowest vote total was the 75.6 percent he won in 2001. This year, he followed the usual pattern of frightening or arresting potential opponents. But in an unusual move, the government […] - [Blairites tell Corbyn 'Do as we say, not as we do'](https://heartlandstribune.com/blairites-tell-corbyn-do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do/): Can the right of the Labour Party sink any lower? David Miliband has accused Jeremy Corbyn of trying to “wreck” Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership in an escalation of Labour’s bitter civil war. Mr Corbyn, alongside former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and seven other former shadow ministers, have accused party staff of deliberately scuppering the 2017 election due to factional differences. The comments came as part of a submission to an internal inquiry into the leaking of a 860-page dossier which alleged some Labour officials had intentionally starved target seats of funds. The submission, accused a group of staffers of setting up a “shadow operation” to […] - [Labour MP Dawn Butler stopped by police in London](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-dawn-butler-stopped-by-police-in-london/): The former shadow equalities minister filmed the incident, which happened in the London borough of Hackney on Sunday. Dawn Butler, the Labour MP and former shadow equalities minister, has described being stopped by the police while driving with a friend through east London, saying her experiences show “the system is institutionally racist”. Butler, a strong critic of police stop-and-search tactics, said the car being driven by her male friend, who like Butler is black, was pulled over by two police cars in Hackney, with officers saying the vehicle was registered in North Yorkshire. Dawn Butler goes on to describe how, two […] - [Priti Patel appoints 'Migrant Czar' to guard the waves stopping migrants crossing the Channel](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patel-appoints-migrant-czar-to-guard-the-waves-stopping-illegal-immigrants-crossing-channel/): Former Royal Marine Dan O’Mahoney will take on a new role to drastically reduce the number of small vessels arriving on English coast with migrants from France. Priti Patel has hired a leading crimebuster to tackle migrant boats crossing the Channel. Ex-National Crime Agency bigwig Dan O’Mahoney will have the new role of Clandestine Channel Threat Commander. The UK witnessed a record 202 migrants crossed from France in 20 boats on Thursday. Since January more than 3,580 have made the perilous journey to reach UK shores. Kent coastguards are constantly mounting search and rescue operations. Ms Patel said: “The number of […] - [Coronavirus: Travellers to Germany must be tested or face €25,000 fine](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-travellers-to-germany-must-be-tested-or-face-e25000-fine/): Germany steps up restrictions for EU countries amid COVID-19 surge Germany has increased border restrictions amid a new spike in coronavirus cases in the country. Travellers to Germany from risk areas must undergo tests upon arrival in Germany or face fines. Latin America and the Caribbean is now the hardest-hit region by COVID-19 deaths. Catch up with the latest on the pandemic. From Friday, people coming from the Bulgarian regions of Blagoevgrad, Dobritch, and Varna, as well as travellers from Romania’s Argeș, Bihor, Buzău, Neamt, Ialomita, Mehedinti and Timis regions, and Australia’s Victoria state, will need to undergo quarantine or present […] - [Labour Party civil war: Jeremy Corbyn accuses hostile party officials of sabotaging Labour’s election campaign](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-civil-war-jeremy-corbyn-accuses-hostile-party-officials-of-sabotaging-labours-election-campaign/): They stopped a manifesto of hope from becoming a reality. Jeremy Corbyn along with some of his former leadership team have openly accused disgruntled Labour officials of potentially costing the party the chance of victory by sabotaging the 2017 election campaign in a factional dispute. A submission from Mr Corbyn and his top allies prepared for a Labour internal inquiry says “there is clear evidence of factional activity by senior paid employees of the party against the elected leadership of the time” as well as “apparent sabotage” during the election period. The intervention is likely to inflame the Labour’s ongoing civil […] - [There’s no reason why we can’t all have proper pensions](https://heartlandstribune.com/theres-no-reason-why-we-cant-all-have-proper-pensions/): Britain is a wealthy nation so the provision of dignity in retirement is not an unaffordable luxury — it should be a basic right for all citizens, says CHRIS WILLIAMSON The provision of a decent retirement pension system in Britain has been a bone of contention for many years. But despite the efforts of high-profile campaigners like former trade union leaders Jack Jones and Rodney Bickerstaffe, the situation has steadily worsened over the last 40 years. This includes the 13 years that New Labour were in office under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In the world’s fifth-biggest economy, there is no […] - [Diane Abbott Calls For Publication Of Full Labour WhatsApp Logs from the #Labourleaks files](https://heartlandstribune.com/diane-abbott-calls-for-publication-of-full-labour-whatsapp-logs-from-the-labourleaks-files/): Another scandal to be swept under the carpet! Diane Abbott has called for the leaked Labour report that sparked allegations of anti-Black racism to be published in full. This comes after the Guardian printed an article claiming the former staffers are now claiming the report contained misused private messages from their WhatsApp account. The leaked 860-page report emerged in April, just after Keir Starmer became Labour leader, reigniting party splits by claiming that Corbyn’s chances of success were scuppered by disgruntled party elements. Authored anonymously in the final months of Corbyn’s tenure, the report said opponents hampered his efforts to tackle […] - [Labour civil war: Sir Keir Starmer faces a vote of 'no confidence' from his own Camden Left-wing members](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-civil-war-sir-keir-starmer-faces-a-vote-of-no-confidence-from-his-own-camden-left-wing-members/): Sir Kier Starmer’s own Camden Momentum branch has passed a resolution calling on Labour’s National Executive Committee to pass a vote of no confidence in Starmer himself Sir Kier Starmer has faced calls for a vote of no confidence from the Camden branch of left-wing organisation Momentum. The branch of the Momentum group – which states its support for Jeremy Corbyn – has launched a number of sharp accusations at Sir Starmer. Some of the claims refer to the Labour leader’s previous role as Director of Public Prosecutions. The motion – passed by Camden Momentum on July 24th – accuses Starmer of working “closely […] - [Venezuela: Senator Chris Murphy says "..we tried to construct a kind of coup"](https://heartlandstribune.com/venezuela-senator-chris-murphy-says-we-tried-to-construct-a-kind-of-coup/): Venezuela, imperialism and militarization Donald Trump and the most sinister parts of the American regime are revealing that the “America First” slogan is nothing more than the rhetoric of a reloaded imperialism. Amidst the global turmoil unleashed by the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. has decided to ramp up its imperialist aggression and interference in the Venezuelan government. Its continued interference and acts of imperialism have become an embarrassment to the American people. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the Trump Administration’s Venezuela policy, the result was a clear understanding of how the US government conducts […] - [Virgin Atlantic files for bankruptcy](https://heartlandstribune.com/virgin-atlantic-files-for-bankruptcy/): Virgin Atlantic has become billionaire Richard Branson’s second airline to file for bankruptcy this year as the industry continues to be ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. The Virgin Group airline filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, just hours after the company told a London court it will be forced to fold if a rescue deal isn’t reached by next month.    This marks another blow for Branson’s Virgin brand, coming just months after sister airline Virgin Australia filed for voluntary administration in April.    Airlines have been some of the hardest hit by the pandemic as borders […] - [Beirut: Explosion rocks city with 400 reported injured](https://heartlandstribune.com/beirut-explosion-rocks-city-with-400-reported-injured/): At least 400 people hurt in blast taken to area hospital, nurse says Around 400 injured people have been taken to the emergency unit of the Hotel Dieu hospital after a blast rocked Beirut on Tuesday, a registered nurse on duty at the facility told CNN.  The severity of the injuries was not immediately clear. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion in the port area of the city. Video posted online showed a large mushroom cloud and destroyed buildings. Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed by casualties. It comes at a sensitive time with the country’s economic collapse […] - [Chris Williamson: UNMASKING THE EHRC](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-williamson-unmasking-the-ehrc/): It would appear that far from being an ‘equalities watchdog’, the EHRC has become a right-wing attack dog.  Despite the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s noble name, the reality of how it has operated since it was established almost thirteen years ago tells a very different story. The EHRC came into existence through the Equality Act 2006, replacing several different bodies to become the chief enforcer of equality and non-discrimination laws in Great Britain. A BAD START But only two years after it began operating, six out of eighteen members of the EHRC’s ruling body resigned, explicitly criticising Trevor Phillips, the […] - [Len McCluskey warns Labour: Unite will review its financial support after Sir Keir Starmer's shocking out of court payouts to former staffers](https://heartlandstribune.com/len-mccluskey-warns-labour-unite-will-review-its-financial-support-after-sir-keir-starmers-shocking-out-of-court-payouts-to-former-staffers/): The chief of Labour’s biggest union backer said his organisation would “no doubt” review its financial support in the wake of the decision to offer payouts to whistleblowers who accused the party of failing to tackle anti-Semitism. General secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey, used an interview with the Observer to issue a warning to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer after the party agreed to pay “substantial damages” to whistleblowers who contributed to a TV expose of its handling of anti-Semitism. Mr McCluskey, an ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, said the payouts were “an abuse of members’ money”. It’s as though […] - [Tory MP arrested on suspicion of rape of parliamentary staffer](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-arrested-on-suspicion-of-rape-of-parliamentary-staffer/): Senior Tory MP is arrested on suspicion of rape: Ex-minister is held in police custody accused of sexually assaulting a Commons researcher in her twenties A leading Tory MP was last night arrested on suspicion of raping and sexually assaulting a Commons researcher in the latest abuse scandal to hit the Government. As the former Minister was being held in custody in an East London police station, his accuser – a woman in her 20s – was being interviewed by Scotland Yard officers yesterday at a separate location. The claims have caused consternation in the party, with one senior Conservative politician […] - [Boris Johnson Hands Brother Jo Johnson Seat In House Of Lords and it stinks.](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-hands-brother-jo-johnson-seat-in-house-of-lords-and-it-stinks/): Boris Johnson has handed his brother Jo, and several other allies, seats in the House of Lords. Jo Johnson was on the list of new peerages nominated by the prime minister published on Friday. It marks a swift return to parliament for the PM’s brother, who dramatically quit the Commons entirely last year in protest at Boris Johnson’s Brexit policy. Jo Johnson campaigned for Remain in 2016 and was a public supporter of holding a second referendum. cronyism Other names on the list of peerages include former England cricketer Sir Ian Botham and newspaper owner Evgeny Lebedev. Former Scottish Tory leader […] - [Coronavirus: Its the Blame game, Tory MP Craig Whittaker claims 'vast majority' of lockdown rule breakers are BAME](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-its-the-blame-game-tory-mp-craig-whittaker-claims-vast-majority-of-lockdown-rule-breakers-are-bame/): Tory MP Craig Whittaker has claimed ‘Muslim and BAME’ communities are not taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously following the announcement of new local lockdowns across England. The Conservative MP, whose Calder Valley constituency is included in the latest local lockdown, has accused Muslim communities living in his area of failing to follow social distancing guidelines. New restrictions were imposed late last night banning seperate households from meeting indoors in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the move was in response to a spike in infections driven by a “lack of social distancing”. But […] - [Coronavirus: Separate households banned from meeting in Greater Manchester, parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-separate-households-banned-from-meeting-in-greater-manchester-parts-of-east-lancashire-and-west-yorkshire/): Local restrictions announced in the North of England Indoor meetings banned in northern coronavirus hotspots as lockdown rules tightened People from different households in Greater Manchester, parts of East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire are banned from meeting each other indoors from midnight, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced. In northern parts of England, an “increasing transmission” of Covid-19 had been identified and the government took “immediate action” to keep people safe. Matt Hancock has banned people from different households from meeting up indoors in parts of northern England as part of a tightening of lockdown measures. The Health Secretary said the new […] - [5 countries where protecting the environment can cost you your life](https://heartlandstribune.com/5-countries-where-protecting-the-environment-can-cost-you-your-life/): A new report reveals a spike in the murder of global land defenders, especially in Latin America. The failure to combat climate change is forcing the most vulnerable to the frontlines, and to pay with their lives. Environmental activists are being murdered in ever-increasing numbers. According to a new report by London-based NGO, Global Witness, 212 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2019 alone, a 30% rise from the 164 killed in 2018. Around 40% were indigenous people and traditional landowners. More than two-thirds of killings took place in Latin America, with Colombia topping the list with 64 murders due to […] - [Our Commonwealth soldiers are facing their biggest battle: 'It's against our own government'.](https://heartlandstribune.com/our-commonwealth-soldiers-are-facing-their-biggest-battle-its-against-our-own-government/): Article by David McMullen In times of conflict, Commonwealth countries and the Gurkhas have readily supported the UK in every war zone we’ve deployed, currently commonwealth soldiers make up 4,500 members of her majesty armed forces. They have been recruited and originate from commonwealth countries around the world. Countries such as Fiji, providing the highest number of recruits.  Today these Commonwealth veterans are being let down by the country they served and fought for. A group of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking legal action against the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence over an alleged systemic failure […] - [Coronavirus: Care homes were 'thrown to the wolves' during COVID-19 outbreak](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-care-homes-were-thrown-to-the-wolves-during-covid-19-outbreak/): The Public Accounts Committee found inattention and funding cuts led to the care sector becoming a poor relation to the NHS. Slow, inconsistent, sometimes reckless and even negligent. That’s the damning assessment of the government’s approach to social care during the COVID-19 crisis, published today by the House of Commons’ own spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Their report says the pandemic has exposed the tragic impact of years of inattention, funding cuts and delayed reforms. All of which, it says, have left the social care sector as a poor relation to the NHS. Meg Hillier MP, chair of the committee, said: […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson warns there are signs of a second wave in Europe as Germany advises against travel to parts of Spain](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-warns-there-are-signs-of-a-second-wave-in-europe-as-germany-advises-against-travel-to-parts-of-spain/): Boris Johnson has claimed there are signs Europe is facing a “second wave” of coronavirus as he defended the decision to quarantine Brits arriving back from Spain. The Government has faced criticism for making everyone who comes back from the country, even those returning from areas with lower rates of Covid-19 than the UK, self-isolate for 14 days upon their return after a spate of infections. But the Prime Minister said: “What we have to do is take swift and decisive action where we think that the risks are starting to bubble up again. “Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening in Europe, […] - [When The Workers Nearly Took Control: Five Lessons From The Lucas Plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-the-workers-nearly-took-control-five-lessons-from-the-lucas-plan/): In 1976, the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee produced an Alternative Corporate Plan for Lucas Aerospace that advocated the production of socially useful products. This was in response to management announcing the need to cut jobs. The Combine was a representative body of staff and manual worker unions on all fifteen sites throughout the U.K. It had been established by the shop stewards to enable the workforce to have a coherent and unified voice when responding to management’s corporate view on wages, pensions, manning levels and other such issues. The shop stewards had realised through experience how management had used divide and […] - [UK's biggest tour operator, Tui, has cancelled all mainland Spanish holidays until 9 August.](https://heartlandstribune.com/uks-biggest-tour-operator-tui-has-cancelled-all-mainland-spanish-holidays-until-9-august/): Tour operator TUI has cancelled all British holidays to mainland Spain from Monday until August 9, after the UK government’s decision to require travellers returning from the country to quarantine. The move comes after the government imposed a 14-day quarantine on people arriving in the UK from Spain. The newly-imposed rule to self-isolate, abruptly introduced at midnight Saturday hours after being announced, follows a surge in coronavirus cases in parts of Spain in recent weeks. Other major British airlines have so far held off cancelling flights to Spain. The firm said all those going to the Balearic and Canary Islands could […] - [Over a million People will have £149 added to their bank accounts soon](https://heartlandstribune.com/over-a-million-people-will-have-149-added-to-their-bank-accounts-soon/): New Universal Credit changes are now in effect with thousands of claimants to receive one-off payment The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that over a million households will soon receive a one-off lump sum of £149 in their bank accounts. The lump sum payment will be paid to those switching from one of the legacy benefits that Universal Credit is replacing. According to the Daily Record, the rule changes came into effect on July 22 and the DWP says that over a million households are set to gain from the two-week run-on. Minister for Welfare Delivery Will Quince said: “This one-off […] - [Coronavirus: Catalonia closes late bars and nightclubs as it battles a surge of coronavirus cases](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-catalonia-closes-late-bars-and-nightclubs-as-it-battles-a-surge-of-coronavirus-cases/): Catalonia will close late-night bars and nightclubs from Saturday as Spain’s northeastern region battles a surge in coronavirus cases. The Catalan government announced the closures on Friday, which will last for 15 days. Opening hours for bingo halls, gambling halls, and casinos have also been reduced as the region fears a second wave. Spain recorded 280 new cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours on Friday, three times more than two weeks ago. It comes less than a month after the country ended its lockdown. The country is one of Europe’s hardest hit by the pandemic, with more than 28,000 people killed […] - [Tata Steel propose semi-nationalisation](https://heartlandstribune.com/tata-steel-propose-semi-nationalisation/): Tata Steel floats plan for government to take £900m Port Talbot stake in a 50% ‘Public Ownership’ joint deal The question is are we privatising the profit while nationalising the debt? Britain’s biggest steel producer is encouraging the government to take a big stake in the company as part of a plan to preserve the long-term future of the vast Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales. Sky News has reported that Tata Steel has presented proposals to Whitehall in recent weeks aimed at securing a state injection of close to £1bn into its UK operations. In return, the company’s Indian parent would hand […] - [Sir Keir Starmer throws Corbyn under the bus, 'members back Corbyn'](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-throws-corbyn-under-the-bus-members-back-corbyn/): As the Jeremy Corbyn, Legal fighting fund reaches £100,000: We look at the background surrounding this case and the necessity. The move follows the Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer going against legal advice and then agreeing to settle out of court both with John Wear and former Labour Party staffers, the so-called Panorama Antisemisem whistleblowers. The legal action followed the broadcast in a July 2019 edition of the programme titled “Is Labour Anti-Semitic?”. Katherine Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman all claimed to have concerns there was “a lack of commitment” by […] - [Sir Keir Starmer gives a 'grovelling apology' and a bung to those that worked hardest to harm the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-gives-a-grovelling-apology-and-a-bung-to-those-that-worked-hardest-to-harm-the-labour-party/): It wasn’t even political! Sir Keir Starmer made a personal choice to payout hundreds of thousands of members money topped with a grovelling apology to the so-called whistleblowers. Sir Keir Starmer has made an ‘unreserved’ apology for suggesting that ‘whistleblowers’ involved in last year’s widely-criticised Panorama programme were not reliable, the apology comes after legal advice stated that the party had a strong defence. The former Director of Public Prosecutions ignored the legal advice and made a political (personal) decision to make the apology and fork out members money with over a six-figure payout to the so-called whistleblowers. “We unreservedly withdraw all allegations […] - [Russia never needed an army: The establishment was always willing to sell us out for the right price](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-never-needed-an-army-the-establishment-was-always-willing-to-sell-us-out-for-the-right-price/): The Russian report didn’t show a smoking gun on the EU referendum but what it did show, we have all been sold out #ToryTraitors Committee member: Government did not try to find out if Russia sought to influence the EU vote There was “no evidence” that Russia sought to influence the 2016 Brexit referendum, but only because the government did not try to find out if it had, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee member has said. Asked for the committee’s views on whether Russia did influence the EU vote, Kevan Jones told a news conference: “There was no […] - [The Legacy of Jack Charlton: A True Working-Class Hero](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-legacy-of-jack-charlton-a-true-working-class-hero/): Tributes to the legendary and towering figure of Jack Charlton have poured in from all quarters of the footballing world in the past two weeks. However, the majority of eulogies being offered up by pundits and erstwhile colleagues alike in the mainstream media, albeit sincere, have omitted some of the defining features of Charlton’s character and heartfelt beliefs. Although his duties as both a player and manager were always his first priority, Jack Charlton proved on numerous occasions throughout his life that he refused to sever ties with the communities of which he was a product and that, to his very […] - [Coronavirus: Oxford vaccine results 'major breakthrough' in fight against Covid, says government](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-oxford-vaccine-results-major-breakthrough-in-fight-against-covid-says-government/): The potential vaccine prompted a protective immune response in hundreds of people who participated in the early trial.  UK phase 2 vaccine trial shows promise Preliminary results from tests of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in the UK suggest that it prompts a protective immune response, scientists from the University of Oxford said. The observations on the Astra Zeneca product were published in the scientific journal The Lancet. The experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55 that lasted at least two months after they were immunized, scientists said. ”We are seeing good immune response in […] - [People Power - Building For Systemic Change](https://heartlandstribune.com/people-power-building-for-systemic-change/): People are the power, we just need to organise Class politics is back by necessity. A vicious ideological right-wing Tory government, the fallout of a no-deal Brexit & with Labour rapidly veering to the right our communities are at risk of a further decade of defunding, cuts to services & mass unemployment. If we don’t have real community control, we’re not going to have any real Socialism. Socialism is just an abstract idea if it’s not tangibly applied to our people’s everyday experiences. It’s about evolving a system and an economic practice of fair-shares equality and fair-shares access. It’s got to […] - [When the reward for treachery is to be given a peerage it shows the entire system stinks](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-the-rewards-for-treachery-is-to-be-given-a-peerage-it-shows-the-entire-system-stinks/): News that Ian Botham will receive a peerage is splashed across the broadsheets, why not, Sir Ian Botham is a former England cricket captain he helped raise £10m for leukaemia charities, he was knighted in 2007 by the Queen he played a massive 102 Tests for England from 1974 to 1993. He is politically aware and also happens to be a Brexiter and a Tory. Sir Ian Botham getting a peerage is what you would expect from a Boris Johnson Tory Government. But what you do not expect is two former Labour MPs, John Woodcock and Ian Austin both to be […] - [Coronavirus: Pandemic exposes global inequality, says UN head](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-pandemic-exposes-global-inequality-says-un-head/): COVID-19 has exposed “fallacies and falsehoods everywhere,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, adding that global leaders need to build a more equal and sustainable world. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has compared the coronavirus pandemic to an “x-ray” that has exposed deep global inequalities and “fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.” Delivering a lecture for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Guterres lambasted rich countries for failing “to deliver the support needed to help the developing world.” The UN has appealed for $10.3 billion (€9 billion) to help poor states hit by the pandemic, but has so far […] - [Spain orders cull of nearly 100,000 farmed mink after animals test positive for Covid-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/spain-orders-cull-of-nearly-100000-farmed-mink-after-animals-test-positive-for-covid-19/): Spanish authorities have ordered the culling of almost 100,000 mink following an outbreak at a farm, where the animals are bred for fur, after a number tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Environment of Spain’s Aragon region said in a statement on Thursday that it had ordered the slaughter of the 92,700 mink after seven workers on the farm tested positive for Covid-19 and the animals were found to be infected with the coronavirus. As a precaution the department shut down the farm, in Teruel, eastern Spain, on May 22, for monitoring before conducting a […] - [It's no good blaming Corbyn for telling the truth: Responsibility must lay with the Tory government who lost the dossier and lied about the content](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-no-good-blaming-corbyn-for-telling-the-truth-responsibility-must-lay-with-the-tory-government-who-lost-the-dossier-and-lied-about-the-content/): Dominic Raab says Russia amplified an illicitly acquired NHS dossier on social media. Translated this means the Government has lapsed in security and allowed sensitive documents to be either stolen or hacked by outside “Russian actors”. The 451-page dossier of official emails ended up in Labour Party’s hands and quite rightly the Labour Party pointed out the Tory Party’s duplicity in lying to the public, claiming the NHS will not be part of a US-UK post-Brexit trade deal. Dominic Raab said that unnamed “Russian actors” were to blame for spreading the leaked UK government document on the internet in the hope of […] - [WitchHunt2020: This timely new film throws light on demonisation of movement for Palestinian rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/witchhunt2020-this-timely-new-film-throws-light-on-demonisation-of-movement-for-palestinian-rights/): WitchHunt2020 describes the shattering of the hopes of those inspired by Corbyn’s passion for social justice Ever since Jeremy Corbyn took the British Labour Party by storm in September of 2015, moving it in a more progressive direction, the old guard used the most various tactics to try to delegitimize Corbyn in order to retake power. One tool the Labour Party right-wing used is to undermine Corbyn and his supporters is a constant barrage of anti-Semitism accusations. Corbyn and the Left movement within the Labour party openly demanded an end to Israel’s occupation in Palestine. Right-wingers within the Labour Party exploited the […] - [Stop the racist coup attempt on London's only black council leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/stop-the-racist-coup-attempt-on-londons-only-black-council-leader/): Sir Kier Starmer at a garden party for Labour Haringey councillors last weekend where he was infamously demonstrating his power stance. A picture paints a thousand words and sometimes its not what’s in the picture but what’s missing that matters. Haringey is one of the UK’s most diverse local authorities, with the second-largest non-UK European-born population of any London borough The diverse borough consists of 38% of residents from BAME groups and 26% identify as “white other”. Remarkably in that one borough 180+ languages are spoken. Haringey council is underrepresented by BAME councillors but Sir Keir Starmer’s garden party is very […] - [The Irish Government help Apple win fight against EU tax order losing £11.8 billion in Tax for the Irish people](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-irish-government-help-apple-win-fight-against-eu-tax-order-losing-11-8-billion-in-tax-for-the-irish-people/): Ireland has been labelled one of the world’s biggest corporate ‘tax havens’ now the Government aid Apple to win fight against £11.8 billion EU tax order money for its own citizens If Apple had lost the Irish people would have seen a windfall of 13 billion-euro. But Ireland feared the loss off jobs and the exodus of offer company’s reaping the profits of the low Irish tax threshold. Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said that despite Ireland being the most indebted nation in the developed world, the State will try not to take the windfall. He added: “I think that no matter what […] - ['No DSS' letting bans 'ruled unlawful' by court](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-dss-letting-bans-ruled-unlawful-by-court/): The practice of refusing to rent homes to those in receipt of housing benefit has been ruled unlawful in the first ‘No DSS’ discrimination case to be heard by a UK court. The “momentous” court ruling found a single mother-of-two had experienced indirect discrimination when a letting agent refused to rent to her. She ended up homeless with her two children, when her case was taken on by housing charity Shelter. The judge ruled “No DSS” rental bans are against equality laws. In a case that was heard at the York County Court at the start of this month, a 44-year-old […] - [Coronavirus: The politics of Face masks, France Wearing masks ‘in enclosed public spaces’ to become mandatory](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-the-politics-of-face-masks-france-wearing-masks-in-enclosed-public-spaces-to-become-mandatory/): Wearing a Face mask has always been good advice, lots of people are asking why now? Richard Gray gave a wrote a great article ‘Why we should all be wearing face masks‘ While a few months ago anyone wearing a mask in public would have drawn stares in many countries unused to this behaviour, they are now a reminder of the strange times we live in. And as governments around the world start to ease their lockdowns to allow their citizens out to mingle in the wider world again, growing numbers of people are opting to wear face masks in public. But […] - [As Globalisation Fractures, the West Must Champion Internationalism in the face of China](https://heartlandstribune.com/as-globalisation-fractures-the-west-must-champion-internationalism-in-the-face-of-china/): Rather than a system based on the mutual impoverishment of workers, we must pursue one based on protection. Coronavirus exploits the underlying conditions, or co-morbidities, of our bodies. It probes our immune system and preys upon our weaknesses. It works in the same way on our economy, society and polity, targeting poorer and older people, exposing our paralysed industrial capacity, the contracting out of necessities, and our overwhelming reliance on a centralised state, itself supported by an atrophied body politic and anaemic civic institutions. State and capital have both been centralised and our entire country is on debt-based life support.   It probes the same weaknesses […] - [Leicester sweatshops: Modern day slavery and the exploitation of workers.](https://heartlandstribune.com/leicester-sweatshops-modern-day-slavery-and-the-exploitation-of-workers/): Modern day slavery in 21st century Britain up to 10,000 people could be victims just in the textile factories The prevalence of slavery in 21st-century Britain is an often hidden problem but nonetheless continues to grow. A number of sectors seem to attract slave labour. They include car washes, nail bars, construction, agriculture and factories, domestic service, catering and the sex industry. Modern slavery is present in every single area of the UK. You probably see people trapped in slavery on a regular basis. It might be someone working in a private home on your street, the man working in the […] - [LABCON: The Transmogrification of the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/labcon-the-transmogrification-of-the-labour-party/): Labour: We are backing the government! If Labour aren’t willing to openly fight against parking charges imposed on our heroic NHS workers then we have seriously lost our way! On the Andrew Marr Show, 12th July 2020, Rachel Reeves refused to say that the wealthiest 5% in the country should pay a little more tax to help pay for the COVID-19 crisis. We are back to robbing pensioners of free TV licences, hammering the poorest via DWP sanctions and cuts to our already vandalised public services! The Labour leak report proves the right the Labour Party fear an anti system movement […] - [Back-room deal making: It's as if “Black Labour Lives” do not matter](https://heartlandstribune.com/back-room-deal-making-its-as-if-black-labour-lives-do-not-matter/): A damning statement by Grassroots Black Left (GBL) issued today says: “GBL has grave concerns that none of the Black/BAME/Politically Black candidates who have been selected for the left slate came through a process of Black self-organisation and they will therefore be answerable to the white godfathers who handpicked them.It is non-negotiable that Black political representatives should be chosen by the Black people to whose issues and concerns they must give voice, not least at a time when Black Lives Matter is high on the agenda throughout the world. This comes at a time when Labour Party members nationwide have expressed […] - [Feed the Rich: Governments secret £1bn giveaway to second home owners and landlords](https://heartlandstribune.com/feed-the-rich-governments-secret-1bn-giveaway-to-second-home-owners-and-landlords/): Its a £1.3bn “bung” to second home owners and landlords. Following the Chancellor’s economic statement, the Treasury slipped out an announcement that buyers of buy-to-let properties, holiday homes and other second homes will benefit from a major reduction in stamp duty. This comes as the government has faced criticism for its poor targeting of financial support leaving many businesses and individuals struggling. Nothing was done to address the housing shortage in the U.K. a massive building program could have kick-started a depressed economy. Stamp duty on second homes is currently 3% higher than the standard rate, meaning that someone buying a […] - [Those with integrity please exit stage LEFT: Sandwell Council leaders video resignation and what was behind the curtain](https://heartlandstribune.com/those-with-integrity-please-exit-stage-left-sandwell-council-leaders-video-resignation-and-what-was-behind-the-curtain/): Councillor Davies announced her resignation as the leader of the council in an 18-minute statement during a meeting of the cabinet earlier this week. In the Sandwell Council Cabinet meeting, she stood down as council leader, aiming a broadside at the Labour Party and “the white male old guard” who she said sought “only to preserve their own power base for its own sake”. Her dignified video resignation came after a prolonged campaign to remove her from office finally achieved by making allegations she had posted anti-Semitic tweets ultimately leading to Councillor Davies being suspended from the Labour Party. Councillor Davies […] - [A kick in the teeth: BBC to go ahead with over-75s TV licence fee changes](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-kick-in-the-teeth-bbc-to-go-ahead-with-over-75s-tv-licence-fee-changes/): The end of the free TV licence for over-75s will feel like a “kick in the teeth” to pensioners, campaigners have said. The controversial change was originally due to be made on 1 June, and the BBC said the delay had cost £35m a month but was delayed and kept under review for two-month because of the coronavirus pandemic. The cost of continuing to provide free licences to all over-75s could have reached £1bn a year over time with an ageing population, according to the corporation. The BBC said the new scheme is “the fairest decision”, but the government said it […] - [The day they tried to cancel Chomsky](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-day-they-tried-to-cancel-chomsky/): NOAM CHOMSKY is among 150 public figures to sign a controversial letter denouncing ‘cancel culture’ The letter states they applaud a recent “needed reckoning” on racial justice but argue it has fuelled the stifling of open debate. The letter denounces “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism” and “a blinding moral certainty”. Several signatories have been attacked for comments that caused offence. That includes Harry Potter author JK Rowling who was fiercely criticised this month for comments about transgender people. The letter, which was published on the Harper’s Magazine website Tuesday and gathered 150 signatures, warns that the left’s resistance of President Trump’s […] - [Coronavirus: Winners and losers of the government Budget plan to revive economy](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-winners-and-losers-of-the-government-budget-plan-to-revive-economy/): There is no Magic money tree, turns out there’s a forest full. Winners and losers of the Budget – free vouchers, stamp duty cut and furlough latest Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a recovery package to help protect millions of jobs and businesses following the coronavirus crisis. New support measures will include a £2billion pledge to offer paid work experience to under-25s who are facing long-term unemployment. In a devastating blow for workers hoping for an extension of the furlough scheme, Sunak today said it will not be extended past October. He pledged to do “all he can” to support people […] - [Former Labour MP and paedophile Eric Joyce 'BAILED' after been found guilty of making Category A Child Movie Including “12-Month-old Baby”](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-labour-mp-and-paedophile-eric-joyce-bailed-after-been-found-guilty-of-making-category-a-child-movie-including-12-month-old-baby/): Joyce admits making indecent images of children including a one-year-old baby Former Labour MP Eric Joyce has pleaded guilty to making an indecent photograph of a child. Joyce, who represented Labour for Falkirk between 2000 and 2012, before becoming an independent until his resignation at the 2015 general election, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court today for a pre-trial hearing. According to the BBC, Joyce was charged last month after being arrested in November 2018. The charge alleged that he had made an indecent photograph of a child – described as a movie file and classified as a Category A image. BAIL?! MP Eric Joyce GUILTY Judge Emma Peters […] - [Countries line up to warn Israel against annexing Palestinian territories](https://heartlandstribune.com/countries-line-up-to-warn-israel-against-annexing-palestinian-territories/): UK, Jordan, Germany, France, Egypt Say Won’t Recognise Unilateral Changes to 1967 Borders Tel Aviv Today: Several thousand Israelis demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to extend sovereignty over parts of the occupied West Bank, de-facto annexation of land that the Palestinians seek for a state. Protesting in face masks and keeping their distance from each other under coronavirus restrictions, they gathered under the banner “No to annexation, no to occupation, yes to peace and democracy”. Some waved Palestinian flags. The demonstration was organized by the left-wing Meretz party and the communist Hadash faction of the majority-Arab Joint List, along […] - [Coronavirus: Australia to seal off 6.6 million people in virus-hit Victoria](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-australia-to-seal-off-6-6-million-people-in-virus-hit-victoria/): Australia will isolate 6.6 million people in the state of Victoria from the rest of the nation at 11.59 p.m. on Tuesday, as authorities take drastic action to control a coronavirus outbreak in the city of Melbourne. The border between Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) — Australia’s two most-populous states — will be closed for the first time since the pandemic began, Victorian State Premier Daniel Andrews announced Monday. Military personnel and police will line the border, allowing very few people to cross, according to 7NEWS. Victoria has struggled to contain a second wave of coronavirus cases, leading to fears that the infection […] - [NHS celebrates 72nd anniversary during its most challenging year in its history](https://heartlandstribune.com/nhs-celebrates-72nd-anniversary-during-its-most-challenging-year-in-its-history/): A post-war political consensus existed for some form of National Health Service, but powerful vested interests still had to be faced down. There was tenacious resistance to the incorporation of charitably funded hospitals into the new service while the BMA’s leadership fought tooth and nail in defence of private practice. Bevan said consultants were only appeased because he “stuffed their mouths with gold”. The NHS was born was 5 July 1948. On that day, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians, dentists and hospitals came together for the first time as one giant UK-wide organisation. It was inaugurated when Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the health […] - [Coronavirus: Spanish authorities order lockdown in El Segriá, COVID second wave feared](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-spanish-authorities-order-lockdown-in-el-segria-covid-second-wave-feared/): Spanish authorities ordered a lockdown of a county in the northeast after a concerning rise in coronavirus cases. From noon on Saturday, more than 200,000 people in El Segriá, located in Catalonia and surrounding the city of Lleida, were locked down. People who do not reside in the county may leave before 16:00 CET but afterwards exit and entry will be restricted to essential workers, Catalonia’s civil protection authorities said in a statement. “Other measures to restrict activities and mobility may be established within the Segrià region,” Spanish authorities said. There are nearly 4,000 cases in the city of Lleida, which […] - [‘Little Mermaid’ statue vandalised with 'Racist Fish' graffiti - leaving the entire world baffled](https://heartlandstribune.com/little-mermaid-statue-vandalised-with-racist-fish-graffiti-leaving-the-entire-world-baffled/): Statues and monuments around the world are getting timely facelifts as late, including the famed statue of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen most recently. The bronze creation of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous character is one of the city’s biggest tourist draws. On Friday, it was found to have been tagged with the words “racist fish” in black spray paint. No one has taken responsibility for the act. Ane Grum-Schwensen, a researcher at the HC Andersen Centre at the University of Southern Denmark, told the Danish news agency Ritzau: “I am having a hard time seeing what is particularly racist in the […] - [China warns U.K. of 'consequences' over Hong Kong citizenship plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/china-warns-u-k-of-consequences-over-hong-kong-citizenship-plan/): After the UK said they will open up a path to citizenship for 3 million Hong Kong residents because of a controversial new Chinese security law, Beijing has threatened the UK with “corresponding measures.” China warned the UK on Thursday it could retaliate with “corresponding measures” following the UK’s decision to extend a broader path to British citizenship for residents of Hong Kong. The Chinese embassy in London issued a statement stressing that “all Chinese compatriots living in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals.” “If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and […] - [Hypocrite Sajid Javid defended Boris Johnson but calls out David Starkey on racist comments](https://heartlandstribune.com/hypocrite-sajid-javid-defended-boris-johnson-but-calls-out-david-starkey-on-racist-comments/): Hypocrite Sajid Javid defended Boris Johnson but calls out Starkey on racist comments. Dr David Starkey the TV historian, 75, declared slavery cannot be considered genocide because “so many damn blacks” survived in an online interview with conservative commentator Darren Grimes. University’s and other institutes have been quick to dissociate themselves with Starkey. Fitzwilliam College, at Cambridge University, has announced it has “accepted the resignation of historian David Starkey from his honorary fellowship with immediate effect”. The college said: “Our student and academic bodies are diverse and welcoming to all. We do not tolerate racism.” The Mary Rose Trust said it was “appalled” […] - [Cancel Culture: Two minutes of hate.](https://heartlandstribune.com/cancel-culture-two-minutes-of-hate/): Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for politicians, public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming. E.g. Cancelling. The entire premise behind this ideology is to remove any dissenting voice by means of de-platforming, also known as no-platforming, #cancel/cut out/stop being friends with/stop working with people. Any and all who allegedly have been perpetuating or engaging in problematic behaviours. At first glance, it kind of makes sense. We should hold people accountable, especially […] - [Labour councillor shows integrity and quits Labour to defend anti-Semitism accusations](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-councillor-shows-integrity-and-quits-labour-to-defend-anti-semitism-accusations/): A Crawley councillor has quit the Labour Party after being accused of anti-Semitism. Karen Sudan, who represents Northgate and West Green at both West Sussex County Council and Crawley Borough Council, said she decided to leave the party so that she could defend herself against the allegations, which centre around three Tweets on her Twitter feed. It’s a rare moment when we see a politician with integrity, one willing to stand up and fight their position in this climate of cancel culture. A Labour Party councillor willing to speak out against the witchhunt and just say ‘no, you will not cow […] - [Swine flu with pandemic potential discovered in China](https://heartlandstribune.com/swine-flu-with-pandemic-potential-discovered-in-china/): New swine flu found in pigs in China with ‘human pandemic potential’ A new strain of swine flu with “pandemic potential” has been identified by scientists in China, according to a newly-released study. Researchers from the China Agricultural University, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Nottingham, in the UK, revealed that influenza virus surveillance on pigs between 2011 and 2018 has led to the discovery of a new H1N1 strain they have named G4. “G4 viruses have all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” the study, released on Monday in the PNAS journal, […] - [Everybody's got a price: Lords are currently running at £162-per day](https://heartlandstribune.com/everybodys-got-a-price-lords-are-currently-running-at-162-per-day/): The number of peers voting on legislation in the House of Lords has soared since they began to get paid to do it from home, figures reveal. The 780 members of the House of Lords usually receive an attendance allowance of £323 per day, due to the coronavirus outbreak and restrictions, peers were offered an incentive to vote, by taking part in a virtual sitting in the House of Lords the new rate for staying at home and voting is set at £162 a day. This new rate seems to have been more than enough to get the peers to participate […] - [Coronavirus: Global cases top 10 million while China lockdowns 500,000 in a province near Beijing](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-global-cases-top-10-million-while-china-lockdowns-500000-in-a-province-near-beijing/): A quarter of the global cases are in the US, as several states struggle to manage rising infection rates after reopening. Meanwhile, China has placed 500,000 people around Beijing in lockdown.  A fresh COVID-19 cluster has forced Chinese authorities to impose a strict lockdown in a province near the capital Beijing. Officials warn the coronavirus outbreak remains “severe and complicated.” Chinese health officials said on Sunday that Anxin county — about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Beijing — will be “fully enclosed and controlled,” — the same strict measures imposed at the height of the pandemic in the city of Wuhan […] - [Coronavirus: Leicester could be the first city to go into local lockdown has 'second wave' fears increase.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-leicester-could-be-the-first-city-to-go-into-local-lockdown-has-second-wave-fears-increase/): The home secretary has confirmed that Leicester could be the first city to go into a local lockdown, over reports of a spike in COVID-19 cases. There have been rumours that Leicester might be pushed back into tighter restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. These have not been confirmed by the Government, although some national journalists appear to have been briefed by ministers on the possibility if infection rates locally do not start to fall. Priti Patel, when asked on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show whether the city was going to see new restrictions imposed, said: “Well, that […] - [Man shot dead by police after stabbing in Glasgow hotel](https://heartlandstribune.com/man-shot-dead-by-police-after-stabbing-in-glasgow-hotel/): A Glasgow stabbing attack leaves 6 hospitalised including ‘critically injured’ police officer Six people are being treated in hospital for their injuries, including a police officer who was said to be “critical but stable”. There have been reports that two other people were killed outside the Park Inn in West George Street. Police Scotland said the situation was “contained” and there was no danger to the general public. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said reports of the incident were “truly dreadful” and she was being “updated as the situation becomes clearer”. She added: “My thoughts are with everyone involved.” Boris Johnson said […] - [The Labour Party has lost it: Starmer sacks Long-Bailey for sharing an article from the Independent newspaper](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-has-lost-it-starmer-sacks-long-bailey-for-sharing-an-article-from-the-independent-newspaper/): Rebecca Long-Bailey as fallen victim to the Witchhunt “If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxist, the media -having tasted Blood- would demand next that it expelled all its Socialist” -Tony Benn Sir Keir Starmer sacks Rebecca Long-Bailey for sharing an article from the Independent Newspaper titled Maxine Peake: ‘People who couldn’t vote Labour because of Corbyn? They voted Tory as far as I’m concerned’ His former leadership rival endorsed an interview with TV star Maxine Peake. Long-Bailey was the shadow education secretary but after she supported an article which claimed police responsible for George Floyd’s […] - [Brixton: 22 officers injured and police cars smashed after street party](https://heartlandstribune.com/brixton-22-officers-injured-and-police-cars-smashed-after-street-party/): Twenty-two officers have been injured and police cars smashed up during “significant disorder” following an illegal street party in Brixton overnight. This cannot be acceptable behaviour in 21st century Britain Footage on social media showed a line of police retreating from crowds of people running at them with makeshift weapons on Overton Road near the Angell Town estate in Brixton. Police said they were called by concerned residents to the illegal street party but were met by a “hostile” crowd. Police were called to Overton Road after reports of an unlicensed music event and were attacked as they attempted to disperse […] - [Coronavirus: Royal Mail to cut 2,000 jobs in Cost Reduction and Restructuring process.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-royal-mail-to-cut-2000-in-cost-reduction-and-restructuring-process/): Around 2,000 jobs are being cut at Royal Mail as the group announced a management overhaul to help slash costs. The postal service said the restructuring plans will see it save £130million in staffing costs next year as it reported a 31 per cent fall in annual profits. Royal Mail is also cutting £300million in spending over the next two years. It has 9,700 managers, with senior executive and non-operational roles to be hardest hit. In February 2020, tensions with its workforce and a declining volume of letters increased the risk of its British operations making a loss, the company said. […] - [Westferry planning scandal: Housing secretary Robert Jenrick admits his bias towards Tory donor was unlawful](https://heartlandstribune.com/westferry-planning-scandal-housing-secretary-robert-jenrick-admits-his-bias-towards-tory-donner-was-unlawful/): Housing secretary promises to release documents after accusations of ‘cash for favours’ Mr Jenrick told MPs he would publish all “relevant” information later on Wednesday. The minister approved a housing scheme 12 days before the developer gave £12,000 to the Conservative Party. Labour says the timing raises “cash for favours” suspicions – but Mr Jenrick insists he did nothing wrong. Decision was unlawful. However. Jenrick has since had to quash his own approval, conceding the decision was unlawful. Following his announcement, Clive Betts, the chair of the housing, communities and local government committee, questioned why Jenrick had waited until Labour tabled […] - [Coronavirus: Over 600,000 re-enter 'soft lockdown' after German meat plant outbreak](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-over-600000-re-enter-soft-lockdown-after-german-meat-plant-outbreak/): Two German districts are spending their first full day back in lockdown following a fresh outbreak of COVID-19 at a meat-processing plant. Two districts in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) entered their first full day back in lockdown on Wednesday after a fresh outbreak of coronavirus resulted in new restrictions. The new measures, dubbed “soft lockdown,” saw around 640,000 people in the neighboring districts of Gütersloh and Warendorf once more unable to meet in groups larger than two outside each household. Museums, cinemas, gyms, swimming pools and bars have all once more closed their doors. NRW State Premier […] - [Coronavirus: German R-Rate spikes to 60% in a day](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-german-r-rate-spikes-60-in-a-day/): The rate at which the virus spreads from an infected person to others has risen significantly above a critical level for keeping the pandemic in check. Germany’s R-rate now stands at 2.88.  Germany’s coronavirus reproduction rate has jumped to 2.88 — almost three times what it needs to be to contain the outbreak. The reproduction rate, or ‘R’ value, estimates how many people an infected person passes the virus to. Experts say a rate of less than one is needed to eliminate the disease. Figures released by the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Sunday said the average four-day reproduction […] - [Tier 3 lockdown rules: What you can and can't do from today](https://heartlandstribune.com/tier-3-lockdown-rules-what-you-can-and-cant-do-from-today/): Greater Manchester entered Tier 3 and Wales begins a circuit-breaker: Sheffield, Stoke, Slough and Coventry face tighter restrictions. Greater Manchester finally entered Tier 3 lockdown from 12.01am on Friday after a bitter battle between metro mayor Andy Burnham and the government over worker support. Residents in all 10 boroughs must now face the toughest set of restrictions set out in the government’s new three-tier localised system. It sees further limits on mixing between households, while some businesses have been forced to close. Boris Johnson announced the change earlier this week in a press conference on Tuesday. “Given the public health situation, […] - [Tory MP Ben Bradley forced to deny he said free meals only paid 'crack dens and brothels'](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-ben-bradley-forced-to-deny-he-said-free-meals-only-paid-crack-dens-and-brothels/): Mansfield MP Ben Bradley tweeted his opposition to Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign, which he voted against this week Mansfield MP Ben Bradley tweeted his opposition to Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign, which he voted against this week. Bradley has sparked fury on Twitter after apparently suggesting that vouchers given to feed school children over the summer holidays “effectively” handed cash directly to “crack dens and brothels”. Ben Bradley, who represents the constituency of Mansfield, reportedly made the comments after posting about how Labour’s free school meals motion wouldn’t have helped those most in need. The MP tweeted a […] - [Coronavirus: Councils declaring official 'Poverty Emergency' in a bid to help the people hardest hit by covid](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-councils-declaring-official-poverty-emergency-in-a-bid-to-help-the-people-hardest-hit-by-covid/): Cheshire West has become one of first councils to declare an official ‘poverty emergency’ Councillors approved an initiative, spearheaded by Winsford Dene representative Mandy Clare, the motion to declare a ‘poverty emergency’ makes the borough one of the first authority areas in the UK to do so. Cllr Clare, who is CWAC’s champion for poverty and inequality, first suggested the idea at July’s cabinet meeting. Ahead of this week’s full council, the Labour member told The Labour Heartlands: “I think given the rise in the number of people relying on food banks that constitutes an emergency situation in itself and Covid-19 […] - [After all the bluster: Brexit talks restart as Michel Barnier arrives in London](https://heartlandstribune.com/after-all-the-bluster-brexit-talks-restart-as-michel-barnier-arrives-in-london/): EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier arrived in London to resume the post-Brexit trade agreement talks, after a week-long standoff. Barnier will meet with the UK´s chief negotiator, Lord David Frost, after a constructive telephone call on Wednesday, October 21. The UK agreed to resume talks after Mr Barnier said: “compromises on both sides” were needed, in a speech on Wednesday. Barnier, who had proposed “intensified” talks in London this week, added: “we should be making the most out of the little time left”. Both sides are seeking an agreement to govern their trading relationship once the UK’s post-Brexit transition period ends […] - [12 million people in Britain will struggle to pay bills, watchdog says](https://heartlandstribune.com/12-million-people-in-britain-will-struggle-to-pay-bills-watchdog-says/): Some 12 million people in Britain are likely to struggle with bills and loan repayments as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak economic havoc, a Financial Conduct Authority survey tracking consumer financial resilience showed on Thursday. The survey, conducted in July, found 12 million people in Britain had low financial resilience and also found that one-sixth of those people had become financially vulnerable since February, after lockdowns to control the virus slashed incomes and led to thousands of job cuts. The survey, in which 7,000 people took part, showed that almost a third of adults have suffered a drop in income, […] - [Germany: BMW chief issues major Brexit warning - no deal will cost industry €11bn](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-bmw-chief-issues-major-brexit-warning-no-deal-will-cost-industry-e11bn/): BMW Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter has said Britain’s separation from the European Union could cost EU carmakers and suppliers up to 11 billion euros unless cross-border trade remains tariff-free and unbureaucratic. BMW has spent a low double-digit million euro amount this year to prepare for Brexit, Peter told journalists during a virtual roundtable discussion on Thursday. “The auto industry association ACEA has estimated that it could cost carmakers and suppliers 10 to 11 billion euros,” Peter said. “We need tariff-free trade. And even then, it needs to be seamless. We have a just-in-time manufacturing system so the administrative processing at customs […] - [Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.](https://heartlandstribune.com/give-them-bread-and-circuses-and-they-will-never-revolt/): This government has failed the people at its most fundamental point. For a man that studies the classics, Boris Johnson is failing to fulfil the fundamentals of keeping the mob happy. Rome was eight and a half centuries old when the poet, Juvenal, penned his famous tirade against his degenerate countrymen. At about 100 A.D. he wrote: “Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things, bread and circuses.” Forty years later, […] - [Labour to force Commons vote demanding a ‘fair one nation deal’ for communities facing Tier 3 restrictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-to-force-commons-vote-demanding-a-fair-one-nation-deal-for-communities-facing-tier-3-restrictions/): This will be seen as a test for Starmer, can he carry through on what Andy Burnham began? The Labour Party has said it will tomorrow force a vote in the House of Commons demanding a “fair deal” for communities which face Tier 3 restrictions. “The vote follows the Government’s failure to reach an agreement with Greater Manchester on the financial support available to people and businesses,” the party said in a statement. Labour will urge MPs to back its motion demanding the Government guarantees people faced with hardship who are subject to the Job Support Scheme extension will receive at […] - [Dominic Cummings to be ‘forced’ to pay backdated council tax](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-cummings-to-be-forced-to-pay-backdated-council-tax/): Durham County Council boss Simon Henig has asked senior officers to find a way to force Dominic Cummings to pay tens of thousands of pounds of backdated council tax. The Northern Echo exclusively reports that “two properties, including the Mr Cummings’ notorious ‘lockdown cottage’, at the family farm near Durham, were built in breach of planning regulations and are now liable for council tax”, and that senior officers have been instructed to “find a way” to force him to pay up. Durham County Councillor John Shuttleworth said: “If it was anybody else, they would be getting charged and it would be backdated, or […] - [Coronavirus: Deadline passes for Greater Manchester to impose Tier 3 lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-deadline-passes-for-greater-manchester-to-imposetier-3-lockdown/): The deadline for Greater Manchester to impose Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions has passed. The region was given the midday ultimatum after talks between local leaders and Westminster failed to reach agreement . The Government has threatened to impose restrictions even without local leaders’ consent. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said it was “provocative” of ministers to give local leaders a deadline. Andy Burnham says he will keep to the law and “accept” Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions for Greater Manchester if the government imposes them. Boris Johnson next step is to hold a press conference where he is expected to set out […] - [Coronavirus: Ireland to move to Level 5 restrictions, set to last for six weeks](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-ireland-to-move-to-level-5-restrictions-set-to-last-for-six-weeks/): The Republic of Ireland to move to highest restrictions. The Government has agreed to Level 5 restrictions across the State for six weeks from Wednesday night. It is understood intense negotiations between Ministers and health officials resulted in a decision to seek Cabinet approval for Level 5 rather than an enhanced Level 4, which was under discussion yesterday. However, it is understood schools and crèches will remain open and elite level sport will be permitted. As part of the restrictions, the public will be asked to stay within 5kms of their home. Sources described the proposal as a “soft Level 5” […] - [Covid lockdown: Wales to enter second national lockdown on Friday](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-lockdown-wales-to-enter-second-national-lockdown-on-friday/): Wales will enter a strict two-week national lockdown from 6pm on Friday, the Welsh Government has confirmed. The so-called ‘circuit-breaker’ or ‘fire break’ lockdown will include the half-term holiday and is due to end on Monday 9th November. Ministers say it is intended as a ‘short, sharp shock’ to try to halt the second wave of coronavirus ahead of the winter. These new restrictions replace the current local lockdown measures and will look similar to the first national lockdown back in March. Between Friday October 23 and November 9, businesses must close and everyone in Wales will be required to stay […] - [Thousands rally in Paris to show solidarity with teacher beheaded outside suburban school](https://heartlandstribune.com/thousands-rally-in-paris-to-show-solidarity-with-teacher-beheaded-outside-suburban-school/): Thousands of people rallied in central Paris Sunday in a defiant show of solidarity with a teacher beheaded for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Demonstrators on the Place de la Republique held aloft posters declaring: “No to totalitarianism of thought” and “I am a teacher” in memory of the decapitated victim Samuel Paty. Some chanted “I am Samuel”, echoing the “I am Charlie” cry that travelled around the world after Islamist gunmen killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in 2015 for publishing caricatures of the Islamic prophet. Between bursts of applause, others recited: “Freedom of expression, […] - [Andy Burnham: 'This is about people' Manchester lockdown standoff](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnham-this-is-about-people-manchester-lockdown-standoff/): “It’s not a case of ‘give us our money’, we’re just doing this for a big cheque for Greater Manchester,” “It’s about people and their health, lives and businesses. Do that in a negotiated way with us that doesn’t level down our communities.” Andy Burnham has accused the Government of trying to “level down” Northern communities as ministers prepared to impose tough new restrictions on the region. Burnham said it was likely that “most places” would be in tier 3 restrictions before a vaccine was found, and the current Treasury offer was insufficient to prevent businesses from collapsing and people experiencing severe hardship. He […] - [Murderer who helped stop London Bridge attacker granted royal pardon](https://heartlandstribune.com/murderer-who-helped-stop-london-bridge-attacker-granted-royal-pardon/): A convicted murderer who helped to stop an attack on London Bridge, armed with a narwhal tusk, has been granted a royal pardon and will be considered for parole 10 months early. Steven Gallant, who is serving a 17-year sentence in the UK for the murder of firefighter Barrie Jackson, has been granted the rare royal prerogative of mercy. Steven Gallant, who was praised for risking his life to stop the attack, has been granted the royal prerogative of mercy, an extremely rare case of absolution for a convicted murderer. Gallant, 42, will see the 17-year sentence he received in 2005 […] - [Tony Blair still above the law: Denies breaking COVID rules after he claims special dispensation.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blair-still-above-the-law-denies-breaking-covid-rules-after-he-claims-special-dispensation/): A report claims Tony Blair asked for special dispensation but did not get the exemption required to avoid the isolation period. Tony Blair has denied claims that he breached COVID-19 restrictions by failing to self-isolate for a fortnight after a two-day trip to the US on a private jet. According to The Sunday Telegraph, the former prime minister was pictured leaving a restaurant in London’s Mayfair 10 days after returning from Washington last month. The paper claims Tony Blair appealed to Whitehall ­officials for special dispensation from the COVID-19 rules, but was not issued with the formal exemption letter he would have needed to avoid […] - [Coronavirus: Police granted access to details of people told to self-isolate by Test and Trace](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-police-granted-access-to-details-of-people-told-to-self-isolate-by-test-and-trace/): People who have been told to self-isolate through SERCO Test and Trace could have their contact details shared with police, it has emerged. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHCS) said police forces will have access “on a case-by-case” basis to information, enabling them to know if an individual has been told to self-isolate. It comes as the DHSC updated its online guidance on Friday about how coronavirus testing data will be handled. People who fail to self-isolate “without reasonable justification” could have their name, address and contact details passed on to their local authority and then to the police, the DHSC’s […] - [Who is New Zealand's two-term prime minister Jacinda Ardern](https://heartlandstribune.com/who-is-new-zealands-two-term-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern/): The small-town takeout store worker who won over New Zealand — and the world Who is Jacinda Ardern Jacinda Ardern has won a second term as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. It wasn’t so long ago that Jacinda Ardern was behind the counter, taking orders at the nautical-themed takeaway joint. Now, the 40-year-old New Zealand Prime Minister is one of the world’s most recognizable leaders. Throughout her three-year term, she’s attracted headlines — for being an unusually young Prime Minister, for giving birth while leading a country, for her empathetic handling of the Christchurch mosque attacks, and lately, for her swift, effective […] - [London despairs at new Covid rules as northern England regions rebel](https://heartlandstribune.com/london-despairs-at-new-covid-rules-as-northern-england-regions-rebel/): Londoners have expressed confusion and doubt over coronavirus lockdown restrictions announced Thursday that will affect millions living in the city. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the capital would move from the Tier 1 “medium” alert to Tier 2 “high” alert level from Saturday, urging London residents to support government efforts to suppress the spread of the virus. Pubs and restaurants already had a 10 p.m. curfew under Tier 1, but the new rules mean Londoners will be banned from mixing with other households indoors in any setting. Outdoor gatherings will be limited to six people and people are advised to avoid […] - [Boris Johnson says UK should get ready for a 'no-deal Brexit' as trade talks stall](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-says-uk-should-get-ready-for-a-no-deal-brexit-as-trade-talks-stall/): The UK will walk away from post-Brexit trade deal talks unless ‘fundamental change’ in EU approach Boris Johnson said the UK is ready to walk away from post-Brexit trade talks with the European Union unless there is a significant change of approach from the bloc. In a video statement to leaders attending the European Council summit in Brussels, he said that the UK would be willing to embrace a no-deal exit at the end of the year unless the EU could offer Britain a Canada-style free trade agreement. “Of course, we’re willing to discuss the practicalities with our friends where a […] - [Coronavirus: More areas of England to move to 'high risk' Tier 2 lockdown restrictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-more-areas-of-england-to-move-to-high-risk-tier-2-lockdown-restrictions/): Things will get worse before they get better People in areas of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Surrey, Essex and Cumbria will be subject to new restrictions from Saturday. Millions of people in London, Essex, York and other areas face tougher Tier 2 Covid measures from Saturday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said. Speaking in the Commons, Matt Hancock said Essex, Elmbridge, Barrow-in-Furness, North East Derbyshire, Erewash, Chesterfield and York would move to “high risk” coronavirus restrictions from 12.01am on Saturday. Under this “high” alert level, there is a ban on households mixing indoors, including in pubs and restaurants. It comes as a final […] - [Labour MP Dan Carden quits as a shadow minister refusing to back Sir Keir Starmer's policy of 'appeasement over opposition'.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-dan-carden-quits-as-a-shadow-minister-refusing-to-back-sir-keir-starmers-policy-of-appeasement-over-opposition/): Starmer’s policy of appeasement over opposition is a dangerous approach in democracy. Liverpool MP Dan Carden has resigned from the Labour Party’s front bench as he prepares to vote against a controversial government bill. Dan Carden has resigned from the Labour frontbench over the leadership’s decision to whip MPs to abstain on the government’s controversial ‘spycops’ bill that will receive its third reading in the House of Commons this afternoon. The left-wing MP, who was appointed to Labour’s Treasury team as shadow financial secretary in April, has written to Keir Starmer confirming that he intends to vote against the covert human […] - [British fishing boats attacked by French in scallops dispute](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-fishing-boats-attacked-by-french-in-scallops-dispute/): SCALLOP wars have once again broken out in the English Channel as French trawlers confronted British counterparts – firing flares and throwing frying pans. Two British boats, the Girl Macey, skippered by Scott Glover, and the Golden Promise, by Brian Whittington, were involved in the deep-sea skirmish. What’s been dubbed Scallop Wars 2 see British fishermen being attacked by up to 20 French boats in the English Channel at around 1.30am on Monday. They were pelted with flares, rocks, frying pans and oil amid tensions over rules on catching scallops. Dramatic footage, filmed onboard a British vessel, captured the moment it […] - [Used coronavirus tests handed out to students in Birmingham](https://heartlandstribune.com/used-coronavirus-tests-handed-out-to-students-in-birmingham/): Used coronavirus swab tests were accidentally given out to households in Birmingham, council officials said. Birmingham City Council said about 25 kits were given out by mistake in the student area of Selly Oak as part of its “drop-and-collect” service. It said the error was quickly realised, the kits remained intact and there was no evidence of cross-contamination. Second year student Tasha Ashbridge reported on the community Facebook page that people in hi-vis jackets handed them testing kits that were ‘sealed and snapped’ already, with students in affected houses saying ‘some had people’s names and addresses on the tests bags.’  However, […] - [Northern Ireland will introduce a four-week circuit-breaker lockdown from FRIDAY with pubs restaurants and schools closed](https://heartlandstribune.com/northern-ireland-will-introduce-a-four-week-circuit-breaker-lockdown-from-friday-with-pubs-restaurants-and-schools-closed/): Health officials had warned infections would rise further if both schools and hospitality premises remained open. Northern Ireland will close its pubs for a month from Friday and shut schools for a minimum of a fortnight from next week under a circuit-breaker lockdown, First Minister Arlene Foster announced today. The moves are among new restrictions being imposed by the executive. The province will ramp up its coronavirus measures after it suffered a sharp up-spike in cases. Some 863 cases were reported in Northern Ireland yesterday – bringing the total to 21,898 – along with seven new deaths. It came as Ireland this morning […] - [Amazon will NOT be impacted by £500m digital services tax - but smaller retailers will be, HMRC admits](https://heartlandstribune.com/amazon-will-not-be-impacted-by-500m-digital-services-tax-but-smaller-retailers-will-be-hmrc-admits/): Retail giant Amazon will not by impacted by a new digital services tax – but traders who use the site will be, the HMRC has revealed. In June Rishi Sunak signed a letter alongside counterparts in France, Spain and Italy declaring that tech giants needed to ‘pay their fair share of tax’. But just seven months after the tax was announced in March, HMRC has revealed Amazon, which paid £293million in taxes on sales of £13.73 billion, will not be affected by it, The Times reported. The tax, announced in April, was designed to make major firms with profitable businesses in […] - [Sir Keir Starmer calls for a 'full English lockdown' except for schools: Ignoring the fact children have the highest R-Rate](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-calls-for-a-full-english-lockdown-except-for-schools-ignoring-the-fact-children-have-the-highest-r-rate/): Going back to full lockdown, but keeping schools open, wouldn’t reduce the R-number when the highest infected demographic are young people aged between 10-19. It beggars belief that only a few short weeks ago both Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson insisted children return to schools irrespective of the fact the supposed essential ‘track and trace’ app or that workable covid testing was not in place. Starmer crossed the media divide and wrote an article in the Daily Mail stating in no uncertain terms ‘No ifs, no buts’ children must return to school Sir Keir Starmer was adamant in his approach […] - [Unemployment rate hits highest level in three years](https://heartlandstribune.com/unemployment-rate-hits-highest-level-in-three-years/): The class divide has never been more pronounced has of when we examined the fallout that covid has brought. The UK unemployment rate rose more than expected August, hitting its highest level in three years as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, the unemployment rate increased to 4.5% from 4.1% in July, coming in above consensus expectations of 4.3%. According to the ONS, an estimated 1.5 million people were unemployed between June and August, while redundancies stood at 227,000. Redundancies increased in June to August by 113,000 on the year, and a record […] - [CORONAVIRUS: WHAT'S YOUR LOCKDOWN TIER? USE THE INTERACTIVE MAP.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-whats-your-lockdown-tier-use-the-interactive-map/): What are the restrictions in the different tiers? Tier 1 – Medium 10pm curfew for bars, pubs and restaurants Gatherings of more than six people banned, apart from some settings such as funerals and weddings Tier 2 – High: Mixing of households indoors not allowed Two households can meet in a private garden – rule of six and social distancing rules apply Areas with the lowest rates of infection will be placed in Tier One. They will face the basic national rules currently in force including: Pubs, bars and restaurants will have to close at 22:00 BST The rule of six (number […] - [Commons address: In full Boris Johnson announces three tier lockdown system in Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/commons-address-in-full-boris-johnson-announces-three-tier-lockdown-system-in-parliament/): A new three-tier lockdown system in England, designed to make local coronavirus restrictions more easy to understand in different regions, has been announced by the prime minister. Despite Covid-19 levels rising across the UK, Boris Johnson said he does “not believe a full national lockdown would be the right course”, as he explained the new tier system. Some parts of England, such as the Liverpool City Region from Wednesday, will enter the ‘very high’ alert level, which will see hospitality venues ordered to close – among other restrictions. The PM will address Parliament at 15:30 BST, setting out different rules for […] - [Coronavirus: Greater Manchester put on 'Tier 2' lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-greater-manchester-put-on-tier-2-lockdown/): Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon has said that Greater Manchester will be placed in Tier 2 of the new local lockdown system, meaning some forms of socialising will be restricted. People in Greater Manchester will be banned from meeting indoors when the area is placed under new local lockdown restrictions. The ban on socialising does not extend to the outdoors however, according to Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon. Pubs serving food will be allowed to stay open, he tweeted, suggested those that don’t will have to shut their doors. Manchester MP has tweeted after a Zoom call […] - [Brexit: Britain willing to walk away with 'no deal' if the EU doesn't bridge the gaps.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-britain-willing-to-walk-away-with-no-deal-if-the-eu-doesnt-bridge-the-gaps/): Boris Johnson has told German Chancellor Merkel that the UK would be willing to walk away if there was no Brexit deal in place. Johnson’s call to Merkel comes just days before a major EU summit on a post-Brexit deal . Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday to discuss “significant gaps” that remain in the deal between the UK and the EU. According to an official statement from Johnson’s office, “the prime minister emphasized that progress must be made in the coming days to bridge the significant gaps, in particular in the areas of fisheries […] - [Coronavirus: Merseyside to face strictest new lockdown measures](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-merseyside-to-face-strictest-new-lockdown-measures/): Leaders across Merseyside are bracing themselves for lockdown restrictions to be imposed on the region as covid-19 cases threaten to spiral out of control. Merseyside is expected to be the only part of England to face the tightest restrictions under the new “three tier” system due to be revealed on Monday. Pubs and restaurants will be closed, apart from takeaway, a cabinet source told the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg. And only one household – or “bubble” – is likely to be able to meet indoors. But Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said on Sunday evening “no […] - [Winters coming and the North are rebelling: We won't surrender to hardship](https://heartlandstribune.com/winters-coming-and-the-north-are-rebelling-we-wont-surrender-to-hardship/): We won’t surrender the North to hardship, mayor vows Andy Burnham: “This package is insufficient to protect our communities” People will not be surrendered to hardship, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has said, as the government prepares to bring in new restrictions in England to slow the spread of Covid. Labour mayor Mr Burnham said the chancellor’s pledge to pay two-thirds of workers’ wages if restrictions force UK firms to close was “insufficient”. The government is planning to bring in a three-tier local lockdown system. It could mean tougher rules in parts of northern England and the Midlands. Liverpool, where there […] - [MPs to get a £3,300 pay rise: Rewarding the Charlatan's for a job done badly](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-to-get-a-3300-pay-rise-rewarding-the-charlatans-for-a-job-done-badly/): MPs to get a £3,300 pay rise yet millions are on the bread line MPs are in line for pay rises of up to £3,300 next year, it has emerged. Announcing the launch of a consultation on how MPs’ pay should be updated, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) said any rise should be linked to growth in public sector earnings. We elect politicians to offer and deliver a vision for our country and a practical plan for our collective future. As summer fades, it’s becoming clear that our government has no vision and no plan for the future of the […] - [Labour Donors: When one times reporter doesn't know what the other Times reporter is printing.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-donors-when-one-times-reporter-doesnt-know-what-the-other-times-reporter-is-printing/): The Times reported ‘Labour woos rich donors after Unite cuts funding’ however it seems one Times reporter doesn’t know what story the other Times reporter is making up in their rush to support Starmer The story comes after Tuesday’s events when Unite’s executive council voted to cut its affiliation to Labour by 10%, or 50,000 affiliates. It is understood the move could reduce the union’s funding to the party by just under £1m. Unite will instead use the money to fund other organisations, although it stressed it would still remain Labour’s largest trade union affiliate. Union and Labour members have increasingly shown their […] - [Blairites attack working class union members and their decision to cut Labour Party funding](https://heartlandstribune.com/blairites-attack-working-class-union-members-and-their-decision-to-cut-labour-party-funding/): Unite cuts funding to Labour Party by £1m following warning to Sir Keir Starmer Unite, Labour’s biggest single donor is to cut the amount of money it gives the party after the union’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, said he feared Keir Starmer was leading it away from the left. On Tuesday Unite’s executive council voted to cut its affiliation to Labour by 10%, or 50,000 affiliates. It is understood the move could reduce the union’s funding to the party by just under £1m. Unite will instead use the money to fund other organisations, although it stressed it would still remain Labour’s largest trade union […] - [Unite cuts Labour funds: 'There’s a lot of anger at the Labour Party and nobody can say they weren't warned'](https://heartlandstribune.com/unite-cuts-labour-funds-theres-a-lot-of-anger-at-the-labour-party-and-nobody-can-say-they-werent-warned/): Unite cuts funding to Labour Party by £1m following warning to Sir Keir Starmer Unite, Labour’s biggest single donor, is to cut the amount of money it gives the party after the union’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, said he feared Keir Starmer was leading it away from the left. On Tuesday Unite’s executive council voted to cut its affiliation to Labour by 10%, or 50,000 affiliates. It is understood the move could reduce the union’s funding to the party by just under £1m. Unite will instead use the money to fund other organisations, although it stressed it would still remain Labour’s largest trade union […] - [Losing our heritage: Guardians Or Land Grabbers?](https://heartlandstribune.com/losing-our-heritage-guardians-or-land-grabbers/): Former mining communities are losing their community assets sold by the trustees of their heritage. As a child living on the council estates of a coal mining village, you were educated early on about the importance of collectivism, mutuality and the need for solidarity. As a child, I was lucky to benefit from huge playing fields, sports clubs and even an outdoor lido built by a group of people who had experienced great poverty, hardship and brutality of early mining. At the turn of the century, the ‘black diamond’ was discovered in abundance in South Yorkshire. It brought thousands of workers […] - [George Galloway: Warns pro-union candidates to either get their act together or he will do the job for them.](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-galloway-warns-pro-union-candidates-to-either-get-their-act-together-or-he-will-do-the-job-them/): George Galloway has said he could contest Margaret Ferrier’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat if a by-election is called. The former Labour and Respect MP is heading up the Alliance for Unity party, which is planning to stand in May’s Holyrood election on an anti-independence ticket. Ms Ferrier is under pressure to resign after a 800-mile round trip to Westminster while suffering from Covid 19, but has so far refused to step down. She is now facing the prospect of a recall process if the Commons authorities suspend her and 10 per cent of her constituents back a petition demanding a […] - [Trump gives a slap in the face to millions of grieving families after saying: "Don't be afraid of COVID"](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-gives-a-slap-in-the-face-to-millions-of-grieving-families-after-saying-dont-be-afraid-of-covid/): Donald Trump says he “feels really good” and will leave the Walter Reed Medical Center soon. The US president was being treated at the hospital after testing positive for coronavirus. The president tweeted: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” The virus has so far killed more than 209,000 Americans. I will be leaving the great Walter Reed […] - [Pope says 'capitalism' failed humanity during coronavirus pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/pope-says-capitalism-failed-humanity-during-coronavirus-pandemic/): Pope Francis disparaged so-called trickle-down economic theory, saying the pandemic has shown that free-market policies cannot solve all of humanity’s most dire needs. In a 70-page encyclical, the highest form of papal teaching, Pope Francis outlined his vision for a post-pandemic world. “The marketplace by itself cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith,” the pope wrote. He added that free-market capitalism “reproduces itself” by resorting to the magic theories of “spillover” or “trickle” as the only solution to societal problems. The pope said this “spillover” does not “resolve the inequality that gives […] - [David Graeber: The Centre Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the ‘Brexit Election’](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-center-blows-itself-up-care-and-spite-in-the-brexit-election/): This article first appeared in the ‘New York Review of Books‘ from guest author the Late David Graeber. The late David Graeber’s in-depth look at the Labour Party and its road to destruction. Politics, in wealthy countries, is increasingly becoming a war between the generations. While the support for smaller parties in the UK (Liberal Democrats, Greens, the Scottish National Party, even Brexit) is constant across ages, the split between Labour and Conservative is almost entirely based on age cohort: The result, according to YouGov opinion polling data from 2018, is that if only Britons over the age of sixty-five were […] - [The Assange extradition case is an unprecedented attack on press freedom – so why’s the media largely ignoring it?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-assange-extradition-case-is-an-unprecedented-attack-on-press-freedom-so-whys-the-media-largely-ignoring-it/): Assange and WikiLeaks did everything journalists should do by finding out important information about US government misdeeds and handing it over to the public The silence of journalists in Britain and the US over the extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is making them complicit in the criminalisation of newsgathering by the American government.   In an Old Bailey courtroom in London over the past four weeks, lawyers for the US government have sought the extradition of Assange to the US to face 17 charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and one charge of computer misuse. At the heart of their case is […] - [Labour frontbencher demands Corbyn be punished for breaching COVID rules.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-frontbencher-demands-corbyn-be-punished-for-breaching-covid-rules/): The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, have both apologised for separate breaches of coronavirus restrictions. Jeremy Corbyn was pictured with his wife, Laura Alvarez, at a dinner party to remember the late Occupy Wall Street founder David Graeber. But there were a total of nine people attending, a picture was taken at the dinner in memory of their friend and activist David Graeber showing the Corbyns and six others in addition to the person taking the photograph. This did breach the rule that only six people can meet indoors or outdoors. The penalty for the breach is a […] - [Northumbria University coronavirus outbreak as 770 test positive](https://heartlandstribune.com/northumbria-university-coronavirus-outbreak-as-770-test-positive/): Northumbria University says 770 students have tested positive for coronavirus. A spokesperson for the university said: “As of Friday October 2, we can confirm that we are aware of 770 Northumbria University students who have tested positive for Covid-19, of whom 78 are symptomatic. “These students are all now self-isolating. Their flatmates and any close contacts are also self-isolating for 14 days in line with government guidance and have been advised to contact NHS119 to book a test as soon as possible should symptoms appear. “We are supporting all students who are self-isolating, providing them with food and other essential items, […] - [Trump and first Lady test positive for COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-and-first-lady-test-positive-for-covid-19/): President Donald Trump said early Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, a stunning announcement that plunges the country deeper into uncertainty just a month before the presidential election. Trump, who has spent much of the year downplaying the threat of a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans, said he and Mrs. Trump were quarantining. The White House physician said the president is expected to continue carrying out his duties “without disruption” while recovering. Still, Trump’s diagnosis was sure to have a destabilising effect in Washington, raising questions about how far the […] - [THE ROAD TO FASCISM: The Government tells English schools not to use anti-capitalist material for teaching](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-road-to-fascism-the-government-tells-english-schools-not-to-use-anti-capitalist-material-for-teaching/): Executing the Fascist Playbook The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism. Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an “extreme political stance” and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity. The document says “extreme political stances include, but are not limited to… a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections”. It goes on to describe […] - [Brexit: MPs approve UK Internal Market Bill](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-mps-approve-uk-internal-market-bill/): The Internal Market Bill passed legislation on Tuesday that gives ministers the power to break its divorce deal with the European Union, despite the threat of legal action from Brussels a little unrest within the Tory Party. The UK Internal Market Bill, which ministers acknowledge breaks international law, was approved by 340 votes to 256 and now passes to the House of Lords for debate. The bill seeks to protect free trade between Britain’s four nations once a Brexit transition period ends, but has soured relations with Brussels just as time is running out to reach a deal on their long-term […] - [UK spending on coronavirus consultants tops £100m](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-spending-on-coronavirus-consultants-tops-100mcontracts/): Some of the most lucrative contracts received by firms such as PwC and Deloitte since the pandemic began Since the onset of the pandemic, the government has spent tens of millions of pounds on management consultants to help it manage elements of the Covid-19 response, from the much-criticised NHS test-and-trace programme to buying PPE. The UK’s largest consulting firms have been paid more than £100m to advise the government on its response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a string of delayed disclosures from Whitehall in recent weeks. A huge amount of public money has been spent on consultation, a number of the […] - [Claudia Webbe: Leicester East MP charged with harassment](https://heartlandstribune.com/claudia-webbe-leicester-east-mp-charged-with-harassment/): Labour MP Claudia Webbe has been charged with harassment against a woman. The 55-year-old has been charged after an investigation by the Metropolitan police and is due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on 11 November. The alleged offence took place between 1 September 2018 and 26 April this year.. It added: “Criminal proceedings against Ms Webbe are now active and she has the right to a fair trial. “It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.” Jenny Hopkins, the head of the special crime […] - [We Applaud the 19 Rebels on the Overseas Operations Bill](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-applaud-the-19-rebels-on-the-overseas-operations-bill/): Labour “patriotism” is economic security, not flag waving and foreign wars. The nineteen Labour MP’s who voted against the Whip on the Overseas Operations Bill, particularly the three newbies, are to be applauded for sending clear signals that the Tory Bill will not only set us against international norms but also threaten the security of our serving personnel. The downside is that the Tories will seek to portray them, isolated from their Labour colleagues, as anti-services and unpatriotic. The newly elected Tory MP’s in the Red Wall seats will play it for all it is worth against us and this results […] - [Army on standby to help emergency ‘door-to-door’ coronavirus testing](https://heartlandstribune.com/army-on-standby-to-help-emergency-door-to-door-coronavirus-testing/): The Army has been placed on standby to help carry out emergency door-to-door testing in Birmingham amid a surge in infections. Military personnel are set to take to the streets of Birmingham to help support door to door testing in coronavirus hotspots. Birmingham City Council and the Ministry of Defence are in talks to finalise the details and an announcement is expected next week. This comes after Coronavirus cases in the city hit 107.6 per 100,000 people as new restrictions on households mixing were rolled out in a local lockdown. figures showed a rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the […] - [Switzerland's referendum on free movement with the EU goes ahead today](https://heartlandstribune.com/switzerlands-referendum-on-free-movement-with-the-eu-goes-ahead-today/): The referendum vote would threaten free movement in the heart of Europe but is predicted to fail. The predictions are that Swiss voters will reject a proposal to limit the free movement of people and immigration from the European Union. Public broadcaster SRF projected that 63% of voters had voted against the motion, versus 37% who turned out in support. Nearly 5.3 million voters were eligible to vote on Sunday to decide whether to annul the pact with the EU in an important test of attitudes towards foreigners who make up a quarter of Switzerland’s population. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party […] - [Gogglebox have just utterly dismantled Sir Keir Starmer.](https://heartlandstribune.com/gogglebox-have-just-utterly-dismantled-sir-keir-starmer/): Sir Keir Starmer was ripped to shreds by both the show’s armchair viewers and Andrew Marr the presenter on the program they were watching in this popular fly on the wall program. Starmer responded constantly to Marr’s questions with “I support the government,” This provoked one of the shows family members to respond with the jibe “If this was a drinking game and you had to drink every time he said “I support the government” you would be drunk by now!” Another of the show’s armchair viewers stated: “He’s confusing me now, I thought he was Labour” There was universal contempt […] - [Opening Doors: COVID testing company start talks with government after hiring Boris Johnson's half-brother](https://heartlandstribune.com/opening-doors-covid-testing-company-start-talks-with-government-after-hiring-boris-johnsons-half-brother/): A coronavirus testing firm has hired Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s half-brother as it hopes he can ‘open doors’ with a touch of nepotism. Max Johnson, 35, has joined the board of private ‘wellness’ firm REVIV Global which specialises in providing vitamin injections delivered through IV drips. Sarah Lomas, is the founder and CEO of med-tech firm Reviv, whose global headquarters are now based in Manchester. Reviv is a leading global provider of intravenous (IV) therapy and vitamin injections worth £100m. I first came across Sarah Lomas a few months ago when an article from business live caught my eye titled ‘Reviv […] - [Labour clears the way: To Human Rights violations that will give the government a free pass on torture](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-clears-the-way-to-human-rights-violations-and-gives-government-free-pass-for-torture/): Sir Keir Starmer sacks Labour MP Nadia Whittome for voting against government free pass for torture Sir Keir Starmer sacked a Labour MP for voting against the government’s plans to exempt UK troops from prosecution for war crimes and torture. When a bemused Peston asked whether she “expected to be asked to resign,” the MP struggled to respond, only saying: “Well, um…” The ITV political host followed: “The whip was that you should all abstain, but you voted with Jeremy Corbyn against this bill.” Ms Whittome explained: “There was a one-line whip to abstain. I thought the bill was a matter of […] - [Charlie Hebdo: Stabbing attacks leave two wounded near magazine's former offices in Paris](https://heartlandstribune.com/charlie-hebdo-stabbing-attacks-leave-two-wounded-near-magazines-former-offices-in-paris/): Two people have been injured in a knife attack in Paris near the former office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police sources said. One suspect has been arrested in central Paris. Earlier, police said that four people had been injured. French media report that a second suspect has been arrested. The national antiterrorist prosecutor will lead the investigation, according to AFP. An investigation has been opened for “assassination tentative,” the Paris prosecutor’s office said. French media reported that the two people injured work for production company Premières Lignes, whose offices are located in the same building as the former Charlie […] - [Police officer shot dead at Croydon Custody Centre](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-officer-shot-dead-at-croydon-custody-centre/): A police officer has been shot dead at Croydon Custody Centre in south London. The officer was shot in the chest when a man, who was being detained, produced a weapon during a search. The suspect then turned the gun on himself. The officer was treated at the scene overnight but died in hospital. A 23-year-old man is in a critical condition after being treated for self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Boris Johnson said “We owe a huge debt to those who risk their own lives to keep us safe.” In a post on social media, he also said: “My deepest condolences go to […] - [Why Govt chief scientific adviser's Conflict of interest in COVID vaccine is more than just cause for concern.](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-govt-chief-scientific-advisers-conflict-of-interest-in-covid-vaccine-is-more-than-just-cause-for-concern/): UK’s chief scientific adviser has £600k shareholding in firm contracted to develop vaccines “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”― Laurence J. Peter. Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance reportedly holds a bonus of tens of thousands of shares in a pharma giant contracted to make the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine for the government. This more than just a conflict of interest row, its a matter of trust. We all understand disaster capitalist will profit from a disaster just like Aesop’s scorpion that’s the nature […] - [Mick Wallace independent MEP holds the EU to account and calls for the release of all political prisoners including Julian Assange](https://heartlandstribune.com/mick-wallace-independent-mep-holds-the-eu-to-account-and-calls-for-the-release-of-all-political-prisoners-including-julian-assange/): Mick Wallace independent MEP for Ireland South holds the EU to account. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya asked for all political prisoners to be released in #Belarus Mick Wallace, agreed 100% about realising political prisoners but then went on to asked her to join him in also calling for the release of political prisoners in #Catalunya and the release of Julian #Assange in London. Sadly Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wasn’t interested in other prisoners… Article 2 (7) states that the United Nations has no authority to intervene in matters which are within the domestic jurisdiction of any State unless authorised by the UN.LINK #FreeAssange On the […] - [A fitting tribute: Let's get Dennis Skinner in the charts with Tony Skinner's Lad](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-fitting-tribute-lets-get-dennis-skinner-in-the-charts-with-tony-skinners-lad/): Tony Skinner’s Lad is a tribute song to the Beast of Bolsover Dennis Skinner, we all think a fitting tribute to one of Britain’s favourite Politicians would be to get the song into the charts. Crispin Flintoff from Stand up for Labour asked if we could help promote Robb Johnson single ‘Tony Skinner’s Lad’, a tribute to the legend that is Dennis Skinner. Having lived in Bolsover for a few years Dennis’s old constituency, before moving a few miles down the road to Chesterfield. I thought it the least I could do to help. Lets all see if we can get […] - [The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-spiders-web-britains-second-empire/): An investigation into the world of Britain’s secrecy jurisdictions and the City of London. The sun never sets on the British Empire, they say. But what if the empire has simply changed its form? What if, instead of ruling the world through military might, Britain now rules through the power of finance? This is the question that is explored in the documentary film The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire. The film tells the story of how, in the wake of the decline of the British Empire, the City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured […] - [Jeffrey Epstein: If You Flew The ‘Lolita Express,’ The Authorities Want a Word](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeffrey-epstein-if-you-flew-the-lolita-express-the-authorities-want-a-word/): Names of ‘EVERY’ passenger to have flown on Jeffrey Epstein’s aircraft ‘to be revealed “sparking panic among the pedophile’s wealthy friends” A year after Jeffrey Epstein’s death, reports about the convicted pedophile’s private jet continue to emerge. Four weeks ago Heidi Klum denied that she’d ever been on what’s been called the “Lolita Express” after documents from a Ghislaine Maxwell civil suit were unsealed as part of her case. The newly public materials showed that Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre named Klum as one of the many celebrities she saw aboard the plane. Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs on his aircraft, including his ‘Lolita Express’ jet, have been subpoenaed, sparking fear […] - [FinCEN Files: Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding](https://heartlandstribune.com/fincen-files-tory-donor-linked-to-8m-putin/): The husband of one of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors was secretly funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Putin. Lubov Chernukhin has given £1.7m to the Tories, including paying to spend time with the last three prime ministers. Leaked files show her husband received $8m (£6.1m). The money initially came from a politician facing US sanctions due to his closeness to the Kremlin. Her lawyers say the donations are not tainted by Kremlin influence. A leak of banks’ “suspicious activity reports” – called the FinCEN Files shows Vladimir Chernukhin was sent the money in 2016 from a […] - [FinCEN Files: The world of global finance stinks it's like walking through a sewer](https://heartlandstribune.com/fincen-files-the-world-of-global-finance-stinks-its-like-walking-through-a-sewer/): COLLABORATION About the FinCEN Files investigation An ICIJ investigation reveals the role of global banks in industrial-scale money laundering — and the bloodshed and suffering that flow in its wake. By Fergus Shiel and Dean Starkman All you need to know about the documents leak A huge trove of secret government documents reveals for the first time how the giants of Western banking move trillions of dollars in suspicious transactions, enriching themselves and their shareholders while facilitating the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins. And the US government, despite its vast powers, fails to stop it. Today, the FinCEN Files — thousands of “suspicious activity […] - [Too 'UNFASHIONABLE' to help? Poor white children fall behind in UK schools and may suffer biggest Covid-19 hit, experts warn MPs](https://heartlandstribune.com/too-unfashionable-to-help-poor-white-children-fall-behind-in-uk-schools-and-may-suffer-biggest-covid-19-hit-experts-warn-mps/): A left-behind generation of white kids will not bode well for an inclusive Society There have always been concerns about children from poor and marginalised communities underperforming at school. While conventional wisdom held that ethnic minorities were at a disadvantage, it is now white, working-class kids who are falling behind. Study finds poorer white children’s attainment has stayed stubbornly low despite improvements among other groups White children from poor or working-class backgrounds are falling behind their peers from other ethnic groups in educational achievement, and they face the worst prospects for economic advancement, experts told UK lawmakers.Efforts to raise educational standards […] - [Trafalgar Square: Anti-lockdown protesters corner police officers chanting 'Choose your side'](https://heartlandstribune.com/trafalgar-square-anti-lockdown-protesters-corner-police-officers-chanting-choose-your-side/): Trafalgar Square protest: Thousands of anti-vaxxers and coronavirus sceptics gather in central London. Thousands of people have descended on central London to protest against mass coronavirus vaccinations. The event, organised by opponents of lockdown measures, saw coronavirus sceptics and so-called “anti-vaxxers” holding banners and chanting “freedom” in Trafalgar Square. Some branded the Covid-19 pandemic a “scam”, while others read: “Save our rights. No mandated vaccines.” Addressing the crowd to huge cheers, organiser Kate Shemirani said: “We are the resistance.” The protest was advertised with an image showing a vaccine bottle and urging people to “Come together, resist and act”. Scuffles broke […] - [Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein stripped of his honorary CBE](https://heartlandstribune.com/disgraced-film-producer-harvey-weinstein-stripped-of-his-honorary-cbe/): The only question is why it took so long. Queen Elizabeth has annulled the honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) accolade given to 68-year-old Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The disgraced film producer is currently serving a 23-year jail sentence after he was found guilty of raping Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress, in 2013 and of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006. The announcement was made in the UK’s official public record, The Gazette. “THE QUEEN has directed that the appointment of Harvey WEINSTEIN to be an Honorary Commander of the Civil Division […] - [Tom Watson takes job as adviser to Paddy Power and Betfair](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-takes-job-as-adviser-to-paddy-power-and-betfair/): For £100,000 odds on it will work in their favour. Tom Watson, the former Labour MP who was one of parliament’s most virulent campaigners for gambling reform has taken a principled stance and accepted a job working for the company he described as “dirty” and “money-grabbing.”  Former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, has accepted an advisory role with the owner of Paddy Power this week, Mr Watson, who left Parliament last year, was a campaigner for stricter rules on gambling while he was an MP. He is joining Flutter, which owns brands like Paddy Power and Betfair, Watson previously described the company’s […] - [Covid: New restrictions in North West, Midlands and West Yorkshire](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-new-restrictions-in-north-west-midlands-and-west-yorkshire/): Boris Johnson hasn’t ruled out another national shutdown – although with the increasing number of lightning lockdowns across many regions, much of the country is already living with enforced changes. While all of England is now having to adhere to the “rule of six” – which limits gatherings to half a dozen people – some entire regions are living with or soon face harsher rules. Tighter restrictions will come into force in Lancashire, Merseyside, parts of the Midlands and West Yorkshire after significant increases in Covid-19 cases, the government has said. The new rules ban separate households from meeting each other at […] - [Brexit: Boris Johnson makes fresh concession to Tory rebels](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-boris-johnson-makes-fresh-concession-to-tory-rebels/): Government plans to amend the internal market bill that overrides sections of the Brexit divorce deal Parliament will be asked to override withdrawal agreement only if Northern Ireland protocol is undermined, says No 10 Downing Street has clarified that it would ask parliament to support using powers to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement only if the EU undermines the “fundamental purpose” of the Northern Ireland protocol. Boris Johnson brokered a deal with Conservative rebels on Wednesday to see off a potential party revolt, agreeing to grant MPs a vote before invoking powers in the UK internal market bill that would break international law […] - [Cash for questions: Tory MP ordered to apologise after breaching paid advocacy rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/cash-for-questions-tory-mp-ordered-to-apologise-after-breaching-paid-advocacy-rules/): A Conservative MP has been ordered to apologise to the Commons after he breached parliamentary rules on paid advocacy. David Morris last year asked a question and sent a follow-up email to the Business Secretary relating to a firm which had given him a £10,000 donation the previous month. David Morris, a backbench MP since 2010, was given the money by Aquind Ltd in September and a month later he asked the government to lobby Ofgem to make regulations which would benefit the company, in an apparent breach of lobbying rules. Aquind is seeking to build a £1.1 billion electricity cable […] - [Predator: Former Conservative MP stated "I'm a naughty Tory" moments after sexual assault.](https://heartlandstribune.com/predator-former-conservative-mp-stated-im-a-naughty-tory-moments-after-sexual-assault/): A judge says the former Conservative MP is a “sexual predator” who used his “success and respectability as a cover”. Former Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke has been sentenced to two years in prison for three sexual assaults on two younger women. Elphicke was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a trial at Southwark Crown Court back in July this year. The 49-year-old was on trial accused of groping one woman in his home in 2007 while Natalie Elphicke, his wife and successor as Dover MP, was away on work business for the first time since giving birth to […] - [Government wins second reading vote on 'internal market bill' with an overwhelming majority](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-wins-second-reading-vote-on-internal-market-bill-with-an-overwhelming-majority/): Boris Johnson’s controversial bid to override parts of the Brexit deal has cleared a major hurdle in parliament. Government wins second reading vote on internal market bill with a majority of 77MPs have voted to approve the internal market bill at its second reading, with a government majority of 77, despite concerns it could breach international law. Ayes :340 Noes: 263 The Tory’s had been expected to win the key vote on his Internal Market Bill, given the Conservatives’ large majority in the House of Commons. The bill will now move to committee stage to be debated and amended further. Johnson […] - [Coronavirus: Sir Keir Starmer self-isolating after household member showed COVID-19 symptoms](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-sir-keir-starmer-self-isolating-after-household-member-showed-covid-19-symptoms/): The Labour leader will be forced to miss a House of Commons debate on the government’s proposal to override the Brexit deal. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is self-isolating after a member of his household “showed possible symptoms of the coronavirus”, the party has said. The person displaying symptoms has had a test and Sir Keir is now awaiting the results “in line with NHS guidelines”, they added. The Labour leader will not be speaking in Monday’s Commons debate on the government’s post-Brexit plans. However, he is not reported to have shown any coronavirus symptoms. Sir Keir Starmer – who is due […] - [Oh, the irony Labour's Brexit U-turn Sir Keir Starmer ‘get Brexit done’](https://heartlandstribune.com/oh-the-irony-labours-brexit-u-turn-sir-keir-starmer-get-brexit-done/): Sir Keir Starmer has committed Labour to back Boris Johnson’s new Brexit legislation if the prime minister addresses “substantial cross-party concerns”. Sir Keir Starmer contended a free trade deal can still be struck with Brussels if negotiators from both sides “hunker down in good faith and break the logjam”. However, the Labour leader offered to give his backing to the legislation if the issues were resolved stating contended a free trade deal can still be struck with Brussels insisting that “both sides hunker down in good faith and break the logjam” to ensure a Brexit deal is reached. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, […] - [Environment Experiment: Drivers could get £100 fine as motorway speed limit cut to 60mph](https://heartlandstribune.com/environment-experiment-drivers-could-get-100-fine-as-motorway-speed-limit-cut-to-60mph/): Some sections of motorways will be given reduced speed limits in a bid to cut pollution levels The speed limit will be cut on parts of four motorways before October in a trial to reduce pollution, Highways England has said. Motorway speed limits are to be cut to 60mph on parts of the network in a trial scheme to cut pollution. Drivers could be slapped with a £100 fine for breaking the new speed limits plus three penalty points on their licence. The new limits will be tried out on five mile stretches of the M6 near Birmingham and the M1 at Rotherham, […] - [The controversial 'test and trace' QR code system will be launched within two weeks following months of delays](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-controversial-test-and-trace-qr-code-system-will-be-launched-within-two-weeks-following-months-of-delays/): The launch follows months of delays and a redesign after the previous contact-tracing app project ended in failure. The government has announced that its new contact-tracing app will finally be rolled out in England and Wales on 24 September. The project has been hit with delays after No 10 was forced to drop its own custom-made version of the app before later partnering with Google and Apple for the new design. The Tory Government was forced to ditch its custom-made app to track the spread of the virus in June as it did not work on the majority of iPhones. A […] - [Sir Keir Starmer doesn't need to follow social distancing rules, not when there's a photo opp to be had.](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-doesnt-need-to-follow-social-distancing-rules-not-when-theres-a-photo-opp-to-be-had/): It’s do as we say, not as we do! Breaking the rules, we know Sir Keir Starmer is only small at 5.8ft but you can clearly see that he is stood well within two metres of both the people he is talking to and Toby Perkins Chesterfields MP. Neither of the politicians giving a good example of social distancing behaviour. Not to mention the Two Labour Staffers lurking in the background leaning on Marks and spencers window. This is not a game, people are trying to abide by social distancing rules while many are questioning if the entire COVID pandemic is […] - [EU leaders have been handed an ultimatum by the UK: accept the treaty breach or prepare for a messy divorce.](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-leaders-have-been-handed-an-ultimatum-by-the-uk-accept-the-treaty-breach-or-prepare-for-a-messy-divorce/): This goes beyond Party politics, it’s about the ‘National interest’ and that interest is full sovereignty. EU leaders have been handed an ultimatum: accept the treaty breach or prepare for a messy divorce. The UK signed the withdrawal treaty and formally left the EU in January, and will be leaving the single market when the status quo agreement expires at the end of this year. However, the clock is ticking towards October 15, A deadline set by Boris Johnson who has talked tough ahead of a crucial round of post-Brexit trade talks with the European Union, saying Britain could walk away from the […] - [Julian Assange extradition hearing halted amid fears one of the lawyers has coronavirus](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-extradition-hearing-halted-amid-fears-one-of-the-lawyers-has-coronavirus/): The extradition hearing for the Wikileaks founder in London is being postponed until Monday after one of the lawyers for the United States may have been exposed to Covid-19 District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said this morning she would stop the proceedings at the Old Bailey until Monday when the lawyer’s test results are expected to be known. “One of the barristers in the case might have had exposure to the virus”, she said. “That is the reason the prosecution team don’t attend and some of the defence team, out of caution, and are attending remotely. Assange is fighting extradition to the United States […] - [Coronavirus: Social gatherings of more than six people to be banned in England from Monday](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-social-gatherings-of-more-than-six-people-to-be-banned-in-england-from-monday/): The legal limit will be reduced from 30 in the biggest coronavirus crackdown since lockdown rules were eased. Social gatherings of more than six people will be illegal in England from Monday – with some exemptions – amid a steep rise in coronavirus cases. A new legal limit will ban larger groups meeting anywhere socially indoors or outdoors, No 10 said. But it will not apply to schools, workplaces or Covid-secure weddings, funerals and organised team sports. It will be enforced through a £100 fine if people fail to comply with police, doubling up to a maximum of £3,200. Several exemptions […] - [The forlorn hope of the 'REJOINERS' and 'REMAINERS' died on Sir Keir Starmer's lips](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-forlorn-hope-of-the-rejoiners-and-remainers-died-on-sir-keir-starmers-lips/): Starmer’s final betrayal came for the Remainers that cheered him into the leadership position and they deserved it! Sir Keir Starmer on Brexit: “I don’t think there’s any need to extend the trade talks, there’s no talks of extending them. We’ve left the EU, there’s no question of a second referendum… the Leave/Remain argument is over.” The entire People’s Vote bullshit was triangulation against Corbyn and the Left. Those formerly-breathless Remainiacs won’t bat an eyelid at this. It was always on the books Starmer used the Remainers as a vehicle to manoeuvred his political position and oust Corbyn, just like we […] - [They sent our children into virus-infected schools without even the track and trace app fully working](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-sent-our-children-into-virus-infected-schools-without-even-the-track-and-trace-app-fully-working/): The return of students to schools across the nation has seen fresh outbreaks of coronavirus in several different areas. Both, Boris Johnson and the Leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer insisted our children return to school. What they should have been doing was to recruit with the same national drive we witnessed for the NHS more teachers and teacher assistants, the extra staff needed to support reduced class sizes and the maintenance of social distancing, stagged start times for classes along with ensuring every child had access to a computer device as promised in case of local lockdowns. But most […] - [Turkey: War with Greece 'just a matter of time'](https://heartlandstribune.com/turkey-war-with-greece-just-a-matter-of-time/): Turkey’s hunt for gas and oil reserves in waters claimed by Greece has put a huge strain on the relationship between the two NATO members.  An editorial in the Guardian puts into context Turkey’s position, showing a lurch towards authoritarianism under the executive presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while the country’s military, economic and cultural power has expanded. Not since the Ottoman empire has the Turkish military had such a sprawling global footprint, with troops and drones recently saving a UN-recognised government in Tripoli from defeat. Despite a Covid recession, Turkish companies retain a global edge – taking advantage of cheap labour, made even cheaper […] - [Julian Assange: UK court weighs extradition of WikiLeaks founder to US](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-uk-court-weighs-extradition-of-wikileaks-founder-to-us/): You are either standing with Julian Assange, a free press and projection of journalist who expose state crimes, or you accepting the tyranny that follows. Julian Assange could face 175 years in prison for releasing classified documents and publicizing how US military forces killed civilians. The WikiLeaks founder’s extradition hearing resumed in London today. Assange has won numerous journalistic awards, but he has also made powerful enemies. That much became clear by July 2017, when Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a “nonstate hostile intelligence service.” That statement was made during Pompeo’s first public appearance as CIA director, a little more than a year before […] - [Birmingham stabbings: CCTV of suspect released after attacks leave one dead and seven injured](https://heartlandstribune.com/birmingham-stabbings-cctv-of-suspect-released-after-attacks-leave-one-dead-and-seven-injured/): Police investigating a series of stabbings in Birmingham – one of them fatal – have released CCTV images of a suspect. Detectives urge people not to approach the man and admit they have “no indication of a motive”. The pictures show a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark hoodie with white drawstrings, dark trousers and shoes. Chief Superintendent Steve Graham, from West Midlands Police, said officers had “worked throughout the day to trawl footage”. Witnesses have been interviewed to “ensure we release the best possible video and image of the man we want to speak to”, he added. The […] - [While Boris Johnson champions the need for a Free press the UK ranks below Jamaica, Latvia and Ghana for press freedom, global study finds](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-boris-johnson-champions-the-need-for-a-free-press-the-uk-ranks-below-jamaica-latvia-and-ghana-for-press-freedom-global-study-finds/): The UK remains one of the worst counties in western Europe for freedom of the press, according to the latest report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The UK is one of the worst countries in western Europe for press freedom because of new media-muzzling laws and a climate of hostility towards journalists, a new report has found. The country ranked 35 out of 180 in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index, a report compiled by influential non-profit organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF). It dropped to that position last year. The position marks a “staggering” decline for the UK of 18 places since the […] - [Extinction Rebellion blocks Murdock printing presses: No 'Sun' today, Liverpool didn't notice](https://heartlandstribune.com/extinction-rebellion-blocks-murdock-printing-presses-no-sun-today-liverpool-didnt-notice/): Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists have delayed the distribution of several national newspapers after blocking access to three printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch. More than 100 protesters targeted Newsprinters presses at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, Knowsley in Merseyside, and near Motherwell, North Lanarkshire. The movement is highlighting mainstream Newspapers fail to report on what arguably is the most important issue of the modern world, climate change. Sixty-three people have been arrested across the two locations, police said, and delivery lorries did not leave the Broxbourne site as of 6am on Saturday. The Newsprinters presses print the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp’s titles including […] - [Coronavirus Back To School: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle not knowing what to do.](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-back-to-school-clowns-to-the-left-of-me-jokers-to-the-right-here-i-am-stuck-in-the-middle-not-knowing-what-to-do/): Both Tory and Labour Party leaders are demanding our children return to school but how this virus affects our ‘children’s’ is still a mystery. The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown is an unprecedented situation in modern times. Nobody can argue It is hard to gauge the full impact that the situation is having on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.  While both Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer insisting children return to school with an’ ifs no but’ dictate from Starmer it is still uncertain how this virus could affect our children’s health both long and short term. Children are not immune to the virus, […] - [Portuguese children sue European countries over climate change](https://heartlandstribune.com/portuguese-children-sue-european-countries-over-climate-change/): Portuguese children sue 33 countries over climate change including the UK In the latest example of a wave of climate litigation across the world, six young people this week filed a case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, asking for accountability around the climate crisis. In what is being described as an unprecedented climate case, four children and two young adults from Portugal have filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against 33 industrialized countries.  The young people, supported by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), allege the countries — which include Germany, the UK, […] - [Ofqual Chairman Says It Was A "Fundamental Mistake" To Believe Algorithm Grades "Would Ever Be Acceptable"](https://heartlandstribune.com/ofqual-chairman-says-it-was-a-fundamental-mistake-to-believe-algorithm-grades-would-ever-be-acceptable/): Roger Taylor defends Ofqual’s role in the exams fiasco during an appearance in front of MPs. Speaking to members of the Education Select Committee on Wednesday, the head of the exams watchdog delivered a damning assessment of the Education Secretary’s role in this summer’s A-Levels fiasco.  Ofqual suggested to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson that they be held in a “socially distanced manner” due to COVID-19, Mr Taylor added, or if not to delay them. They also recommended that exams were delayed, with exams being cancelled altogether a third option. But he said that the Education Secretary took the decision to cancel exams […] - [Charlie Hebdo to reprint Prophet Mohammed cartoons as terror trial begins](https://heartlandstribune.com/charlie-hebdo-to-reprint-prophet-mohammed-cartoons-as-terror-trial-begins/): It’s been over five years since the attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket Hypercacher in Paris. The long-awaited trial might bring relatives and friends some sense of normality. 17 people died during the attacks in January 2015. First, Cherif and Said Kouachi fired their Kalashnikov rifles at Charlie Hebdo’s newsroom, then spent several days on the run. Their accomplice took 19 hostages at the Jewish supermarket Hypercacher. The police eventually killed all three assailants. Now, 14 people who allegedly provided logistical support such as cars and weapons to the attackers are in the dock. The accused […] - [Jeremy Corbyn responds to being voted the ‘Best PM we never had’ in the NewsCorp-owned Times Radio’s poll.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-responds-to-being-voted-the-best-pm-we-never-had-in-the-newscorp-owned-times-radios-poll/): A Twitter poll by Times Radio saw the MP for Islington North getting voted the ‘Best Priminister we never had’. Some 12,300 votes were cast in presenter Matt Chorley’s “World Cup of Best PMs We Never Had”. a poll Corbyn was never supposed to win. In an interview relating to the twitter poll win by the right-wing NewsCorp-owned Times Radio’s poll. True to his nature, Jeremy Corbyn used the moment to convey a message of hope to the people during this pandemic a time of insecurity and fear. Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015, a result which marked a fundamental […] - [Jeremy Corbyn tops poll for best prime minister Britain never had](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-tops-poll-for-best-prime-minister-britain-never-had/): Labour’s problem was never the Leader it was the unelectable second referendum policy and a PLP that stabbed him in the back. Jeremy Corbyn is the Labour leader who took the party to its worst general election defeat since 1935, still, eight-month later Corbyn is voted the best Prime minister we never had. A Twitter poll by Times Radio saw the MP for Islington North defeat former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy in the final round, with 57.7% of the vote. Some 12,300 votes were cast in presenter Matt Chorley’s “World Cup of Best PMs We Never Had”. a poll Corbyn […] - [Senior French military officer suspected of spying for Russia](https://heartlandstribune.com/senior-french-military-officer-suspected-of-spying-for-russia/): The French government is investigating a senior military officer over a “security breach”, the defence minister said on Sunday. According to French media reports, the top officer is suspected of spying for Russia. “What I can confirm is that a senior officer is facing legal proceedings for a security breach,” Defence Minister Florence Parly told French media, giving no further details. Florence Parly gave no further details but sources told French media the officer was stationed with Nato and based in Italy. The lieutenant-colonel was suspected of passing sensitive information to Russian intelligence, Europe 1 reports. Europe 1 radio reported that a French […] - [Healthcare unions call for ‘pay justice’ after years of austerity](https://heartlandstribune.com/healthcare-unions-call-for-pay-justice-after-years-of-austerity/): Give all NHS staff a wage rise immediately of at least £2k, says UNISON Unions representing health workers, including nurses, cleaners, porters, paramedics and ambulance staff, are submitting claims for pay rises for hundreds of thousands of staff following years of austerity. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unison and the GMB Union have said now is the time to reward NHS workers as they battled against the coronavirus crisis this year. The RCN’s Fair Pay for Nursing campaign is demanding a 12.5 per cent pay rise for nursing staff across the UK. The GMB said its claim was for a […] - [Coronavirus: Reinfection around the world spark fears of NEW virus strain](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-reinfection-around-the-world-spark-fears-of-new-virus-strain/): Worrying reinfection cases spark fears of NEW virus strain CORONAVIRUS reinfections are sparking concerns that a new strain of the deadly pathogen could be circulating. The alarm was raised when a Belgian woman who had previously been diagnosed with COVID-19 was confirmed as reinfected. The reinfection came three months after the woman first contracted the disease. In Hong Kong scientists reported they have found a man who was reinfected by the coronavirus that causes covid-19, supported by concrete genetic evidence. This would be the first documented case of someone being infected twice, but it’s still unclear if this patient is an […] - [Another Knight of the Realm takes the reins of a political party: Sir Ed Davey wins Liberal Democrat leadership race](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-knight-of-the-realm-takes-the-reins-of-a-political-party-sir-ed-davey-wins-liberal-democrat-leadership-race/): Sir Ed Davey has won the race to become the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. Sir Edward Davey along with Sir Keir Starmer both hold the title of ‘Knight of the Realm’ In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom on 8 February 2012, giving him the Honorific Title “The Right Honourable” for life. Davey was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours for ‘political and public service’. The acting leader will now take over on a permanent basis […] - [New Year party!: New Zealand says farewells to 2020, welcomes 2021: Brought to you by a Responsible Government.](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-year-party-new-zealand-says-farewells-to-2020-welcomes-2021-brought-to-you-by-a-responsible-government/): While the World begins sending off the year of the pandemic in the traditional way, socially mixing, first footing and street parties the British are stopping in. Unfortunately for the UK, due to what can be explained in no other way than bad government and bad policies, there is no ‘out, out’ not even an out! The British people are stopping in tonight. Most of the UK is now in Tier 4, all hopes of some normality on this celebrated day have disappeared the nearest we can get to any normality is to watch Jools Holland’s’ Annual Hootenanny live. Everything else […] - [Coronavirus: Twenty million in England added to tier 4 restrictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-twenty-million-in-england-added-to-tier-4-restrictions/): On the day Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in the UK, with the first doses due to be given on Monday. We witness over tweety million people fall under the stringent tier 4 lockdown rules. The Midlands, North East, parts of the North West and parts of the South West are among those escalated to tier four. And secondary schools across most of England are to remain closed for an extra two weeks for most pupils. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told the Commons that exam-year pupils would return a week earlier than their schoolmates in the week of 11 […] - [Backing Brexit: Mr Remain: Sir Keir Starmer can't even stand on principle](https://heartlandstribune.com/backing-brexit-mr-remain-sir-keir-starmer-cant-even-stand-on-principle/): “I think it’s noticeable, having been Mr Remain all the way up until he got the leadership of the party”. -Diane Abbot Sir Keir Starmer is facing a rebellion over his decision to back Boris Johnson’s EU trade deal on today. The Labour leader will order his MPs to vote for the deal in the Commons, ensuring it should pass into law in time for the UK’s exit from EU rules. Many Remainers must feel very confused right now, Mr Remain backing Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The one thing to understand about Sir Keir Starmer is he is not in politics […] - [UN rapporteur on Assange: 'The US is trying to criminalise investigative journalism'](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-rapporteur-on-assange-the-us-is-trying-to-criminalise-investigative-journalism/): A London court will decide on January 4 on the US extradition request for Julian Assange. For Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture, it’s a political process and a travesty of justice. Professor Nils Melzer is the Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He is also Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow. He has followed this case and commented exclusively on its proceedings. Australian-born Assange has been charged under the US’s 1917 Espionage Act for “unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defence”. The case marks […] - [EU Ambassadors from the 27 remaining member states have unanimously approved the provisional post-Brexit free trade deal with the United Kingdom](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-ambassadors-from-the-27-remaining-member-states-have-unanimously-approved-the-provisional-post-brexit-free-trade-deal-with-the-united-kingdom/): EU starts Brexit deal signoff Ambassadors from the 27 remaining member states have unanimously approved the provisional post-Brexit free trade deal with the United Kingdom, bringing to an end months of drawn-out negotiations. After nearly 10 months of lengthy negotiations, EU ambassadors on Monday formally began the process of approving a post-Brexit free trade deal with the UK. The envoys gave unanimous approval to the agreement at a meeting in Brussels. It means the deal can provisionally go into effect after the UK leaves the single market on January 1 and avoid disruption to cross-Channel trade.  ‼️Green light for #BrexitDeal: EU Ambassadors have unanimously […] - [Brexit: The biggest fear for all politicians is knowing that now the buck stops with them.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-the-biggest-fear-for-all-politicians-is-knowing-that-now-the-buck-stops-with-them/): Over the last five years, much has been said from both the Left and Right on the matters of democracy, sovereignty and accountability. There is a general sense that the negotiations between Britain and the EU are a shambles and that British politics, in general, is broken. This is clearly true in some ways, but we should not misunderstand what is happening, and fail to see that in part it is the welcome reawakening of long-dead political struggles. Nye Bevan put it very clearly in 1957 when he stated: “In the absence of a wider sovereignty, all the conception of a […] - [Wishing our readers a Merry Christmas at the end of a difficult year](https://heartlandstribune.com/wishing-our-readers-a-merry-christmas-at-the-end-of-a-difficult-year/): So much of 2020 has been upended and thrown out of the normal calendar of events, that it seems hard to credit the fact that it is Christmas. It is like no other such festive season in living memory, except for those people, now into their 80s or beyond, who can remember the war and the blackouts. We would just like to take this moment to wish all our members, subscribers and readers a Merry Christmas, our thoughts go out to everyone who as lost someone and to all those that have found this year more difficult than most. Merry Christmas […] - [UK, EU agree a Brexit trade deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-eu-agree-a-brexit-trade-deal/): The UK and EU have finally agreed to a Brexit trade deal after months of tough negotiations, the UK government and the EU officials said. The U.K. and the EU announced Thursday they have agreed a trade deal that will avoid tariffs when Britain exits the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. “We have finally found an agreement. It was a long and winding road but we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair and it is a balanced deal,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference in Brussels. […] - [Brexit: It's a done deal.](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-its-a-done-deal/): EU and UK Brexit negotiators have tentatively agreed to a free trade deal after nine months of negotiations. The negotiating teams were still working late on Wednesday to finalize the wording of the agreement, which will formally complete Britain’s separation from the bloc almost five years after the 2016 referendum. The document still needs to be approved by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU governments, but officials on both sides hope to make an announcement by Thursday at the latest. UK Brexit envoy Lord Frost is still haggling over the deal with his EU counterparts in Brussels. The final wrangling over the post-Brexit […] - [Ex-Labour deputy leader Tom Watson rejected for peerage for second time](https://heartlandstribune.com/ex-labour-deputy-leader-tom-watson-rejected-for-peerage-for-second-time/): He was overlooked by Labour boss Sir Keir Starmer from his latest list of House of Lords appointments. Tom Watson was first nominated earlier this year by ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Watson is believed to have been rejected over his support for allegations of a paedophile ring at Westminster made by the fantasist Carl Beech, who was later jailed. Harvey Proctor, a former Conservative MP smeared by the allegations, has led a campaign to deny Mr Watson a peerage. The ongoing Parliamentary investigation into Tom Watson’s involvement in the false VIP Westminster paedophile ring is understood to be the reason again behind […] - [Michel Barnier says EU-UK trade talks could continue in January](https://heartlandstribune.com/michel-barnier-says-eu-uk-trade-talks-could-continue-in-january/): Talks on a trade agreement between Britain and the European Union could continue in the New Year if no agreement is reached, EU sources have cited Michel Barnier as saying. A European source confirmed to Euronews reports from the AFP that the EU’s chief negotiator said he would not close the door on the United Kingdom and that he remains ready to negotiate even beyond January 1. Eleventh-hour negotiations on future relations between the U.K. and EU remain stuck over fisheries, two EU diplomats said Tuesday, adding that Brussels is willing to keep negotiating into the new year to break the […] - [France to reopen border with England for COVID-clear travellers](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-to-reopen-border-with-england-for-covid-clear-travellers/): France will reopen its borders to passengers from England on Wednesday, ending a blockade intended to stop the spread of a new so-called mutant coronavirus variant. An agreement has been reached with the French government over the UK border, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said, after it was closed amid concern over the new coronavirus variant. He promised more details on hauliers later, but urged them not to go to Kent where about 2,850 lorries are stranded. Meanwhile, French authorities said some journeys would resume on Wednesday. Residents and nationals will be among those allowed to return if they have a […] - [Keir Starmer the Great Remainer Backs LEAVE: After all the real threat to the establishment has been removed, Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-the-great-remainer-backs-leave-after-all-the-real-threat-to-the-establishment-has-been-removed-jeremy-corbyn/): Sir Keir Starmer is seeking to head off a new party split over Brexit by arguing any EU-UK trade deal will present Britain with the opportunity to work with Brussels to implement higher standards on workers rights and the environment, a party document has revealed. The Labour leader has insisted a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with EU is in the “national interest” but has found it difficult to convince Remainer MPs within his party. The shift in position for the opposition has unsettled a number of pro-EU MPs who are understood to be considering abstaining from any future Brexit vote in […] - [Christmas cancelled for millions: London and most of South East to enter Tier 4 lockdown at MIDNIGHT](https://heartlandstribune.com/christmas-cancelled-for-millions-london-and-most-of-south-east-to-enter-tier-4-lockdown-at-midnight/): Millions of people across southeast England will no longer be able to mix with other households at Christmas, with a new Tier 4 level of COVID restrictions – equivalent to a full lockdown – to come into force tomorrow. In a dramatic move, prompted by fears over a new strain of coronavirus, all those areas currently in Tier 3 in the South East – including London – will move to the new Tier 4 on Sunday. And, in further stark action across the rest of England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the planned five-day easing of restrictions over the festive […] - [Yes, Brexit is Worth It](https://heartlandstribune.com/yes-brexit-is-worth-it/): “When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it.”- Tony Benn. It was obvious from the start that once the UK voted to leave the EU the losing side of that argument would never accept the democratic result. They would exploit any issue from the Northern Ireland border to jobs, wages, xenophobia and mostly any and all economic downturns. All arguments to the contrary […] - [Jacob Rees-Mogg started the pantomime season early with his impromptu impersonation of Scrooge branding UNICEF donation to feed UK children a 'political stunt'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jacob-rees-mogg-started-the-pantomime-season-early-with-his-impromptu-impersonation-of-scrooge-branding-unicef-donation-to-feed-uk-children-a-political-stunt/): There is an economic and political context that informs the reader of Charles Dickens’s famous novella, A Christmas Carol. Dicken’s overriding message to his readership is clear: acknowledge the plight of the poor; attend to their needs; or ignore them at your peril. The 19th century was a time of immense poverty and also of great philanthropy. However, for a man that seems eternally stuck in the 19th century, Jacob Rees-Mogg certainly missed out the philanthropy, however, the biggest shame is his ignorance to the poverty and hardships that are a constant for thousands of families throughout the UK. Commons leader Jacob […] - [A Class Divide: Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has ordered London schools to remain open unless of course, it's Eton](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-class-divide-education-secretary-gavin-williamson-has-ordered-london-schools-to-remain-open-unless-of-course-its-eaton/): Schools in a coronavirus-hit borough of London will remain open in a major U-turn after the council was issued with a legal threat by the Tory government. Greenwich Council leader Danny Thorpe backed down in a bitter fight with the Tory Education Secretary over what would be safest for kids. While schools are supposed to remain open regardless of which tier they fall into, the heightened restrictions being introduced are indicative of how COVID-19 transmission has increased in those areas. And the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that about one in 50 secondary school pupils is […] - [Coronavirus: 'New variant' of COVID-19 spreading in southeast England as London moves to Tier 3](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-new-variant-of-covid-19-spreading-in-southeast-england-as-london-moves-to-tier-3/): What is now been dubbed as #Covid20 on social media Matt Hancock announces a New strain of covid in the UK. Experts have insisted that mutations are to be expected and not necessarily feared after the UK government announced that a new strain of coronavirus had been identified in England. The UK has notified the World Health Organisation over the latest variant, which appears to be responsible for the faster spread of the virus throughout the southeast of the country, Matt Hancock said. More than 1,000 infections related to this specific mutation have been reported across nearly 60 different local authorities in England, though the government insists […] - [While the Labour Party is 'dying a slow death' the Labour movement is thriving.](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-the-labour-party-is-dying-a-slow-death-the-labour-movement-is-thriving/): The Labour movement is thriving outside the Labour Party It’s one year since the Labour Party witnessed one of its most catastrophic defeats.  The general election of 2019 was lost not on policy or leadership but on a promise made by the Tories of ‘GET BREXIT DONE!’ Three words witnessed the crash of what could have been the greatest shift in social mobility for the working class since we won the vote. Corbyn had promised so much but the biggest promise was to address the rigged system that kept the proverbial Iron Heel of oppression from weighing heavy on the working […] - [Jeremy Corbyn officially launches new ‘Project for Peace and Justice’](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-officially-launches-new-project-for-peace-and-justice/): Jeremy Corbyn announces new Peace and Justice Project Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour Party leader, today announces plans for a new organization to support social justice, peace and human rights, in Britain and across the world. The Peace and Justice Project will be launched next month, on 17th January 2021, in an online event, featuring panellists including former ANC leader Ronnie Kasrils, young climate activist Scarlett Westbrook, Labour peer and former teachers’ leader Christine Blower, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey and Labour MP Zarah Sultana. The Peace and Justice Project will provide a platform for campaigns, work with social movements and trade […] - [Brexit: Remainers triggered by 'Gunboats in the channel' yet happy to see UK fishermen attacked by French trawlers](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-remainers-trigged-by-gunboats-in-the-channel-yet-happy-to-see-uk-fishermen-attacked-by-french-trawlers/): Remainers have been triggered by the news of Gunboats in the channel but do they really think it’s ok to leave UK workers unprotected? It is not a situation anyone wants but its also not a situation that can be ignored. If these were workers from any other industry or sector their would be a public outcry for their protection. Fishing has been one of the most contentious issues in the negotiations with the bloc, with France reportedly discontent with the UK’s proposals for reducing quotas for EU skippers and a short implementation period. Reciprocal access to each other’s waters will […] - [Firm with links to Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock’s family has been awarded a £5.5 million contract for COVID-19 mobile testing](https://heartlandstribune.com/firm-with-links-to-health-and-social-care-secretary-matt-hancocks-family-has-been-awarded-a-5-5-million-contract-for-covid-19-mobile-testing/): A firm with links to Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock’s family has been awarded a £5.5 million contract for COVID-19 mobile testing units, Byline Times revealed. Details of the deal, published yesterday, show the company, based in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, was awarded a contract for £5,462,150 to supply the testing units to the Department of Health and Social Care. Beginning on 15 September, the company has been expected to provide articulated mobile testing units to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The contract will run for a year – ending on 14 September 2021. The chairman of […] - [Unheard: One of the largest protest in human history as just taken place in the middle of a pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/unheard-one-of-the-largest-protest-in-human-history-as-just-taken-place-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/): A country-wide strike by farmers in India has begun amid a standoff with the government over new farm laws. India’s PM says the farmers are being misled and that the government’s intentions are “as holy as the water of River Ganga”. However millions see the controversial new laws differently. This Tuesday may well have witnessed the single largest protest in human history, it took place in India, as tens of thousands of farmers marched to the capital to protest proposed new legislation and upward of 250 million people around the subcontinent participated in a 24-hour general strike in solidarity. This massive […] - [Boris Johnson: ‘Strong possibility’ there will be no Brexit trade deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-strong-possibility-there-will-be-no-brexit-trade-deal/): Boris Johnson says; the UK Cabinet is united in its view that the EU’s proposed deal isn’t right. A showdown between Mr Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday failed to break the deadlock. Both leaders have set Sunday as the deadline to decide if talks should fold or continue. Johnson identified the two major remaining issues as fishing and the EU’s bid to get the UK to sign up to its business competition demands known as the “level playing field”. Earlier, Ms von der Leyen said: “We are willing to grant access to the single market […] - [EU agency assessing COVID vaccines hit by Hackers: BioNTech-Pfizer claims documents accessed.](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-agency-assessing-covid-vaccines-hit-by-hackers-biontech-pfizer-claims-documents-accessed/): The European Medicines Agency did not say what was targeted in the cyberattack or when it happened — although German firm BioNTech said the hackers “unlawfully accessed” vaccine approval documents. “EMA has been the subject of a cyberattack. The agency has swiftly launched a full investigation, in close cooperation with law enforcement and other relevant entities,” the agency said. The EMA added that it “cannot provide additional details whilst the investigation is ongoing,” but said further information would be released “in due course.” The agency, which is the EU’s regulator of medications, did not provide details about what was targeted or when the […] - [Covid-19 vaccine: Warning over Pfizer vaccine as two NHS staff suffer 'anaphylactic reaction'](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-vaccine-warning-over-pfizer-vaccine-as-two-nhs-staff-suffer-anaphylactic-reaction/): People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not have the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab, regulators say. The UK’s world-first Covid-19 vaccine rollout has hit problems within 24 hours after anyone with a serious allergy to medicines or food was warned not to have the Pfizer jab because two NHS staff fell ill on V-Day. Both the unnamed healthcare workers, who carried EpiPens, are recovering from anaphylactoid reactions suffered shortly after their injections on the first day of Britain’s biggest ever mass vaccination programme.    This morning the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave precautionary advice to NHS trusts that […] - [The EU and other neoliberal nightmares](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-and-other-neoliberal-nightmares/): For all the socialists and left-wing leave supporters, I offer my thanks In this protracted battle between Remainers and left-wing Leave supporters, truth has become the first and most enduring casualty. Yet amid the rubble of reasoned debate, one vital distinction must be salvaged: the difference between loving Europe and loving the European Union. I am proud to be European, and harbour no sympathy for the xenophobic scaremongering of those little Englanders who would slam shut our borders in fearful isolation. Having lived across mainland Europe for several years both before and after the EU’s formation in 1992, I speak as […] - [Brexit: UK-EU talks resume in final push for trade deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-uk-eu-talks-resume-in-final-push-for-trade-deal/): Von der Leyen and Johnson to speak again amid last-ditch drive to bridge gaps EU and UK negotiators are making a final effort to bridge significant gaps in their positions as time runs out to strike a post-Brexit deal. The template for future trading and other relations for years, perhaps decades to come, is at stake. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is due to brief EU ambassadors today. EU-UK talks in Brussels should then take place before Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen speak again on Monday night. The British Prime Minister and the European Commission President gave […] - [The UK to start coronavirus vaccinations on Tuesday](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-uk-to-start-coronavirus-vaccinations-on-tuesday/): The U.K. will administer its first doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, government and health officials say, raising hopes that the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech could help them tame the coronavirus. The coronavirus vaccine is the “beginning of the end” of the epidemic in the UK, Prof Stephen Powis has said, as vaccinations begin on Tuesday. But the NHS England medical director warned the distribution of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be a “marathon not a sprint”. It will take “many months” to vaccinate everybody who needs it, he said. Frontline health staff, those over 80, and care home workers will […] - [Universal Credit payments to be cut for tens of thousands of families this Christmas, yet there is no end in sight to Tory cronyism.](https://heartlandstribune.com/universal-credit-payments-to-be-cut-for-tens-of-thousands-of-families-this-christmas-yet-there-is-no-end-in-sight-to-tory-cronyism/): The unfairness of any cuts at this time can only be measured against the handouts to Tory friends and the blatant criminal cronyism that is rife within this corrupt government. Those already hard hit will be hit even harder. It’s no secret that Britain’s most vulnerable are suffering under the Conservative’s tough program of austerity covid as never offed a reprieve. There has never been a covid relief payment for the poor, in or out of work, food banks are still the lifeline for millions living on the breadline. Long standing Cuts to local authority services, have had a profound impact […] - [Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson arrested on suspicion of bribery and witness intimidation](https://heartlandstribune.com/mayor-of-liverpool-joe-anderson-arrested-on-suspicion-of-bribery-and-witness-intimidation/): Joe Anderson is among five held on suspicion of alleged offences including conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation. Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has been arrested in connection with an investigation into building and planning developments in the city, Sky News understands. He is one of five men arrested on suspicion of alleged offences including conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation. Detectives made arrests at addresses throughout the city as well as Ormskirk and Southport. The arrests are part of “an ongoing investigation”, police said today. Confirming the details of the arrests police said the following five people had been arrested None […] - [Brexit: EU put Michel Barnier on a tight leash in high-stakes Brexit endgame](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-eu-put-michel-barnier-on-a-tight-leash-in-high-stakes-brexit-endgame/): Officials believe London has moved ‘significantly’ on the level playing field issue but several EU countries are getting nervous. Press play to listen to this article Voiced by Amazon Polly EU countries are getting so nervous about concessions in the final phase of the Brexit negotiations they’ve reminded the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier not to cross the bloc’s red lines just to clinch a deal with the U.K. That message was conveyed to Barnier, both by EU ambassadors on Wednesday and by EU sherpas on Thursday, according to several officials present at those meetings. Last Friday, fisheries ministers also reminded […] - [Brexit: Leaving the EU allows UK to 'BAN' live animal exports](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-leaving-the-eu-allows-uk-to-ban-live-animal-exports/): The UK is to become the first country in Europe to ban live animal exports. Reducing maximum journey times and increasing space and headroom are among the measures welcomed by animal welfare campaigners. Exporting live animals for slaughter and fattening will be banned under new plans. A government consultation has been launched aimed at ending the practice in England and Wales, which officials said could not be stopped while the UK was part of the EU. Environment Secretary George Eustice said the ban could be in force by the end of 2021 in a post-Brexit break from EU trade rules. The […] - [Health Secretary Matt Hancock vows to take new Covid vaccine with Piers Morgan](https://heartlandstribune.com/health-secretary-matt-hancock-vows-to-take-new-covid-vaccine-with-piers-morgan/): Health Secretary Matt Hancock has vowed to take the new Covid-19 vaccine with Piers Morgan following the news that the UK regulator has approved the Pfizer/BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine. The health secretary was speaking on the ITV morning show about the news of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine being approved for use in the UK. A rollout of the vaccine is expected to start next week with NHS staff, care home staff and those 85+ first in line to get it. However, some are concerned about the safety of the vaccine due to the short turnaround in its creation, despite government officials saying […] - [Johnson tells people 'don't get hopes up too soon' over early vaccination](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-tells-people-dont-get-hopes-up-too-soon-over-early-vaccination/): Covid-19: Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine judged safe for use in the UK from next week but PM says don’t get your hopes up too soon over early vaccination. The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for mass vaccination. Britain’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, says the jab, which offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19 illness, is safe to be rolled out. The first 800,000 doses will be available in the UK from next week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. People should wait to be contacted by the NHS, he added. Elderly […] - [Coronavirus: Starmer and Johnson face rebellion over covid tiers](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-starmer-and-johnson-face-rebailon-over-covid-tiers/): Both the Tories and the Labour Party are facing dissension as MPs are set to rebel on the Covid Tiers. Boris Johnson has urged MPs to back his stricter Covid tiers system for England, amid a threatened rebellion from his backbenchers. The Johnson said the NHS “remains under pressure” despite progress in tackling the virus during the nationwide lockdown ending on Wednesday. A number of Tory MPs have criticised the new regional restrictions and have said they will vote against the government. But with both Labour and the SNP are abstaining from the vote due around 19.00 GMT, they are expected […] - [Arcadia crashes into administration: 13,000 jobs at risk and not a word from Sir Philip Green](https://heartlandstribune.com/arcadia-crashes-into-administration-13000-jobs-at-risk-and-not-a-world-from-sir-philip-green/): Arcadia crashes, Topshop, Burton, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge – plunged into administration. There was no word from Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group has collapsed into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk as the retail tycoon’s high street career ends in failure. There was no word from Sir Philip, who built the retail giant and oversaw it as a director of both Arcadia and its parent firm Taveta Investments. Arcadia chief executive Ian Grabiner called it “an incredibly sad day”. Its 444 UK stores, and others abroad, will continue to trade while their future is decided, with […] - [Coronavirus: Moderna seeks approval in Europe and the US while UK secures an extra 2 million doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-moderna-seeks-approval-in-europe-and-the-us-while-uk-secures-an-extra-2-million-doses-of-moderna-covid-19-vaccine/): Biotech company Moderna said it will today ask for approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in both Europe and the US. The firm made the announcement as it said that the most recent trial results showed its vaccine was 94.1% effective. Moderna said the vaccine was 100% effective against severe COVID-19. This was largely in line with preliminary results earlier this month. Regulators will look at trial data for the mRNA vaccine and decide if it is safe and effective enough to recommend for roll out. Clinical studies show the jab is more than 94% effective at protecting people from becoming ill […] - [Labour Party civil war: Rayner says 'If I have to suspend thousands and thousands of members, we will do that'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-civil-war-rayner-says-if-i-have-to-suspend-thousands-and-thousands-of-members-we-will-do-that/): Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has called on members to “get real” about antisemitism within the party and warned that “thousands and thousands” could be suspended if they fail to do so. Ironically or cynically planed, both Sir Keir Starmer and Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner chose to attend the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) one-day event this Sunday the 29th of November, a most important date in the political event calendar as it is the ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People‘. A UN organised day that In 1977, the General Assembly called […] - [This adorable little girl was used by Ireland's state run tv station to promote the "Pfizer" Covid vaccine.](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-adorable-little-girl-was-used-by-irelands-state-run-tv-station-to-promote-the-pfizer-covid-vaccine/): We are not anti-vaxxers but somewhere along the line you have to call out what’s wrong and this is not just wrong, it’s disturbing… This little girl was used by RTÉ Ireland’s National Television and Radio Broadcaster to promote the “Pfizer” Covid vaccine. The script had her knock her toy dog out with a hammer because he wasn’t participating. She checked he was still alive then she jabbed him BANG! No matter where you stand on Covid this helps no one. This cannot be ethical to use children like this. Drugs and vaccines come with risks and only administered after informed […] - [The Tories have their own rebellion going on as covid splits the Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-tories-have-their-own-rebellion-going-on-as-covid-splits-the-party/): Boris Johnson has written to Tory MPs in bid to quell rebellion over the introduction of coronavirus tiers Furious Tory MPs had lined up to say they would vote against plans to put 99 per cent of the country in the two tiers with the most severe restrictions. The system had been expected to last until the end of March.     Boris Johnson has written to Conservative MPs offering them a second vote on the coronavirus tier system early next year as he seeks to head off a backbench rebellion in the Commons this week. The Prime Minister has angered some of […] - [Police arrest 155 in anti-lockdown protests in London](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-arrest-155-in-anti-lockdown-protests-in-london/): Police in London said on Saturday (Nov 28) that they had made 155 arrests as they tried to break up anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests. The police said the arrests had been made for different offences including assaulting a police officer, possession of drugs and breaching coronavirus restrictions. Demonstrators, many of who were not wearing masks, joined protests about the government’s measures to lockdown England. In testy scenes protesters clashed with police at King’s Cross and Marble Arch in London. Officers were photographed surrounded by the discharge of a smoke bomb launched into the melee. One man was arrested and put into […] - [Tear gas and clashes at Paris protest against police violence](https://heartlandstribune.com/tear-gas-and-clashes-at-paris-protest-against-police-violence/): Protesters take to streets across France over controversial National Security law Thousands of critics of a proposed security law that would restrict sharing images of police officers in France gathered across the country in protest Saturday, with the country shaken by footage showing officers beating and racially abusing a Black man. In Paris, several thousand people packed the Place de la République and surrounding streets carrying red union flags, the national tricolour flags and homemade signs denouncing police violence, demanding media freedom or calling for Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s resignation. Police fired tear gas in the French capital after protesters launched fireworks at […] - [Macron: Images of French police beating Black man ‘shame us’](https://heartlandstribune.com/macron-images-of-french-police-beating-black-man-shame-us/): French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday night described footage showing policemen beating a Black man in Paris as “unacceptable” as he attempted to contain widespread outrage over the incident. “The images we all saw of the beating of Michel Zecler are unacceptable. They shame us,” Macron said in a statement posted on Facebook and Twitter.  “France is a country of order and freedom, not gratuitous and arbitrary violence,” Macron said.  He called on police to be “exemplary” with citizens and on citizens to be exemplary with the police, but also made sure to avoid criticizing the entire police force.  “I will […] - [Millions of public sector workers dealt cruel pay freeze - but NHS will be exempt](https://heartlandstribune.com/millions-of-public-sector-workers-dealt-cruel-pay-freeze-but-nhs-will-be-exempt/): Mr Sunak was not so hesitant to turn on the cash elsewhere with billions in public money going into private hands in a Covid cash bonanza unfortunately when it comes to the people there is none to spare. It seems wearing mask still has its old fashioned uses. Public sector workers bore the brunt of austerity cuts after the global financial crash, and unions have warned this is heaping punishment on those who worked to keep the country going during the pandemic. Speaking during his autumn Spending Review, the Chancellor said that frontline NHS workers would see their wages increased in […] - [Benefit scams worth £1bn foiled during lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/benefit-scams-worth-1bn-foiled-during-lockdown/): This time it’s not the Tories. As much as £1bn in benefit fraud has been prevented from being paid to organised-crime groups in recent months But before the scam was spotted, officials unwittingly confirmed thousands of stolen identities. Fraudsters took advantage of looser rules introduced to cope with a surge of universal credit claims during the pandemic. BBC News has asked the Department for Work and Pensions for a response. Wrong hands In May, a junior civil servant working with High Street banks noticed dozens of claims for universal credit had been made asking for money to be paid into the […] - [Signposts and Weathercocks: Sir Keir Starmer will ‘order Labour MPs to back 'any Brexit deal' to win back support](https://heartlandstribune.com/signposts-and-the-weathercocks-sir-keir-starmer-will-order-labour-mps-to-back-any-brexit-deal-to-win-back-support/): The Weathercock hasn’t got an opinion until they’ve looked at the polls, talked to the focus groups, discussed it with the spin doctors. And I’ve no time for Weathercocks -Tony Benn Shadow Cabinet sources say the Labour party will support “almost any trade deal” the Tories forge. They hope that doing so will “put the issue to bed for good” and win back the trust of “Red Wall” of the former Labour Heartlands, voters lost to the Tories in last year’s election due to Sir Keir Starmer’s own Brexit policy and his insistence on a second referendum pledge to be placed […] - [It's an Exodus: Sir Keir Starmer humiliation as Labour Party membership plummets by 57,000 protests at Jeremy Corbyn suspension gathers pace](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-an-exodus-sir-keir-starmer-humiliation-as-labour-party-membership-plummets-by-57000-in-protest-at-suspension-of-jeremy-corbyn/): Labour has lost members at a rate of nearly 250 a day since Sir Keir Starmer was elected last spring, with supporters of Jeremy Corbyn leading an exodus from the party. This is before Starmer’s personal decision to keep the whip from his former boss and Leader of the Labour Party. Membership fell by just under 57,000 people, or 10 per cent, between April and November, according to official figures from its internal elections. Sir Keir Starmer was elected leader of the party in April this year since then the Party have seen an Exoudos of members who no longer feel […] - [UN Panel Votes 163-5 In Support of Palestinian State and The End of Occupation But Is That The Best Solution](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-panel-votes-163-5-in-support-of-palestinian-state-and-end-of-occupation-but-is-that-the-best-solution/): Draft calling for two-state solution passes General Assembly’s Third Committee in a large package of annual pro-Palestinian resolutions that Israel argues shows bias against it. The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to approve a draft resolution in favour of Palestinian self-determination, with Israel and the United States voting against. The proposal on Thursday in the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee — the committee that deals with human rights and humanitarian affairs — passed 163 to 5, with 10 abstentions. Canada, which typically votes alongside Israel in such resolutions, stood with the majority. The resolution emphasized “the right of the Palestinian people to […] - [Boris has a history of ignoring bullying and even threats of violence if it's his friends doing it.](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-has-a-history-of-ignoring-bullying-and-even-threats-of-violence-if-its-his-friends-doing-it/): Boris Johnson attempted to water down the official inquiry that found Home Secretary Priti Patel bullied staff, Whitehall sources have confirmed. Why this is news when Boris has never been too concerned over violence and bullying is the real shocker. Johnson has a history of playing down violence and bullying. It follows claims the prime minister tried and failed to convince his ministerial standards adviser Sir Alex Allan to tone down his finding that her behaviour amounted to bullying as he found instances of shouting and swearing. The adviser resigned on Friday after Mr Johnson overruled his conclusion that Ms Patel […] - [Bakers Union Fires Warning to Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/bakers-union-fires-warning-to-starmer/): Sir Keir Starmer is coming under more pressure from the unions to change course and pull back from the brink of a Party split in this now open civil war. In October Unite the Union, Labour’s biggest single donor, cut the amount of money it gives the party after the union’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, said he feared Sir Keir Starmer was leading the Labour Party away from the left. Now just a few weeks after ‘Unite the Union’ decided to reduce it’s affiliation fees to the Labour Party, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union have issued a strongly worded statement […] - [The first motion of 'no confidence' in Sir Keir Starmer passes vote](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-first-motion-of-no-confidence-in-sir-keir-starmer-passes-vote/): Sir Keir Starmer has proved to be less than capable in his leadership, Labour members through their branches and CLP’s are pushing motions that not only question his dubious decision making but his ability to lead the party. Questions over his poor and overreaching actions along with his dictatorial leadership style have come to a head with members being oppressed in expressing their opinions at risk of disciplinary procedures being made against them. Labour members have been threatened with investigation as a result of considering motions on the high-profile suspension of former leader Jeremy Corbyn as part of their local party […] - [Starmer to sit in judgement: Jeremy Corbyn told he will be barred from sitting as Labour MP for three months](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-to-sit-in-judgement-jeremy-corbyn-told-he-will-be-barred-from-sitting-as-labour-mp-for-three-months/): Sir Keir Starmer as decided Jeremy Corbyn told he will be barred from sitting as Labour MP for three months Sir Keir Starmer has refused to let him sit as a Labour MP he claiming his predecessor’s remarks had “undermined trust” in the party within the Jewish community. The suspension will be kept under review by leader Sir Keir Starmer, siting has judge, jury and executioner while ignoring the NEC decision to reinstate Mr Corbyn. Mr Corbyn was told about the move in a letter from Labour’s chief whip Nick Brown sent on Thursday night. The former Labour leader was suspended […] - [While Starmer is decimating the Labour Party the Tories are stealing the silver](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-starmer-is-decimating-the-labour-party-the-tories-are-stealing-the-silver/): Johnson and Co. have need to wear masks their time in office is criminal. The Tory’s have given out billions of public money in contracts without due diligence and in the main, it’s gone to friends and family in an £18bn PPE scandal. Politically connected firms were given ‘high priority’ for government COVID contracts, an official report finds. The report exposed chronic bungling and ‘jobs for pals’ by ministers’ during the rush to buy safety gear during the covid pandemic. “It must have been like a free for all, dipping into the public purse, the wealth of the nation looking more […] - [Starmer says Corbyn 'undermined' party on antisemitism and refuses to restore Labour whip](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-says-corbyn-undermined-party-on-antisemitism-and-refuses-to-restore-labour-whip/): Sir Keir Starmer as intervened with the readmittance of Jeremy Corbyn into the Labour Party, refusing him the whip even though he was cleared by the NEC for wrongdoing. Keir Starmer has decided not to readmit his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP, arguing that he has undermined efforts to restore the party’s reputation in the Jewish community. An NEC disciplinary panel lifted the suspension of Corbyn’s party membership on Tuesday. That decision was made after he issued a conciliatory statement “clarifying” remarks he made when the damning Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report was published. But in a strongly worded […] - [Labour reinstating Jeremy Corbyn after 19 days showing it's just playing politics with anti-Semitism after all.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-reinstating-jeremy-corbyn-after-19-days-showing-its-just-playing-politics-with-anti-semitism-after-all/): We welcome Jeremy Corbyn’s reinstatement to the Labour Party, however, the fast track hearing for the former Leader has shown how much the Labour Party is playing politics with Anti-Semitism Nineteen days ago Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party hours after the report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission into Labour Party Anti-Semitism In response, Jeremy Corbyn claimed “the scale of the problem” was “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”. But within hours, he was suspended pending an investigation – a decision his […] - [EU in crisis over Hungary and Poland’s €1.8T hold-up](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-in-crisis-over-hungary-and-polands-e1-8t-hold-up/): Poland and Hungary veto EU budget plan The two countries have followed through on their threat to block spending plans through to 2027. The EU needs a unanimous vote from all 27 members in order to pass the budget and coronavirus economic recovery fund. Hungary and Poland blocked approval of the EU’s long-term budget on Monday, diplomatic sources revealed. The spending plans also include a €750-billion (£673 billion) coronavirus rescue package. The two countries are opposed to a rule-of-law mechanism that could see them lose EU subsidies if they continue with policies seen as eroding democratic standards. “Hungary has vetoed the budget,” […] - [Tories Toy with 'Toll Roads' to replace taxes lost from green car revolution](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-toy-with-toll-roads-to-replace-taxes-lost-from-green-car-revolution/): Rishi Sunak eyes ‘pay-by-the-mile’ road pricing scheme to clawback £40bn tax threat from electric vehicle drive – report The idea of “pay-by-the-mile” is back again as the Treasury seeks a way to gradually replace taxes lost through weaker fuel sales. A national road pricing scheme has reportedly been revived by the chancellor as the green car revolution applies brakes to £40bn of annual tax revenue. The Treasury, according to The Times, is exploring ways in which Rishi Sunak can replace lost fuel duty and vehicle excise duty (VED) – known more widely as car tax – as the shift to electric vehicles gathers […] - [Coronavirus: Moderna's coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to company data](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-modernas-coronavirus-vaccine-is-94-5-effective-according-to-company-data/): New vaccine gives hope in fight against pandemic The Moderna vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released Monday by the company, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate. “These are obviously very exciting results,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. “It’s just as good as it gets — 94.5% is truly outstanding.”Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data. “It was one of the greatest moments […] - [Coronavirus: Boris Johnson self-isolating after contact tests positive](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-boris-johnson-self-isolating-after-contact-tests-positive/): Boris Johnson is self-isolating after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19, Downing Street has said. Johnson was contacted by NHS Test and Trace but is not showing symptoms. In April, Mr Johnson spent three nights in intensive care after falling ill with the virus. In a statement, a No 10 spokesman said: “The prime minister has today been notified by NHS Test and Trace that he is required to self-isolate as a contact of someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. “The prime minister will follow the rules and is self-isolating. “He will carry on working from […] - [Coronavirus: Labour demands emergency law to stamp out anti-vax content on social media](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-labour-demands-emergency-law-to-stamp-out-anti-vax-content-on-social-media/): It beggars belief that Labour would think the road to creating confidence in a vaccine is to censor any negative remarks made against it. That just feeds the conspiracies. The government insists it has secured a major commitment from Facebook, Twitter and Google to tackle anti-vax disinformation. Last week, social media giants agreed a package of measures with ministers to tackle anti-vaccine misinformation. Facebook, Twitter and Google promised to “step up work with public health bodies to promote factual and reliable messages” and committed to “swifter responses to flagged content”. However, Labour has said. Anti-vaccination content should be “stamped-out” on social […] - [Labour Party civil war: From defenders of the oppressed to Zionist, a party transformed](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-civil-war-from-defenders-of-the-oppressed-to-zionist-a-party-transformed/): The Labour Party has become so polarised it’s lost not only its way but its very reason to exist. The greatest threats Corbyn’s leadership posed to the British state was the possibility that he would appeal to common anti-war and pro-Palestine sentiments, and cohere them by articulating a kind of popular anti-imperialism. A western leader that would put people first, using the country’s vast resources for the common good. This was a tantalisingly real possibility: we glimpsed it during the 2017 general election, when Corbyn responded to a terrorist attack in Manchester with a speech arguing that Britain’s illegal wars fed insecurity at […] - [Christmas comes early: Dominic Cummings PM's top adviser leaves No 10](https://heartlandstribune.com/christmas-comes-early-dominic-cummings-pms-top-adviser-leaves-no-10/): Dominic Cummings has left Downing Street after internal battles over his role as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser. The BBC understands he will continue to work from home, on issues such as mass coronavirus testing, until the middle of December. The prime minister is said to want to “clear the air and move on”. Mr Cummings has been at the heart of a No 10 power struggle, which has also seen communications director Lee Cain leave. Beth Rigby tweeted: “I am told the PM asked Cain and Cummings to leave today because of their ‘general behaviour. One insider tells me “the PM […] - [Gen. Mark Milley: 'We Take an Oath to the Constitution, Not an Individual'](https://heartlandstribune.com/gen-mark-milley-we-take-an-oath-to-the-constitution-not-an-individual/): The Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley said the U.S. military did not take an oath to “an individual,” but the Constitution, as President Donald Trump continued his reshuffle of the Pentagon in the wake of sacking Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Speaking at Fort Belvoir in Virginia on Veterans Day, the top general reiterated that servicemembers did not take an oath to any individual person, religion, country or tribe as he opened the new National Museum of the United States Army. Delivering his remarks on Wednesday, Milley said: “We are unique among armies, we are unique among militaries. We do not take […] - [Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-cummings-to-leave-downing-street-by-christmas/): Boris Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings is expected to leave his position by the end of the year. Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, will step down by year-end, reducing the sway of Brexit hardliners as Johnson tries to recast his premiership after a series of failures in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. Johnson is grappling with a battle between factions over the future course of the government just as he struggles to contain Europe’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, establish a rapport with new U.S. president-elect Joe Biden and master the delicate diplomacy of a last-minute Brexit trade agreement. Cummings, who masterminded […] - [The Labour Party want Brexit forgiveness while that 'Other house' has become a home for traitors](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-want-brexit-forgiveness-while-that-other-house-has-become-a-home-for-traitors/): Tony Benn’s Five Essential Questions of Democracy have never been so meaningful. British politics may have always been riddled with cronyism, corruption, deceit, greed and dishonesty, perversions and even allegations of rape but the treachery amongst MPs is unprecedented and more so the rewards for carrying out that act. Former Labour MPs have unprecedentedly been rewarded by both the Labour Party and the Tories for nothing more than their acts of sabotage carried out against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party under his tenure. MPs of little standing have been accelerated to membership of the House of Lords given peerages made […] - [Germany orders £1.3bn worth of fighter jets from BAE 10,000 jobs to be created.](https://heartlandstribune.com/germany-orders-1-3bn-worth-of-fighter-jets-from-bae-10000-jobs-to-be-created/): New planes for the Luftwaffe will safeguard 15,000 British jobs and generate £1.3bn of work in the UK Germany has ordered £1.3bn of 38 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets from BAE Systems for the German Air Force, providing a boost to the UK economy. Work will start in 2021 at BAE’s Lancashire site and will last for a number of years which will keep people in engineering jobs in the North of England. Its Warton plant in Lancashire is likely to build the fuselages and jet tails for the planes when the order from the Luftwaffe is finalised. 10,000 more jobs will […] - [Rolls Royce strikers in Barnoldswick will strike until Christmas to save their jobs](https://heartlandstribune.com/rolls-royce-strikers-in-barnoldswick-will-strike-until-christmas-to-save-their-jobs/): When you are fighting for your job little else matters. Workers at Barnoldswick’s Rolls Royce plant have begun their strike action against the company and extended the initially planned three weeks of industrial action until Christmas Eve. Unite Union regional officer Ross Quinn explained to Labour Heartlands why his members and the workers of Barnoldswick’s Rolls Royce have had to take industrial action during the covid crisis. In August the firm announced it was cutting 350 jobs at the town’s Bankfield and Ghyll Brow factories and transferring the wide-chord fan blade work to Singapore. He reiterated the company’s promise that jobs […] - [Nissan gives Sunderland plant jobs security with a £400m boost to build new Qashqai](https://heartlandstribune.com/nissan-gives-sunderland-plant-jobs-security-with-a-400m-boost-to-build-new-qashqai/): The new electric model of the Nissan Qashqai to be built at the firm’s Wearside plant. Nissan has announced the latest stage of a £1 billion investment programme in its Sunderland production facility in preparation for building the next-generation Qashqai there.  The line was unveiled earlier this year as the car giant said it was gearing up to build an update of the Qashqai. Staff at the site, which employs 6,000 people and supports 18,000 supply chain jobs, have been told the news, which comes after the company confirmed its e-POWER vehicles would be put into production in Europe, but not where the vehicles would […] - [Coronavirus: What do we know about 'Pfizer' and can we trust them with a vaccine](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-what-do-we-know-about-pfizer-and-can-we-trust-them-with-a-vaccine/): The unprecedented swiftness with which medical science is developing a vaccine for COVID-19 is one of the most inspiring stories in this historic chapter. Vaccine candidates emerged only weeks after scientists identified SARS-CoV-2 and sequenced its genetic code. Universities and Big Pharma formed teams to develop a vaccine in short order. And while the chances of an effective vaccine are rising so is concern about who is behind the vaccine. The more we know about the big pharma in the race for a vaccine the more the public distrust. That ends up being an untenable situation, the medical and scientific task […] - [Coronavirus: First 'milestone' vaccine offers 90% protection](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-first-milestone-vaccine-offers-90-protection/): The drugmaker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people. Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drugmaker BioNTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts. The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial […] - [Anti-lockdown protesters chant 'take off your masks' in march through Manchester streets](https://heartlandstribune.com/anti-lockdown-protesters-chant-take-off-your-masks-in-march-through-manchester-streets/): Thousands of anti-lockdown protesters have taken to the streets against the national lockdown. Huge crowds marched through Manchester city centre, accusing MPs who voted for the lockdown of treason. Many held placards of anti-lockdown slogans, with one reading “Fear is the currency of control” while some chanted “take off your masks”, witnesses claimed. A video circulating on social media showed a man on a megaphone addressing the crowd with chants of “freedom, freedom, freedom” ringing through the streets. He said: “Those 300-plus politicians that voted for the lockdown are treasonous.” The comment prompted cheering from those in the crowd. Another man […] - [Kamala Harris becomes first Black woman, South Asian elected VP](https://heartlandstribune.com/kamala-harris-becomes-first-black-woman-south-asian-elected-vp/): Kamala Harris made history Friday as the first Black woman elected as vice president of the United States, shattering barriers that have kept men — almost all of them white — entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for more than two centuries. The 56-year-old California senator, also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, represents the multiculturalism that defines America but is largely absent from Washington’s power centers. Her Black identity has allowed her to speak in personal terms in a year of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism. As the highest-ranking woman […] - [Jo Biden is The 46th President Of The United States Of America](https://heartlandstribune.com/jo-biden-is-the-46th-president-of-the-united-states-of-america/): Joe Biden has won the race to become the next US president, defeating Donald Trump following a cliff-hanger vote count after Tuesday’s election. Joe Biden was projected to win the presidency on Friday after absentee ballots in Pennsylvania gave him enough votes to beat President Donald Trump in the battleground state. With Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, Biden now has a total of 273 electoral votes. The election has seen the highest turnout since 1900. Mr Biden has won more than 73 million votes so far, the most ever for a US presidential candidate. Mr Trump has drawn almost 70 million, the […] - [US elections: Georgia secretary of state "There will be likely a recount"](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-elections-georgia-secretary-of-state-there-will-be-likely-a-recount/): GEORGIA RACE TOO CLOSE TO CALL Georgia remains “too close to call,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at press conference. Of the 5 million votes cast, “we’ll have a margin of a few thousand.” With a margin that small, “there will be, likely, a recount in Georgia,” said Raffensperger — reiterating similar comments from earlier in the day. “The final tally in Georgia, at this point, has huge implications for the entire country.” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the presidential race in the state “remains too close to call” during a news conference Friday. “The focus for our office and […] - [Coronavirus: Mass testing starts today in Liverpool](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-mass-testing-starts-today-in-liverpool/): Operation Moonshot, the government’s ambitious plan to test the entire population for coronavirus infection, launches in Liverpool today. Everyone living or working in Liverpool will be offered repeat tests, whether or not they have symptoms. Liverpool is the pilot project for ministers’ big vision of weekly testing of the entire population – covering up to 10 million people across England a day. Many people support mass testing, which could allow a return to workplaces, socialising and going to the theatre and football matches without the fear of spreading infection. Mayor Joe Anderson said the testing pilot could save lives, stop hospitals being […] - [Former BHS owner Dominic Chappell jailed for six years for tax evasion](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-bhs-owner-dominic-chappell-jailed-for-six-years-for-tax-evasion/): Former BHS owner Dominic Chappell has been jailed for six years for evading £584,000 in taxes. A Southwark Crown Court jury found him guilty of failing to pay tax of around £584,000 on £2.2m of income he received after buying the failed chain for £1. The court heard the 53-year-old spent the money on two yachts, a Bentley and a holiday to the Bahamas. Chappell’s lawyers claimed he became “utterly broke” after BHS’s “pension problem exploded” in 2015. Mr Chappell controversially bought the retailer from tycoon Sir Philip Green that year, but the chain collapsed soon after in 2016. It led […] - [Coronavirus: Sunak says Furlough scheme to be extended till the end of March](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-sunak-says-furlough-scheme-to-be-extended-till-the-end-of-march/): The furlough scheme will be extended until the end of March, the chancellor has announced. Addressing MPs in the Commons on Thursday, Rishi Sunak announced a further extension into next year. He confirmed the payments would remain at 80% of a person’s wage up to £2,500 a month. This would “decide whether economic circumstances are improving enough to ask employers to contribute more”, Mr Sunak said. He told the Commons that the government will review the policy in January. It follows several days of wrangling over the scope and duration of furlough. It was due to end on 31 October but […] - [Coronavirus: Nearly 500 further deaths in 24 hours; MPs put England into lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-nearly-500-further-deaths-in-24-hours-mps-put-england-into-lockdown/): MPs have backed a four-week lockdown in England to combat coronavirus, which will kick in at midnight. Boris Johnson saw off a rebellion by 34 Tory MPs opposed to the move, with the support of Labour. The government won the vote by 516 to 39, a majority of 477. Under new rules, which MPs approved 516 votes to 38 on Wednesday, people will be told to stay at home for four weeks, like during the first national lockdown earlier this year. Boris Johnson said it would be a “medical and moral disaster” not to act to stem spiralling coronavirus rates when […] - [Coronavirus: 2,000 Military Personnel To Support Liverpool Testing Pilot](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-2000-military-personnel-to-support-liverpool-testing-pilot/): The scheme will see the city’s population of almost half a million offered regular coronavirus testing from later this week. The entire population of the COVID-19 hotspot city of Liverpool will be regularly offered a coronavirus test in a pilot scheme using the armed forces. Two thousand military personnel are being deployed to support a pilot of mass coronavirus testing in Liverpool. Tests will be offered to everyone across the city with all residents and workers able to be tested regularly from Friday, regardless of whether they have symptoms. Announcing the pilot scheme, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I want to thank the […] - [Tory Rebels threaten Party unity over English lockdown while making demands for constitutional changes](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-rebels-threaten-party-unity-over-english-lockdown-while-making-demands-for-constitutional-changes/): Divisions are growing has Rebels threaten Tory unity over new national lockdown while making demands on constitutional changes Boris Johnson’s plan to take England back into lockdown on Thursday was savaged by Tory MPs as they claimed the Prime Minister is turning the country into an ‘authoritarian, coercive state’. Tory Charles Walker claimed PM is turning the UK into ‘authoritarian, coercive state’ He demanded the Government create a written constitution to enshrine rights Liam Fox called for a new committee to prove ‘cure is not worse than the disease’ The Prime Minister told the House of Commons that rising coronavirus case […] - [At least 4 dead in Vienna terror attack and 17 injured](https://heartlandstribune.com/at-least-4-dead-in-vienna-terror-attack-and-17-injured/): Four people were killed in an attack in Vienna, Austria late on Monday, in what the country’s Chancellor called a “repulsive terrorist attack”. A suspect was also shot dead by police, in an attack that came as residents enjoyed the final night out before the city enters a partial coronavirus lockdown. At least 17 people were injured in the incident, and speaking on Tuesday, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that the victims would be commemorated at midday, while the country’s national security council was being convened to discuss what should happen next. He added that the fact that the attacks were carried […] - [Vienna shooting: Terror attack multiple gunmen](https://heartlandstribune.com/vienna-shooting-terror-attack-multiple-gunmen/): Karl Nehammer Federal Minister of the Interior of Austria described the incident as a terror attack and said that one attacker had died in the Austrian capital. Another attacker was “on the run”, he said. A large-scale security operation is underway. The incident took place near the central Schwedenplatz square. Police have urged people to avoid the area and not to take public transport. Police in the Austrian capital, Vienna, were deployed in the city centre following reports of multiple shootings near a synagogue. The authorities confirmed that several people have died after exchanges of gunfire. A police officer is among […] - [Brexit Party re-branding as anti-lockdown party Reform UK](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-party-re-branding-as-anti-lockdown-party-reform-uk/): The incompetent Tory government with their handling of Covid along with the lockdown has enabled the former Brexit party to learn another trick. The party now says the “single most pressing issue” is the government’s “woeful response” to the coronavirus pandemic. The Brexit Party has applied to change its name to Reform UK, admitting it is “time to re-direct our energies”. When the Brexit Party held its policy launch ahead of last year’s general election, leader Nigel Farage said the organisation would most likely never be in power but could be the driving force behind getting governments to “support the little people”. […] - [No ifs, no buts: Close the schools down now.](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-ifs-no-buts-close-the-schools-down-now/): Coronavirus: Teaching union calls for schools to be closed as part of England lockdown #CloseTheSchools Both Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer insisted children go back to school while ignoring the health risks. Parents have a right to be worried after both Party leaders vehemently demanded Schools, collages and university be reopened in September, both made compelling cases and guarantees about the safety of the nation’s children returning to school during this coronavirus outbreak. It was less than two weeks into that pushed school openings that the UK witnessed incidents of school closures and students quarantined in their dorms and rooms […] - [Boris Johnson to announce new Tier 4 Lockdown rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-to-announce-new-tier-4-lockdown-rules/): Boris Johnson will hold a news conference later as the government considers a new month-long lockdown across England. The hope is that stricter measures could then be eased by Christmas. It comes as documents seen by the BBC suggest the UK is on course for a much higher death toll than during the first wave unless further restrictions are introduced. Deaths could reach more than 4,000 a day, one of the models suggests. That figure is based on no policies being brought in to slow the spread of the disease, but most of the models peak at about 2,000 a day. The hope […] - [Sean Connery: James Bond actor dies aged 90](https://heartlandstribune.com/sean-connery-james-bond-actor-dies-aged-90/): Sir Sean Connery has died at the age of 90, his family has said. The Scottish actor was best known for his portrayal of James Bond, being the first to bring the role to the big screen and appearing in seven of the spy thrillers. He was largely regarded as being the best actor to have played 007 in the long-running franchise, often being named as such in polls. His Oscar came in 1988, when he was named best supporting actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables. He was knighted by the Queen at Holyrood Palace in […] - [Dominic Cummings accused of perverting course of justice after Barnard Castle trip](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-cummings-accused-of-perverting-course-of-justice-after-barnard-castle-trip/): Fresh evidence of Dominic Cummings offences in dossier, ex-chief prosecutor claims A former crown prosecutor has sent authorities a dossier accusing the prime minister’s chief adviser of breaking coronavirus laws and perverting the course of justice. Lawyers acting for Nazir Afzal OBE, the former chief crown prosecutor for northwest England, have now sent investigators legal submissions calling for action to be taken. Dominic Cummings denies wrongdoing over taking his family to County Durham during the UK-wide lockdown in April, when his wife had Covid-19 symptoms. Police later found that he may have breached the law during a trip to Barnard Castle, […] - [England to follow France and Germany: Boris Johnson 'plans national Covid lockdown until December'](https://heartlandstribune.com/england-to-follow-france-and-germany-boris-johnson-plans-national-covid-lockdown-until-december/): Boris Johnson is expected to address the nation at the beginning of the week to make a major announcement. Everything but nurseries, schools and universities and essential shops could be closed until December 1 to try and stop the deadly spread of coronavirus. Boris Johnson is reported to be planning to take England into a full lockdown lasting until December. The Prime Minister is said to have met with his Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove and Health Minister Matt Hancock for crunch talks this afternoon. They came to the conclusion that more severe restrictions of […] - [Sir Keir Starmer suspends Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-suspends-jeremy-corbyn-from-the-labour-party/): Labour civil war Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party has suspended former leader Jeremy Corbyn pending an investigation following his comments responding to the Equality and Human Rights Commission report that was released today. A Labour spokesperson said: “In light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them subsequently, the Labour Party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn pending investigation. He has also had the whip removed from the Parliamentary Labour Party.” Snake oil salesman suspends Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party thus proving his snake oil works… Reacting to the EHRC report, which found Labour was responsible for […] - [France: Woman decapitated as three die in 'suspected terror attack'](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-woman-decapitated-as-three-die-in-suspected-terror-attack/): The suspect was shot by police while being detained but is alive and in hospital. A man wielding a knife on Thursday killed three people and injured several others in an attack at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice in southern France. A suspect has been arrested in the attack, which Nice’s mayor has described as an act of terrorism. Follow our live blog below for real-time updates. French anti-terror prosecutors have opened an inquiry into what the city’s Mayor Christian Estrosi called an “Islamo-fascist attack.” “The attacker kept repeating ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great) even while under medication” after he was injured […] - [Macron orders France back into Covid-19 lockdown amid surge in cases](https://heartlandstribune.com/macron-orders-france-back-into-covid-19-lockdown-amid-surge-in-cases/): French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a new nationwide lockdown to fight a surging second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic. The new confinement is to be less strict than the nearly eight-week lockdown in springtime, with some schools and businesses remaining open. The new nationwide shutdown of all restaurants, bars and non-essential businesses was to come into effect on Friday night and last until the start of December, though schools and many workplaces were to remain open. Like the nearly two-month confinement that began in March, a form will be required to leave one’s residence, with outings limited to acquiring essential […] - [Antisemitism inquiry is Labour's most shameful moment, says senior Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth; But is it really...](https://heartlandstribune.com/antisemitism-inquiry-is-labours-most-shameful-moment-says-senior-labour-mp-jonathan-ashworth-but-is-it-really/): The husband of Emilie Oldknow Jonathan Ashworth talks about shame. Who said Irony is dead! Jonathan Ashworth’s comments come the day before publication of EHRC report on the issue and its caused a bit of a Twitter storm In response, there have been hundreds of tweets with many suggestions of what are Labour’s most shameful moments, ironically most mention the Labour MPs own wife ‘Emilie Oldknow’ who the Labour party suspended along with several others, amid an ongoing investigation into a leaked report into antisemitism in the party. We can all agree any form of anti-Semitism racism and bigotry is shameful […] - [Kingston bomb threat: John Lewis shoppers evacuated from south west London store and roads closed](https://heartlandstribune.com/kingston-bomb-threat-john-lewis-shoppers-evacuated-from-south-west-london-store-and-roads-closed/): Shoppers have been evacuated from a John Lewis in south west London after a bomb threat. The Metropolitan Police are at the scene after threats were made to the department store in Wood Street, Kingston, at 9.50am. Road, including Kingston Bridge, have been sealed off while emergency services investigate. “The store has been evacuated and London Ambulance Service are in attendance as a precaution,” said a Met spokeswoman. “There have been no reported injuries. A number of closures, including Kingston Bridge, are in place while officers search the premises.” The force added that the incident is not believed to be terror […] - [Anti-French sentiment grows in Muslim countries](https://heartlandstribune.com/anti-french-sentiment-grows-in-muslim-countries/): The backlash between Islamic countries and France over President Emmanuel Macron’s comments on Islam and freedom of speech is growing.  A rift between France and Muslim nations is growing after French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month that Islam was in “crisis”. France is increasing security at religious sites as the interior minister said Tuesday that the country faces a “very high” risk of terrorist threats, amid growing geopolitical tensions following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. In the wake of the murder of Samuel Paty, a teacher who was killed for showing […] - [At least four migrants drown after boat sinks near Dunkirk](https://heartlandstribune.com/at-least-four-migrants-drown-after-boat-sinks-near-dunkirk/): Two adults and two children have died after a boat carrying migrants sank, French officials have said. A large search and rescue operation began earlier after the vessel was seen in difficulty near Dunkirk. Two children – aged five and eight – and a man and a woman have died. Fifteen others have been taken to hospital, French officials said. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the “tragic news highlights the dangers that come with crossing the Channel”. “I will do everything I can to stop callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people,” she said. The search operation is ongoing off the coast of […] - [People Power: Johnson promises 'no child will go hungry' as he faces free school meals backlash](https://heartlandstribune.com/people-power-johnson-promises-no-child-will-go-hungry-as-he-faces-free-school-meals-backlash/): The Marcus Rashford led campaign for FSM is forcing the Tories to do the right thing. Boris Johnson today hinted at another climbdown on free school meals during holidays as he faces a growing Tory revolt.  The PM insisted he was ‘very proud’ of the way the government had supported families during the pandemic, including handing tens of millions extra to councils and increasing universal credit.  But Mr Johnson also sounded a conciliatory tone in the face of the campaign by footballer Marcus Rashford, vowing children would not go hungry due to government ‘inattention’. ‘We don’t want to see children going […] - [EMPTY PLATES LEFT OUTSIDE TORY OFFICE IN PROTEST OF FREE SCHOOL MEALS VOTE](https://heartlandstribune.com/empty-plates-left-outside-tory-office-in-protest-of-free-school-meals-vote/): People left empty plates with messages about hungry children outside a local Tory headquarters after their MP voted against providing free school meals for children over the school holidays. The issue of free school meals has been cast into mainstream conversation in recent months, thanks in no small part to the activism of Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford, who has been a vocal proponent for tackling child food poverty. Southend West MP Sir David Amess was one of the 322 Tories who voted against the Labour Party motion to provide free school meals for children during the half-term break and Christmas […] - [Spain declares new coronavirus state of emergency](https://heartlandstribune.com/spain-declares-new-coronavirus-state-of-emergency/): Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has declared a second national state of emergency, imposing a curfew and allowing closure of internal borders. An extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers was held in Madrid on Sunday morning “in order to examine the terms of a new royal decree on a state of alert,” a communiqué released by Prime Minister Pedro Sachez’s office said on Saturday evening. It added that “the proposal has been welcomed by the majority” of Spain’s regional governments, “which have requested it”. In a meeting that lasted two hours, the cabinet agreed to an initial 15-day state of […] - [Naga Munchetty ripped into Ben Bradley 'caught out and squirming'](https://heartlandstribune.com/naga-munchetty-ripped-into-ben-bradley-caught-out-and-squirming/): Conservative MP Ben Bradley has infuriated BBC Breakfast viewers after he tried to defend the Government’s latest decision. MPs vote to reject footballer Marcus Rashford’s call to extend free school meal vouchers for children in England during the holidays. Mr Bradley came under fire on social media for “defending the indefensible”. Mr Bradley was also grilled regarding some controversial comments he had made on his social media about the situation. Host Naga Munchetty ripped into Bradley over a tweet he had sent that implied that free school meals vouchers were being used as cash directly to “crack dens and brothels”. The […] - [Labour councillor resigns in protest over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-councillor-resigns-in-protest-over-sir-keir-starmers-leadership/): A Doncaster Labour councillor has resigned from the party in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership declaring the Party a bullying dictatorship Councillor McDonald, who was elected in 2017, stated a number of issues including the suspension of Labour members across the country along with the mass suspensions of branch chairs and secretaries for passing motions in support of former leader Jeremy Corbyn. She also hit out at the body who runs council elections – the Local Campaign Forum – for its ‘acceptance of an appallingly poor councillor application system’. But she added the ‘final straw’ was the announcement by shadow […] - [A vote for Labour is a vote to support the NHS: But not if it means a 12.5% pay rise or strike action.](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-vote-for-labour-is-a-vote-to-support-the-nhs-but-not-if-it-means-a-12-5-pay-rise-or-strike-action/): It’s a race to the bottom for a Nurses pay rise with the Tories at 1% and Labour at 2.1% Speaking at his local election campaign launch, Sir Keir Starmer said: “A vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses, our doctors, our NHS staff, and to reward our key workers. However, Labour will not commit to a 5% pay rise for nurses although that was their manifesto election promise. Both Sir Keir Starmer and his Deputy Leader Angela Rayner have refused to back the 12.5% demanded by nurses or even their own manifesto pledges of 5% pay rise they promised. […] - [Starmer just Admitted He Suspended Jeremy Corbyn, Contradicting Himself While Breaking EHRC's by doing so?](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-just-admitted-he-suspended-jeremy-corbyn-contradicting-himself-while-breaking-ehrcs-by-doing-so/): Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was suspended in October after 37 years as an MP and 54 years as a member after he defended the party from allegations of anti-Semitism in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but was promptly reinstated by the ruling executive committee. In May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced it would be investigating the party over its handling of the claims. Its findings in October 2020 concluded. The watchdog said its analysis “points to a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, […] - [From London to Berlin Covid opened the treasury doors to cronyism, theft and corruption](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-london-to-berlin-covid-opened-the-treasury-doors-to-cronyism-theft-and-corruption/): Why do some politicians see this pandemic as an excuse to dip their sticky fingers in the public coffers, where is the scrutiny? From PPE to testing kits, the government has outsourced billions of pounds’ worth of contracts to firms connected to the Tory party, many of which lacked relevant experience. Recent revelations by the Good Law Project have highlighted a number of potential irregularities in the awarding of public contracts for PPE by the UK government amid the pandemic. Leaked documents show that a number of lucrative contracts to provide PPE to the National Health Service were awarded to companies that had only […] - [Piers Morgan First Casualty of Right Royal Rumpus](https://heartlandstribune.com/piers-morgan-first-casualty-of-right-royal-rumpus/): Piers Morgan is to leave Good Morning Britain following Meghan Markle row The announcement comes after broadcasting regulator Ofcom launched an investigation after it received more than 41,000 complaints regarding comment made by the presenter following Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. In a statement, the broadcaster said: “Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. “ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.” It brings the controversial host’s time on the breakfast show to an end after six years. The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle opened up […] - [Banksy: Game Changer to be auctioned for NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/banksy-game-changer-to-be-auctioned-for-nhs/): Street Artist and Activist Banksy raising money for NHS charities A Banksy painting of a young boy ditching his Batman and Spider-Man action figures for one of a caped superhero nurse could raise more than £3m for the NHS. Christie’s has announced it is selling the artwork on behalf of the artist, with the proceeds going to NHS charities. Activist and Street artist Banksy hopes to raise more than £3m for the NHS with the auction of a painting offering a “universal tribute” to staff. The painting, titled Game Changer, was delivered to Southampton general hospital last May, during the first […] - [Boris Johnson admits Covid cases could shoot up as schools reopen, so why not a phased return to school?](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-admits-covid-cases-could-shoot-up-as-schools-reopen-so-why-not-a-phased-return-to-school/): Boris Johnson admits ‘of course’ Covid cases could shoot up as schools reopen. Boris Johnson has admitted Covid cases could “of course” shoot upwards as schools in England reopen this week. We all know what is meant by spike, its not just a bar chart, a slide, it’s more deaths more pain and more hurt for somebody’s family. The Prime Minister said there is a “big budget of risk” that was “just inevitable” – but insisted: “The biggest risk is not opening schools now”. All schools in England are set to resume full classes this week in a “big bang” reopening […] - [Back to school: lockdown rules will change in England 'today' but teachers union say plans already 'unravelling'.](https://heartlandstribune.com/back-to-school-lockdown-rules-will-change-in-england-today-but-teachers-union-say-plans-already-unravelling/): Some restrictions will be lifted on Monday as the first stage of the roadmap out of lockdown comes into force Both Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer have backed a full reopening of schools for all children on March 8th Responding to the announcement by the Prime Minister that all pupils are to return to schools and colleges from March 8, Dr Patrick Roach, General Secretary of the NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union, said: “The Prime Minister has stated that it is his priority to get all pupils back to school and college. However, re-opening schools and colleges fully on 8 March is one […] - [French billionaire MP Olivier Dassault dies in helicopter crash](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-billionaire-mp-olivier-dassault-dies-in-helicopter-crash/): French President Emmanuel Macron calls Dassault’s ‘sudden death’ a ‘tragic loss’. French MP and billionaire Olivier Dassault has died in a helicopter crash in north-western France. French billionaire politician Olivier Dassault died on Sunday in a helicopter crash in France’s northwestern region of Normandy, parliamentary and probe sources told AFP. The accident occurred on Sunday evening in Normandy where he had a holiday home, according to police sources. In his tribute, President Emanuel Macron said Dassault, 69, loved France and his death would be “a great loss”. Olivier Dassault was elected to the National Assembly – France’s lower house of parliament […] - [NHS: Boris Johnson ignores public outcry claiming 1% pay rise is 'as much as we can give'](https://heartlandstribune.com/nhs-boris-johnson-ignores-public-outcry-claiming-1-pay-rise-is-as-much-as-we-can-give/): Boris Johnson has defended plans to give some NHS staff in England a 1% pay rise, amid warnings that “undervalued” nurses could quit. The government is giving workers “as much as we can” in the “tough times” of the Covid pandemic, Mr Johnson said. Asked about the proposed pay rise on a visit to a coronavirus vaccination centre in Brent in north London, Mr Johnson said: “What we have done is try to give them as much as we can at the present time. “Don’t forget that there has been a public sector pay freeze, we’re in pretty tough times.” He […] - [Hope and Despair: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe released but faces new court date](https://heartlandstribune.com/hope-and-despair-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-released-but-faces-new-court-date/): Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on spying charges, has had her ankle tag removed at the end of her five year sentence. But her husband Richard Ratcliffe has been told a new court case against her is scheduled for next Sunday. The charity worker had been under house arrest in Tehran since being moved from jail last March. She has always denied the charges against her. The second set of charges long threatened by the Iranians include involvement in propaganda activity against the Islamic Republic by attending a demonstration outside the Iran embassy in 2009 and speaking to BBC Persian. […] - [Iraq: Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Sistani call for unity](https://heartlandstribune.com/iraq-pope-francis-and-grand-ayatollah-sistani-call-for-unity/): Pope Francis met with a top Shia cleric in Iraq on Saturday as part of his historic three-day visit to the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most influential clerics in Shia Islam, took place in the holy city of Najaf and was meant to deliver a message of cooperation and friendship between religious communities. Pope Francis sought to reinforce ties across religions during the second day of his trip to Iraq, visiting a top Shiite Muslim cleric on Saturday and leading a meeting with representatives of different faiths at the ancient […] - [RCN Announces £35 million Industrial Action Fund and an entire nation standing behind them](https://heartlandstribune.com/rcn-announces-35-million-industrial-action-fund-and-an-entire-nation-standing-behind-them/): The RCN has created the UK’s largest union strike fund overnight. Last night the union’s governing Council convened an emergency meeting, in which they voted unanimously to immediately set up a £35 million Industrial Action fund. This came after the Government asked the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB) to recommend a rise of just 1% for all NHS workers. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) called this 1% for all NHS workers “pitiful”, arguing that its members should get 12.5% instead. The Department of Health and Social Care recommended the 1% pay rise to the independent panel that advises the government on NHS salaries. […] - [The Real Budget Losers: Cut Millions in Aid to Yemen, In Midst of World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-real-budget-losers-cut-millions-in-aid-to-yemen-in-midst-of-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis/): With Yemen on the brink of famine, the head of the UN called the cuts a “death sentence.” There has been huge condemnation against cuts of millions of pounds to the UK’s overseas aid budget. In the first brutal revelation of how Britain’s aid budget will be affected by dropping funding from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Minister James Cleverly told a conference Monday afternoon that the U.K. will be donating just £87 million ($120 million) to Yemen relief efforts in the coming year. That’s less than half of the £196.6 million the U.K. donated at a Yemen pledging […] - [Priti Patel's bullying cost the public £340k in payout to victim civil servant](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patel-bullying-cost-the-public-340k-in-payout-to-victim-civil-servant/): The government has settled with former civil servant Sir Philip Rutnam over his claim for unfair dismissal. Sources close to Sir Philip confirmed to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme that he received £340,000 plus his legal costs. The ex-Home Office boss quit amid bullying claims against Home Secretary Priti Patel, which she denies. Rutnam dramatically resigned last February, claiming Patel had masterminded a “vicious and orchestrated briefing campaign” against him. An inquiry last November found Patel had bullied a number of Home Office civil servants, including Rutnam. In a statement today, Rutnam said: “I have received excellent support during this process […] - [Lawyers challenge the Labour Party's recruitment of ex-Israeli spy](https://heartlandstribune.com/lawyers-challenge-the-labour-partys-recruitment-of-ex-israeli-spy/): Labour Party is facing a legal challenge over its recruitment of former Israeli spy Assaf Kaplan by leading law firm Bindmans. The Law firm has sent the Labour Party a letter on behalf of a British Palestinian member of the party, Adnan Hmidan, demanding answers over the controversial hiring of a former Israeli ex-military intelligence officer employed in a roll of “social listening” the role raises “serious concerns” about Labour’s position on Palestine, its recruitment process and its data security. There are also questions on what exactly is “social listening” after the recent revelations contained in the #Labourleaks report that if […] - [Calls for Nicola Sturgeon to quit over Alex Salmond revelations](https://heartlandstribune.com/calls-for-nicola-sturgeon-to-quit-over-alex-salmond-revelations/): Nicola Sturgeon is facing calls to resign after new documents raised further questions about her involvement in the Alex Salmond case. The government has published emails showing it continued a doomed legal fight with Mr Salmond despite its lawyers advising it was likely to lose. Further evidence from two other witnesses has also called into question Ms Sturgeon’s version of events. Scotland’s first minster is to face an inquiry over the affair on Wednesday. The cross-party committee is looking at how the Scottish Government bungled a probe into sexual misconduct claims made against Mr Salmond in 2018. The former First Minister had […] - [#Labourleaks: Former senior Labour staffer and wife to MP Jonathan Ashworth, Emilie Oldknow loses case against the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/labourleaks-former-senior-labour-staffer-and-wife-to-mp-jonathan-ashworth-emilie-oldknow-loses-case-against-the-labour-party/): Ex-Labour staffer Emilie Oldknow has lost her legal bid to force the party to say who leaked its internal report into the handling of allegations of antisemitism. Emilie Oldknow wife to Jonathan Ashworth Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care had taken the party to court in an attempt to force it to disclose the identity of those responsible for leaking a report which contained hundreds of damning WhatsApp messages from Labour Party staffers recorded over the period Jeremy Corbyn was Party leader. The deeply controversial internal report was leaked last April to journalists and then distributed on […] - [Corruption: Former French president Sarkozy sentenced to jail but he will probably serve his sentence at home.](https://heartlandstribune.com/corruption-former-french-president-sarkozy-sentenced-to-jail-but-he-will-probably-serve-his-sentence-at-home/): Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to three years in jail for corruption charges, after he was found guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate. Two years of the three-year sentence will be suspended, and it is unlikely the former President will spend a single day in jail. The remaining one-year prison term can be served at home under house arrest, in which Sarkozy will be required to wear an electronic tag. Sarkozy was accused of offering to boost a high magistrate’s chance of obtaining a promotion in Monaco back in 2014 in return for leaked information about a […] - [Sunak suggests furlough scheme to remain beyond April but interest rates could rise](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunak-suggests-furlough-scheme-to-remain-beyond-april-but-interest-rates-could-rise/): Rishi Sunak will deliver his spending plans for the next year this Wednesday in his 2021 Budget. The annual speech see’s the government set out plans for the upcoming year as well as provide an update on the country’s finances. However, this budget promises to be more interesting that most. Not only will we see this Tory government put to task with its roadmap to recovery but we are going to see a Paradoxical ideology where the Tories are overseeing massive state spending and a Labour Party opposing. The Tory Chancellor is tipped to extend furlough, the Stamp Duty cut and […] - [It's back to the centre with ‘New Scottish Labour Leader’ Anas Sarwar](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-back-to-the-centre-with-new-scottish-labour-leader-anas-sarwar/): Anas Sarwar has been elected the new leader of Scottish Labour, replacing the Left-wing Richard Leonard who led the party for three years before his controversial resignation in January. Sarwar the standing Glasgow MSP takes over less than three months before the next Holyrood elections. The party was forced to vote for a new leader after Richard Leonard’s shock resignation in January, claiming his decision was in the “best interests” of Scottish Labour. Mr Sarwar, who lost against Mr Leonard in 2017, was quick to throw his hat into the ring, followed by Central Scotland MSP Monica Lennon. The Glasgow MSP won the […] - [Tony Blair insists 12-week vaccine plan was his idea: Question is why the hell is Blair involved in the first place](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blair-insists-12-week-vaccine-plan-was-his-idea-question-is-why-the-hell-is-blair-involved-in-the-first-place/): The story beggar’s belief, Tony Blair in an argument with a Tory minister Matt Hancock about who should take credit for a delay in the second shot of the covid vaccine rollout. Tony Blair has insisted that the idea to use a 12-week delay between coronavirus doses was his idea, after he was accused of stealing ideas from the Government and passing them off as his own. A delay that is yet to be proved as effective as having the full dose within a shorter period of time as recommended by the manufactures. In fact, according to WHO’ experts, the Pfizer […] - [Vaccine rollout to go by age, not job title: Covid-19 school unions 'disappointed' that teachers will not be prioritised](https://heartlandstribune.com/vaccine-rollout-to-go-by-age-not-job-title-covid-19-school-unions-disappointed-that-teachers-will-not-be-prioritised/): The JCVI vaccine authority has announced the order in which healthy adults under 50 should get the jab – with 40-49s first, then 30-39s, then 18-29s last Downing Street has defended the decision not to prioritise key workers such as police officers in the next phase of the coronavirus vaccine rollout. Government scientific advisers have set out the next steps in the vaccine rollout, saying they will prioritise people based on age, but dismiss calls to prioritise key workers. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisations (JCVI) have set out the order in which jabs will be offered in the second […] - [Labour to state 'non-negotiable' support for UK's nuclear weapons and NATO](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-to-state-non-negotiable-support-for-uks-nuclear-weapons-and-nato/): Labour support for UK’s nuclear weapons at the cost of £205 billion Labour’s commitment to maintaining the UK’s nuclear weapons is “non-negotiable”, the party’s shadow defence minister, John Healey, is expected to say in a speech on Friday In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute – which was set up by the Duke of Wellington and is the world’s oldest defence think-tank – he will say: “First, Labour’s commitment to Nato is unshakeable,” he is due to say, according to extracts of the speech released in advance. “Second, Labour’s support for the UK’s nuclear deterrent is non-negotiable. Third, Labour’s commitment […] - [Starmer broken pledge: Labour set to oppose any immediate corporation tax rise in next week’s Budget](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-broken-pledge-labour-set-to-oppose-any-immediate-corporation-tax-rise-in-next-weeks-budget/): The Tories are set to increase corporation tax Labour set to oppose Sir Keir Starmer argued that ‘now is not the time for tax rises’ as it emerged the party would resist efforts to hike corporation tax Sir Keir Starmer said at PMQs today: “Now is not the time for tax rises for families and for businesses.” Asked later if Starmer’s meant opposing all tax rises, even on businesses, Labour MP James Murray said: “This is not the time to do tax rises, in the middle of an economic crisis.” Asked if he would not support “any tax rises at all” […] - [Coronavirus: 150,000 people with learning disabilities to be prioritised for vaccine](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-150000-people-with-learning-disabilities-to-be-prioritised-for-vaccine/): Everyone on the GP learning disability register should be prioritised for a Covid vaccine, the joint committee on vaccination has advised the government. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended the change to the government on Wednesday. Those with severe learning disabilities are already included in priority group six, while adults with less severe conditions have not been prioritised until now. Care minister Helen Whately said: “I have heard first-hand how tough this pandemic has been for people with learning disabilities and their families. “We are determined those more at risk from Covid should be vaccinated as soon as possible.” […] - [Labour's Last Leader doing what the 'New Leader' won't: Jeremy Corbyn calls for Hancock to be replaced.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-last-leader-doing-what-the-new-leader-wont-jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-hancock-to-be-replaced/): Jeremy Corbyn calls for Matt Hancock to be replaced. Jeremy Corbyn asked Boris Johnson to end the scandal of privatisation and outsourcing in our NHS – and to replace the Health Secretary after he was found to have broken the law by failing to reveal contracts worth billions of pounds. Boris Johnson should sack Matt Hancock and replace him with “somebody who will obey the law”, Jeremy Corbyn has said. Intervening in parliament on Monday, the former Labour leader said that “answers are required from the prime minister” over lawbreaking around the awarding of NHS contracts. In contrast even after the ‘High court […] - [Sir Keir Starmer defends Matt Hancock after he acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts worth millions](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-defends-matt-hancock-after-he-acted-unlawfully-by-failing-to-publish-covid-contracts-worth-millions/): Sir Keir Starmer is taking supporting the Tories one step further, He is now defending them This week campaign group the Good Law Project and three MPs – Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, Green Caroline Lucas and Lib Dem Layla Moran – took legal action against the Department of Health over its “wholesale failure” to disclose details of the contracts agreed. The judge ruled the health secretary had “breached his legal obligation” by not publishing details within 30 days of contracts being signed. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, acted unlawfully by failing to publish multibillion-pound Covid-19 government contracts within the 30-day period required by […] - [Matt Hancock acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-hancock-acted-unlawfully-by-failing-to-publish-covid-contracts/): In open court, lawyers acting on behalf of the Government admitted it had breached the law by persistently failing to publish details of COVID-19 contracts.  Government in breach of the law The health secretary, Matt Hancock, acted unlawfully by failing to publish multibillion-pound Covid-19 government contracts within the 30-day period required by law, a high court judge has ruled. The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, ruled the failure to do so breached the “vital public function” of transparency over how “vast quantities” of taxpayers’ money was spent. The judgment is a victory for the Good Law Project (GLP), a crowdfunded not-for-profit organisation that is making […] - [Keir Starmer supporting Labour Party group is being investigated for failing to declare financial backers](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-supporting-labour-party-group-is-being-investigated-for-failing-to-declare-financial-backers/): An influential Labour Party group with close links to Sir Keir Starmer is under investigation by the UK’s Electoral Commission after allegedly failing to declare over £800,000 in donations within the time required under law, Insider can reveal. The investigation into Labour Together, which counts among its current directors’ the Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Steve Reed MP, was opened in December 2020. Labour together claim to be a network of committed Labour Party members, supporters and politicians. Some of the MPs who are helping to co-ordinate projects include Jon […] - [Starmer's vision of Britain looks very conservative](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-vision-of-britain-looks-very-conservative/): Starmer called his vision a fork in the road but it looked more like a parallel path to Toryland Even if Sir Keir Starmer had anything vaguely interesting to say it was lost in the sleep-inducing tempo of the speech. If the long pauses were designed for effect, it failed, it looked more like the autocue had been set up wrong. It was simply excruciating to watch. People hoped Sir Keir Starmer would pull something out of the bag, after all the build-up to the announcement, ‘Starmer’s Britain’ his vision. The liberal media press selling headlines suggesting a spirit of 1945 […] - [Sir Keir Starmer to make a 'Two Flag announcement' telling Britain it has a choice: 'good government' under Labour or 'failed ideology' under the Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-to-make-a-two-flag-annocement-telling-britain-it-has-a-choice-good-government-under-labour-or-failed-ideology-under-the-tories/): It’s back to trickle-down politics and Britain PLC with an emphasis on Labour’s good for business Sir Keir Starmer member of the Trilateral Commission will today insist Britain faces a choice between a Labour future based on security and opportunity or the Conservatives’ failed ideology that represents a “roadmap to yesterday”. And in a keynote address ahead of the March 3 Budget, the Labour leader will set out a vision of a “new partnership” between a future government under his leadership and the business community, which “tackles inequality, invests in the future and builds a more secure and prosperous economy”. In […] - [Two million people have not worked in six months and millions more expect to lose jobs by May](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-million-people-have-not-worked-in-six-months-and-millions-more-expect-to-lose-jobs-by-may/): ALMOST two million people have not worked for at least six months of the pandemic, and a further 2.6 million expect to lose their jobs within three months. A new study by the Resolution Foundation think tank into the state of the UK labour market as a result of the crisis has uncovered the staggering extent of unemployment and furlough across the country. It also warns that unemployment rates are predicted to grow when government support schemes, such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), come to an end. The report, titled ‘Long Covid in the labour market’, found that by January 2021, […] - [UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty: The European union's neoliberal policies are causing poverty throughout Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-special-rapporteur-on-poverty-the-european-unions-neoliberal-policies-are-causing-poverty-throughout-europe/): The UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty, Olivier De Schutter, says the EU’s neoliberal policies cause poverty. Hardly a startling revelation given that 14million people were living in poverty in this country when the UK was still a member of the EU.  Austerity is the enemy of the people. Over the past decade, various European countries including the UK have been experiencing one of the most dramatic economic crises of the past century. As the effects of the 2007–2009 US subprime mortgage crisis and the 2007–2008 financial crisis rippled across the Atlantic, various fiscally stressed EU countries were forced to borrow heavily in order […] - [Trilateral Commission: Who is 'Mandelson' and how are they all connected](https://heartlandstribune.com/who-is-mandelson-and-how-are-they-all-connected/): Mandelson, Starmer, and Jeffrey Epstein how are they all connected We called it…Lord Mandelson has been appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a fellow Trilateral Commission member, as the British ambassador to Washington. This move, unsurprisingly, solidifies the globalist ties at the heart of the Labour leadership. It’s worth noting that the Trilateral Commission, often scrutinised for its elitist and opaque decision-making, while being openly hostile to democracy, once counted Jeffrey Epstein among its ranks—Mandelson’s other infamous “Good friend”, something we will explore in later chapters. Mandelson is set to assume the role just as Donald Trump embarks on his second […] - [The question is 'which Bastard' ordered the ‘do not resuscitate’ notices for Covid patients with learning disabilities](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-question-is-which-bastard-ordered-the-do-not-resuscitate-notices-for-covid-patients-with-learning-disabilities/): Yes, we are all furious but where did the ordered come from who signed this blanket death warrant? People with learning disabilities have been given do not resuscitate orders during the second wave of the pandemic, in spite of widespread condemnation of the practice last year and an urgent investigation by the care watchdog Mencap. Mencap has said they received multiple reports from coronavirus patients with learning disabilities who were told they would not be resuscitated if their health deteriorated.  “Throughout the pandemic, many people with a learning disability have faced shocking discrimination and obstacles to accessing healthcare, with inappropriate Do Not […] - [Sorry, St Greta, but you know little about the realities of the UK’s new coal mine. Climate panic is ruining workers' livelihoods](https://heartlandstribune.com/sorry-st-greta-but-you-know-little-about-the-realities-of-the-uks-new-coal-mine-climate-panic-is-ruining-workers-livelihoods/): First deep coal mine in 30-years could open in Cumbria Dr Lisa McKenzie advocates ‘Coal, not Dole’ One cannot diminish the importance of the British coal industry over its 200-year lifespan neither can we ignore this once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalise one of Cumbria’s poorest regions, creating thousands of jobs and boosting infrastructure in this often overlooked part of the old Red Wall. New technology has brought this once unattainable coal within reach and, in Cumbria, there is now much support for the idea it should be used to help the area. The new mine would bring 500 well-paid jobs, WCM says. […] - [Donald Trump acquitted in second impeachment trial](https://heartlandstribune.com/donald-trump-acquitted-in-second-impeachment-trial/): Former President Trump acquitted in historic second impeachment trial Former President Trump has been acquitted in his historic second impeachment trial, with seven Republican senators joining 50 Democrats voting to convict, fewer than the 17 needed. The Senate just voted to acquit former President Trump in his second impeachment trial. The vote was 57-43, with seven Republicans joining the Democrats. Senators needed a two-thirds majority to convict Trump. These are the seven Republicans who voted to convict the former President: Richard Burr Bill Cassidy Susan Collins Lisa Murkowski Mitt Romney Ben Sasse Pat Toomey You can only impeach a president! Senate Minority […] - [#LabourLeaks Buried: Forde Inquiry report delayed indefinitely](https://heartlandstribune.com/labourleaks-buried-forde-inquiry-report-delayed-indefinitely/): And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. George Orwell 1984 A deeply controversial internal report was leaked last April to journalists and then distributed on social media. The shocking content escalates Labour factional warfare and intensifies the toxic relationships between different groups within the Party. The dossier – dated March 2020 and leaked in April 2020 – claimed some Labour Party workers did not want Jeremy Corbyn to win the 2017 general election and in reading the Whatsapp messages suggested […] - [Labour Civil War: Sir Keir Starmer's aide tells the Left to ‘Bring It On’](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-civil-war-sir-keir-starmers-aide-tells-the-left-to-bring-it-on/): Less than 12 months ago Sir Keir Starmer stood on a so-called unity platform today his actions and his own aide’s words reflect his real ambitions. Carolyn Harris aide to Keir Starmer has dismissed left-wing criticism of his leadership as “nonsense” claiming that it is not based in “the real world”. Harris, the Labour leader’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS), told HuffPost UK that left-wing critics of Starmer are “making themselves look silly”. It came after a coalition of MPs, unions and Labour members called Starmer to hold an emergency party conference amid speculation of a leadership challenge as members fear he is repositioning the party […] - [Glasgow Soup Kitchen 2021: This is a failure of both Scottish and UK governments](https://heartlandstribune.com/glasgow-2021-this-is-a-failure-of-both-scottish-and-uk-governments/): A shocking photo showing more than 200 people queuing in the snow for food at a soup kitchen just yards from Glasgow’s city chambers has been blasted as “an indictment of national failure”. The image of queues for Kindness Homeless Street Team’s soup kitchen in Glasgow’s George Square has been shared thousands of times on social media after the community group revealed 220 people braved snow and sub-zero temperatures for help on Monday. Social media users branded the photo “shocking and humiliating” while some compared it to Soviet Union in the 1930s. The picture, which was taken on Monday night as Glasgow was hit by […] - [The Revolving Door: Banker and Political Grifter Chuka Umunna goes to work for JP Morgan](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-revolving-door-banker-and-political-grifter-chuka-umunna-goes-to-work-for-jp-morgan/): The Revolving Door never stops spinning rewarding all Labour’s little traitors Those that attacked Jeremy Corbyn from within his own party have one thing in common, they have been richly rewarded by the establishment. The main protagonists who constantly undermined Labour or carried out direct attacks on the Left-wing have been made life long unelected peers or in the case of Chuka Umunna promoted directly into the establishments Banking sector, an easy step through the Revolving door. Chuka Umunna is to move to JP Morgan from the communications company Edelman, which he joined last July to become head of its ESG consultancy team. […] - [A united Left 'Demand Labour' hold a special conference to bring the Party back from the brink.](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-united-left-demand-labour-hold-a-special-conference-to-bring-the-party-back-from-the-brink/): If there is one thing uniting the Left its the disappointment in Sir Keir Starmer as Labour Leader A coalition of left-wing MPs, unions and Labour members are calling on Sir Keir Starmer to hold an emergency party conference in hope of persuading him to turn from his present course, a direction that can only lead to the loss of the Labour party has the political party for the British working class. Arguing that there is a crisis in the Labour Party and the way out is Party Democracy, in a press release they say “Discussion in local Labour Party meetings has […] - [America couldn't afford a Black messiah, like Fred Hampton, so they shot him.](https://heartlandstribune.com/america-couldnt-afford-a-black-messiah-like-fred-hampton-so-they-shot-him/): The US government’s efforts to discredit Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders illustrate the lengths to which it will go to stifle left-wing movements. We have all seen the picture of the hotel balcony where Martin Luther King jr. stood, and fell, surrounded by his entourage, all pointing – presumably, in the direction from which the bullet came. All but one. One man was not standing, not pointing, but kneeling by Martin Luther King’s body, presumably checking to see if – or that – he was dead. That man, Merrell McCullough, was an undercover police officer who had infiltrated […] - [Calls for Sir Keir Starmer to give evidence at #Spycops inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/calls-for-sir-keir-starmer-to-give-evidence-at-spycops-inquiry/): Labour Leader Keir Starmer ‘Must Give Evidence’ to Inquiry, Say Activists ‘Fitted Up by Spycops’ Calls for Sir Keir Starmer to give evidence at the #Spycops inquiry are a reminder of this former top prosecutor’s close ties to the state. A group of climate activists are calling on Trilateral commission member and Labour leader Keir Starmer to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, alleging he may have been involved in a cover-up of police and prosecutors orchestrating wrongful convictions. They are demanding to know if the Labour leader helped to conceal how the actions of undercover officers caused the wrongful […] - [Good news for Democracy: The Communist Party will be standing for election.](https://heartlandstribune.com/good-news-for-democracy-the-communist-party-will-be-standing-for-election/): The Communist Party plans biggest electoral campaign since the 1980s News The failures of the mainstream parties have brought about thousands of disenfranchised voters. The Labour Party has lost over 57k members since Sir Keir Starmer became Leader. The Tory Party membership is literately dying of old age and its attempts to attract younger members has fallen dramatically from its peak at 157,000 in 1949 to just over 10,000 members aged under 30 in 2018. The Lib Dems are still in the midst of their political death rattle and even with a membership of 115k or so it cannot translate that […] - [Starmer's vote losing Brexit Policy Crashed the 'RED WALL' not Flag Shaggers](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-vote-losing-brexit-policy-crashed-the-red-wall-not-flag-wavers/): No amount of flag-shagging will win back the lost Labour Heartlands, It was never about nationalism it was always about Democracy. Repetition makes a statement seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Understanding this effect can help you avoid falling for propaganda. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels, it seems a shame a Labour Party Leader is using the same technique once carried out by such evil men on its own membership. Sir Keir Starmer is employing a technique that among psychologists […] - [Ricky Tomlinson fights to overturn controversial conviction from 48 years ago](https://heartlandstribune.com/ricky-tomlinson-fights-to-overturn-controversial-conviction-from-48-years-ago/): The Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson is among a group of 14 attempting to overturn their convictions at the Court of Appeal. Before becoming one of Britain’s best-loved actors through roles in Brookside and The Royle Family, Ricky Tomlinson was controversially jailed for his part in a strike in 1972. In 1972, Ricky Tomlinson was a plasterer in his mid-30s, living in a council house in north Wales, known by his real name Eric Tomlinson, with his familiar gift of the gab and a fiery streak. When building workers went on a national strike that May, Tomlinson was among the leaders […] - [#BalooLabour: Starmer lies like a Tory too](https://heartlandstribune.com/baloolabour-starmer-lies-like-a-tory-too/): Sir Keir Starmer denies calling for UK to stay in the European Medicines Agency despite records showing he did Trilateral Commission member and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer denied saying the UK should stay in the European Medicines Agency (EMA) despite official records showing he called for just that at least twice in the past. Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions today on the response to the pandemic, Boris Johnson said: “If we had listened to [Sir Keir] we would still be at the starting blocks because he wanted to stay in the European medicines agency and said so four times from […] - [Tory Minister’s Public Attack on journalist Who Asked Covid Questions Condemned For Undermining Press Freedom](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-ministers-public-attack-on-journalist-who-asking-covid-questions-condemned-for-undermining-press-freedom/): Attacks on political journalist are threats to your freedom. Press freedom campaigners and the UK’s journalism trade union have raised concerns about the public attack made by a government minister on a HuffPost UK reporter for asking questions about her role in a Covid-19 vaccination campaign. Last week, equalities minister Kemi Badenoch took to Twitter to accuse journalist Nadine White of “creepy and bizarre” behaviour for asking straightforward questions about why she had not appeared in a video. White received abuse, and had to make her Twitter profile private, after Badenoch shared screenshots of two emails the journalist sent to a government press […] - [NHS hero Captain Sir Tom Moore dies at 100 after battle with Covid and pneumonia](https://heartlandstribune.com/nhs-hero-captain-sir-tom-moore-dies-at-100-after-battle-with-covid-and-pneumonia/): The veteran that inspired a nation when he raised more than £32 million for the NHS, walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday during the first national lockdown last April. He was admitted to Bedford Hospital on Sunday having been treated for “a few weeks” for pneumonia at home and Captain Tom – as he has become universally known – contracted coronavirus some time in mid-January.  His daughters, Hannah and Lucy, confirmed Moore’s death in a statement. They said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear father, Captain Sir Tom Moore. We are […] - [“There’s No Such Thing as Society”: The UK and US Pay the Price for Neoliberal Individualism](https://heartlandstribune.com/theres-no-such-thing-as-society-the-uk-and-us-pay-the-price-for-neoliberal-individualism/): The Role of Individualism in the West’s Covid Response The United Kingdom and the United States have a deadly failure in common: their approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s initial dismissal of the virus had many commentators shocked that the UK government appeared to be going for a ‘herd immunity’ approach back in March 2020, whilst America’s then-President Donald Trump proudly denounced scientific advice throughout his remaining months in the White House. The British and American approach has seen the pandemic continue to hit their populations the hardest with cases and deaths spiralling as other nations across the […] - [Coronavirus: Anti-lockdown protests continue across Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-anti-lockdown-protests-continue-across-europe/): Brussels police detain hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters From Brussels to Vienna, police have clashed with scores of protesters demonstrating against COVID restrictions. Both Belgium and Austria have imposed a curfew and lockdown to fight the spread of coronavirus infections. A police spokesman said most arrests took place around train stations in the capital, adding that those involved in the banned protests would be allowed to leave one by one after identification. Dozens of demonstrators also gathered at the Atomium, a landmark building in Brussels. Belgium has heightened police patrols fearing a possible spill-over of protests against COVID restrictions after its neighbour the […] - [Captain Sir Tom Moore, in hospital, battling coronavirus and pneumonia](https://heartlandstribune.com/captain-sir-tom-moore-in-hospital-battling-coronavirus-and-pneumonia/): Captain Sir Tom Moore, the Second World War veteran who was knighted after raising millions of pounds for the NHS during the UK’s first lockdown, has been admitted to hospital with coronavirus. Captain Tom Moore has been rushed to Bedford Hospital with breathing difficulties after testing positive for coronavirus during treatment for pneumonia in recent weeks. In a statement released by his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore today, she said her dad tested positive for coronavirus last week while being treated for pneumonia. Sir Tom was reportedly unable to have his Covid vaccine before catching the disease because of his pneumonia medications. He […] - [Socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor](https://heartlandstribune.com/socialism-for-the-rich-and-rugged-free-enterprise-capitalism-for-the-poor/): A half-century ago, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the stilted rhetoric used to talk about public spending to promote the social good, he addressed what could only be seen as the inequality in the use of public spending. Here we are 53 years later and the fastest spreading political doctoring is that very same ‘socialism for the rich’. Behind the Coronavirus that has cut short so many lives the treasury doors have been flung wide open for the rich. Disaster capitalism has profiteered from yet another crisis while the poor have been left to cope and plead for all including […] - [United: Anger at EU's move to invoke Brexit clause on Irish border, EU backtrack](https://heartlandstribune.com/united-anger-at-eus-move-to-invoke-brexit-clause-on-irish-border-eu-backtrack/): Dublin, Belfast and London have blasted Brussels over Brexit deal override in latest vaccine fight The European Commission triggered measures to control vaccine exports after sparking political uproar with its plans to block the supply of Covid-19 vaccinations into Northern Ireland. It activated the Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol that allows parts of the special arrangement allowing free movement of products from the EU to Northern Ireland to be suspended. The move, which would have frustrated any efforts to use Northern Ireland as a back door to bring vaccines from the EU into the UK, provoked strong responses from […] - [Windrush: Almost two years after announcing a compensation scheme only 17% of victims have received any payment](https://heartlandstribune.com/windrush-almost-two-years-after-announcing-a-compensation-scheme-only-17-of-victims-have-received-any-payment/): The Windrush Compensation Scheme was set up in April 2019 to help people affected as quickly as possible. Since the Compensation Scheme was launched, only 17% of people affected by the Tory government persecution and its hostile environment policy have received any form of payment. Since the overhaul of the scheme in December 2020, early figures show an extra £4.5 million has now been offered to bring the total amount to over £8 million. The Windrush Compensation Scheme has now offered or paid more than £8 million – with more than half of that offered in the past six weeks since […] - [Trumpian protectionism: The EU are using 'towels on deck chairs' diplomacy over covid vaccines failures.](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumpian-protectionism-the-eu-are-using-towels-on-deck-chairs-diplomacy-over-covid-vaccines-failures/): The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency is due to announce its decision on approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. On Wednesday, the EU aired its frustrations with AstraZeneca, suggesting the pharmaceutical giant was reneging on its agreement. European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides said that the EU held “serious concerns regarding the intention of AstraZeneca to supply considerably fewer doses in the coming weeks than agreed and announced.” “We have been making all efforts to resolve the situation,” she said at a briefing. “We convened a third meeting on Monday night, which resulted again in insufficient explanations from the company, and deep dissatisfaction among the Member States.” ‘Not acceptable’ “The […] - [Novavax Covid vaccine 89% effective in trial UK orders 60million doses](https://heartlandstribune.com/novavax-covid-vaccine-89-effective-in-trial-uk-orders-60million-doses/): The UK vaccines taskforce has bought 60m doses of the Novavax vaccine, it has been found to be 89.3% effective and 85.6% effective against the UK strain, however, the US firm reported it may only be 50% effective against the South African variant. The Novavax worked against the disease variant first identified in Kent, which has proved to be up to 70% more infectious, the Department of Health said. The jab still needs approval from the UK regulator before it can be distributed in Britain. But if the injection is approved by the vaccines watchdog – the Medicines and Healthcare Products […] - [Holocaust memorial day: Thousands Of Names Being Projected Onto The French Embassy In Berlin](https://heartlandstribune.com/holocaust-memorial-day-thousands-of-names-being-projected-onto-the-french-embassy-in-berlin/): Holocaust Memorial Day: #everynamecounts 76 years ago, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland was liberated. The day is commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This year, pandemic restrictions in Germany mean the anniversary is being mostly marked virtually. A new memorial project in Berlin, supported by Germany’s culture commission and the French Embassy hopes to pave the way for remembrance culture in the digital age. Thousands of names are currently being projected onto the Embassy’s facade, a symbol itself of the post-war Franco-German friendship after so many decades of enmity. The Arolsen Archive is run by eleven nations, including Israel, Germany, […] - [Coronavirus: If 20,000 deaths was a 'good outcome' 100,000 is the most painful failure](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-if-20000-deaths-was-a-good-outcome-100000-is-the-most-painful-failure/): A grim milestone has been hit as over 100,000 deaths from coronavirus in the UK have taken place since the beginning of the pandemic, official data shows from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The virus reached the country in late January 2020. As of 23 January 2021, there have been 3.67M confirmed cases and officaly over one hundred thousand deaths, the world’s fourth-highest death rate per hundred thousand population and the highest number overall in Europe. The devastating toll of 100,000 people who have died from coronavirus in the UK since the disease first appeared in the country almost a year ago, is nothing less than “phenomenal […] - [Tony Benn: 'Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die?', vote on Iraq bombing - 1998](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-dont-arab-and-iraqi-women-weep-when-their-children-die-vote-on-iraq-bombing-1998/): Continuing with our working-class Heroes and great orators we come to Tony Benn, although not of the working class Benn was a hero to the working class. We are spoilt for choice in showcasing his best speeches all of which could stand could be screened, however, we chose this particular speech not only for the way Benn makes us all empathise with the victims of war but also for its lost opportunity a message the world ignored, a siren warning to the Blairites, a moment in history that witnessed the shift from a working-class party to one of neoliberalism. A New […] - [Top Tories set to revolt over 'Spycops' Bill: The state plans to use child spies against their parents](https://heartlandstribune.com/top-tories-set-to-revolt-over-spycops-bill-the-state-plans-to-use-child-spies-against-their-parents/): Boris Johnson faces a major Tory revolt this week over plans to allow children to be used as spies by state agencies against their parents. If this bill passes it could allow scores of Government bodies, the armed forces and even the gambling regulator to legally be allowed to use child spies – including against their parents. Police and the security services are among those who will be allowed to use under-18s as covert human intelligence sources (CHIS) under ‘exceptional circumstances’ according to official documents. The guidance for the Covert Intelligence Bill outlines other public bodies who will be allowed to employ […] - [Facebook reinstate the Socialist Workers Party’s national Facebook page](https://heartlandstribune.com/facebook-reinstate-the-socialist-workers-partys-national-facebook-page/): Facebook have reinstated the Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP) national Facebook page, some local pages and activists’ profiles, after an online campaign. Within hours of the ban, thousands of organisations and individuals put pressure on Facebook to reverse the decision- which was a clear attempt by social media bosses to shut down voices of resistance. However dozens of SWP activists and local branch pages remain suspended. The SWP, one of the of the biggest left wing organisations in Britain, is calling for all the remaining ones to be restored. Facebook’s partial climbdown comes after the party’s national Facebook page—as well as accounts of local […] - [Coronavirus: Government releases new hard-hitting advert asking "can look coronavirus patients in the eye"](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-government-releases-new-hard-hitting-advert-asking-can-look-coronavirus-patients-in-the-eye/): A new hard-hitting government advert asks Britons if they “can look coronavirus patients in the eye”, as ministers toughen messaging amid concerns the newer variant is more deadly. The first of a series of new adverts was aired on ITV and Channel 4 on Friday evening and features COVID-19 patients and the staff looking after them at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital. It begins with a room full of doctors trying to save someone in intensive care before showing the faces of those very ill with the virus and the medics taking care of them. They remain silent, staring at the viewer, before a voice […] - [UK COVID variant could be slightly deadlier, early evidence shows](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-covid-variant-could-be-slightly-deadlier-early-evidence-shows/): Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, Boris Johnson said. Early findings show that the new, faster-spreading coronavirus variant identified in the UK could also be more deadly, British leaders and experts said. They cautioned that data remained sparse and margins narrow. The new B117 coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom could potentially be deadlier than the original, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday. “In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant identified in London […] - [Nissan says Brexit deal is 'positive' - and gives carmaker a 'competitive advantage'](https://heartlandstribune.com/nissan-says-brexit-deal-is-positive-and-gives-carmaker-a-competitive-advantage/): Throughout the Brexit debate, Nissan had been singled out by ‘project fear’ both as an example of manufacturing job loss and an object of ridicule. Suggestions of workers being Turkeys voting for Christmas was a constant comment by Europhiles. Brexit voters are, of course, mostly fools who don’t know what is good for them – in contrast to all those Remain voters with their degrees and analytical skills. But none are so dim-witted as those in Sunderland who, like turkeys voting for Christmas, chose a course of action which will inevitably lead to them losing their jobs at the city’s Nissan […] - [DWP: Universal Credit childcare rules declared unlawful as single mum's win High Court battle](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-universal-credit-childcare-rules-declared-unlawful-as-single-mums-win-high-court-battle/): Victory could open the doors for thousands after a top judge declared that UC childcare rules discriminate against women in a legal challenge brought by 49-year-old mum Nichola Salvato Universal Credit policy previously insisted that claimants would have to pay the costs of childcare in the first instance, and then claim the costs back later. The case was brought by Nichola Salvato, a 49-year-old benefits advisor from Brighton who struggled after moving jobs in September 2019. She was forced to cut her hours and borrowed £2,000 from payday lenders and family to cope with childcare costs for her 12-year-old daughter. Parents on Universal […] - [Serbia receive Chinese vaccine after EU fails to deliver](https://heartlandstribune.com/serbia-receive-chinese-vaccine-after-eu-fails-to-deliver/): Serbia Becomes First European Country to Use Chinese COVID Vaccine for Mass Rollout after Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian president lashed out at the EU calling the block’s solidarity “a fairytale”. Hundreds of members of Serbia’s military lined up in their camouflage uniforms at an exhibition hall in Belgrade where nurses injected them with a Chinese-made vaccine against COVID-19. Last week Serbia received one million doses of Chinese Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first European country to start a mass inoculation program with it. Belgrade maintains close ties with Beijing and Chinese companies who have invested billions of euros in Serbian infrastructure […] - [Joe Biden arrives at White House as the 46th president of the US his first job uniting a nation](https://heartlandstribune.com/joe-biden-arrives-at-white-house-as-the-46th-president-of-the-us-his-first-job-uniting-a-nation/): Uniting a divided nation – the first task for the new president in the White House Biden put “uniting our nation” front and centre of his inauguration speech a task made a little more difficult with the absents of his predecessor Donald Trump. Joe Biden has arrived at the White House for the first time as US president following his inauguration earlier on Wednesday. Mr Biden and his family opted to walk the last few blocks Pennsylvania Avenue to their new home. Joe Biden was earlier sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, offering a message of unity and restoration to a […] - [The Labour Party hire ex-Israeli 'SPY' in a new role “Social Listening and Organising Manager.”](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-hire-ex-israeli-spy-in-a-new-role-social-listening-and-organising-manager/): Labour Party has hired a former Israeli spy to help manage its social media, The Electronic Intifada revealed today. It has been reported Assaf Kaplan a former Israeli military intelligence officer will work within the offices of the Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer. Its claimed Assaf Kaplan served as an officer in the elite Unit 8200 It is also an elite institution whose graduates, after leaving service, can parlay their cutting-edge snooping and hacking skills into jobs in Israel, Silicon Valley or in this case a foreign countries opposition Party. Many Left wing pages and Twitter profiles have started to block the […] - [Tories abstain on universal credit boost cut.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-abstain-on-universal-credit-boost-cut/): MPs have backed a motion calling for the upcoming cut in Universal Credit to be scrapped, with nearly all Conservative MPs abstaining. The non-binding Labour motion calling for the universal credit top-up to be kept in place beyond 31 March passed by 278 votes to none after a Commons debate. Boris Johnson ordered his MPs to abstain, which means not voting for or against the motion. The motion, which will not automatically lead to a change in policy, was put forward by Labour as a way to put additional pressure on the government to continue the increase of £20 a week […] - [NEW HOPE: Jeremy Corbyn 'Project for Peace and justice'](https://heartlandstribune.com/new-hope-jeremy-corbyn-project-for-peace-and-justice/): Tens of thousands of people tuned in to see the launch of the ‘Project for Peace and justice’ a new initiative for a global push for peace and justice Labour MP Zarah Sultana spoke at an online rally today to back Mr Corbyn’s project, alongside Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, writer Noam Chomsky and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Jeremy Corbyn was also backed in a video message by his former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and by Labour peer and former National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower. Mr Corbyn’s office said the ‘economic security’ project would organise direct […] - [The world marks 2 million coronavirus deaths.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-world-marks-2-million-coronavirus-deaths/): The official global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The tragic milestone came just over a year after the first Covid-19 death was reported in Wuhan, China. While the 2 million figure is horrifying, experts say the real death toll is likely much higher. Only confirmed Covid-19 deaths are included in the tally, which means that people who die without a firm diagnosis may not be included. The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the Cleveland […] - [Dutch government resigns after wrongly accusing thousands of families of child welfare fraud](https://heartlandstribune.com/dutch-government-resigns-after-wrongly-accusing-thousands-of-families-of-child-welfare-fraud/): The Dutch government is resigning over its response to a child welfare benefits scandal, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday. Around 10,000 families in the Netherlands were told to repay tens of thousands of euros of subsidies after being wrongly accused of child welfare fraud. In a nationally televised speech, Rutte said he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and pledged his government would continue work to compensate affected parents as quickly as possible and to battle the coronavirus. Rutte made his speech in the aftermath of the publication of a report by the Parliamentary Interrogation Committee on Childcare […] - [Public demand answers after 150,000 arrest records wiped in tech blunder](https://heartlandstribune.com/public-demand-answers-after-150000-arrest-records-wiped-in-tech-blunder/): Offenders may go free after software bug deletes fingerprint and DNA files on police computer The Times has reported fingerprint, DNA and arrest history records were deleted in a technological blunder, saying this could allow offenders to go free because evidence from crime scenes will not be flagged on the Police National Computer (PNC). The Home Office said in a statement it was working with police to “assess the impact” of the glitch, which reportedly occurred by accident during a weekly “weeding” session to expunge data. It said no records of criminals or dangerous persons had been deleted, and that the […] - [Ford shuts down a plant because it can't find enough computer chips](https://heartlandstribune.com/ford-shuts-down-a-plant-because-it-cant-find-enough-computer-chips/): A computer chip shortage has shut down the Louisville, Kentucky, Ford plant this week, the latest shutdown is due to an industry-wide problem that is expected to spread to many other auto plants around the world in the coming months. The Louisville plant employs 3,800 hourly workers, who will receive about 75% of their normal pay during the one-week shutdown. It assembles the Ford Escape and the Lincoln version of that SUV, the Corsair.” The global semiconductor shortage is presenting challenges and production disruptions — for the global auto industry, including Ford, which could have a significant knock-on effect on jobs and the economy given the […] - [Richard Leonard quits as Scottish Labour leader after three years in role](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-leonard-quits-as-scottish-labour-leader-after-three-years-in-role/): Richard Leonard has resigned as Scottish Labour leader, saying it is in the best interests of the party for him to stand down. The left-winger’s resignation leaves the party without a leader four months from an election. Mr Leonard said he believed speculation about his leadership had become a “distraction”. And he said he would be stepping down with immediate effect. A member of the Scottish parliament from the party’s left wing and ally of former U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Leonard took over Scottish Labour in 2017 His resignation comes just months ahead of the Scottish Parliament election, which is […] - [Barnoldswick Rolls Royce workers win the battle for jobs and the future of their community.](https://heartlandstribune.com/barnoldswick-rolls-royce-workers-win-the-battle-for-jobs-and-the-future-of-their-community/): The Rolls-Royce factory in Barnoldswick, Lancashire, has been saved and with it 350 jobs and a community protected from ruin, thanks to a ground-breaking deal struck by Unite the union and the company’s management. The deal, which has been supported overwhelmingly by the workforce, will give the historic site a new lease of life as a core manufacturing facility and host to a new ‘centre of excellence’, training tomorrow’s engineers to meet the challenges of the climate emergency.   The deal marks the successful conclusion of a campaign mounted by the workforce and supported by their local community determined to resist closure, including nine weeks of strike action. The future of the […] - [US President Donald Trump impeached by House of Representatives](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-president-donald-trump-impeached-by-house-of-representatives/): Donald Trump has become the first US president to be impeached twice. Lawmakers have accused Trump of “incitement of insurrection” following the Capitol storming. The US House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to impeach US President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” Lawmakers supporting impeachment say Trump was responsible for inciting a mob of supporters that stormed the Capitol Building last week. The impeachment resolution Democrats unveiled Monday accuses Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”The four-page document cites the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who has engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States shall never again be permitted to hold any public office.  A […] - [it's pure hypocrisy: Matt Hancock praising free school meals despite voting against it](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-pure-hypocrisy-matt-hancock-praising-free-school-meals-despite-voting-against-it/): Free school meals and political grifting Matt Hancock was challenged during an appearance on Good Morning Britain after insisting he was happy the ‘Free school meals’ policy was going ahead. He said: “I’m really glad we’re able to send out food for those who receive free school meals when schools are in, and I’m really glad we’re able to do that when schools are out.” Host Piers Morgan then challenged him on his voting record, saying: “If you’re that glad, can I ask you a question, why did you vote against it?”. Mr Hancock failed to explain why his position had […] - [Morrisons to be first UK supermarket to Break £10 an Hour Barrier](https://heartlandstribune.com/morrisons-to-be-first-uk-supermarket-to-break-10-an-hour-barrier/): All supermarket staff to receive at least £10 an hour from April 2021 Morrisons will become the first UK supermarket to pay at least £10 an hour from April. It will increase its minimum pay for up to 96,000 workers from £9.20. Retail trade union Usdaw negotiated the £10 per hour basic rate which is 50p an hour above the voluntary Living Wage Foundation rate. However, other big supermarkets appear unlikely to follow any time soon, with Asda saying that just looking at hourly rates does not tell the full story. Morrisons said for the majority of its workers the pay […] - [Its a Ripoff: Free school meals hamper left short](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-a-ripoff-free-school-meals-hamper-left-short/): ‘I could do more with £30’: Angry mum criticises free school meals hamper The Government has promised to investigate the free school meal parcels sent to families after they were called ‘woefully inadequate’. Children’s minister Vicky Ford said she would be ‘urgently’ look into the matter after complaints the amount of food provided has been far too small. The mother said the parcel had been issued by Chartwells, a private company contracted by the Department for Education, instead of £30 worth of vouchers. “I could do more with £30 to be honest,” she wrote, adding that she estimated the total value […] - [Don’t sit around waiting for the politicians: Our history shows us that 'WE' can be the agents of change.](https://heartlandstribune.com/dont-sit-around-waiting-for-the-politicians-our-history-shows-us-that-we-can-be-the-agents-of-change/): Article by Andy Searson The Neo-Liberal element of the Labour Party have declared war on their own membership & those who identify as socialists within Parliament. An unnecessary monumental act of self-harm. Hundreds of thousands of activists drawn to the party by the authenticity & hopefulness surrounding the Corbyn leadership have been given a two fingered salute. They’re turning Labour into a set of poor middle managers who seem hell bent on being mere proxies for Tory vandalism of our local services & communities. They see their role as managing decline rather than opposing & fighting it on our behalf. Angela […] - [Sir Keir Starmer just gave a lesson on political grifting: Mr Remain has become Mr Brexit dropping pledge to reintroduce free movement](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-just-gave-a-lesson-on-political-grifting-mr-remain-has-become-mr-brexit-dropping-pledge-to-reintroduce-free-movement/): Throughout his leadership campaign, Sir Keir promised to “defend free movement” in the EU and said he would reintroduce the policy if elected. Today sir Keir Starmer backtracked on that policy. Speaking on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, he said: “We have a treaty, it’s a thin treaty, it’s not what was promised. “But I’m very conscious of the fact that everything I’m doing, everything the Labour Party is doing is focused on winning an election in 2024. “If we win that election and a Labour government comes in, we will inherit that treaty and the British people will expect […] - [Spelthorne Labour councillors resign in protest at party's direction](https://heartlandstribune.com/spelthorne-labour-councillors-resign-in-protest-at-partys-direction/): Labour Party representation on Spelthorne Council has been cut in half Spelthorne Borough Council has lost half of its Labour Party councillors, who have been forbidden from showing any support for former national party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The former group leader Veena Siva, and former deputy Jenny Vinson, said they are stepping down due to misgivings about current leader Sir Keir Starmer, who they claim “has succeeded in tearing the party apart”. In retaliation, Spelthorne Labour said they should give up their seats on the council, and expect them to repay their campaign expenses on quitting the party, 20 months after the election. Cllrs […] - [Coronavirus: UK sees highest daily death toll 'Major incident' declared in London due to hospital pressure](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-uk-sees-highest-daily-death-toll-major-incident-declared-in-london-due-to-hospital-pressure/): The UK Has Reported A Record 1,325 Coronavirus Deaths – The Highest Death Toll Of The Pandemic The United Kingdom recorded its highest daily death toll on Friday since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as London declared a major incident, warning that its hospitals were at risk of being overwhelmed. The coronavirus infection rate in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000 people, based on the latest figures from Public Health England. However, the Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 30 Londoners has coronavirus. Boris Johnson said in a statement. “Our hospitals are under more pressure than at […] - [Trump finally concedes: We look at the contrast between BLM protest and the storming of Capitol Hill, it's the difference between 'Night and Day'.](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-finally-concedes-we-look-at-the-contrast-between-blm-protest-and-the-storming-of-capitol-hill-its-the-difference-between-night-and-day/): President Donald Trump conceded publicly for the first time Thursday that he will not serve a second term, stopping short of congratulating President-elect Joe Biden but acknowledging a transfer of power is now underway. It appeared to end, for now, Trump’s false and corrosive attempt to overthrow the election results, which culminated in a violent attempt at insurrection at the US Capitol a day earlier. It did not reckon with Trump’s role in fomenting that violence, nor did it contain a vow to change his behaviour. Trump’s comments in a prerecorded video amounted to as much of a concession as he […] - [Book Review: Despised Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class](https://heartlandstribune.com/review-despised-why-the-modern-left-loathes-the-working-class/): Bernie Wilcox reviews Paul Embery’s new book ‘Despised Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class’ Bernie is a lifelong Socialist and anti-racist campaigner from Manchester. He was heavily involved in Rock Against Racism in the 1970s. A long illness enabled him the time to re-examine some of the basic tenets of the Left in a changing world and amend his thoughts accordingly. Paul Embery’s book has caused quite a stir in the press and he’s been invited on lots of talk shows to discuss it. However, whilst he’s been interviewed extensively in the Express, Mail, Mirror and Scotland’s Daily Record, […] - [Eric Levy: Police Arrest 92-Years-Old Supporter of Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-arrest-92-years-old-supporter-of-julian-assange-outside-westminster-magistrates-court/): Anti-war protester Eric Levy arrested outside Westminster Magistrates 92-year-old Eric Levy has been ‘ARRESTED’ outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court as Julian Assange is DENIED bail. Eric Levy, who is an anti-war campaigner, was arrested for allegedly breaching COVID regulations. Little more is known about the arrest at this stage, this is an ongoing story, however, there is much concern over 92 year old, Mr Levy’s health. Mr Levey once acted as a human shield in Iraq (before, during and after the invasion/occupation in 2003, his history of protesting for peace and justice is well documented. The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was denied […] - [Julian Assange is denied bail by London court](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-is-denied-bail-by-london-court/): WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied bail today following Monday’s verdict in his battle to against extradition from Britain to the United States. “I am satisfied there are substantial grounds for believing that if Mr Assange is released today he would fail to surrender to court to face the appeal proceedings,” Judge Vanessa Baraitser said. “As far as Mr Assange is concerned this case has not yet been won… the outcome of this appeal is not yet known.” She was referring to the fact that Assange after failing in his battle against extradition to Sweden, breached bail and took refuge in […] - [TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel](https://heartlandstribune.com/talkradio-youtube-reverses-decision-to-ban-channel/): YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio’s channel on its platform hours after saying it had been “terminated” for breaking the tech firm’s rules. It said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic. But it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban. TalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair. The decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group – Big Brother Watch – claiming it was evidence that “big tech censorship is spiralling out of control”. […] - [Coronavirus: Britain in third 'Lockdown' all the new rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-britain-in-third-lockdown-all-the-new-rules/): Boris Johnson announced that England will be placed under a third national lockdown in a televised address on Monday. The new restrictions will come into law in the early hours of 6 January and are expected to last until mid-February, he said. People in England should stay at home apart from collecting essential food supplies, attending medical appointments or getting a coronavirus test, providing childcare or caring for the vulnerable and exercising once a day. They should work from home unless they are a key worker or cannot do their job from home. Separate lockdown rules are being imposed by the devolved […] - [Julian Assange extradition blocked: Right result wrong reason](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-extradition-blocked-right-result-wrong-reason/): District Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused a US request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on espionage charges. The judge blocked the request because of concerns over Mr Assange’s mental health and risk of suicide in the US. Although this is a good result for Julian and wholeheartedly welcome, it leaves you feeling a little disappointed. Judge Vanessa Baraitser more than certainly came to the right decision on refusing Julian Assange’s extradition and while her reasons are valid they are in fact the wrong reasons. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that while US prosecutors met the tests for Mr Assange to be extradited for trial, […] - [British Justice on Trial: The Julian Assange Case](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-justice-on-trial-the-julian-assange-case/): The High court is to rule on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s US extradition today Today, a British judge will decide if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges for publishing secret US military documents. The story of how we got here is as long as it’s tragic, Assange, whose trial began in February last year and concluded in October, is currently being held at the maximum-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London. Julian Assange is regarded by many as a hero who uncovered war crimes and corruption and is the embodiment of modern investigative journalism, […] - [Coronavirus: Labour's shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens in hospital with COVID-19](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-labours-shadow-culture-secretary-jo-stevens-in-hospital-with-covid-19/): Labour shadow cabinet minister Jo Stevens, 54, is in hospital with coronavirus A statement on MP’s Twitter account said: “Jo has asked us to let you know that she is being treated in hospital for Covid. “Thanks for all your good wishes we will give an update when we can.” From #TeamJoStevens – Jo has asked us to let you know that she is being treated in hospital for Covid. Thanks for all your good wishes we will give an update when we can. — Jo Stevens (@JoStevensLabour) January 2, 2021 On New Year’s Eve, a spokesperson for Ms Stevens said she […] - [Sir Keir Starmer most admired Theresa May for her 'moral framework': He must have missed ‘Windrush’ and the ‘hostile environment’](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-most-admired-theresa-may-for-her-moral-framework-he-must-have-missed-windrush-and-the-hostile-environment/): Speaking at the annual Limmud Festival, Limmud is a British-Jewish educational charity the Labour Leader was asked which Tory politician he most admired, Sir Keir Starmer said: “I had a degree of admiration for Teresa May. I knew what her moral framework was.” Sir Keir Starmer made the comments at the annual Limmud Festival, which took place online over Zoom as a result of gathering restrictions imposed by COVID-19. Most people would agree that the one thing Theresa May was most lacking was in her so-called ‘Moral framework’. David Osman Veteran leftwing journalist and author called it right when he says: “Theresa May’s ‘moral […] - [Coronavirus: All London primary schools to remain closed for start of term in government U-turn](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-all-london-primary-schools-to-remain-closed-for-start-of-term-in-government-u-turn/): All primary schools in London will remain closed for the start of the new term, the government has confirmed. It is the latest in a string of U-turns performed by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s department. It comes two days after the government said only those in 22 of London’s 32 boroughs would be affected by closures amid surging COVID-19 rates in the capital. Leaders of nine London local authorities had written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson urging him to rethink the decision. Mr Williamson said the city-wide closures were “a last resort”. The government said it had decided all primary schools […] - [Norway's Socialist Left Party and Centre Party say: 'The British have a better deal than the EEA'](https://heartlandstribune.com/norways-socialist-left-party-and-centre-party-say-the-british-have-a-better-deal-than-the-eea/): The EU’s nightmare: The domino effect, Both Norway’s Socialist Left Party and Centre Party want a better deal. Both Socialist Left Party (SV) and Centre Party (Sp) believe the British Brexit agreement is better than Norway’s EEA agreement. The Socialist Left Party of Heming Olaussen believes the agreement “in the long run can turn the Norwegian EEA debate” in favour of those who want a renegotiation of the agreement. – The Brexit agreement shows that there are obviously better alternatives to the EEA. Brexit refutes the thesis that we must have the EEA to trade with the EU, he says. Leader of […] - [Rogue employers named and shamed for failing to pay minimum wage](https://heartlandstribune.com/rogue-employers-named-and-shamed-for-failing-to-pay-minimum-wage/): Some of the UK’s biggest household names, are being named and shamed today for failing to pay their workers the minimum wage. Tesco, Pizza Hut and Superdrug are among 139 companies that have been named and shamed by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage. Britain’s largest supermarket chain Tesco underpaid almost 80,000 of its workers, the UK government has revealed, as it “named and shamed” dozens of companies for not paying the minimum wage. A total of 139 companies failed to pay £6.7 million to thousands of workers, the government said Thursday. The cases were investigated between 2016 […] - [Spain faces diplomatic crisis as 6,000 migrants arrive from Morocco](https://heartlandstribune.com/spain-faces-diplomatic-crisis-as-6000-migrants-arrive-from-morocco/): Around 6,000 migrants from Morocco arrived in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta between Monday and Tuesday amid a tense diplomatic s Overwhelmed soldiers separated the adults from the young and carried children in their arms while Red Cross workers helped an endless trickle of migrants who were emerging from the water shivering and exhausted. One unconscious woman laid on the sand before she was carried away on a stretcher. The sudden influx of migrants has fueled the diplomatic spat between Rabat and Madrid over the disputed Western Sahara region and created a humanitarian crisis for Ceuta, the Spanish city of 85,000 […] - [When it comes to Palestine Sir Keir Starmer sure does a good impression of Where's Wally?](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-it-comes-to-palestine-sir-keir-starmer-sure-does-a-good-impression-of-wheres-wally/): Palestine: Starmer’s Silence is Deafening In April Sir Keir Starmer boldly stated: “I’ll take my mask off and show why I should be prime minister” his audacious announcement fell embarrassingly short in reality. The Hartlepool and the local elections were another historic disasters for the Labour Party took place. However, as Starmer stated in the Observer after a year as leader, he has found it deeply frustrating not being able to meet voters and campaign around the country. “We’ve been rebuilding the Labour party and demonstrating that we are under new leadership,” Starmer said. “But it has been frustrating to spend the first year as […] - [France: Tear gas fired at Protesters who defied the ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-tear-gas-fired-at-protesters-who-defied-the-ban-on-pro-palestinian-demonstrations-in-paris/): Police fire tear gas on banned pro-Palestine march in Paris as protests sweep Europe  Riot police fired tear gas on defiant protesters in Paris who were supporting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip despite a ban on demonstrations in the French capital. Marches in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were being held Saturday in a dozen French cities, but the focus was on Paris, where riot police got ready as organizers said they would defy a ban on the protest. Anger over the Israeli offensive in Gaza drew protests across Europe, with riot police resorting to using tear gas and […] - [Italian Dockers refuse to load weapons for Israel](https://heartlandstribune.com/italian-dockers-refuse-to-load-weapons-for-israel/): After discovering that a shipment of arms destined for Israel was arriving in Italy’s ports, workers from the USB (Unione Sindacale di Base) refused to load the ship in support of the Palestinians fighting for their lives against Israeli occupation. Autonomous Collective of Port Workers of Genoa and the WeaponWatch association, organised in L’Unione Sindacale di Base, learning that the ship was filled with weapons and explosives bound for the Israeli dock of Ashdod. They stated these weapons and explosives would be used to kill Palestinians, who have already been hit by a brutal Israeli military offensive that has murdered hundreds […] - [Tony Benn: Protest is vital to a thriving democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-protest-is-vital-to-a-thriving-democracy/): The British people are many things and have many layers but within our complexity, there is one thing that binds us all, our willingness to fight for our freedoms, none were given, they were all won. Throughout history, the common folk have stood united in hard-fought battles from the Magna Carta Libertatum, Chartism and Suffrage through to the Human Rights Act 1998. Never mind the countless other battles we have fought in this never-ending tug of war over our liberties. Including the poll tax riots, the miner’s strike or even the Stop the War protest in 2003, the largest demonstration in the history of Britain, a million […] - [Labour MP Wes Streeting uses Twitter to announce he is to undergo treatment for kidney cancer](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-wes-streeting-uses-twitter-to-announce-he-is-to-undergo-treatment-for-kidney-cancer/): Where it may seem a little unusual to most people to announce such a personal statement to the world on Twitter. In 2016 Wes Streeting was revealed as Twitter’s most addicted MP – by posting every 36 minutes for 7 years. Twitter’s most addicted MP had written half a million words, more than War and Peace. The MP for Ilford North, 38, says news came as ‘enormous shock’ but that he should make full recovery Streeting, is to step back from frontline politics for a period to have treatment for kidney cancer, he has announced. Streeting, 38, was moved into the […] - [Kenmure Street protesters rejoice as men freed following immigration van standoff](https://heartlandstribune.com/kenmure-street-protesters-rejoice-as-men-freed-following-immigration-van-standoff/): One Glaswegian demonstrator stated: “you messed with the wrong city” after a seven-hour standoff with border force officials who tried to detain two men. Demonstrators in Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, had blocked the immigration enforcement van for hours on Thursday. The men who were detained in an immigration van following a raid in Pollokshields earlier today have been released following a seven-hour long mass protest. Hundreds of activists surrounded a UK Border Agency van in Kenmure Street, containing two men from a nearby property. Officers surrounded the van and lined each end of the street. Protesters chanted “these are our neighbours, let […] - [Eight people charged with rioting over Bristol Kill the Bill protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/eight-people-charged-with-rioting-over-bristol-kill-the-bill-protest/): Eight people have been charged with rioting following the first Kill the Bill protest in Bristol. They will appear before Bristol Magistrates’ Court on May 28 in connection the riot that saw 500 people march on Bridewell police station. A ninth person has been charged with outraging public decency, Avon and Somerset Police stated. The Crown Prosecution Service South West Complex Casework Unit has authorised charges following a review of evidence submitted by Avon and Somerset Police. Ryan Roberts, aged 25, from Plymouth, who has already appeared in court, has now been charged with riot, as well as two arson offences, […] - [Former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier calls for France to stop immigration for up to five years](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-eu-brexit-negotiator-michel-barnier-calls-for-france-to-stop-immigration-for-up-to-five-years/): The former Brexit negotiator says France should press the pause button on immigration. Barnier showing his colours and playing to the French crowd on migration. Barnier, who is tipped to run against Emmanuel Macron in next year’s French presidential election, called for a moratorium so that France could “take the time to verify, evaluate and if necessary change” its immigration policies. Immigration to Europe is linked to “terrorist networks which use migration flows and infiltrate them,” he said. Barnier, a conservative former finance minister, said immigration was a threat to the stability of French society: “We need to take stock of […] - [Ballymurphy Inquest: Coroner finds 10 victims were entirely innocent](https://heartlandstribune.com/ballymurphy-inquest-coroner-finds-10-victims-were-entirely-innocent/): Families of Ballymurphy massacre victims ‘elated and relieved’ as their loved ones are declared innocent Delivering her findings in Belfast on Tuesday, after the longest-running inquests in Northern Ireland’s history, Mrs Justice Siobhán Keegan said she hoped the findings may deliver some peace for the families. The Ten people killed in west Belfast almost 50 years ago in the wake of an Army operation were “entirely innocent”, an inquest has found. The inquest, which began in November 2018, examined the deaths in and around the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in August 1971. The shootings happened after an operation in which paramilitary […] - [Political blogger Craig Murray sentenced to eight months in prison for contempt of court](https://heartlandstribune.com/political-blogger-craig-murray-sentenced-to-eight-months-in-prison-for-contempt-of-court/): A Very Political Prosecution Craig Murray watched two days of Alex Salmond’s trial in March 2020 from the public gallery of Edinburgh’s High Court and wrote about it on his website. Judges subsequently ruled that Murray, 62, was in contempt of court relating to material capable of identifying four of the women accusing the former SNP leader of sexual abuse. He has since lodged an appeal against the conviction. Sentencing the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Lady Dorrian said Murray knew there were court orders giving the women anonymity and he was “relishing” the potential disclosure of their identities. At the […] - [Queen's Speech 2021: Tories unveil plans on free speech, policing and voter ID](https://heartlandstribune.com/queens-speech-2021-tories-unveil-plans-on-free-speech-policing-and-voter-id/): Government sets out plans for the next term of parliament. The government has unveiled plans for the coming parliament in a Queen’s speech that combined interventionist economics with openly populist moves in areas such as free speech, policing and voter ID. The 26 proposed laws unveiled in the monarch’s brief address, which the government writes for her, contained no particular surprises. The bulk of the measures were either already in progress or widely briefed in advance. As expected, there is still no formal plan to reform social care, despite Johnson’s pledge to do so in his first speech as prime minister. […] - [Rearranging the deck chairs won't save Starmer's sinking ship](https://heartlandstribune.com/rearranging-the-deck-chairs-wont-save-starmer-sinking-ship/): The botched Labour reshuffle The Labour reshuffle is little more than rearranging the deck chairs, in fact, many are wondering what exactly was the purpose other than to be seen to be doing something or ultimately to divert away from the backlash of sacking Rayner. Sir Keir Starmer was facing criticism after losing the Hartlepool by-election and control of 8 Labour councils. He made a statement declaring he would take full responsibility then promptly sacked Angela Rayner as the party’s chair and campaigns coordinator. Ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell said she had been made a “scapegoat”. The negative response from Labour members […] - [You're fired: Sir Keir Starmer says he takes 'full responsibility' for Labour's collapse then sacks Rayner](https://heartlandstribune.com/youre-fired-sir-keir-starmer-says-he-takes-full-responsibility-for-labours-collapse-then-sacks-rayner/): A Hartlepool postcard ‘You’re fired’… Sir Keir Starmer has sacked Angela Rayner from her roles as Labour’s party chair and national campaign coordinator after the humiliating loss of the Hartlepool byelection. If anyone wondered what all the strange pointing into the distance was from Starmer during this election campaign they know. It was Starmer ready to point the finger at Labour’s failings onto anyone but himself, it was the anticipated ‘Lord Sugar Apprentice-style you’re fired finger’ ready to point out his scapegoat. The sacking signals cracks at the top of the party, with rows over who was to blame for the […] - [Labour frontbencher Resigns saying his party is failing because it's been taken over by Londoners and 'woke warriors'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-frontbencher-resigns-saying-his-party-is-failing-because-its-been-taken-over-by-londoners-and-woke-warriors/): Labour in turmoil as frontbencher Resigns: Party captured by ‘London-based bourgeoisie’ Khalid Mahmood Starmer has been hit with a fresh blow with a member of his frontbencher quits his position after accusing the party of being captured by a “London-based bourgeoisie”. Khalid Mahmood has been Labour’s shadow defence minister since Sir Keir took over the party leadership last April. But following a dire set of election results for the party, including Hartlepool returning a Conservative MP to Westminster in a historic by-election upset, he has quit the frontbench. Mr Mahmood says the party has lost its way, in the past decade […] - [Starmer's Labour lose Hartlepool in a humiliating defeat](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-labour-lose-hartlepool-in-a-humiliating-defeat/): Starmer’s lack of a coherent vision for Labour and his unforgivable choice of candidate has given away another brick in the Red wall Jill Mortimer (Con): 15,529 Paul Williams (Lab): 8,589 Mortimer has won with a majority of 6,940 You would be forgiven for thinking a loss wasn’t planned, surely no leader could be so incompetent. It’s shameful Labour losing this seat, there is no excuse, Sir Keir Starmer’s poor choice of candidate, Paul Williams, was a recipe for failure. The Labour Party Parachuted in an ‘Arch-Remainer’ to stand in ‘an overwhelmingly Labour leave voting seat and lost dramatically, who would […] - [The most eagerly awaited reactions following the exit poll are from Jess Philips and Stephen Kinnock](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-most-eagerly-awaited-reactions-following-the-exit-poll-are-from-jess-philips-and-stephen-kinnock/): Remember when Jess Phillips was caught on the hop overjoyed and laughing so much at the exit polls while the grim results came in she missed her cue on Channel 4 The Labour MP and Corbyn sceptic Jess Phillips appeared on Channel 4 to talk about how devastated she was following the news of exit polls showing her Labour’s crushing defeat in the 2019 general election, except the cameras switched on before she was prepared and caught her in the middle of a joyful chuckle. It took several seconds and the overt reminders from the show’s hosts to put on a “straight face” […] - [UK economy set to grow at fastest rate since WW2 as Covid restrictions end](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-economy-set-to-grow-at-fastest-rate-since-ww2-as-covid-restrictions-end/): The Bank of England predicts gross domestic product will expand by 7.25% in 2021 – marking its strongest rate of growth since official records began in 1949 The economy is expected to expand by 7.25% this year, with extra government cash for workers and businesses helping to limit job losses. This would be the strongest growth since official records began in 1949. However, it comes after the economy shrank almost 10% last year in the sharpest drop in 300 years. Bank policymakers also held interest rates at a record low of 0.1%. The Bank expects the recovery to gather pace as […] - [Royal Navy to stay on patrol in Jersey: Macron sends French gunboat as tensions rise in fishing protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/royal-navy-to-stay-on-patrol-in-jersey-macron-sends-french-gunboat-as-tensions-rise-in-fishing-protest/): France has threatened to cut off Jersey’s electricity as it says fishing licences are being granted with conditions not agreed. French trawler crews angry at post-Brexit restrictions on their access to British fishing grounds sailed in a flotilla to the British Channel island of Jersey on Thursday to register their protest. A simmering row over fishing rights has escalated this week, with a French minister suggesting French electricity supplies to Jersey could be cut, and Britain despatching two navy patrol boats to the island. Some of the French flotilla entered the harbour at the Jersey port of St. Helier at one point during their protest on Thursday […] - [While Labour support collapses what's the alternative for the Left vote in #LocalElections2021](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-labour-support-collapses-whats-the-alternative-for-the-left-vote-in-localelections2021/): Many of our readers have stated they cannot vote for ‘Sir Keir Starmer’s New Labour‘ and have asked, rather than spoil their ballots is there an alternative Left vote? This is where the new parties, the independents and those with a passion to serve their communities enter the race. Of course, there are quite a few independents standing and many are in fact former Labour members that have recently been suspended by the Labour Party. There are of course many Labour candidates that deserve your vote no matter what your opinion of the national party and its present course under Sir […] - [Before you vote this week ask your candidate the hard questions, like why is your region one of the poorest in Northern Europe.](https://heartlandstribune.com/before-you-vote-this-week-ask-your-candidate-the-hard-questions-like-why-is-your-region-one-of-the-poorest-in-northern-europe/): Nine UK regions are in the top ten of northern Europe’s most deprived areas. The findings centered around data produced by Eurostat, the E.U.’s data agency. Eurostat measured GDP per head in regions throughout Britain, taking into account different costs in different areas. These stats have not changed for 3 years. The report revealed that West Wales is the poorest area in Northern Europe, followed by seven other U.K. regions. Number nine on the poorest regions list is Hainaut, in Belgium, followed by the U.K.’s East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Somewhat astonishingly – though entirely understandable given the trends of inequality […] - [Trial of two veterans accused of IRA leader Joe McCann's murder collapses](https://heartlandstribune.com/trial-of-two-veterans-accused-of-ira-leader-joe-mccanns-murder-collapses/): Two former paratroopers accused of the murder of an Official IRA leader have been formally acquitted after prosecutors offered no further evidence at their trial. The veterans’ trial at Belfast Crown Court collapsed after the Public Prosecution Service confirmed it would not appeal against a decision by Mr Justice O’Hara to exclude statements given by the ex-soldiers about the shooting of Joe McCann in 1972. It was the first trial in several years that involved charges against former military personnel who served in the Northern Ireland conflict. Four other cases involving the prosecution of veterans are at the pre-trial stage in […] - [Howard Beckett: Promises to take Boris Johnson to court on charges of Covid murders if elected General Secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/howard-beckett-promises-to-take-boris-johnson-to-court-on-charges-of-covid-murders-if-elected-general-secretary/): Howard Beckett says If elected General Secretary of Unite he promises to take Boris Johnson to court on charges of 150,000 Covid murders. Unite general secretary candidate Howard Beckett made a video statement declaring his promise to bring Boris Johnson to account for the 150k avoidable covid deaths In the no holds barred statement Beckett the Unite union assistant general secretary and candidate for general secretary made the promise to bring Johnson to court over the murder of 150,000 covid victims. Beckett declared: “If I am elected General Secretary, on the first day I will instruct our legal team to take […] - [Centrist getting their ducks in a row for local election loss: Dame Margaret Hodge already blaming Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/centrist-getting-their-ducks-in-a-row-for-local-election-loss-dame-margaret-hodge-already-blaming-corbyn/): Labour set to lose 59 seats in ‘Red Wall’ councils next week but Hodge got her excuses in before a single result is called. Voters across the country will head to the polls on 6 May as part of a ‘Super Thursday’ of local authority, devolved parliamentary, and mayoralty elections being held across Britain. Among the list of councils holding elections are many in the North and Midlands containing constituencies where the Conservatives won seats from Labour at the 2019 general election, such as Bury, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Northumberland, and Durham. Labour are certainly on the descent in the Heartlands and it’s […] - [UK to pay historic debt of £400m in deal to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-to-pay-historic-dept-of-400m-in-deal-to-free-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe/): Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British Iranian mother jailed in Iran three years ago on espionage charges, could be released as part of a prisoner exchange Quoting an anonymous official, a state broadcaster said deals had been reached with both Britain and the US in order to release prisoners with Western links held in Iran. It was said the UK had agreed to pay the £400m debt over the non-delivery of tanks dating back to the 1970s. The US was said to have agreed a prisoner swap in exchange for the release of $7bn (£5bn) of frozen Iranian funds, but Washington did also […] - [Never mind Captain hindsight Starmer's like Captain Ahab steering the Labour Party into its doom while obsessing over wallpaper](https://heartlandstribune.com/never-mind-captain-hindsight-starmers-like-captain-ahab-steering-the-labour-party-into-its-doom-while-obsessing-over-wallpaper/): No one needs the polls to tell them how badly Labour are doing. After eleven years of Tory rule Labour should be preparing itself for power. The Party should have a coherent articulated vision of what a Labour-run Britain would look like, for a democratic socialist Party that is not such a tall order, it usually starts with an idea of equality while giving everyone access to the tools in life to help them succeed no matter their circumstances. Followed by an industrial strategy of investment and jobs never mind the popular support for nationalisation of Rail, mail and utilities or […] - [Labour MP Janet Daby reveals a 3-year long wait for outcome of racism and sexism complaint](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-janet-daby-reveals-a-3-year-long-wait-for-outcome-of-racism-and-sexism-complaint/): Labour MP Janet Daby reveals there’s a long wait for the outcome of any racism and sexism complaint Janet Daby has revealed she is still waiting for the outcome of a racism and sexism complaint she made nearly three years ago. Daby said the alleged incident in 2018 made her feel as though she “did not belong here”. Her case is “yet to be resolved,” she told MPs through a video link. “I had a completely demoralising encounter,” said the politician Janet Dab Labour MP for Lewisham East has been waiting almost three years for resolution to a complaint she made […] - [High Court judge ordered Matt Hancock to hand over texts and WhatsApp messages about lucrative Covid-19 contracts](https://heartlandstribune.com/high-court-judge-ordered-matt-hancock-to-hand-over-texts-and-whatsapp-messages-about-lucrative-covid-19-contracts/): Government used exclusive WhatsApp group to give ‘VIP’ CEOs info about PPE deals The Government used an exclusive WhatsApp group to give “VIP” company CEOs information about its PPE requirements, a court has been told. A High Court judge today ordered Matt Hancock to hand over texts and WhatsApp messages about lucrative Covid-19 contracts. The Good Law Project has been pursuing the government in the High Court to reveal details of the ‘VIP’ fast lane for Covid contracts. The High Court said the Government should carry out additional searches for: (1)   texts and WhatsApp messages for some selected civil servants; and(2)   instructions, directions […] - [More than half of Sir Keir Starmer's Peterborough Labour Party councillors suspended over alleged anti-Semitism.](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-than-half-of-sir-keir-starmers-peterborough-labour-party-councillors-suspended-over-alleged-anti-semitism/): Upon his election as Labour leader last year, Sir Keir Starmer pledged to eradicate anti-Semitism, how disappointing he must be to the Jewish community. Cases of anti-Semitism along with the piled up cases of alleged anti-Semitism was placed at the foot of the former leader Jeremy Corbyn as if he was personally responsible for the comments made on social media himself. The now buried #LabourLeaks showed how some within the party weaponised peoples comments to give a negative impression on Corbyn, however, here we are a year on, this is clearly Sir Keir Starmer’s issue and yet another broken promise he […] - [Arlene Foster to stand down as North’s First Minister and DUP leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/arlene-foster-to-stand-down-as-norths-first-minister-and-dup-leader/): She will step down from party leadership at end of May and Stormont position the following month Mrs Foster said it had been the privilege of her life to “serve the people of Northern Ireland as their first minister and to represent my home constituency of Fermanagh/South Tyrone”. “My election as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party broke a glass ceiling and I am glad to inspired other women to enter politics and spurred them on to take up elected office,” Mrs Foster said. “I understand the misogynistic criticisms that female public figures have to take and sadly it’s the same […] - [Electoral Commission to investigate Boris Johnson's Downing Street flat renovations](https://heartlandstribune.com/electoral-commission-to-investigate-boris-johnsons-downing-street-flat-renovations/): The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into funding of works on Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat. Boris Johnson has insisted he “covered the costs” of the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat as a formal investigation was launched into the revamp. The Electoral Commission said today that it would look into whether any transactions related to the works on the prime minister’s flat – above 11 Downing Street – were properly reported. The spending watchdog said there were “reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred”. Boris Johnson has been under growing pressure to declare how […] - [Coronavirus: India is struggling to breathe while the Blackmarket makes a killing on oxygen](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-india-is-struggling-to-breathe-while-the-blackmarket-makes-a-killing-on-oxygen/): As India fights a devastating second wave of Covid-19 that is killing thousands each day, international efforts to help tackle the crisis are hastening, with both Britain and the United States pledging aid and much-needed medical supplies. The second wave, which began in March, has escalated rapidly, with India recording more than a million new cases in just three days. For the past two weeks, medical facilities have been running out of oxygen and ICU beds, with patients left outside hospitals waiting for care. On Monday, India reported 352,991 new cases and 2,812 virus-related deaths, marking the world’s highest daily caseload […] - [If the Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer won't support an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s lies then what hope justice, integrity, and honesty.](https://heartlandstribune.com/if-the-leader-of-the-opposition-sir-keir-starmer-wont-support-an-inquiry-into-boris-johnsons-lies-then-what-hope-justice-integrity-and-honesty/): Six opposition parties in the Commons are urging the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to allow a vote on an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s “consistent failure to be honest” in statements to MPs. They want the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle to let them table a motion saying that Johnson’s conduct should be referred to the committee of privileges, on the grounds that making a deliberately misleading statement to MPs amounts to a contempt of parliament under the Commons rulebook, Erskine May. Under normal circumstances, with an 80 seat majority, there would be no realistic chance of MPs approving such a motion, however, […] - [This is not sleaze this is corruption: Boris Johnson faces questions over flat refurbishment funding](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-is-not-sleaze-this-is-corruption-boris-johnson-faces-questions-over-flat-refurbishment-funding/): Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing questions about the refurbishment of his flat on London’s Downing Street amid allegations from his former advisor. Dominic Cummings said in a blog post on Friday that Johnson had “plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation (of his flat)” calling that “unethical, foolish, [and] possibly illegal”. Cummings said the refurbishment plans “almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended”. The blog read as point 3: 3. Re the flat. The Prime Minister’s DOC has also made accusations regarding me and leaks concerning the […] - [Dominic Cummings denies being source of leaked PM's texts with Dyson](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-cummings-denies-being-source-of-leaked-pms-texts-with-dyson/): Dominic Cummings, the PM’s former chief adviser, has denied leaking text messages sent between the PM and businessman Sir James Dyson. Several newspapers have speculated that Mr Cummings passed on the messages, first reported this week by the BBC. But in his own blog, Cummings writes that he was “not directly or indirectly the source” of the leak – and questions the “competence” of the prime minister. Asked whether he had blamed his former adviser for it, Mr Johnson said: “I don’t think people give a monkey’s, to be frank, about who is briefing what to who.” The BBC – whose […] - [Horizon Post Office scandal: One of England’s Biggest Ever Miscarriages of Justice Saw Postmasters Accused of Theft Due to Faulty IT System](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-of-englands-biggest-ever-miscarriages-of-justice-sees-postmasters-accused-of-theft-by-post-office-due-to-faulty-it-system-convictions-overturned/): This is not just a failed IT system this is a failed justice system that ruined lives and sent innocent people to prison on mass Convictions Overturned… 39 postmasters accused of theft by Post Office due to faulty IT system have convictions overturned The appellants, some of whom were imprisoned for crimes they never committed, had been accused of theft and false accounting because of a faulty computer system. In court, Sam Stein QC, the barrister representing several sub-postmasters, said the scandal had turned the Post Office “into the nation’s most untrustworthy brand”. one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in […] - [Smoke and mirrors: Number 10 'sources' accuse Dominic Cummings of leaking Boris Johnson's texts with Dyson and Saudi crown prince](https://heartlandstribune.com/smoke-and-mirrors-number-10-sources-accuse-dominic-cummings-of-leaking-boris-johnsons-texts-with-dyson-and-saudi-crown-prince/): It’s an easy cop-out blaming the already vilified Brexit bogeyman who never minds playing the bad guy. Downing Street has mounted a fightback against “sleaze” accusations by planting stories in Tory-supporting newspapers accusing the bogyman of Brexit Dominic Cummings of leaking Number 10 texts. The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun quote unnamed Downing Street sources claiming Dominic Cummings leaked texts about tycoon Sir James Dyson and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. Both The Times and Daily Telegraph lead with the accusations: “Cummings accused of leaking No 10 texts. Downing Street sources claim former chief adviser released PM’s messages out of spite.” And […] - [No 10 announces inquiry into Johnson's leak texts: Never mind the sleaze what about 'National security' is Boris a security risk](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-10-announces-inquiry-into-johnsons-leak-texts-never-mind-the-sleaze-what-about-national-security-is-boris-a-security-risk/): Lobbying, corruption, and cronyism needs to be investigated but when the prime ministers own text are leaked then the prime minister becomes a security risk While an inquiry into the leaked text has been ordered this does not cover the security issues relating to the leak according to the Independent. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said that the internal inquiry would be led by the Cabinet Office and is not intended for publication. The national security adviser has not been asked to take part in the probe, and it is understood that neither the police nor security agencies have got involved. […] - [Russia says it is withdrawing its large deployment of troops near Ukraine's border](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-says-it-is-withdrawing-its-large-deployment-of-troops-near-ukraines-border/): LATEST NEWS Russia announced on Thursday that it will withdraw troops near Ukraine and annexed Crimea, deeming its military exercises over. Russia’s defense minister on Thursday ordered troops back to their permanent bases following massive drills in Crimea that involved dozens of navy ships, hundreds of warplanes and thousands of troops in a show of force amid tensions with Ukraine. After watching the drills, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu declared the maneuvers over and ordered the military to pull the troops taking part in maneuvers in Crimea and western Russia back to their permanent bases. “I consider the goals of the snap check […] - [UN condemns 'reprehensible' UK race report for repackaging 'racist tropes into fact'](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-condemns-reprehensible-uk-race-report-for-repackaging-racist-tropes-into-fact/): United Nations human rights experts have strongly condemned a recent government-backed report into institutional racism, saying it offered “no evidence” to support its finding that the UK is not institutionally racist. “In 2021, it is stunning to read a report on race and ethnicity that repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twisting data and misapplying statistics and studies into conclusory findings and ad hominem attacks on people of African descent,” the independent UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said in a statement. The UN group has called on the British government to “categorically reject” the findings of […] - [Boris Johnson told Sir James Dyson by text he would 'fix' tax issue](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-told-sir-james-dyson-by-text-he-would-fix-tax-issue/): NEWS Boris Johnson assured Sir James Dyson his employees would not have to pay extra tax if they came to the UK to make ventilators during the pandemic. It is claimed that Boris Johnson personally assured Sir James Dyson that the billionaire inventor’s employees would not have to pay extra tax if they came to the UK to make ventilators during the pandemic Sir James, whose firm is now based in Singapore, wrote to the Treasury to ask for no change in tax status for staff. But in text messages sent in March 2020 – seen by the BBC – Sir James then […] - [Derek Chauvin found guilty of murder and manslaughter in death of George Floyd](https://heartlandstribune.com/derek-chauvin-found-guilty-of-murder-and-manslaughter-in-death-of-george-floyd/): Verdict: Guilty on all counts News The ex-police officer filmed with his knee on George Floyd’s neck, sparking global protests against racism, has been convicted on all charges – second- and third-degree murder as well as manslaughter. Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday on charges of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for four hours Monday afternoon and resumed deliberating Tuesday morning, according to the court. They were sequestered from the public during deliberations. Chauvin, 45, had pleaded not guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder […] - [Biden’s radical plan to curb tax dodging will have ‘seismic’ impact on Ireland and other EU Tax havens](https://heartlandstribune.com/bidens-radical-plan-to-curb-tax-dodging-will-have-seismic-impact-on-ireland-and-other-eu-tax-havens/): It’s a ‘Made in America tax plan’. but it could help the worlds poor The Biden administration has continued its charge to drive through international corporate tax reforms. Treasury Secretary Yellen’s call for an end to the race to the bottom. At the same time, the Biden administration released its ‘Made in America tax plan’. Central to the ‘Made in America’ plan is the piece about changing the incentives for other jurisdictions, by encouraging a robust, global minimum corporate tax plan. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has signalled that the US is throwing its full weight behind a global minimum corporate tax […] - [Keir Starmer kicked out of Raven pub after angry confrontation with landlord](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-kicked-out-of-raven-pub-after-angry-confrontation-with-landlord/): Sir Keir Starmer has been kicked out of a pub by an angry landlord, footage shows. The Labour leader was berated by the man, named Rod Humphris, during a walkabout in Bath. The Landlord stated he had voted Labour all his life called out Starmer on his lack of opposition and failure to ask the real questions during the covid pandemic. The landlord, who was filmed tussling with a man in a suit, shouted “that man is not allowed in my pub” and “get out of my pub” as Starmer walked out of the door, with the incident captured on camera […] - [Cameron's all for bringing home the bacon, but it's our bacon he's taking with millions in taxpayers money lost.](https://heartlandstribune.com/camerons-all-for-bringing-home-the-bacon-but-its-our-bacon-hes-taking-with-millions-in-taxpayers-money-lost/): Davide Cameron, an example of the old boys club, Tory sleaze and political corruption proving it’s all just as vibrant and alive today as when John Major was heading the Tory feeding frenzy on public money. If the coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything about human nature it has shown how quickly politicians and those with access from all parties and all countries are quick off the foot to put their heads in the trough. Cameron is just the latest talking point with his controversial attempts to influence serving government ministers on behalf of Greensill, a now-collapsed finance firm that hired […] - [Czech govt expels 18 Russian diplomats over 2014 blast](https://heartlandstribune.com/czech-govt-expels-18-russian-diplomats-over-2014-blast/): Summer breaks but the east is getting slightly colder The Czech government said Saturday it will expel 18 Russian diplomats identified by local intelligence as secret agents of the Russian SVR and GRU services that are suspected of involvement in a 2014 explosion. “Eighteen employees of the Russian embassy must leave our republic within 48 hours,” Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek told reporters. Prime Minister Andrej Babis said Czech authorities had “clear evidence” linking GRU officers to an explosion in an ammunition warehouse in 2014 which left two people dead. “We have good reason to suspect the involvement of GRU officers from […] - [We are beyond cronyism: Matt Hancock linked to second family company with government contracts](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-are-beyond-cronyism-matt-hancock-linked-to-second-family-company-with-government-contracts/): In December 2020 it was shown a firm with links to Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock’s family has been awarded a £5.5 million contract for COVID-19 mobile testing Details of the deal, published in December, showed the company, based in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, was awarded a contract for £5,462,150 to supply the testing units to the Department of Health and Social Care. Beginning on 15 September, the company has been expected to provide articulated mobile testing units to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The contract will run for a year – ending on 14 September 2021. The […] - [Tales of a weathercock: What a difference a 'Knight' makes 'SIR' Keir Starmer's flip flop on abolishing the monarchy](https://heartlandstribune.com/tales-of-a-weathercock-what-a-difference-a-knight-makes-sir-keir-starmers-flip-flop-on-abolishing-the-monarchy/): NOW… Sir Keir Starmer says the monarchy is “the one institution for which the faith of the British people has never faltered.” Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour party, said Philip was “much loved” and that during the more than 70 years he was married to the Queen, “the monarchy has been the one institution for which the faith of the British people has never faltered”. Starmer said when he was a child, aged 14, he participated in the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, beginning by volunteering at a mental health hospital and ending by wandering around Dartmoor with a compass […] - [Treasury Committee has just announced its own inquiry into Greensill](https://heartlandstribune.com/treasury-committee-has-just-announced-its-own-inquiry-into-greensill/): Westminster’s Treasury Select Committee has today launched an inquiry the Greensill Capital lobbying scandal. Committee chair Mel Stride said MPs would “take a closer look” at the circumstances surrounding efforts by David Cameron and former senior civil servant Bill Crothers in lobbying on behalf of the failed finance firm. The move comes just three weeks after Tory MPs on the committee blocked efforts to investigate the Tory former Prime Minister David Cameron and his efforts to lobby government officials on behalf of Greensill. We've just announced that we will launch an inquiry into the lessons from #Greensill Capital. The Treasury Committee has […] - [Greensill-Cameron: The corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government.](https://heartlandstribune.com/greensill-cameron-the-corporations-dont-have-to-lobby-the-government-anymore-they-are-the-government/): Former Head of Procurement, became an adviser to Greensill Capital while he was a civil servant, newly published letters reveal. The Cabinet Office gave Bill Crothers permission to take the job in September 2015, two months before he left his role in Government. Because Mr Crothers was already working for the firm before leaving, the Cabinet Office decided Mr Crothers would not have to apply to Whitehall’s “revolving door” regulator, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA). Following an inquiry from ACOBA chair Lord Pickles, the Cabinet Office replied: “Mr Crothers took up a role advising the Board of Greensill Capital […] - [Coronavirus: All over-50s and high risk groups offered first vaccine dose](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-all-over-50s-and-high-risk-groups-offered-first-vaccine-dose/): All over-50s and those in high-risk groups in the UK have now been offered a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the government has announced. It means ministers have met their target of offering a first dose to the top nine priority groups by 15 April. Under-50s are expected to start getting invited for their jab in the coming days, with those in their late 40s expected to be first in England. More than 32 million people in the UK have had their first dose. And on Saturday a record 475,230 second doses were given out, with more than 7.6 million people […] - [Rishi Sunak summoned to parliament to explain involvement Greensill-Cameron lobbying row](https://heartlandstribune.com/rishi-sunak-summoned-to-parliament-to-explain-involvement-greensill-cameron-lobbying-row/): Rishi Sunak has been asked to look just before parliament tomorrow to explain why he granted Greensill Cash access to a COVID bank loan plan after David Cameron lobbied him. Labour’s shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds was granted an urgent question about the ordeal several hours following Boris Johnson purchased an unbiased assessment into the now-collapsed finance firm’s actions in authorities and the part its founder, Lex Greensill, performed. The chancellor does not have to appear in parliament himself and could send a Treasury minister to answer questions Labour has about the situation The government has announced a review covering David Cameron’s […] - [Dodgy Dave: Government to investigate David Cameron's Greensill lobbying](https://heartlandstribune.com/dodgy-dave-government-to-investigate-david-camerons-greensill-lobbying/): The government is expected to announce an investigation into David Cameron’s efforts to lobby ministers on behalf of finance firm Greensill Capital. With allegations, he sought to make money out of the wages of NHS staff coping with the pandemic, and the government tried hard to accommodate him. If true, surely the greatest ethical scandal in British political history. The former prime minister has also been criticised for contacting ministers via text on behalf of the company, which collapsed in March. The probe is likely to be independent, carried out on behalf of the Cabinet Office, according to the BBC. The […] - [Israel rejects ICC's Palestinian war crimes probe](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-rejects-iccs-palestinian-war-crimes-probe/): Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that his government will not cooperate with an International Criminal Court investigation, saying the Hague-based body has no authority to investigate Israel or its officials. The ICC’s chief prosecutor announced on March 3 that she had opened a full investigation into the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories, infuriating Israel, which not a member of The Hague-based court. The ICC sent a deferral notice on March 9, giving Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) a month to inform judges whether they are investigating crimes similar to those being probed by the ICC. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin […] - [Prince Philip has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace announces](https://heartlandstribune.com/prince-philip-has-died-aged-99-buckingham-palace-announces/): The Duke of Edinburgh – Prince Philip – has died, Buckingham Palace has said. Buckingham Palace said: “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.” Boris Johnson said he “inspired the lives of countless young people”. Speaking at Downing Street, the prime minister added: “He helped to steer the Royal Family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life.” […] - [Mandatory vaccinations for children 'necessary in a democratic society', rules ECHR](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandatory-vaccinations-for-children-necessary-in-a-democratic-society-rules-echr/): ECHR rules obligatory vaccination may be necessary The ruling is the first time that the European Court of Human Rights has weighed in on the issue of compulsory vaccinations. The decision could play a role in efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled on Thursday that compulsory vaccinations would not contravene human rights law — and may be necessary in democratic societies. The ruling came following the evaluation of a complaint brought to the court by Czech families regarding compulsory jabs for children. “The measures could be regarded as being ‘necessary in a democratic society,'” […] - [Belfast riots: Boris Johnson reacts to violence on streets as bus is hijacked and PSNI attacked](https://heartlandstribune.com/belfast-riots-boris-johnson-reacts-to-violence-on-streets-as-bus-is-hijacked-and-psni-attacked/): Violence has again resumed on the streets of Belfast ahead of an emergency meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly, with a bus hijacked and set on fire and a photographer attacked. The scenes on Wednesday evening followed several nights of unrest in loyalist communities amid tensions over the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol in the UK and EU’s Brexit deal and the police’s handling of alleged lockdown breaches by Sinn Fein at the funeral of republican Bobby Storey. A decision not to prosecute anyone for alleged breaches of COVID regulations at an IRA funeral was the tipping point. The Democratic Unionist party has expressed […] - [Dennis Skinner Was Right: Dodgy Dave's Greensill Collapse Splatters Tory Government, As Taxpayers Face Big Losses](https://heartlandstribune.com/dennis-skinner-was-right-dodgy-daves-greensill-collapse-splatters-tory-government-as-taxpayers-face-big-losses/): Remember when Dennis Skinner was thrown out of the House of Commons for twice refusing to withdraw the ‘Dodgy Dave’ jibe, he should now get an apology. In 2016 former Labour MP Dennis Skinner was thrown out of Parliament for labelling the then Prime Minister David Cameron ‘Dodgy Dave’ over his personal finances. The member for Bolsover was asked twice to withdraw the jibe, made during a House of Commons statement on the Panama Papers revelations, by the speaker John Bercow. But Mr Skinner twice declined, leading Mr Bercow to ask Mr Skinner to withdraw from the chamber for the rest […] - [Oxford University suspends AstraZeneca vaccine trial on children](https://heartlandstribune.com/oxford-university-suspends-astrazeneca-vaccine-trial-on-children/): Oxford University announced on Tuesday that it was suspending a trial of the Covid-19 vaccine that it developed with AstraZeneca on children and teenagers while regulators investigate a potential blood clot link in adults. Researchers say they are awaiting further information about the side-effect of the jab, developed alongside drug company AstraZeneca. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is investigating a potential link between the jab and a rare form of blood clot. The university said in a statement that it has paused a trial into the effectiveness of the vaccine on children and teenagers until the MHRA reports […] - [Forensic Starmer didn't do his research now apologises for visit to church criticised for their LGBT stance](https://heartlandstribune.com/forensic-starmer-didnt-do-his-research-now-apologises-for-visit-to-church-criticised-for-their-lgbt-stance/): The Labour Party never seem to have issues trolling back years to find a negative comment on a members social media but couldn’t even Google the church they were going to. Starmer has been criticised after visiting a church that has been widely condemned for its attitudes towards homosexuality. The Labour leader went to Jesus House in Brent Cross, north-west London, on Friday and praised it as a “wonderful example” of a church serving its community during the pandemic, including acting as a vaccination centre. In a video uploaded on Twitter, after a backlash including from his party’s LGBT+ members, Sir Keir Starmer called […] - [One year of Starmer shows Jeremy Corbyn throws a big shadow and the Labour Party is less without him](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-year-of-starmer-shows-jeremy-corbyn-throws-a-big-shadow-and-the-labour-party-is-less-without-him/): A year of Starmer is like reading the fall of Rome. Sir Keir Starmer’s first year has been as dull and mediocre as we first predicted on his winning the Leadership competition. It seems Starmer’s greatest ability is to create apathy through boredom this can only be matched with his ability to disappoint. From the very beginning of his race to the leadership Starmer has shown a certain dishonesty we have come to expect amongst the political grifters that inhabit Westminster today. Throughout the Labour leadership election, Starmer consistently refused to name the full list of those who donated to his […] - [Kill the Bill protests: Jeremy Corbyn full speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/kill-the-bill-protests-jeremy-corbyn-full-speech/): ‘If we don’t protest, things don’t change’ The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which passed its second reading in parliament last month, will modify existing public order legislation to make it easier for police to ban or shut down peaceful protests if they are considered too disruptive or likely to lead to disorder. This means an individual holding a placard with a megaphone could be fined up to £2,500 if they refuse police direction. Additionally, criminal damage to statues and memorials, like those witnessed during the Black Lives Matter protests last year or the fule protest in 2007 that brought […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: To speak at London #KillTheBill protest tomorrow.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-to-speak-at-london-killthebill-protest-tomorrow/): “The right to protest is precious.” Further protests are scheduled to take place in London as demonstrators continue to vent their anger at the Government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will be addressing the protesters at the London protest on the 3rd of April taking place at speakers corner Hyde Park but due to present circumstances, the locations may change. The following message was put out on video from the Peace and Justice Project “The right to protest is precious.” Ahead of @JeremyCorbyn addressing tomorrow’s London #KillTheBill protest, watch this video, spread the word, […] - [Met PC found guilty of neo-Nazi membership](https://heartlandstribune.com/met-pc-found-guilty-of-neo-nazi-membership/): A Met Police officer has been convicted of being a member of a banned neo-Nazi terrorist organisation. Benjamin Hannam, of Enfield, north London, was found to have lied on his police application form and remained in the National Action group after it was outlawed. He was also convicted of two counts of fraud following a trial at the Old Bailey. Hamman is the first British officer to be convicted of a terrorism offence. After the police constable’s arrest in March last year, detectives found an image on his iPhone showing him in police uniform, with a Hitler-style moustache superimposed on his […] - [Met officer investigated over rape allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/met-officer-investigated-over-rape-allegations/): The officer was reportedly not charged and has not been suspended more than three years on. A Metropolitan police officer has been allowed to continue working for the force unsuspended for three years after two colleagues accused him of sexual and physical abuse including rape, allegations which were later not taken forward by the Crown Prosecution Service. Even as the Met restricted his interactions with the public, it has never seen fit to prevent him working alongside other female officers. Last year the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which compensates the victims of violent crimes, awarded both women substantial sums after it […] - [France to close schools and extend Covid-19 lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-to-close-schools-and-extend-covid-19-lockdown/): All schools and daycare centres to close for three weeks President Emmanuel Macron extended light lockdown measures from 19 areas including Paris to all of mainland France from April 3 for 4 weeks at a televised address on the resurgent Covid-19 pandemic on Wednesday.  Macron widened the light lockdown measures currently imposed on a third of the French population – including the Paris region – to all of mainland France. “We don’t have to lock ourselves in but we need to limit our contacts,” he said. “We tried to push back this day for as long as possible – but unfortunately it has […] - [Revolving Doors: David Cameron Financier Lex Greensill claimed to be 'senior adviser' to Prime Ministers office](https://heartlandstribune.com/revolving-doors-david-cameron-financier-lex-greensill-claimed-to-be-senior-adviser-to-prime-ministers-office/): The scandal-hit financier Lex Greensill claimed he was a “senior adviser” to then prime minister David Cameron, according to a business card handed to the Labour Party. Labour says it has obtained an old business card that described financier Lex Greensill as a “senior adviser” in David Cameron’s office. The card includes a Downing Street email address, and what appears to be a direct line landline telephone number. The party said it raised “further serious questions” about Mr Greensill’s influence under the ex-PM. The government has said Mr Greensill’s role was unpaid and “approved in the normal manner”. Mr Greensill’s role as […] - [A win for Open Democracy and the people: Government loses lawsuit over NHS data deal with Palantir](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-win-for-open-democracy-and-the-people-government-loses-lawsuit-over-nhs-data-deal-with-palantir/): It’s real tears for Hancock this time… The Tories have been forced to make a U-turn after losing a lawsuit over a £23 million NHS data contract awarded to controversial US firm Palantir. Palantir, which has become notorious for its close ties to security services and immigration agencies in the United States, secured its first ever deal to handle NHS data in March last year for the nominal sum of £1. The contract, which was extended in December 2020 and is now worth £23.5m. Open Democracy announced back in February they were taking the UK government to court after exposing the […] - [Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham demands 'full explanation' from police over protest arrest that left woman exposed in her underwear](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchester-mayor-andy-burnham-demands-full-explanation-from-police-over-protest-arrest-that-left-woman-exposed-in-her-underwear/): Andy Burnham has demanded a ‘full explanation’ from Greater Manchester Police over the arrest of a protester that left her exposed in her underwear. Eighteen people were arrested in total during a ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstration in the city centre on Saturday evening. Police had allowed protesters to march in a large group and give speeches denouncing the government’s new legislation that critics say would restrict the right to protest. But riot cops moved in when a small group sat down and blocked tram lines in St Peter’s Square. Campaigners complained that officers used heavy-handed tactics, pushing and dragging people out […] - [Protest laws move UK towards paramilitary policing, says former police chief](https://heartlandstribune.com/protest-laws-move-uk-towards-paramilitary-policing-says-former-police-chief/): A former police chief has warned that new protest laws move Britain dangerously towards “paramilitary policing” and that UK ministers are “flexing their muscles via their police forces” like repressive regimes around the world. The warning from Michael Barton, the former chief constable of Durham comes as policing braces itself for a report expected within the next 48 hours after Metropolitan police officers were accused of heavy-handed tactics at a vigil on Clapham Common for Sarah Everard. Scenes of officers grappling with women led to outrage triggering a U-turn from the Labour Party who were planning to abstain on the Police Crime Sentencing […] - [Labour to sack 'shadow chancellor’ Anneliese Dodds after Sir Keir Starmer sinks in the polls](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-to-sack-shadow-chancellor-anneliese-dodds-after-sir-keir-starmer-sinks-in-the-polls/): A BAD WORKMAN BLAMES HIS TOOLS Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to replace his shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, in a shake-up of his frontbench team. Starmer, who will mark his first anniversary as Labour leader next Sunday, is due to demote several underperforming shadow ministers after the local elections in an attempt to get on the front foot and challenge Boris Johnson reports The Times. The Times report that Dodds is respected, but will be moved on after failing to effectively communicate the party’s “vision”, an impossible task when most commentators and political pundits could only ascertain that ‘Labours vision’ under […] - [Sir Keir Starmer's 'New Labour' Airbrushing Jeremy Corbyn out of history](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmers-new-labour-airbrushing-jeremy-corbyn-out-of-history/): The official Labour election campaign launch uses a photoshopped image from Jeremy Corbyn rally The doctored image shows Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘New Labour’ attempting to airbrush the past and popularity of its former Leader Jeremy Corbyn out of the party’s history. The image posted on Twitter captures a huge crowd enthusiastically waving placards showing the popularity of the Labour Party with a graphics overlaid saying ‘Welcome to Labour’ Sir Keir Starmer Tweets: “On Thursday 6th May we have one of the biggest set of elections in our history. Government guidance in England lets parties talk to voters on the doorstep again. […] - [Call centre staff to be monitored via webcam for home-working ‘infractions’](https://heartlandstribune.com/call-centre-staff-to-be-monitored-via-webcam-for-home-working-infractions/): When working from home, there may be a new concern for workers other than going without pants. To ensure employees do what they’re supposed to, some employers have begun using surveillance apps and programs to monitor worker productivity. Teleperformance, which employs 380,000 people, plans to use specialist webcams to watch staff This has raised some worker privacy concerns and the questions of whether this is legal or proper. Thousands of staff at one of the world’s biggest call centre companies face being monitored by webcams to check whether they are eating, looking at their phones or leaving their desks while working […] - [Former SNP leader Alex Salmond launches new political party](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-snp-leader-alex-salmond-launches-new-political-party/): Former SNP leader Alex Salmond has announced the creation of a new pro-independence party which will stand in the Scottish Parliament election. Salmons annoced the new party stating the Alba Party expected to field at least four candidates across every region of the country. The new pro-indy party, founded by journalist Laurie Flynn, Journalist Laurie Flynn registered the party, whose aim is to deliver a supermajority for independence. in Holyrood by encouraging Yes supporters to back them on the list. The former first minister, who quit the SNP amid a bitter feud with Nicola Sturgeon, will attempt to make his political comeback for […] - [Police quietly ‘retract’ claims that officers suffered broken bones at Bristol protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-quietly-retract-claims-that-officers-suffered-broken-bones-at-bristol-protest/): Police confirm officers did not suffer broken bones at Bristol protest Avon and Somerset Police has confirmed two of its officers injured during violent protests in Bristol did not suffer any broken bones. Police bosses said two officers were taken to hospital – one with a broken arm and another with broken ribs and a punctured lung – following Sunday’s disorder. It has since emerged neither of the two officers had suffered any broken bones. The headlines following the Bristol protest described police officers with broken bones and even punctured lungs However, yesterday, Avon and Somerset police quietly admitted that no officers suffered […] - [Tory commissioners to oversee authority of Liverpool City Council](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-commissioners-to-oversee-authority-of-liverpool-city-council/): Government-appointed Commissioners will oversee parts of Liverpool City Council following a critical report, the local government secretary has said. Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick stopped short of ordering a full takeover of the council, with commissioners instead being sent to oversee specific functions within the planning, highways and regeneration directorate. Robert Jenrick told the House of Commons a “serious breakdown of governance” and “multiple apparent failures” meant he had to take action. The move came after the publication of a report by Max Caller, a local government inspector. The Inspectors were sent in by the local government secretary following allegations of […] - [Starmer to back Tory takeover of Liverpool city council](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-to-back-tory-takeover-of-liverpool-city-council/): Government officials are to take over the running of Liverpool City Council amid an ongoing corruption investigation by Merseyside Police, communities secretary Robert Jenrick is expected to announce today. Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to back government moves to take over the running of Liverpool, one of his party’s key strongholds, after a property development scandal. The Times reported that the Labour Leader will back the Whitehall take over of Liverpool city council offering no resistance to the takeover. Labour supporters are outraged at Starmer’s capitulation to the Tories. The communities secretary Jenrick will deliver a statement in Parliament that will […] - [Banksy artwork honouring British health workers fetches a record £16.75 million](https://heartlandstribune.com/banksy-artwork-honouring-british-health-workers-fetches-a-record-e19-4-million/): A painting by the British street artist Banksy sold for a record £16.75 million ($23.1 million, 19.4 million euros) on Tuesday, with proceeds going to health charities Game Changer, by the anonymous graffiti artist, appeared in a foyer at Southampton General Hospital during the first wave of the pandemic. Christie’s said the hammer price of £14.4m for the 1m (3ft) x 1m work was a “world auction record” for a Banksy. Including a buyer’s premium, the purchaser paid £16.8m. Christie’s said it would be donating “a significant portion” of its premium meaning a total of “more than £16m” would be used […] - [One year on and 149,000 deaths later Boris Johnson admits regrets over handling of first Covid wave](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-year-on-and-149000-deaths-later-boris-johnson-admits-regrets-over-handling-of-first-covid-wave/): Boris Johnson admitted he’d have done “many things” differently during the pandemic, during a press conference to mark the first anniversary of the UK plunging into lockdown. It came on the day new figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a total of 149,117 people have had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate since the pandemic began. He told the Downing Street press conference: “In retrospect, there are probably many things that we wish that we’d known and many things that we wish we’d done differently at the time, in retrospect, because we were fighting a novel disease under very […] - [Tory candidate Tweeted ‘just bomb Bristol’ then deleted the Tweet after public backlash.](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-candidate-tweeted-just-bomb-bristol-then-deleted-the-tweet-after-public-backlash/): A Tory candidate has had to apologise after he called for Bristol to be bombed following the unrest caused by the protest and riots in the city on Sunday. A Tory candidate has had to apologise after he called for Bristol to be bombed following the unrest caused by the riots in the city on Sunday. Stephen Halbhuber, who is hoping to represent St Anthony’s ward in Eastbourne and also works within the NHS, tweeted ‘just bomb Bristol’ in reaction to the violent scenes. Mr Halbhuber is the Conservative Party candidate for the St Anthony’s Ward in Eastbourne, with local elections […] - [Justice at last: Ricky Tomlinson and the Shrewsbury 24 have their convictions overturned](https://heartlandstribune.com/justice-at-last-ricky-tomlinson-and-the-shrewsbury-24-have-their-convictions-overturned/): “They walk from this court – as they have always been – innocent men” Victims of police corruption, they are victims of a political trial, and they are victims of a Conservative Government – who at the time were looking to take revenge against the trade union movement Ricky Tomlinson and 13 fellow trade unionists convicted in the so-called Shrewsbury 24 trials have cleared their names after 48 years. Before becoming one of Britain’s best-loved actors through roles in Brookside and The Royle Family, Ricky Tomlinson was controversially jailed for his part in a strike in 1972. In 1972, Ricky Tomlinson […] - [Ikea France goes on trial over accusations of spying on staff and customers](https://heartlandstribune.com/ikea-france-goes-on-trial-over-accusations-of-spying-on-staff-an-customers/): Trade unions reported Ikea to French authorities back in 2012, accusing it of collecting data by fraudulent means. Ikea France has been accused of collecting personal data by fraudulent means and the illicit disclosure of personal information. The French subsidiary of Ikea and some of its executives are to go on trial over accusations that customers and employees were illegally spied on. Unions have specifically alleged that Ikea France had paid to gain access to police files that had information about targeted individuals. Ikea France denied spying on anyone, but Sweden-based Ikea fired four executives in France after French prosecutors opened […] - [Kill the Bill Protest: Labour MP Toby Perkins says 'entirely appropriate use of the baton'](https://heartlandstribune.com/kill-the-bill-protest-labour-mp-toby-perkins-says-entirely-appropriate-use-of-the-baton/): Toby Perkins Labour MP for Chesterfield clearly made his thoughts known as he waded into the after event Twitter discussions into last nights ‘kill the Bill protest’ at Bristol opposing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. A bill that infringes on our fundamental rights to protest. Perkins response sparked an outcry from Left-wing supporters and some well known Left-wing commentators like Owen Jones, Paul Mason along with Guardian and Jacobin columnist Abi Wilkinson. The centrist Labour MP and ally of Sir Keir Starmer Tweeted: “This looks to me like entirely appropriate use of the baton. A good example of proportionate […] - [Kill the Bill: Bristol protest turns violent](https://heartlandstribune.com/kill-the-bill-bristol-protest-turns-violent/): “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”- John F. Kennedy There is an inevitable truth in the words of JFK, its not a justification of violence but it is a warning of more protest and a rejection of a system that has overstretched in its intrusions onto peoples liberties and lives. This is not a Left or Right issue, this is an issue that affects all people of all persuasions. Thomas Paine once said: “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.” in that light it’s understood ensuring our liberties […] - [Iraq War: When George Galloway took on the US Senate and won](https://heartlandstribune.com/iraq-war-when-george-galloway-took-on-the-us-senate-and-won/): George Galloway master orator gave the US senate committee a free lesson in truth and honesty. Galloway at his best, delivering a blistering rebuttal to US Senators, while holding them to account is a must watch and can sit alongside any great political speech. Washington, May 17 2005- George Galloway had been invited to speak and defend the climes by the US senate committee that Saddam Hussein’s government had given him the rights to buy 20 million barrels of oil to sell at a profit. In an appearance that seemed to catch a Senate committee off-guard, George Galloway denied the accusations […] - [Norman Tebbit admits Special Branch spied on union leaders: For many, it was more of a confirmation than a revelation](https://heartlandstribune.com/norman-tebbit-admits-special-branch-spied-on-union-leaders-for-many-it-was-more-of-a-confirmation-than-a-revelation/): The Tory peer Norman Tebbit’s admitted that he received regular briefs from special branch on the activities of trade unionists while he was a minister. Norman Tebbit was one of Margaret Thatcher’s most fanatical disciple’s he opposed Labour and the trade unions with such zeal that he was once likened to a “semi-housetrained polecat”. This came about during a debate in Parliament on 2 March 1978, Michael Foot labelled Tebbit a “semi-house-trained polecat” in response to a question from Tebbit asking if he accepted that the legislation being proposed that made it compulsory for people to join a Trade Union was an act of […] - [A recipe for failure: Labour Party Parachuted in Arch-Remainer to 'Brexit Land' by-election who now apologises after ‘Tory MILF’ tweet emerges](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-recipe-for-failure-labour-party-parachuted-in-arch-remainer-to-brexit-land-by-election-who-now-apologises-after-tory-milf-tweet-emerges/): The Labour Party candidate to defend Hartlepool in the upcoming by-election has apologised for his past “inappropriate” tweets, including one about “a favourite Tory milf”. Dr Paul Williams said on Friday that he “wouldn’t dream of making comments like this now” after some of his less savoury Tweets to came to light. The offending Tweet asks: “Do you have a favourite Tory MILF? Mind-blowing dinner table conversation” The acronym MILF came into use after the cult classic American Pie, a sort of coming-of-age story about high school friendship and sex, gave us numerous cultural references. One of those “treasures” was the term […] - [Senior Tory minister claimed up to £800 a month of public money to pay for his podcast](https://heartlandstribune.com/senior-tory-minister-claimed-up-to-800-a-month-of-public-money-to-pay-for-his-podcast/): Policing minister Kit Malthouse, charged a total of £4,000 on expenses for “bought-in services” between April and October last year. Each of the claims mentioned work on his podcast “The Maltcast”, which he has published sporadically since February 2019. He registered each claim with expenses authorities with variations on “Community focussed campaign planning, strategy and delivery including recording and editing podcasts”. Mr Malthouse’s podcast has covered such topics as “Long Live Our Local Pub” and “Time to Legalise Assisted Dying?”, and appear to involve minimal editing and production. He released a series of short ‘ Coronavirus community information’ episodes between March and May 2020, […] - [EMA rules AstraZeneca vaccine is 'SAFE' for use: Now EU threatens to block exports while demanding more vaccines for itself.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ema-rules-astrazeneca-vaccine-is-safe-for-use-now-eu-threatens-to-block-exports-while-demanding-more-vaccines-for-itself/): The European Medicines Agency (EMA) conducted its review after 13 EU states suspended use of the vaccine over fears of a link to blood clots. The EMA found the vaccine was “not associated” with higher risk of clots. But it said it would continue to study the possibility of such links. It is up to individual EU countries to decide whether to re-start administering the jab. On Monday, the three largest EU members – Germany, France and Italy – said they were awaiting the results of the EMA investigation before deciding whether to resume their rollout of the jab. The EMA […] - [The controversial Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill Passes Second Reading](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-controversial-police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-passes-second-reading/): The Plan to crack down on protests passes first Commons hurdle despite civil liberties warning Government plans to introduce new powers to crack down on protests have cleared the first hurdle in the Commons — despite warnings an “all-out assault” the right to demonstrate from civil liberties groups. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed its second reading 359-263 after it was overwhelmingly backed by Tory MPs. There were no Tory rebels and only three Tory MPs did not vote either way: Anne Marie Morris, Desmond Swayne and Charles Walker. It will now go into a committee stage where MPs […] - [Suspension of AstraZeneca shots is 'political decision': Italy's medicines regulator head](https://heartlandstribune.com/suspension-of-astrazeneca-shots-is-political-decision-italys-medicines-regulator-head/): The decision by Germany, France and Italy to suspend AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects is a “political one”, the director general of Italy’s medicines authority AIFA said on Tuesday. “We got to the point of a suspension because several European countries, including Germany and France, preferred to interrupt vaccinations… to put them on hold in order to carry out checks. The choice is a political one,” Nicola Magrini told daily la Repubblica in an interview. Magrini said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and that the benefit to risk ratio of the jab is “widely positive”. […] - [Labour MP Mike Hill quits 'with immediate effect' triggering Red Wall by-election in Hartlepool](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-mike-hill-quits-with-immediate-effect-triggering-red-wall-by-election-in-hartlepool/): Hartlepool Labour MP Mike Hill has resigned “with immediate effect” It’s understood an investigation is ongoing against Mr Hill, although no further details have been released. Mr Hill was due to face an employment tribunal later this year into claims of “sexual harassment and victimisation”. He has denied the allegations. The vote will be the first by-election since the ‘Red wall collapsed’ it will also be the first real test Sir Keir Starmer has faced since becoming Leader of the Opposition. Labour has held the seat ever since its formation in 1974 but saw its popularity in the constituency collapse two […] - [Coronavirus: Thorntons plans to permanently close all stores leaving 600 jobs at risk](https://heartlandstribune.com/coronavirus-thorntons-plans-to-permanently-close-all-stores-leaving-600-jobs-at-risk/): Thorntons will permanently close all of its UK stores after more than a century of trading, the company has announced. The company said its decision, which was now the subject of consultation with employees, would affect 603 workers but said it hoped to redeploy some of those affected. Thorntons said it was based not only on the impact of COVID lockdowns over the past year but factors related to the pandemic across the retail sector. After 110 years of creating chocolate, Thorntons said the ‘obstacles’ Covid-19 has brought on the high street are ‘too severe’ to survive. However, the retailer said it has […] - [Brexit: EU launches legal action against UK claiming 'breaching' Northern Ireland Protocol trade agreement](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-eu-launches-legal-action-against-uk-claiming-breaching-northern-ireland-protocol-trade-agreement/): The UK says extending a grace period for relaxed rules on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain is not a breach. The EU has formally launched legal action against the UK, alleging that the government has broken international law over Brexit implementation in Northern Ireland. The European Commission has accused the UK of breaching EU law concerning the movement of goods and pet travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the UK moved to unilaterally change parts of the Brexit deal to better suit British businesses earlier this month. On 3 March, the UK announced it was going […] - [It took last nights poor policing for Labour to do a U-turn on abstaining on Priti Patel's anti-protest crackdown plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/it-took-last-nights-poor-policing-for-labour-to-do-a-u-turn-on-abstaining-on-priti-patels-anti-protest-crackdown-plan/): Labour are now planning to vote against Priti Patel’s anti-protest crackdown plan but it took a public outcry at the actions of the Met police during a murdered women’s vigil to make Starmer do a U-turn The party had previously said they would abstain on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill on Tuesday, but now plan to oppose it following widespread criticism of the Metropolitan Police’s handling of a Sarah Everard vigil. It’s a freighting prospect that it has taken public outcry following last nights events for the opposition to move from abstaining to opposing on this bill. A Bill […] - [Badly tone deaf decision to refuse the vigil resulted in indefensible police actions](https://heartlandstribune.com/badly-tone-deaf-decision-to-refuse-the-vigil-resulted-in-indefensible-police-actions/): It was a Badly tone deaf decision to refuse the vigil there must be consequences Who could have predicted that police refusing a vigil for a woman kidnapped & murdered by a high level police officer in that same force – who was only in London because he had been on duty, and was only on duty because the police had failed to suspend/arrest him for an indecent exposure reported 3 days prior by two women, in the context of decades and decades of police not taking VAWG seriously, would lead to something that was not actually a vigil but actually […] - [#Disgraceful Policing: Clashes between police and mourners at Sarah Everard vigil](https://heartlandstribune.com/disgraceful-policing-clashes-between-police-and-mourners-at-sarah-everard-cancelled-vigil/): Clashes have broken out between police and mourners at a vigil for Sarah Everard. Footage posted on social media shows police and mourners jostling near the Clapham Common bandstand, where the Reclaim these Streets vigil was due to be held before it was cancelled due to Covid-19 safety concerns. Metropolitan Police officers walked on to the bandstand and were met with boos, jeers and chants of “shame on you” as they tried to disperse people from the event. Members of the crowd could be heard shouting “shame on you” and “you are scum” after the brief clash, while one woman screamed, […] - [Dunblane Remembers, 25 Years Since UK's Worst Mass Shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/dunblane-remembers-25-years-since-uks-worst-mass-shooting/): Sixteen children killed in Dunblane massacre People in the Scottish town of Dunblane will mark the 25th anniversary of Britain’s worst mass shooting, which led to the introduction of some of the world’s toughest gun laws. Sixteen schoolchildren, all of them aged just five and six, were killed along with their teacher who tried to protect them when a local man opened fire on a gym class before taking his own life. Coronavirus restrictions have shut churches across Scotland, forcing a day of private reflection. But Colin Renwick, minister at Dunblane Cathedral, said the victims would be remembered at an online […] - [MPs from Germany's governing conservative party alliance face deadline to prove 'They Didn't' pocket profits from face mask sales.](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-from-germanys-governing-conservative-party-alliance-face-deadline-to-prove-they-didnt-pocket-profits-from-face-mask-sales/): That’s right, MPs have to prove they didn’t profit from face mask sales as Merkel tries to tidy mask scandal mess Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc must declare on Friday if they have not profited from the COVID-19 pandemic. The ultimatum was issued after further revelations emerged in Germany’s face mask procurement scandal, causing more embarrassment ahead of regional votes on Sunday. The ruling CDU/CSU alliance, which is also facing criticism over the slow rollout of the vaccine program, sought to clean house ahead of Sunday votes in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The bloc has demanded that all lawmakers declare […] - [International Women's Week: 'knocked back to the 70s' as Labour NEC chair Margaret Beckett calls Laura Pidcock a "Silly Cow"](https://heartlandstribune.com/international-womens-week-knocked-back-to-the-70s-as-labour-nec-chair-margaret-beckett-calls-laura-pidcock-a-silly-cow/): When a female Labour MP and chair of the NEC calls another female and former Labour MP a “Silly Cow” on international women’s week it makes you wonder how far we have really come. It was reported that Labour MP Margaret Beckett accidentally left her mic on in a Labour NEC meeting and was heard calling former Labour MP Laura Pidcock a “silly cow.” Laura Pidcock then left the call. There was an outcry from many of the participant’s Zoom meeting, it was reported that some members had demanded Becket stand down and resign her position as chair. On hearing the […] - [Malta's government responsible for murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, inquiry finds](https://heartlandstribune.com/maltas-government-responsible-for-murder-of-journalist-daphne-caruana-galizia-inquiry-finds/): Malta’s government must “bear responsibility” for the murder of journalist Daphne Malta’s government must “bear responsibility” for the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, an independent inquiry has found. The inquiry’s 437-page report, published on Thursday, said officials had failed to adequately protect Caruana Galizia from threats to her life prior to her death in October 2017. The probe said that Maltese authorities had created a “culture of impunity” that led to her killing. Caruana Galizia died in a car bombing in October 2017 as she was allegedly investigating corruption in a business linked to a wealthy businessman, Yorgen Fenech. Fenech — who […] - [People's Hero: Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Sentenced to 45 Months in Prison 'For Exposing US War Crimes'](https://heartlandstribune.com/peoples-hero-drone-whistleblower-daniel-hale-sentenced-to-45-months-in-prison-for-exposing-us-war-crimes/): “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell Daniel Hale, 33, of Nashville, Tennessee, faced up to nine years in prison for leaking classified information about the U.S. drone and targeted assassination program. During his time in the Air Force from 2009 to 2013, Hale worked with the National Security Agency and the Joint Special Operations Task Force at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, he was responsible for identifying, tracking, and targeting “high-value” terror suspects. The following year, when he was assigned to the NSA, Hale began communicating with a journalist. In 2014, after […] - [EU halts legal action against UK over Northern Ireland Protocol breaches](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-halts-legal-action-against-uk-over-northern-ireland-protocol-breaches/): The EU has agreed to a standstill in legal action against the UK for breaches to the Northern Ireland protocol, Euronews has learned. The European Commission initiated infringement proceedings against the UK government last March after it unilaterally extended Grace Periods on goods no longer allowed to be exported to Northern Ireland due to Brexit. A Brussels spokesperson has said: “In order to provide the necessary space to reflect on these issues and find durable solutions to the implementation of the Protocol, we have decided, at this stage, not to move to the next stage of the infringement procedure.” The legal […] - [Too busy virtue signalling for care: Lambeth Council cover-up saw hundreds of children subjected to 'cruelty and sexual abuse](https://heartlandstribune.com/to-busy-virtue-signalling-for-care-lambeth-council-cover-up-saw-hundreds-of-children-subjected-to-cruelty-and-sexual-abuse/): A Culture of cover-up saw hundreds of children subjected to ‘cruelty and sexual abuse One victims expresed in the report how her experience of care homes was ‘Like hell’ Report findings are based on 19 days of public hearings held last summer. It is one of three investigations by the inquiry into the response by local authorities to allegations of child sexual abuse, alongside Rochdale and Nottinghamshire. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) found more than 705 allegations of sexual abuse against hundreds of staff and individuals connected with just three homes in the borough. The true scale of […] - [Exclusive: Ken Loach calls out Sir Keir Starmer, what were his dealings in the Julian Assange case](https://heartlandstribune.com/exclusive-ken-loach-calls-out-sir-keir-starmer-what-was-his-dealings-in-the-julian-assange-case/): “Everyone knows the real story. Everybody can see it. We can’t believe anybody is hoodwinked. It’s not espionage, this is journalism!” – Ken Loach Ken Loach spoke out after a screening of a new film highlighting Julian Assange’s political incarceration titled ‘ The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange.‘ After denouncing the mainstream media for sucking every story out of Julian Assange and the Wikileaks organisation, then leaving him to dry in the clutches of the vengeful establishment. Ken went on to call out the self-serving media. Ken Loach always one for expressing the truth asked the questions of […] - [Feed The Rich: Former Tory councillor awarded £120m govt contract for useless face shields](https://heartlandstribune.com/feed-the-rich-former-tory-councillor-awarded-120m-govt-contract-for-useless-face-shields/): The cost of shields used so far come to £423 per piece – even though they can be purchased online for less than £1. A former Tory councillor was given a £120m government contract for personal protective equipment (PPE) which is now lying unused because of concerns about its quality, it has been revealed. Steve Dechan a former Conservative councillor received a £120 million government contract for face shields Dechan first made headlines as a Remain campaigner at the 2016 EU Referendum, before being elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Stroud, where his then-struggling medical supplies firm Platform 14 was […] - [Now the EU's Reserve army of Labour has stopped flowing the government needs to invest in training workers to plug the job gap](https://heartlandstribune.com/now-the-eus-reserve-army-of-labour-has-stopped-flowing-the-government-needs-to-invest-in-training-workers-to-plug-the-job-gap/): The Reserve Army of Labour Marx described how capitalism relies on the existence of a pool of cheap labour, ‘a mass of human material always ready for exploitation’. This ‘reserve army’ is an ever-ready supply of labour when needed by capitalism, the existence of which keeps wages low for the mass of the working class and maintains workers in a state of uncertainty and instability, knowing they may be hired and fired as needed. With the introduction of Freedom of movement, the reserve army became internationalised, it ceased to be necessarily located in the same country as the capitalists who use […] - [Ad men sacked to improve gender pay gap win sex discrimination after female director vowed to “obliterate” its Mad Men reputation of being full of straight, white men.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ad-men-sacked-to-improve-gender-pay-gap-win-sex-discrimination-after-female-director-vowed-to-obliterate-its-mad-men-reputation-of-being-full-of-straight-white-men/): London tribunal rules men axed after director vowed to ‘obliterate’ J Walter Thompson’s reputation of ‘being full of straight, white men’ Two white male creative directors at a top London advertising agency have won a sex discrimination claim after a female director vowed to “obliterate” its Mad Men reputation of being full of straight, white men. Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner, both in their 50s and renowned creative directors at the J Walter Thompson (JWT) agency, were among five men axed from the agency, which is part of WPP, because bosses “urgently” wanted to address its poor gender pay gap, a […] - [Pingdemic: Full list of workers exempt from Pingdemic self-isolation rules from today after fears country could grind to a halt](https://heartlandstribune.com/pingdemic-full-list-of-workers-exempt-from-pingdemic-self-isolation-rules-from-today-after-fears-country-could-grind-to-a-halt/): The full list of workers exempt from ‘pingdemic’ self-isolation rules has been revealed after fears the country could grind to a halt. Anyone working in critical sectors – including food and water supply, medicines and public transport – no longer has to spend days under house arrest if they come into contact with a Covid case. It came as supermarkets urged customers against panic buying in response to reports of empty shelves in shops due to issues around staff self-isolating, with food retailers insisting that gaps in supply will be temporary. On Thursday, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said ministers were “very […] - [Dawn Butler asked to leave the Commons after saying "It is dangerous to lie in a pandemic" Boris Johnson has 'lied over and over again' during a pandemic](https://heartlandstribune.com/dawn-butler-asked-to-leave-the-commons-after-saying-it-is-dangerous-to-lie-in-a-pandemic-boris-johnson-has-lied-over-and-over-again-during-a-pandemic/): “It’s funny that we get in trouble in this place for calling out the lie rather than the person lying.” Labour MP Judith Cummins acting as a temporary deputy speaker of the Commons asked Dawn Butler Labour MP to leave the House of Commons for the remainder of the day after refusing to withdraw claims that Boris Johnson has “lied” to the country “over and over again”. Former shadow minister Dawn Butler told MPs that “poor people in the country have paid with their lives because the prime minister has spent the last 18 months misleading this House and the country”. […] - [NHS workers in England offered 3% pay rise: Multimillionaire Sajid Javid condescendingly remarked: I'm sure that this pay rise will make a real difference to people's lives.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nhs-workers-in-england-offered-3-pay-rise-multimillionaire-sajid-javid-condescendingly-remarked-im-sure-that-this-pay-rise-will-make-a-real-difference-to-peoples-lives/): The normally moderate Royal College of Nursing described the 3% pay rise for NHS staff in England as a “shambolic announcement” after a “shambolic day”. Ministers have offered NHS staff in England a 3% pay rise, three times higher than its insulting initial 1% offer which received a backlash from nurses unions and NHS staff. A 3% pay rise from the government to NHS workers in England has been heavily criticised as “paltry”, “appalling” and “shambolic” by union leaders. Those receiving the increase, which is backdated to April 2021, include nurses, paramedics, consultants, dentists and salaried GPs. The government says that for […] - [Five Tory MPs breached code of conduct by trying to influence judge in Elphicke sex assault trial](https://heartlandstribune.com/five-tory-mps-breached-code-of-conduct-by-trying-to-influence-judge-in-elphicke-sex-assault-trial/): Five Tory MPs breached the code of conduct by trying to influence a judge in the trial of former MP Charlie Elphicke, the Commons Standards Committee has ruled. Theresa Villiers, Natalie Elphicke, Sir Roger Gale, Adam Holloway and Bob Stewart wrote letters regarding ex-MP Charlie Elphicke, who was convicted of sex offences. A Commons watchdog has found the five Conservative MPs breached the code of conduct and attempted to “improperly” influence legal proceedings related to their disgraced former colleague Charlie Elphicke. Charles Elphicke, the former Tory MP for Dover and sex offender, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault on […] - [COVID-19 Pingdemic: Sir Keir Starmer self-isolating for the fourth time.](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-pingdemic-sir-keir-starmer-self-isolating-for-the-fourth-time/): It means, as of Wednesday, that the prime minister, chancellor, health secretary and leader of the opposition are now in self-isolation as cases of coronavirus continue to rise. Sir Keir Starmer is self-isolating after a member of his immediate family tested positive for Covid, his spokesperson has said. Shortly after participating in the weekly session of prime minister’s questions, the Labour leader was informed one of his children had tested positive for Covid-19 around lunchtime. It will be the fourth time Sir Keir has had to enter quarantine since the pandemic began. Starmer was first forced into isolation in September after […] - [There will be no dissent amongst the ranks: Labour votes to ban four left factions that supported Corbyn’s leadership](https://heartlandstribune.com/there-will-be-no-dissent-amongst-the-ranks-labour-votes-to-ban-four-left-factions-that-supported-corbyns-leadership/): Labour’s ruling body the NEC has voted to proscribe four left factions that were vocal supporters of free speech and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The National Executive Committee moved on Tuesday to purge Resist and Labour Against the Witchhunt, on the grounds that it claims some antisemitism allegations were politically motivated, and Labour in Exile Network, which expressly welcomes expelled members who have been expelled from the party on dubious grounds, in the Labour Party that covers a lot of members. They also welcomed suspended members who have been left without support from comrades and other party members after their suspension. Socialist Appeal, a group that describes […] - [Tory peer warns Boris Johnson over ‘disdainful’ treatment of disabled people](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-peer-warns-boris-johnson-over-disdainful-treatment-of-disabled-people/): The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) treats disabled people with “palpable disrespect”, a Conservative peer and disability rights campaigner has said. Lord Kevin Shinkwin said he was concerned the new National Strategy for Disabled People, aimed at making the UK a fairer society, would not succeed if it was entrusted to the DWP alone. Lord Kevin Shinkwi a Conservative member of the House of Lords warned Boris Johnson that his government’s new disability strategy has “discriminated” against the people it is intended to help and treated them with “disdain.” Kevin Shinkwin, who chairs the Centre for Social Justice’s Disability Commission, wrote […] - [Israeli spyware used to target journalists, activists around the world](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-spyware-used-to-target-journalists-activists/): Spyware used to target journalists and activists around the world, reports indicate The investigation drew connections to murdered journalists. Military-grade spyware was used to hack the smartphones of dozens of journalists and activists, according to an investigation conducted and reported by 17 media organizations. The Pegasus spyware was created and leased by the NSO Group, an Israeli firm. It is designed to be used to track terrorists by military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials. However, the list of countries with large numbers of hacking targets suggests the extremely sophisticated spyware may well have been provided to some leaders with problematic […] - [Johnson and Sunak to self-isolate in U-turn: One rule for them, another for us.](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-and-sunak-to-self-isolate-in-u-turn-one-rule-for-them-another-for-us/): Johnson and Sunak to self-isolate in U-turn, it should never have been in question. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been forced into a U-turn and will self-isolate after coming into contact with the health secretary, who has contracted Covid-19. The reversal comes just hours after they said they would take part in a pilot scheme involving daily testing instead of self-isolation. It means the prime minister, chancellor and health secretary will all be isolating, along with hundreds of thousands of others due to exposure to coronavirus, when restrictions are dropped across England from Monday. “One rule for them and another for the […] - [Sir Keir Starmer's plans to turn the Labour Party into a harmless alternative to the Tories on track as he is set to expel 1,000's of Left-wing members](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmers-plans-to-turn-the-labour-party-into-a-harmless-alternative-to-the-tories-on-track-as-he-is-set-to-expel-1000s-of-left-wing-members/): Sir Keir Starmer is on track with his deliberate decimation of the Labour Party. This is unity the old Roman way Proscriptions… Starmer has not only managed to be instrumental in creating the Labour collapse running up to the 2019 General election with his vote losing second referendum policy but has managed to keep Labour polling behind what is debatably the most corrupt Tory Party in history responsible for thousands of needless deaths while under the cover of the Covid pandemic they have raided the treasury of public money to the tune of billions. Starmer is about to purge – four […] - [Jobs for the boys: Boris Johnson Bullingdon Club pal appointed to sleaze watchdog](https://heartlandstribune.com/jobs-for-the-boys-boris-johnson-bullingdon-club-pal-appointed-to-sleaze-watchdog/): The old boy’s network AKA Cronyism Boris Johnson has appointed Ewen Fergusson a fellow Bullingdon Club boy to a role advising him on ethical standards in public life. Former lawyer Ewen Fergusson will begin a five-year stint on the Committee on Standards in Public Life next month. He was a member of Oxford University’s Bullingdon Club at the same time as the prime minister. No 10 rejected the cronyism allegation, saying the role had been filled by “open and fair competition”. Fergusson can be seen as part of the infamous picture from 1987 that includes former prime minister David Cameron (second from […] - [Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty arrested at Senate office building by Capitol Police during a march demanding they pass the 'For the People Act'](https://heartlandstribune.com/congressional-black-caucus-chair-joyce-beatty-arrested-at-senate-office-building-by-capitol-police-during-a-march-demanding-they-pass-the-for-the-people-act/): Police arrested Congressional Black Caucus chair, Joyce Beatty, on Thursday afternoon after she led pro-voting rights protesters into a Senate office building. Beatty, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, participated in a small rally alongside 12 activists outside the Supreme Court building before marching to Hart, singing songs including “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine.”After a warning from police to clear the area, Beatty was the first person arrested. Other members of the group were also arrested. Officers moved in as Beatty, 71, and a handful of other activists, including Women’s March co-founders Linda Sarsour and Tamika […] - [Fatal flooding in western Germany and neighbouring countries](https://heartlandstribune.com/fatal-flooding-in-western-germany-and-neighbouring-countries/): Flooding in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg has caused devastation At least 58 people have died in parts of western Germany amid heavy rains and flooding, local police said on Thursday. Most of the deaths have been reported in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. Up to 70 people are missing in Germany after flash floods swept across western and southern parts of the country, causing buildings to collapse, police said Thursday. Germany is worst hit with 58 people killed, while six people died in Belgium. “In some areas we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” Andreas Friedrich, a […] - [Clapping doesn't pay the bills: Most home care jobs offer less than Real Living Wage, investigation finds.](https://heartlandstribune.com/clapping-doesnt-pay-the-bills-most-home-care-jobs-offer-less-than-real-living-wage-investigation/): Home care workers – who risked their lives throughout the coronavirus pandemic – have been left struggling to clothe their children, feed their families, and have mental health struggles, due to the low pay they receive, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has learned. Long-awaited plans to reform adult social care have failed to materialise, while the pandemic has piled more pressure on the system. The government has no clear plan as to how to address a huge funding gap – estimated at £10bn – but has encouraged the public to Clap For Our Carers, a response one […] - [More than one million children from key worker families living in poverty say TUC](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-than-one-million-children-from-key-worker-families-living-in-poverty-say-tuc/): Study finds more than one in five children of workers employed in the frontline of the pandemic live below breadline The report, produced by Landman Economics, used the government definition for key workers and found that over a million children of key workers across the UK live below the poverty line. The trade union federation general secretary Frances O’Grady declared that “every key worker deserves a decent standard of living for their family, but too often their hard work is not paying off like it should”. “The Prime Minister has promised to ‘build back fairer’. He should start with our key […] - [Tory rebels threaten to vote down foreign aid cuts: Government threatened tax rises if the Bill fails](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-rebels-threaten-to-vote-down-foreign-aid-cuts-government-threatened-tax-rises-if-the-bill-fails/): Up to 50 Tory MPs join opposition parties in expressing concern about cuts to UK’s aid budget Boris Johnson has called the bluff of rebel Tory MPs demanding a Commons vote on Rishi Sunak’s controversial decision to cut spending on overseas aid. After months of resisting a vote, ministers sprang a surprise on the rebels by announcing a last-minute change to Commons business with a debate and vote less than 24 hours later. The government backed down on allowing a vote after the Speaker last week said the House of Commons must have a say on the move to cut the […] - [Tory MP Natalie Elphicke is forced into grovelling climbdown after saying Marcus Rashford should have practised taking penalties instead of 'playing politics' by campaigning for free school meals](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-natalie-elphicke-is-forced-into-grovelling-climbdown-after-saying-marcus-rashford-should-have-practised-taking-penalties-instead-of-playing-politics-by-campaigning-for-free-school-meals/): Tory backbencher was forced to backtrack today after a horrific own goal attack on England star Marcus Rashford over his missed Euro 2020 penalty. Dover MP Natalie Elphicke suggested the Manchester United star should have practised spot kicks instead of campaigning for free meals for deprived schoolchildren during lockdown. Ms Elphicke, a 50 year-old mother-of-two, has been MP for Dover since 2019, when she replaced her now ex-husband, Charlie, who was jailed last year for three sex attacks on two women. She made the remark in a Tory MP WhatsApp group after the Three Lions’ Euro 2020 defeat on penalties to Italy at Wembley last night.  Manchester United striker […] - [There is no contradiction between patriotism and socialism](https://heartlandstribune.com/there-is-no-contradiction-between-patriotism-and-socialism/): We need to articulate socialist patriotism a genuine love of our country and its people — in opposition to the militarism and imperialism. As we draw close to the finals of the Euro 2020 kick-off with England facing Italy we see Social media awash with a mixture of liberal disdain (mainly from those with EU flags in their Twitter handles – apparently, not all flag-waving is bad) and the typical misplaced complaints about “socialism in one country.” coming from Lefties that get their Marxist Leninist theory from Facebook comments or memes. It reminded me of a very insightful article by Matt […] - [Afghanistan: Jeremy Corbyn called for an inquiry into the decisions to go to war](https://heartlandstribune.com/afghanistan-jeremy-corbyn-called-for-an-inquiry-into-the-decisions-to-go-to-war/): Surely this was not the UK’s exit strategy from a 20-year conflict. Jeremy Corbyn along with a number of cross-party MPs including former soldier and Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has urged prime minister Boris Johnson to carry out a formal inquiry into the Afghan war. Both MPs pointed to the failings throughout the Afgan war, Tobias Ellwood a former combat veteran of the Royal Green jackets stated: “This cannot be the exit strategy that we ever envisaged,” Ellwood said during a Commons urgent question. “Our nation and our military deserve answers so I request a Chilcot-style inquiry, so we can learn […] - [How tax can shape society if we understand modern monetary theory](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-tax-can-shape-society-if-we-understand-modern-monetary-theory/): Forward Prof Andrew Baker of Sheffield University and “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert” Prof Richard Murphy were awarded the Cambridge University Press Award for Excellence in Social Policy Scholarship for their article “Modern Monetary Theory and the Changing Role of Tax in Society” in the academic Social Policy Association’s 2021 Awards round. This important paper uses insights from Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to show that rather than taxing first and then spending the resulting revenues, governments first spend, bringing money into existence in the process, and then effectively recover some of that outlay through taxation. This is a spend and tax […] - ['Six months to live' rule for dying people to claim benefits scrapped from next year](https://heartlandstribune.com/six-months-to-live-rule-for-dying-people-to-claim-benefits-scrapped-from-next-year/): The Special Rules for Terminal Illness will be reformed from next year in a victory for campaigners Terminally ill people with less than a year to live will get fast-tracked for benefits after ministers said they will expand the timeframe for those eligible for special consideration. But it’s thought the changes could take up to two years to be fully implemented. Ten people a day die while waiting for a decision on a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim. Previously patients had to prove they had less than six months to live and charities say many died without their cases being resolved. […] - [The stench of corruption has grown ever stronger throughout this crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-stench-of-corruption-has-grown-ever-stronger-throughout-this-crisis/): Richard Burgon brought to light the corruption and blatant cronyism the Tories have carried out under cover of the covid crisis. In a parliamentary speech, Burgon points out the link between big money politics and the rewards politicians can look forward to after they leave Westminster after they have sacked the public coffers of our money that could be spent to better everyone’s lives. This pandemic has been a time of extreme hardship and suffering for millions of people. In my constituency in east Leeds, many have lost loved ones, and others, who were struggling to make ends meet even before […] - [Jeremy Corbyn under investigation by Parliament watchdog after Labour MP makes accusations](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-under-investigation-by-parliament-watchdog-after-labour-mp-makes-accusations/): This is what harassment and bullying look’s like dirty politics from a treacherous Party. Jeremy Corbyn is under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards following allegations he did not properly declare financial support given to him for legal disputes involving anti-Semitism. The former Labour leader is under investigation over the “registration of an interest under the Guide to the Rules” by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. It comes after Labour MP Neil Coyle wrote to the commissioner regarding financial and in-kind support for legal disputes the former leader, who now sits as an independent MP, has been involved in. In […] - [Out of touch, Tory says £20 Universal Credit 'handout' must end as some people 'don't need it'](https://heartlandstribune.com/out-of-touch-tory-says-20-universal-credit-handout-must-end-as-some-people-dont-need-it/): Andrew Rosindell sparked a backlash from Labour Shadow Work and Pensions Minister Karen Buck after he said ‘I think there are people that quite like getting the extra £20, but maybe they don’t need it’ A Tory MP has been slammed for saying Universal Credit should be slashed by £20 a week because some people “don’t need it”. Rosindell stated some of Britain’s 6million claimants “quite like” getting the Covid uplift since April 2020. But despite people having to be on low incomes, sick, disabled or jobless to claim UC, he said it should not be a “handout” for all claimants. […] - [Hours After Haiti’s President Is Assassinated, 4 Suspects Are Killed and 2 Arrested](https://heartlandstribune.com/hours-after-haitis-president-is-assassinated-4-suspects-are-killed-and-2-arrested/): Haiti police battle gunmen who killed president, amid fears of chaos More than 200 years after slaves on the island of Hispaniola led a successful rebellion against French colonial government and proclaimed their liberty and independence, Haitians still aren’t free. The state is a predator and the rule of law remains elusive. A narrow cartel of special interests controls most of the economy. Didier Le Bret, a former French ambassador to Haiti, said the situation in Haiti had become so volatile that “many people had an interest in getting rid of Moïse.” He said he hoped Mr. Joseph would be able […] - [UK Labour Party reinstates controversial member accused of Islamophobia: Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn MP is still denied the party whip](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-labour-party-reinstates-controversial-member-accused-of-islamophobia-meanwhile-jeremy-corbyn-mp-is-still-denied-the-party-whip/): The Labour Party has become embroiled in another major race row following its decision to readmit Trevor Phillips to the party just over a year after he was suspended for alleged Islamophobia. The 67-year-old writer and broadcaster is one of the most high-profile members of the party. As the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the head of its forerunner the Commission for Racial Equality he made a name for himself as an anti-racism campaigner. When he speaks about race, people tend to take him seriously. According to the Guardian, Phillips was reinstated by the party “at […] - [England beat Denmark to set up historic Euro 2020 final with Italy](https://heartlandstribune.com/england-beat-denmark-to-set-up-historic-euro-2020-final-with-italy/): Congratulations to the England football team. Harry Kane’s extra-time goal gave England a 2-1 win over a shattered Denmark on Wednesday and took them through to the Euro 2020 final against Italy, their first major tournament final since the 1966 World Cup. England and Denmark both found the back of the net in the first half, with Denmark midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard scoring in the 30th minute. England equalised when Denmark captain Simon Kjær scored an own-goal while trying to stop a cross to Raheem Sterling. But a goalless second half, during which possession was mostly dominated by England, took the match […] - [COVID-19: Self-isolation to be scrapped for Double-jabbed and under 18s in England from 16 August](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-self-isolation-to-be-scrapped-for-double-jabbed-and-under-18s-in-england-from-16-august/): People in England who have received two vaccination doses will no longer have to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 from 16 August. Making an announcement in the Commons on changes to the government’s self-isolation policy, newly appointed Health Secretary Sajid Javid also confirmed self-isolation rules for those aged under 18 will end on the same date. Individuals must allow two weeks to pass after having their second jab before they are allowed to be exempt from self-isolating, Mr Javid added. Fully vaccinated people in England won’t have to self-isolate if a close […] - [Sislin Fay Allen: Britain's first black policewoman dies in Jamaica](https://heartlandstribune.com/sislin-fay-allen-britains-first-black-policewoman-dies-in-jamaica/): Sislin Fay Allen joined the Metropolitan Police in 1968 and was the first black policewoman in Britain. She died aged 83 at her home in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Sislin Fay Allen was an inspiration for many when she became the first black female police officer in the Met and the UK in 1968. Sislin was working as a nurse at Croydon’s Queens Hospital when she decided to switch careers after seeing a recruitment advert for male and female officers. “I was on my lunchbreak and during that time I was going through the paper. I saw this advert and they were […] - [Policing Bill returns to Parliament: Human Rights groups present mass petition opposing its enactment](https://heartlandstribune.com/policing-bill-returns-to-parliament-human-rights-groups-present-mass-petition-opposing-its-enactment/): Can resistance through petitions make a difference or will it be a summer of protest? A mass petition with over 600,000 signatures was delivered to the Government today, demonstrating the strength of public pushback to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Policing Bill). The landmark mass petition was coordinated between human rights groups, environmentalists, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller advocates and other charities, gaining 580,000 signatories. Representatives from this broad coalition of organisations delivered the petition today to the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary, ahead of MPs preparing for the Report stage of the Bill, which also starts today (Monday […] - [Johnson announces Covid restriction lifting on July 19 details](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-announces-covid-restriction-lifting-on-july-19-details/): Boris Johnson’s Covid announcement lockdown updates. Mask law and one-metre rule set to end in England. The prime minister has just finished his press conference, where he gave further details of plans for the final step of England’s roadmap out of lockdown. What will change from step four of England’s roadmap? The prime minister has just finished his press conference, where he gave further details of plans for the final step of England’s roadmap out of lockdown. This is due to take place on 19 July – although this will only be confirmed on 12 July. From step four: Face masks […] - [Boris Johnson issued with warning over misleading child poverty claim in Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-issued-with-warning-over-misleading-child-poverty-claim-in-parliament/): Boris Johnson has been rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog after repeatedly making misleading statements about child poverty. Number 10 has received an official warning from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) The statistics regulator wrote to Downing Street after receiving complaints over Boris Johnson’s “use” of UK poverty figures. The UK statistics watchdog has sent Boris Johnson a formal warning over misleading comments the prime minister made to parliament about UK poverty levels. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions last month the PM declared “we are also seeing fewer households now with children in poverty than 10 years ago”. But the […] - [The Right-wing of the Labour Party calls for 'unity' they must think the Left sufferer from a collective amnesia](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-right-wing-of-the-labour-party-calls-for-unity-they-must-think-the-left-sufferer-from-a-collective-amnesia/): The outburst about division and undermining the Labour Party from the Right-wing is perhaps the most insulting aspect of this ongoing civil war. There are calls for unity coming from the so-called centrist of the Labour party, funny this is the position they now take after years of undermining and betraying the Left, it’s so cynical at best condescending. In fact, their siren calls to come together and fight the Tories is downright insulting, for the Left, we’ve been fighting the Tories all our lives and every time we get a chance at winning the right of the Labour Party create […] - [Today is Julian Assange's 50th birthday he will spend it in jail after being on remand for over two years in Belmarsh as a Political Prisoner](https://heartlandstribune.com/today-is-julian-assanges-50th-birthday-he-will-spend-it-in-jail-after-being-on-remand-for-over-two-years-in-belmarsh-has-a-political-prisoner/): Julian Assange a political prisoner in one of Britain’s Maximum security Prison Belmarsh. Julian Assange’s fiancée Stella Moris has called his incarceration in one of England’s highest security prisons ‘intolerable and grotesque’. The partner of the WikiLeaks founder, 38, and the couple’s two young sons Gabriel, four, and Max, two, visited Assange in prison for the first time in eight months on Last Saturday morning for the first time since the pandemic. Despite winning his long-running extradition battle in January against the US, Assange remains in HMP Belmarsh in south London pending the outcome of an appeal. Though he has not […] - [Batley and Spen: Starmer hangs on by his fingertips barely scraping a hold with a majority of only 323](https://heartlandstribune.com/batley-and-spen-starmer-hangs-on-by-his-fingertips-barely-scrapping-a-hold-with-a-majority-of-only-323/): Kim Leadbeater has narrowly held the Batley and Spen by-election for Labour, defeating her Conservative rival by just 323 votes. Keir Starmer welcomed the byelection as a ‘fantastic’ victory for Labour’s ‘positive campaign of hope’ and later said: “Labour is coming home.” It’s a bit of a stretch to suggest a reduced majority and a Labour hold is anything like a fantastic victory. But if your leadership is hanging by your fingertips even a hold with a majority of 323 votes would seem fantastic no matter how fanciful the word. Labour can no longer rely on the ‘democracy of the dead’, people […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: Socialist MPs hand letter to Belmarsh prison governor demanding meeting with Julian Assange](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-socialist-mps-hand-letter-to-belmarsh-prison-governor-demanding-meeting-with-julian-assange/): MPs hand letter to Belmarsh prison governor demanding meeting with Assange The group of socialist MP’s handed the letter to the governor of HMP Belmarsh today, demanding permission for a meeting with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The two socialist MPs joined Mr Assange’s fiancee Stella Moris outside the prison to deliver the letter on behalf of a parliamentary working group. Mr Assange remains locked up at the Covid-hit south London prison pending an appeal after he beat an extradition case brought by the US. But the journalist continues to face up to 175 years in jail if convicted of espionage in […] - [MP's to support Ricky Gervais in dog cruelty campaign](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-to-support-ricky-gervais-in-dog-cruelty-campaign/): Ricky Gervais and Peter Egan call out UK’s factory farm that breeds dogs for ‘painful and terrifying’ toxicity experiments “I’m deeply shocked to learn that thousands of beautiful Beagles are intensively bred, right here in the peace of the British countryside, for painful and terrifying toxicity experiments that are also now proven to entirely fail the search for human treatments and cures.” Comedian Ricky Gervais and vegan actor and advocate Peter Egan have launched a campaign to ban factory farms breeding dogs for “painful toxicity” experiments that take place in labs across the UK. UK law currently requires all new medicines […] - [With or without Hancock Tory corruption continues: Serco wins new contract worth up to £322m to run England's Test and Trace centres](https://heartlandstribune.com/with-or-without-hancock-tory-corruption-continues-serco-wins-new-contract-worth-up-to-322m-to-run-englands-test-and-trace-centres/): Outsourcing giant Serco has won a new contract worth up to £322 million to continue running Covid-19 testing sites for another year. Bosses said they signed a new deal with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to operate regional, local and mobile testing centres in England and Northern Ireland following a competitive tendering process. The value of the new 12-month contract, with the option of a six-month extension, could change significantly due to its flexibility to levels of demand in coming months, they added. It means Serco will continue operating around 20% of sites across England and Northern Ireland, […] - [Kim Leadbeater using the Tory lines: There is no magic money tree when asked about nurses pay rises](https://heartlandstribune.com/kim-leadbeater-using-the-tory-lines-there-is-no-magic-money-tree-when-asked-about-nurses-pay-rises/): Labour’s candidate for Batley and Spen using 2017 Tory attack lines to explain why she won’t back a proper pay rise for nurses and teachers. saying: “People are also sick of thinking there’s a magic money tree, there isn’t, so we’ve got to be clear about that.” Again we see the economic illiteracy of the Labour Party unwilling to advance any other alternative than the status quo and that very out of date thinking of the economy being like a household budget. Vote Leadbeater get TINA “There is no alternative” (TINA) was a slogan often used by the Conservative British prime […] - [Matt Hancock Resigns: He should have been 'sacked' but will we take the resignation.](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-hancock-resigns-he-should-have-been-sacked-but-will-take-the-resignation/): Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after admitting to breaking COVID rules In his letter of resignation, Mr Hancock said: “The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis. “I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need (to) be with my children at this time.” pic.twitter.com/ahnqHy6yT9 — Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) June 26, 2021 In a letter sent Hancock said: “We owe it to people who […] - [George Floyd murder: Derek Chauvin sentenced to over 22 years](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-floyd-murder-derek-chauvin-sentenced-to-over-22-years/): Judge says Chauvin treated Floyd “without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings” The US ex-police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 has been sentenced to 22 years and six months in jail. The judge said Derek Chauvin’s sentence was based “on your abuse of a position of trust and authority, and also the particular cruelty shown” to Mr Floyd. Mr Floyd, 48, died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine minutes. His murder caused global protests against racism and police brutality. Chauvin, 45, was convicted of second-degree murder and other […] - [Johnson accepts Hancock's apology and considered the matter “closed” the Irony is it took this for Labour to call for his sacking.](https://heartlandstribune.com/johnson-accepts-hancocks-apology-and-considered-the-matter-closed-the-irony-is-it-took-this-for-labour-to-call-for-his-sacking/): Labour Calls For Matt Hancock To Be Sacked After Publication Of Kissing Pictures yet were happy for him to stay in his job while thousands died. It beggars belief, the deaths of thousands of unnecessary Covid victims or the blatant corruption through cronyism are not reason enough for Starmer to call for the sacking of Hancock. I would have preferred if Labour had called for Hancock to be sacked for allowing Covid hospital patients to be discharged to Care Homes, killing thousands. More to the point a criminal investigation after the sacking into the handling of the Covid crisis would be […] - [Today I was Expelled from Starmer's Labour Party, it's so Liberating.](https://heartlandstribune.com/today-i-was-expelled-from-starmers-labour-party-its-so-liberating/): Today I received an email from the Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party. It wasn’t a shock; I’ve been waiting for that little gem to land on my virtual doormat for a long time now. You see, I’ve been a suspended Labour member for just over two years this May. The story really goes back to 2019. At the time, I was standing as a Labour councillor in Chesterfield when a WhatsApp message dropped into my phone from The Sunday Times. The reporters, Richard Kerbaj and his colleague Gabriel Pogrund, were preparing yet another “exclusive” on antisemitism in the […] - [On This Day in History Britain voted to leave the EU: What followed was 5 years of chaos and the collapse of the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/on-this-day-in-history-britain-voted-to-leave-the-eu-what-followed-was-5-years-of-chaos-and-the-collapse-of-the-labour-party/): On the 23rd of June 2016, the UK voted to LEAVE the EU  The Conservative government and the Remain camp were confident of victory but by the time the final EU Referendum results came in they had realised not only had they lost the argument, but they also had to implement the result. A shocked Westminster found themselves in a position they or the establishment did not expect or want.  The People had voted the wrong way! The poll was to leave the EU. The vote share came in at Leave 51.9% translating into 17,410,742 votes and 16,141,241 votes for remain, a […] - [Major European Supermarket shareholders cash in during Covid-19 pandemic while supply chain workers suffer](https://heartlandstribune.com/major-european-supermarket-shareholders-cash-in-during-covid-19-pandemic-while-supply-chain-workers-suffer/): supermarkets became the pandemic’s winners while workers are losing out COVID-19 has sharpened existing inequalities in global food chains and pushed many food workers and farmers in the Global South into greater poverty and acute uncertainty. Worldwide, during lockdowns, and when most other shops were closed, the role supermarkets play in our daily lives was suddenly thrown into sharp focus. Supermarkets and their workers played a central role in allowing us to buy food in a safe way, which was appreciated by many. As a result, the food retail sector has largely benefited from unprecedented sales growth during the crisis.19 While […] - [Outcry as more than 5,000 dogs to be killed and eaten at 10-day Chinese festival: For a civilised country and a world superpower, this sure looks like barbarity in the cruellest way](https://heartlandstribune.com/outcry-as-more-than-5000-dogs-to-be-killed-and-eaten-at-10-day-chinese-festival-for-a-civilised-country-and-a-world-superpower-this-sure-looks-like-barbarity-in-the-cruellest-way/): China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world—3,500 years of written history. And even then 3,500 years ago China’s civilization was old! This is a civilisation that invented the world’s first mechanical clock way back in 725 AD, a time when Western Europe was living in the Dark ages, an age after the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe, characterised by economic, intellectual and cultural decline. An age of barbarity, conquest and cruelty. There is much to admire about the Chinese, their history culture and traditions. But there are aspects of Chinese culture in the 21 century that we find cruel and barbaric […] - [Julian Assange’s partner brands his incarceration ‘intolerable and grotesque’](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assanges-partner-brands-his-incarceration-intolerable-and-grotesque/): The partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has described his ongoing incarceration in one of England’s highest security prisons as “intolerable and grotesque”. Stella Moris, 38, and the couple’s two young sons Gabriel, four, and Max, two, visited Assange in prison for the first time in eight months on Saturday morning. Despite winning his long-running extradition battle in January against the US, Assange remains in HMP Belmarsh in south London pending the outcome of an appeal. Though he has not been found guilty of any crime, Assange has spent over two years in Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, a maximum-security jail which […] - [Obituary: Josep Almudéver, last known survivor of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War](https://heartlandstribune.com/obituary-josep-almudever-last-known-survivor-of-the-international-brigades-in-the-spanish-civil-war/): Josep Almudéver Mateu, the last-known survivor of the 35,000 foreign volunteers who joined the International Brigades to fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, died May 23 in a hospital near his home in Pamiers, France. He was 101. The Madrid-based Association of Friends of the International Brigades described Josep Almudéver as “the last man standing,” at the announcement of his death. Josep Eduard Almudéver Mateu was born in the port city of Marseille, France, on July 30, 1919. His father was a builder from Spain’s Valencia region who had moved to France to seek work at the […] - [Labour no place for the Left: From the ultra-right to Starmer's Labour Party Bercow's a good fit.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-no-place-for-the-left-from-the-ultra-right-to-starmers-labour-party-bercow-a-good-fit/): Former Commons Speaker and Tory MP joins Labour Party Former Conservative MP and Commons Speaker John Bercow says he has switched allegiances to join the Labour Party. Mr Bercow said he regards the Tories under Boris Johnson as “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”. “I am motivated by support for equality, social justice and internationalism. That is the Labour brand,” he told The Observer. “The conclusion I have reached is that this government needs to be replaced. “The reality is that the Labour Party is the only vehicle that can achieve that “There is no other credible option.” Mr Bercow […] - [Imran Ahmad Khan: Tory MP accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy](https://heartlandstribune.com/imran-ahmad-khan-tory-mp-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-a-15-year-old-boy/): Tory MP faces trial accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008. The MP for Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said he denies “in the strongest terms” the allegation. Imran Ahmad Khan, 47, the Conservative MP for Wakefield, West Yorkshire, is alleged to have groped the teenager in Staffordshire. Ahmad Khan, who was elected at the 2019 general election, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by video-link from his lawyers’ office. He can be named after reporting restrictions were lifted. He faces a single count of sexual assault against the teenager, who cannot be identified because he is an alleged victim of a […] - [Chesham and Amersham by-election Local issues outway tribal loyalties but Brexit is still an influence: Lib Dems' overturn 16,000 Tory majority](https://heartlandstribune.com/chesham-and-amersham-by-election-local-issues-outway-tribal-loyalties-but-brexit-is-still-an-influence-lib-dems-overturn-16000-tory-majority/): The Conservatives have suffered a humiliating by-election defeat as the Liberal Democrats secured a historic win in Chesham and Amersham. Sarah Green is the country’s newest MP after winning in what has been a Conservative stronghold since its creation in 1974. The contest was triggered by the death of former Tory cabinet minister Dame Cheryl Gillan, who took the seat with a majority of 16,233 at the 2019 general election – some 55% of the vote. The stunning result on Thursday night saw the Lib Dems’ Ms Green defeat Conservative candidate Peter Fleet by a majority of 8,028. More embarrassingly for […] - [Manchester Arena Inquiry: Bomb victims were failed on every level.](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchester-arena-inquiry-bomb-victims-were-failed-on-every-level/): Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi should have been identified as a threat on the night of the attack, inquiry finds Twenty-two people murdered in the Manchester Arena bomb were “failed on every level” by organisations criticised in a public inquiry report, a victim’s father has said. Martyn Hett’s father said the attack “should have been prevented”. Paul Hett, whose 29-year-old son died in the bombing, said it had been heartbreaking “to find that Martyn had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time”. Mr Hett said the organisations involved had a duty of care to protect his son and […] - [URGENT RECALL: Sainsbury's and Pets at Home recall dry cat food products over link to outbreak of potentially deadly feline disease](https://heartlandstribune.com/urgent-recall-sainsburys-and-pets-at-home-recall-dry-cat-food-products-over-link-to-outbreak-of-potentially-deadly-feline-disease/): Cat food sold at Sainsbury’s and Pets at Home has been pulled from shelves over fears it could make pets seriously ill. Fold Hill Foods, the company which makes the food, has recalled more than 20 cat food products because of safety concerns. This is a precautionary action of recalling several hypoallergenic cat food products because of safety concerns. The FSA and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have warned cat owners not to give their pets dry food made on behalf of the brands by manufacturer Fold Hill Foods, as a precaution. What cat food is being […] - ['Drink water': Ronaldo's Coca-Cola snub – video](https://heartlandstribune.com/drink-water-ronaldos-coca-cola-snub-video/): Ronaldo snub reportedly wipes $4bn off Coca-Cola’s market value After Cristiano Ronaldo courted controversy when he moved Coca-Cola bottles placed in front of him during a Euro 2020 press conference, reports have suggested that the small gesture by the football legend has cost the aerated beverage company a fortune.  On the eve of Portugal’s Euro 2020 opener against Hungary, the star footballer sat down for a press conference with the media. Here bottles of Coca-Cola which a sponsor for the event were placed before him on the table. However, before starting the press conference, the 36-year-old Juventus star chose to move the Coca-Cola […] - [MacKenzie Scott gives back another £2.0 billion to charity and good causes](https://heartlandstribune.com/mackenzie-scott-gives-back-another-2-0-billion-to-charity/): This year MacKenzie Scott has made a sizable contribution giving a chunk of change back to the people in donations. Last year MacKenzie Scott surprised the world by announcing she had made $1.7 billion that’s just over £1.5 billion in donations to 116 nonprofit organisations. They were selected for the transformative work they were doing and to support leaders driving change in a variety of issues. Scott is the richest woman in America, with a net worth of about $62 billion. Her donations are noteworthy for many reasons, including that about one-third of them support racial equity, and many grants embrace movement building, advance […] - [Daniel Morgan murder: 'Institutional corruption' revealed in London's police force Met chief personally censured for hampering corruption inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/daniel-morgan-murder-institutional-corruption-revealed-in-londons-police-force-met-chief-personally-censured-for-hampering-corruption-inquiry/): Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has been personally censured for hampering an inquiry into police corruption in the long-running Daniel Morgan murder case. The report of an independent panel inquiring into his death in 1987 found that the Met was “institutionally corrupt” in its handling of the case and accused the force of placing concerns about its reputation above properly investigating. It said the Met misled the public and Morgan’s grieving family. It said the Met delayed handing over vital documents, which then delayed the work of the panel, which was set up in 2013 but is only able to […] - [Lockdown roadmap delayed until July 19 in England](https://heartlandstribune.com/lockdown-roadmap-delayed-until-july-19-in-england/): Boris Johnson has dashed the hopes of lifting lockdown by extending England’s restrictions for four weeks to July 19. Despite the UK’s successful vaccine rollout, which has given two doses to more than half of the adult population, the prevalence of the Delta variant — first identified in India — has convinced the Prime Minister and his government that “freedom day” for English citizens, as some have called it, must be delayed by four weeks to July 19. “Now is the time to ease off the accelerator because by being cautious now, we have the chance in the next four weeks to […] - [Israel parliament confirms Netanyahu is out after 12 years](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-parliament-confirms-netanyahu-is-out-after-12-years/): Israel’s Knesset has voted for a fragile eight-party coalition, replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years in the top post. Israeli lawmakers on Sunday passed a vote of confidence for a coalition government, ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year hold on power. The coalition is comprised of bitter ideological rivals, united by their will to oust Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader. They won a razor-thin majority of 60 to 59 in the 120-seat chamber. Naftali Bennett was sworn in on Sunday, replacing his former ally Netanyahu as prime minister. Israeli Knesset elected Mickey Levy of the Yesh Atid Party — a coalition member — to house speaker. The new government […] - [Don't split the left: an open letter from Unite members](https://heartlandstribune.com/dont-split-the-left-an-open-letter-from-unite-members/): Unite members call for a single left candidate to defeat the right in the General Secretary election.  The first duty of a trade union and trade union leaders is to the union’s members and to the wider working class. Unite members, along with all other workers in Britain and Ireland, face the threats of an economic downturn, falling real wages, fire and rehire and myriad other challenges. In this context, strong unions committed to serious organising, and fighting for their members and class are more important than ever. The current campaign for the role of Unite General Secretary is therefore crucially […] - [Richard Burgon: Joe Biden should stop the prosecution of Julian Assange.](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-burgon-joe-biden-should-stop-the-prosecution-of-julian-assange/): At least one MP has the balls to stand up to the US and for press freedom. Richard Burgon member of parliament for Leeds East made an impassioned speech highlighting the incarceration of Julian Assange. During a debate on the Safety of Journalists Burgon spoke out and made an appeal to President Joe Biden: “I want to start by condemning the recent Israeli air force attacks that destroyed the building housing al-Jazeera and over a dozen media outlets during the assault on Gaza. They say that truth is the first casualty of war. It is clear that this was done to […] - [Pigs To The Trought: Beyond Cronyism, The UK is a Kleptocracy Masquerading as a Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/pigs-to-the-trough-beyond-cronyism-the-uk-is-a-kleptocracy-masquerading-as-a-democracy/): They’ve got the keys to the Treasury and they’re stealing all they can. A kleptocracy is a government whose corrupt leaders use political power to appropriate the wealth of their nation, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population. Michael Gove broke the law over Covid contract for friends of Dominic Cummings, court rules The High Court has ruled that the government’s award of a coronavirus contract to a market research company whose bosses were friends of government adviser Dominic Cummings was unlawful. Justice O’Farrell found that the Cabinet Office’s contract with PR firm Public First was “unlawful” and “gave rise to apparent […] - [Maladministration by DWP over the rise in the women’s pension age may open the gateway to compensation](https://heartlandstribune.com/maladministration-by-dwp-over-the-rise-in-the-womens-pension-age-may-open-the-gateway-to-compensation/): Provisional ruling against government opens door to potential compensation for thousands born in 1950s A confidential letter shows the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Sir Robert Behrens, has managed to both exonerate and damn the Department for Work and Pensions for its handling of the administration of the rise in the pension age for millions of women born in the 1950s and 1960s, According to David Hencke’s the letter contains the provisional findings of an investigation which has taken years to undertake by his office – also wrongly temporarily halted because of a court case brought by Back To 60 seeking full restitution of […] - [Can the PM use his wonderfully privileged education to explain how 20p per day will allow kids in my patch to catch up?](https://heartlandstribune.com/can-the-pm-use-his-wonderfully-privileged-education-to-explain-how-20p-per-day-will-allow-kids-in-my-patch-to-catch-up/): “Toffs and Toughs” is a 1937 photograph of five boys: two dressed in the Harrow School uniform including waistcoat, top hat, boutonnière, and cane; and three nearby wearing the plainclothes of pre-war working-class youths. The picture was taken by Jimmy Sime on 9 July 1937 outside the Grace Gates at Lord’s Cricket Ground during the Eton vs Harrow cricket match. It has been reproduced frequently as an illustration of the British class system. The image gives a clear picture of education and class divide, unfortunately, for working class communities, education is the one thing ‘consecutive governments‘ have never got right. There […] - [UN’s torture expert condemns persecution of UK Political Prisoner Julian Assange](https://heartlandstribune.com/uns-torture-expert-condemns-persecution-of-uk-political-prisoner-julian-assange/): Efforts to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Belmarsh Prison were ramped up this week ahead of the G7 summit with action in Geneva, a petition, and an intervention by the UN special rapporteur on torture. A temporary monument to Assange, Snowden, and Manning was unveiled in Geneva. The mobile art installation, made by Italian artist Davide Dormino in 2015 and dubbed ‘Anything to Say?’ shows the three figures standing on chairs with a fourth empty chair next to them. A petition set up by the Geneva Press Club also went live, demanding Assange’s immediate release. The petition states: “In the name of […] - [‘Class Cleansing’ is Killing London, as Poor People are Removed from Communities Like Vermin](https://heartlandstribune.com/class-cleansing-is-killing-london-as-poor-people-are-removed-from-communities-like-vermin/): London, City of Gentrification A new report has highlighted the aggressive social cleansing that is rampant in three London boroughs, and the devastating effect it has on people who are displaced. It seems the working class are not welcome in Britain’s capital. Gentrification is not a new phenomenon but it is clear that it is out of control in London.  As with many cities, it is a process the UK capital has been familiar with for some time. Poorer communities have been moved out of neighbourhoods in favour of a ‘better’ class of people for generations, and in the early 1960s […] - [German church officials face charges for helping refugees](https://heartlandstribune.com/german-church-officials-face-charges-for-helping-refugees/): The number of legal cases against members of the Catholic Church is on the rise, as the German government takes a harder stance against asylum seekers taking refuge in churches. Juliana Seelmann, a nun from the Franciscan nunnery at the Oberzell monastery in southern Germany, was found guilty this week of aiding the unauthorized residence in Germany of two Nigerian women. She was fined several hundred euros. She had aided two women from Nigeria who said they were trying to escape forced prostitution in Italy, where they had first fled to. After German officials sent them back to Italy, where forced […] - [UK strikes post-Brexit trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-strikes-post-brexit-trade-deal-with-norway-iceland-and-liechtenstein/): The United Kingdom has announced a new post-Brexit trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, boosting a relationship already worth £21.6 billion (€25.17 billion). The agreement includes the digital and farming sectors and will boost the economy and support jobs, the British government said in a news release. UK International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the deal is a “major boost for trade” with the three other nations. It is said to be the most advanced the trio have done to date, with dedicated chapters on the digital trade and small businesses. After months of difficult talks, the comprehensive trade deal was […] - [Neither Starmer nor the right-wing of the Labour Party have any intentions of creating unity, they will continue to attack until the Labour party becomes a harmless alternative to the conservatives.](https://heartlandstribune.com/neither-starmer-nor-the-right-wing-of-the-labour-party-have-any-intentions-of-creating-unity-they-will-continue-to-attack-until-the-labour-party-becomes-a-harmless-alternative-to-the-conservatives/): Of course, there can never be unity within the Labour Party, the goal of the right is not to challenge the status quo but to uphold the establishment. Watson has jumped on a bandwagon alongside Dame Margret Hodge in a bid to undermine not only the Left of the Labour Party but the Left-wing candidate for Unite the union’ general secretary position, Howard Beckett. The brass-necks of former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and Dame Margret Hodges having accused Unite of playing “hard left games” that alienate mainstream voters is contemptible, especially considering their part in the downfall of the Labour […] - [Fortress Europe closing its doors: Denmark passes law to move asylum centres outside the EU.](https://heartlandstribune.com/fortress-europe-closing-its-doors-denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-centres-outside-the-eu/): Denmarks Left-wing government passes a law to send its asylum seekers outside of the European Union The legislation — which was approved by 70 votes to 24 on Thursday — is the latest anti-migration measure passed by the Danish parliament and aims to discourage migrants from ever setting foot in the country. Under the law, which was proposed by the Social Democrat-led government, Denmark would be able to transfer asylum seekers to detention centres in partnering countries, potentially outside Europe. Their cases would then be reviewed from those countries. The legislation aims to send asylum seekers to reception centres in third […] - [Czech police have asked for Prime Minister Andrej Babis to be charged with fraud](https://heartlandstribune.com/czech-police-have-asked-for-prime-minister-andrej-babis-to-be-charged-with-fraud/): Czech police recommended for a second time on Monday that Prime Minister Andrej Babis should be indicted over fraud involving European Union subsidies. The police have concluded a six-year criminal investigation into whether Prime Minister Andrej Babiš illegally acquired 2 million euros in EU subsidies meant for small companies, by temporarily changing the status of his Stork’s Nest complex over a decade ago. They now have to decide whether to file charges against him or dismiss them. Police recommended charges two years ago but a prosecutor decided to drop the case. Now however the criminal unit of the Economic Crime Department […] - [Israeli opposition create coalition deal to force Netanyahu out](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-opposition-create-coalition-deal-to-force-netanyahu-out/): The Devil you know… After 12 years in power, Netanyahu is set to leave office under the cloud of criminal accusation and a climate of political deadlock. Opposition figures have reached a deal to take rotating leadership of the country. An unlikely coalition of disparate Israeli opposition parties struck a deal on Wednesday night to form a government, potentially resolving an extended period of political deadlock and forcing beleaguered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the political stage after 12 years in power. Yair Lapid, a centrist, and Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist, announced the deal after they succeeded in cobbling together a coalition government with a […] - [Danish secret service helped the US spy on Merkel and other EU countries](https://heartlandstribune.com/danish-secret-service-helped-the-us-spy-on-merkel-and-other-eu-countries/): Media investigation claims Denmark cooperated with US spying on European politicians. Two weeks before the U.S. president makes his first visit to Europe since being elected, Danish media reported the country’s secret services helped American counterparts to eavesdrop on European leaders while Joe Biden was vice president under the presidency of Barack Obama. The report thrust Europeans back to the dark days of 2013, when whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed massive U.S. surveillance programs that included tapping the mobile phones of allied heads of state — including that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The US National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark’s foreign intelligence […] - [Eviction Ban: A million are in fear of losing their homes](https://heartlandstribune.com/eviction-ban-a-million-are-in-fear-of-losing-their-homes/): ‘Many will end up homeless’: Charity warns end of eviction ban will leave tenants with nowhere to go In March 2020, the Government introduced legislation which stated bailiffs could only evict tenants if more than six months’ rent was owed, or a landlord was dealing with an illegal occupation, ongoing anti-social behaviour or a tenant who provided a false statement. The temporary ban has been extended several times since, it has provided much-needed security to renters at a time of profound economic and social disruption. That ban on evictions has now ended. The ending of the ban has left around a […] - [Boris Johnson marries Carrie Symonds in secret Westminster ceremony - reports](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-marries-carrie-symonds-in-secret-westminster-ceremony-reports/): Three’s a charm… Boris Johnson has married his fiancee Carrie Symonds in a secret ceremony at Westminster Cathedral, it has been reported. By all accounts, Dominic Cummings did not attend the event! The wedding was held in front of close friends and family on Saturday, according to several newspapers. Downing Street has declined to comment. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey tweeted: “Congratulations @BorisJohnson and @carriesymonds on your marriage today”. Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster also wished them a “huge congratulations” on Twitter. The Mail on Sunday reported that 30 guests were invited to the ceremony at short notice – the […] - [It's hard not to notice the hypocrisy of the West protesting at the abduction and jailing of a journalist while Julian Assange sits in Belmarsh, a political prisoner.](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-hard-not-to-notice-the-hypocrisy-of-the-west-protesting-at-the-abduction-and-jailing-of-a-journalist-while-julian-assange-sits-in-belmarsh-a-political-prisoner/): I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. – George Orwell Freedom of expression and freedom of the press is fundamental to a democratic society. It seeks out and circulates news, information, ideas, comment and opinion and […] - [Switzerland rejects the EU walking out on seven years of treaty talks](https://heartlandstribune.com/switzerland-rejects-the-eu-walking-out-on-seven-years-of-treaty-talks/): Switzerland has walked out of talks on a closer trading relationship with the European Union despite being offered better terms than the UK in key areas, EU officials have claimed. Switzerland pulled the plug on the seven-year-long efforts to sign a landmark partnership agreement with the EU, handing a major defeat to the European Commission and risking a deterioration of economic ties. The decision by the Swiss Federal Council to end talks with Brussels, which had been ongoing since 2014, means that both sides won’t be able to upgrade a patchwork of bilateral treaties covering issues ranging from trade over transport to medical devices […] - [George Galloway enters Batley and Spen by-election race, vowing to oust Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-galloway-enters-batley-and-spen-by-election-race-vowing-to-oust-sir-keir-starmer-as-labour-leader/): Ex-Labour MP George Galloway joins Batley and Spen by-election race. The message is loud and clear – if you want to see the back of Sir Keir Starmer, George is your man. The former MP and veteran campaigner is standing as a candidate for his Workers Party of Britain in the Batley & Spen poll on July first. The political maverick has stated that he will contest the West Yorkshire marginal with a majority of just over 3500, the Red wall constituency is considered a must-win contest for Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader. In a video posted on his social […] - [Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors resigns](https://heartlandstribune.com/black-lives-matter-co-founder-patrisse-cullors-resigns/): The co-founder of Black Lives Matter who’s become a lightning rod over her lavish lifestyle has resigned. Patrisse Cullors, 37, is leaving the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation effective Friday, after nearly six years leading the group. “I’ve created the infrastructure and the support, and the necessary bones and foundation, so that I can leave,” she said. “It feels like the time is right.” Patrisse Cullors, who has been at the helm of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for nearly six years, said she is leaving to focus on other projects, including the upcoming release of her second […] - [BBC presenter Lisa Shaw's death might have been complicated by her having had the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbc-presenter-lisa-shaws-death-might-have-been-complicated-by-her-having-had-the-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine/): An award-winning BBC radio presenter died in hospital after suffering blood clots after she received the AstraZeneca vaccine, her devastated family has said. Lisa Shaw, who worked for BBC Newcastle, developed “severe” headaches a week after having the jab and fell seriously ill a few days later, relatives said in a statement. The 44-year-old died at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, on Friday afternoon having been treated in intensive care for blood clots and bleeding. People under 40 in the UK are being offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of extremely rare blood clots on the brain coupled with low […] - [Dominic Cummings: Boris Johnson 'unfit for job', Matt Hancock repeatedly 'lied' and 'tens of thousands died who didn't need to'](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-unfit-for-job-matt-hancock-repeatedly-lied-and-tens-of-thousands-died-who-didnt-need-to/): The Amazing Mr Dominic Cummings, from liar cheat and general enemy of the people to credible saint: Who you trying to kid? This is the opening salvo of a Tory civil war peppered with revenge and a touch of arrogance. However, let’s look at the main features and try to sift through and find the truth from the lies. The main points of cummings evidence… Tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of the government’s failings over coronavirus and Boris Johnson was “unfit for the job” of prime minister, Dominic Cummings has said. The PM’s former top adviser claimed Mr […] - [Five arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of Sasha Johnson](https://heartlandstribune.com/five-arrested-on-suspicion-of-attempted-murder-of-sasha-johnson/): Two men and three teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder of activist Sasha Johnson, police say. Five people have been arrested after Sasha Johnson, a black equal rights campaigner, was shot in the head at a party in south London on Sunday, the Metropolitan Police said. The Met said five males, aged between 17 and 28, have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, as well as other offences. Searches are also being carried out at two addresses in Peckham. Officers first arrested a 17-year-old boy on Tuesday afternoon following a stop-and-search in south London. He was […] - [Tory MP Rob Roberts faces a measly six week suspension for breaking sexual misconduct rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-rob-roberts-faces-a-measly-six-week-suspension-for-breaking-sexual-misconduct-rules/): An Independent Expert Panel found Rob Roberts had made repeated and unwanted sexual advances towards the man who made the complaint The former employee told BBC Wales Rob Roberts repeatedly propositioned him and asked him to be “less alluring”. The Delyn MP said he apologised for a “completely improper” breach of trust “in the MP-staff relationship”. MPs must decide whether to back the recommended suspension, but Labour and Plaid Cymru urged Mr Roberts to resign. A Conservative Party spokesperson apologised to the staff member for the “inappropriate and unwarranted treatment they were subjected to by someone in a position of authority”. […] - [EU leaders agree on Belarus sanctions over the 'state-sponsored hijacking' as Roman Protasevich appears in video](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-leaders-agree-on-belarus-sanctions-over-the-state-sponsored-hijacking-as-roman-protasevich-appears-in-video/): European Union leaders have agreed on a set of sanctions to be laid against Belarus after a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to land in Minsk and a Belarusian journalist on board was detained. In addition to blocking use of the 27-country bloc’s airspace and airports, the EU is expected to hit individual officials linked to the incident with sanctions, the Associated Press has reported. EU leaders came to the decision at an emergency summit held on Monday and are expected to enforce the sanctions as soon as legal proceedings will allow. The decision came as Roman Protasevich, […] - [London vigil to be held for BLM activist Sasha Johnson after undergoing surgery](https://heartlandstribune.com/london-vigil-to-be-held-for-blm-activist-sasha-johnson-after-undergoing-surgery/): A vigil will take place in London for Sasha Johnson, the black anti-racism activist fighting for her life after being caught up in gunfire when violence erupted at a party. The gathering will take place outside Kings College Hospital in Camberwell, south London, at 3pm on Monday. Ms Johnson, 27, remains in critical condition in hospital after she was shot in the head in Peckham, south-east London, in the early hours of Sunday. The mother-of-two has just undergone a successful operation and her parents are by her side. Police said there is no evidence that the 27-year-old campaigner was the intended […] - [Woman calls bouncer the N-word and spits in vile racist outburst in street](https://heartlandstribune.com/woman-calls-bouncer-the-n-word-and-spits-in-vile-racist-outburst-in-street/): A woman has been caught on film calling a bouncer a ‘n*****’ and spitting at him in front of shocked onlookers in an outrageous racist outburst in Birmingham. The woman was refused entry to the Figure of Eight pub in the city centre on Saturday night and was then filmed launching a horrific rant at black bouncer Tristan Price who was working on the door. The video, which was shared widely on social media, shows the woman arguing with Mr Price and trying to shout at one of her friends inside the venue. When she is refused entry by the bouncer, […] - [Covid Vaccines Create 9 New Billionaires With Combined Wealth Greater Than Cost of Vaccinating World’s Poorest Countries](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-vaccines-create-9-new-billionaires-with-combined-wealth-greater-than-cost-of-vaccinating-worlds-poorest-countries/): These billionaires are the human face of the huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines funded by public money. Data taken from the annual Forbes Rich List, as published on 6 April 2021 shows excessive profits from the covid vaccine have created 9 new Billionaires with the accumulated wealth to cover the cost of vaccinating the worlds’ poorest countries. At least nine people have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, thanks to the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on COVID vaccines are making, The People’s Vaccine Alliance revealed ahead of a […] - [Almost 200,000 people join London protest in History-Making Demonstration of Solidarity With Palestinians](https://heartlandstribune.com/almost-200000-people-join-london-protest-in-history-making-demonstration-of-solidarity-with-palestinians/): Nearly 200,000 people gathered in London Saturday for what organizers said was one of the largest demonstrations of solidarity with Palestinians in the United Kingdom’s history. Organisers Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the Muslim Association of Britain had planned the protest before Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire that began early Friday after an 11-day bombing campaign targeting the Gaza Strip. At least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, were killed during the 11 day conflict. In Israel, at least 11 people were also killed, including two children. […] - [Labour is in the final death rattle of a movement that has abandoned its heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-is-the-final-death-rattle-of-a-movement-that-has-abandoned-its-heartlands/): For Labour the writing is on the wall In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, there is an exchange between two characters. Bill asks Mike how he went bankrupt and he answers: “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” The deathly disintegration of Labour is intensifying. The general election of 2019 was not the end of the story of class re-alignment but its beginning, and you only need to listen to the various responses to know that bankruptcy takes many forms. Now in the tribal heartlands, where the Labour Party was not an argument or a policy proposal but a covenantal partner, there […] - [Matt Wiessler on Diana interview: 'Important people are being covered up'](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-wiessler-on-diana-interview-important-people-are-being-covered-up/): Matt Wiessler, who first raised concerns about the fake documents used to secure the BBC’s Martin Bashir Panorama interview with Princess Diana, has said he wants to meet the current BBC director general Tim Davie as it appears “the important people are being covered up”. Wiessler was the graphic designer who mocked up bank statements that helped Martin Bashir secure an interview with Diana Princess of Wales, he has demanded a face-to-face face-apology from the director general of the BBC after being exonerated by a report into the scandal. It follows an inquiry, conducted by the former supreme court judge John Dyson, […] - [Israel and Hamas announce Gaza ceasefire](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-and-hamas-announce-gaza-ceasefire/): Israeli security cabinet and Hamas agree to Egyptian-brokered ceasefire to halt 11 days of fighting. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had “unanimously accepted the recommendations to accept an Egyptian initiative for an unconditional … ceasefire.” Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad then confirmed the ceasefire in a statement, saying it would come into force at 2:00am on Friday (23:00 GMT on Thursday). Netanyahu’s office said the two sides were still negotiating exactly when it would take effect. With a ceasefire on the table, Israelis and Palestinians are counting the cost of 11 days […] - [Great British Railways: "Who are you trying to kid?"](https://heartlandstribune.com/great-british-railways-who-are-you-trying-to-kid/): The government has announced a white paper that places control of rail infrastructure and services under the new arm’s-length public body, ‘Great British Railways’ claiming with franchises replaced by contracts that this will incentivise private firms on punctuality and efficiency rather than raising revenue. Boris Johnson, said he was “a great believer in rail”, but added: “For too long passengers have not had the level of service they deserve.” The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said passengers had been failed by “years of fragmentation, confusion and overcomplication”. He said Great British Railways would “become a single familiar brand with a bold new […] - [Workers of the world, unite: Industrial action by Striking Palestinians Across West Bank, Gaza and Israel is Spreading.](https://heartlandstribune.com/workers-of-the-world-unite-industrial-action-by-striking-palestinians-across-west-bank-gaza-and-israel-is-spreading/): Workers around the world are beginning to understand how to leverage power. People across the occupied West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel are taking part in collective action to protest against the occupation and bombardment of Gaza. Shops have been shuttered across cities in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and in villages and towns extending into Israel. Palestinians have committed to a general strike in protest against the occupation and Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the blockaded enclave. Muhammad Barakeh, one of the strike organisers, said Palestinians were expressing a “collective position” against Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as the “brutal […] - [Rishi Sunak lays groundwork for tax hikes: The people to pay the price of Tory spending on cronyism and corruption.](https://heartlandstribune.com/rishi-sunak-lays-groundwork-for-tax-hikes-the-people-to-pay-the-price-of-tory-spending-on-cronyism-and-corruption/): Before the people pay a single penny more in taxes they should know where the billions have gone dished out during the covid crisis. ‘Our recovery comes with a cost’ On the eve of his conference speech, Mr Sunak was warned by Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg – a darling of the Tory right – that taxation has hit “the limit”. But Mr Sunak has refused to rule out further hikes and, addressing a packed conference hall in Manchester with Boris Johnson in the audience, defended his approach. After spending billions much of which was unaccountable and without proper tender during the […] - [Pandora Papers: Secret Tax Havens of World Leaders, Celebrities Revealed](https://heartlandstribune.com/pandora-papers-secret-tax-havens-of-world-leaders-celebrities-revealed/): The Pandora Papers reveal the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else. Millions of leaked documents reveal the financial secrets of how world leaders, billionaires and celebrities use tax havens. Tony Blair, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and Shakira are among those named. The Pandora Papers investigation has revealed that 35 current and former world leaders — including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the king of Jordan and Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta — as well as powerful billionaires were affiliated with companies that use offshore tax-havens. Offshore accounts are often used to secretly […] - [Breaking another leadership promise Starmer betrays the people of Liverpool and all Labour supporters.](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-another-leadership-promise-starmer-betrays-the-people-of-liverpool-and-all-labour-supporters/): Furious Labour MPs across Merseyside have turned on party leader Sir Keir Starmer after he wrote an article for The Sun. The Sun newspaper has been widely boycotted on Merseyside for its coverage of the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, which claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool fans. The newspaper has many ethical failings, it is a general dog-whistle racist right-wing gutter tabloid that produces articles that have been the backbone of many oppressive bigoted attitudes. But no story more so than for its coverage of the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster in which only four days after the […] - [A failure of government: Army drivers to be deployed to deliver fuel to station forecourts](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-failure-of-government-army-drivers-to-be-deployed-to-deliver-fuel-to-station-forecourts/): Military drivers will be deployed to deliver fuel to forecourts from Monday as the crisis at the pumps continues. Almost 200 military personnel, including 100 drivers, have been training at haulier sites and will start deliveries to help relieve the situation – which ministers say is stabilising. The government also announced that a temporary visa scheme for nearly 5,000 foreign food haulage drivers, which was due to expire on 24 December, would be extended to the end of February, after criticism of how attractive it would be to drivers. This is a total failure by government, there is no excuse, driver […] - [Boris Johnson accused of 'rampant cronyism' over appointing Tory donor](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-accused-of-rampant-cronyism-over-appointing-tory-donor/): Unelected millionaire given peerage and Scottish ministerial role by Boris Johnson A Conservative party donor who failed to win election to Holyrood in May is to be made a Scotland Office minister. Businessman Malcolm Offord will be given a peerage to allow him to take up the UK government role. The appointment led to Boris Johnson been accused of “rampant cronyism” after it emerged that a major Conservative Party donor was made a peer and a junior government minister on Thursday – months after he failed to become an MSP in the Holyrood elections in May. Financier Malcolm Offord, who has […] - [There’s no evidence that a right-wing Labour Party can win the next election](https://heartlandstribune.com/theres-no-evidence-that-a-right-wing-labour-party-can-win-the-next-election/): By Bernie Willcox Reading the papers reporting on the Labour Party Conference, the conventional wisdom seems to be that in order to win the next election, Labour has to move to the right and ditch the “unpopular” ideas associated with Jeremy Corbyn.  But is this true and what evidence is there that this would work and Kier Starmer could at last beat a philandering, lying Old Etonian who has actually parked his tanks on the centre ground lawn.  A key matter here is the Scottish Labour votes.  In 1997, Blair won 56 seats in Scotland. Corbyn inherited just one and did […] - [Cable Street Anniversary march and rally](https://heartlandstribune.com/cable-street-anniversary-march-and-rally/): March with pride on 3rd October! Jewish Socialist Cable Street 85th Anniversary march and rally Assemble 1pm Junction of Cable Street, Leman Street and Dock Street. Marching to the Cable Street Mural/St George’s Gardens. Speakers include: Apsana Begum MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP (Project for Peace and Justice), Rabbi Herschel Gluck, Mick Lynch Gen Sec RMT, Amina Patel (Unison), Abdul Chowdhury (NEU), Noorahmed Uddin (Altab Ali Foundation) Joginder Bains (Indian Workers Association-GB) Julia Bard (Jewish Socialists’ Group), Rob Griffiths, (Communist Party), Weyman Bennet (Stand Up To Racism) Marlene Sidaway (International Brigades Memorial Trust), and relatives of the activists of 1936: Michael Rosen, […] - [Sir Keir Starmer's Conference Speech: I, Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmers-conference-speech-i-starmer/): Starmer’s speech gave one clear message, he would rebuild the Labour Party in his own image. Me, me, me, blah blah blah… Throughout the speech, Starmer referred to himself one hundred and forty-six times, that’s 146 times, in contrast to the Labour Party which he mentioned thirty-six times. Starmer likes to give his backstory and often mentions his Toolmaker Dad. The recently published unauthorised autobiography Red Knight brings to light a different version showing he’s guilty of overplaying his working-class credentials In March 2018, Starmer told the BBC’s Nick Robinson that his father ‘was a toolmaker working in a factory and […] - [Bakers' union disaffiliates from Labour, citing Sir Keir Starmer's leadership and direction of the Party.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bakers-union-disaffiliates-from-labour-citing-sir-keir-starmers-leadership-and-direction-of-the-party/): The Bakers’ union is to disaffiliate from Labour, saying the party has “travelled away” from the aims and hopes of working class organisations. The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union was a founding union of the Labour Party. After 119 years it has now voted to disaffiliate from the Labour party, accusing Starmer of a “factional internal war”. In a statement released this afternoon, it berates Sir Keir Starmer for failing to engage with issues such as workers’ wages, the widespread use of food banks and for failing to provide leadership amid the current fuel crisis. The union, which has been affiliated […] - [Labour's civil war moves to battle over minimum wage](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-civil-war-moves-to-battle-over-minimum-wage/): Sir Keir Starmer will face a fresh battle with Labour members over the campigne for minimum wage. Sir Keir Starmer is at the centre of a row over left-wing demands for Labour to back increasing the minimum wage to £15 an hour. Labour’s conference is expected to pass a motion later calling for this to be party policy. Frontbencher Andy McDonald resigned on Monday, saying the leadership had ordered him to argue against the rise, making his position “untenable”. The leadership is keen to avoid an open row on the issue. It says it will not encourage members to back or […] - [Labour Conference Condemns AUKUS as Threat to World Peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-conference-condemns-aukus-as-threat-to-world-peace/): Conference delegates defy Sir Keir Starmer by voting to oppose UK’s new military agreement “AUKUS is the next step in a new cold war with China,” said one opponent of the trilateral agreement. “It makes the Indo-Pacific, and the world, a more dangerous, not a more stable, place.” Echoing concerns raised by international activists over the perils posed by the three-nation AUKUS agreement, delegates at the U.K. Labour Conference on Monday voted to condemn the new military pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States as a threat to world peace. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who backed the […] - [Labour conference votes to back sanctions against Israel over 'crime of apartheid'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-conference-votes-to-back-sanctions-against-israel-over-crime-of-apartheid/): The motion, not backed by the leadership, recognised that Israel has implemented an apartheid system and demanded an end to the UK arms trade with Israel. At the end of the Labour Party morning session of conference, delegates passed by a show of hands a composite on Israel and Palestine, despite Steve McCabe MP, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, urging them not to on the grounds that the motion was “too shouty, too angry, too one-sided and not at all focused on the search for peace”. McCabe claimed the composite was “completely hostile to the people of Israel” and […] - [#Lab21: Delegates defy Starmer voting to nationalise energy firms but rulebook reforms slide through](https://heartlandstribune.com/lab21-delegates-defy-starmer-voting-to-nationalise-energy-firms-but-rulebook-reforms-slide-through/): Victory for Sir Keir Starmer and his allies over watered-down reforms on Labour rules. This means under the reforms, leadership hopefuls will now have to secure the support of 20% of the party’s MPs (up from the current 10%) before becoming an official candidate in a leadership contest. And a “registered supporters” scheme, which allowed people to pay a one-off fee to vote in a Labour leadership election, has been scrapped. Sir Keir’s reforms have also made it harder for current Labour MPs to be de-selected, by raising the threshold for triggering a selection contest. In a vote at the Labour […] - [Starmer's Selective Outrage: Standing Before a Banner Calling Israel ‘Fascist’](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-sir-keir-starmers-antisemitism-purge-takes-a-hit-after-he-appeared-at-a-meeting-which-included-a-call-to-punish-israeli-racism/): The Curious Case of Keir Starmer’s Vanishing Principles So much for moral consistency. Sir Keir Starmer, who has built his leadership on the promise to purge Labour of antisemitism and discipline anyone even remotely critical of Israel, once stood quite happily in front of a banner that read “Kick Israeli Fascism out of FIFA.” Yes, the man who has turned Labour into a safe haven for flag-waving Atlanticism and censorship of Palestinian solidarity once shared a stage with campaigners calling for sanctions against Israel, and no disciplinary emails were pinging around the NEC at 2 am. Back in 2015, Starmer, then […] - [Starmer goes full Tory: Labour would not nationalise big six energy firms](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-goes-full-tory-labour-would-not-nationalise-big-six-energy-firms/): Starmer was asked directly, would he consider nationalising the key energy providers to tackle the energy crisis. He replied: “No.” Public ownership of gas and electricity was always a cherished aim of the Labour Party. For years under privatisation, the swindling of the consumer has gone hand-in-hand with outrageous profit-taking by the corporate giants, to the loss of the public purse. Far from helping customers through keen competition, the main effect of energy privatisation has been – like austerity – a redistribution of wealth from the have-nots to the well-to-do. What a pity, therefore, that Labour will no longer make this an […] - [Lorry drivers and poultry workers are to receive temporary UK visas](https://heartlandstribune.com/lorry-drivers-and-poultry-workers-are-to-receive-temporary-uk-visas/): Some 10,500 lorry drivers and poultry workers are to receive temporary UK visas as the government seeks to limit disruption in the run-up to Christmas. The government confirmed that 5,000 fuel tanker and food lorry drivers will be eligible to work in the UK for three months, until Christmas Eve. The scheme is also being extended to 5,500 poultry workers. Lengthy queues of vehicles snaked their way to gas stations in Britain on Saturday where an acute shortage of truck drivers has led to fuel rationing and some pumps running dry and prompted the government to issue temporary work visas. Across […] - [Jeremy Corbyn says under Starmer's leadership Labour is turning its back on hope.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-says-under-starmers-leadership-labour-is-turning-its-back-on-hope/): Corbyn pointing out home truths on Starmer’s regime. Jeremy Corbyn made an inspiring speech at the Young Labour rally saying: “You are a generation that won’t just put up with what you’re given – insecurity, a dying planet and grotesque inequality. “You know that you don’t have to live without power or hope,” he added. “When we come together, we know that things can and they will change.” However, on Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, Corbyn went on: “Our party’s leadership seems to be turning its back on that hope for a more equal, democratic and sustainable future.” Taking aim at and […] - [Europe's energy prices are soaring and could get much worse.](https://heartlandstribune.com/europes-energy-prices-are-soaring-and-could-get-much-worse/): Europe’s poor and vulnerable could be facing their coldest winter for decades as fuel prices continue to climb. The UK is far from alone in its energy crisis. Across Europe, governments are acting to shield consumers from soaring bills, with nerves growing about the coming winter.  Europe is battling a record-breaking surge in energy prices that threatens to derail the post-pandemic economic recovery, strain household incomes and even tarnish the nascent green transition. The unprecedented recovery-related energy price spikes, prompting raising alarms about whether families will be able to remain warm as the northern hemisphere’s winter approaches. Politicians are also anxious […] - [Cabbage pickers offered £30 an hour that's £240 for an eight-hour-day](https://heartlandstribune.com/cabbage-pickers-offered-30-an-hour-thats-240-for-an-eight-hour-day/): Vegetable pickers are being offered the equivalent of £62,000 a year to pick cabbages at farms in Lincolnshire. An advert for ‘all year round work’ has been posted online by T H Clements and Son Ltd, offering a salary of up to £30-an-hour. This would work out as £240 for an eight-hour-day or £1,200 for a 40-hour-week. Someone working full time for a year could expect to be paid £62,400. The role is paid by ‘piecework rates’, anyone that has worked piecework would understand that Piecework is a form of work in which employees are paid not on the basis of working […] - [The Resignation letter from Cllr. Stephen Smith Wantage CLP lays bare all that's wrong with Starmer's Labour Party. #LabourLeaks](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-resignation-letter-from-cllr-stephen-smith-wantage-clp-lays-bare-all-thats-wrong-with-starmers-labour-party-labourleaks/): How dare you preside over this McCarthyism and establish a Stalinist bureaucracy where lifelong anti-racists like me are being witch-hunted for entirely sectarian political reasons? My resignation from the Labour Party. Sir Keir Starmer MPLeader of the Labour Party21 September 2021BY POST AND EMAIL Dear Keir, I write to resign membership of the Labour Party and consequently my elected offices as Wantage CLP Policy Officer, Executive Committee member and Conference delegate. I will ask members of the Faringdon Labour Party branch for their view of my continued membership of Faringdon town council; but even if they wish me to continue, will […] - [Sir Keir Starmer: My vision for the future of the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-my-vision-for-the-future-of-the-labour-party/): Starmer’s essay is composed almost entirely of political platitudes and clichés, however, he does let slip that Labour will not challenge, ‘The Great NHS Heist’. In Starmer’s essay, that focus has been swept away and replaced by a declaration that, “the role of government is to be a partner to private enterprise, not stifle it.” “We would do things differently. In order to put contribution and community at the centre of our efforts, we would build an effective partnership of state and private sector to prioritise the things that we have seen really matter: health, living conditions, working conditions and the environment.” This is […] - [Starmer backing Labour group fined £14,250 for failing to declare donations.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-backing-labour-group-fined-14250-for-failing-to-declare-donations/): Labour group with links to Keir Starmer fined £14,250 for failing to declare donations. The group unironically-titled Labour Together has strong links to the Labour party leader, Sir Keir Starmer. So the Commission’s findings will make uncomfortable reading for the former Director of Public Prosecutions, after Labour Together was said to have committed “multiple breaches of electoral law” over a five-year period. The influential Labour Party group has been fined a total of £14,250 by the UK’s Electoral Commission after failing to declare more than £800,000 in donations within the required 30-day period. Labour Together counts among its directors high-profile Labour […] - [Unions identify unsustainable working practices and low wages as the real cause of supply chain crisis in the meat industry that is strangling the economy.](https://heartlandstribune.com/unions-identify-unsustainable-working-practices-and-low-wages-as-the-real-cause-of-supply-chain-crisis-in-the-meat-industry-that-is-strangling-the-economy/): While diehard Remainers and centrist Rejoiners try to blame the woes of the world on Brexit unions and the LeFT are making inroads at not only identifying the issues but leveraging their position to win worker’s rights and better wages. There were many reasons to vote to leave the EU and many reasons to remain, no matter where you were on the argument the result was final, we are where we are! For many of us, we understood that a leave result would be the catalyst for change. Leaving the EU would rupture the status quo, disrupting the political agenda of […] - [The Labour Party enter another Rabbit hole as MP Rosie Duffield asks to meet with Sir Keir Starmer over transgender debate.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-enter-another-rabbit-hole-as-mp-rosie-duffield-asks-to-meet-with-sir-keir-starmer-over-transgender-debate/): Labour MP wants a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer to clarify where the party stands on transgender issues. Rosie Duffield, who has clashed with campaigners over her views on self-identification for trans people, said the party’s position was unclear. This comes after Ms Duffield confirmed she would not attend this week’s party conference after online threats to her safety. The abuse has been widely condemned by politicians and activists, who called it “utterly unacceptable”. Last week, Labour’s shadow equalities minister Marsha de Cordova resigned from her post, saying she wanted to focus more of her time in her marginal constituency of […] - [Labour Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has not called the Amendment to keep the £20 Universal credit uplift - meaning there can be no vote.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-speaker-lindsay-hoyle-has-not-called-the-amendment-to-keep-the-20-universal-credit-uplift-meaning-there-can-be-no-vote/): Universal Credit: Top Tories lose bid to stage last-ditch Commons showdown Two Tory grandees have lost their bid to stage a last-ditch Commons showdown tonight over Boris Johnson’s £20-a-week Universal Credit cut. Former leader and DWP chief Sir Iain Duncan Smith tried to force a vote urging the PM to cancel the hit to 6million Brits’ benefits. According to the Mirror, the amendment has now not been called by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle – meaning there can be no vote. Even if the amendment had passed – no mean feat, as Sir Iain would have had to find more than 40 rebels – Mr Johnson […] - [Tory Standoff: Universal Credit uplift should be permanent, say Tory Ex-ministers](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-standoff-universal-credit-uplift-should-be-permanent-say-tory-ex-ministers/): You know it’s wrong when a gaggle of Tory ex-ministers cannot stomach their own parties attacks on the working poor. Former Tory leader and instigator of Universal Credit (UC) Sir Iain Duncan Smith, along with five of his successors – Stephen Crabb, Damian Green, David Gauke, Esther McVey and Amber Rudd – have penned a letter in a bid to persuade Rishi Sunak to stick with the £5 billion benefits investment even after coronavirus restrictions have been eased. The extra cash for benefit claimants was brought in as an emergency spending measure during the Covid crisis but is due to expire […] - [French billboard owner fined €10,000 for depicting Macron as Hitler](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-billboard-owner-fined-e10000-for-depicting-macron-as-hitler/): Has France just trampled on Article 10: Freedom of expression protects your right to hold your own opinions and to express them freely without government interference. A French court on Friday sentenced a billboard owner to a €10,000 fine after he depicted President Emmanuel Macron as Adolf Hitler on a poster to protest COVID measures. In July Michel-Ange Flori Tweeted: “So in Macronia you can make fun of the prophet’s ass, that’s satire, but to make the president look like a dictator is blasphemy”. The offending poster portrays Macron in the uniform of the Nazi leader Hitler, with a small moustache, […] - [The real legacy of American intervention: US military admits 'tragic mistake' in Kabul drone strike that killed 10 civilians](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-real-legacy-of-american-intervention-us-military-admits-tragic-mistake-in-kabul-drone-strike-that-killed-10-civilians/): In a U-turn, the United States military admitted that a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month was an error. “The strike was a tragic mistake,” Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference. The Pentagon said an internal review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not a self-proclaimed Islamic State group extremist as first believed. In a briefing on Friday, the commander of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie, said he now believes it was unlikely that those who died were Islamic State militants or posed a direct threat to […] - [Ex-Tory MP Charlie Elphicke freed from jail after serving only half of his sentence for sex assault](https://heartlandstribune.com/ex-tory-mp-charlie-elphicke-freed-from-jail-after-serving-only-half-of-his-sentence-for-sex-assault/): The ex-Dover MP was jailed for two years in September 2020 after he was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial. The Ministry of Justice confirmed on Thursday he had been freed on Tuesday. It is understood the 50-year-old former lawyer was serving the final part of his sentence at HMP Leyhill in Gloucestershire. Six months ago, Elphicke lost an appeal against his jail term after his lawyers argued the sentence was too long and should have been suspended. He was described by the sentencing judge as a “sexual predator” who used his “success and respectability […] - [The UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty has warned cutting the £20 universal credit uplift introduced during the pandemic breaks human rights law](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-uns-special-rapporteur-on-extreme-poverty-has-warned-cutting-the-20-universal-credit-uplift-introduced-during-the-pandemic-breaks-human-rights-law/): Universal credit could plunge half a million households into poverty, warns top UN official A UN Poverty rapporteur says the removal of £20 a week uplift based on ‘very ill-informed understanding’ of impact. Cutting universal credit by £20 a week is an “unconscionable” move that breaches international human rights law and is likely to trigger an explosion of poverty, the United Nations’ poverty envoy has said. In an excoriating intervention alongside a letter to the UK government, Olivier De Schutter, the UN-appointed rapporteur on extreme poverty, told the Guardian that the withdrawal of the £1,000-a-year uplift from next month was “deliberately […] - [AUKUS: Boris Johnson and Joe Biden to help Australia acquire nuclear submarines in claimed pushback on China](https://heartlandstribune.com/aukus-boris-johnson-and-joe-biden-to-help-australia-acquire-nuclear-submarines-in-claimed-pushback-on-china/): President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a new effort to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, a major step toward what has been claimed a counter to China as he works to build international backing for his approach to Beijing. The announcement came as part of a new trilateral partnership among the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom that the three countries’ leaders jointly revealed Wednesday. “The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have long been faithful and capable partners and we’re even closer today,” the President said. “Today, we’re taking another historic step to deepen and formalize cooperation among […] - [Reshuffle in full: Who is out and who has been promoted?](https://heartlandstribune.com/reshuffle-in-full-who-is-out-and-who-has-been-promoted/): Boris Johnson has carried out a sweeping reshuffle of his Cabinet which saw a number of senior ministers ousted from his top team. The Prime Minister seized the chance for a long-awaited overhaul of his top team, with it the direction of his Government, after his first two years in power were dominated by Covid-19. Johnson’s reshuffle was more extensive than expected, with some senior figures moved around – or shown the door. Gaffe-prone Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was the first to be fired from Government, while Dominic Raab was demoted from his role as Foreign Secretary – but behind closed doors won […] - [Battle of Britain Day](https://heartlandstribune.com/battle-of-britain-day/): 15 September is Battle of Britain Day.  It commemorates the legendary air battle that took place in Britain’s skies, mainly – though not exclusively – over southern England, during the long hot summer and early autumn of 1940.  The conflict has achieved near mythical status in British history.  With the fall of France in June, Europe was dominated by Germany’s depraved Nazi bully-boys and their lickspittle Italian fascist chums, whilst odious Stalin’s USSR had free rein in eastern Poland and the Baltic states.  Britain’s forces had been forced to retreat from Belgium and France, rescuing what they could from the beaches […] - [Another resignation from Starmer's top team: Marsha de Cordova goes as Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-resignation-from-starmers-top-team-marsha-de-cordova-goes-as-shadow-women-and-equalities-secretary/): Marsha de Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea, has resigned from Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet today after serving as Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary since Starmer took up his post as Leader back in April last year. The Battersea MP tweeted: “It has been an immense privilege to serve as the Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary for the past 17 months. It therefore comes with much sadness that I am resigning with immediate effect. “Having only been elected in 2017 for the historically marginal constituency of Battersea, I would like to focus more of my time and efforts on the […] - [Covid Plan-B: Face masks indoors and working from home to return if the NHS faces surge in cases](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-plan-b-face-masks-indoors-and-working-from-home-to-return-if-the-nhs-faces-surge-in-cases/): Several MPs heckled the Health Secretary over the contingency plans as he continued to layout Plan-B Sajid Javid sparked a backlash from backbench MPs in the Commons this afternoon when he said the Government will be recommending the use of face masks in crowded indoor settings. The Health Secretary made the recommendation as he unveiled the Government’s winter Covid plan. He added that people should also meet outdoors or in well-ventilated areas if possible. Javid said that people should be “wearing a face mask in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet” this […] - [Boris Johnson’s mother dies aged 79](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnsons-mother-dies-aged-79/): Boris Johnson is mourning the loss of his mother, Charlotte, after she died at the age of 79. Professional painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl died “suddenly and peacefully” at a London hospital, the Telegraph reported. The Prime Minister has previously described her as the “supreme authority” in his family. Speaking at the 2019 Conservative Party conference, he told grassroots Tory activists that his mother had taught him to believe in “the equal importance, the equal dignity, the equal worth of every human being on the planet”. Mrs Johnson-Wahl was married to the PM’s father, I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! star Stanley, from […] - [GB News Chairman Andrew Neil quits role and steps down as presenter](https://heartlandstribune.com/gb-news-chairman-andrew-neil-quits-role-and-steps-down-as-presenter/): Veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil has quit his role as GB News chairman and will no longer host his prime time show but will appear as a guest commentator The former BBC presenter will continue as a regular guest commentator on the channel, GB News said. The 72-year-old said in a statement: “I am sorry to go but I have concluded it’s time to reduce my commitments on a number of fronts. Over the summer I’ve had time to reflect on my extensive portfolio of interests and decided it was time to cut back.” He continued: “I wish GB News well in […] - [Therese Coffey says people - already working full time - can work for an extra two hours to make up for removing £20 universal credit uplift.](https://heartlandstribune.com/therese-coffey-says-people-already-working-full-time-can-work-for-an-extra-two-hours-to-make-up-for-removing-20-universal-credit-uplift/): The Tory welfare chief today confirmed she is “entirely happy” with cutting 6million people’s benefits by £20 a week. Therese Coffey confirmed she was content with the huge cut to Universal Credit, which campaigners will plunge half a million Brits into poverty after it kicks in between October 13 and November 12. People who lose £20 a week from their Universal Credit payments under Government plans could work extra hours to make up for the cut, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has suggested. The Cabinet minister on Monday defended the move to end the increase introduced in response to the coronavirus […] - [Socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor: Tory Plan to cut £20 Universal Credit uplift will go ahead](https://heartlandstribune.com/socialism-for-the-rich-and-rugged-free-enterprise-capitalism-for-the-poor-tory-plan-to-cut-20-universal-credit-uplift-will-go-ahead/): Tory policy 101, hit the poorest hardest. Plans to reverse the £20 uplift in Universal Credit will go ahead at the end of the month, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has confirmed. The weekly increase was introduced temporarily to help claimants weather the storm of the coronavirus pandemic. In March 2020, as we were faced with the economic fallout from the pandemic, the Government recognised that our social security rates were too low. The lifeline families needed to keep them from being swept into poverty had been allowed to wear thin and threadbare. The Government did the right thing and increased Universal […] - [Norway Is Moving to the Left – And Rethinking Its EU Relations.](https://heartlandstribune.com/norway-is-moving-to-the-left-and-rethinking-its-eu-relations/): The Left-wing Eurosceptic Parties could make big gains in Norway’s upcoming parliamentary election, in a fresh blow to Brussels. Norwegians go to the polls tomorrow, September 13 will see a new government with a number of parties demanding the country reduce its ties with the EU. While Norway isn’t an EU member state, it is closely linked to the bloc via membership of the European Economic Area (EEA). The Conservative Party Prime minister Erna Solberg is running for a third term, but it is unlikely that her coalition government will succeed. Oslo may get a Left-wing majority government bringing with it their […] - [Social care tax hike is an attack on the poor and workers how did the rich get away with it and what's the alternative.](https://heartlandstribune.com/social-care-tax-hike-is-an-attack-on-the-poor-and-workers-how-did-the-rich-get-away-with-it/): The social care tax is not only unfair, it’s an insult and attack on all workers. From April 2022, national insurance contributions (NICs) will increase by 1.25 percentage points for employed and self-employed people earning more than £9,568. A similar increase will also apply to employers’ national insurance payments. From April 2023, the higher NICs rate will apply to people working beyond the state pension age. There are about 6.2m people earning less than £9,568 in 2021-22 will not have to pay the Health and Social Care Levy. Currently, employees pay no national insurance on the first £9,568 earned. But for […] - [Prince Andrew ‘served with papers’ over sex assault allegations from Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts](https://heartlandstribune.com/prince-andrew-served-with-papers-over-sex-assault-allegations-from-jeffrey-epstein-accuser-virginia-roberts/): Prince Andrew has been served at his home in home in Windsor Prince Andrew has finally been served in the sexual assault lawsuit brought against him by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. An affidavit of service was served to the Duke of York at Royal Lodge (his Windsor home) on Aug. 27, a new court document obtained by the Daily Mail and filed on Friday states. According to a document filed on Friday, an affidavit of service was served at the Duke of York’s home in Windsor, England on August 27. An agent working on behalf of Virginia Roberts, who claims she was forced to have sex with […] - [Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent and the Media: Corbyn and the Press](https://heartlandstribune.com/noam-chomsky-manufacturing-consent-and-the-media-corbyn-and-the-press/): Know The Rules of Press Manipulation: Manufacturing Consent Renowned critic and always MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, one of the classic voices of intellectual dissent in the last decades, has compiled a list of the ten most common and effective strategies resorted to by the agendas “hidden” to establish a manipulation of the population through the media. The media serves an important function in a democratic society. Historically the media have proven highly efficient in moulding public opinion, their power is in the main unchecked. Known as The Fourth Estate or fourth power a term that refers to the press and news media both […] - [Priti Patel plans to turn back migrant boats in Channel 'putting lives at risk'](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patel-plans-to-turn-back-migrant-boats-in-channel-putting-lives-at-risk/): This is a disaster waiting to happen and the curliest thing, it will result in some innocents death. Priti Patel has been accused of “putting lives at risk” with a hardline plan to turn back migrant boats towards France. The Home Secretary has authorised Border Force to “push back” vessels carrying desperate people across the Channel, it’s understood. Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “Turning boats around at sea in the world’s busiest shipping channel is dangerous and risks lives. “The home secretary has failed to tackle the vile criminal gangs who are profiting from people smuggling and this should be […] - [LIVE: National Insurance vote on social care](https://heartlandstribune.com/live-national-insurance-vote-on-social-care/): LIVE VOTE BREAKING: Government wins health and social care levy vote MPs back the government’s plan to raise taxes to fund spending on the NHS and social care. It gets through by 319 votes to 248 – that’s a margin of 71. What’s the new Health and Social Care tax and how will it affect me? MPs have voted for an extra tax to fund social care in England – and help the NHS recover after the pandemic. There had been criticism – including from within the Conservative Party – that it will be unfair on younger people and the lower […] - [Richard Burgon: The Tories do not have the guts to take on the super-rich who fund their party, and that is why they will not back a wealth tax.](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-burgon-the-tories-do-not-have-the-guts-to-take-on-the-super-rich-who-fund-their-party-and-that-is-why-they-will-not-back-a-wealth-tax/): Richard Burgon at least had the guts to propose a ‘Tax on the wealthy’ to fund social care. Health and social care do need massive investment, especially after Tory austerity has so undermined our national health service over the past 11 years. A 10% tax on the wealth of those with over £100 million would raise £69 billion. Surely a wealth tax is how we should be funding these vital services. Is the truth not that despite the rhetoric and the promises, the Tories do not have the guts to take on the super-rich who fund their party, and that is […] - [Breaking Manifesto Pledge: Boris Johnson confirms 1.25% UK National Insurance rise.](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-manifesto-pledge-boris-johnson-confirms-1-25-uk-national-insurance-rise/): The reality is social care needs funding but when this government can find and give away to the wealthy £20billion in unaccountable Tory covid cronyism, we have to ask what’s happening with our money. Boris Johnson finally announced the social care plan he claimed was ‘clear and prepared’ two years ago – but faces fury over the detail, and his manifesto promise-breaking 1.25% rise to National Insurance Contributions (NICs) Cabinet ministers signed off the proposals at a meeting in No 10 earlier, with the PM’s official spokesman saying: “There was strong agreement that this is a long-standing issue, particularly on the […] - [Lorry driver shortage: Strike action threat to demand better working conditions and pay](https://heartlandstribune.com/lorry-driver-shortage-strike-action-threat-to-demand-better-working-conditions-and-pay/): Lorry drivers are now in the driving seat when it comes to workers rights. Lorry drivers employed by Hanson Cement are to be balloted over strike action in a move that could further impact the supply chain in the construction sector. Staff at Tesco-owned Booker have also indicated they are willing to strike, leveraging their position with the shortage of labour, lorry drivers are now in the driving seat when it comes to workers rights. Unite is to ballot members on Hanson’s Castle Cement contract- affecting sites like Padeswood in North Wales. They have rejected a pay offer of 2.5 per […] - [Boris Johnson announces support for Afghanistan veterans amounting to £33 each, Jeremy Corbyn calls for an enquiry into the full fiasco.](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-announces-support-for-afghanistan-veterans-amounting-to-33-each-jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-an-enquiry-into-the-full-fiasco/): A Land Fit for Heroes: A repeating story of letting down those that give most, from the NHS to our Armed Forces. Both Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab have faced criticism over the UK’s response to the Taliban takeover. From beginning to end the management of withdrawing from Afghanistan has been nothing but shambolic. In 2001 many reporters suggested Afghanistan would become another Vietnam, how right they were even to the point of returning soldiers being let down by the politicians that sent them to war. Johnsons statement comes in the week marking the 20th anniversary of the 11 September […] - [Boris Johnson faces Tory civil war over national insurance hike](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-faces-tory-civil-war-over-national-insurance-hike/): Boris Johnson is facing open warfare with members of his own party over plans to hike national insurance contributions (NI) of 25 million workers to raise £10bn for social care for the elderly. The Government is planning to hike National Insurance (NI) contributions to pay for reforms to social care and tackle the huge backlog in the NHS caused by the coronavirus pandemic. However, a split appears to have formed between senior Cabinet ministers over how much to raise NI by, with suggestions it could be as high as 2%. Downing Street has not confirmed details of the announcement but a […] - [David Evans sidelines Labour staffers industrial action telling them we will sort it all out 'after' conference.](https://heartlandstribune.com/david-evans-sidelines-labour-staffers-industrial-action-telling-them-we-will-sort-it-all-out-after-conference/): No need for compulsory redundancies at this stage, David Evans tells Labour staff. General secretary David Evans has told Labour staff that “at this stage” there is “no need to consider for compulsory redundancies” as part of the restructuring plan for the party. Labour staffers received emails saying its voluntary severance scheme is now closed and all those party employees who volunteered for it are now being contacted with the outcomes of their applications. The weasel-worded email came with no definites just the ‘if and buts of pots and pans.’ leaving staffers back footed on the intended industrial action. Evens goes […] - [Privatising the NHS does not depend on a Trade Deal with the US, It's been happening for years.](https://heartlandstribune.com/privatising-the-nhs-does-not-depend-on-a-trade-deal-with-the-us-its-been-happening-for-years/): We should be guarding against all future trade deals but let’s not pretend the HNS is not already swamped with leeches sucking its lifeblood. Privatisation of our NHS is bad for patients, bad for staff and completely flies in the face of the founding principles of our NHS but that’s never stopped successive governments before. Privatisation’ is a politically charged term without a precise definition. In Britain, it is associated with the sell-off of nationalised industries and utilities as we witnessed under Margaret Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron and Nick Clegg with Royal Mail. This classic model involved whole enterprises being […] - [Too weak to do it alone: Starmer urged to create ‘political cabinet’ with other UK Labour leaders](https://heartlandstribune.com/too-weak-to-do-it-alone-starmer-urged-to-create-political-cabinet-with-other-uk-labour-leaders/): ‘Fit for the future’… A report by PR experts Labour in Communications named ‘Fit for the future’ says Sir Keir Starmer should invite the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, and the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, to join a powerful new “political cabinet” to help Labour shape policy and get its message across to voters. The inexperienced Sir Keir Starmer, who has only been an MP for 6 years has found Leadership difficult, even with the help of Blairite stalwart Lord Peter Mandelson, he still seems to be finding the task of Labour Leader too much. Starmer inherited the largest Political party […] - [Lab21: Jeremy Corbyn has every right to attend party conference](https://heartlandstribune.com/lab21-jeremy-corbyn-has-every-right-to-attend-party-conference/): The annual conference is being billed as a chance for Starmer to relaunch his leadership again! Unfortunately for Starmer, Corbyn will take the limelight. A Labour Party Spokesperson confirms ex-leader will be free to address fringe events, despite status as independent MP he is still a Labour member. Jeremy Corbyn will be granted a pass to Labour’s conference in Brighton later this month and will be free to address fringe meetings despite currently sitting as an independent MP, a party spokesperson has said. The former leader, who had the whip suspended by Sir Keir Starmer last year, has applied for a […] - [Conference season opens with Labour staff voting for strike action against Starmer's compulsory redundancies](https://heartlandstribune.com/conference-season-opens-with-labour-staff-voting-for-strike-action-against-starmers-compulsory-redundancies/): Its clear Labour is no longer a workers Party, not when their own workers have got to a point of going on strike. As Labour enter the conference season Starmer has nowhere to hide. He will be facing the members who will expect some direct answers relating to his poor performance as a leader and more so the outstanding issues that are dragging the party down. There is a wall full of issues Starmer will want to avoid but if members ever want to move the party forward they should ensure each one is tackled now. One of the first hurdles […] - [Along with being gifted $80 billion in modern warfare equipment the Taliban now Controls One Of The World’s Largest Lithium Deposits.](https://heartlandstribune.com/along-with-being-gifted-80-billion-in-modern-warfare-equipment-the-taliban-now-controls-one-of-the-worlds-largest-lithium-deposits/): Manna from the War Gods Taliban fighters not only took control of Kabul and the Afghan government on August 15. They also gained access to a gigantic deposit of minerals essential for renewable energies, possibly giving China an indisputable edge. A Bloomberg New Energy Finance Limited report in 2020 highlighted China’s global dominance in the lithium-ion battery supply chain market, due to its grip on raw material mining and refining. In 2019, the US imported 80 percent of its rare earth minerals from China, while the EU states imported 98 percent of these materials from China. China incidentally also shares a small border with […] - [If labour shortages are driving up the wages of low-paid workers then what is wrong with that?](https://heartlandstribune.com/if-labour-shortages-are-driving-up-the-wages-of-low-paid-workers-then-what-is-wrong-with-that/): Problems have been brewing for years in UK’s food supply chain, where drivers sleep in their cabs after 70-hour weeks on insecure contracts Empty shelves are still the topic of the day. Remainers are in their element, no time for finger-licking good KFC even if there was any, they are too busy taking to social media claiming they “told you so”! No one wants to hear the truth, the reality, Ben Chapman writes an excellent article hitting the nail on the head, he actually takes the time to talk to the lorry drivers where he quickly comes to an understanding, its […] - [Friends, Enemies & Four Failed Wars](https://heartlandstribune.com/friends-enemies-four-failed-wars/): The British public can no longer afford its governments to run reckless around the world with no heed to the long-term consequences, write Phil Miller and Mark Curtis. Britain’s regime change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have been catastrophic. A key reason is that UK policy has no moral consistency — friends and enemies are interchangeable over time, based purely on short-term pragmatism and rarely on ethical concerns or the national public interest. It’s high time for a fundamental transformation. By Phil Miller and Mark CurtisDeclassified UK “We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies,” Lord Palmerston famously told the […] - [The Abolition of Slavery In Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-abolition-of-slavery-in-britain/): By Jessica Brain On 28th August 1833 a very important act received its Royal Assent. The Slavery Abolition Law would finally be enacted, after years of campaigning, suffering and injustice. This act was a crucial step in a much wider and ongoing process designed to bring an end to the slave trade. Only a few decades previously, in 1807 another act had been passed which had made it illegal to purchase slaves directly from the African continent. Nevertheless, the practice of slavery remained widespread and legal in the British Caribbean. The fight to end the slave trade was a long drawn […] - [Pepe Escobar: Afghanistan? Follow the Money](https://heartlandstribune.com/pepe-escobar-afghanistan-follow-the-money/): Whoever bought Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and other US defence stocks made a literal killing With the fall of Kabul, Pepe Escobar says it’s becoming clear that financial soft power tactics may be even more deadly than a NATO occupation. By Pepe EscobarThe Asia Times  After 20 years and a staggering $2.23 trillion spent in a “forever war” persistently spun as promoting democracy and benefiting the “Afghan people,” it’s legitimate to ask what the Empire of Chaos has to show for it. The numbers are dire. Afghanistan remains the world’s seventh poorest nation: 47 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according […] - [Boris Johnson Says Universal Credit Claimants Should Rely On Their Own 'Efforts' Not Welfare](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-says-universal-credit-claimants-should-rely-on-their-own-efforts-not-welfare/): The Tories are poised to take away £1000 a year from the neediest. “People on Universal Credit should rely on their own efforts, not money given to them by others,” says Boris Johnson. Of course, it’s a good job the same sentiment was not used when big business held its hand out for billions in public money over the last 18mths. Are there plans for that to be paid back? Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Johnson has defended planned cuts to Universal Credit by suggesting claimants should rely on their own “efforts” rather than accept “welfare”. The […] - [Afghanistan: Children and Multiple US soldiers among those killed in bomb attacks outside Kabul airport](https://heartlandstribune.com/afghanistan-multiple-us-soldiers-among-those-killed-in-bomb-attacks-outside-kabul-airport/): Two explosions rocked the area outside Kabul airport U.S and civilian casualties amid evacuations. Early reports point to suicide bombings. They are believed to have carried out the attacks reportedly one within the confined corridor where thousands of people have been desperately waiting to be evacuated out of the country. One explosion hit outside Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate, and another occurred outside the nearby Baron Hotel. The US embassy issued an alert, saying there had also been reports of gunfire.  A gunman also fired on one of the main entrances to Kabul’s international airport. At least 13 civilians and multiple […] - [Profiting from misery: Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater and Trump administration adviser charging $6,500 to fly people out of Kabul](https://heartlandstribune.com/profiting-from-misery-erik-prince-founder-of-the-private-security-firm-blackwater-and-trump-administration-adviser-charging-6500-to-fly-people-out-of-kabul/): Erik Prince, the founder of the US military contractor Blackwater, is reportedly selling flights out of Kabul to desperate evacuees Erik Prince, the founder and former CEO of the security contractor previously known as Blackwater, is reportedly offering to fly people out of Kabul for $6,500 each as the evacuation effort in Afghanistan ramps up ahead of President Biden’s Tuesday deadline. Prince’s offer comes as U.S. citizens and Afghan allies are scrambling to leave the country amid the deteriorating security situation as the Taliban tighten their grip on the country. The Journal reports that NATO and U.S. teams are being dispatched to […] - [Northern Rail launches flash sale with £1 train tickets](https://heartlandstribune.com/northern-rail-launches-flash-sale-with-1-train-tickets/): Northern Railway has launched a flash sale with train tickets for just £1. There are over one million advance single tickets up for grabs for travel between September 6 and October 22, 2021, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. ⚡️ FLASH SALE ⚡️£1 tickets have landed! Nope, that's not a typo, we have over one million train tickets for travel between 6 September and 22 October on sale for only a pound. Once they're gone, they're gone, so hurry to https://t.co/A6yTdhwH6H to book yours today! ? pic.twitter.com/WLWFFutjDH — Northern ? (@northernassist) August 24, 2021 Kids tickets are also in the sale and cost just 50p per […] - [Sharon Graham the new general secretary of Unite union](https://heartlandstribune.com/sharon-graham-the-new-general-secretary-of-unite-union/): Sharon Graham has won the election to be the next general secretary of the Unite union. Ms Graham won the election after receiving 46,696 votes and will become the union’s first female general secretary. Competitors Steve Turner and Gerard Coyne received 41,833 votes and 35,334 votes respectively. Releasing a statement confirming the result, Unite said a total of 124,147 votes were cast. Sharon Graham – 46,696 votesSteve Turner – 41,833 votesGerard Coyne – 35,334 votes. A total of 124,147 votes were cast. Sharon Graham will succeed Len McCluskey who has been general secretary of the 1.2 million-strong union since 2010. Ms […] - [Biden refuses to extend Afghan withdrawal deadline leaving countless vulnerable Afghans to their fate](https://heartlandstribune.com/biden-refuses-to-extend-afghan-withdrawal-deadline-leaving-countless-vulnerable-afghans-to-their-fate/): Joe Biden has rejects G7 plea to extend Afghanistan withdrawal deadline The G7 failed to convince Biden to extend his self-imposed deadline and help save thousands in the chaotic evacuation of vulnerable Afghans. Boris Johnson said evacuations of vulnerable Afghans will “go up until the last minute” after he and other G7 leaders failed to convince US president Joe Biden to try and extend the August 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan. The Western allies including Australia are to begin the process of evacuating their military from Afghanistan and will begin stepping down its evacuation priorities after the Americans had stood […] - [Pork Barrel Politics: Boris Johnson facing corruption legal battle over £4.8bn ‘levelling-up fund’ that sent cash to Tory areas](https://heartlandstribune.com/pork-barrel-politics-boris-johnson-facing-corruption-legal-battle-over-4-8bn-levelling-up-fund-that-sent-cash-to-tory-areas/): The High Court has granted permission for a legal challenge to the “Levelling Up Fund” The Good Law Project has been granted permission for a legal challenge to the “ Levelling Up Fund ”. It is claimed the huge £4.8bn fund pretends to be the centrepiece of a levelling up agenda – The Good Law Project think it’s just a way to funnel money into constituencies of political benefit to the Conservative Party. Judges agreed to hear a legal challenge brought by the Good Law Project, stating: “The grounds are arguable.” The lawsuit, formally filed against Rishi Sunak, Robert Jenrick and […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: Health and Social Care Bill, 'It should be called the corporate takeover bill'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-health-and-social-care-bill-it-should-be-called-the-corporate-takeover-bill/): Jeremy Corbyn brought to the front the constant battle the public have had since the NHS was founded, corporate takeover. Heath and Care Bill 2021 The integration and innovation white paper was published by government in February 2021.  It set out proposed reforms to be included in a Health & Care Bill (the Bill) claiming to restructure parts of the NHS in England and create a ‘truly integrated’ healthcare system with less bureaucracy.  The proposals for new Integrated Care Systems (ICS) boards, will allow new bodies within the NHS designed to bring together all groups working within the health service to work on […] - [Blair, Blaming Brexit to Biden for Afghan Betrayal](https://heartlandstribune.com/blair-blaming-brexit-to-biden-for-afghan-betrayal/): Teflon Tony will accept no responsibility for the mess in Afghanistan he helped create. Tony Blair has branded President Biden for ‘imbecilic’ military pullout and says crisis risks relegating the UK to ‘second division of global powers’ The former prime minister, who sent British troops into Afghanistan in 2001, said the “abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous [and] unnecessary”. Blair has dramatically broken his silence over the crisis in Afghanistan by accusing President Joe Biden of an “imbecilic” decision to pull out US troops. In a controversial verdict on the unfolding tragedy, he also claims the crisis reveals […] - [EU fear repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis while Greece completes a 40-km wall to deter potential Afghan migrants](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-fear-repeat-of-the-2015-refugee-crisis-while-greece-completes-a-40-km-wall-to-deter-potential-afghan-migrants/): Greece completes border wall extension to deter potential Afghan migrants. Greece said on Friday it had completed a 40-km fence on its border with Turkey and a new surveillance system was in place to stop possible asylum seekers from trying to reach Europe following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Events in Afghanistan have fuelled fears in the European Union of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, when nearly a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond crossed to Greece from Turkey before travelling north to wealthier states. Greece was on the frontline of that crisis […] - [Raab Claims He Was Too Busy Working On The Kabul Airport Evacuation To Phone The Afghan Foreign Minister](https://heartlandstribune.com/raab-claims-he-was-too-busy-working-on-the-kabul-airport-evacuation-to-phone-the-afghan-foreign-minister/): Dominic Raab has defended his decision not to phone Afghanistan’ Foreign Minister as the Taliban descended on Kabul on Friday, insisting he was focused on other elements of the government response to the crisis in the region. Amid mounting criticism over the speed of his response to the Taliban’s takeover, the foreign secretary said in a statement on Friday the government has been “working tirelessly” to help people flee Afghanistan. Foreign Secretary in his statement defended his role in the UK response to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan amid growing calls for him to quit.  “On Friday afternoon, 13 August, advice was put […] - [Tory MP Afghanistan veteran, Johnny Mercer has claimed being in the Conservative Party is similar to “working in a really s**t company”](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-afghanistan-veteran-johnny-mercer-has-claimed-being-in-the-conservative-party-is-similar-to-working-in-a-really-st-company/): Former veterans minister Johnny Mercer has claimed being in the Conservative Party is similar to “working in a really s**t company” with those in charge not having “a clue”. In a sign of the unease in the Tory party’s ranks over the approach to Afghanistan, the Tory MP suggested there was no “real direction or leadership or responsibility” over the last week as the situation deteriorated. Mr Mercer, who was “forced” to resign as defence minister over the government’s treatment of veterans in April, also suggested politics was a “lonely place” and had often thought about his position as an MP. […] - [Ex-Labour MP Jared O'Mara charged with seven counts of fraud](https://heartlandstribune.com/ex-labour-mp-jared-omara-charged-with-seven-counts-of-fraud/): Former Sheffield Hallam Labour MP Jared O’Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims. O’Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September. The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O’Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses […] - [Standing in Solidarity With Ken Loach: Emergency motion passed by Louth and Horncastle CLP](https://heartlandstribune.com/standing-in-solidarity-with-ken-loach-emergency-motion-passed-by-louth-and-horncastle-clp/): An Emergency motion passed by Louth and Horncastle CLP tonight The motion read as follows – “This CLP expresses its dismay at the expulsion from the Labour Party of Ken Loach. We believe that to expel such a fine socialist who has done so much to further the cause of socialism is a disgrace. Ken’s films have exposed the inequalities in our society, have given us hope for change and inspired us to fight back. We stand in solidarity with Ken, a man we are proud to regard as a comrade, and urge his immediate reinstatement to the Labour Party.” The […] - [Jeremy Corbyn MP - Stop the War Coalition - The Blood Price of Blair and Bush disastrous foreign policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-mp-stop-the-war-coalition-the-blood-price-of-blair-and-bush-disastrous-foreign-policy/): Jeremy Corbyn speech against the Afghanistan war from 2010 gave us a clear insight into the injustices of the conflict but also gave reference to those that profit from war. An anti-war speech made by Jeremy Corbyn in 2010 for the “Stop the War coalition”, in which he suggests the conflict in Afghanistan is “clearly unwinnable”. His words have been reshaped on the same weekend that Taliban fighters took control of Kabul, signalling the collapse of the 20-year western mission. Some of the highlights of his speech echo the realities ten years on as we see the chaotic abandonment of Afghanistan. […] - [How to Sell a War: Tony Blair's Afghan intervention speech 'Let us reorder this world' Labour Party conference 2001](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-to-sell-a-war-tony-blairs-afghan-intervention-speech-let-us-reorder-this-world-labour-party-conference-2001/): History as we know it… If you ever wondered how we ended up fighting a losing war in Afghanistan for 20 years, a war entered into by a Labour government then this speech could help. September 11, 2001 Terrorists Strike the United States Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth plane crashes in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Close to three thousand people die in the attacks. Although Afghanistan is the base for al-Qaeda, none of the nineteen hijackers are Afghan nationals. Mohammed Atta, […] - [Taliban announces ‘amnesty,’ urges women to join government](https://heartlandstribune.com/taliban-announces-amnesty-urges-women-to-join-government/): A Taliban official on Tuesday announced a general “amnesty” for all in Afghanistan and urged women to join the government following the movement’s lightning takeover of the country. Enamullah Samangani made the comments on Afghan state television, which the militants appeared to now control, referring to Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate — their name for the country. “The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims,” Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, said. He also declared an “amnesty” for all in Afghanistan, although he did not provide any details as to what that would entail. Caution and Scepticism The statements […] - [Afghanistan Abandoned: President Ghani leaves Kabul as Taliban are at the gates](https://heartlandstribune.com/afghanistan-abandoned-president-ghani-leaves-kabul-as-taliban-are-at-the-gates/): The Taliban seized more major cities as they raced to take full control of Afghanistan and inched closer to Kabul, with Britain and the United States deploying thousands of troops to evacuate their citizens from the capital. President Ashraf Ghani’s departure comes hours after the Taliban ordered their fighters to the outskirts of Kabul and demanded a peaceful transfer of power. Asked for comment, the president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons”. A representative of the Taliban, which entered the capital Kabul earlier on Sunday, said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts. An […] - [The Labour Party is in the grip of the iron law of oligarchy.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-is-in-the-grip-of-the-iron-law-of-oligarchy/): “If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media – having tasted blood – would demand next that it expelled all its Socialist and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the National agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed… it would in fact profoundly endanger […] - [Victim of the Witchhunt: Ken Loach expelled from the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/victim-of-the-witchhunt-ken-loach-expelled-from-the-labour-party/): Veteran leftwinger and filmmaker Ken Loach has said he has been expelled from the Labour Party in a “purge” of critics of the leadership. Loach, 85, a lifelong socialist, said he had been ejected after he refused to “disown” other critics from the Labour left who had already been removed. The move comes after the party last month expelled four associated groups on the grounds that they were “not compatible” with Labour values. Supporters of the former leader have claimed Starmer has rolled back moves to democratise the party and that he has fought some of his own members with more […] - [Tony Benn: Democracy and Marxism](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-democracy-and-marxism/): Democracy and Marxism Tony Benn was one of the most distinctive political figures of the past 70 years. His views on the economy, The EU and foreign wars put him at odds with the political establishment and many within Labour, his own party. Tony Benn often gave us almost sage-like comments on society and the politics surrounding it, his speeches and talks reflected the deep richness of well thought out arguments delivered by a master orator. Tony Benn was a remarkable man with great gifts that he put at the service of his country. But just as importantly, and he would […] - [Plymouth shooting: killer Jake Davison talked about 'Incel' in weeks before attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/plymouth-shooting-killer-jake-davison-talked-about-incel-in-weeks-before-attack/): Davison, who killed five people, including a young girl, in Plymouth, had made statements online through Youtube videos relating to ‘incel’ police have revealed. Jake Davison Youtube channel subscribes to an account named Incel TV, which features content related to “involuntary celibacy”. Incel is an abbreviation of “involuntary celibate”, incels are members of an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. The online subculture involves men who express hostility and extreme resentment towards those who are sexually active, particularly women. Davison bemoaned his personal appearance, talked about feeling isolated […] - [Plymouth shooting: Multiple fatalities reported](https://heartlandstribune.com/plymouth-shooting-multiple-fatalities-reported/): There have been a “number of fatalities” and “several” other casualties are receiving treatment following a “serious firearms incident” in Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall police say. A shooter involved in the incident has been shot and is believed to be dead. Police in Plymouth have confirmed a “number of fatalities” in a “serious firearms incident”. Devon and Cornwall Police were called to Biddick Drive in the Keyham area at about 18:10 BST on Thursday. The force said: “There have been a number of fatalities at the scene and several other casualties are receiving treatment.” One of these is understood to be […] - [Julian Assange loses court battle to stop US expanding extradition appeal](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-loses-court-battle-to-stop-us-expanding-extradition-appeal/): The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost a high court battle to prevent the US government from expanding the grounds for its appeal against an earlier refusal to allow his extradition to face charges of espionage and hacking government computers. A judge has now ruled the US government can be given more grounds to appeal against that decision. On Wednesday, judges said the weight given to a misleading report from Assange’s psychiatric expert that was submitted at the original hearing in January could form part of Washington’s full appeal in October. Sitting in London, Lord Justice Holroyde said he believed it […] - [Jeremy Corbyn joins Julian Assange supporters at High Court as US appeal against decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-joins-julian-assange-supporters-at-high-court-as-us-appeal-against-decision-not-to-extradite-wikileaks-founder/): Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled on January 4 that Assange – an Australian citizen who is charged with espionage for publishing leaked classified documents – could not be extradited to the US, citing mental health concerns and the high risk that the American justice system could not prevent his possible suicide behind bars. In a statement on Friday, Assange’s fiancé Stella Morris explained that the US government “will re-run arguments that have already been settled by two previous judges, including a very senior High Court judge” and that “it seems unlikely that the judges on Wednesday will reach a different conclusion.” “Wednesday’s hearing is therefore particularly vexatious,” she […] - [We join Amnesty International calls on Biden to drop ‘politically-motivated’ charges against Julian Assange](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-join-amnesty-international-calls-on-biden-to-drop-politically-motivated-charges-against-julian-assange/): USA/UK: US authorities must drop politically motivated charges against Assange Ahead of the preliminary appeal hearing in London’s High Court today on the decision not to extradite Julian Assange to the US, Amnesty International has renewed its call on US authorities to drop the charges against him. The organisation’s Europe Director, Nils Muižnieks, said: “This attempt by the US government to get the court to reverse its decision not to allow Julian Assange’s extradition on the basis of new diplomatic assurances is a blatant legal sleight of hand. Given that the US government has reserved the right to keep Julian Assange […] - [Six EU countries pushing forced deportation of Afghans despite Taliban offensive](https://heartlandstribune.com/six-eu-countries-pushing-forced-deportation-of-afghans-despite-taliban-offensive/): At least six EU countries insist that the forced deportation of migrants back to Afghanistan continues despite the Taliban’s alarming gains in recent weeks. Afghanistan had in July urged Europe to stop deportations for three months, as Finland, Sweden and Norway had done, due to the deteriorating security situation on the grounds. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands wrote to the European Commission claiming that halting returns “sends the wrong signal and is likely to motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU.” Taliban insurgents have captured five out of the country’s 34 provincial capitals […] - [Jeffrey Epstein accuser sues Prince Andrew for sexual assault](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-sues-prince-andrew-for-sexual-assault/): Virginia Roberts Giuffre has launched a legal case against Prince Andrew who had previously denied having sex with the then-teenager. The lawyers for one of the alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in a Manhattan court on Monday. Virginia Roberts Giuffre accused the 61-year-old British royal of having sexually assaulted her when she was 17. Giuffre speaks up “I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me,” Giuffre said in a statement. “The powerful and rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible […] - [Greensill: David Cameron 'made $10m' before company’s collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/greensill-david-cameron-made-10m-before-companys-collapse/): Greensill the company former prime minister David Cameron promoted has left investors and UK taxpayers facing huge losses. Greensill Capital lent around $5bn (£3.6bn) to GFG Alliance – a group of companies controlled by the steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta. GFG employs 35,000 people around the world, including more than 4,000 at steel mills in the UK. It has also been revealed from Internal documents that Greensill Capital knew GFG was in financial trouble by the start of 2020 because it was unable to make payments on Greensill loans. Documents obtained by BBC Panorama suggest David Cameron made about $10m (£7m) from […] - [Nagasaki marks 76th anniversary of atomic bombing, mayor urges action for nuclear disarmament.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nagasaki-marks-76th-anniversary-of-atomic-bombing-mayor-urges-action-for-nuclear-disarmament/): On This Day in 1945: Atomic Bomb Dropped On Nagasaki One of the darkest chapters of war history in human civilization is the atom bombing done by the USA on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2. While the world suffered through two horrific wars in the first half of the 20th century, what happened in Japan was completely abhorrent and devastating. The US first dropped a bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” on August 6 and destroyed the southwestern city of Hiroshima. The bombing killed over 140,000 people out of the total estimated population of 3.5 lakh. The death toll continued […] - [The Crisis of Democracy: Sir Keir Starmer and the Trilateral Commission](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-crisis-of-democracy/): Oligarchy or Democracy Forward: This is an extremely long article, it has been shortened many times but as is the nature of such posts it continued to grow. It’s difficult to put into an article all the history behind our common struggle, the emancipation of the working class is not a short story and is still being fought. I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world, because if you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community. –TONY BENN Understanding the history of democracy and the fight the working class have had […] - [Boris Johnson shows his true colours with contemptuous insult laughing at the memory of the mining communities his party decimated](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-shows-his-true-colours-with-contemptuous-insult-laughing-at-the-memory-of-the-mining-communities-his-party-decimated/): Boris Johnson has not only insulted the memory of every member of Britain’s former mining communities but laughed while doing it. The Tory Prime Minister said it was “thanks” to Margaret Thatcher the mines were shut and chuckled as he said it. At a media briefing, he was asked about setting a timetable for ending oil and gas exploration. He responded: “Look at what we’ve done already. We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher who closed so many coal mines [the Prime Minister then laughs] across the country where we had had a big early start […] - [Paul Embery: Fire Brigade Union Official Left-Wing Brexit Advocate Unfairly Sacked, Tribunal Finds](https://heartlandstribune.com/paul-embery-fire-union-official-left-wing-brexit-advocate-unfairly-sacked-tribunal-finds/): Paul Embery has spent 20 years as a dedicated trade union official, fighting for better rights, conditions and pay for firefighters with the Fire Brigades Union. But after speaking in defence of democracy and supporting the working class left-wing leave vote he was kicked off the union’s national executive and banned from office for two years. The former London regional secretary of the FBU, which he still remains a member of, was removed from his post after what he claims the union saw as a ‘treacherous’ speech at a protest in March 2019. He has been an active member of the […] - [Belarusian activist found dead in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/belarusian-activist-found-dead-in-ukraine/): Belarusian NGO chief found hanged in Ukraine The chief of an NGO that provided aid to people fleeing Belarus was found hanged in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. His friends said he had been followed by “strangers.” The body of a Belarusian activist Vitaly Shishov was discovered in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv a day after he was reported missing, police said on Tuesday: “Belarusian citizen Vitaly Shishov […] was today found hanged in one of the Kyiv parks, not far from where he lived,” police said in a statement. A murder probe has been opened, authorities said, adding that they would pursue all leads, […] - [Breaking News: Pentagon is currently on lockdown following report of shooting on bus platform outside](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-news-pentagon-is-currently-on-lockdown-following-report-of-shooting-on-bus-platform-outside/): The Pentagon is locked down with no personnel allowed outside due to a “shooting event” that happened outside the building on a bus platform, according to a message that was sent to the Pentagon workforce by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. The Pentagon has been placed on lockdown after multiple gunshots were fired near a platform by a nearby station. A Pentagon announcement said the facility was on lockdown due to “police activity.” The Pentagon currently is on lock down due to an incident at the Pentagon Transit Center. We are asking the public to please avoid the area. More information […] - [Both Labour and the Tories battle for elite donors while condemning each other for doing so.](https://heartlandstribune.com/both-labour-and-the-tories-battle-for-elite-donors-while-condemning-each-other-for-doing-so/): Cash buys influence, it’s just just a matter of price. The most commonly stated purpose of campaign reform is to limit the corrupting influence of money in politics. It has become conventional wisdom that campaign contributions are bribes and that elective offices are for sale to the highest bidder. Anneliese Dodds has declared that the public will take a “very, very dim view” of a secretive club for the most generous Conservative Party donors that has reportedly granted them access to the highest level of government. The Financial Times revealed last week that the exclusive group developed by Tory Party co-chair Ben Elliot, […] - [These are my principles and if you don’t like them, well I’ll change them: Anti-vaccine activist Piers Corbyn accepted fake £10,000 ‘donation from 'Two Posh Boys' acting as AstraZeneca shareholders’](https://heartlandstribune.com/these-are-my-principles-and-if-you-dont-like-them-well-ill-change-them-anti-vaccine-activist-piers-corbyn-accepted-fake-10000-donation-from-two-posh-boys-acting-as-as/): Piers Corbyn says he “perhaps naively” accepted £10,000 – which later turned out to be Monopoly money – from a man posing as a shareholder in AstraZeneca to stop criticising their vaccine, describing the prank as an “attempted frame up”. The vaccine opponent claimed the YouTube video from Josh Pieters and Archie Manners was ‘heavily edited with dishonest commentary’ Anti-vaccine campaigner Piers Corbyn said he was “naive” after being fooled by YouTubers who offered him a fake £10,000 donation to stop criticising AstraZeneca. The 74-year-old was captured on video taking a brown envelope he believed to contain cash from YouTubers Josh […] - [Labour MP Apsana Begum cleared of housing fraud charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-apsana-begum-cleared-of-housing-fraud-charges/): A Labour MP has been found not guilty of housing fraud. Apsana Begum, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, was cleared of three charges of dishonestly failing to disclose information relating to her Tower Hamlets council housing application by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court. The 31-year-old collapsed and wept in the dock as the verdicts were announced. Begum faced three counts of dishonestly failing to disclose information relating to her council housing application during three periods between January 2013 and March 2016. Tower Hamlets Council, which brought the prosecution, alleged that the cost to the local authority was £63,928, because someone […] - [Going Dark: Craig Murray to begin jail sentence after appeal fails](https://heartlandstribune.com/craig-murray-to-begin-jail-sentence-after-appeal-fails/): The former UK diplomat and blogger will begin an eight-month jail sentence imminently after the Supreme Court refused a petition to hear a further appeal against the judgement. Murray was sentenced to eight months imprisonment after a judge ruled that he had unlawfully published details about the identities of female witnesses in Alex Salmond’s criminal trial on his blog last year. But he was released on bail in order to launch an appeal bid that has now failed. It comes after the Supreme Court refused an application for permission to appeal to the highest court in the United Kingdom. Craig Murray, […] - [Emails reveal Government used taxpayers’ money to conduct political polling](https://heartlandstribune.com/emails-reveal-government-used-taxpayers-money-to-conduct-political-polling/): Boris Johnson’s government gave taxpayers’ money to a private firm to conduct political polling on key opposition figures  The damning documents revealed by the Good Law Project (GLP), shows how under the instruction of the Cabinet Office, were given taxpayers’ money to conduct ‘political polling’ on key opposition figures, including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. They were awarded lucrative public contracts to associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings at Hanbury without competition. The decision to spend public money polling on opposition politicians left civil servants deeply, and rightly, uncomfortable. One said on email: ‘ hanbury measure attitude towards political figures, which they shouldn’t do using government […] - [ITV News 'MISTAKENLY' announced the death of Pope Francis](https://heartlandstribune.com/itv-news-mistakenly-announced-the-death-of-pope-francis/): ITV announced the death of Pope Francis. ITV News presenter Kylie Pentelow accidentally mixed up her words on the Christmas Day evening bulletin which made it sound like she announced the death of Pope Francis. Presenter Kylie Pentelow was reporting on 85-year-old Pope Francis’s annual Christmas Day message from a rain-soaked St Peter’s Square in the Vatican City. However, during the report, some wires were seemingly crossed as she went from the Pope’s comments on Covid vaccines to announcing that he had just died. Pope Francis, who is alive, delivered his Christmas Day speech from St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on Saturday and condemned […] - [Emmanuel Macron's wife said she will sue over a far-right transgender conspiracy theory](https://heartlandstribune.com/emmanuel-macrons-wife-said-she-will-sue-over-a-far-right-transgender-conspiracy-theory/): Brigitte Macron, the wife of the French president, has launched legal action over a conspiracy theory that claims she was born male. The virulent fake news dates back to March but has spread over social media over the past two months. It claims Brigitte Macron, who has three children from a first marriage, was born Jean-Michel Trogneux. Her lawyer, Jean Ennochi, confirmed to AFP earlier this week that “she has decided to initiate proceedings, it is underway.” French First Lady Brigitte Macron plans to take legal action over the online conspiracy theory that she is a transgender woman and was born […] - [COVID: German Ethics Council approves mandatory vaccinations but rejected the use of physical force to impose the rule.](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-german-ethics-council-approves-mandatory-vaccinations-but-rejected-the-use-of-physical-force-to-impose-the-rule/): Germany’s Ethics Council on Wednesday said it was in favour of mandatory vaccinations for all adults over the age of 18. German Lawmakers have extended plans for mandatory vaccinations from health care workers to the general adult population. A narrow majority of experts on Germany’s leading ethical body has said it should be expanded mandatory vaccinations to all adults, under certain conditions. A majority of 13 out of the 24 members, were in favour of the expansion of the mandate to all vaccine-eligible adults living in Germany. An even larger majority of 20 members, were in favour of the widening of an already […] - [Downing Street party: Met Police refers itself to misconduct watchdog over allegations officers failed to step in and shut down ‘lockdown-breaching’ parties in and around Downing Street and failed to investigate them properly later.](https://heartlandstribune.com/downing-street-party-met-police-refers-itself-to-misconduct-watchdog-over-allegations-officers-failed-to-step-in-and-shut-down-lockdown-breaching-parties-in-and-around-downing-stree/): Downing Street party Met Police refers itself to standards watchdog over decision to not investigate The Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the misconduct watchdog over allegations officers failed to step in and shut down ‘lockdown-breaching’ parties in and around Downing Street – and then didn’t investigate them properly later. Jennifer Helen Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, FSA is a British politician who served as Deputy Mayor of London from 2003 to 2004. A member of the Green Party of England and Wales, she was until September 2019 the sole Green Party member in the House of Lords. Baroness Jones of […] - [The case for a universal basic income](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-case-for-a-universal-basic-income/): What is a Universal Basic Income (UBI)? On its face, the definition of a truly universal basic income is pretty straightforward: It’s an amount of cash given to everyone within a geographic area that’s then distributed unconditionally, regularly, and on a long-term basis. (Although, the most recent UBI trials have focused on those with low incomes. There are varying opinions about whether the wealthy should also receive UBI payments, or whether they should be distributed on a sliding scale based on income.) During the Great Depression, Milton Friedman, an economist with a reputation for being a radical libertarian, started thinking about how to implement what he was calling a guaranteed […] - [Chileans take to the streets to celebrate former student protest leader Gabriel Boric becoming Chile’s new socialist president](https://heartlandstribune.com/chileans-take-to-the-streets-to-celebrate-former-student-protest-leader-gabriel-boric-becoming-chiles-new-socialist-president/): Gabriel Boric will become the youngest president in the country’s history “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave,” Former student protest leader Gabriel Boric has won a historic victory to become Chile’s youngest ever president. The 35-year-old has promised ambitious changes for a country that has been rocked in recent years by mass demonstrations against inequality and corruption. When Mr Boric won the candidacy of his leftist bloc to run for president, he made a bold pledge. “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave,” he said. “Do not be […] - [COVID-19: Thousands across Europe take to streets to protest government measures and their attack on our liberties](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-thousands-across-europe-take-to-streets-to-protest-government-measures-and-their-attack-on-our-liberties/): Thousands of protesters rallied across Europe this weekend, as nations were moving to impose tougher measures to stem a new wave of COVID-19 infections spurred by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. On Sunday, it was Brussels, where the marchers, some with placards reading “free zone,” “I’ve had my fair dose” and “enough is enough,” came to protest the government’s strong advice to get vaccinated. The crowd gathered included Belgian health care workers who will have a three-month window in which to get vaccinated against the coronavirus from January 1 or risk losing their jobs. A strong police presence was deployed on […] - [Dutch government imposes strict lockdown measures ahead of Christmas](https://heartlandstribune.com/dutch-government-imposes-strict-lockdown-measures-ahead-of-christmas/): The Netherlands is back to a nationwide lockdown starting Sunday to curb the Omicron variant. The Netherlands will go into “lockdown” over the Christmas period to try to stop a surge of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Dutch Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte said today. All non-essential shops, restaurants, bars, cinemas, museums and theatres must shut from Sunday until January 14, while schools must close until at least January 9, Rutte said. The Dutch government has ordered a shutdown of non-essential services in response to the spread of the Omicron variant, said Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a press conference on Saturday. […] - [Boris Under Siege: Lord Frost reported to have resigned from Johnson's Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-under-siege-lord-frost-reported-to-have-resigned-from-johnsons-government/): Lord Frost reportedly resigns as Brexit minister Boris Johnson faces another salvo of recriminations and broadsides from his own party as allies begin to desert him over his Covid Plan B restrictions, vaccine passports, tax hikes and the cost of Net Zero green agenda. Cabinet Minister Lord Frost has sensationally resigned from Boris Johnson’s Government, The Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal. His dramatic move triggered by his growing ‘disillusionment’ with the ‘direction’ of Tory policy has sparked yet another crisis within a beleaguered Downing Street says the Mail on Sunday. The Mail on Sunday, which first reported the news, said Lord […] - [Denmark's Socialist government pledges to protect teachers from threats against free speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/denmarks-socialist-government-pledges-to-protect-teachers-from-threats-against-free-speech/): Denmark says it’ll take measures to guard academics’ freedom of expression and forestall the dangers of “self-censorship”. The Danish authorities has said that academics ought to be capable of talk about sure topics, together with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the Holocaust, girls’s rights, and LGBT+ points. The ruling Socialist social gathering stated it will start discussions in parliament on “freedom of expression” in January. “It is unacceptable for violence and threats to create self-censorship and censorship in schools,” stated Danish Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup. “All teachers must feel free and safe in their teaching, and Parliament has an obligation to […] - [Simon Case chair of Number 10 parties probe quits after his department held party he attended](https://heartlandstribune.com/simon-case-chair-of-number-10-parties-probe-quits-after-his-department-held-party-he-attended/): Top civil servant Simon Case quits No 10 party probe amid rule breach claims Boris Johnson has sacked the chair of the Number 10 parties probe after it emerged his department held a rule-breaking gathering last year. Simon Case had been due to report on claims Covid rules were broken at events for staff last year. But his role was put into doubt after reports a party was held in his office while London was under Covid rules. The revelation plunged the Boris Johnson’s administration into further chaos, as he scrambles to hold on to his job. Just two weeks ago, […] - [Disastrous North Shropshire by-election sends clear message to No 10: We won't suffer fools or be taken for fools any longer.](https://heartlandstribune.com/disastrous-north-shropshire-by-election-sends-clear-message-to-no-10-we-wont-suffer-fools-or-be-be-taken-for-fools-any-longer/): ‘I am responsible… BUT…’: Flustered Boris desperately blames voters and the media for focusing on sleaze and Partygate rather than Omicron as he faces Tory threats to oust him after losing 23,000 majority in by-election ‘earthquake’ Flustered Boris Johnson desperately complained that voters and the media have been focusing on sleaze and ‘Partygate’ rather than Omicron as he faces Tory meltdown over the staggering by-election defeat.   The PM admitted he is ‘responsible for everything the government does’ as he was asked during a bad-tempered interview whether he was personally to blame for the ‘earthquake’ result in North Shropshire overnight, where a […] - [Omicron Brings A Quiet New Year's Eve for the Welsh as Nightclubs to shut after Boxing Day](https://heartlandstribune.com/omicron-brings-a-quite-new-years-eve-for-the-welsh-as-nightclubs-to-shut-after-boxing-day/): Mark Drakeford sets new Covid restrictions for Wales from December 27 Nightclubs will close and businesses will have to bring back social distancing, barriers and one-way systems to protect customers and staff The Welsh government said it will also impose restrictions on businesses, including social distancing in offices, from 27 December. First Minister Mark Drakeford called for people to have a smaller Christmas and avoid meeting “wider circles of friends”. It comes as the UK recorded a record number of Covid cases for a second day. Announcing a two-phased plan, the Welsh government said it was giving “strong guidance” for people […] - [Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson: Unfortunately, Starmer saved the day.](https://heartlandstribune.com/now-this-is-not-the-end-it-is-not-even-the-beginning-of-the-end-but-it-is-perhaps-the-beginning-end-of-boris-johnson-unfortunately-starmer-saved-the-day/): Plan B and Covid passes approved by MPs – but Boris Johnson hit by massive revolt. Boris Johnson has suffered a humiliating rebellion over measures to introduce England’s Covid Plan B, with 99 Conservative MPs rejecting plans for vaccine certificates despite surging infections and personal lobbying by the prime minister. Measures for Plan B include forcing punters to show ‘Covid passes’ – their vaccine status or a negative test – at nightclubs and crowded venues in England passed by 369 votes to 126. This was the biggest revolt of Boris Johnson’s premiership that wiped out his majority – as a Tory […] - [CPS say Anne Sacoolas to face UK court over Harry Dunn death](https://heartlandstribune.com/cps-say-anne-sacoolas-to-face-uk-court-over-harry-dunn-death/): It is doubtful there will be any extradition. Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat, is due to appear in court charged with causing death by dangerous driving, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Monday. The 44-year-old is charged with causing 19-year-old Harry Dunn’s death in August 2019 by dangerous driving. “The case will be heard at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 18 January,” the CPS said. “Anne Sacoolas has a right to a fair trial. It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice any proceedings.” “While the challenges […] - [Tory Steve Baker accuses Boris Johnson of 'creating a miserable dystopia' by implementing 'Plan B' - but Keir Starmer says 'We will vote in the public interest' Labour WILL vote for vaccine passports](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-steve-baker-accuses-boris-johnson-of-creating-a-miserable-dystopia-by-implementing-plan-b-but-keir-starmer-says-we-will-vote-in-the-public-interest-labour-will-vote-for-vaccine-pass/): Tory MP Steve Baker today accused Boris Johnson of ‘creating a miserable dystopia’ by re-imposing coronavirus restrictions as the Prime Minister braces for a massive Conservative revolt over ‘Plan B’.  Mr Baker lashed out at Mr Johnson and claimed ‘at least’ 60 Tory MPs will vote against the Government on Tuesday when they are asked to rubber-stamp the PM’s latest Covid curbs.    If such a rebellion does materialise it would be the largest suffered by Mr Johnson during his premiership.  Labour will support the Goverment However, the PM’s crackdown will almost certainly be agreed by the House of Commons after Sir Keir Starmer confirmed the […] - [WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “has suffered a stroke in prison”: The result of the establishments' unrelenting pressure in exacting its revenge on a Truthteller.](https://heartlandstribune.com/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-has-suffered-a-stroke-in-prison-the-result-of-the-establishments-unrelenting-pressure-in-extracting-its-revenge-on-a-truth-teller/): Doctors confirm Julian Assange suffered a stroke on the morning of his latest hearing. While Amnesty called this weeks ruling reversing a decision to refuse extradition a “travesty of Justice” the public are just beginning to learn the stress placed upon the whistleblower over the last decade. Assange is facing 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act for encouraging former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into defence systems. Manning passed more than half a million secret diplomatic and military cables to Assange who published them on the WikiLeaks website. The WikiLeaks publisher, now 50, is being held on remand in […] - [Met Police threatened with legal action over failure to investigate No10 Christmas party](https://heartlandstribune.com/met-police-threatened-with-legal-action-over-failure-to-investigate-no10-christmas-party/): Why should they be subject to different rules to the rest of us? The Good Law Project has written to the Metropolitan Police asking it to justify its failure to investigate reports of an unlawful party being held at No 10 Downing Street. The Metropolitan Police has been threatened with legal action for its refusal to investigate the alleged Downing Street Christmas parties. Earlier this week Scotland Yard said it would not probe the gathering in Number 10 in December last year due to a lack of evidence. The Metropolitan Police has said it does not “routinely investigate retrospective breaches” of […] - [Julian Assange to be extradited to the US: This is not justice this is an attack against fundamentals of press freedom and democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-to-be-extradited-to-the-us-this-is-not-justice-this-is-an-attack-against-fundamentals-of-press-freedom-and-democracy/): Julian Assange’s finance, Stella Moris, has indicated that the decision will be appealed and described the ruling goes against “fundamentals of press freedom and democracy”. The High Court has reversed a decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US, where he is wanted for publishing classified documents. Assange, 50, is wanted in the US on allegations of a conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information. Charges were immediately seen as a grave threat to press freedom given that they stemmed from Assange’s publication of classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes. Julian Assange is regarded by many as a […] - [#FreeAssangeNow: Demands to 'Free Assange Now' Surge Ahead of UK court Ruling on US Extradition](https://heartlandstribune.com/freeassangenow-demands-to-free-assange-now-surge-ahead-of-uk-court-ruling-on-us-extradition/): Julian Assange to find out whether High Court will overturn a decision not to extradite him to the US. The High court is set to rule Friday on whether WikiLeaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States, an impending decision that led press freedom advocates and human rights campaigners to redouble their calls for his immediate release. Assange, 50, is wanted in the US on allegations of a conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information. Charges that were immediately seen as a grave threat to press freedom given that they stemmed from Assange’s publication of […] - [A 'raucous' Christmas Party had by the few while the many sat home under Tier 2 restrictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-raucous-christmas-party-had-by-the-few-while-the-many-sat-home-under-tier-2-restrictions/): Tories admit having another Christmas party during Covid restrictions last December The Tories admitted an ‘unauthorised social gathering ‘ took place in the party’s Westminster headquarters on December 14th while the capital was under Tier 2 restrictions Boris Johnson was facing further questions as it emerged Conservative aides threw a separate party during Covid-19 coronavirus restrictions last December, as the fallout over the alleged rule-breaking Christmas bash in Downing Street continued. The Tories admitted an event organised by Shaun Bailey’s mayoral campaign took place in the party’s Westminster headquarters on December 14th while the capital was under Tier 2 restrictions. According […] - [Newsnight footage reappears featuring Allegra Stratton misrepresenting a Young mother as "benefit scrounger".](https://heartlandstribune.com/newsnight-footage-reappears-featuring-allegra-stratton-misrepresenting-a-young-mother-as-benefit-scrounger/): Allegra Stratton has now stepped down as the government’s spokesperson for the Cop26 climate summit after footage emerged of her joking about a party at Downing Street during the peak of lockdown rules in December last year. In a video recording of what is reported to be a rehearsal for a TV media briefing, Allegra Stratton and senior Number 10 aides were filmed talking and laughing about a Christmas party. They also jokingly referred to a “business meeting” and a “cheese and wine” event. The footage, obtained by ITV News, is said to be from 22 December last year – four days after […] - [Allegra Stratton resigns after No 10 Christmas party video](https://heartlandstribune.com/allegra-stratton-resigns-after-no-10-christmas-party-video/): Still no admittance on a Party happening. Allegra Stratton has stepped down as the government’s spokesperson for the Cop26 climate summit after footage emerged of her joking about a party at Downing Street during the peak of lockdown rules in December last year. In a video recording of what is reported to be a rehearsal for a TV media briefing, Allegra Stratton and senior Number 10 aides were filmed talking and laughing about a Christmas party. They also jokingly referred to a “business meeting” and a “cheese and wine” event. The footage, obtained by ITV News, is said to be from 22 December […] - [No 10 Lockdown Christmas Parties are just one big laugh and it's at our expense.](https://heartlandstribune.com/lockdown-christmas-parties-are-just-one-big-laugh-and-its-at-our-expense/): Boris Johnson is facing a furious backlash after footage emerged of Number 10 officials joking and laughing about a Christmas party in Downing Street last year during a time of strict COVID restrictions. In a video recording of what is reported to be a rehearsal for a TV media briefing, senior Number 10 aides were filmed talking and laughing about a Christmas party. They also jokingly referred to a “business meeting” and a “cheese and wine” event. The footage, obtained by ITV News, is said to be from 22 December last year – four days after an alleged Christmas party took […] - [Pfizer and Moderna Investors Became £8 Billion Richer After Omicron Emerged](https://heartlandstribune.com/pfizer-and-moderna-investors-became-8-billion-richer-after-omicron-emerged/): Coronavirus has brought us pain, death and misery as well as the biggest transference of public money ever pumped into private hands. Top shareholders at Pfizer and Moderna made more than £7.8billion ($10billion) in stocks growth in the week after the discovery of Omicron. In the first week that the Omicron variant sparked global fears of a new wave of infections, a small handful of investors and executives with Pfizer and Moderna—currently the world’s preeminent makers of Covid-19 vaccines—saw over £8 Billion in new wealth, with the Moderna’s CEO alone adding over £800 million to his personal fortune. Shares in the pharmaceutical […] - [Keir Starmer isn’t doing enough to fight for democracy and defend it from Tory attempts to weaken it](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-isnt-doing-enough-to-fight-for-democracy-and-defend-it-from-tory-attempts-to-weaken-it/): This letter was first published in the Independent. Those of us who believe in a free and fair politics must stand up and be counted wherever we see an affront to democratic norms. That’s why I left Labour’s front bench. Last week I left my role championing democracy in the shadow cabinet. But not because I have any less passion and fire for democracy. In fact, having spent five years in the post after being appointed by Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 I am even more wedded to the cause of creating a true democracy where everyone’s voice counts – both in society at […] - [Labour's civil war opens a new front as Angela Rayner aide suspended](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-civil-war-opens-a-new-front-as-angela-rayner-aide-suspended/): By now people are very used to the attacks on Left-wing members of the Labour party, predominantly those that express socialist values or have shown support for Jeremy Corbyn. We have also witnessed the ostracisation of the Bennites, LeFT supporters and traditional Labour voters in our Red wall areas for practising their democratic right in voting ‘not’ to belong to a neoliberal EU, a position taken up by more than 33 percent of Labour members at the time, yet one that as witnessed banishment from social media groups and venomous attacks from the centrist supporting Liberal elite. Lately, there have been purges […] - [Labour MP says no solidarity from Sir Keir Starmer after Islamophobic abuse](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-says-no-solidarity-from-sir-keir-starmer-after-islamophobic-abuse/): Zarah Sultana MP for Coventry South has revealed in a frank interview the extent of racism and Islamophobia that she has experienced since her election. She says the effect on her mental health has been worrying. MP Zarah Sultana has slammed Labour Party leader Keir Starmer for his handling of Islamophobia in an emotional interview. Sultana who is Labour MP for Coventry South was elected to parliament for the first time in 2019, aged just 26. Reflecting on the barrage of anti-Muslim bigotry she and other Muslim MPs have been subjected to in recent years, Sultana told Novara Media earlier this week: “I find it […] - [Democracy loses, Apathy the big winner as Tories hold safe London seat Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election.](https://heartlandstribune.com/democracy-loses-apathy-the-big-winner-as-tories-hold-safe-london-seat-old-bexley-and-sidcup-by-election/): The Conservatives have held the safe suburban London seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in a by-election Their candidate, local councillor Louie French, won more than half the votes, with Labour’s Daniel Francis second. Mr French paid tribute to the area’s former MP, James Brokenshire, whose death from cancer in October triggered the contest. The Tories’ majority has been cut from nearly 19,000 to 4,478, with a 10% swing to Labour. Reform UK – formerly the Brexit Party – came third with 6.6% of the vote, with the party’s leader and candidate Richard Tice describing it as a “massive result”. The […] - [Unite to cut funds to Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/unite-to-cut-funds-to-labour-party/): Labour’s biggest union donor is set to cut funding for the party Sharon Graham the Union leader said more needed to be done for workers. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said that Unite would still pay £1 million in affiliation fees to Labour. But Ms Graham, who took over from Len McCluskey in August, said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that “there’s a lot of other money that we use from our political fund where, actually, I’m not sure we’re getting the best value for it”. When she took on the role after replacing Len McCluskey in August, Ms […] - [Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives farewell military honours at 'Grand Tattoo'](https://heartlandstribune.com/outgoing-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-receives-farewell-military-honors-at-grand-tattoo/): Germany’s Merkel at farewell ceremony: Don’t tolerate hate. Angela Merkel is a German politician who has been serving as the chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. A member of the CDU, Merkel is the first female chancellor of Germany. During her tenure as Chancellor, Merkel has been frequently referred to as the de facto leader of the European Union and the most powerful woman in the world. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany the Party is […] - [Boris Johnson refuses THREE times to deny No10 had a 'boozy party' during lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-refuses-three-times-to-deny-no10-had-a-boozy-party-during-lockdown/): Boris Johnson is under pressure to explain why No 10 staff seemingly held two parties during lockdown last winter as insiders said the prime minister attended one gathering and remarked on how packed it was. A Downing Street insider claimed there were often get-togethers in the evenings while millions of people across the land were observing the strict curbs brought in by the prime minister. Witnesses have come forward to detail party games and festivities beyond midnight in Downing Street during the winter 2020 lockdown, expanding on reports first made in the Daily Mirror. The source said: “It was the only […] - [Covid: Incoming chancellor Scholz wants mandatory vaccinations headed by the military](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-incoming-chancellor-scholz-wants-mandatory-vaccinations-headed-by-the-military/): Germany could make coronavirus vaccines mandatory as early as February or March 2022, according to chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz. But he insisted that the issue would be decided in parliament. As Germany faces record-breaking infection numbers and fears of the omicron variant abound, Angela Merkel’s designated successor Olaf Scholz is calling for a general vaccine mandate. Talking to Germany’s Bild television on Tuesday, the chancellor-in-waiting said he would like to see mandatory vaccinations “not too far away in the future, so I suggest beginning of February or March.” At the same time, he said that the decision would be made in the parliament, and that it would be a “matter of […] - [Omicron variant puts 'Booster campaign on steroids' - government](https://heartlandstribune.com/omicron-variant-puts-booster-campaign-on-steroids-government/): The government plans to offer booster vaccines to everyone over the age of 18 by the end of January, Boris Johnson has said. Speaking at a Downing Street news briefing on Tuesday, the PM said the rollout of booster programme will go in age order, and that there will be more than 1,500 community pharmacy sites in England offering the jabs. Mr Johnson said “temporary vaccine centres will be popping up like Christmas trees”, adding that some 400 military personnel and the “jabs army of volunteers” will also help with the rollout. Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced the daily number of jabs has risen by a third […] - [Labour Reshuffle: Sir Keir Starmer still rearranging the deck chairs on his sinking ship while blindsiding his deputy leader](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-reshuffle-sir-keir-starmer-still-rearranging-the-deck-chairs-on-his-sinking-ship-while-blindsiding-his-deputy-leader/): Sir Keir Starmer second Labour reshuffle in six months – ‘blindsiding’ his deputy Angela Rayner. Labour kicked off this week with a much needed attack on the Tories, Angela Rayner gave the Tories both barrels over corruption, one shot directly at Boris Johnson while the other laid square into the Tory party itself. The media should have carried the headlines all day pointing out how public money has been used to fund Tory family, friends and donors, not in thousands, not even hundreds of thousands or eye-watering millions but billions in our money, gone without a trace, (£37 billion on track […] - [The Dirty War on the NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-dirty-war-on-the-nhs/): The Dirty War on the NHS was first broadcast in Britain on the ITV Network on 17 December 2019. It was shown following the general election that saw Boris Johnson become prime minister – even though the future of the NHS was a major issue in the campaign, the Tories constantly denied further opening up of the NHS to privatisation and the American private health care system with big Pharma digging into the billions the public fund the NHS with. The remarkable prescience of the film became clear when the COVID pandemic struck, and the NHS, crippled by bed shortages, the […] - [Tories quietly introduce liberty stripping laws that could jail protesters for a year](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-quietly-introduce-liberty-striping-laws-that-could-jail-protesters-for-a-year/): Tory ministers have been blasted for trying to pass “outrageous” new anti-protest laws at a late stage of a Bill. Priti Patel’s Home Office was accused of a “naked attack on civil liberties” over measures proposed in a midnight Lords debate. Courts would get powers to impose “prevention orders” on protesters’ future behaviour, even if they’re not convicted of a crime. And the police would get sweeping new powers to stop and search protesters, even without suspicion a crime was committed. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, police can use this power if they have “reasonable grounds for suspecting” someone […] - [Members of Resist vote in favour of forming a political Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/members-of-resist-vote-in-favour-of-forming-a-political-party/): Members of Resist have voted in favour of registering as a political party. Resist have been building steadily over the last 20 months despite the setback of the pandemic disrupting its initial momentum. It has become one of the many Left wing organisations filling the vacuum created by disillusioned Labour Party members and supporters. Earlier this year Resist was proscribed by the Labour Party along with Labour against the witchhunt, Labour In Exile and Socialist Appeal. Once the political arm of the working class and Unions the Labour Party is now seen as a hostile environment for Socialist and Left wing […] - [More than 27 dead after migrant boat sinks in English Channel, French police say](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-than-27-dead-after-migrant-boat-sinks-in-english-channel-french-police-say/): More than 27 migrants died Wednesday crossing the Channel from France to England when their boat sank off the northern port of Calais, authorities said, the deadliest single disaster on the intensively-used route. At least 27 migrants have died after a boat sank off the coast of Calais on Wednesday, French police have told AFP news agency. Fishermen initially reported discovering 15 bodies floating in the water at around 2:00 pm. A French navy vessel recovered five dead bodies and five other people unconscious. The provisional death toll was later increased to 27. It comes as record numbers of migrants have […] - [Virginity testing: MPs back ban on 'indefensible' practice](https://heartlandstribune.com/virginity-testing-mps-back-ban-on-indefensible-practice/): MPs have backed a ban on virginity testing in England, after the government called it “indefensible”. Anyone helping girls or women get the tests, which includes an intrusive vaginal examination, could face up to five years in prison. Health Minister Edward Argar told the House of Commons the practice was “repressive” and caused “long-term physical and psychological damage”. The intrusive tests are considered a violation of human rights by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations, which want to see them banned. Critics say they are unscientific, cannot prove whether someone is a virgin and can be a form of […] - [Tory care 'con' will cost poor and north more](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-care-con-will-cost-poor-and-north-more/): Ministers have pushed through an amendment to England’s social care plans, which is set to disproportionately hit poorer pensioners, despite a backbench rebellion. MPs voted the “con” reform in with a 26 majority, 272 in favour and 246 against the new clause 49 that has been added to the Health and Care Bill. The architect of the care cap, Sir Andrew Dilnot, said the change will leave some poorer pensioners facing “catastrophic” costs. He told MPs six in 10 elderly people needing residential care will be less well-off than expected. The Prime Minister added detail into his cap on care costs that will affect those […] - [The Cock Crowed: 5 times Starmer declines to say if Corbyn would've been a 'better PM' than Johnson, let's remember it was Starmer's Brexit policy that lost the GE in 2019](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-cock-crowed-5-times-starmer-declines-to-say-if-corbyn-wouldve-been-a-better-pm-than-johnson-lets-remember-it-was-starmers-brexit-policy-that-lost-the-ge-in-2019/): There has never been a Labour Leader so betrayed by those who rode his shirt tales as Corbyn. Ironically after campaigning so much to stop HS2, Sir Keir Starmer is now attacking the Tories as the Government confirms that the Leeds leg of HS2 will be scrapped. By now we are all used to Sir Keir Starmer flipping on his promises, from the ten pledges he made during his Leadership contest to public ownership, or reversing support for £15 an hour down to £10. Not forgetting, instead of abolishing the House of Lords, he’s now calling for change, a little tinkling. […] - [Free as a Bird: Expelled Jewish Labour Councillor says I'm now free from the Labour Party's hostile environment.](https://heartlandstribune.com/free-as-a-bird-expelled-jewish-labour-counsellor-says-im-now-free-from-the-labour-partys-hostile-environment/): Jo Bird expelled from Starmer’s Labour and its hostile environment. On Friday afternoon Jo Bird used Facebook to announce she had been expelled from the Labour Party, stating: “I’m delighted to say that the Labour Party have expelled me today. They say it’s for speaking at a meeting (more than three years ago) and signing a petition (early 2020) – organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt, which they banned only 4 months ago. I’m now free from the Labour Party’s hostile environment, where Jewish people like me are 31 times more likely to be investigated for talking about the racism we […] - [Two wounded as Dutch police fire shots at protest over new COVID-19 restrictions](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-wounded-as-dutch-police-fire-shots-at-protest-over-new-covid-19-restrictions/): Crowds of protesters in the port city of Rotterdam torched cars and threw rocks at police who responded with shots and water cannon, as protests against COVID-19 measures turned violent on Friday night. Police said they fired warning shots in Rotterdam, injuring some people, as protesters gather to contest new restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19. Rotterdam’s police said there were “injuries related to the fired shots” but did not specify how many people were injured and whether anyone was seriously hurt. The demonstration started around 8:00pm and “resulted in riots,” police said in a statement. “Fires have been set […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: It's Definitely Me, They Fear.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-its-definitely-you-they-fear/): One Year In Exile and no sign of readmittance. It has been one year since Sir Keir Starmer removed the whip from Jeremy Corbyn. There have been many protests and petitions to have Jeremy Corbyn the former Leader reinstated. At this point, it must be clear Starmer has no intentions of bringing his old boss back into the fold. The establishment would never allow a populist leader that promised the people public ownership, the removal of the unelected House of Lords and the start of a more equal, just society, well not one that meant it and would deliver on his […] - [The Climate Crisis Is a Human Rights Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-climate-crisis-is-a-human-rights-crisis/): Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is driven largely by criminal networks that use violence and intimidation against those who try to stop them, and the government is failing to protect the rainforest’s defenders. This statement was originally published on hrw.org on 17 September 2019. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is driven largely by criminal networks that use violence and intimidation against those who try to stop them, and the government is failing to protect both the defenders and the rainforest itself, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 165-page report, “Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon forest Mafias,” documents […] - [Boris Johnson bows to public outrage at Tory sleaze on sleaze](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-bows-to-public-outrage-at-tory-sleaze-on-mps-second-jobs/): Johnson’s proposals takes the wind out of Starmer’s sails but offers no substance. Boris Johnson has set out plans to stop MPs from working as paid consultants, ahead of a Commons debate on banning some second jobs. The surprise announcement came just moments before Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer briefed reporters on his party’s own plans to ban MPs’ outside employment. Sir Keir Starmer announced his own proposals which would see all second jobs banned unless the roles were in “public service” or were for professions requiring registration. For many, even that doesn’t go far enough, being an MP is a […] - [Two women accuse PM's father, Stanley Johnson of inappropriate touching.](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-women-accuse-pms-father-stanley-johnson-of-inappropriate-touching/): Stanley Johnson, the former MEP and father of the prime minister, has been accused of inappropriate touching two women The two women, including a Conservative MP, have accused the prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, of touching them inappropriately. Caroline Nokes told Sky News that Mr Johnson had smacked her “on the backside about as hard as he could” at the Tory Party conference in 2003. And political correspondent Ailbhe Rea has accused Mr Johnson of groping her at the 2019 Conservative conference. Ms Nokes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North since 2010, was the Conservative candidate when incident allegedly happened at […] - [On Another Planet: Out of touch Labour frontbencher, Jonathan Ashworth apologises for sending condolences to Liverpool suicide bomber's family saying he thought a member of the public had died instead.](https://heartlandstribune.com/on-another-planet-out-of-touch-labour-frontbencher-jonathan-ashworth-apologises-for-sending-condolences-to-liverpool-suicide-bombers-family-saying-he-thought-a-member-of-the-public-had-died-instead/): Jonathan Ashworth sparked fury as he offered ‘condolences’ to the family of the Liverpool suicide bomber. The Shadow Health Secretary spoke to Sky News on Monday expressing shock at the explosion which took place outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital just before 11am on Sunday. But then goes on offering his “condolences” to the family of the Liverpool taxi suicide bomber. ‘Absolutely shocking that that would happen anywhere, but particularly outside a women’s maternity hospital,’ he told the broadcaster. ‘Obviously, we pay our respects and send our condolences to the family of the man who lost his life. I just want to thank […] - [Liverpool Women's Hospital: Taxi explosion declared a terror incident](https://heartlandstribune.com/liverpool-womens-hospital-taxi-explosion-declared-a-terror-incident/): An explosion outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday has been declared a terror incident by police. A taxi exploded and was engulfed in flames just before 11:00 GMT at a drop-off zone near the entrance, killing the passenger and injuring the driver. The cabbie, named locally as David Perry, was declared a hero by Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson for locking the suspect inside the vehicle. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Liverpool mayor Joanne Anderson also praised his actions. “The taxi driver, in his heroic efforts, has managed to divert what could have been an absolutely awful disaster at […] - [Suspected terror attack: One dead after taxi explosion at Liverpool Women's Hospital](https://heartlandstribune.com/suspected-terror-attack-one-dead-after-taxi-explosion-at-liverpool-womens-hospital/): The blast outside the women’s hospital left one person dead and one injured. Three men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act following a taxi explosion at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Greater Manchester Police said: “Officers in Merseyside have arrested three men – aged 29, 26 & 21 – in the Kensington area of Liverpool under the Terrorism Act. Armed police had been seen on Boaler Street, Molyneux Road, Cambria Street South and Sutcliffe Street earlier today as Merseyside Police closed off the road. The investigation is now being led by Counter Terrorism Police North West, based within Greater Manchester Police. “Counter […] - [Nothing to choose between them, a right pair of Barristers: Starmer caught out in second job lies](https://heartlandstribune.com/nothing-to-choose-between-them-a-right-pair-of-barristers-starmer-caught-out-in-second-job-lies/): When Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was challenged by Sky news Sam Coates no one expected packed within a 45-second clip there could be so many mistruths and lies. It should have been a no brainer for the Labour Party, an open goal, with Sir Geoffrey Cox, and his second job, sunning it up on the British Virgin Islands making just under a cool million. Instead, Sir Keir Starmer flapped at the mention of Mishcon de Reya and the role he was offered advising the Mishcon Academy in 2017. Speaking to Sky News, Starmer said: “Many, many years ago, back I […] - [COP26: No Surprise, World Leaders Have Let Us All Down.](https://heartlandstribune.com/cop26-no-surprise-world-leaders-have-let-us-all-down/): Activists Slam ‘Weasel Words’ in New COP26 Text as Negotiators Water Down Climate Deal A new draft of the COP26 cover deal released on Friday appeared to be backing away from a call to end all use of coal and phase out fossil fuel subsidies completely. The latest draft proposal from the meeting’s chair calls on countries to accelerate “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.” A previous version published on Wednesday had called on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel.” The change in wording suggested a shift […] - [It's a racket: From claiming rents while letting or profits from selling taxpayer funded second homes to employing family members, MPs are having a laugh](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-a-racket-from-claiming-rents-while-letting-or-profits-from-selling-taxpayer-funded-second-homes-to-employing-family-members-mps-are-having-a-laugh/): MPs have claimed £1.3m in rent from taxpayers while letting out properties they own in London. Over the past five years, 17 MPs have claimed over £1.3m in taxpayer-funded rent while collecting thousands rent letting out properties in the capital, according to submissions published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). Of the 17 landlord MPs 15 are Conservatives and two Labour all 17 have put their housing costs on expenses while earning more than £10,000 a year each renting out their own properties in recent years. This has given MPs and ministers a comfortable side income of at least £10,000 a year, while they use […] - [Boris Johnson says MPs must put their constituents first but defended MPs holding second jobs.](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-says-mps-must-put-their-constituents-first-but-defended-mps-holding-second-jobs/): Speaking at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the prime minister said he did not want to comment on individual cases. But he added it is “crucial” MPs follow the rules, and said parliamentarians should “put your job as an MP first and devote yourself primarily to your constituents”. However, Boris Johnson defended MPs holding second jobs as they bring ‘experience’ but said that they must ‘of course’ face sanctions if they do not follow the rules regarding them. Mr Johnson said for “hundreds of years” MPs have also had other jobs and he thinks that has strengthened the UK’s democracy because […] - [If 'stupidity and greed' is the greatest threat to humans what chance have we with both traits in great abundance within the Palace of Westminster?](https://heartlandstribune.com/if-stupidity-and-greed-is-the-greatest-threat-to-humans-what-chance-have-we-with-both-traits-in-great-abundance-within-the-palace-of-westminster/): Stephen Hawking once made a terrifying prediction, claiming ‘Stupidity and greed will kill off humans’ It is that stupidity and greed, we see reflected in the politicians of today. Forget artificial intelligence and nuclear war, Professor Stephen Hawking sensationally warned it will be humans’ stupidity and greed that will usher in the end of time. In 2016 Hawking was reminiscing with US TV legend Larry King about an interview the two held six years previously in which Prof Hawking lamented the population growth and said that people need to be more careful. Professor Hawking said: “Six years ago, I was warning […] - [There's no justification for top Tory in Tax heaven sunshine second job earning £900,000](https://heartlandstribune.com/theres-no-justification-for-top-tory-in-tax-heaven-sunshine-second-job-earning-900000/): Top Tory Geoffrey Cox, the government’s former attorney general, is thought to have earned nearly £1 million from his second job in the British Virgin Islands. The QC earned £900,000 in the past year working for law firm Withers, representing the tax haven’s government in an inquiry into governance and possible corruption. He also earned around £130,000 from other legal work on top of his £82,000 MPs’ salary. The MP is understood to have spent some of April and May in the tropical region – with his register of interests showing that he earned £156,916.08 for 140 hours’ work between April […] - [Sir Keir Starmer Breaks Pledge to Abolish House of Lords](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-breaks-pledge-to-abolish-house-of-lords/): Sir Keir Starmer has refused to commit to his leadership election pledge to abolish the House of Lords. In his usual weasley worded fashion, much favoured by the barrister he is, Sir Keir Starmer moved from his pledge made in his Leadership election campaign to abolish the hose of Lords to now. reviewing and changing that undemocratic house. Asked on Sunday whether he stood by the promise made in 2019, the Labour leader would only say the institution “needs change”. But during his leadership campaign, Sir Keir Starmer made 10 pledges – including a commitment to “abolish the House of Lords” […] - [More financial woes for Labour has Union votes to suspend donations outside of affiliation fees](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-financial-woes-for-labour-has-union-votes-to-suspend-donations-outside-of-affiliation-fees/): The Communication Workers Union has voted to suspend any donations outside of its affiliation fees to the national Labour Party. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) decided at a special conference to ensure additional funding outside of nominal affiliation fees would instead go to specific Labour candidates. Funds will also be given to campaigns that support the CWU’s industrial and political aims, and to support the selection and election of such candidates. CWU general secretary Dave Ward said he opposed disaffiliation from Labour but called for a new relationship. He said: “The decision taken by conference today allows the CWU […] - [Jacob Rees-Mogg Should Resign Over Sleaze Row](https://heartlandstribune.com/jacob-rees-mogg-should-resign-over-sleaze-row/): The backlash from this week’s attempt to corrupt and pervert the parliamentary process escalates. Following Owen Paterson being found guilty of breaking the code of conduct rules, of which he was found to have “breached the rules prohibiting paid advocacy” the outrage continues to revibrate through the halls of Westminster. As the leader of the house, it is Jacob Rees-Mogg who must pay the price for that attempt at parliamentary corruption. On October 26, at the end of an investigation started in 2019, the Commons standards committee, a group of cross-party of MPs and “lay members” assigned to investigate the standards […] - [Why Julian Assange’s inhumane prosecution imperils justice for us all](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-julian-assanges-inhumane-prosecution-imperils-justice-for-us-all/): John Pilger writes about how Julian Assange is a truth-teller who has committed no crime but revealed government crimes and lies on a vast scale and so performed one of the great public services of our time November 02, 2021 by John Pilger Julian Assange’s plea to revoke new restrictions imposed on him by the Ecuadorian embassy was rejected, sparking fear over the fate of his asylum. (Photo: news online/Flickr) When I first saw Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison, in 2019, shortly after he had been dragged from his refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy, he said, “I think I am losing […] - [Claudia Webbe: MP convicted of harassment gets suspended sentence](https://heartlandstribune.com/claudia-webbe-mp-convicted-of-harassment-gets-suspended-sentence/): Claudia Webbe, a former Labour MP for Leicester East who is now independent, was convicted of one charge of harassment last month. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard she made several calls over two years while it was claimed she threatened the woman with acid. Webbe was handed a 10-week sentence, suspended for two years, on Thursday. The 56-year-old made 16 calls to Michelle Merritt, a long-term friend of Webbe’s partner Lester Thomas, between September 2018 and April last year in a campaign of harassment borne out of jealousy, the court heard. The court was told on one occasion she made an “angry” call, […] - [Owen Paterson 'RESIGNS as MP' after creating Tory sleaze scandal, he blames 'the cruel world of politics'](https://heartlandstribune.com/owen-paterson-resigns-as-mp-after-creating-tory-sleaze-scandal-he-blames-the-cruel-world-of-politics/): Owen Paterson has resigned as an MP and spoken out against what he calls “the cruel world of politics” Just one day after Parliament controversially voted to lift his 30-day suspension. A suspension brought about after the former Tory cabinet minister was found to have breached guidelines by lobbying on behalf of companies paying him more than £100,000. Mr Paterson, MP for North Shropshire, earlier vigorously defended himself in the face of criticism of the vote in the House of Commons, which saw MPs back a Tory amendment calling for a review of Mr Paterson’s case, by 250 votes to 232. […] - [Tories vote to block fellow MP Owen Paterson’s suspension: It’s a corrupt system, what did you expect?](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-vote-to-block-fellow-mp-owen-patersons-suspension-its-a-corrupt-system-what-did-you-expect/): Conservative Owen Paterson escapes punishment for now as the government orders its MPs to back a review of standards investigations. MPs have voted to rip up standards rules to block the suspension of a Tory MP who was found to have used his position to lobby for two private companies. Ex-Environment Secretary Owen Paterson had been facing a 30-day suspension from the Commons after the Standards Committee found he repeatedly used his position as an MP to promote two companies that paid him a combined £112,000 a year breaching lobbying rules. But Conservative colleagues have backed an amendment that will instead […] - [‘Pivotal Moment’ as Facebook Ditches ‘Dangerous’ Facial Recognition System](https://heartlandstribune.com/pivotal-moment-as-facebook-ditches-dangerous-facial-recognition-system/): “We cannot trust governments, law enforcement, or private companies with this kind of invasive surveillance,” stressed one digital rights campaigner. Digital rights advocates on Tuesday welcomed Facebook’s announcement that it plans to jettison its facial recognition system, which critics contend is dangerous and often inaccurate technology abused by governments and corporations to violate people’s privacy and other rights. “Corporate use of face surveillance is very dangerous to people’s privacy.” Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who last month called facial recognition technology “a special menace to privacy, racial justice, free expression, and information security,” commended the new Facebook […] - [National Trust members vote to ban trail hunts on its land](https://heartlandstribune.com/national-trust-members-vote-to-ban-trail-hunts-on-its-land/): National Trust members vote to ban trail hunting amid concerns it is a ‘cover’ for hunting with dogs. The Hunting Act 2004 banned using dogs to chase or kill foxes. Trail hunting is supposed to simulate the traditional hunt without the kill by laying an artificial scent for riders. Members supported a motion not to allow the activity on trust land, with those who proposed it stating that “overwhelming evidence leads to the conclusion that ‘trail hunting’ is a cover for hunting with dogs”. A total of 76,816 votes were cast to ban trail hunts on trust land, with 38,184 against […] - [EU Parliament sues EU Commission for failing to hold members accountable over rule of law](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-parliament-sues-eu-commission-for-failing-to-hold-members-accountable-over-rule-of-law/): Trouble in paradise… The European Parliament on Friday launched a lawsuit against the European Commission over what it perceives to be a lacklustre attitude in applying a mechanism linking EU funds to rule of law breaches among member states. “As requested in parliamentary resolutions, our legal service has brought an action against the European Commission for failure to apply the Conditionality Regulation to the Court of Justice today (Friday),” parliamentary speaker David Sassoli said in a statement. The lawsuit was submitted on Friday by the Parliament’s legal service before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), based in Luxembourg. “We expect the European Commission to act […] - [Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner: Apologises 'unreservedly' for calling Tories 'scum'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-deputy-leader-angela-rayner-apologises-unreservedly-for-calling-tories-scum/): Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has apologised “unreservedly” for calling Toriess “scum” during her party’s conference in Brighton last month. Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner says she would not use the same language again having “reflected” in recent weeks on “our political debate and the threats and abuse”. Ms Rayner said she had “reflected” on the tone of political debate in the wake of the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess and would no longer use such language. The apology came as two men were arrested and another was charged and pleaded guilty in relation to alleged threatening and abusive […] - [Feed the Rich Starve the Poor: Tory Budgets never change.](https://heartlandstribune.com/feed-the-rich-starve-the-poor-tory-budgets-never-change/): Banks are up the working poor are down. Rishi Sunak has unveiled his Budget with the fanfare of a Chancellor with money to burn. The chancellor painted a positive picture of the health of the UK economy as it emerges from the pandemic, in his autumn statement to a packed House of Commons. He claimed he’ll be pumping £150billion into the economy by 2025 as the UK recovers from the Covid pandemic. It is distressing but not all that surprising to see the main priority for the former investment banker and hedge fund manager, Chancellor Sunak, was to feed the fat […] - [Sir Keir Starmer tests positive for Covid missing both PMQs and the Budget](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-tests-positive-for-covid-missing-both-pmqs-and-the-budget/): Former leader Ed Miliband stood in for Starmer at prime minister’s questions Sir Keir Starmer has tested positive for Covid-19 — just hours before he was due to face Boris Johnson at prime minister’s questions. The Labour leader has had to self-isolate four times previously since the pandemic began, with the last time being in July after one of his children tested positive although he tested negative. It is understood Starmer tested positive on a routine lateral flow test and is not feeling unwell. He was pictured earlier on Wednesday in Westminster with Reeves and the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Bridget Phillipson. Labour sources […] - [Bribery vs. Lobbying What's the Difference: Ex-minister Owen Paterson "repeatedly" used his position as an MP to benefit two companies who paid him as a consultant.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bribery-vs-lobbying-whats-the-difference-ex-minister-owen-paterson-repeatedly-used-his-position-as-an-mp-to-benefit-two-companies-who-paid-him-as-a-consultant/): Ex-minister Owen Paterson could be suspended from the Commons for 30 days after an MPs’ watchdog found he had “repeatedly” used his position as an MP to benefit two companies who paid him as a consultant. Owen Paterson former Conservative minister should be suspended from the Commons for lobbying on behalf of two companies, a standards body has ruled. Owen Paterson was found to have “repeatedly used his privileged position” to benefit Randox, a clinical diagnostics company, and Lynn’s Country Foods, a meat processor and distributor. The MP, who was environment secretary from 2012 to 2014, was a paid consultant for […] - [The Path to a Livable Future or will rich corporations trash the planet?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-path-to-a-livable-future-or-will-rich-corporations-trash-the-planet/): BY NOAM CHOMSKY AND STAN COX. SOURCE TomDispatch This month will mark a critical juncture in the struggle to avoid climate catastrophe. At the COP26 global climate summit kicking off next week in Glasgow, Scotland, negotiators will be faced with the urgent need to get the world economy off the business-as-usual track that will take the Earth up to and beyond 3 degrees Celsius of excess heating before this century’s end, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet so far, the pledges of rich nations to cut greenhouse-gas emissions have been far too weak to rein in the temperature rise. Meanwhile, […] - [Budget 2021: £9.50 Minimum wage rise, leaves Labour out of touch on their demands.](https://heartlandstribune.com/budget-2021-9-50-minimum-wage-rise-leaves-labour-out-of-touch-on-their-demands/): As the Tories announce £9.50 an hour minimum wage rise, Labour is left out of touch with members and Unions with its £10 minimum wage demand. The chancellor is set to increase the national living wage to £9.50 in Wednesday’s budget. It will rise by 6.6% from the current living wage of £8.91 per hour for those aged 23 and over, which the government says will give full-time workers an extra £1,000 a year. The national living wage is what the government has called the national minimum wage for anybody above 22-years-old since 2016. Those below that age are eligible for […] - [British Justice on Trial: Julian Assange Faces Hearing on Extradition to the U.S.](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-faces-hearing-on-extradition-to-the-u-s/): The WikiLeaks founder will appear in a London court to fight attempts by the American authorities to make him answer charges of espionage. The most senior judge in England and Wales, Ian Duncan Burnett, the judge best known for presiding over and blocking the extradition to the US of activist Lauri Love, a student accused of hacking into US government websites, will join Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde at the U.S. appeal hearing against Julian Assange this week. Burnett, known as Baron Burnett of Maldon, was the High Court justice who on humanitarian grounds overturned a lower court ruling that British activist […] - [Ricky Gervais petition to stop animal testing just reached 100k now to be considered for debate in Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/ricky-gervais-petition-to-stop-animal-testing-just-reached-100k-now-to-be-considered-for-debate-in-parliament/): Ricky Gervais and Peter Egan call out UK’s factory farm that breeds dogs for ‘painful and terrifying’ toxicity experiments The petition just hit 100,000, at which point it qualify to be considered for debate in Parliament. The Animal Welfare Act currently prevents “unnecessary suffering” to protected animals, which includes any animal looked after by humans as well as all wild animals. However, the Act doesn’t apply to animals used for “scientific or educational purposes”. Animals are currently used to test things like the development of medicine and vaccines, studying how animal and human bodies work, and to test chemicals for their possible […] - [WATCH: The Belmash Tribunal — The War on Terror on Trial](https://heartlandstribune.com/watch-the-belmash-tribunal-the-war-on-terror-on-trial/): Inspired by the Russell-Sartre Tribunal of 1966, the Belmarsh Tribunal is putting the U.S. in the dock for its War on Terror crimes. Watch the replay.  The Belmarsh Tribunal is trying the U.S. government for its crimes of the twenty-first century — from atrocities in Iraq to torture at Guantánamo Bay to a surveillance program.  Inspired by the Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre Tribunal of 1966, when representatives of 18 countries gathered to hold the U.S. accountable for its war crimes in Vietnam, the Belmarsh Tribunal will try the U.S. for its War on Terror crimes.  The Belmarsh Tribunal turns the tables in the […] - [Govt sides with the bosses blocking bill to stop fire and rehire](https://heartlandstribune.com/govt-sides-with-the-bosses-blocking-bill-to-stop-fire-and-rehire/): Government blocks bill to protect workers The government has blocked a new law to curb businesses’ ability to lay staff off and take them back on different – often worse – pay and terms. The government has today (22 October 2021) blocked an attempt to pass a law that would prevent employers from using fire and rehire tactics to bully workers into lower paid jobs. Introducing the Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill to its Second Reading in the House of Commons, Labour’s Barry Gardiner said his bill would not ban fire and rehire due to the potential […] - [Ali Harbi Ali charged with murder and terror offence over death of Tory MP Sir David Amess](https://heartlandstribune.com/ali-harbi-ali-charged-with-murder-and-terror-offence-over-death-of-tory-mp-sir-david-amess/): The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that 25-year-old Ali Harbi Ali has been charged with the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess. Ali Harbi Ali has also been charged with the preparation of terrorist acts after the MP died from “serious injuries” at the Essex church he was holding a routine constituency surgery at last Friday, Met Police assistant commissioner for special operations Matt Jukes said. Ali, from north London, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this afternoon where he was remanded in custody. He wore a grey tracksuit and thick-rimmed black glasses and smiled to his legal team as he […] - [Starmer's Labour offer no opposition to Coronavirus Act renewal.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-labour-offer-no-opposition-to-coronavirus-act-renewal/): The renewal of the Coronavirus Act was allowed to pass without a formal division as Labour offered no opposition to the bill. “We do not oppose the renewal of the Act,” Jonathan Ashworth confirmed on behalf of Labour. “The main reason we will not oppose this Act is that it statutory sick pay on day one, not day four, as used to be the case before this Act received royal assent.” But he added: “I do urge ministers to find a better way for this Act to be scrutinised.” He reminded MPs that Labour asked for a regular renewal of the […] - [Lord Janner inquiry: 'staggering' MP not arrested over abuse claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/lord-janner-inquiry-staggering-mp-not-arrested-over-abuse-claims/): A detective has said it was “staggering” an ex-MP was not arrested over allegations of child abuse. The peer, who died aged 87, is alleged to have abused children over a period spanning more than 30 years and dating back to the 1950s, with offending allegedly taking place at children’s homes and hotels. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard from David Swift-Rollinson concerning allegations against Greville Janner. He said statements from three alleged victims described “horrendous child abuse” by the former Leicester MP. Sky News reported. Mr Swift-Rollinson was a detective sergeant on Operation Dauntless, which began in […] - [Colin Powell Former US secretary of state who lied at United Nations to make the case for war with Iraq dies of Covid complications](https://heartlandstribune.com/colin-powell-former-us-secretary-of-state-who-lied-at-united-nations-to-make-the-case-for-war-with-iraq-dies-of-covid-complications/): Colin Powell: Former US secretary of state dies of Covid complications Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has died aged 84 of Covid-19 complications, his family has announced. The Republican was a former top military officer who rose to become the first African-American secretary of state in 2000 under George W Bush. Powell was a distinguished and trailblazing professional soldier whose career took him from combat duty in Vietnam to becoming the first Black national security adviser during the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the youngest and first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President […] - [Priti Patel considering removing right to anonymity on social media.](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patel-considering-removing-right-to-anonymity-on-social-media/): Social media users could face a ban on anonymous accounts, as home secretary Priti Patel steps up action to tackle radicalisation in the wake of the murder of MP Sir David Amess. Police questioning Ali Harbi Ali on suspicion of terrorism offences are understood to be investigating the possibility that the 25-year-old UK national of Somali background was radicalised by material found on the internet and social media networks during lockdown. Ali had in the past come into contact with the government’s Prevent deradicalisation programme, but was not considered a significant enough risk to come to the notice of security services. […] - [United Nations withdrawn Matt Hancock's job offer](https://heartlandstribune.com/united-nations-have-withdrawn-matt-hancocks-job-offer/): Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has had a job offer from the United Nations withdrawn. Mr Hancock tweeted earlier this week that he had been given a role helping Africa’s economy recover from Covid. This UN said Mr Hancock would bring valuable experience to the role – but it has now told him the appointment “is not being taken forward”. Leading figures across Africa and UK opposition parties had criticised the UN’s choice of the MP for the role. Hancock said on Tuesday that he was “honoured” to be working with the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to help the […] - [Fatal stabbing of MP Sir David Amess terrorist incident Met Police say.](https://heartlandstribune.com/fatal-stabbing-of-mp-sir-david-amess-terrorist-incident-met-police-say/): The killing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess has been declared a terrorist incident by police. Counter-terrorism police have formally declared the fatal stabbing of parliamentarian Sir David Amess an act of terrorism. “The early investigation has revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism,” according to a statement from Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard on Friday. The UK’s Counter-Terrorism Command will lead the investigation into the murder, police said Friday. Authorities said they believed the suspect acted alone and they are “not seeking anyone else in connection with the incident at this time. However, enquiries into the circumstances continue,” […] - [Breaking News: Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after stabbing at constituency surgery](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-news-conservative-mp-sir-david-amess-has-died-after-stabbing-at-constituency-surgery/): Sir David Amess, who represents Southend West in Essex, was attacked on Friday at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea. it is understood a man walked into his constituency surgery and stabbed him multiple times. ‘Officers were on scene shortly after, arrested a man and recovered a knife. He is currently in custody. Paramedics were called to the scene flying in on an air ambulance, they fought to save Sir Amiss life. Essex Police made a statement saying: “A man has been arrested on suspicion murder after a man was stabbed in #LeighonSea. We were called to Eastwood Road North shortly after […] - [Breaking News: Conservative MP Sir David Amess stabbed multiple times in incident at constituency surgery](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-news-conservative-mp-sir-david-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-in-incident-at-constituency-surgery/): Sir David Amess, who represents Southend West in Essex, was attacked on Friday at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea. it is understood a man walked into his constituency surgery and stabbed him multiple times. The Tory MP for Southend West, 69, was holding a surgery at the Belfairs Methodist Church, in Eastwood Road North. It is believed Mr Amess, 69, has been receiving treatment at the scene for his injuries, with a local Conservative Party source telling Sky News that an air ambulance is at the scene. His condition is unclear. My next constituency surgery will be taking place on Friday […] - [Unions win substantial pay raises for Lorry drivers.](https://heartlandstribune.com/unions-win-substantial-pay-raises-for-lorry-drivers/): Lorry drivers using the Unions to leverage pay raises and better working conditions Lorry drivers around the country have managed to negotiate higher salaries and better working conditions through the Unite trade union. DHL truck drivers at Sainsbury Dartford have secured a 6.25% pay rise; while GXO drivers have netted a 23% pay increase. Finally, Heinz drivers in Wigan will see their earnings increase by over 25%. Some drivers will even receive a 36% raise, an extra 5 days of holidays and 6 months paid sick leave. Over the last 48 hours, Unite has published several announcements about pay increases for […] - [Austerity Kills: Tory cuts in England linked to more than 50,000 extra deaths in five years](https://heartlandstribune.com/austerity-kills-tory-cuts-in-england-linked-to-more-than-50000-extra-deaths-in-five-years/): Austerity in England linked to more than 50,000 extra deaths in five years Researchers looked at 2010-2015 when Tory and Lib-Dem cuts to NHS and social care were starting to bite. Austerity cuts to the NHS, public health and social care have killed tens of thousands more people in England than expected, according to the largest study of its kind. Research by the University of York analysed the joint impact of cuts to healthcare, public health and social care since 2010 found that even in just the following four years the spending squeeze was linked with 57,550 more deaths than would […] - [Norway: Bow and arrow attack leaves several dead, say police](https://heartlandstribune.com/norway-bow-and-arrow-attack-leaves-several-dead-say-police/): Police in Norway says a man armed with a bow and arrows has killed and injured several people. The exact number of victims was not immediately announced by the police, who said the suspect had been arrested. “We can, unfortunately, confirm that there are several injured and also, unfortunately, several killed,” local police official Øyvind Aas told a news conference on Wednesday evening. “The man who committed the act has been arrested by the police and, according to our information, there is only one person involved.” Police added the motive for the attack, in Kongsberg, southeastern Norway, was still being determined. […] - [Claudia Webbe: MP found guilty of harassing partner's friend after claims she threatened to throw acid at her](https://heartlandstribune.com/claudia-webbe-mp-found-guilty-of-harassing-partners-friend-after-threatening-to-throw-acid-at-her/): “I’m not mad, I’m a member of parliament.” Allegations of an MP who threatened to throw acid at her partner’s female friend and send naked photos of her to her family has been found guilty of harassment. Claudia Webbe, 56, also made threatening phone calls to Michelle Merritt because she claimed: “We were in a national crisis and lockdown had to be adhered to strictly”. The MP was accused of threatening to send naked pictures of the 59-year-old to her family because she was jealous of Ms Merritt’s friendship with her partner Lester Thomas who Webbe remains in a relationship with. […] - [We, Google and Amazon Workers Demand Our Companies Sever Ties With The Israeli Military](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-google-and-amazon-workers-demand-our-companies-sever-ties-with-the-israeli-military/): We cannot support our employer’s decision to supply the Israeli military and government technology that is used to harm Palestinians Google workers on Tuesday condemned their employers for contributing to the surveillance and dispossession of Palestinians by selling cloud services to the Israeli military and government and urged both companies to cut ties with the oppressive regime. “We have watched Google and Amazon aggressively pursue contracts with institutions like the U.S. Department of Defense, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and state and local police departments,” wrote the “employees of conscience,” who chose to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation. “These contracts are part of a disturbing […] - [Damning: Covid report ignores bereaved relatives](https://heartlandstribune.com/damning-covid-report-ignores-bereaved-relatives/): The report predominantly focuses on the response to the pandemic in England. The committee did not look at steps taken individually by Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The findings are detailed in the report Coronavirus: Lessons learned to date from the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, which contain MPs from all parties. Across 150 pages, the report covers a variety of successes and failings. The report summary states: Covid-19 has been the biggest crisis our country has faced in generations, and the greatest peacetime challenge in a century. It has disrupted our lives to an extent few […] - [#Labourleaks have shown how low the once honest working-class Party has sunk: Report leak was whistleblowing on a corrupt regime.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labourleaks-have-shown-how-low-the-once-honest-working-class-party-has-sunk-report-leak-was-whistleblowing-on-a-corrupt-regime/): And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. George Orwell 1984 A deeply controversial internal report was leaked in April 2020 to journalists and then distributed on social media. The shocking content showed Labour’s factional war along with the toxic relationships between different groups within the Party and how vile they had become. The dossier – dated March 2020 and leaked in April 2020 – claimed some Labour Party staffers did not want Jeremy Corbyn to win the 2017 general election and actively […] - [Met Police to drop the case into alleged sex crimes of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein.](https://heartlandstribune.com/met-police-to-drop-the-case-into-alleged-sex-crimes-of-prince-andrew-and-jeffrey-epstein/): THE Met Police has dropped its investigation into Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. The Metropolitan Police said it had carried out two reviews into claims made by women that they had been allegedly abused by Andrew and Epstein but would take “no further action”. The force will be taking ‘no further action’ into the alleged sex crimes of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. Scotland Yard said after conducting two reviews and reviewing recent material into multiple claims that young women had been groomed or abused on UK soil by the royal and Epstein they would be dropping their investigation. It comes after it was revealed […] - [Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigns amid corruption allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/austrian-chancellor-sebastian-kurz-resigns-amid-corruption-allegations/): Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has announced he is stepping down after being accused of corruption. Austrian Chancellor Kurz denies claims he used government money to ensure positive coverage in a tabloid newspaper. Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly reports in the media, financed with public money. Kurz, who became the right-wing ‘The Austrian People’s Party’ leader and then chancellor in 2017. The corruption allegations relate to the period between 2016 and 2018, when finance ministry funds were […] - [Energy and food security are essential to a modern democratic country: This Tory government is failing in its duty to protect its citizens.](https://heartlandstribune.com/energy-and-food-security-are-essential-to-a-modern-democratic-country-this-tory-government-is-failing-in-its-duty-to-protect-its-citizens/): Energy prices: Steel boss says government offers no solution The natural gas market has entered uncharted territory. The movements in the price of gas on Wednesday had been, in the words of one analyst, “unprecedented since the year dot of gas liberalisation in Europe”. In record swings, Dutch wholesale gas, a European benchmark, soared by 30% within one period of three or four hours from an already eye-watering level. These are chilling numbers for European governments with winter stretching ahead, and when the EU sneezes, the UK, heavily reliant on imports from across the Channel, also catches a cold. The shortage […] - [Belgium considers four-day working week](https://heartlandstribune.com/belgium-considers-four-day-working-week/): The Belgium Federal Government is discussing a proposal to shorten a full-time working week from five to four days A proposal was tabled by the liberals, aiming to make the working week more flexible: full-time employees would still work 38 or 40 hours but spread over four days instead of five. On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Belgian economy and labour minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne said that the proposals were “currently being discussed within the Belgian federal government” as part of a broader programme of labour market reforms. The shift to a four-day working week could come with a possible announcement as […] - [Levelling up, 'DOUBLESPEAK' for Universal Credit cuts.](https://heartlandstribune.com/levelling-up-doublespeak-for-universal-credit-cuts/): Doublespeak is a language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., “downsizing” for layoffs and “servicing the target” for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning. In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. The word is comparable to George Orwell’s Newspeak and Doublethink as used in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four, though the term Doublespeak does not appear there. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language. Boris Johnson speech at The Tory Party conference echoed yet another meaningless slogan, ‘levelling […] - [Inquiry finds French clergy sexually abused over 200,000 children 'Abominable crimes'](https://heartlandstribune.com/inquiry-finds-french-clergy-sexually-abused-over-200000-children-abominable-crimes/): A commission investigating historic wrongdoing alleges thousands of Catholic priests involved in ‘systemic’ abuse. About 216,000 children are estimated to have been sexually abused by thousands of French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy since 1950, an independent inquiry has found, alleging the phenomenon was covered up by a “veil of silence”. The details made public on Tuesday are the latest to rock the Roman Catholic Church after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years. The 2,500-page document prepared by an independent commission was published on Tuesday, and documents decades of […] - [Amber Rudd Rejected Orgreave Truth and Justice Inquiry 'because it would tarnish Thatcher's memory'](https://heartlandstribune.com/amber-rudd-rejected-orgreave-truth-and-justice-inquiry-because-it-would-tarnish-thatchers-memory/): Miners and campaigners have spent three decades demanding an inquiry into police actions at the infamous battle at the height of the Miners’ Strike. Approximately 8,000 pickets faced 6,000 police officers, many mounted in what was regarded as the most violent confrontation in the year-long strike. The so-called Battle of Orgreave led to 95 people being charged with riot and violent disorders but their cases were dropped amid questions about the reliability of police evidence. Thousands of officers drafted in, to police the picketing used excessive violence – and that this was followed by the fabrication of accounts during the subsequent […] - [Hold All Politicians Accountable for Waging War, Not Just Putin](https://heartlandstribune.com/hold-all-politicians-accountable-for-waging-war-not-just-putin/): The Russian government has invaded Ukraine using the same pretext of national security that the U.S. used to invade Iraq 19 years ago in 2003. As a U.S. diplomat who resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to Bush’s war on Iraq, I hoped at the time that all Americans would not be vilified by the world for the actions of the Bush administration. As hard as it might be for some now, I plead that we not vilify the Russian people for the actions of their political leaders. I hope that we can be as generous to peace-seeking Russians as the […] - [BBC leave Russia after ‘Fake News’ ban announced](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbc-leave-russia-after-fake-news-ban-announced/): Russia fights back in information war with jail warning History stopped in 1936 – after that, there was only propaganda. -George Orwell  Russian lawmakers have approved legislation that could see people put behind bars for up to 15 years if found guilty of peddling so-called false information ‘Fake News’ in relation to the invasion of Ukraine. On Friday, the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament voted to introduce the law to heavily penalize citizens spreading fake allegations against the country’s armed forces. Lawmakers passed amendments to the criminal code making the spread of “fake” information an offence punishable with fines or jail […] - [Labour hold Birmingham Erdington with the lowest turnout in its entire 112 years of voting history.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-hold-birmingham-erdington-with-the-lowest-turnout-in-its-entire-112-years-of-voting-history/): Labour’s Paulette Hamilton has become the newest-elected MP after holding on to her party’s seat of Birmingham Erdington. The party suffered the humiliating loss of the North Shropshire byelection to the Liberal Democrats in December, after the resignation of disgraced former MP Owen Paterson, and senior Tories are concerned they could see significant losses in forthcoming local elections. The hold came about after Labour’s candidate in Erdington, local nurse Paulette Hamilton, was embroiled in controversy this week when comments emerged from 2015 when she attended a meeting called “The Ballot or the Bullet – Does Your Vote Count?” about increasing minorities’ representation in […] - [Ukraine war: NATO rejects no-fly zone as Russian nuclear plant attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-war-nato-rejects-no-fly-zone-as-russian-nuclear-plant-attack/): NATO rejects Ukraine no-fly zone, says ‘not part of this’ war NATO’s secretary general has repeated that the military alliance will not get involved on the ground in Russia’s war in Ukraine, or impose a no-fly zone. NATO allies rejected Ukraine’s demand for no-fly zones on Friday, saying they were increasing support but that stepping in directly would lead to a broader, even more brutal European war so far limited to Russia’s assault on its neighbour. “We are not part of this conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference. “We have a responsibility as NATO allies to prevent this […] - [Defending Our Democracy And Freedom Seems to Mean Censorship, Misinformation and Media Blackouts](https://heartlandstribune.com/defending-our-democracy-and-freedom-seems-to-mean-censorship-misinformation-and-media-blackouts/): I like my lies and propaganda served from both sides. “Truth,” it has been said, “is the first casualty of war.” When hostilities break out the one object of each belligerent nation is victory. “All is fair in war,” and to secure and maintain national unity in support of the war every means are taken by the respective Governments to suppress criticism . . . Philip Snowden Since the invasion of Ukraine, something very disturbing happened with western media. the banning and blocking of Russian state sponsored TV and media is unprecedented. We are all aware of propaganda, historical figures are well recorded. But […] - [MPs getting a £2200 pay rise: Who said there's no such thing as a free dinner?](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-getting-a-2200-pay-rise-who-said-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-dinner/): It’s no April fools. Next month, MPs get a £2,200 pay rise to £84,144 while the country gets a rise in national insurance, energy bills & council tax. Families have been left ‘infuriated’ at MPs’ 2.7 per cent annual pay rise next month after a watchdog declared that they have been working harder during the pandemic. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority said politicians’ salaries will go up from £81,932 to £84,144 and MPs will receive £2,212 more for the year from 1 April 2022. This comes when the masses are facing significant economic hardship one that has not been seen in […] - [Have Boris Johnson's close connections to Russian oligarchs made him a security risk](https://heartlandstribune.com/has-boris-johnsons-close-connections-to-russian-oligarchs-made-him-a-security-risk/): There have been several claims over the last 5 years by multiple sources that Boris Johnson is a security risk. Has Boris Johnson’s association with numerous Russian oligarchs along with the son of a former KGB agent made him a security risk? As far back as 2016, there were accusations of the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson being a security risk, stemming from his lifestyle and associations with Russian oligarchs. In October 2016, Boris Johnson, then the recently-appointed foreign secretary, left Whitehall behind to fly to Italy for a private weekend break. He was invited to the luxurious Umbrian villa […] - [Six Liverpool councillors suspended for planning to vote against Labour's budget cuts](https://heartlandstribune.com/six-liverpool-councillors-suspended-for-planning-to-vote-against-labours-budget-cuts/): ‘refuse to vote for cuts.’ Six Liverpool Labour councillors who signalled their intention to vote against the Labour Party’s budget plans that brought in cuts to the city have been suspended. Councillors are Alan Gibbons, Lindsay Melia, Alison Clarke, Alfie Hincks, Rona Heron and Joanne Calvert, had planned to vote against cuts that would have had an adverse effect on the lives of the people in Liverpool All six were unhappy with the planned budget, which includes cuts to social care budgets, a Council Tax rise of up to 2.99% and a new £40 annual green bin charge. They stated they […] - [They can always find the money for war: Germany commits €100 billion to its military](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-can-always-find-the-money-for-war-germany-commits-e100-billion-to-its-military/): Germany has announced a plan to prioritize military spending in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A “special fund” will be set up to better equip the Bundeswehr. The Bundeswehr is to receive 100 billion euros as a special fund. In addition, according to Chancellor Scholz, NATO’s two percent target should be met in the future. Defense Minister Lambrecht also insists on reducing bureaucracy. The Bundeswehr is to receive 100 billion euros as a special fund for investments and armament projects. The money will be provided with the 2022 federal budget, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced in a special session of the Bundestag on […] - [Zelensky agrees to talk with Russia, but rejects Belarus as the meeting place](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-agrees-to-talk-with-russia-but-rejects-belarus-as-the-meeting-place/): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to hold talks with Russia but rejected the Russian proposal for a meeting to be held in Belarus, a staging ground for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “We’ve heard a lot of talk about a meeting between Ukraine and Russia that might end this war and bring the peace back to us. Quite often [Minsk] is mentioned as the place for these negotiations,” Zelensky said in an address posted on the presidency website on Sunday morning.  “The location was not chosen by [Ukraine] nor by [Belarus]. It was chosen by the Russian leadership.” Belarus has played a key role in […] - [Protesters Across the Globe Demand “No War in Ukraine!” But Not All Demonstrations are the Same](https://heartlandstribune.com/protesters-across-the-globe-demand-no-war-in-ukraine-but-not-all-demonstrations-are-the-same/): A version of this article first appeared Left Voice by Scott Cooper  Cities around the world have seen protests against the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion early Thursday morning. More are scheduled for today. But some demonstrations focus on demanding more “help” from the West for Ukraine — a path that will not solve the crisis. Anti-war protests broke out around the world not long after Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered troops across the border into Ukraine in the early-morning hours of Thursday, February 24. In addition to protests in Russia itself, demonstrations were held in cities on nearly every continent. In […] - [The first casualty of war is the truth: BBC uses old 2020 flypast of military parade as Ukraine ‘invasion’ footage](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-first-casualty-of-war-is-the-truth-bbc-uses-old-2020-flypast-of-military-parade-as-ukraine-invasion-footage/): “The first casualty of war is the truth” The first casualty of war is the truth whether attributed to US politician Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918, or Dr Samuel Johnson in 1758, or even the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus around 550 BC, the quote would appear to accurately recognise the challenge facing both sides of the equation during times of crisis. The current ‘war’ being waged in Ukraine is proving no exception as rumours and conspiracy theories circulate. Now they have been caught out presenting video of a military parade fly-by as footage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A clip […] - [ROBERT PARRY: Playing Nuclear Chicken Over Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/robert-parry-playing-nuclear-chicken-over-ukraine/): A version of this article first appeared on March 2, 2015. By Robert ParryConsortium News The United States and Russia still maintain vast nuclear arsenals of mutual assured destruction, putting the future of humanity in jeopardy every instant. But an unnerving nonchalance has settled over the American side which has become so casual about the risk of cataclysmic war that the West’s propaganda and passions now ignore Russian fears and sensitivities. A swaggering goofiness has come to dominate how the United States reacts to Russia, with American politicians and journalists dashing off tweets and op-eds, rushing to judgment about the perfidy of Moscow’s leaders, blaming […] - [Starmer condemns Russian dictator while acting like a dictator forcing MPs to pull signatures from Stop the War statement](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-condemns-russian-dictator-while-acting-like-a-dictator-forcing-mps-to-pull-signatures-from-stop-the-war-statement/): 11 Labour MPs have been forced to pull their signatures from a Stop the War statement that criticised both Russia and NATO after being warned to do so by the chief whip. Diane Abbott, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, Beth Winter, Zarah Sultana, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Apsana Begum, Mick Whitley, Tahir Ali and Ian Mearns had all signed the statement The statement from February 18th was also signed by Labour Unions chair and ASLEF train drivers’ union general secretary Mick Whelan, plus independent MPs Corbyn and Claudia Webbe, none of whom have removed their names. Momentum co-chair Andrew Scattergood said the MPs’ […] - [Ukraine: The people of Europe must raise the banner of peace and pressure their governments to stop the war](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-must-not-give-up-on-ukraine-the-people-must-bring-pressure-on-their-governments-to-bring-this-back-to-the-table/): We must not give up on Ukraine the people must bring pressure on their governments to bring this back to the table The attacks of Russian forces into Ukraine are an act of aggression and a serious violation of the United Nations Charter. They have already resulted in the loss of life. For the sake of all the people affected both directly and indirectly by this escalation of violence, there can be no alternative but to stop this incursion now, deescalating this conflict to the point of bringing all concerned to the negotiation table. The only legitimate forum for addressing all […] - [The voice of reason: Jeremy Corbyn and Stop the War Coalition blasted by the right-wing press](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-voice-of-reason-jeremy-corbyn-and-stop-the-war-coalition-blasted-by-the-right-wing-press/): War is sweet to those who have not experienced it. -Desiderius Erasmus The stop the war Coalition made a very reasonable statement which while condemning Russian actions also noted the expansionism of NATO. Again the MSM have aimed their overactive tabloids at Jeremy Corbyn to condemn the statement. Before there is a further escalation in the Ukraine diplomacy must resume. Let’s be honest who wouldn’t give peace a chance. Then again I forget the mentality of the right-wing press and the influence from the American hawks, people like President Joe Biden, their willingness to see a pyre of bodies to keep […] - [Noam Chomsky: Ten Strategies of Manipulation By The Media](https://heartlandstribune.com/noam-chomsky-ten-strategies-of-manipulation-by-the-media/): Knowledge is power… We would all do well to understand how media manipulation and control works. Chomsky offers insights and a list to learn by. Labour Heartlands have taken the time to remaster ‘Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the Media – Feature Film’ along with listing the “Ten strategies of manipulation” by the media hoping that by understanding the manipulations and strategies used we become stronger in defeating them. Contrary to the usual image of the press as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in its search for truth, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky depict how an underlying elite consensus largely structures all […] - [Ukraine crisis: Germany halts Nord Stream 2 approval](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-crisis-germany-halts-nord-stream-2-approval/): Putin’s actions result in Biden getting what he wanted, a halt to Nord Stream 2 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said the gas pipeline project cannot go ahead now in these crisis circumstances. He said the approval process has been halted. Germany’s energy minister, Robert Habeck, on Tuesday morning instructed the withdrawal of an assessment required to authorise the pipeline between Russia and Germany. “This may sound technical, but it is the necessary administrative step without which the pipeline cannot be certified,” Scholz said at a press conference in Berlin at midday. “Without this certification Nord Stream 2 cannot go into […] - [Russia recognises Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states it all stems back to 2014 Ukraine said 'NO' to the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-recognises-donetsk-and-luhansk-as-independent-states-it-all-stems-back-to-2014-ukraine-said-no-to-the-eu/): Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he is recognising breakaway rebel regions in Ukraine’s east as independent states. The self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are home to pro-Russian rebels who have been seeking self-determination fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Donetsk and its surrounding areas have been one of the major sites of fighting in the ongoing Donbas War, as pro-Russian separatist forces continued to battle against Ukrainian military forces for control of the city and surrounding areas. Throughout the war, the city of Donetsk has been administered by the pro-Russian separatist forces as the centre of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), with outlying territories […] - [Jeffrey Epstein's pimp Jean-Luc Brunel dies in prison 'suicide'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeffrey-epsteins-pimp-jean-luc-brunel-dies-in-prison-suicide/): Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly procured more than a thousand women and girls for paedophile financier Epstein, hanged himself. Epstein, who was arrested in New York in July 2019 on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, was also found hanged in his New York jail cell the following month while awaiting trial over abuses involving girls at his Palm Beach home and on his private island in the Caribbean. Brunel’s death echoes Epstein’s death by hanging in a New York jail cell in August 2019 which was ruled suicidal. “It almost seems like the whole circle of people who were […] - [Boris Johnson returns lockdown party questionnaire to police](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-returns-lockdown-party-questionnaire-to-police/): Boris Johnson has responded to a questionnaire from the Metropolitan Police about Downing Street gatherings during coronavirus restrictions. A Number 10 spokesperson confirmed to Sky News that the prime minister has returned the document. Mr Johnson had seven days to respond to the questionnaire, which was sent to him last Friday. The prime minister was one of more than 50 people to be sent the document by the Metropolitan Police, which is looking at potential Covid rule-breaking. Mr Johnson had until 22:00 GMT on Friday to answer the survey. He has said he did not believe he was breaking any rules but apologised “for […] - [Another step in Labour's dystopian future: Police should ‘shoot terrorists first and ask questions second,’ says Angela Rayner](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-step-in-labours-dystopian-future-police-should-shoot-terrorists-first-and-ask-questions-second-says-angela-rayner/): Tough on crime, tough on our liberties. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has tried to talk tough on crime saying Britain’s terror police should “shoot first” and “ask questions second”, as the party sets out its credentials on law and order. “On things like law and order, I am quite hardline. I am like, shoot your terrorists and ask questions second,” Ms Rayner told Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast. Her comments were meant to stoke controversy, however, the reality is under Sir Keir Starmer he would bring in a new age ‘The Rule of Lawyers’ a dystopian authoritarian future where everything […] - [UK Denies It Agreed to Train Neo-Nazi Linked Ukraine Unit](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-denies-it-agreed-to-train-neo-nazi-linked-ukraine-unit/): Ukraine’s National Guard says that in a meeting last year the UK military agreed to start training its forces, which include a thousand-strong neo-Nazi unit. The UK Ministry of Defence disputes the claim. Details and photos of the meeting in the capital, Kiev, were posted in Ukrainian on the website of Ukraine’s National Guard (NGU) last year. Declassified understands the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MoD) believed the September 2021 meeting to be private and should not have been publicised. There is no mention of the meeting in any U.K. records that are publicly available. Three British commanders of Operation Orbital — the U.K. military’s […] - [Ukraine: Russian forces 'have begun pulling away from Ukrainian border' as Putin and Scholz meet](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-russian-forces-have-begun-pulling-away-from-ukrainian-border-as-putin-and-scholz-meet/): Moscow says some of its troops are pulling back The Russian Defense Ministry has said some of its forces are set to return to permanent deployment sites, although “large scale” drills were continuing. Germany’s Olaf Scholz is in talks in Moscow.  Russian forces deployed near Ukraine’s border have begun returning to their garrisons, says Russia’s defence ministry. Major General Igor Konashenkov, the defence ministry’s spokesperson, said on Tuesday morning that “as the military military training activities are over, as always, marches will be carried out in a combined way to permanent dislocation points”. “The units of the Southern and Western military […] - [Boris Johnson's No 10 parties inquiry answers won't be published](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnsons-no-10-parties-inquiry-answers-wont-be-published/): Running a story down till it becomes boring to the public is just another way of whitewashing the truth. The police inquiry, Operation Hillman, is examining 12 parties on the eight dates over the course of the pandemic – some of which the PM attended – to see if Covid regulations were broken. It was launched after an inquiry by senior civil servant Sue Gray, who in her initial findings criticised “failures of leadership and judgement” over the gatherings in Downing Street and Whitehall and referred them to the police. As part of the enquiries, the Met has sent out a […] - [Rewards For Failure: Dame Cressida Dick in line for a £575,000 payout and a £160,000-a-year taxpayer-funded pension pot](https://heartlandstribune.com/rewards-for-failure-dame-cressida-dick-in-line-for-a-575000-payout-and-a-160000-a-year-taxpayer-funded-pension-pot/): She failed the people but upheld the establishment. Dame Cressida, 61, still has plenty to smile about as she will walk away from her post with up to three pensions estimated to pay out £160,000-a-year – plus a pay-off in the region of £575,000. She can also look forward to possibly earning a small fortune from lucrative consultancy work in the thriving private security industry, or even taking on a new high-profile public role. She may even join her predecessor Bernard Hogan-Howe in the House of Lords where she could qualify for a daily £323 attendance allowance as the Mail article […] - [Socialist candidate Dave Nellist officially launched his campaign to win Birmingham Erdington By-Election for the people](https://heartlandstribune.com/socialist-candidate-dave-nellist-officially-launched-his-campaign-to-win-birmingham-erdington-by-election-for-the-people/): The Dave Nellist For Erdington campaign launch rally takes place today at the Highcroft Community Centre Dave Nellist a former Labour MP for Coventry South East for nine years, today launched his bid to shake the status quo and return a peoples representative for parliament rather than another neoliberal main Party political grifter. Dave has one aim, to win for the people the Erdington By-Election. Dave Nellist is to contest the forthcoming Birmingham Erdington parliamentary by-election on behalf of the left-wing alliance.  Dave explained why he is standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, outlining his own experiences and background and […] - [Tory MP Andrew Bridgen under investigation over alleged paid lobbying](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-under-investigation-over-alleged-paid-lobbying/): Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen took cash from timber firm Andrew Bridgen is under investigation by the Parliamentary standards watchdog, over claims of lobbying and failing to properly declare interests. The Tory MP stands accused of lobbying government minister Andrew Stephenson to help with Mere Plantations’ tax affairs The investigation into the Conservative North West Leicestershire MP comes after The Times alleged he lobbied Government minister Andrew Stephenson to help with Mere Plantations’ tax affairs. Mere Plantations, a timber firm that owns teak plantations in Ghana, donated £5,000 to the North West Leicestershire Conservative Association following a call to Stephenson, the then-Foreign […] - [A virtually bankrupt Labour Party spent £1million to hide the truth on the Labour leaks dossier](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-virtually-bankrupt-labour-party-spent-1million-to-hide-the-truth-on-the-labour-leaks-dossier/): The first rule of Labour Leaks: You shall not discuss Labour Leaks The Labour Leaks and Forde report are public interest stories that affect our very democracy, the act of suppressing and hiding the truth behind a legal wall that only serves the perpetrators of Labour’s betrayal does not bode well for a potential Labour Party goverment, especially one led by an authoritarian Barrister and former Director of public prosecution. A secret document obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveals that the UK Labour Party wasted £1million pursuing the leakers of a report on alleged anti-Semitism. Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist […] - [Foul mouth Labour MP Neil Coyle who called Brexiters 'Fat old Racist's' turns out to be a Fat old Racist.](https://heartlandstribune.com/foul-mouth-labour-mp-neil-coyle-who-called-brexiters-fat-old-racists-turns-out-to-be-a-fat-old-racist/): Labour MP Neil Coyle suspended over racist comment claim MP Neil Coyle has been suspended by the Labour Party after allegations he made racist comments. Political journalist Henry Dyer has made a formal complaint to the parliamentary authorities about the MP. Mr Dyer, who is of British-Chinese heritage, says Mr Coyle used racial slurs and made him feel uncomfortable at an incident in a Commons bar. Writing on Business Insider, where he works as a political reporter, Mr Dyer said the MP made a racially insensitive remark during a conversation in the Strangers’ Bar about Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP who received funding […] - [Mandelson the man who said: I try to undermine Jeremy Corbyn 'every single day' now tells Left-wing MPs 'no ifs, no buts' back Starmer's or go](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-who-said-i-try-to-undermine-jeremy-corbyn-every-single-day-now-tells-left-wing-mps-no-ifs-no-buts-back-starmers-or-go/): Lord Mandelson has fired shots at left-wing Labour MPs, warning they could be ousted if they fail to back his fellow Trilateral Commission member Sir Keir Starmer’s manifesto. The Blairite and former New Labour Cabinet minister said MPs in the party’s Socialist Campaign Group faction faced a choice before the next election, to get behind the party’s offer or leave. The SCG includes well-known figures who served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet, including John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery and Dawn Butler. Speaking at an online event with the Reform Scotland think tank, he said: “I personally favour abroad church in our party, […] - [Starmer aims slurs at Corbyn's NATO views repeating far-right conspiracies](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-aims-slurs-at-corbyns-nato-views-repeating-far-right-conspiracies/): Sir Keir Starmer accuses Stop the War coalition of siding with Nato’s enemies Sir Keir Starmer has openly attacked Jeremy Corbyn by repeating far-right slurs against the former Labour Leader on unfounded claims around Corby’s views of NATO. Keir Starmer has launched an outspoken attack on the Stop the War coalition, in which Jeremy Corbyn is a leading figure, effectively accusing the campaign group of siding with Russia against Nato. In an opinion article for the Guardian, penned on the way to Brussels where he reaffirmed Labour’s staunch support for Nato, Starmer says Stop the War are “not benign voices for peace”. […] - [Cressida Dick to step down as Metropolitan Police chief](https://heartlandstribune.com/cressida-dick-to-step-down-as-metropolitan-police-chief/): Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick is leaving her role after a series of damaging controversies. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan says it’s clear “the only way to start to deliver the scale of the change required is to have new leadership right at the top”. Sadiq Khan put the Met Police Commissioner “on notice” last week after the police watchdog published messages sent by officers that used sexist, racist and homophobic language. He said his entire trust in the Met hinged on her coming up with a robust plan for dealing with the behaviour. But he said he was “not satisfied” with […] - [This is not a multiple-choice question: Met Police to quiz more than 50 people by email in Downing Street party inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-is-not-a-multiple-choice-question-met-police-to-quiz-more-than-50-people-by-email-in-downing-street-party-inquiry/): You couldn’t make it up! Quizzing the quizzers by email. Police will start quizzing more than 50 people linked to No10 Partygate by the weekend via Email Met police acting as part of Operation Hillman will be sending emails as “formal questionnaires” in the coming days asking for “an account and explanation” of Partygate – and they could include Boris Johnson after another party photo emerged The Metropolitan Police will email more than 50 people as part of its inquiry into the lockdown Downing Street party inquiry. A questionnaire will be sent to people alleged to have been at events on […] - [Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy](https://heartlandstribune.com/major-breakthrough-on-nuclear-fusion-energy/): Scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion – the energy process that powers the stars. Nuclear Fusion, the process that powers the sun and stars, promises a near-limitless green electricity source for the long term. Pound for pound, it releases nearly four million times more energy than burning coal, oil or gas, and has the potential to deliver safe and sustainable low carbon energy over the coming decades. The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen. If […] - [Labour abstain on vote allowing real-terms Universal Credit and Pension cuts to go unopposed](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-abstain-on-vote-allowing-real-terms-universal-credit-and-pension-cuts-to-go-unopposed/): Pensioners and universal credit claimants face a tough, bleak year. The real-terms cuts passed a House of Commons vote 298-29, not even a token gesture of opposition from Starmer who whipped the Labour party to abstain. This comes when the Bank of England has warned inflation could hit 7.25% by April, there is no doubt, this is a real-terms cut, yet Labour has abstained on the vote. In total, 29 MPs voted against with 13 Labour MPs and one Tory, Peter Bottomley, defying the whip to vote against the below-inflation rise. The results see Benefit and pension rates both rising by […] - [Starmer and Savile](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-and-savile/): With the furore over Sir Starmer’s involvement with the Jimmy Savile case only intensifying, Dr Phil Bevin of the Workers Party looks at some of the known facts. Keir Starmer has questions to answer over why Jimmy Savile wasn’t prosecuted for his grotesque crimes in 2009. The mainstream media and political responses to Boris Johnson’s suggestion that the Labour Leader was responsible for the failure to prosecute Saville while in post as DPP have been predictably bizarre. Instead of a detailed consideration and analysis of the known facts, which we might expect in a functioning democracy, the accusations have been met […] - [Starmer rushed into police car as protesters chased him down the street outside Parliament shouting traitor.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-rushed-into-police-car-as-protesters-chased-him-down-the-street-outside-parliament-shouting-traitor/): Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer had to be ‘bundled’ into a police car after being ‘swarmed’ by protestors outside Parliament. Police were forced to quickly intervene after the group hurled abuse at the Labour leader. They booed the Labour leader as they chased him down the street. The activists could be heard screaming “traitor” as they confronted the Holborn & St Pancras MP. The incident was captured on video before “Keir Starmer was bundled into a police car outside Parliament after protesters swarmed him.” In a video posted online, a police car can be seen surrounded by a group of around […] - [Thousands of DWP workers told to reapply for their own jobs](https://heartlandstribune.com/thousands-of-dwp-workers-told-to-reapply-for-their-own-jobs/): 12,000 DWP work coaches in ‘biggest ever Jobs Army’ told to reapply for their own jobs Thousands of Universal Credit advisors who were hired to form Britain’s ‘biggest ever Jobs Army’ are now having to reapply for their jobs – with one telling the Mirror they are “let down” and “blindsided” A staggering 12,000 Universal Credit advisors who were hired to create Britain’s “biggest ever Jobs Army” have been told to reapply for their own jobs. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) chiefs wrote to thousands of Work Coaches last week offering them an “opportunity to apply for a permanent role”. […] - [Starmer on being head of the CPS: "When They Made Mistakes I Carried the Can"](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-on-being-head-of-the-cps-when-they-made-mistakes-i-carried-the-can/): “I celebrated victories on their behalf, I picked up awards on their behaves. When they made mistakes, I carried the can”. -Keir Starmer For now, we will not get into his boast about turning on his staff, another lie, proved when we see Labour staff voting to take strike action over a real-term pay cut being imposed on them. We would all like to see the Tories get their just desserts. Not just for what seems like a constant string of parties carried out at No10 while we were restricted under their oppressive Covid rules. But we would also like to see […] - [Lord Ahmed of Rotherham: Ex-Labour peer jailed for child sex offences](https://heartlandstribune.com/lord-ahmed-of-rotherham-ex-labour-peer-jailed-for-child-sex-offences/): Former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham has been jailed after being found guilty of child sex offences following a trial in Sheffield. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a boy and the attempted rape of a young girl. Sheffield Crown Court heard the repeated sexual abuse happened in Rotherham when he was a teenager. The judge said the offences were “so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified”. He said: “Your actions have had profound and lifelong effects on the girl and the boy, who have lived with what you did to […] - [What's said can never be unsaid: Boris Johnson hit by four departures of top aides one citing the Jimmy Savile slur made against Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/whats-said-can-never-be-unsaid-boris-johnson-hit-by-four-departures-of-top-aides-one-citing-the-jimmy-savile-slur-made-against-starmer/): Boris Johnson’s premiership has been hit yet again with the tap, tap, tap of resignations carried out departures by four top aides gone in one day. His policy chief Munira Mirza dramatically announced she was quitting over his use of a Jimmy Savile accusation against Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister appeared increasingly politically isolated after the Chancellor joined Mirza in condemning his ‘inappropriate and partisan’ attack on the Labour leader, linking him to a failure to prosecute notorious sex attacker Savile before his death in 2011. Now both Starmer and Johnson will forever be caught up in the shadow of […] - [Ukraine: Turkey's intelligence agency abducts arms dealer-turned-whistleblower in attempt to stop exposure of Turkey's clandestine arms trafficking networks](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-turkeys-intelligence-agency-abducts-arms-dealer-turned-whistleblower-in-attempt-to-stop-exposure-of-turkeys-clandestine-arms-trafficking-networks/): An arms dealer who had started to expose Turkey’s clandestine arms trafficking networks was snatched during a Turkish intelligence operation. The whistleblower had claimed kickbacks reached the highest offices in Turkey. Bozkir Nuri Gyohan a retired officer of the Turkish special forces turned arms dealer turned whistleblower, claimed Turkey illegally shipped consignments of weapons and ammunition to hot spots in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. In interviews with Ukrainian news site Strana at the end of 2020, Bozkir had disclosed delicate aspects of Turkey’s clandestine arms transfers to militant groups operating in Syria and Libya, noting that MIT operatives would take a […] - [Greenwashing: European Commission declares nuclear and gas to be green](https://heartlandstribune.com/greenwashing-european-commission-declares-nuclear-and-gas-to-be-green/): EU Unveils Controversial Green Label for Gas and Nuclear The European Commission has labelled nuclear and gas as sustainable. Critics are calling the step “greenwashing” and say it could threaten the bloc’s bid to become climate-neutral by 2050. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen cannot repeat often enough how close stepping up climate action is to her heart. She described the European Green Deal as “Europe’s man on the moon moment.” She has called climate neutrality “our European destiny.” And she solemnly proclaimed that no effort will be spared for Europe to become the world’s first continent with net-zero emissions. The move has divided […] - [Brexit: Northern Ireland minister says he has ordered halt to agri-food checks at nation's ports](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-northern-ireland-minister-says-he-has-ordered-halt-to-agri-food-checks-at-nations-ports/): BREAKING NEWS Stormont’s Agriculture Minister has ordered a halt to Brexit agri-food checks at Northern Ireland ports. The agrifood checks are required under the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is designed to avoid the introduction of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Edwin Poots, former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), says he will seek an agreement from the power-sharing government on a way forward in the near future. He said he made the decision based on legal advice but Sinn Fein, the party the DUP shares power with, said it was unlawful and “a stunt”. […] - [Britain scrambles jets after detecting unidentified aircraft](https://heartlandstribune.com/britain-scrambles-jets-after-detecting-unidentified-aircraft/): RAF Typhoon jets scrambled to track ‘unidentified aircraft’ north of Scotland RAF jets have been scrambled to track “unidentified aircraft” north of Scotland. The Typhoon jets were launched from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and joined by a Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. “Quick reaction alert Typhoon fighters from RAF Lossiemouth, supported by a vogayer tanker from RAF Brieze Norton, have been launched against unidentified aircraft approaching the UK area of interest,” a Ministry of Defence spokesman said. “We will not be offering any additional detail on this ongoing operation until complete.” Sky News reported that the […] - [Putin says security demands ignored as US and allies position troops on Russia's border](https://heartlandstribune.com/putin-says-security-demands-ignored-as-us-and-allies-position-troops-on-russias-border/): Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has accused the US of trying to draw his country into a war in Ukraine. In his first significant comments on the crisis in several weeks, he said America’s goal was to use a confrontation as a pretext to impose more sanctions on Russia. He also said the US was ignoring Russia’s demands that NATO not expand eastward in his first remarks on rising tensions over Ukraine in more than a month. But he added that Moscow is still open to more talks with the West on easing tensions over Ukraine. Putin said the Kremlin was still […] - [What a Farce: Sue Gray report should have damned Boris Johnson instead it's being eased out with a sanitised fraction of findings published](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-a-farce-sue-gray-report-should-have-damned-boris-johnson-instead-its-being-eased-out-with-a-sanitised-fraction-of-findings-published/): Boris Johnson: ‘Partygate’ report finds serious failures of leadership Boris Johnson’s tenure is hanging by a thread as Sue Gray’s report blasted “failures of leadership and judgement” in 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister was branded “unfit for office” after top civil servant Sue Gray said several Downing Street lockdown parties “should not have been allowed”. For many that is an understatement, according to the Tories own lockdown rules they were illegal but of course, the report itself has now been compromised with the Met diluting what can and can’t be published. Gray’s nine-page interim update said “at least some” of […] - [Mandatory Covid vaccinations for NHS workers and social care workers 'set to be scrapped' ](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandatory-covid-vaccinations-for-nhs-workers-and-social-care-workers-set-to-be-scrapped/): Mandatory Covid jabs for NHS and social care workers are set to be scrapped. The major U-turn will be decided at a meeting between Health Secretary Sajid Javid and top ministers today. Multiple government sources reportedly said ministers are expected to end the requirement because the Omicron Covid variant is milder than previous strains. Tory minister Simon Clarke said there was space to “look at this again” as the Omicron variant had proved to be less severe than the Delta strain. The Government’s Covid-O Committee will meet following warnings that up to 80,000 healthcare workers would be forced out of their jobs because they had declined to take two […] - [When British Army veterans met IRA veterans](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-british-army-veterans-met-ira-veterans/): Soldiers on both sides discovered each other’s reasons for fighting – by Matt Florence. Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces’ operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. This involved counter-insurgency and supporting the police in […] - [Labour Party Shame: Staff vote for strike action against the Labour Party over real-terms pay cut](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-shame-staff-vote-for-strike-action-against-the-labour-party-over-real-terms-pay-cut/): Labour Leadership attacks on workers with a pay cut are being met with resistance. Not a headline anyone would ever have imagined, Labour Party workers go on strike. The Labour Party formed over 122 years ago to fight for better pay and conditions for workers now acting like Tory Bosses. It seems almost unbelievable the Labour Party has moved so far to the right the only distinction between it and the Tories is the name. The Labour party was formed to fight for workers pay and workers rights, the Labour party website has the audacity to still promote the movement beginnings […] - [The Gray Report has turned out to be just as elusive as the Forde Report: Both Johnson and Starmer are taking us for mugs](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-grey-report-has-turned-out-to-be-just-as-elusive-as-the-forde-report-both-johnson-and-starmer-are-taking-us-for-mugs/): Johnson and Starmer are treating the people with utter contempt. After dither and delay, Ms Gray had been expected to hand her report on alleged Covid-rule breaking to Boris Johnson this week. But the Met Police have asked her to leave out key details to avoid prejudicing their own inquiries. There is also debate in the Cabinet Office, where Ms Gray is based, about what should be redacted, sources say. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is calling for the report to be published in full and the investigations to be wrapped up as soon as possible. While we welcome any publication […] - [Former Left Labour MP Dave Nellist to stand against Starmer's centrist Labour at Birmingham Erdington by-election](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-left-labour-mp-dave-nellist-to-stand-against-starmers-centrist-labour-at-birmingham-erdington-by-election/): Dave Nellist promises to stand up for the working class against Red Tories, Blue Tories or Yellow Tories. The Erdington by-election and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) today announced that Dave Nellist is to contest the forthcoming Birmingham Erdington parliamentary by-election on behalf of the left-wing alliance.  During his time as a Midlands Labour MP from 1983-1992, Dave was a backbench parliamentary colleague of Jeremy Corbyn and would often be pictured protesting on important issues. Dave, who was the MP for Coventry South East for nine years and later, for 14 years, a Coventry city councillor for the Socialist Party from 1998 to 2012. TUSC was […] - [NEC vote to continue Sir Keir Starmer's ongoing decision to bar Jeremy Corbyn sitting as a Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/nec-vote-to-continue-sir-keir-starmers-ongoing-decision-to-bar-jeremy-corbyn-sitting-as-a-labour-mp/): I will make the party in my image, to do so I will remove all traces of the past, all remembrances of what the party once stood for… -The dictator Today’s meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), was presented with a motion asking them to support a request to restore the Labour whip to Jeremy Corbyn. Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) considered a motion, proposed by union representative Ian Murray and local party rep Nadia Jama, that described the suspension of the whip from Corbyn as “deeply divisive” and “disrespectful”. The motion highlighted the divisive nature of the actions taken by […] - [Police to investigate Downing Street lockdown parties](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-to-investigate-downing-street-lockdown-parties/): The Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into parties held in No 10 during the coronavirus pandemic. Commissioner Cressida Dick said they were looking into “potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations” in Downing Street and Whitehall since 2020. Boris Johnson told the Commons he welcomed the investigation as it would “give the public the clarity it needs” over the allegations. His spokesman also said the PM did not believe he had broken the law. Dame Cressida said the investigation was launched after the Cabinet Office inquiry team, led by civil servant Sue Gray, passed information to the force. Ms Gray’s report into […] - [Boris Johnson had birthday bash during lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-had-birthday-bash-during-lockdown/): Downing Street has admitted that staff gathered inside No 10 to celebrate Boris Johnson’s birthday when the first Covid lockdown was still in place. ITV News reports up to 30 people attended the June 2020 event, sang Happy Birthday and were served cake. No 10 said staff had “gathered briefly” to “wish the prime minister a happy birthday”, adding that he had been there “for less than 10 minutes”. Rules at the time banned most indoor gatherings of more than two people. ITV News said the birthday event had taken place in the Cabinet Room just after 2pm on 19 June 2020, […] - [Tory minister resigns in anger over Covid fraud](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-minister-resigns-in-anger-over-covid-fraud/): A Conservative minister in the House of Lords has resigned attacking the government’s handling of fraudulent Covid business loans. Lord Agnew of Oulton accused the Treasury of having “no interest in the consequences of fraud to our society”. Last year, the National Audit Office criticised the government for failing to put in measures to prevent people exploiting Covid schemes. He was updating peers about the £4.3 billion of Covid loans – written off by the Treasury – which Labour said has gone to “fraudsters”. In his scathing statement, Lord Agnew attacked BEIS, the Treasury and the British Business Bank. “The oversight […] - [The appeal has allowed Julian Assange to appeal to the Supreme Court](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-high-court-has-allowed-julian-assange-to-appeal-to-the-supreme-court/): The High Court of Justice in London on Monday ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can seek permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court on a point of law. Assange is charged with publishing swaths of US military records and diplomatic cables which US authorities claim put lives in danger. What was the decision? The court agreed to a request from Assange’s lawyers arguing that the country’s highest court should rule on “points of law of general public importance.” “The respondent’s application to certify a point of law is granted,” the court said. “The respondent’s application for leave to appeal to the supreme […] - [Mandatory vaccinations for NHS workers set to be put on hold as warnings from Royal College of GPs say it will lead to chronic staff shortages](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandatory-vaccinations-for-nhs-workers-set-to-be-put-on-hold-as-warnings-from-royal-college-of-gps-say-it-will-lead-to-chronic-staff-shortages/): Calls come to stop compulsory Covid vaccines for NHS staff or risk shutting down the NHS Mandatory vaccines for NHS staff could be pushed back by half a year, it was revealed last night, following nationwide protests over the requirement and amid demands by Tory backbenchers to drop the rule entirely. Boris Johnson is said to be considering ‘kicking it down the road’ to avoid another potentially humiliating Tory revolt, reported the Telegraph.    It comes just two weeks before medical workers will be required to prove their vaccination status – with February 3 marking the last day they can book in for […] - [Black Books, Child Abuse, Threats and Rumour: The Secrets of the Whips](https://heartlandstribune.com/black-books-child-abuse-threats-and-rumour-the-secrets-of-the-whips/): Whips – whether Tory, Labour or Lib Dem – have long inhabited a secret, often dark, world at Westminster, one that no one has ever seriously called into question. The House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim, the main protagonist Francis Urquhart, a fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, played by Ian Richardson. His spectacular portrayal of the unscrupulous Chief […] - [Tory/Labour MP Christian Wakeford claims 'The Tories made me do it' is not an accepted excuse: Bury South party members demand by-election](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-labour-mp-christian-wakeford-claims-the-tories-made-me-do-it-is-not-an-accepted-excuse-bury-south-party-members-demand-by-election/): Claiming the Tories made me do it, doesn’t take away from the fact Christian Wakeford has been a rank Tory for over 20 years. Nobody made him do or say a thing, he chose the conservatives because they best reflected his worldview. Before entering politics, Mr Wakeford worked for a telecommunications firm having studied politics at Lancaster University. He is married to Alexandria and they have a young daughter. He has served as a Tory councillor on Lancashire County Council since 2013 and also previously worked as a caseworker for Tory MP Andrew Stephenson.  He served as the leader of the […] - [Rachel Reeves says losing Labour members ‘is a good thing’ as the party continues to shed its socialist credentials](https://heartlandstribune.com/rachel-reeves-says-losing-labour-members-is-a-good-thing-as-the-party-continues-to-shed-its-socialist-credentials/): It’s a Party of business, not the people. Labour’s membership has crashed with up to 200,000 leaving the party since Sir Keir Starmer became leader, according to an NEC member. At this point, Labour members must feel like they are in the world of Winston Smith. The Newspeak constantly vibrating off the walls, emphasised with that Labour vocal trait of the blocked nasal passage, sees Rachel Reeves claiming a declining membership is a good thing. Unfortunately for us, she is right, it’s just another step to the right and into the arms of big business. The corrupt Labour leadership see the […] - [Sir Keir Starmer 'not in favour' of nationalising energy companies saying models like EDF with its profits of around 70 billion a year don't work.](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-not-in-favour-of-nationalising-energy-companies-saying-models-like-edf-with-its-profits-of-around-70-billion-a-year-dont-work/): Starmer is no Attlee, there will be no nationalisation. Starmer is not there for the people, the many, only for the few. Starmer rejected Nationalisation just as Blair did, even though Starmer made that pledge for state ownership in his leadership contest, he now claims state ownership is not nationalisation, Weasley words from a real barrister. He also made the claim that part of the reason Labour failed so much in 2019 was an overloaded manifesto. I can assure you that giving people free broadband was not a vote loser, we all know why Labour lost 60 seats in 2019, 6 […] - [Unite the Union steps in to oppose mandatory Covid-19 vaccination as a condition of deployment in the NHS in England](https://heartlandstribune.com/union-steps-in-to-oppose-mandatory-covid-19-vaccination-as-a-condition-of-deployment-in-the-nhs-in-england/): Unite the union made a statement saying: “As a health trade union representing over 100,000 workers in the NHS, Unite has strongly encouraged our members to be vaccinated through our “Get a jab campaign”. Despite this, Unite, believe the vaccination programme should not be mandatory in order to be deployed in the NHS for patient-facing employees. Ahead of the parliamentary vote on Tuesday 14 December, unite asked MPs not to support mandatory vaccination for NHS staff as a condition of deployment being implemented from 1 April 2022. However, the request was ignored and the vote was carried only with the support […] - [Corruption: Billionaire Chancellor Rishi Sunak 'WRITES OFF £4.3bn' in public money given to companies and businesses in covid payments scheme now considered lost or stolen by fraudsters](https://heartlandstribune.com/corruption-billionaire-chancellor-rishi-sunak-writes-off-4-3bn-in-public-money-given-to-companies-and-businesses-in-covid-payments-scheme-now-considered-lost-or-stolen-by-fraudsters/): The Treasury has revealed that it expects its anti-fraud taskforce to write off £4.3bn ($5.9bn) in COVID-19 payments lost to fraud during the pandemic. A total of £5.8bn is believed to have been unlawfully taken. The treasury said it will recover just £1 for every £4 stolen by scammers. This includes money taken from emergency schemes such as the furlough programme, the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), and eat out to help out, which was set up to help reopened restaurants in the summer of 2020. The figures, which show that a maximum of only 26% will be recovered, were […] - [Lords watchdog launches inquiry into Michelle Mone over ‘VIP lane’ contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/lords-watchdog-launches-inquiry-into-michelle-mone-over-vip-lane-contract/): The House of Lords commissioner for standards has launched an investigation into the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, relating to the PPE company awarded £203m government contracts via the “VIP lane” after she referred it to the Cabinet Office in May 2020. The investigation follows a complaint by the Labour peer George Foulkes on 6 January, after the Guardian reported that leaked files appear to suggest Lady Mone and her husband, the Isle of Man-based financier Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in the company, PPE Medpro. Foulkes asked the commissioners to investigate whether Mone may have breached the Lords code of conduct by failing to declare an […] - [Kill The Bill: Government defeated as Lords vote to remove parts of the controversial policing bill](https://heartlandstribune.com/kill-the-billgovernment-defeated-as-lords-vote-to-remove-parts-of-the-controversial-policing-bill/): Peers inflict defeat on Government over powers to shut down ‘noisy’ protests The House of Lords has inflicted a series of defeats on the Government as it considered the wide-ranging Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. By 261 votes to 166, peers backed a Labour-led move to gut parts of the bill that handed police the power to impose conditions on protest marches judged to be “too noisy”. A short time later, the Government suffered a further defeat, with the upper chamber backing by 238 votes to 171, a Liberal Democrat amendment to gut further elements of the bill restricting protests. […] - [Disrupting Politics: Jobs and Freedom in a post coronavirus world](https://heartlandstribune.com/disrupting-politics-jobs-and-freedom-in-a-post-coronavirus-world/): Maintaining the benefits of the Job Retention Scheme The Unions campaigned for the introduction of the coronavirus job retention scheme (JRS) and the self-employment income support scheme (SEIS). We know that these have been vital in protecting jobs. But now we must push for a job guarantee scheme to kickstarts a post COVID economy supporting employees and employers as the country begins to plan a return from lockdown. A new plan for guaranteed jobs The job retention scheme must be extended to minimise the risk of unemployment. But those who do lose their jobs, particularly young people, will face long term […] - [Starmer squirms over his own lockdown booze-up](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-squirms-over-his-own-lockdown-booze-up/): Hypocrite: Starmer denies drinking beer and food at a staff event was a breach of lockdown rules: Who’s he trying to kid? Labour leader Starmer says there is ‘no comparison’ with Boris Johnson’s conduct as he reiterates PM must resign, he’s right but so should he. To pretend that he did not break the lockdown rules on ‘Participation in gatherings indoors’ is insulting to everyone. We all agree Johnson must go, his position and quite frankly the piss-taking has made remaining PM unsustainable, however for the leader of the Labour party to be demanding his resignation while dismissing his own so-called […] - [Voices: Thatcherism is still the driving force in British politics](https://heartlandstribune.com/voices-thatcherism-is-still-the-driving-force-in-british-politics/): Four deacades after Thatcher the Tory Status quo continues! When will people eventually see through their lies? Guest author, Michael Thompson. The right-wing Tory Government will be ending free prescriptions for people aged between 60 and 65, from this April, but people need to know that there is much more to this than meets the eye.  From the outset this policy has nothing to do with costs, it is part of a more sinister agenda that in the general sense so many British people are failing to grasp. If people were fully aware of what is behind policies such as this, […] - [Kill the Bill: Thousands listen as Jeremy Corbyn makes Parliament Square speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/kill-the-bill-thousands-listen-as-jeremy-corbyn-makes-parliament-square-speech/): Jeremy Corbyn warned the bill would ‘disempower’ the public at ‘kill the bill’ protests In the capital, thousands of people marched from Holborn past Downing Street to Westminster, chanting “kill the bill” protesting against the crime and policing bill being voted by the House of Lords on Monday (17 January). Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the protest, warning that the laws would “disempower” the public. He said: “If the right to protest is restricted, if you have to seek police permission to do anything, well, where does that lead to?” “It leads to every protest becoming a conflict about […] - [Kleptocracy Central: Javid orders NHS England to give away £270m to private hospitals for standing by in case of an Omicron surge even though evidence suggests the variant has already peaked.](https://heartlandstribune.com/kleptocracy-central-javid-orders-nhs-england-to-give-away-270m-to-private-hospitals-for-standing-by-in-case-of-an-omicron-surge-even-though-evidence-suggests-the-variant-has-already-peaked/): The Great NHS Heist: Independent healthcare sector accused of ‘acting as a parasite’ after ‘minimum income guarantee’ deal. Sajid Javid has ordered the boss of the health service to give private hospitals up to £270m, even though they may not treat a single NHS patient in return. The health secretary ignored strongly worded warnings from Amanda Pritchard that instructed her to hand private hospitals £75m to £90m a month from NHS England funds for the next three months, in case they are needed to help manage an Omicron surge in Covid cases. Despite evidence to suggest Omicron has peaked and is now hitting […] - [Starmer asks staff to take a pay cut as cash runs dry: It doesn't leave us much hope for the economy or workers in Labour's hands.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-asks-staff-to-take-a-pay-cut-as-cash-runs-dry-it-doesnt-leave-us-much-hope-for-the-economy-or-workers-in-labours-hands/): Labour talk a good game about workers’ rights but they cut, cut, cut! Just like the Tories. Labour Party is asking its own staff to accept a real-terms pay cut as it deals with the loss of more than £3 million to falling membership and reduced trade union support. The decline in income from two traditional sources will increase pressure on Labour leader Keir Starmer to attract big donations as he seeks to benefit from Boris Johnson’s trouble in the polls. Labour staff were briefed on the state of the opposition party’s finances at a meeting last week with senior party […] - [They Should All Go: Renewed calls for PM to resign after reports Downing Street staff partied on eve of Prince Philip's funeral](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-should-all-go-renewed-calls-for-pm-to-resign-after-reports-downing-street-staff-partied-on-eve-of-prince-philips-funeral/): Leaving events for No 10 staff were held on eve of the Duke’s funeral, at which the Queen was forced to grieve alone due to Covid rules. It is said the Queen is the symbol of the nation, it was at that moment sat alone in St Georges chapel she really did come to symbolise the nation at that time. In that quiet dignity, she was the embodiment of all the families that had lost loved ones during these pressing times. No matter whether you are a royalist, republican or just don’t care, the image of the queen sat alone at […] - [Spy scandal rocks Parliament as MI5 outs Chinese 'agent' with links to No10 and Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/spy-scandal-rocks-parliament-as-mi5-outs-chinese-agent-with-links-to-no10-and-labour-mp/): MI5 has warned a suspected agent of the Chinese government has been active in the British Parliament, MPs have heard. Conservative former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, raising a point of order, told the Commons: “I understand that Mr Speaker has been contacted by MI5 and is now warning members of Parliament that there has been an agent of the Chinese government active here in Parliament working with a Member of Parliament, obviously to subvert the processes here.” An MI5 notice named the suspected agent as Christine Lee, who the security service claims is “knowingly engaged in political interference on behalf […] - [Corruption: 'VIP lane' used by government to hand out PPE contracts to two companies during first coronavirus wave was unlawful, High Court rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/corruption-vip-lane-used-by-government-to-hand-out-ppe-contracts-to-two-companies-during-first-coronavirus-wave-was-unlawful-high-court-rules/): Like Pigs to the Trough… The government broke the law by prioritising a pest control firm and a private equity firm with political connections for lucrative COVID contracts, the High Court ruled today. The government’s use of a so-called VIP lane to award PPE contracts to two companies during the first COVID wave was unlawful, the High Court has ruled. The legal challenge, brought by the Good Law Project and EveryDoctor, focused on just a few of the contracts awarded under the scheme. Some £1.7bn worth of contracts to deliver personal protective equipment (PPE) were awarded through the scheme during the first wave […] - [U.S. Judge rejects Prince Andrew's bid to have Virginia Giuffre's sex abuse lawsuit dismissed](https://heartlandstribune.com/u-s-judge-rejects-prince-andrews-bid-to-have-virginia-giuffres-sex-abuse-lawsuit-dismissed/): There’s a right Royal sweat on as Prince Andrew looks set to face trial A federal judge in New York denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against Prince Andrew filed by Virginia Giuffre, a woman who alleges she was sexually trafficked to the royal when she was underage. “Ms Giuffre’s complaint is neither ‘unintelligible’ nor ‘vague’ nor ‘ambiguous,'” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in the ruling. “It alleges discrete incidents of sexual abuse in particular circumstances at three identifiable locations. It identifies to whom it attributes that sexual abuse.” Giuffre alleged in the lawsuit that the late financier Jeffrey Epstein trafficked […] - [Prime minister apologises for Downing Street party: Like a Rabbit in the headlights, Boris Johnson has nowhere to run](https://heartlandstribune.com/prime-minister-apologises-for-downing-street-party-like-a-rabbit-in-the-headlights-boris-johnson-has-nowhere-to-run/): Boris Johnson’s ‘lies have finally caught up with him’. Boris Johnson has apologised over a party held at Downing Street during the first coronavirus lockdown, as he faced MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions. Yesterday Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner described the revelations about the Downing Street garden party as “disgusting” and “despicable”. “At the time many people couldn’t see their loved ones who were dying, the British people were told to do the right thing to keep people safe and look after their relatives,” she told Sky News. “We were in a time of crisis and we needed good leadership and […] - [Politics is no longer Left vs Right, it has become Truth vs Propaganda](https://heartlandstribune.com/politics-is-no-longer-left-vs-right-it-has-become-truth-vs-propaganda/): “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” ― Noam Chomsky In our society which is submerged in a proliferation of information: how do people assimilate the truth? How do people know which narratives to believe? and which are nothing more than ‘Fake News’? Whilst print media has a long history of influencing public perceptions, through the narratives that they tell. Media in this technological age is even more guilty of censorship and keeping a plethora of information out of the public domain. Social media has allowed for information to be circulated faster and wider than was […] - [Rethinking Our Future](https://heartlandstribune.com/rethinking-our-future/): The pandemic has exposed the rottenness of the system. We simply can’t go back to what wasn’t working before. This is a great opportunity to dig deeper into how the system works — or doesn’t — and build a new one. Young people today know that the present system is utterly broken. Research conducted by the Institute for Economic Affairs which found that 75% of young people in the UK agree with the assertion that climate change is a specifically capitalist problem, while 78% blame capitalism for Britain’s housing crisis.  Not only do new generations recognise that the system is broken, […] - [No10 Party: Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze](https://heartlandstribune.com/no10-christmas-party-please-join-us-from-6pm-and-bring-your-own-booze/): ‘Bring your own booze!’: Boris Johnson faces new claims his office held party during lockdown Boris Johnson is facing fresh revelations of a party at Downing Street during the first coronavirus lockdown, at a time when social mixing was banned. A leaked email purportedly shows a top official from Johnson’s office invited more than 100 staff to a garden party in May 2020, with a proposal to “bring your own booze”. Reports in UK media suggest the prime minister attended the event with his wife Carrie. The police confirmed on Monday night that they were in “contact” with the government about […] - [Charges Dropped Against Guards Who Falsified Records on Night Epstein Died](https://heartlandstribune.com/charges-dropped-against-guards-who-falsified-records-on-night-epstein-died/): In case you missed this… Federal prosecutors quietly announce they have DROPPED their case against Jeffrey Epstein’s jail guards, one day AFTER Ghislaine Maxwell’s guilty verdict The two prison guards who admitted to falsifying records on the night Jeffrey Epstein purportedly killed himself have seen their charges dismissed by a federal judge. Now some of our readers may have already read this report but many more it was a missed news item slipped out on December 31st 2021, with most news and political blogs still reporting on the Maxwell verdict this article just became part of the chatter. The fact the […] - [No New Party Yet: Unfortunately for Labour's right-wing, Corbyn will always overshadow Starmer that's why they want him gone.](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-new-party-yet-unfortunately-for-labours-right-wing-corbyn-will-always-overshadow-starmer-thats-why-they-want-him-gone/): Corbyn is best placed where he is with no intention of jumping. The Labour Party are trying to force Corbyn out but they hope he jumps to stop a mass exodus of members. Labour Heartlands has it from a source close to Jeremy Corbyn, that at this point in time, he is a Labour Party member although sitting as an independent MP, he has no intention of walking away from the Party he has been a member of for over 56 years and an MP representing North Islington for 39 of those years. Contrary to the right-wing newspapers and Starmer’s rumour […] - [Thousands protest COVID curbs in Europe amid omicron surge](https://heartlandstribune.com/thousands-protest-covid-curbs-in-europe-amid-omicron-surge/): Vaccine sceptics and others angered by COVID curbs have protested in Brussels, Prague and other European cities. Omicron is driving up cases across the EU, with experts warning unvaccinated people are especially at risk. Thousands of people took part in demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions on Sunday in Belgium and the Czech Republic, while cities in Germany and Vienna saw renewed protests on Saturday. Weekend demonstrations have continued across the European Union as governments move to implement tighter curbs and new rules to encourage COVID jabs and booster shots. The highly-transmissible omicron variant is driving up cases across the bloc, with infectious disease experts and medical […] - [Nationalisation must be put back on the agenda to tackle the cost of living crisis, fuel poverty and for the sake of national security.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nationalisation-must-be-put-back-on-the-agenda-to-tackle-the-cost-of-living-crisis-fuel-poverty-and-for-the-sake-of-national-security/): Labour’s abandonment of nationalisation is a betrayal that couldn’t have come at a worst time. Today, it is essential that public ownership be part of any future political manifesto in its true form. Utilities must be brought under public ownership in the true meaning of the word nationalisation, it not only makes economic sense it’s also a matter of security. Ironically while Starmer’s Labour moves further away from Nationalisation, it is needed more today than at any other time since the 1940s.  Starmer recreation of the Labour Party upon the ruins of Blairism and New Labour is the wrong ideology while […] - [Labour's Plans For the NHS is to use Private Healthcare](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-plans-for-the-nhs-is-to-use-private-health-care/): Wes Streeting’s answer to Tory privatisation of the NHS is more privatisation Labour’s shadow health secretary says he would not “shirk” from using private providers to reduce NHS waiting lists. Wes Streeting told the BBC’s Nick Robinson it proved “effective” the last time his party was in power. But he put the blame for needing the option at the Tories’ door, saying the government had “run down the NHS”. The Labour MP also told the Political Thinking podcast his own experience of cancer made him “even more passionate” about bringing down waiting lists. Mr Streeting’s remarks appear to show a change in direction for the […] - [Tony Blair petition reaches 1 million: At this point, you would think he had the decency to decline the knighthood in the face of so much outrage](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blair-petition-reaches-1-million-at-this-point-you-would-think-he-had-the-decency-to-decline-the-knighthood-in-the-face-of-so-much-outrage/): A million people have called on the government to rescind the knighthood given to Tony Blair, The petition posted on the change.org website by actor and presenter Angus Scott says Sir Tony “caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society” while in office. “He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes,” it adds. “Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honour, particularly anything awarded by […] - [Polish speaking, Polish born Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski spends £22k of taxpayers money on Polish lessons](https://heartlandstribune.com/polish-speaking-polish-born-tory-mp-daniel-kawczynski-spends-22k-of-taxpayers-money-on-polish-lessons/): At 6ft 9in Kawczynski is the embodiment of Tory sleaze. Controversy just follows Daniel Kawczynski – a parliamentary neighbour and political ally of scandal-hit former Tory MP Owen Paterson – in 2021 Kawczynski was ordered to say sorry after Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone found him guilty of bullying. He had ranted at parliamentary staffers when he could not join a virtual meeting, then made baseless complaints about them when drunk. The Standards Commissioner concluded that Mr Kawczynski’s behaviour amounted to bullying and was made worse by his ‘abuse of power’ and ‘lack of contrition’. He was told to make an apology […] - [Ghislaine Maxwell trial: Defence calls for retrial after juror says he was a 'victim of sexual abuse'](https://heartlandstribune.com/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-defence-calls-for-retrial-after-juror-says-he-was-a-victim-of-sexual-abuse/): Maxwell’s lawyers say the juror “told reporters that he had disclosed to the other members of the jury during deliberations that he was a victim of sexual abuse and further described his memory of those events”. Her lawyers have written to Judge Alison Nathan saying the issue “presents incontrovertible grounds for a new trial”. Christian Everdell, from Cohen and Gresser LLP, Maxwell’s lawyers, added: “The juror told reporters that he disclosed to the other members of the jury during deliberations that he was a victim of sexual abuse and further described his memory of those events. “According to the juror, his […] - [Lord Ahmed: Former peer guilty of child sex offences](https://heartlandstribune.com/lord-ahmed-former-peer-guilty-of-child-sex-offences/): Former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham has been found guilty of child sex offences following a trial in Sheffield. The former Labour peer has been found guilty of sexual offences against two children in the 1970s. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a boy and the attempted rape of a young girl. Sheffield Crown Court heard the repeated sexual abuse happened in Rotherham when he was a teenager. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, stood trial in Sheffield for offences dating back more than 40 years. A woman told jurors that Ahmed attempted to rape her […] - [COLSTON 4 protesters cleared of causing criminal damage after toppling Edward Colston statue](https://heartlandstribune.com/colston-4-protesters-cleared-of-causing-criminal-damage-after-toppling-edward-colston-statue/): Four people have been cleared of causing criminal damage after the statue of slave master Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into Bristol harbour. Rhian Graham, 29, Milo Ponsford, 25, Jake Skuse, 32, and Sage Willoughby, 21, were accused of criminal damage after the controversial statue of Edward Colston was rolled and dragged into the water during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol The so-called ‘Colston 4’ were the only people to stand trial at Bristol Court Crown following events that made global headlines on June 7 2020, when the statue of the notorious slave trader was pulled from its […] - [We want an alternative to the Tory Party, not an alternative Tory Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-want-an-alternative-to-the-tory-party-not-an-alternative-tory-party/): Sir Keir Starmer flops another relaunch! The only takeaway is the fact he likes Tony Blair and flag shagging. Another attempt at a relaunch by Starmer leaves the people none the wiser on what the Labour Party really stand for. Starmer waffled some objectives about a contract with the British people on trust, yet while he has been Leader of the Labour party he has broken virtually every promise he made, apart from uniting the Party, on that one promise, Starmer has excelled, he simply expelled all those he didn’t like, or showed Left-wing tendencies or disagreed with him. Gone are […] - [Boris Johnson faces growing pressure over Tony Blair's knighthood: Petition calling for PM to take action has reached over 'HALF a MILLION' signatures within three days as fury grows from families of Iraq war dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-faces-growing-pressure-over-tony-blairs-knighthood-petition-calling-for-pm-to-take-action-has-reached-over-half-a-million-signatures-within-three-days-as-fury-grows-from-families/): The most controversial name in the Queen’s New Year Honours list was the former Labour Prime Minister, the first and only person to date to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories that ended with a crushing defeat in 2010 Leaving the Blairites and New Labour in a political wilderness. Blair has long faced criticism for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq, a decision which culminated in a devastating report by Sir John Chilcot in 2016 which found he overplayed evidence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.  Desmond Tutu declared: “The immorality of the United States and Great […] - [Even in death, Epstein protects his friends from prosecution: Settlement shows victims agreed not to sue any "potential defendant" connected to him](https://heartlandstribune.com/even-in-death-epstein-protects-his-friends-from-prosecution-settlement-shows-victims-agreed-not-to-sue-any-potential-defendant-connected-to-him/): Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre’s made a secret deal with Jeffrey Epstein not to sue anyone connected to him Virginia Giuffre agreed not to sue anyone connected to Jeffrey Epstein who could be described as a “potential defendant”, a 2009 damages settlement against the sex offender shows. Ms Giuffre is suing Prince Andrew for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. On Tuesday, a New York judge is due to hear arguments on whether to dismiss her civil lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified damages. The document, disclosed by a New York court, reveals the financier paid her $500,000 (£371,000) to end […] - [We live in a country where alleged 'War Criminals' receives knighthoods while those that exposed their crimes languish in Her Majesty's Prison facing extradition and a 175-year sentence](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-live-in-a-country-where-alleged-war-criminals-receives-knighthoods-while-those-that-exposed-their-crimes-languish-in-her-majestys-prison-facing-extradition-and-a-175-year-sentence/): Blair received top knighthood despite his alleged war crimes, yet Jullian Assange who exposed those crimes sits in Belmarsh prison awaiting Her Majesty’s pleasure. This is the new world order, one in which truth, justice and freedom have no place but those that carry out the atrocity of war, leaving a trail of death and destruction that has become the legacy of the first quarter of the  21st century are awarded the establishment highest honours. While the world mourns the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu remembering his fight against oppression and injustice, it seems only apt that we recall his words […] - [Shameless: Tony Blair Given Most Senior Knighthood in New Year Honours List](https://heartlandstribune.com/shameless-tony-blair-given-most-senior-knighthood-in-new-year-honours-list/): The Establishment Honours Their Own. The former prime minister will be made Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by the Queen. The man that took the UK into an illegal war, that became the catalyst for the next quarter of a century of war, terror, destruction and debt. In 1997 Blair was carried in on a wave of populism after 17 years of the harshest Tory rule Britain had endured. His landslide victory was seen as a turning point for hard pressed working class however we soon learnt we had only exchanged one Tory for another, the […] - [UK approves Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-approves-pfizers-covid-19-antiviral-paxlovid/): The U.K.’s drugs regulator on Friday approved the use of a second oral COVID-19 pill to be taken at home. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said Pfizer’s Paxlovid can be given to people aged 18 and older with mild to moderate symptoms and who are at risk of developing severe disease. This includes people with obesity, diabetes or heart disease, or those over 60. In a clinical trial in this patient group, Paxlovid, which is a combination of two pills, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 percent compared with those given a placebo. The pill, […] - [Ghislaine Maxwell: Found guilty of sex-trafficking minors](https://heartlandstribune.com/ghislaine-maxwell-found-guilty-of-sex-trafficking-minors/): Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children. A jury found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on five of six counts related to her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young girls between 1994 and 2004.  The jury, which is made up of six women and six men, deliberated for about 40 hours over six days.  Maxwell, 60, had pleaded not guilty to six federal charges: sex trafficking of a minor, enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and three related counts of conspiracy.  Maxwell faces up to […] - [The Labour Party is synonymous with the word treachery: Lammy's denial of his former leader is just par for the course](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-is-synonymous-with-the-word-treachery-lammys-denial-of-his-former-leader-is-just-par-for-the-course/): Betrayal comes in many forms: David Lammy says I regret nominating Corbyn for leadership. Speaking at this year’s Limmud festival, a Jewish event, the shadow foreign secretary said he “never believed” Corbyn would become leader and that his nomination was “a mistake”. “I regret nominating Jeremy Corbyn and if I knew what I do now, I never would have nominated him,” Lammy told an online audience of about 300, in comments first reported in Jewish News. “I never believed he would become leader. That was a mistake and I am sorry for that.” The MP for Tottenham, whose constituency is home to part […] - [A Life Less Ordinary: Desmond Tutu Archbishop, Anti-apartheid veteran and Nobel Peace Prize winner dies aged 90](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-life-less-ordinary-desmond-tutu-archbishop-anti-apartheid-veteran-and-nobel-peace-prize-winner-dies-aged-90/): Nobel Peace Prize awardee Desmond Tutu was a renowned South African Anglican cleric known for his staunch opposition to the policies of apartheid. Despite bloody violations committed against the black population in South Africa during Apartheid, Tutu adhered to his nonviolent line. Since, he emerged as a global voice for peace, reconciliation, and social justice around the world. Tutu, described by foreign observers and people in his country as the moral conscience of the nation, died in Cape Town on Boxing Day. “The passing of archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South […] - [Ken Loach and other Victims of Owen Jones’ Guardian pro-Israel smears.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ken-loach-and-other-victims-of-owen-jones-guardian-pro-israel-smears/): Heather Mendick, PhD is a Senior Research Consultant, who also happens to be a Jewish woman that has been attacked by the Labour Party, she has suffered bullying and alienation while being accused of antisemitism, Heather hoped to gain an opportunity to debate her position, however… Last week, Heather Mendick and Owen Jones entered into a slight Twitter spat. Heather Mendick had asked for retweets proposing Jones used his platform to debate her on Labour antisemitism, this soon extended to other left wing victims of the Witch Hunt being put forward for a debate. As these things do, the spat started […] - [Tory MPs trigger a vote of confidence in Boris Johnson's leadership](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-leadership-challenge-how-does-it-work/): Conservative MPs trigger a vote of confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, has confirmed that the “threshold of 15 per cent of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded,” and that a vote on Johnson’s leadership will be held from 6 pm to 8 pm on Monday evening. A spokesperson for Downing Street has said that Johnson “welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs”. Boris Johnson is now fighting for his political life as he faces […] - [Bilderberg 2022: Politicians from Michael Gove to David Lammy to discuss our futures in secret with no accountability.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bilderberg-2022-politicians-from-michael-gove-to-david-lammy-to-discuss-our-futures-in-secret-with-no-accountability/): The secretive Bilderberg Group gathers for its annual meeting this week. The 68th Bilderberg meeting is taking place 2 – 5 June 2022 in Washington, D.C., USA. 120 participants from 21 countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia, labour and the media has been invited. The list of participants is available on bilderbergmeetings.org. Typically, one-third of participants come from the U.S. with the rest from Europe. Amongst the British contingent, we get a crossparty appearance including Tory minister Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up and the now prominent […] - [Dennis Skinner’s damning prediction about Queen Elizabeth II](https://heartlandstribune.com/dennis-skinners-damning-prediction-about-queen-elizabeth-ii/): The Royal Family have been “pushing their own self-destruct button” for the past few years by trying to be both mysterious and relatable at the same time. In a 1994 interview, Dennis Skinner made some very clear predictions on how the monarchy would be the root of its own destruction.  He claimed their attempts to be like “soap stars” has ultimately resulted in increased negativity towards them. At the time he had no idea how Harry would turn out or how Andrew would bring about so much disgrace and embarrassment to the royal family and the nation. Mr Skinner did not […] - [Tony Benn: Hereditary monarchy helps to prop up all the privilege and patronage that corrupts our society](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-hereditary-monarchy-helps-to-prop-up-all-the-privilege-and-patronage-that-corrupts-our-society/): Above all, the existence of a hereditary monarchy helps to prop up all the privilege and patronage that corrupts our society -Tony Benn, Free Radical On Friday, December 11 1936, when I was 11 years old, my parents allowed me to stay up late to hear the broadcast by King Edward VIII, who had just abdicated and was introduced as His Royal Highness Prince Edward of Windsor. I remember it very well. It provided an important insight into our constitution, revealing that although the establishment was always swearing its undying loyalty to the king – as recently as January of that […] - [The European Union Was Designed to Stifle Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-european-union-was-designed-to-stifle-democracy/): BY DAVID JAMIESON Review of Ever Closer Union? Europe in the West by Perry Anderson (Verso, 2021) Perry Anderson’s critical analysis of the European Union is a devastating indictment of liberal complacency. The EU is undemocratic by design, and we will have to confront it in order to transform a Europe riddled with inequality and exploitation. Today, the structures of European capitalism and the transatlantic alliance should be under scrutiny like never before. After more than a decade of intense economic and political crisis, Western European powers and their US sponsor are now facing off against Russia in a brutal proxy war in […] - [US Proxy War: The constant battle to keep things out of the memory hole Nuland-Pyatt Video Restored to YouTube](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-proxy-war-the-constant-battle-to-keep-things-out-of-the-memory-hole-nuland-pyatt-video-restored-to-youtube/): People have the right to be informed and in no way does the information within this article detract away from Ukraine’s right to defend itself from Russian aggression, nor does it undermine the people’s right to self-determination and protection from Ukraine’s military and government have been waging a civil war for over eight years in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk’s. A war zone the international community has constantly and conveniently ignored. However, again we find the war of propaganda is constantly being waged. Censorship and the takedown of information on the internet seem to be the norm. The ‘memory […] - [MINISTERIAL CODE: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ministerial-code-all-animals-are-equal-but-some-animals-are-more-equal-than-others/): “Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”― George Orwell, Animal Farm Boris Johnson has been accused by the opposition Labour party of “debasing the principles of public life” after the government published a revised outline of its ministerial code on Friday. They were made in the wake of last year’s Owen Paterson lobbying scandal, when the now-former MP was found to have breached lobbying rules, but Boris Johnson asked his MPs to not back his suspension. After an uproar, he then U-turned, but Mr Paterson quit. The updated policy, released by the Cabinet Office, said that ministers who are found to have breached the rules should not […] - [Zelensky demands answers from EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-demands-answers-from-eu/): The Ukrainian president accused the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte of staying “silent” on Ukraine’s potential EU membership This weeks long read… Zelensky told Dutch broadcaster NOS on Friday that the Netherlands’ Prime Minister Mark Rutte needs to clarify whether Ukraine has a future in the European Union. Rutte is one of several top EU politicians to have cast doubt on a fast accession to the bloc for Ukraine. Rutte spoke to Zelensky by phone on Thursday, two weeks after he virtually addressed the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv. Rutte expressed his support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia but did not offer […] - [Boris Johnson discusses his ‘brilliant strategy for confusing media’ in resurfaced clip](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-discusses-his-brilliant-strategy-for-confusing-media-in-resurfaced-clip/): A clip has resurfaced of Boris Johnson discussing his “brilliant strategy” for dealing with the media during an appearance on BBC’s Booktalk in 2006. The prime minister is facing calls to resign after a number of scandals but suggested 16 years ago that making “so many gaffes” was part of his master plan. “I’ve got a brilliant new strategy which is to make so many gaffes, that no one knows what to concentrate on,” Mr Johnson said. “You pepper the media with so many gaffes that they are confused.” - [Households to get £400 energy bill help and £650 payments for millions on benefits](https://heartlandstribune.com/households-to-get-400-energy-bill-help-and-650-payments-for-millions-on-benefits/): The Chancellor was forced to unveil £15 billion in emergency help after inflation rocketed to a 40-year high, bringing soaring costs to all households. It comes after warnings energy bills would hit £2,800 in October – and after Boris Johnson needed a Partygate distraction. In a statement to MPs, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak also said over eight million households on means-tested benefits will receive a one-off £650 payment, made in two lump sums, with one in July and one in the autumn. Pensioner households who receive the winter fuel allowance will also get an additional £300 one-off payment and people who receive non-means […] - [Under cover of the pandemic, we have seen a massive shift in wealth from the poorest to the richest](https://heartlandstribune.com/under-cover-of-the-pandemic-we-have-seen-a-massive-shift-in-wealth-from-the-poorest-to-the-richest/): How on earth does he sleep at night with so much blood on his filthy, privileged hands? Following the release of the Sue Gray report the public has been subjected to what was little more than an American style ‘Comedy Central Roast of Boris Johnson’ by MPs. However, a few MPs actually managed to get their licks in despite Starmer and the sham opposition playing the pantomime of #Partygate vs #Beergate commonly known as the kettle calling the pot grimy arse. Andy McDonald one of Labour’s last remaining Left-wing MPs called out both Boris Johnson and this kleptocratic government in a […] - [Sue Gray’s full report into Downing Street parties](https://heartlandstribune.com/sue-grays-full-report-into-downing-street-parties/): Below is the full report into illegal gatherings at Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. Compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray, its initial publication was delayed by the Met Police inquiry which led to 126 fines being issued, including one each to the prime minister and the chancellor FINDINGS OF SECOND PERMANENT SECRETARY’S INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED GATHERINGS ON GOVERNMENT PREMISES DURING COVID RESTRICTIONS. FINDINGS OF SECOND PERMANENT SECRETARY’S INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED GATHERINGS: REPORT On 8 December 2021 the Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Secretary to carry out an investigation into allegations reported in the media relating to gatherings in No 10 […] - [RMT wins mandate to strike: The UK is set to see the biggest rail strike in modern history.](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-wins-mandate-to-strike-the-uk-is-set-to-see-the-biggest-rail-strike-in-modern-history/): RMT DECLARES OVERWHELMING MANDATE FOR NATIONAL STRIKE ACTION ON RAILWAYS RMT members from Network Rail and 13 major franchise operators from across the country will walk out this summer over a pay, jobs and conditions dispute. With signalling staff signed up to join the action, as many as four fifths of services could be axed, including all early morning and late night trains. Railway workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action across Network Rail and the train operating companies, in the biggest endorsement for industrial action by railway workers since privatisation. 71% of those balloted took part in the […] - [At least 19 children, 2 adults killed in Texas school shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/texas-governor-15-killed-in-school-shooting-gunman-dead/): An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said, in the latest gruesome moment for a country scarred by a string of massacres. The attacker was killed by law enforcement. The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Gov. Greg Abbott said one of the two was a teacher. Abbott said a local man opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 85 miles west of San Antonio. It was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history and occurred four years after a […] - [Former Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan sentenced to 18 months in prison for sexually assaulting 15-year-old boy](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-tory-mp-imran-ahmad-khan-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison-for-sexually-assaulting-15-year-old-boy/): The 48-year-old, who served as MP for Wakefield from 2019 until this year, was found guilty in April of sexually assaulting the teenager at a house in Staffordshire in 2008. In April, Southwark Crown Court heard that Khan, 48, forced the teenager to drink alcohol, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornography before assaulting him in January 2008. The complainant, now aged 29 and who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the attack at a Staffordshire house party left him “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised”. The jury in Southwark also heard how Khan touched the boy’s feet […] - [Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin jailed for life over war crime](https://heartlandstribune.com/russian-soldier-vadim-shishimarin-jailed-for-life-over-war-crime/): A court in Ukraine has jailed a 21 year old Russian tank commander for life for killing a civilian at the first war crimes trial since the invasion. Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin has been sentenced to life in prison for war crimes by a court in Kyiv. Prosecutors accused the 21-year-old sergeant of shooting dead an elderly civilian in the northeastern Sumy Region of Ukraine during the first days of the Russian military offensive. Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin admitted murdering Oleksandr Shelipov, a civilian, as Russian soldiers drove into the village of Chupakhivka four days into the invasion. He pleaded guilty to […] - [Unions are preparing to stand up to the government's attacks on workers' rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/unions-are-preparing-to-stand-up-to-the-governments-attacks-on-workers-rights/): Fight for the right to strike… Unions have pledged to fight ministers’ “desperate” proposals to force staff to work should a national rail strike be called. With ballots on industrial action across Network Rail and 15 English train operators closing this week, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the government would consider imposing “minimum service levels”, effectively curtailing the right to strike. RMT The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and others said any such move would meet the “fiercest resistance”. More than 40,000 RMT members are voting on whether to strike in the face of expected cuts including the loss of […] - [Mhairi Black: I fear we have been sleepwalking closer and closer to the F word](https://heartlandstribune.com/mhairi-black-i-fear-we-have-been-sleepwalking-closer-and-closer-to-the-f-word/): It’s not our usual practice to publish speeches from the Scottish National Party, however, Mhairi Black’s speech on the direction of the UK was so powerful it deserves publication irrelevant of political differences. This is the kind of speech that the official opposition should be making. This speech is the kind of speech that one day may well be seen as a missed opportunity to stop and change direction, a warning that really should be listened to before it’s too late. Mhairi Black: Achieving Economic Growth debated on Wednesday 18 May 2022 “For a party that prides itself on the economy, […] - [Noam Chomsky: The Puzzlement is Russia a Paper Tiger or must we cower in terror before this awesome military machine?](https://heartlandstribune.com/noam-chomsky-the-puzzlement-is-russia-a-paper-tiger-or-must-we-cower-in-terror-before-this-awesome-military-machine/): Is the Russian Military a Paper Tiger or an awesome military machine? Make your mind up! Professor Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has written more than 100 books, including, most recently, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance, co-authored with Marv Waterstone, and, forthcoming, The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power with Vijay Prashad. He is currently the Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona and Professor Emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Chomsky is known for his anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-Zionist positions. Chomsky’s journey to political prominence began […] - [Tory MP arrested over rape and sexual assault allegations spanning seven-year period](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-arrested-over-rape-and-sexual-assault-allegations-spanning-seven-year-period/): The individual remains in custody and the investigation into the alleged offences, which took place between 2002 and 2009, is ongoing. A Metropolitan Police statement said: “A man was arrested on suspicion of indecent assault, sexual assault, rape, abuse of position of trust and misconduct in a public office.” A statement from the government Whips office said: “The Chief Whip has asked that the MP concerned does not attend the Parliamentary Estate while an investigation is ongoing. Until the conclusion of the investigation, we will not be commenting further.” The identity of the arrested MP will not be confirmed by the […] - [Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-orders-azovstal-fighters-to-surrender/): More than 200 Ukrainian soldiers are being evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol after weeks of resistance against the Russian invasion. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed on its social media networks, on Tuesday evening, that its servicemen holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been ordered to surrender.  “The garrison “Mariupol” has completed the assigned combat mission. The highest military command issued an order to the commanders of the units located at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the Ukrainian military statement explained. According to Kyiv, while […] - [Economist attacks Tories over ‘unforgivable’ cost of living crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/economist-attacks-tories-over-unforgivable-cost-of-living-crisis/): An economist has given a powerful takedown on the handling of the cost of living crisis by the government during a Question Time debate condemning its “unforgivable” approach to the crisis. Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is the chief economist at the New Economics Foundation, appeared on the panel alongside Tory MP Suella Braverman in Hackney. Her outspoken comments come after new research showed that more than two million adults in the UK have skipped meals for a whole day over the past month because they cannot afford to eat as the crisis worsens. Fahnbulleh accused the government of not “grasping the scale” of the problem, and […] - [Wakefield local Labour Party executive resigns over selection process](https://heartlandstribune.com/wakefield-local-labour-party-executive-resigns-over-selection-process/): The executive committee of the Wakefield Constituency Labour Party (CLP) has resigned en masse amid a row over the selection of the candidate for the forthcoming by-election. The executive committee of the Wakefield Constituency Labour Party has shared a statement on its unanimous decision to resign after the party shortlisted two members in its process to pick the party’ candidate in the by-election. The Labour Party is supposed to be preparing to fight the Conservatives at the by-election in Wakefield, called after former Tory MP Imran Ahman Khan formally resigned his seat following his conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. […] - [West Bank: Israeli troops kill Al Jazeera journalist Sherine Abu Aqleh](https://heartlandstribune.com/west-bank-israeli-troops-kill-al-jazeera-journalist-sherine-abu-aqleh/): A Palestinian-American journalist has been shot dead while reporting for Al Jazeera on a raid by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The Qatar-based network said Sherine Abu Aqleh, 51, was shot “deliberately” and “in cold blood” by Israeli troops. Her producer was also shot and wounded. Israel’s prime minister had the audacity to suggest it was “likely” they were shot by Palestinian gunmen during an exchange of fire. It comes amid a surge in violence between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian president said he held the Israeli government fully responsible for what he described as […] - [Starmer gambles Labour leadership on result of Police enquiry and decision of his former staff at the CPS](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-gambles-labour-leadership-on-result-of-police-enquiry-and-decision-of-his-former-staff-at-the-cps/): Starmer says if he is fined by police ‘I would of course do the right thing and step down’ Full text of Starmer’s statement offering to resign if fined for breaching lockdown rulesHere is the full text of Keir Starmer’s opening statement. Ever since the first Covid lockdown I have always followed the rules. People were left desperately lonely. They were separated from family and friends. Tragically, many were unable to see dying loved ones. This was a collective sacrifice. People were entitled to expect that politicians would follow the same rules as everyone else. When my mother-in-law passed away suddenly […] - [Working class hero: Dennis Waterman star of Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks dies aged 74](https://heartlandstribune.com/working-class-hero-dennis-waterman-star-of-minder-the-sweeney-and-new-tricks-star-dies-aged-74/): Actor Dennis Waterman, known for his roles in TV shows including Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks, has died, his family have said. He was 74. A statement said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved Dennis passed away very peacefully at his home in Spain.” He died on Sunday afternoon with wife Pam at his side, they said. “The family kindly ask that our privacy is respected at this very difficult time,” they added. A little background Waterman found fame in his teens in the BBC drama William, and became one of the best-known faces on British television […] - [More revelations show Starmer's #Beergate was more than just stopping for something to eat](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-revelations-shows-starmers-beergate-was-more-than-just-stopping-for-something-to-eat/): Sir Keir Starmer has been plunged into a full-scale leadership crisis after The Mail on Sunday obtained a secret Labour party document which appears to blow apart his version of events over ‘Beergate’. A confidential operational note, drawn up in the days before Starmer visited Durham, reveals that the beer and curry gathering had been planned in advance, it also puts serious doubt on Starmer’s claim that he returned to work afterwards, it appears to show no work was to be conducted after the planned stopping for dinner between 20:40 and 22:00, followed by a walk back to the booked accommodation. […] - [Starmer ‘performed worse than Corbyn outside London’: After two years of flag shagging Labour show no signs of winning back the Red wall](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-performed-worse-than-corbyn-outside-london-after-two-years-of-flag-shagging-labour-show-no-signs-of-winning-back-the-red-wall/): Arguably against the most corrupt Tory government in history, on the verge of a recession, Labour has done terrible outside London and always will with Starmer as Leader! Sir Keir Starmer performed worse than Jeremy Corbyn in last night’s local elections outside London, a leading polling expert has said. Despite the party claiming historic victories in London, Professor Sir John Curtice said that, from results announced overnight, Labour’s share of the vote and numbers of seats won outside the capital were actually lower than the last time the seats were contested in 2018. Sir John Curtis called it when he states […] - [More bad news for Starmer: Durham Police reopen investigating into 'Beergate'](https://heartlandstribune.com/more-bad-news-for-starmer-durham-police-reopen-investigating-into-beergate/): Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will be investigated by Durham police over “beergate”, it has been reported. Durham Constabulary, who previously said they did not believe the Labour leader had breached coronavirus rules, are set to probe the Labour leader. The Labour leader has come under pressure since footage emerged of him drinking a beer with colleagues in April 2021 in Durham during campaigning for the Hartlepool by-election. At the time of the gathering, non-essential retail and outdoor venues including pub gardens were open but social distancing rules, which included a ban on indoor mixing between households, remained in place. In […] - [Martin Lewis called George Eustice's advice for those struggling to eat 'patronising bullshit'](https://heartlandstribune.com/martin-lewis-called-george-eustices-advice-for-those-struggling-to-eat-patronising-bullshit/): Martin Lewis slams ‘value brand’ minister’s ‘patronising’ cost of living advice. Martin Lewis called Government advice to those struggling to eat amid the cost of living crisis “patronising b*******” but said Boris Johnson may provide “hope” of political intervention. Speaking on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, Martin Lewis said “ironically” the Prime Minister will be the one to provide financial help to those struggling, before the Chancellor as he is a “populist politician”. The 49-year-old TV personality’s rant came after Environment Secretary George Eustice suggested those hit hardest by soaring prices buy value brands. In his “tone-deaf” comments, he added it is important […] - [TUSC candidates in the May elections](https://heartlandstribune.com/tusc-candidates-in-the-may-elections/): TUSC candidates in the May elections Below is the list of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidates standing in the various elections taking place on May 5th. There are 276 candidates, comprising of 231 local council candidates contesting seats in 55 local authorities in England (plus three mayoral candidacies), 16 candidates contesting seats in nine authorities in Scotland, and 26 candidates contesting seats in five authorities in Wales. The council candidate list for England is broken down into regions. TUSC’s core policy platform for the May 5th 2022 local elections Vote for a socialist recovery from the Covid crisis! […] - [The Future of Gen Z Journalism Depends on Julian Assange's Freedom](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-future-of-gen-z-journalism-depends-on-julian-assanges-freedom/): The world’s most powerful government will be able to suppress scrutiny and accountability from journalists anywhere in the world if Assange is successfully extradited, tried, and sentenced. Just days before World Press Freedom Day 2022 the very existence of world press freedom inched closer to its possible demise. On April 20, a U.K. court formally approved extradition of WikiLeaks founder and Australian journalist, Julian Assange, to the United States to be tried under the Espionage Act. He is facing a sentence of up to 175 years.  Extradition is still not guaranteed. The ultimate decision is pending approval from the U.K. Home Secretary […] - [The People's Charter](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-peoples-charter/): The Chartist movement: A fight for the right to vote The Chartist movement was the first mass movement driven by the working classes. It grew following the failure of the 1832 Reform Act to extend the vote beyond those owning property. In an age of ascendant industry and concentrated wealth, the great mass of British workers remained voteless and voiceless – condemned to silence by a political system that prized property over people. But in 1838, a defiant cry for political rights would reverberate from the factories and mills, the downtrodden neighbourhoods where the industrial underclass survived in squalor. That year, […] - [Israel demands Russia apologise for ‘lie’ that Hitler had Jewish roots](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-demands-russia-apologise-for-lie-that-hitler-had-jewish-roots/): Israel wants and deserves an apology from Russia over ‘Hitler’ remark Tel Aviv says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s words about Jews are a “historical error” Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador, after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Adolf Hitler may have had some Jewish blood, and that the “most ardent” anti-Semites are Jews themselves. “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tweeted on Monday. “Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.” […] - [Everyone's Anti-War Until The War Propaganda Starts](https://heartlandstribune.com/everyones-anti-war-until-the-war-propaganda-starts/): Everyone’s anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Nobody thinks of themselves as a warmonger, but then the spin machine gets going and before you know it they’re spouting the slogans they’ve been programmed to spout and waving the flags the flags they’ve been programmed to wave and consenting to whatever the imperial war machine wants in that moment. Virtually everyone will tell you they love peace and hate war when asked; war is the very worst thing in the world, and no healthy person relishes the thought of it. But when the rubber meets the road and it’s time to oppose […] - [Neil Parish MP suspended over allegations of viewing pornography in Commons](https://heartlandstribune.com/neil-parish-mp-suspended-over-allegations-of-viewing-pornography-in-commons/): The MP accused of watching pornography in the Commons is Conservative Neil Parish. A spokesman for the chief whip said: “Having spoken to the chief whip this afternoon, Neil Parish MP is reporting himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. “Mr Parish has been suspended from the Conservative Whip pending the outcome of that investigation.” Two female Conservative MPs made the allegation against Mr Parish during a meeting of women Tory backbench MPs on Tuesday evening, but the whips office had not publicly named him. The women told Tory chief whip, Chris Heaton-Harris, they had witnessed the MP watching porn on his phone […] - [They're all the same: The Political class think rules only apply to the Great unwashed and Working class, Starmer had his own knees up during lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/theyre-all-the-same-the-political-class-think-rules-only-apply-to-the-great-unwashed-and-working-class-starmer-had-his-own-knees-up-during-lockdown/): The Tories have implemented rules that have been the most draconian since the great plague of 1665, at times it has felt like the only thing missing was a constant bell ringing its sad tones as the numbers of dead rolled across our TV screens. We have made great sacrifices to follow the rules, rules that in many cases have kept people away from their loved ones at moments of their greatest need, grandparents, parents, children and loved ones separated, restricted in that most basic human instinct, to socialise, to be together. The majority have not questioned the necessity in sacrificing […] - [Russia sanctions 287 British MPs](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-sanctions-287-british-mps/): Moscow blacklists 213 Tory and 74 Labour MPs in retaliation for London’s sanctions. The Kremlin targeted members of the House of Commons accused of whipping up “Russophobic hysteria” in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Britain on 386 members of Russia’s parliament, the Duma. Russia on Wednesday imposed sanctions against 287 British members of Parliament, in retaliation for last month’s blacklisting of Russian lawmakers by London. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow announced the full list of Conservative and Labour MPs banned from Russia, saying that they were the most active spreaders of “Russophobia hysteria” in the UK. The UK sanctioned 386 deputies of the […] - [Covid: Government broke the law by discharging untested hospital patients to care homes, High Court rules](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-government-broke-the-law-by-discharging-untested-hospital-patients-to-care-homes-high-court-rules/): Two women whose fathers died from Covid-19 have won a High Court challenge against the Government’s ‘unlawful’ policy of moving untested patients to care homes at the outset of the pandemic. Cathy Gardner, whose father Michael Gibson died, and Fay Harris, whose father Donald died, partially succeeded in their claims against the Health Secretary and Public Health England (PHE) on Wednesday. They have both since called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign over the ruling, while one accused former health secretary Matt Hancock of ‘lying to the public’ when he said the NHS was putting a ‘protective ring’ around care […] - [Russia warns Britain of immediate 'proportional response' for 'provoking' Ukraine to attack Russia on Russian soil.](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-warns-britain-of-immediate-proportional-response-for-provoking-ukraine-to-attack-russia-on-russian-soil/): Russia’s defence ministry has warned of an immediate “proportional response” if Britain continues its “direct provocation” of Ukraine to strike targets in Russia. The Russian Ministry of Defense has accused London of a “direct provocation” after British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey encouraged Ukrainian forces to use UK-supplied weapons to attack targets inside Russia. The Russian ministry cited statements from the UK’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, that said Britain backs Ukrainian troops carrying out strikes in Russian territory. Speaking earlier today, Defence Minister James Heappey had said ‘of course’ Ukraine had the right to attack Russian military installations even if they were over the border. adding […] - [Russia's Gazprom to halt to gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria from Wednesday](https://heartlandstribune.com/russias-gazprom-to-halt-to-gas-supplies-to-poland-bulgaria-from-wednesday/): Both Poland and Bulgaria confirm that Russian gas is to be halted. Russian energy giant Gazprom will cease delivering gas to Bulgaria on Wednesday, both countries announced today. The news comes after the Saint Petersburg firm confirmed it will also halt supplies to Poland, with both countries refusing to pay for energy supplies in rubles. Bulgaria’s energy ministry announced the news in a statement, adding that there would be no imminent need for consumers to ration their gas usage. Bulgaria relies on Russia for around 90% of its gas, with the remainder coming from Azerbaijan.  Last month, a spokesman for state energy […] - [Keith Starmer's NATO Hypocrisy](https://heartlandstribune.com/will-the-real-keith-starmer-please-stand-up-nato-hypocrisy/): Will The Real Keith Starmer Please Stand Up: NATO Hypocrisy The political circus continues its never-ending performance, with Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer as the star acrobat, executing breathtaking ideological somersaults that would make even the most seasoned gymnast dizzy. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be amazed by the man who can change his core beliefs faster than you can say “electoral expediency”! In our latest act, we witness Starmer’s passionate love affair with NATO, an organisation he once suggested should be dismantled. Yes, you heard that right! The same man who, as Secretary of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, […] - [It's a divided France, the centre-right wins the far-right: Macron elected for second term as French president leads Le Pen 58.2%-41.8%](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-a-divided-france-the-centre-right-wins-the-far-right-macron-elected-for-second-term-as-french-president-leads-le-pen-58-2-41-8/): Macron elected for a second term as French president leads Le Pen 58.2%-41.8% It’s a divided France, the centre-right wins the far-right. The centre-right Emmanuel Macron has been elected to a second term as French president on Sunday evening with 58.2% of the vote, according to an estimate from the Ipsos polling institute.  His far-right challenger Marine Le Pen won 41.8% of the vote in an election that saw the country’s highest abstention rate in 50 years. Follow our live blog for all the latest news and reactions.  Eric Zemmour, Le Pen’s far-right rival in the first round, observes that this is […] - [Starmer’s car industry donors revealed as Labour calls for nationwide ban to block Just Stop Oil protests](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-car-industry-donors-revealed-as-labour-calls-for-nationwide-ban-to-block-just-stop-oil-protests/): The Labour leader has called for injunctions against green protesters. Now it has emerged two of his biggest donors were motor industry chiefs. Open democracy points out in their recent article by Caroline Molloy that two of the biggest donors to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign are former motor industry bosses, it has emerged, after Labour faced a backlash for siding with the Tories against anti-oil campaigners. Last week the Labour party called for an “immediate nationwide ban” to block the on-going “Just Stop Oil” demonstrations that have seen climate protestors at UK oil terminals. The news comes after a fortnight of protests […] - [Energy crisis: The size and scale of the crisis is beyond what I think the industry can deal with](https://heartlandstribune.com/energy-crisis-the-size-and-scale-of-the-crisis-is-beyond-what-i-think-the-industry-can-deal-with/): Watch these energy CEOs talk about the impact of higher energy costs on consumers. Scottish Power CEO says the situation will be “truly horrific” and called for a “massive shift in govt policy”. While these Energy CEOs call for Government intervention as they paint a bleak picture of debt and fuel poverty. The CEO of Scottish Power, Keith Anderson, warned the energy price crisis will become “truly horrific” without urgent Government action. The shift that’s needed is the ‘nationalisation’ of energy. unfortunately, the mainstream parties are still blind to common sense and common ownership. Today, it is essential that public ownership […] - [MPs approve unopposed motion to set up an inquiry into claims Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-approve-unopposed-motion-to-set-up-an-inquiry-into-claims-boris-johnson-misled-mps-over-partygate/): Boris Johnson will face a Commons inquiry over whether he lied to parliament after Downing Street withdrew an attempt to force Conservative MPs to delay the new Partygate investigation. A Labour motion to launch a parliamentary investigation into whether Johnson lied to MPs about Downing Street parties passed without a vote on Thursday afternoon. Hours earlier, government whips had pulled an amendment that would have delayed any vote to start the inquiry until after the Sue Gray report was published. Nigel Evans, the deputy Speaker, called the vote. There were no objections. The motion was nodded through without a vote. That means […] - [DWP Ordered to Draw up a Legally-Binding Action Plan by Human Rights Watchdog After Benefit Claimants' String of Deaths](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-ordered-to-draw-up-a-legally-binding-action-plan-by-human-rights-watchdog-after-benefit-claimants-string-of-deaths/): Britain’s human rights watchdog ordered the government to reform its treatment of disabled and mentally ill benefit claimants after a string of deaths. Evidence stretching back more than a decade shows how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) repeatedly ignored recommendations to improve the safety of its disability benefits assessment system, leading to countless avoidable deaths of disabled claimants. The Equality and Human Rights Commission responded to “serious concerns” about “failures” in the Department for Work of Pensions (DWP), including suicides. MPs had asked the EHRC to investigate “the deaths of vulnerable claimants by suicide and other causes between 2008 […] - [UK court approves extradition of War crimes whistleblower Julian Assange to the US: Priti Patel has final approval](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-court-approves-extradition-of-war-crimes-whistleblower-julian-assange-to-us-priti-patel-has-final-approval/): There is nothing more hypocritical than to see the persecution of Julian Assange for exposing war crimes committed by the West. This extradition of a whistleblower who called out the wrongdoings of the West in an illegal war is happening while Joe Biden and Boris Johnson have the audacity to moralise over alleged war crimes committed in the Ukraine conflict. While Biden shouts across the media for Russia to be condemned for war crimes the person that helped exposed US war crimes is being extradited to the US and could see sentencing of 175 years for helping to expose those crimes. […] - [It's the economy, stupid: German employers and unions unite to oppose EU Russian gas boycott](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-the-economy-stupid-german-employers-and-unions-unite-to-oppose-eu-russian-gas-boycott/): When it comes to the economy no amount of moralising will stop the flow of oil Remember the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid?” It was coined by James Carville, strategist of US President Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 campaign against George H W Bush. The quip was meant to bring voters back to the fact that the campaign was being held in the middle of a recession, which the Clinton team used successfully to unseat Bush. Today the employers and unions united to call out a possible EU ban on Russian gas and oil, saying it would grind industry to a halt. […] - [Oliver Stone: It’s a system that has been perpetuated under the guise that these are just wars](https://heartlandstribune.com/oliver-stone-its-a-system-that-has-been-perpetuated-under-the-guise-that-these-are-just-wars/): Oliver Stone has never been one to shy away from war or politics, with current events taking place it is always worth reiterating the meaningful. I recently posted Ukraine on fire by Oliver Stone, I thought I would follow that up with a little look into the life and background of one of the film industries’ most colourful characters. It’s said Stone encapsulates many characters including, Veteran, Agitator, Provocateur, Bully, Conspiracy nut, Patriot, just some of the labels used over the years to describe Oliver Stone. (Subtle isn’t one of them.) He has spent his filmmaking career charting the currents that […] - [Zelensky warns 'elimination' of last Mariupol troops would 'end peace talks'](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-warns-elimination-of-last-mariupol-troops-would-end-peace-talks/): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday that the “elimination” of the last Ukrainian soldiers present in the port city of Mariupol besieged by Russian forces “would put an end to any peace negotiations” with Moscow. “The elimination of our soldiers, of our men (in Mariupol) will put an end to any negotiation” of peace between Russia and Ukraine, declared the president in remarks reproduced by the news website Ukraïnska Pravda, warning that the two sides would then find themselves in “an impasse”. In terms of human casualties, he said “Mariupol…  could be ten times Borodianka”, a small Ukrainian town near Kyiv […] - [Jacques Baud: The Military Situation In Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/jacques-baud-the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-update/): The Military Situation In The Ukraine Warning this weeks-long read… Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was […] - [Ukraine: Russia says its Black Sea flagship 'Moskva' has sunk](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-russia-says-its-black-sea-flagship-moskva-has-sunk/): Missile cruiser ‘Moskva’ went down in the Black Sea while being towed to port, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The Russian missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea fleet, sank while being towed into port amid stormy sea conditions, the defence ministry in Moscow said on Thursday. According to the Russian military, the warship’s hull had been damaged by an ammunition explosion, itself caused by a fire onboard, on Wednesday.  Several Ukrainian officials had earlier boasted that a battery of their Neptune anti-ship missiles hidden in the area near the port town of Odesa had successfully struck the Moskva twice, […] - [Minister Lord David Wolfson quits over No 10 Partygate revelations](https://heartlandstribune.com/minister-lord-david-wolfson-quits-over-no-10-partygate-revelations/): A Tory peer has resigned as a justice minister over Covid law-breaking in Downing Street. It comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were fined for attending a party in No 10 during lockdown. In a letter to Mr Johnson, Lord David Wolfson criticised the “official response” to “repeated rule-breaking”. He is the first person to quit the government since reports of lockdown parties emerged. In his resignation letter, Lord Wolfson said the “scale, context and nature” of Covid breaches in government was inconsistent with the rule of law. My letter to the Prime Minister today. pic.twitter.com/lADCvKDKbB — David […] - [In Pakistan's rush for regime change, they elected Shehbaz Sharif the new prime minister who is still on bail for money laundering](https://heartlandstribune.com/in-pakistans-rush-for-regime-change-they-elected-shehbaz-sharif-the-new-prime-minister-who-is-still-on-bail-for-money-laundering/): Sharif, leader of the centrist Pakistan Muslim League-N is the new prime minister of Pakistan The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, had earlier accused the United States of conspiring against him. Following Shehbaz Sharif replacing Khan as the PM. The lower house of parliament convened Monday afternoon to select Pakistan’s prime minister, following Sunday’s no-confidence vote, which removed former Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. Sharif was the only contender following the walkout of the more than 100 members of parliament from Khan’s party and was elected with 174 votes. Shahbaz Sharif was only able to do this after a court in […] - [Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to be fined for Downing Street lockdown-breaking parties](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-and-rishi-sunak-to-be-fined-for-downing-street-lockdown-breaking-parties/): The confirmation from No 10 that Johnson and Sunak are going to receive fines is expected to spark a political firestorm.  The Metropolitan Police is set to fine Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for breaching lockdown rules. The fixed penalty notice sent to the prime minister and Mr Sunak is part of fines sent to government staff who attended parties in Whitehall when COVID restrictions were in place during 2020 and 2021. In January, the Met launched an investigation into 12 events where restrictions may have been breached. No 10 confirmed the pair had received notification from the Metropolitan Police that […] - [Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan: Guilty of sexually assaulting 15-year-old boy at house in 2008](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-imran-ahmad-khan-guilty-of-sexually-assaulting-15-year-old-boy-at-house-in-2008/): Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy at a house in Staffordshire in 2008. Khan had previously told the court he was trying to be ‘kind’ and ‘helpful’ when discussing sexuality with the boy, who he said appeared ‘troubled’. The politician, who was elected as the MP for Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 2019, denied sexually assaulting the teenager in a bunkbed at a house in Staffordshire in January 2008. He said he had been engaged in a ‘philosophical’ discussion about […] - [Chomsky on Starmer: He’s Returning The Labour Party to a Party That’s Reliably Obedient to Power, That Will be Thatcher-lite in The Style of Tony Blair](https://heartlandstribune.com/chomsky-on-starmer-hes-returning-the-labour-party-to-a-party-thats-reliably-obedient-to-power-that-will-be-thatcher-lite-in-the-style-of-tony-blair/): Noam Chomsky the renowned US academic and linguist talked about current events including Ukraine, climate change and rising authoritarianism in a recent interview with George Eaton. During the interview, Chomsky, who is himself a Left-wing activist and has constantly kept himself abreast of British politics particularly the fight for working-class emancipation, singled out Sir Keir Starmer Chomsky verified and endorsed our opinion of Starmer and his ‘raison d’être’ saying: “Starmer is carrying it forward, he’s returning the Labour Party to a party that’s reliably obedient to power. It’s very important to continue the elite program, pretty much across the spectrum, to […] - [Ukraine Crisis: US oil giants give a master class in war profiteering](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-crisis-us-oil-giants-give-a-master-class-in-war-profiteering/): “Oil and gas companies are feeding off humanitarian disaster and consumer suffering in order to reward Wall Street,” said Lukas Ross at Friends of the Earth. An analysis by BailoutWatch, Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen describes the two main tactics that fossil fuel giants use to benefit investors. By Jessica CorbettCommon Dreams An analysis released Tuesday by a trio of groups highlights how Big Oil has cashed in on various crises over the past year — including the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the global climate emergency —while enriching wealthy shareholders. The new report from BailoutWatch, Friends of the Earth, and Public Citizen explain that there are two […] - [Twitter IS "State-Affiliated Media"](https://heartlandstribune.com/twitter-is-state-affiliated-media/): British politician and broadcaster George Galloway has made headlines in the UK with his threat to press legal action against Twitter for designating his account “Russia state-affiliated media”, a label which will now show up under his name every time he posts anything on the platform. Article by Guest author Caitlin Johnstone “Dear @TwitterSupport I am not ‘Russian State Affiliated media’,” reads a viral tweet by Galloway. “I work for NO Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.” Galloway argues that […] - [Starmer denounced both Amnesty International and Labour's conference vote on Israel as an Apartheid State making his opinion Labour's position.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-denounced-both-amnesty-international-and-labours-conference-vote-on-israel-as-an-apartheid-state-making-his-opinion-labours-position/): Starmer has denounced the world’s leading Human Rights Organisation – Amnesty International – over a forensic report they compiled which concludes they Israel is an Apartheid State. Starmer again misrepresents his own personal views with those of the Labour Party when he says, “that is not the Labour Party’s position.” Starmer’s interview with the JC In an interview conducted by the JC it was put to him that “The heart of Labour’s difficulties with Jews lies in its feelings towards Israel. In February, Amnesty International branded the country an “apartheid state” despite evidence to the contrary, including Arab ministers in government. […] - [Starmer’s Labour insist on using a bandaid to tackle 'energy crisis' while the Tories start to nationalise](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-labour-insist-on-using-a-bandaid-to-tackle-energy-crisis-while-the-tories-start-to-nationalise/): The National Grid Electricity System Operator will be effectively nationalised and turned into a Future System Operator (FSO). The job of keeping the UK’s electricity and gas flowing will be returned to public control by 2024 under government plans for the effective nationalisation of a division of National Grid. A new public body, the Future System Operator, will have responsibility for planning and managing energy distribution, with a focus on the challenges posed by decarbonisation. The government said the plan, announced on the eve of the publication of its long-awaited energy strategy, would “drive progress towards net zero while maintaining energy security and […] - [Rishi Sunak’s millionaire wife avoids tax through non-dom status](https://heartlandstribune.com/rishi-sunaks-millionaire-wife-avoids-tax-through-non-dom-status-status/): Rishi Sunak’s millionaire wife has claimed non-domicile status in order to save on her tax bill while her husband was chancellor, it was revealed in the Independent. Akshata Murthy, whose family business is estimated to be worth around £3.5bn, has continued to use the valuable tax status even after Mr Sunak was put in charge of setting taxes for the country in February 2020, according to two people familiar with her financial arrangements. Akshata Murthy, who receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian IT services company Infosys, declares non-dom status, a scheme that allows people to […] - [From Korea to Libya: On the Future of Ukraine and NATO's Neverending Wars](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-korea-to-libya-on-the-future-of-ukraine-and-natos-neverending-wars/): Ukraine needs peace and security, not perpetual war that is designed to serve the strategic interests of certain countries or military alliances. Much has been said and written about media bias and double standards in the West’s response to the Russia-Ukraine war, when compared with other wars and military conflicts across the world, especially in the Middle East and the Global South. Less obvious is how such hypocrisy is a reflection of a much larger phenomenon which governs the West’s relationship to war and conflict zones. Like every NATO led war since the inception of the alliance in 1949, these wars resulted […] - [Government expected to sell Channel 4 giving a poor excuse of public ownership is 'holding it back'](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-expected-to-sell-channel-4-giving-a-poor-excuse-of-public-ownership-is-holding-it-back/): The government has decided to push ahead with plans to privatise Channel 4. Ministers have concluded, following a consultation, that while the broadcaster is “currently performing well” its public ownership is “holding it back in the face of a rapidly-changing and competitive media landscape”, a government source said. A spokesperson for Channel 4 said it was “disappointed” with the decision but would “continue to engage” with the government on the process to “ensure that Channel 4 continues to play its unique part in Britain’s creative ecology and national life.” Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel 4 has confirmed in an email to […] - [Tory MP David Warburton is suspended amid 'sex and drugs allegations'](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-david-warburton-is-suspended-amid-sex-and-drugs-allegations/): David Warburton a Tory backbench MP has had the whip withdrawn pending an investigation into allegations about his conduct. The MP for Somerton and Frome David Warburton has been suspended from the party, the Whips’ Office confirmed on Saturday. The claims about Mr Warburton, 56, who sits on the backbenches, are being examined by Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS). The Telegraph reported that the ICGS received a report claiming the MP had behaved inappropriately. He is reported to deny any wrongdoing. Mr Warburton is cited as telling the newspaper: “I have enormous amounts of defence, but unfortunately the way […] - [Labour staff 'gagged' over sexual harassment claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-staff-gagged-over-sexual-harassment-claims/): By Rianna Croxford Correspondent, BBC News Investigations Two former Labour staff were asked to sign confidentiality agreements after making complaints of sexual harassment about a senior official. Documents show the women had reported the party official for “inappropriate” and “possessive” behaviour. It has emerged as the ex-staffers have been named as potential sources of a leaked report about the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. The official was temporarily suspended and strongly denied the allegations. According to documents seen by BBC News, Laura Murray and Georgie Robertson refused to sign the legal agreements and chose to resign without payouts. Their lawyer, Mark Stephens, […] - [Priti Patel’s Conflicts of interest Over Assange's Extradition](https://heartlandstribune.com/priti-patels-conflicts-of-interest-over-assanges-extradition/): Conflicts in Priti Patel’s Power Over Assange Priti Patel, who will soon decide whether to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher, has links to a group that has attacked Assange in the media for a decade, Matt Kennard reports. By Matt Kennard Declassified UK Patel sat on advisory council of Henry Jackson Society (HJS) with Lord Arbuthnot, whose wife later made two key legal rulings against Assange Former C.I.A. Director James Woolsey has been an HJS patron since 2006 HJS has hosted three other ex-C.I.A. directors in London since 2014 Patel was paid £2,500 by HJS to fly to Washington for a “security” program in the U.S. […] - [Trump asks Putin to release info on Hunter Biden business deal in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-asks-putin-to-release-info-on-hunter-biden-business-deal-in-ukraine/): Former President Donald Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should “release” information on an alleged business deal involving Hunter Biden, President Biden’s embattled son. In a new interview Tuesday, Trump discussed an alleged $3.5 million wire transfer from Russian billionaire Elena Baturina to Hunter Biden’s investment firm that was outlined in a report by Senate Republicans made public ahead of the 2020 election. ‘Why did the mayor of Moscow’s wife give the Bidens — both of them — $3.5 million? That’s a lot of money,’ Trump in a 30-second clip on the Voice of America program. “So now I would think Putin would […] - [Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks: The Proposal](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-the-proposal/): Russia promised on Tuesday to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city but the United States warned the threat was not over as Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status as a sign of progress at face-to-face negotiations. Talks took place in an Istanbul palace more than a month into the largest attack on a European nation since World War Two that has killed or injured thousands, forced nearly 4 million to flee abroad and pummelled Russia’s economy with sanctions. Russia has started moving very small numbers of troops away from positions around Kyiv in a move that is more […] - ['Partygate': Police recommend 20 fines over COVID rule breaches in Downing Street](https://heartlandstribune.com/partygate-police-recommend-20-fines-over-covid-rule-breaches-in-downing-street/): Op Hillman – Covid-19 regulation breaches update Police have recommended 20 fines be issued over breaches of COVID regulations at the heart of the UK government. It’s in relation to the so-called Partygate scandal that has rocked Boris Johnson and weakened his authority. It’s alleged multiple social gatherings were held in Downing Street, breaking the government’s own rules designed to restrict the spread of COVID-19. “The investigation into allegations of breaches of COVID-19 regulations in Whitehall and Downing Street has now progressed to the point where the first referrals for fixed penalty notices (FPN) will be made to ACRO Criminal Records Office,” said […] - [G7 Rejects Russian Demand To Pay For Gas In Rubles](https://heartlandstribune.com/g7-rejects-russian-demand-to-pay-for-gas-in-rubles/): Russia: “In our situation, it’s hardly possible and feasible to engage in charity for Europe” Putin announced last week that Russia will demand unfriendly” countries pay for natural gas only in Russian currency from now on. He instructed the country’s central bank to work out a procedure for natural gas buyers to acquire rubles in Russia. “All G7 ministers agreed completely that this [would be] a one-sided and clear breach of the existing contracts,” Habeck told journalists on Monday. The Group of Seven major economies have agreed to reject Moscow’s demand to pay for Russian natural gas exports in rubles, the German energy minister said […] - [Shoving Ukrainian Nazis Down the Memory Hole](https://heartlandstribune.com/shoving-ukrainian-nazis-down-the-memory-hole/): When it comes to Ukraine there seems to be some sort of ‘Collective Amnesia,’ everything has gone down the memory hole. Warning this weeks-long read… The memory hole… The concept was first popularized by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The main protagonist Winston Smith worked for the Ministry of Truth, his job required him to get rid of anything that ran afoul of state propaganda, he states: “When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the […] - [P&O Ferries: Outcry as boss admits breaking UK law in sacking nearly 800 British seafarers](https://heartlandstribune.com/po-ferries-outcry-as-boss-admits-breaking-uk-law-in-sacking-nearly-800-british-seafarers/): The head of a ferry operator at the centre of a bitter labour dispute stunned MPs on Thursday when he acknowledged that the company chose to ignore the law and labour contracts when it fired 786 workers without consulting with them in advance. P&O Ferries Chief Executive Peter Hebblethwaite said while under intense questioning from members of a parliamentary committee that the company decided not to discuss its plans with workers because it knew labour unions would never agree. Lawmakers repeatedly characterised the move as a willful decision to break the law. The company, which operates in Britain and is owned […] - [Rishi Sunak's wife has £490million stake in company still operating in Moscow](https://heartlandstribune.com/rishi-sunaks-wife-has-490million-stake-in-company-still-operating-in-moscow/): Rishi Sunak has defended his wife against claims that their family are benefiting from doing business with Russia. The chancellor’s wife, Akshata Murthy, owns shares of Infosys, an Indian IT company founded by her billionaire father with huge assets in Moscow. As an Indian company, Infosys is not subject to the sanctions imposed by the British Government. It has an office on Kulakov Lane in Moscow and in 2016 set up a development centre in the Russian capital. At the time the company said the base would operate as a centre of excellence “in turbomachinery, aerospace and automotive” tapping into the […] - [War crimes whistleblower, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to marry in Belmarsh Prison today](https://heartlandstribune.com/war-crimes-whistleblower-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-to-marry-in-belmarsh-prison-today/): WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will marry his fiancée Stella Moris in Belmarsh Prison today, just weeks before the third anniversary of his arrest. Julian Assange will marry his long-term partner Stella Moris inside a high-security prison in southeast London on Wednesday at a small ceremony during visiting hours. The wedding is due to be attended by four guests, two official witnesses and two security guards. His fiancée Stella Moris spoke of her joy at being allowed to marry the WikiLeaks founder – despite restrictions being placed on their wedding. Dame Vivienne Westwood, who formerly campaigned against his extradition, is designing Ms Moris’ wedding […] - [Sacked P&O crews replaced by 'Indian seafarers paid £1.80 an hour' legal in EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/sacked-po-crews-replaced-by-indian-seafarers-paid-1-80-an-hour-legal-in-eu/): Sacked P&O crews replaced by ‘Indian seafarers paid £1.80 an hour’ union claims. Seafarers from abroad brought in to replace the 800 sacked British P&O Ferries crew are being paid as little as £1.80 an hour, unions have claimed. The news emerged as Labour accused the government of doing “absolutely nothing” when it learned of the planned sackings, as a memorandum with the “game plan” of P&O was circulated last Wednesday evening a day before the sackings. The RMT union, which represents many of the staff who were abruptly fired last week by the Dubai-owned company, said Indian ratings brought in by offshore agencies […] - [Diplomacy in Ukraine Senator Bernie Sanders](https://heartlandstribune.com/diplomacy-in-ukraine-senator-bernie-sanders/): We must vigorously support diplomatic efforts to deescalate this crisis and reaffirm Ukrainian independence and sovereignty. Bernie Sanders on the Senate floor explaining why. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delivered remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate calling for diplomatic efforts to deescalate the crisis in Ukraine and reaffirm Ukrainian independence and sovereignty. M. President, I rise to address the looming crisis in Ukraine. As I speak today, Europe, for the first time in almost 80 years, is faced with the threat of a major invasion. A large nation threatens a smaller, less powerful neighbour, surrounding it on three sides with tens […] - [Ukraine: Zelensky Suspends 11 Left-Wing Political Parties](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-zelensky-suspends-11-left-wing-political-parties/): No place for the Left In a Livestream, today, Ukrainian President Zelensky, the so called champion of ‘free speech and ‘democracy’ ordered the banning of Ukraine’s 11 remaining left-wing opposition parties: “Opposition Platform – For Life, Sharij’s Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, Derzhava, “Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialists, and Volodymyr Saldo’s Bloc” Accusing the now-banned parties as being “pro-Russian”, it appears that Zelenskyy has distorted the truth, with some of those parties being anti-war. The country’s national security and defence council took the decision to ban the parties from any […] - [Italian Airport Workers Stop Arms Shipment to Ukraine Under Guise of “Humanitarian Aid” Carry Out Protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/italian-airport-workers-stop-arms-shipment-to-ukraine-under-guise-of-humanitarian-aid-carry-out-protest/): We strongly denounce this genuine forgery, which cynically uses “humanitarian” cover to continue fueling the war in Ukraine Italian, workers discovered that weapons were being shipped to Ukraine under the pretence of sending “humanitarian aid” and have refused to hand them over. Their example should serve as a model for all workers on how to take action against the war. The war in Ukraine is creating an arms race with constant sabre-rattling in the U.S. and Europe. Countries are massively ramping up their own military budgets, many more still are sending weapons to Ukraine. According to the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), […] - [It's A Case Of Corbyn Was Right: On Russia And The Question Should The West Go To War Over Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-a-case-of-corbyn-was-right-on-russia-and-the-question-should-the-west-go-to-war-over-ukraine/): Its a case of Corbyn was right: Corbyn has spoken more sense on both Russia and Ukraine than any warmongers flapping around today. In 2018 during the prime minister’s Russia statement after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Jeremy Corbyn in what he called “an appalling act of violence”, said: “Nerve agents are abominable if used in any war. It is utterly reckless to use them in a civilian environment.” but he also went further and used the Salisbury nerve gas attack to point out the influence of Russian money on UK politics he stated: […] - [McDonald’s £295 million tax dodge while claiming £872m in Covid support](https://heartlandstribune.com/mcdonalds-295-million-tax-dodge-while-claiming-872m-in-covid-support/): Secrets and Fries: How McDonald´s abuses the UK tax regime to dodge its global taxes McDonald’s claimed £872m in taxpayer-funded Covid support while benefiting from a tax avoidance scheme that will deprive the UK government of hundreds of millions of pounds in tax, according to a new report. The fast-food giant paid out a record $3.75bn (£2.8bn) to shareholders in 2020 as its drive-through restaurants remained open while many competitors were forced to close. Throughout the pandemic, McDonald’s benefited from £297m in furlough payments, £143m through Eat Out to Help Out, £60m from business rates relief, and £372m from a VAT cut, research […] - [P&O cancels services with 800 British workers fired to be replaced by cheap exploited foreign Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/po-cancels-services-with-800-british-workers-fired-to-be-replaced-by-cheap-exploited-foreign-labour/): P&O Ferries has fired 800 seafaring staff with immediate effect, but some crew are defying orders and refusing to leave their ships in protest. The ferry operator said the “tough decision” was made to secure the future of the business. Union RMT said crewmembers were being “replaced with foreign labour”. Rumours have persisted in the industry that suggested the ferry line, which is owned by the Dubai-based company DP World, would be making large-scale redundancies and replacing crew with seafarers recruited from abroad. It seems those rumours had substance. P&O have said that its services will not operate for the “next […] - [Plans To Cap MP Second Job Earnings Quietly Dropped](https://heartlandstribune.com/plans-to-cap-mp-second-job-earnings-quietly-dropped/): Plans to cap MPs’ earnings from second jobs have been dropped months after the issue provoked a sleaze scandal that plunged Boris Johnson’s government into crisis. Last year amid the Owen Paterson and Jeffrey Cox scandals Boris Johnson was put under pressure eventually calling for a review of MPs’ outside work last. At the time, the prime minister backed proposals to place “reasonable limits” on hours spent on other jobs. The issue of MPs’ second jobs was compounded in 2021 when the then-Conservative MP Owen Paterson was found to have broken lobbying rules. It caused chaos in government and accusations of […] - [Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally 'FREED' by Iran and is heading back to Britain after six years of hell](https://heartlandstribune.com/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-is-finally-freed-by-iran-and-is-heading-back-to-britain-after-six-years-of-hell/): Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has finally been FREED by Iran and will head back to her family in Britain after six torturous years apart. Following intense haggling and years of false hope will, at last, be reunited with husband Richard and daughter Gabriella in Hampstead. It comes after the 44-year-old’s British passport was returned to her on Tuesday, raising hopes of her return to the UK. This morning, BBC news reader Joanna Gosling become emotional as she broke the news of Zaghari-Ratcliffe release live on air. Her lawyer said that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, another detained British-Iranian, were both on their way to Tehran […] - [Zelensky says he accepts there is ‘not an open door’ to Ukraine joining Nato](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-says-he-accepts-there-is-not-an-open-door-to-ukraine-joining-nato/): ‘We Understand That We Cannot Enter’: Zelenskyy Says NATO Doors Closed to Ukraine Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky seems to have accepted that his country will not become a member of NATO, one of the demands made by Russia before it invaded. Russia has demanded a guarantee that Kyiv does not join the alliance and Zelensky’s admission could be presented as a concession to Moscow that might pave the way to the end of the war. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s other demands also include the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. Putin’s demands – Before ending Ukraine’s military action. Russia’s leadership has said it views […] - [Julian Assange Denied Permission To Appeal Against Extradition To US](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-denied-permission-to-appeal-against-extradition-to-us/): #Assange‘s rights are being trampled on this is a threat to all journalists. Julian Assange has been denied permission to appeal against the UK High Court’s decision in December 2021 to extradite him to the United States, the Supreme Court has confirmed. On Monday, the UK’s highest court said that senior judges had refused Assange’s bid to challenge the decision as his application did not raise “an arguable point of law”. However, Assange’s legal team previously said there were other parts of his appeal that had not yet been heard by the UK High Court. Assange, 50, is wanted in America […] - [Ukraine: American journalist killed in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-american-journalist-killed-in-ukraine/): An American journalist was shot while covering the Ukraine-Russia conflict, according to the Kyiv regional police chief.  “A 51-year-old world-renowned media correspondent was shot in Irpen today,” police chief Andriy Nebytov wrote on Facebook, referring to a city located to the west of Kyiv that has been hit hard in the war. “Another journalist is injured. Now they are trying to remove the victim from the war zone.” The social media post identified the journalist who died as award-winning documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud. The post shared images of Renaud’s passport and a press pass for the New York Times.  The deputy managing […] - [Covid-19 didn’t cause the care crisis - privatisation did](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-19-didnt-cause-the-care-crisis-privatisation-did/): The scandal of Europe’s biggest eldercare operator highlights how a public good has been turned into a private asset class. Guest author: ROSA PAVANELLI Imagine discovering your elderly loved ones in a care home were receiving half-portions of meals, just so a corporation could cut costs and pump up profits. This is just one of many disturbing revelations by the French journalist Victor Castanet from his three-year investigation into Europe’s largest care operator, Orpea. Yet not only patients are paying the price. A report released last month by the Center for Investigative Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) exposes how Orpea has siphoned taxpayers’ money […] - [EU leaders pulled back on putting Ukraine on a fast track to bloc membership](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-leaders-pulled-back-on-putting-ukraine-on-a-fast-track-to-bloc-membership/): European Union leaders have condemned Russia’s “unprovoked” military aggression but pulled back on putting Ukraine on a fast track to bloc membership. Last week in a passionate address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky spoke directly to EU lawmakers and leaders by video link from Kyiv, asking them to speed up his war-ravaged country’s membership of the bloc. One week later the tone has become less enthusiastic. After hours of debate, EU leaders on Thursday (10 March) stopped short of concrete commitments on Ukraine’s appeal for rapid accession to the bloc and differed over the reach of sanctions against Moscow. Russia’s war on […] - [Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders and calling for Putin's death](https://heartlandstribune.com/facebook-allows-war-posts-urging-violence-against-russian-invaders-and-calling-for-putins-death/): In this sanctioned 2 minutes of hate, Facebook has changed their own community rules. Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators. “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have […] - [We stand in solidarity international movement of workers and youth against war in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-stand-in-solidarity-international-movement-of-workers-and-youth-against-war-in-ukraine/):  “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” -Albert Einstein. Labour Heartlands condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an unwarranted act of aggression, regrets that this long-running conflict has reached the point of full-scale war, calls for an immediate ceasefire and the pursuit of a negotiated political settlement which takes into account the desire for peace and security on all sides. Neither side in this war stands for the real interests of the peoples of Ukraine and Russia or the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. War does not benefit the interests of Europeans or […] - [Chelsea sale on hold after Roman Abramovich added to sanctions list](https://heartlandstribune.com/chelsea-sale-on-hold-after-roman-abramovich-added-to-sanctions-list/): The move sees Chelsea frozen as an asset and a number of measures imposed but the club have been given special permission to continue with ‘football-related activities’ Roman Abramovich was this morning sanctioned by the UK Government, blocking his immediate plans to sell the European champions and resulting in huge implications for fans. The Russian billionaire has had his assets frozen because of his links with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, it was confirmed. The news means his attempts to sell the club which was hastily announced last week have been put on hold for now, despite at least 20 prospective buyers declaring an […] - [A Geopolitical Strategic Game, And A Convenient Distraction Away From The Ineptitude Of Our Tory Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-geopolitical-strategic-game-and-a-convenient-distraction-away-from-the-ineptitude-of-our-tory-government/): GUEST AUTHOR, Karen Burns Nobody can have missed the new narrative that is currently engulfing all the world’s media. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, kicking the Covid narrative into last month’s news, making it seem like light years away since the pandemic was our focus. How quickly are we distracted away? And how quickly we pretend that the virus is not still with us. However, there are other more important issues that are conveniently swept away, by our focus being shifted onto the Eastern European conflict. Issues that really haven’t gone away, nor have they really been satisfactorily resolved. Despite this new […] - [Sweden: Joining NATO Would Further Destabilise Ukraine's Situation](https://heartlandstribune.com/sweden-joining-nato-would-further-destabilise-ukraines-situation/): Swedish PM rejects opposition calls to consider joining NATO Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has rejected opposition calls to consider joining NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying an application now would destabilise security in Europe. While Andersson described Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “an increasingly brutal and indiscriminate warfare that affects civilians,” denouncing the conflict as “illegal” and calling for violence against civilians to stop “immediately,” she did not seem interested in further entangling Sweden in the conflict. Stockholm has successfully delivered military equipment, she explained and appears to be looking for further ways to support Kyiv – such as […] - [John Bercow Former Tory Speaker Suspended From Labour After Inquiry Finds Him Guilty Of Serial Bullying](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-bercow-former-tory-speaker-suspended-from-labour-after-inquiry-finds-him-guilty-of-serial-bullying/): Former Commons speaker John Bercow has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation. John Bercow: Former Speaker administratively suspended from Labour after bullying inquiry finds him guilty and bans him from parliament for life. The disgraced former Conservative MP, who has since defected to Labour declared the investigation “amateurish” claiming the complainants had been resisting his attempts to modernise parliament. Jenny Symmons the GMB union representative for MPs and Lord’s staff reacted to the report, saying she welcomed its findings and told the Spectator: “This is the outcome we wanted; for him to be permanently banned from entering the […] - [Lifetime Ban From Parliament For Serial Bully John Bercow](https://heartlandstribune.com/lifetime-ban-from-parliament-for-serial-bully-john-bercow/): Independent Expert Panel upholds 21 separate allegations against former Commons speaker Former Tory and Commons speaker John Bercow has been handed a lifetime ban for holding a parliamentary pass after an inquiry concluded he was a “serial bully”. The Independent Expert Panel upheld 21 out of 35 claims against the former Commons speaker and found his behaviour “so serious that he should never be allowed a pass to the Parliamentary estate; and that if he were still an MP it would have recommended expelling him from the House”, it said. Mr Bercow was found to have bullied staff members by Kathryn Stone, the […] - [A Divided EU Want Investigation Before Advancing Ukraine’s Membership Bid](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-divided-eu-want-investigation-before-advancing-ukraines-membership-bid/): Nine nations have asked EU to grant Ukraine candidate status Germany among those looking to buy time before taking decision Several western EU countries are pushing back against calls for the bloc to grant Ukraine so-called candidate status this week, a first step on the long road to EU membership, according to several diplomats. Germany and the Netherlands along with others first want the EU’s executive arm to deliver its opinion on Ukraine’s readiness for the membership process before taking a political decision, said the diplomats, describing private discussions taking place ahead of a summit in France this week. Those countries […] - [Russia Accuses Ukraine Of Failing To Create Suitable Conditions For Humanitarian Corridor](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-accuses-ukraine-of-failing-to-create-suitable-conditions-for-humanitarian-corridor/): Moscow proposes six humanitarian corridors, including three routes leading to Russia Ukraine accuses Russia of trying to manipulate world leaders  Ukrainian and Russian officials meet for a third round of negotiations China emphasizes ‘rock solid’ relations with Russia EU expects to receive 5 million refugees from Ukraine Russia announced a new ceasefire and the establishment of safe corridors to allow civilians to flee some besieged Ukrainian cities Monday, but the evacuation routes led mostly to Russia and its ally Belarus, drawing withering criticism from Ukraine and others. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said a Russian proposal to evacuate civilians out of […] - [British Intelligence Predicted Ukraine War 30 Years Ago](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-intelligence-predicted-ukraine-war-30-years-ago/): By Phil MillerDeclassified UK When British intelligence warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was about to attack Ukraine earlier this year, the spooks’ foresight won many plaudits. Yet their prediction mirrored a scenario Whitehall had long known might unfold. In May 1992, just six months after the Soviet Union broke up, Britain’s then Prime Minister John Major was being briefed by his staff. They were concerned about a potential clash between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea.  The peninsula in the Black Sea had belonged to Russia until the Soviet Union gifted it to Ukraine in 1954. For the rest of the Cold War, Crimea […] - [The Hunger Games: Tories are not prepared to stomach their leader’s attack on benefit claimants and the working poor   ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-hunger-games-tories-are-not-prepared-to-stomach-their-leaders-attack-on-benefit-claimants-and-the-working-poor/): Defiant Liz Truss faces a full-scale Tory revolt as she plots to hit millions of poor Brits with a real-terms benefits cut. This comes at a time when people of all classes are being assaulted from all angles just to get by with millions of workers from all classes worried about how they will survive this winter, with many fearing losing their homes and going cold and hungry. The Prime Minister is looking at cancelling the vow to raise welfare by inflation of about 10% next April, instead using earnings growth of just over 5%. That will mean real terms cut […] - [Jewish & Black Experience vs Baddiel](https://heartlandstribune.com/jewish-black-experience-vs-baddiel/): Black history month, a little modern history: Further Reflections on‘Jewface and Other David Baddiel Racisms’. By Gavin Lewis  Introduction: Jewface and Other David Baddiel Racisms (Labour Heartlands, republished JVL), responds to Jewish comic David Baddiel’s self-promoting claims that he and his white ethnic group are ‘uniquely oppressed’, that feature in his contentious monograph Jews Don’t Count, now controversially being made into a tv polemic by Channel 4.  It does so by examining the history of Baddiel’s racist provocations against Black people, and the comparative historical Black experience, of white settler oppression. As sourced in the original article, Baddiel’s career includes, his […] - [This is no fool's paradise they are just trying to take us for fools](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-is-no-fools-paradise-they-are-just-trying-to-take-us-for-fools/): They filled their fat greedy faces with our money, now they say we live in a fool’s paradise and it needs to be paid back by us. Senior cabinet minister Simon Clarke has warned: Britain has lived in a “fool’s paradise” for too long and must reduce public spending to help to fund the government’s £45 billion worth of tax cuts. The levelling-up secretary criticised the “very large welfare state” and said Whitehall departments would have to “trim the fat”. Following on from Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-cutting mini-budget, Simon Clarke, the levelling-up secretary, spoke of trimming the fat as he expressed […] - [Unite’s reaction to Sir Keir Starmer’s conference speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/unites-reaction-to-sir-keir-starmers-conference-speech/): Responding to Keir Starmer’s leader’s speech at Labour conference, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The real crisis, for everyday families in Britain, is a crisis of wage cuts, frightening energy bills and now soaring rents and mortgages. So Keir Starmer’s promises for change in today’s speech are a start.  “But Labour still needs to be bolder. It must offer a very clear, tangible response to the crisis that people can understand and get behind. Clear blue water has opened up in British politics between Labour and the Conservative government. It’s time to make that count.  “As Labour’s Nye Bevan said […] - [Both Nord Stream Gas pipes sabotaged: Who Gains?](https://heartlandstribune.com/both-nord-stream-gas-pipes-sabotaged-who-gains/): The controversial pipelines running underwater from Russia to Germany were damaged in a total of three places on Monday. Both Nord Stream pipelines, which connect Russia to Germany under the Black Sea, lost pressure on Monday. Gas is pouring into the Baltic Sea from three separate leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines amid claims by seismologists in Sweden and Denmark of two sharp spikes in undersea activity, possibly indicating explosions, and speculation about sabotage. A seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm, near where the leaks occurred, twice recorded spikes on Monday, the day on which the Nord Stream 1 […] - [#Lab22: Labour conference overshadowed by racist tones](https://heartlandstribune.com/lab22-labour-conference-overshadowed-by-racist-tones/): ‘You wouldn’t know he is black’ Labour MP Rupa Huq has been suspended from the Party after she was accused of making “racist” comments about the chancellor. The MP for Ealing Central and Acton made the remarks about the UK’s first black chancellor at a Labour conference fringe event on Monday entitled “What’s Next for Labour’s Agenda on Race?” The audio clip was published by the Guido Fawkes website minutes before Sir Keir Starmer began his speech to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. During a Q&A session, she said: “He’s superficial, he’s, a black man but again he’s got more […] - [Whistleblower Edward Snowden gets Russian citizenship](https://heartlandstribune.com/edward-snowden-gets-russian-citizenship/): Edward Snowden’s name appeared without Kremlin comment in a Putin decree conferring citizenship on 72 foreign-born individuals. The whistleblower fled the US after leaking top-secret documents, almost a decade ago. President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden, 39, fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after being left stranded at a Russian airport on route to Ecuador for over a month in 2013, this came after the leaking secret files that revealed […] - [The Bankers’ are back, now we are just waiting for the next big crash](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bankers-are-back-now-we-are-just-waiting-for-the-next-big-crash/): Bankers’ Greed In 2008, the greed and profligacy of the banking system crashed the world’s economy. Bankers functioned without bounds; huge bonuses were given to people who recklessly sold subprime mortgages while making bets using credit default swaps on the ability of poor people to pay. That hedging of bets was at no risk or loss to themselves, it was a win-win for them. Ultimately, their appetite for more became insatiable. Bankers sold mortgages to people who not only had poor credit but were out of work, they even sold to people who didn’t exist with signatures created robotically. They created […] - [Uniper German gas giant nationalised amid spiralling energy costs](https://heartlandstribune.com/uniper-german-gas-giant-nationalised-amid-spiralling-energy-costs/): Germany has agreed to nationalise its biggest gas importer, Uniper. The German government will acquire a 99% stake in the ailing gas importer Uniper, as Russia’s gas supply freeze threatened to drive the company into bankruptcy. On Wednesday, Finnish state-owned energy company Fortum, the former majority shareholder of Uniper, announced it had signed an agreement in principle that will be finalised following the completion of a capital investment and the acquisition of Uniper shares by the German government. The nationalisation of Uniper, once created as a bad bank to concentrate fossil assets of E.ON, follows repeated attempts by the German government […] - [Soaring energy bills 'price worth paying' to stand up to Putin, says Liz Truss](https://heartlandstribune.com/soaring-energy-bills-price-worth-paying-to-stand-up-to-putin-says-liz-truss/): Former Shell executive and British prime minister, Liz Truss has said the extortionate energy bills faced by Britons this winter and beyond are a “price worth paying” to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia and help secure the UK’s long-term security. Speaking to journalists as she travelled to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, she claimed higher costs were worth the pain so the UK did not rely on regimes such as Russia, which has been accused of “blackmailing” Europe over gas supplies to the Continent. “It’s a price worth paying for Britain, because our long-term security is paramount,” said Ms Truss. However, she neglected to mention unlike the […] - [Labour MP Rosie Cooper announces resignation triggering West Lancashire by-election](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-rosie-cooper-announces-resignation-triggering-west-lancashire-by-election/): The Labour MP Rosie Cooper is to stand down triggering a byelection in her West Lancashire constituency this autumn, after taking on a new role with the NHS. Cooper, who was targeted as part of a murder plot by members of a banned neo-Nazi group, said she had undergone a “considerable period of soul-searching” and admitted the events had “The events I have faced over the last few years are well documented and undoubtedly have taken their toll”. Neo-Nazi Jack Renshaw admitted in 2018 that he had plotted to murder Cooper the previous year, including purchasing a 48cm knife. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2019, with […] - [Corbyn renews his call for the Parliamentary Labour Party whip to be restored](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-renews-his-call-for-the-parliamentary-labour-party-whip-to-be-restored/): While a general election looks set for 2024 Labour’s civil war is still ongoing. The new Prime minister Liz Truss has signalled that she wants to hold off on a general election until 2024. She told Tory members in her victory speech that she will deliver “a great victory for the Conservative Party in 2024,” suggesting she intends to call a general election in two years’ time. Pledging to “deliver for the country” on the energy bills and the NHS, she told Tory members inside the QEII centre: “I know that we will deliver, we will deliver and we will deliver.” […] - [US and Norway are profiting embarrassingly from war in Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-and-norway-are-profiting-embarrassingly-from-war-in-europe/): Ukraine conflict is proving a boon to some energy producing nations as oil and Gas prices soar. Norway expects around €94 billion in net income from its petroleum industry this year, that’s up from €29 billion a rise of €65 billion in profit from last year up 324 percent. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which manages the country’s petroleum earnings, has a current value of around €1.2 trillion, or around €250,000 per citizen. That flood of money is becoming both domestic and foreign political problems. The Nordic state’s centre-left government — made up of the Social Democrats and Centre Party — says […] - [Police officer seriously injured and another hurt after attack in central London](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-officer-seriously-injured-and-another-hurt-after-attack-in-central-london/): Two police officers have been stabbed, with one understood to be seriously injured, while tackling a knifeman near Leicester Square. Police said a man had been arrested after the incident in central London at around 6am this morning. The arrested man has been taken to hospital for treatment. One of the Met officers has suffered multiple serious injuries, the Evening Standard reports. The injuries, while serious, are not believed to be life-threatening. Police said the families of the officers involved have been informed. The incident is not being treated as terror-related. The Met police said in a statement: “On Friday, 16 […] - [Amazon workers in Coventry balloted on strike action](https://heartlandstribune.com/amazon-workers-in-coventry-balloted-on-strike-action/): Hundreds of Amazon workers at a warehouse in Coventry are being balloted on whether to strike. The online retail giant’s staff have been staging informal protests after an “insulting” pay offer, a union said. Amazon has previously said it has increased its hourly rate to £11.45, depending on location, and that staff have “comprehensive benefits”. The GMB Union said Coventry’s staff could be the first Amazon workers to strike in the UK, “making history”. “These Amazon workers will be the first in the UK to take part in a formal strike ballot,” said Amanda Gearing from the union. “They’re being offered […] - [Starmer warns Labour MPs about talking to media except to pay tribute to the Queen](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-warns-labour-mps-about-talking-to-media-except-to-pay-tribute-to-the-queen/): Starmer gags Labour MPs other than to pay tribute to the Queen The passing of the Queen has seen thousands of people lining the road to pay their respects or eager to be part of this historical moment. In Westminster Hall, the first mourners are filing in to pay tribute as the Queen’s Lying in State opens to the public for the first time. The continuity of the monarchy does not allow for discussion, the moment a monarch dies the cry of the Queen is dead long live the King are the first words declared, a proclaimtion of succession, Charles III […] - [No Loyalty from Royalty: Clarence House staff hit with redundancy notices in wake of King’s accession](https://heartlandstribune.com/clarence-house-staff-hit-with-redundancy-notices-in-wake-of-kings-accession/): King Charles’s staff given redundancy notice during church service for Queen No loyalty from Royalty… Dozens of Clarence House staff have been given notice of their redundancy while they worked round the clock in the wake of the King’s accession, The Guardian has revealed. The Guardian reports that up to 100 employees at the King’s former residence received notification that they could lose their jobs. Certain members of his staff have worked at Clarence House for decades, and include private secretaries, members of the communications team and household staff. Private secretaries, the finance office, the communications team and household staff are among those who received […] - [Outraged at arrest of woman holding anti-monarchy sign: We are a democratic country, aren't we?](https://heartlandstribune.com/outraged-at-arrest-of-woman-holding-anti-monarchy-sign-we-are-a-democratic-country-arent-we/): A woman who held an “abolish monarchy” sign at a proclamation ceremony for King Charles III in Edinburgh has been charged with a criminal offence amid a series of arrests that have alarmed human rights groups. A heckler who shouted at Prince Andrew as the Queen’s funeral cortege passed through Edinburgh’s Royal Mile on Monday is among the protesters and republican activists who have been targeted by police. A barrister was also questioned by an officer after holding up a “blank piece of paper” in Parliament Square. A demonstrator arrested in Oxford called the response an “outrageous assault on democracy” and accused police of exercising broad powers in […] - [The House of Commons: Green is The Colour of The Common Folk](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-house-of-commons-green-is-the-colour-of-the-common-folk/): The establishment is readjusting itself ensuring the continuity of Monarchy, while this is at the forefront of media it is very easy to see the divide between them and us. For them, it is the pomp and ceremony as tradition demands with the Queen’s passing and the king’s ascension. For us, it is worrying about our financial futures in this volatile economy that has seen Energy oligarchs hold the government to ransom with their extortionate price hikes. Although thousands have gone to witness this historical moment, many more are asking awkward questions about modern Britain and our place in modern society. […] - [Mourning period for Queen will not stop Truss from paying £100bn ‘RANSOM’ to Energy companies before they crash the economy](https://heartlandstribune.com/mourning-period-for-queen-will-not-stop-truss-from-paying-100bn-ransom-to-energy-companies-before-they-crash-the-economy/): PAY 100 BILLION OR WE CRASH THE ECONOMY! Liz Truss will continue to push through a payoff of over £100bn to her former employers Shell along with the other big Five energy companies to stop them from crashing the economy with their ongoing extortionate price hikes, despite parliament being cancelled for the next week. The government is postponing most business until after the Queen’s funeral, but Truss’s team will continue to implement the package. There had been concerns that the 10-day parliamentary recess for mourning could prevent emergency legislation needed to stop the energy price cap from rising automatically to just […] - [Queen Elizabeth II has Died](https://heartlandstribune.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-has-died/): Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest-serving monarch, has died at Balmoral aged 96, after reigning for 70 years. The Queen has died aged 96, Buckingham Palace has announced. “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and the Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow,” Buckingham Palace said. Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-reigning monarch in British history and the world’s oldest head of state. On her death, the Queen’s eldest son and heir, Charles, the former Prince of Wales, has become King of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth realms. No […] - [BREAKING NEWS: Queen under medical supervision as doctors are concerned for her health](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-news-queen-under-medical-supervision-as-doctors-are-concerned-for-her-health/): The Queen is under medical supervision at Balmoral after doctors became concerned for her health, Buckingham Palace has said. It said in a statement: “Following further evaluation this morning, The Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. “The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral.” The announcement comes after the Queen, 96, pulled out of a virtual Privy Council on Wednesday, with doctors advising her to rest. Meanwhile, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle interrupted the energy debate to update MPs about the Queen’s health. He cut short SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford’s speech […] - [Liz Truss former Energy company employee, British prime minister, to give her former bosses over £150 billion of our money](https://heartlandstribune.com/liz-truss-former-energy-company-employee-british-prime-minister-to-give-her-former-bosses-over-150-billion-of-our-money/): Just so we understand where we are on the Energy crisis. Liz Truss has vowed Britain will “ride out the storm”, as the new UK prime minister began confronting an economic crisis with a promise of a massive energy bailout for families and businesses. Truss, a former Energy company employee and now British Prime minister will give the Energy companies £150 billion in public money to stop the Energy companies from crashing the economy and ruining us all. The money will be used to freeze annual energy bills at around £2,500 for the average household both this winter and next, and green […] - [Liz Truss: Down The Rabbit Hole With The New Tea Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/liz-truss-down-the-rabbit-hole-with-the-new-tea-party/): Liz Truss has been selected as the new Tory leader and by default the 56th British prime minister of the United Kingdom Truss became United Kingdom’s 56th prime minister and the third female prime minister to lead the country. This came after Boris Johnson was ousted by Conservative MPs earlier this summer. With the energy crisis as a backdrop, possibly one of the worst crises to hit the UK, Europe and the world in modern history, the Tory leadership contest took place. Seemingly oblivious to the ongoing issues, this long-drawn-out battle was concluded Monday. Truss defeated Rishi Sunak with 81,326 members’ […] - [Comedy Gold: Zelensky Rents Out His Italian Luxury Villa to Russians For 50,000 Euros While Urging EU to Curb Visas for Russians](https://heartlandstribune.com/comedy-gold-zelensky-rents-out-his-italian-luxury-villa-to-russians-for-50000-euros-while-urging-eu-to-curb-visas-for-russians/): The Italian news outlet, Il Tirreno, is said to be in possession of documents proving that the 54-year-old woman that stayed at Zelensky’s villa was of Russian descent. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has rented his luxury villa in Tuscany to Russians for the month of August, Italian newspaper Il Tirreno reported on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Zelensky has called on EU leaders to deny visas to Russian tourists. A Russian couple with a London address have rented the villa for the month of August, paying the princely sum of €50,000 ($50,237), the newspaper reported. The villa, located in the seaside town of Forte dei Marmi, […] - [The Revolving door from Westminster to the Boardrooms allows the Bankers and Energy companies to make the rules.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-revolving-door-from-westminster-to-the-boardrooms-allows-the-bankers-and-energy-companies-to-make-the-rules/): There’s a Revolving door from Westminster to the Boardrooms of the Banks and Energy companies, that’s why most politicians will always protect the oligarchy over the people. We will never get true representation with MPs working towards the common good while ever they have external influence that rewards them while in public office or when they leave. The term ‘revolving door’ refers to the movement of senior individuals from public office positions to jobs in the private sector and vice versa. In many countries, this has tended to deal more with people moving OUT of the public sector and has been […] - [Bernie Sanders backs RMT and striking UK workers in fight against ‘The Oligarchy’](https://heartlandstribune.com/bernie-sanders-backs-rmt-and-striking-uk-workers-in-fight-against-oligarchs/): Bernie Sanders joins striking British rail workers, calling out the “oligarchy and corporate greed” Veteran U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders joined striking British workers at a trade union rally in London on Wednesday, saying workers need to stand together to fight back at what he called “corporate greed” and billionaires amassing more wealth. Speaking at the Save London’s Public Transport Rally, United States senator Bernie Sanders, backed UK unions fighting for improved pay and conditions, saying “working people all over the globe have got to stand together”. Mr Sanders, 80, who represents the state of Vermont, addressed the Save London Transport rally, […] - [Russia cuts off Gas supply to French energy giant](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-cuts-off-gas-supply-to-french-energy-giant/): Europe’s energy crisis escalated as Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom said it would halt supplies to French utility Engie because of a disagreement over payments.  France accused Moscow on Tuesday of using energy supplies as “a weapon of war” after Russia’s Gazprom cut deliveries to a major French customer and said it would shut its main gas pipeline to Germany for three days this week. European governments are trying to coordinate a response to soaring energy costs for businesses and households and to fill storage facilities ahead of peak demand in the winter. Gazprom has notified Engie about a full cutoff of gas from Sept. 1 as […] - [Mikhail Gorbachev Last President of The Soviet Union Dies](https://heartlandstribune.com/mikhail-gorbachev-last-president-of-the-soviet-union-dies/): Mikhail Gorbachev — the last leader of the former Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 — died at 91. Gorbachev died after a long illness, Russian state news agencies reported. “Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a severe and prolonged illness,” the Central Clinical Hospital said, according to RIA Novosti Tuesday. The man credited with introducing key political and economic reforms to the USSR and helping to end the Cold War had been in failing health for some time. With his outgoing, charismatic nature, Gorbachev broke the mould for Soviet leaders who until then had mostly been remote, icy figures. Almost […] - [Union Leader Tells Keir Starmer To 'Get A Spine' And 'Stick Up For' Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/union-leader-tells-keir-starmer-to-get-a-spine-and-stick-up-for-workers/): The chances of Starmer growing a spine are about the same as Keir Hardie raising from the grave to give him one. Labour needs to “get a spine” and stand up for working people, the general secretary of the Unite union has said. Sharon Graham told Keir Starmer he is more likely to win the next election if he did more to back workers seeking pay rises as employers make big profits. “There isn’t really a very strong voice for workers in parliament currently,” she told BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House on Sunday. “It is more likely they (Labour) would get […] - [Starmer’s Road to Voter and Labour Party Suppression](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-road-to-voter-and-labour-party-suppression/): Apathy… Tony Benn stated: “General election campaigns have degenerated into an exchange of personal abuse which puts most people off; a flurry of election promises marketed by high-pressure salesmen; and the usual solemn warnings about apathy – as if the real problems in Britain were caused by the inactivity of the people, rather than the activity of the parliamentarians. Apathy has its advantages for the political class – by which I mean the party leaders, their spin doctors and their embedded correspondents in the media, who live in the Westminster village and rarely seem to get out to listen to what […] - [Nord Stream 2, A Pipeline to War: Ukraine is Paying in Blood and We Will See Poverty.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nord-stream-2-a-pipeline-to-war-ukraine-is-paying-in-blood-and-we-will-see-poverty/): UK energy bills will rise by 80% in October as the regulator announces hike. Households in Britain face a leap in energy bills from October after the regulator raised the energy price cap, taking the average gas and electricity bill to £3,549 a year. This extortionate jump in energy bills had been forecast for weeks, but the specific numbers released Friday morning by Britain’s energy regulator state a typical British household would pay £3,549 pounds over a year for electricity and natural gas, from the current £1,971. This is an unsustainable hit to households and businesses in a country already reeling […] - [Former Newsnight presenters John Sweeney and Emily Maitlis claim BBC Bias while pretending they weren't the agents who, for years, constantly spewed it out ](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-bbc-newsnight-and-panorama-journalist-claims-the-bbc-are-making-fake-news-programs/): The audacity of Newsnight Emily Maitlis talking about media accountability and propaganda goes beyond Orwellian… Maitlis is literally an agent of the Oligarchy. In her keynote lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, ex-BBC journalist Emily Maitlis warns of the perils of fake news and the consequences when the agenda is highjacked by people in powerful positions. Hitting out at the BBC – her former employer – claiming its board has been infiltrated by a Conservative Party agent and former Downing Street spin doctor whom she claims is now an ‘arbiter of BBC impartiality’. Delivering the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh […] - [Ofgem fine Shell after over 3 years of overcharging customers for energy](https://heartlandstribune.com/ofgem-fine-shell-after-nearly-3-years-of-overcharging-customers-for-energy/): Watchdog orders Shell Energy to automatically refund thousands of customers after overcharging them. The retail arm of Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL) was fined more than £500,000 by Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, for charging 11,275 customers more than the price cap. Shell Energy Retail, which supplies gas, electricity and broadband, was fined £536,970 after it overcharged prepayment customers for what it claimed to be “operational errors” these so-called operational errors continued for periods of time between January 2019 and September 2022. The error comes as millions of households face being plunged into poverty amid soaring energy bills and a wider cost-of-living crisis. Refunds will be issued automatically […] - [Nationalisation: If you are prepared to tolerate human sh*t on your beaches for the sake of corporate profit, you will tolerate anything.](https://heartlandstribune.com/nationalisation-if-you-are-prepared-to-tolerate-human-sht-on-your-beaches-for-the-sake-of-corporate-profit-you-will-tolerate-anything/): When Margaret Thatcher sold off the water industry in 1989, she gave away not only a natural resource but a natural monopoly. There is no competition, there is no ‘invisible market hand’ pushing prices down, this is monopoly capitalism at its worst. The privatisation of water hasn’t only been a fountain of wealth for the Oligarchy. They have drunkenly supped without care or responsibility, neglecting proper reinvestment. Their only objective, their only target, is to quench the parched throats of the ever-thirsting shareholders The great fraud of Thatcherism was to sell off our water supply to a cabal of profiteers and […] - [Grant Shapps oversteps his mark threatening Rail Unions with “section 188” to force through changes](https://heartlandstribune.com/grant-shapps-oversteps-his-mark-threatening-rail-unions-with-section-188-to-force-through-changes/): The Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps has announced he will impose new contracts on railway workers, effectively ‘fire and re-hire’ on worse conditions, unless RMT calls off strike action. Grant Shapps has told union bosses to “get out of the way” and allow members to vote on newly proposed pay deals. It comes as fresh strikes take place on London Underground and the capital’s bus system, while national rail is set for more disruption today. Speaking to Sky News, Mr Shapps, the transport secretary, claimed union leaders were not putting proposed pay offers to their members. The Tory minister told Sky […] - [Bankrupt, Policies, Ideology, Money and Members: Starmer's Labour loses nearly 100,000 members and makes a £5 million loss](https://heartlandstribune.com/bankrupt-policies-ideology-money-and-members-starmers-labour-loses-nearly-100000-members-and-makes-a-5-million-loss/): If Starmer can’t run the Labour Party how can he be trusted with the economy? The Labour party’s latest figures show the once great Labour Party is sinking faster than the Titanic and this time it really is the arrogant captain’s fault. The Party’s income from membership fees has been cut and makes up the majority of the deficit Labour 2021 newly published accounts show they lost nearly 100,000 members and ended the year with a £5m financial deficit. The mass exodus of supporters saw the party’s membership – which stood at 523,332 at the end of 2020 – fall to […] - [Modern US imperialism is so crazy it's even Scaring old warmongers like Henry Kissinger](https://heartlandstribune.com/modern-us-imperialism-is-so-crazy-its-even-scaring-old-warmongers-like-henry-kissinger/): This blood-soaked empire manager is not warning about Washington’s pursuit of planetary hegemony because he has gotten saner. It’s because the war machine has gotten crazier. By Caitlin JohnstoneCaitlinJohnstone.com In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, warmonger Henry Kissinger says the U.S. is acting in a crazy and irrational way that has brought it to the edge of war with Russia and China: “Mr Kissinger sees today’s world as verging on a dangerous disequilibrium. ‘We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what […] - [#CostOfGreedCrisis: Starmer’s Pragmatic Freeze on Energy Prices Runs Cold](https://heartlandstribune.com/costofgreedcrisis-starmers-pragmatic-freeze-on-energy-prices-runs-cold/): Sir Keir Starmer proposed his latest flop with the regurgitation of an old Ed Miliband policy from 2013 Sir Keir Starmer unveiled his pledge that families would not “pay a penny more” on energy bills this winter after unveiling a £29bn plan. Under the proposals, Labour would freeze the energy price cap at £1,971 for six months this winter, saving households £1,000. The plan is remarkably similar to one that was proposed by Ed Miliband In 2013 when he stated if Labour won the next General election, they would freeze gas and electricity bills for every home and business in the […] - [#CostOfGreedCrisis: Nationwide to pay staff £1,200 pounds to cope with Energy companies profiteering](https://heartlandstribune.com/nationwide-to-pay-staff-1200-pounds-to-cope-with-energy-companies-profiteering/): Nationwide Building Society says it will pay more than 11,000 of its staff £1,200 to help them cope with the cost of living crisis. Nationwide Building Society will pay more than 11,000 of its staff £1,200 pounds, the British lender said on Monday, to help them cope with Britain’s mounting cost of living crisis. The offer will be made to staff making less than 35,000 pounds, comprising around 61% of Nationwide’s workforce of 18,000 people, the customer-owned lender said. Several British lenders have similarly given thousands of their staff a one-off sum or a pay rise to help them cope with […] - [Salman Rushdie: Placed on ventilator and unable to speak, agent says](https://heartlandstribune.com/salman-rushdie-placed-on-ventilator-and-unable-to-speak-agent-says/): After being stabbed, Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator and cannot speak. His arm and liver are injured, and he may lose an eye. Salman Rushdie’s agent has said “the news is not good” after the author was stabbed at an event in New York state. He was attacked on stage, and is now on a ventilator and unable to speak, Andrew Wylie said in a statement, adding that the author will lose one eye. Mr Rushdie has suffered years of Islamist death threats after writing The Satanic Verses, published in 1988. Police detained a suspect named as Hadi Matar, 24, […] - [Where's Keith: Starmer's Labour need to propose nationalisation not hide in a fridge](https://heartlandstribune.com/wheres-keith-starmers-labour-need-to-propose-nationalisation-not-hide-in-a-fridge/): While UK Workers face an unprecedented attack from profiteering Energy companies that promise to bring about hardship and debt that has not been seen for generations there has been a distinct lack of leadership and articulated coherent leadership from the country’s opposition Party. Starmer seems to have gone missing with nothing to say on the subject other than a promise to insulate your home, if Labour ever gains power, reading Labour’s new energy policy is quite embarrassing, Labour state they have a plan to cut energy bills by up to £400 a year by insulating 19 million homes over the next […] - [Profiteering Supermarkets not passing on fuel price cut to struggling customers](https://heartlandstribune.com/profiteering-supermarkets-not-passing-on-fuel-price-cut-to-struggling-customers/): RAC issues petrol price warning to drivers filling up at Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco Brent Crude is down 1.05 per cent today, wallowing at $93.92 per barrel, while WTI Crude has slumped a further 1.09 per cent to $88.04 per barrel. This follows front month prices hitting their lowest levels since February, posting their largest weekly drops since April with Brent Crude tumbling 13.7 per cent and WTI Crude 9.7 per cent. Prices have now settled below levels prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The fall in Oil prices collapsed to pre-February lows, forecourts have not reflected the changes at […] - [J. Robert Oppenheimer “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”](https://heartlandstribune.com/j-robert-oppenheimer-now-i-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds/): In the pre-dawn hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay lifted into the summer sky above Tinian Island. Its payload, a single bomb innocuously nicknamed “Little Boy,” would tear open not just the morning sky above Hiroshima, but the very fabric of human civilization. At 8:15 a.m., in a blinding flash that turned shadows into stone and morning into nuclear night, America crossed a threshold from which humanity could never return. The bomb that devastated Hiroshima, followed three days later by another that obliterated Nagasaki, killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people—mostly civilians going about their morning routines. […] - [Ceasefire deal ends Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza that killed 44](https://heartlandstribune.com/ceasefire-deal-ends-israeli-bombing-campaign-in-gaza-that-killed-44/): At least 15 children were killed in the three-day long bombardment and a further 360 were wounded The ceasefire came into effect at 11:30pm local time (8:30pm GMT) on Sunday. Both Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, the main target of Israel in this round of fighting, have confirmed the ceasefire and claimed victory.  According to the PIJ chief Ziyad Nakhla, the group came out on top after Israel failed to destroy its capabilities as it promised it would do. He also said the ceasefire was conditioned on the release of two PIJ officials arrested in the occupied West Bank by […] - [Ukraine ‘endanging civilians’ with army bases in schools, hospitals and residential areas, says Amnesty](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-endanging-civilians-with-army-bases-in-schools-hospitals-and-residential-areas-says-amnesty/): Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians In a report, the humanitarian organisation claimed the Ukrainian military has endangered civilians by placing bases and weapons in residential areas — including schools and hospitals — as it has sought to repel the Russian invasion.  “Ukraine’s tactics have violated international humanitarian law as they’ve turned civilian objects into military targets,” said Amnesty. “The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.” Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that […] - [Starmer’s honesty and integrity take another tumble after being found to have breached MPs’ code of conduct eight times](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-honesty-and-integrity-take-another-tumbrel-after-being-found-to-have-breached-mps-code-of-conduct-eight-times/): Sir Keir Starmer has claimed to be the politician that will hold up to the values of honesty and integrity, yet when it comes to putting words into action the Labour leader seems to fail on the very basics. Sir Keir Starmer has been found to have breached the MPs’ code of conduct by failing to register eight separate interests on time, including gifts from football teams, the sale of a plot of land, and a five-figure book advance. Although the Labour leader has apologised to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone for what the party said was an “inadvertent error”. […] - [Pfizer and Flynn fined £70m after ripping off the NHS for nearly £200m  ](https://heartlandstribune.com/pfizer-and-flynn-fined-70m-after-ripping-off-the-nhs-for-nearly-200m/): Big Pharma Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have been fined a total of £70m for overcharging the NHS for a life-saving epilepsy drug. The disproportional fine comes after years of legal wrangling that always seems to favour the blatant daylight robbery of public money via the NHS by big Pharma. the UK’s competition watchdog fined New York-based Pfizer £63m and imposed a £6.7m penalty on Flynn, a smaller UK pharmaceutical firm based in Stevenage. Both companies said they would appeal. The fines are the result of an in-depth investigation carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which found that Pfizer […] - [Keir Starmer: Labour Must Move Away From Being a Party of Protest, of course, He Would Say That He’s a Trilatralist](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-labour-must-move-away-from-being-a-party-of-protest-of-course-he-would-say-that-hes-a-trilatralist/): The Labour Party must move away from being a “Party of protest” by order of the oligarchy.  Sir Keir Starmer’s latest decree states, The Labour Party must move away from being a “party of protest” in order to win elections and “hand power to working people”. It also appears protest covers a magnitude of actions including workers withdrawing their labour and carrying out the legitimate right to strike. Writing for The Mirror this weekend the Labour leader stated: ” “I am now leading a Labour Party that wants to change lives and give Britain the fresh start it needs. That means turning […] - [Ukraine: We Are Having A Good War](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-we-are-having-a-good-war/): David Lindsay’s satirical look at the war in Ukraine… Even The New York Times is getting there. As the war in Ukraine has worn on, then everything that we have said from the start has gone from being lunatic evil to being something that everyone pretended to have been saying from the start. The internal boundaries of the Soviet Union were never designed to be international borders, indeed they were specifically designed to make impossible independence in those forms, and they were never going to last more than one generation as frontiers. We told you all of this. You screamed us down with hysterical […] - [A Party Rotten to the Core: Labour Expel Liverpool Pensioner Audrey White](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-party-rotten-to-the-core-labour-expel-liverpool-pensioner-audrey-white/): A party rotten to the core, that can’t tolerate being held to account by a 71 year old. Even Stalin might’ve blushed – Audrey White Audrey White the Liverpool pensioner that confronted Sir Keir Starmer on his compulsive lying and misrepresentation of his pledges and policies has just been expelled from the Labour Party. The expulsion comes only four days after her confrontation with the duplicitous Starmer, however, in a twist the letter claims that Audrey a lifelong member of the Labour Party was expelled in February however, due to an administration error there had been a delay in sending the […] - [Victory for Coventry bin drivers: Strike action ends with an above-inflation pay rise plus bonuses](https://heartlandstribune.com/victory-for-coventry-bin-drivers-strike-action-ends-with-an-above-inflation-pay-rise/): A bitter pay dispute between Coventry bin lorry drivers and a city council has ended after months of deadlock. Drivers have been who have been out on strike since 31 January see victory after, Unite the Union and Coventry City Council finalised an agreement. In a statement, Unite said the strike ended with a pay rise for the drivers worth up to 12.9%. The bin dispute which began in January has now ended with a pay rise for the drivers worth up to 12.9%, which is worth an estimated £3,600 per year in their pay packets. The deal also includes Christmas […] - [Shell and Centrica post 3 months profits totalling £11bn while workers struggle with bills](https://heartlandstribune.com/shell-and-centrica-post-3-months-profits-totalling-11bn-while-workers-struggle-with-bills/): Shell made record profits of nearly £10bn between April and June promising to give shareholders payouts worth £6.5bn Shell made record profits of nearly £10bn between April and June and promised to give shareholders payouts worth £6.5bn while British Gas owner reinstates dividends after operating profits of £1.3bn. British Gas and Scottish Gas owner Centrica saw adjusted half-year operating profits rocket 412% to £1.34bn from £262m a year earlier. It said the profits came against a backdrop of “high and volatile” commodity prices. It has reinstated its dividend for the first time since the pandemic, declaring an interim payout of 1p, saying it would […] - [Dockers at UK’s largest container port overwhelmingly vote for strike action](https://heartlandstribune.com/dockers-at-uks-largest-container-port-overwhelmingly-vote-for-strike-action/): Workers at the Port of Felixstowe, represented by the union Unite, voted by over 92% on an 81% turnout to strike in a dispute over pay. Dockers at the UK’s largest container port have voted overwhelmingly to strike after they were offered a below-inflation pay rise, with action planned for August in the latest blow to efforts by ministers to contain a wave of industrial unrest sparked by the cost of living crisis. Workers at the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk balloted 92% in favour of a strike next month, rejecting a 5% pay rise offer from the Felixstowe Dock and […] - [The Phoniest, Most PR-Intensive War Of All Time](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-phoniest-most-pr-intensive-war-of-all-time/): The president and first lady of Ukraine have posed for a romantic photoshoot with Vogue magazine, wherein President Volodymyr Zelensky waxes poetical about his love for his darling wife. Now, I know what you’re thinking: how is Zelensky making time for a Vogue photoshoot amidst his busy schedule of PR appearances for other major western institutions?  I mean this is after all the same Volodymyr Zelensky who has been so busy making video appearances for the Grammy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, the World Economic Forum and probably the Bilderberg group as well, and having meetings with celebrities like Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, and Bono and the Edge from U2. It’s as busy a […] - [Starmer Sacks Shadow Transport Minister Sam Tarry For Going On Rail Picket Line and Acting Like a Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-sacks-shadow-transport-minister-sam-tarry-for-going-on-rail-picket-line-and-acting-like-a-labour-mp/): Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has sacked his junior shadow transport minister who joined striking rail workers on a picket line. Shadow transport minister Sam Tarry defied the party leader to stand alongside striking workers at London Euston station this morning. Fellow frontbenchers Kate Osborne and Paula Barker also challenged Starmer’s authority today by joining picket lines. Ilford South MP Sam Tarry attended the protest at London’s Euston station despite Sir Keir saying his frontbench MPs should stay away. Speaking to reporters, Mr Tarry said “any Labour MP” would have “absolute solidarity with striking workers”. ‘If we don’t make a stand today, people’s […] - [Toryfication: The Labour Party ditch nationalisation as it drops all pretence of its founding ideology](https://heartlandstribune.com/lib-demification-the-labour-party-ditch-nationalisation-as-it-drops-all-pretence-of-its-founding-ideology/): The Toryfication of the Labour Party. If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxist, the media -having tasted Blood- would demand next that it expelled all its Socialist and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the National agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed… it would […] - [The Liberal elite The EU's useful idiots](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-liberal-elite-eus-useful-idiots/): Ah, the liberal elites, still churning out those Brexit memes – like the one up there on the left. But hey, don’t fret, it’s “fixed” now. Who are you people? I can’t help but ponder, who are these folks? When I stumble upon these images in the vast expanse of social media, it leaves me genuinely curious about their identities and their political compass. Do they even know which direction they’re pointing their moral compass? There’s a certain irony in play here – one moment, they’re sharing a meme of Mick Lynch or a video of Eddie Dempsey eloquently championing the […] - [Thatcher's Government Helped U.S. Cover Up shooting down of Iranian Airliner](https://heartlandstribune.com/thatchers-government-helped-u-s-cover-up-shooting-down-of-iranian-airliner/): BRITAIN ‘IMMEDIATELY’ SUPPORTED THE U.S. OVER THE SHOOTING DOWN OF AN IRANIAN AIRLINER In 1988, a U.S. Navy warship shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 civilians on board. Newly declassified files show how Margaret Thatcher’s government offered immediate support to the U.S. and assisted in the cover-up, John McEvoy reports. By John McEvoyDeclassified UK The attack occurred during the Iran-Iraq war, which had begun in 1980 with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. The U.S. government backed Saddam and sent warships to the Persian Gulf to support the Iraqi war effort.  One of those warships was the USS Vincennes which, on 3 July 1988, fired two […] - [Eric Levy anti-war protester and Julian Assange supporter passes away- he leaves a legacy of fighting for just causes](https://heartlandstribune.com/eric-levy-anti-war-protester-and-julian-assange-protester-passed-away-he-leaves-a-legacy-of-fighting-for-just-causes/): Tributes flooded social media on Thursday, July 21 after the death of Eric Levy, a passionate and dedicated supporter of Julian Assange, who passed away at the age of 93. The announcement of Eric Levy’s death was made via the WikiLeaks Twitter page, which read: “Rest in Power Eric Levy, a staunch advocate for Julian Assange, who sadly passed away today aged 94.” Rest in Power Eric Levy, staunch advocate for Julian Assange, who sadly passed away today aged 93 https://t.co/cy7CLTHnTc pic.twitter.com/B8v3kEHba0 — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 20, 2022 Although, more recently known for his support for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange […] - [The British Coup That Wasn’t Quite?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-british-coup-that-wasnt-quite/): Allegations about efforts within the U.K. establishment to bring down Britain’s Labour government in the 1960s and 70s have resurfaced with a file released on Tuesday by the National Archives, Richard Norton-Taylor reports. By Richard Norton-TaylorDeclassified UK A file released on Tuesday by the U.K. National Archives, titled “Allegations concerning a possible coup in 1968,” reveals how rattled MI5 and the Home Office were many years later about conspiracies that have never been properly investigated. The declassified file refers to discussions about how to topple the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson. Wilson was smeared by right-wing groups aided by sections of the media […] - [Forde Report: The Factionalist Dysfunctional Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/forde-report-the-factionalist-dysfunctional-labour-party/): The Forde Report is a long-awaited independent inquiry into the leaked Labour report that revealed “shocking” evidence of Labour staffers working to undermine any chance of a Corbyn government.” Sir Keir Starmer commissioned the Forde report, by Martin Forde QC, in the wake of the leak of a document containing private WhatsApp messages that exposed deep factionalism in Labour’s efforts to combat antisemitism. The independent inquiry known as the Forde report came about after a leaked 860-page report into, “The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit (GLU) in relation to antisemitism, 2014-2019.” That report highlights blatant sabotage and treachery carried […] - [The Terror of War: Kim Phuc Phan Thi, known as ‘Napalm Girl,’ receives final burn treatment 50 years after iconic image first printed](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-terror-of-war-kim-phuc-phan-thi-known-as-napalm-girl-receives-final-burn-treatment-50-years-after-iconic-image-first-printed/): Vietnam ‘Napalm Girl’ receives final skin treatment in Florida 50 years after iconic image Fifty years ago, Kim Phuc Phan Thi became internationally recognised after she was pictured running from a napalm bomb in 1972 in Vietnam. Kim Phuc appeared in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo she was nine-years-old at the time, running naked after a napalm attack in Vietnam on June 8, 1972. The photo was titled “The Terror of War” but it had become better known as “Napalm Girl.” It became a symbol of not just the Vietnam War, but the horrors of all wars.  Kim Phuc became known worldwide when she […] - [Keir Starmer scraps pledge to end NHS private sector outsourcing](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-scraps-pledge-to-end-nhs-private-sector-outsourcing/): “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” ― George Orwell, 1984 What’s the point of Labour… Sir Keir Starmer has dropped a policy pledge […] - [Tory civil war: Ministers call for probe into 'Rishi Sunak's man' - claims of a shadowy Tory working to destabilise the Government while making threatening phone calls to Boris Johnson](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-civil-war-ministers-call-for-probe-into-rishi-sunaks-man-claims-of-a-shadowy-tory-working-to-destabilise-the-government-while-making-threatening-phone-calls-to-boris-johnson/): Rishi’s man, Dougie Smith tells Johnson, ‘Quit or we’ll get you out’ The continuing Tory civil war won’t go away if Sunak wins the race to become prime minister, it just means the attacks will just come the other way here’s a snippet of Blue on blue action. Senior Tory ministers are pressing for an investigation into the role of a shadowy Tory party figure who was heavily involved in the plot to overthrow Boris Johnson. It is claimed Dougie Smith, a close friend of the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, threatened Boris in an extraordinary telephone […] - [Ready for Rishi: Another oven-ready dish from Boris Johnson](https://heartlandstribune.com/ready-for-rishi-another-oven-ready-dish-from-boris-johnson/): It is pretty audacious that Rishi Sunak’s team are trying to sell him as a fresh start, Rishi Sunak has not been an innocent bystander in Johnson’s government of Kleptocracy, he has pretty much been the co-pilot, Johnson’s wingman in every major decision brought down on the people. Sunak has been part and parcel of the Johnson regime from beginning to end, he is literately ‘oven-ready’ to take over as PM! He wouldn’t need to change a thing; he has been one of the most instrumental in taking the country on its present course to nowhere ever since Johnson gained office. […] - [One of the Tory Bankers Sajid Javid withdraws from Leadership contest](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-banker-sajid-javid-withdraws-from-leadership-contest/): Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid withdraws from the contest to be the next Conservative Party leader. He says: “Serving in government is a true privilege. It has been just seven days since I took the difficult decision to resign from the most important job I have ever had, as health secretary during a pandemic.” “Since then, I have set out the values and policies I think are right for the future of our great country.” “I believe the party must now look outwards, not inwards, if we are to win again.” “There is an abundance of both ideas and talent in […] - [The truth about Sajid Javid, Ex-Banker, Ex-Chancellor, Ex-Health Secretary Ex-Non-Dom, Tory leadership contender.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-truth-about-sajid-javid-ex-banker-made-chancellor/): What is it about chancellors and not paying Taxes? Does Sajid Javid’s questionable past beg the question of his suitability to be a Minister at all, never mind the Prime minister? Sajid Javid’s appointment as health secretary saw him return to the Cabinet he abruptly left in shock fashion after his resignation as Chancellor. Javid was just six months into his role as chancellor, and less than a month away from delivering his first budget, when he quit after being told he must sack all his advisers if he wanted to keep his job. His departure in February 2020 came after […] - [Mick Lynch Speech Durham Miners Gala 2022](https://heartlandstribune.com/mick-lynch-speech-durham-miners-gala-2022/): RMT union chief Mick Lynch has risen to prominence over the last several months due to his no-holds-barred approach to telling it how it is and voicing working-class concerns, he has shown not only the media and the Labour Party that the working class not only have a voice but can use it effectively. He has used his position as General Secretary of the RMT union not only to fight his workers’ corner but to effectively fight the corner of every working-class person in the UK. Throughout this cost of living crisis Union leaders such as Mick Lynch, Sharon Graham, Eddie […] - [National Security Bill: Threatens Journalists With Life in Prison](https://heartlandstribune.com/national-security-bill-threatens-journalists-with-life-in-prison/): Journalists and publishers could face life sentences if National Security Bill 2022, being debated in the U.K. Parliament, becomes law, reports Mohamed Elmaazi. Mohamed Elmaaziin LondonConsortium News The British Parliament is debating a national security bill which could undermine the basis of national security reporting and ultimately throw journalists in jail for life. A person convicted under the new offence of “obtaining or disclosing protected information,” defined in Section 1 of National Security Bill 2022, faces a fine, life imprisonment, or both, if convicted following a jury trial. A review of the parliamentary debate on the bill makes clear that work by press […] - [Media Disinformation and the Takedown of Jeremy Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/media-disinformation-and-the-takedown-of-jeremy-corbyn/): Jeremy Corbyn has just given Declassified UK an interview recalling specific details of the establishment attacks against the Labour Party under his leadership. Matt Kennard stated: “The month before the 2019 election, I decided to go through the newspaper clippings from Corbyn’s four years as Labour leader to try to locate all the hit pieces on him that emanated from the British military and intelligence establishment. What I found shocked me. Some 34 major national stories attacking Corbyn as a “threat” to British security had come from elements within the national security state. Laid out in chronological order it looked like […] - [Let the country decide: Rumours are circulating stating - If this is to be 'Boris Johnson's Waterloo' he will remove the whip from disloyal MPs and call a general election](https://heartlandstribune.com/let-the-country-decade-rumours-are-circulating-stating-if-this-is-to-be-boris-johnson-waterloo-he-will-remove-the-whip-from-disloyal-mps-and-call-a-general-election/): There’s a rumour coming from Tory central, suggesting if this is to be Boris Johnson’s Waterloo then he will remove the whip from disloyal MPs and call an election as he did in 2019, he will state he has not been allowed to get the job done! That if MPs cannot support him, he will get new ones. Mr Johnson told ministers he was staying “focused on the important issues”. The PM also reminded ministers that 14 million people voted for him, and said the party would have to “take that mandate off them”. of course the mandate he is talking […] - [Tory civil war: Nadhim Zahawi made chancellor replacing Rishi Sunak - Steve Barclay replaces Sajid Javid as health secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-civil-war-nadhim-zahawi-made-chancellor-replacing-rishi-sunak-steve-barclay-replaces-sajid-javid-as-health-secretary/): It’s daggers drawn as the Tories enter into a new battle in their ongoing civil war. One Tory MP said of Boris Johnson: “It’s a bit like the death of Rasputin. He’s been poisoned, stabbed, he’s been shot, his body’s been dumped in the freezing river and still, he lives.” The resignations of Sunak and his fellow senior minister Sajid Javid have left the prime minister battling to remain in office amid questions about his handling of the row over MP Chris Pincher. After this latest opening salvo in this new battle, Boris Johnson has appointed Nadhim Zahawi chancellor and Steve […] - [Can Boris Johnson survive another 24 hours after both Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid's resignations?](https://heartlandstribune.com/can-boris-johnson-survive-another-24-hours-after-both-rishi-sunak-and-sajid-javids-resignations/): Chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid both resign from government Sunak resigns as chancellor, saying the government should be run ‘properly, competently and seriously’ Sunk followed Sajid Javid in his resignation as health secretary, saying UK needs ‘strong and principled Conservative party’ He stated: “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. I recognise this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning. My letter to the Prime Minister below.” The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and […] - [Thousands of Centrists Who Betrayed Corbyn for Starmer's Promise of a Second Referendum Get What They Deserve.](https://heartlandstribune.com/thousands-of-centrists-who-betrayed-corbyn-for-starmers-promise-of-a-second-referendum-get-what-they-deserve/): For the thousands of Labour centrist and right-wingers that pushed that ‘vote losing second referendum’ onto the Labour Party, for those that followed Sir Keir Starmer and Lord Mandelson’s so-called ‘Peoples vote’, you really got what you deserved, a treacherous leader that has not only betrayed all the LeFT leave supporters. You have a leader who has now gone on to betray the Remainers he fooled into supporting him, you got a leader that lies and changes his mind on the scale of Boris Johnson, the fact is you got yourself another Tory leader, the fact is you got yourself another […] - [Fuel protests set to send a message to government](https://heartlandstribune.com/fuel-protests-set-to-send-a-message-to-government/): Petrol and diesel prices are at record highs, with pressure mounting on the Government to take action to ease pressure on motorists. The continuing rises in forecourt prices have led to calls for a further reduction in fuel duty.  Taxation on petrol and diesel (duty and VAT) has changed as a proportion of the pump price over time. Fuel duty is currently levied at a flat rate of 57.95p per litre for both petrol and diesel, while VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty. In total, the RAC estimates that at today’s prices, the […] - [Denmark: Police say several killed in Copenhagen mall shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/denmark-police-say-several-killed-in-copenhagen-mall-shooting/): Danish police said there are “several dead” following a shooting at a shopping mall in the capital Copenhagen. Authorities have detained one suspect in connection with the incident. Announcing the deaths, police chief Soeren Thomassen said a 22-year-old Danish man has been arrested in connection with the attack. Mr Thomassen said the motive was unclear, but that he could not rule out an “act of terrorism”. Eyewitnesses have spoken of panic among shoppers as gunfire rang out inside the Field’s mall in the south of the city. Emilie Jeppesen told Jyllands-Posten newspaper: “You didn’t know what was happening. Suddenly there was […] - [Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World](https://heartlandstribune.com/mystery-how-wealth-creates-poverty-in-the-world/): Recent history is punctuated with a lot of not-so-great economic “greats” from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. Now we have a new one: When historians look back on the decisions made over the last two years, during the Covid pandemic this period will be remembered as the “Great Consolidation”—the acceleration of a historic wealth transfer and power concentration out of the hands of the people and into those with political power and connections, this is the age of the Oligarchy. This century we have witnessed the greatest transference of public money into private hands ever seen, and now we […] - [We get our workers' rights from hard-fought battles they are not given to us by a benevolent Government or the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/workers-rights-post-brexit/): The Chimera of Workers’ Rights in the EU Mary Davis One of Remainers’ great fears is that Brexit will undermine workers’ rights. This rests on a total misunderstanding of the EU. Far from gifting rights to British workers, the EU has systematically undermined the rights workers won for themselves in domestic struggles. The defence of workers’ rights is the main pro-Remain argument used by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), all but three affiliated trade unions (TUs), and the newly formed Left Against Brexit (Another Europe is Possible). Their argument is flawed for the following reasons: It is based on the false […] - [The Palace of Varieties: Second whip 'RESIGNS' after ‘groping men’ drunk in bars](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-palace-of-varieties-second-whip-resigns-after-groping-men-drunk-in-bars/): Tory Chris Pincher becomes the second Party whip to have lost his job this month. Pincher follows the former SNP whip Patrick Grady bothlost their jobs over misconduct and the drunken grouping of men in bars. In a bombshell resignation letter, Chris Pincher made a statement saying he had “embarrassed myself and other people” after boozing too much. The government’s deputy chief whip has resigned this evening over an allegation of drunken “groping”, it’s understood. Chris Pincher confirmed his resignation in a letter to Boris Johnson, who has been speaking at the Nato summit in Madrid. Pincher reportedly stood down after assaulting two […] - [War, who is it good for?](https://heartlandstribune.com/war-who-is-it-good-for-2/): Well, if you look at the profit lines of the arms industries, the answer is blatant. War is unjust, immoral, violent and inflicts suffering on all. For example, the war between Russia and Ukraine is having a pretty bad impact on the global economy, which had only recently begun recovering from the Covid-19 induced massacre. The war is driving up oil and gas prices, while also threatening food security for many nations, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. But is it all that bad? Is it only gloomy? Is there no silver lining on the horizon? Well of course there is. […] - [Ghislaine Maxwell sentenced to 20 years in prison but what about the rest of them?](https://heartlandstribune.com/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison-but-what-about-the-rest-of-them/): Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for carrying out a years-long scheme with her longtime confidante Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December on five of six counts against her, including sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and three related counts of conspiracy. She was acquitted on one charge of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Maxwell to 30 to 55 years in prison, while the probation department recommended 20 […] - [Sherwood Touching the truth: How the Tories Planned to Take on the Miners and the Working class](https://heartlandstribune.com/sherwood-touching-the-truth-how-the-tories-planned-to-take-on-the-miners-and-the-working-class/): “They wanted that strike. They wanted to change the political landscape of this country away from collectivism toward deregulation market forces. Reasonable people can agree or disagree with that shift; the point is in order to achieve it they needed a war!” -Extract BBC mini-series #Sherwood Sherwood, the BBC mini-series is loosely based on the true story of two unconnected murders in the Sherwood Forest area in 2004, written by the award-winning writer of (Quiz, Brexit: An Uncivil War) James Graham who grow up in post-industrial Nottinghamshire around the miners’ strike of 1984. The murder plot is inconsequential other than to […] - [Images have emerged of 'hypocrite David Lammy' standing on a picket line coming after he condemned Labour MPs who join rail workers on the picket line](https://heartlandstribune.com/images-have-emerged-of-hypocrite-david-lammy-standing-on-a-picket-line-coming-after-he-condemned-labour-mps-who-join-rail-workers-on-the-picket-line/): David Lammy condemns Labour MPs who join rail workers on the picket line What’s the point of Labour? David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said he “categorically” does not support a walkout by BA check-in staff, dismissing their call for a 10 per cent pay increase. Calling it “very sad when any union calls its members out”, Mr Lammy also said: “I don’t support strikes,” before adding: “I support the right to strike of course.” Along the same lines, the Labour leader had ordered his top team to stay away from the picket lines in an attempt to avoid Tory efforts to […] - [Western Officials Admit Ukraine Is Crawling With CIA Personnel](https://heartlandstribune.com/western-officials-admit-ukraine-is-crawling-with-cia-personnel/): By Caitlin Johnstone The New York Times reports that Ukraine is crawling with special forces and spies from the US and its allies, which would seem to contradict earlier reports that the US intelligence cartel is having trouble getting intel about what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine. This would also, obviously, put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that this is not a US proxy war. In an article titled “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say,” anonymous western officials inform us of the following through their stenographers at The New York Times: “As Russian troops press ahead […] - [Tory Rail strike: The facts](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-rail-strike-the-facts/): The reality directly from those involved in the strike is often very different to the tale the mainstream media would have you believe. Saturday, June 25th will see huge swathes of Britain be without any rail services, as 40k RMT members will strike for the third time in a week in disputes over pay and jobs.  Commuters are being told not to travel by train as the entire network is crippled by the largest strike in more than 30 years. Tens of thousands of rail workers are walking out in what has been described as the “biggest outbreak of industrial action in […] - [Tories lose both Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton by-election](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-lose-both-wakefield-and-tiverton-and-honiton-by-election/): Labour has won the by-election in Wakefield – taking back a so-called “Red Wall” seat they held for 87 years until it was a Conservative gain at the 2019 general election. The turnout was 39%. Labour GAIN from Conservative. Wakefield parliamentary by-election result LAB: 47.9% (+8.1) CON: 30.0% (-17.3) IND (Akbar): 7.6% (+7.6) YRK: 4.3% (+2.4) It’s Labour’s first by-election gain in almost 10 years, when they took Corby from the Conservatives in November 2012. Wakefield parliamentary by-election result LAB: 47.9% (+8.1)CON: 30.0% (-17.3)IND (Akbar): 7.6% (+7.6)YRK: 4.3% (+2.4) Labour GAIN from Conservative. — Britain Elects (@BritainElects) June 24, 2022 Lib […] - [Rotherham abuse scandal: Calls for more accountability after IOPC report](https://heartlandstribune.com/rotherham-abuse-scandal-calls-for-more-accountability-after-iopc-report/): One thousand four hundred girls were abused, trafficked and groomed in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. But not one police officer, past or present, lost their job – despite more than 200 allegations of police failures. Today victims and survivors responded angrily to the publication of a report by the police watchdog into what went wrong, because – they say – the investigation, which took eight years and cost £6 million, hasn’t held anyone fully accountable. As the long-awaited report in to officers’ mishandling of widespread child sex abuse in Rotherham finds that South Yorkshire Police were guilty of systemic failings, […] - [WATCH: ‘Are We Ruled by Idiots?’](https://heartlandstribune.com/watch-are-we-ruled-by-idiots/): That’s what George Galloway asked CN Editor Joe Lauria on the Mother of All Talk Shows. His response examines the need for a change in imperial thinking. George Galloway and Joe Lauria discuss what the declining media coverage of the #Ukraine war indicates - [The Labour Party forgets its place: Support the rail strike](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-forgets-its-place-support-the-rail-strike/): The Labour Party forgets its place It wasn’t so long ago when you were guaranteed the support of Labour MPs at the picket line where they would not only bring about media attention to the cause but carry the fight into Westminster, pressurising the opposition to bring about a negotiated settlement. Tony Benn and other LeFT Labour MPs would always explain and articulate the workers’ just cause, why they were striking, their demands and why they had a right to strike. After all, as it says on the Labour party website: “The Labour Party was formed out of the trade union […] - [Jewface and other David Baddiel Racisms](https://heartlandstribune.com/jewface-and-other-david-baddiel-racisms/): By Gavin Lewis UK Channel 4 TV has announced it is turning David Baddiel’s highly contentious monograph Jews Don’t Count into a television programme.  The premise – that in the modern era – white western Jews are uniquely oppressed – will no doubt be shocking to the families of Jermaine Baker, Sheku Bayoh, Leon Briggs, Rashan Charles, Kevin Clarke, Mark Duggan, Trevor Smith and very many more killed in Black Lives Matter police shoot to kill policies. It also might be disputed by victims of Tony Blair’s poisonous ideology of collective Muslim guilt – labelled ‘radical Islam’ or ‘militant Islam’ – […] - [Rail Strikes to go ahead as management failed to negotiate a realistic settlement](https://heartlandstribune.com/rail-strikes-to-go-ahead-as-management-has-failed-to-negotiate-a-realistic-settlement/): Last-ditch talks fail to prevent strike. London is bracing for mass disruption this week as a Tube strike and three days of rail walkouts coincide in a move set to cripple travel networks. Transport for London (TfL) has warning against travel tomorrow as Tube workers launch a strike on Tuesday, 21 June, to coincide with the first day of a series of rail strikes spread across this week. ‘Severe’ disruption is expected throughout Tuesday, when many stations and lines will close, TfL says. Transport bosses are cautioning Tube passengers that the few services running are expected to be jam-packed with commuters – […] - [The Political class have abandoned the workers: Our strength is in the unions](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-flames-burning-in-the-human-heart-now-we-must-take-those-flames-and-rebuild-within-the-unions/): This weeks long read. Two flames burning in the human heart: Now we must take those flames and rebuild within the unions Jeremy Corbyn: The Flame of hope. It was through the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, that the chasm of an unfair society looked like it could be bridged. For many, Jeremy Corbyn embodied that flame of hope Tony Benn so often spoke of. Corbyn struck the right chords with the masses, washed and unwashed. The slogan for the “many, not the few” actually felt like it meant something, Corbyn was an oasis in a very dry desert. The election to […] - [Julian Assange extradition: Another shameful moment in British history and an attack on Press Freedom](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-extradition-another-shameful-moment-in-british-history-and-an-attack-on-press-freedom/): Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. British politicians will celebrate World Press Freedom Day next week by debating the safety of journalists and the importance of free expression with no sense of irony at the fact Priti Patel has just signed and approved the extradition of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange to the US. where if convicted, he could be jailed for 175 years. julian Assange’s crime was nothing more than revealing the truth about war crimes and other crimes against humanity committed by the United States government and its allies. His commitment to […] - [The creation of the working class: Born from exploitation and state violence](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-creation-of-the-working-class-born-from-exploitation-and-state-violence/): On this day, 16 June 1531 On this day, 16 June 1531, English king Henry VIII modified the vagrancy laws he brought in the previous year, which were key in creating the working class. The modified the vagrancy laws resulted in people litratly being kicked off communal land, common land our land, Anyone who not in wage labour was designated as vagabonds, and on their first offence they were whipped, then on the second, whipped with half an ear sliced off and upon a third offence, they were to be executed. This and similar laws enacted across Europe, backed up by […] - [Rwanda asylum flight halted after legal action](https://heartlandstribune.com/rwanda-asylum-flight-halted-after-legal-action/): The first flight scheduled to take asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda will not depart as planned on Tuesday after a last-minute legal battle, the Home Office announced The last-minute announcement came just minutes before the set departure time, the government confirmed all migrants had been removed from the plane. The ECHR confirmed it had granted an urgent interim measure in regards to an Iraqi national, and it is understood the Court was considering a number of further requests. Up to seven people had been expected to be removed to the east African country but the flight was cancelled after […] - [Tony Blair: The commoners wanted him in the Hague but the Establishment will always honour their own](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blairthe-commoners-wanted-him-in-the-hague-but-establishment-will-always-honour-their-own/): Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair KG War criminal In December, when the announcement was made that Blair was to be honoured, more than 1.5 million signatures were gathered on a petition calling for the knighthood to be “rescinded”. The petition said Blair was the “least deserving person of any public honour” and that he should be “held accountable for war crimes”. That petition didn’t deter the establishment and its oligarchy which regardless of public opinion not only made Tony Blair a Knight of the realm but gave him the highest of ranks. It is this sort of corruption that like cancer […] - [Keir Starmer says he's done nothing wrong as investigation under MPs' conduct rules revealed](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-says-hes-done-nothing-wrong-as-investigation-under-mps-conduct-rules-revealed/): Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he was confident he had done nothing wrong after it emerged he was being investigated over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts Sir Keir is being investigated by Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, under two sections of the MPs’ rules of conduct on registering interests, the parliamentary website shows. According to an update on the website of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Starmer is facing a probe under Article 14 of the MPs’ Code of Conduct. The Code states: “Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of […] - [US Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Claims Jeffrey Epstein ‘Murdered’ in Jail](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-whistleblower-chelsea-manning-claims-jeffrey-epstein-murdered-in-jail/): Chelsea Manning, an American whistleblower who came to fame after disclosing hundreds of thousands of sensitive military data to WikiLeaks, is in no doubt as to the fate of the late convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning told podcast host Ethan Klein that Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell was likely a “prison murder” that correctional officers allowed to happen.  Epstein’s death was “murder,” Manning said on an episode of Klein’s H3 Podcast on Friday. “That’s how a prison murder happens. I know when it happens.” “You wanna get rid of someone in prison? That’s how you do it,” she added, […] - [Westminster Politics: The Truth Behind Donations, Lobbying, Second Jobs, Dirty Money](https://heartlandstribune.com/westminster-politics-the-truth-behind-donations-lobbying-second-jobs-dirty-money/): Politicians should Represent The People, Not the Highest Bidder Westminster never lets you down, well, not when it comes to scandals involving money and influence through donations lobbying and second jobs, and we don’t need to be tribal about this, they’re all at it! In short, it is now clear that politicians are continuing to accept donations from dubious sources and outside interests, and let’s be really honest this is big business buying influence. The result has led to a loss of trust in our political system, and many people are now calling for reform. It is important that we understand […] - [Holocaust memorial: There are no Jews left in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/holocaust-memorial-there-are-no-jews-left-in-ukraine/): The Holocaust Memorial Undone by Another War Labour peer Maurice Glasman gives an impassioned speech and recounts his recent trips to Ukraine. He gives a sad and hauntingly disturbing picture of a community where in 1941 there were more than 2 million Jews now he is met with closed synagogues and the screams of the dead. A place where ‘there are many’ who rejoice at the restoration of the reputation of Stepan Bandera. My Lords, I would like to acknowledge the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and his lifetime of devotion to this cause. I too will go down the road opened […] - [The World Economic Forum: Starmer will sell out the UK to Globalisation's Mafiocracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-world-economic-forum-starmer-will-sell-out-the-uk-to-globalisations-mafiocracy/): Sunday long read. The Purpose of the World Economic Forum You may have heard of the World Economic Forum (WEF). It proclaims itself as an event where global business and political leaders come together to discuss the most pressing issues facing our world, a think tank of the elite working for the common good… They go on to state The World Economic Forum brings together decision-makers from across society to work on projects and initiatives that make a real difference. Claiming: “Through collaboration between stakeholders with varied perspectives, our projects deliver concrete and sustainable results and make a positive impact at […] - [Russia's role in Brexit should be looked at especially that of the Remain campaign.](https://heartlandstribune.com/russias-role-in-brexit-should-be-looked-at-especially-that-of-the-remain-campaign/): What Role Did Russia Play in the Remain Campaign During the Brexit Referendum? You may remember the Brexit referendum of 2016. It was the vote in which the UK decided to leave the European Union. The whole thing was a bit of a mess. One of the main complaints about the referendum was that Russia had a hand in it. Some say that they interfered with the vote, while others claim that they simply influenced the way people voted. But either way, it’s a pretty big deal. In response to this glaring and potentially compromising lack of electoral and national security, […] - [Tory Levelling up means pumping money into southern conservative constituencies](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-levelling-up-means-pumping-money-into-southern-conservative-constituencies/): Rishi Sunak accused of pumping levelling up cash into the South The Prime Minister denied that with over £2billion for more than 100 projects across the country was ‘pork barrel politics’ – as furious Tories branded it a ‘f**k up of epic proportions’ With the Tories in control of Westminster, there has been much talk of “levelling up” – investing money into areas of the country that have been neglected for too long. However, after the first allocation of levelling up funding it seems that this money is not necessarily being distributed fairly, with Conservative constituencies receiving significantly more funding than […] - [A Conversation with Bertrand Russell](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-conversation-with-bertrand-russell/): A Life Well Lived We all need perspective – on our lives and the world around us. Join us as we listen to philosopher Bertrand Russell, learning from the past and how he used history in his own thinking about humanity. Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, was born on 18 May 1872 and passed away on the 2nd February 1970. During his lifetime his achievements were vast but his take on life was extraordinary. In this colourized film philosopher and classicist, Bertrand Russell talks about the time when his grandfather met Napoleon. Hearing from people who lived through such […] - [Coal is king: German Police detained Greta Thunberg at coal mining protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/coal-is-king-german-police-detained-greta-thunberg-at-coal-mining-protest/): Throughout the EU countries are digging for fossil fuels to keep the economy moving. In the midst of the Energiewende, Germany still relies heavily on imports of fossil fuels as its domestic resources are largely depleted or their extraction is too costly but when old open-cast mines can still feed the home fires Germany is willing to dig for coal and that’s coming from extending the Garzweiler surface mine. The mine is located west of Grevenbroich, Mining was originally limited to 25 sq miles.  In the early 1980s, it is estimated that more than 30,000 people had to be moved for the Garzweiler mine […] - [Clueless Starmer's plans will break NHS to feed the private sector](https://heartlandstribune.com/clueless-starmers-plans-will-break-nhs-to-feed-the-private-sector/): Starmer’s remedy for an ailing NHS has been branded as “clueless” as he fails to provide a clear plan for reform of the health service. This article will explore Starmer’s lack of clarity around NHS reform and how it could be affecting public confidence in his leadership. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for being “clueless” on the NHS, as he fails to provide a clear plan for reform of the health service. Starmer’s “obsession” with bringing the private sector into the NHS with his vow to introduce “partnership” working between the state and businesses is toxic, and while […] - [MLK Day Special: Class Struggle and Dr Martin Luther King Jr.](https://heartlandstribune.com/mlk-day-special-class-struggle-and-dr-martin-luther-king-jr/): By RICHARD ESKOW Common Dreams The US claims to honour his memory, even as it defiles his dreams. On this, the national holiday named for Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., Ajamu Baraka tweeted: THE U.S. SHOULD DROP ITS’ COMMEMORATION OF DR. KING’S BIRTHDAY BECAUSE THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN (THE) DR KING THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT CREATED (AND THE) VIOLENT, WARMONGERING U.S. “The King birthday is a colonialist expropriation that should be rejected,” Baraka added. That is a discussion and a decision for Black people, not me, but I will say this: It’s hard to deny that the forces Dr King condemned are […] - [Defend the Right to Strike: RMT calls for mass mobilisation against anti-worker bill](https://heartlandstribune.com/defend-the-right-to-strike-rmt-calls-for-mass-mobilisation-against-anti-worker-bill/): Defend the Right to Strike! Protest the Government. This Monday, the government will try to ram through its new anti-strike law. The law targets frontline workers – from nurses and paramedics to firefighters and rail workers – threatening to take away their right to strike. And if workers don’t accept its terms, they face the sack. Trades unionists from across the labour movement will descend on Parliament tonight, to protest at the Minimum Service Levels bill. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “The government has decided to bring in this anti-worker law because it wants to make effective strike action illegal […] - [Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi to pay several million in tax after scrutiny of his family’s offshore company accounts](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-chancellor-nadhim-zahawi-to-pay-several-million-in-tax-after-scrutiny-of-his-familys-offshore-company-accounts/): Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi claims of politically motivated ‘smears’ result in a multi-million tax settlement after a probe into family-owned offshore accounts by HM Revenue and Customs. Last year Zahawi was both chancellor and running for the Tory leadership when a senior Whitehall source confirmed that the tax matter with the HMRC was “unresolved”. The initial NCA inquiry was codenamed “Operation Catalufa” and is understood to have involved the agency’s International Corruption Unit. At the time Nadhim Zahawi hit out at what he described as “smears” over his tax affairs, saying he does not benefit from an offshore trust and has […] - [Nothing for nurses, Tanks to Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/nothing-for-nurses-tanks-for-ukraine/): If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people. -Tony Benn While public workers strike due to a cost of living crisis created by extortionate energy inflation going into double figures the UK continues to feed a war while starving its people. The UK is to send a number of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to bolster the country’s war effort, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said. He spoke to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call on Saturday, during which he confirmed he would send the equipment and additional artillery systems. Downing […] - [Around 100,000 civil servants vote to strike over pay, pensions and jobs](https://heartlandstribune.com/around-100000-civil-servants-vote-to-strike-over-pay-pensions-and-jobs/): Around 100,000 civil servants are to strike on February 1 in a worsening dispute over jobs, pay and conditions, the Public and Commercial Services union has announced. The PCS national executive committee has agreed to call a one-day strike on 1 February of all members in employers where the turnout passed the 50% threshold required by law for action in our ballot last year.  The union called it “a fantastic result with a massive average ‘Yes vote’ for industrial action across the areas balloted of 86.2%, the highest percentage vote in the union’s history.” This means around 100,000 civil servants have […] - [Tory MP Andrew Bridgen as whip removed after comparing COVID vaccines with HOLOCAUST](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-as-whip-removed-after-comparing-covid-vaccines-with-holocaust/): Andrew Bridgen has been suspended as a Conservative MP for comparing the HOLOCAUST to the Covid vaccination. Bridgen claimed in a tweet that COVID vaccines “are causing serious harms” and said the programme was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”. The HOLOCAUST remark was one analogy too far… Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called the comments “highly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate”. Lord Mann, an independent peer and former Labour MP who advises the government on anti-Semitism, said Mr Bridgen should be barred from standing for the Tories at the next election. Andrew Bridgen’s tweet now […] - [Tory MP sacked over online porn allegations to oversee online safety bill](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-sacked-over-online-porn-allegations-to-oversee-online-safety-bill/): Tory sacked for online porn allegations takes over as chair of online safety after former Tory chair suspended for sexual assault Former Cabinet minister Damian Green has become the acting chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee. Mr Green, who was sacked as a minister in 2017 following allegations about pornography on his parliamentary computers, said “online safety” would be one of the key issues the committee would be considering. He said: “This year will undoubtedly bring with it some major policy challenges in the world of DCMS, with online safety, the future of public service broadcasting, sports governance […] - [Global watchdog says social media giants 'directly aided' fascist insurrection in Brazil](https://heartlandstribune.com/global-watchdog-says-social-media-giants-directly-aided-fascist-insurrection-in-brazil/): By Jake Johnson and Common Dreams January 09, 2023 The fascist attack on Brazil’s main government complex was “directly aided” by major social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram, the global watchdog group SumOfUs said Monday as the country’s authorities continued their cleanup efforts, investigation, and arrests of suspects involved in the anti-democratic assault. The insurrection, carried out by supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, “can come as no surprise to social media executives, who were warned time and again that their platforms, tools, and algorithms were directly aiding a violent uprising in Brazil,” said Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director […] - [There's nothing going Spare for the working class](https://heartlandstribune.com/theres-nothing-going-spare-for-the-working-class/): While the media and politicians act out the Royal drama the real crisis of a sinking NHS and the Hunger pangs of empty bellies go unheard. This is the sixth richest country in the world, a country where researchers found 11% of people at some point over the last month went hungry because they did not have enough money, the media are concentrating on a Royal fallout instead of the real issues. It is a country where nothing reflects best the media manipulation and the corruption of democracy than when people are more obsessed about the machinations, outrages and narcissisms of […] - [Junior Doctors to Ballot on 72-HOUR strike action](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-to-ballot-on-72-hour-strike/): Junior doctors in England will go on strike for 72 hours in March in protest about pay if their forthcoming ballot produces a majority for industrial action. The BMA has today told the Government that, If a ballot for industrial action is successful, junior doctors in England will begin their action with a 72-hour full walkout in March. The BMA is still urging the Secretary of State for Health to meet with doctors and negotiate a solution to avoid the need for industrial action. But Steve Barclay is the first Health Secretary for over 50 years to continue to ignore all invitations from […] - [Hoping for a Christmas miracle: After Ukraine rejects offer of truce](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-rejects-christmas-truce/): Putin orders the Russian army to observe a 36-hour ceasefire over Russia/Ukraine’s Christmas period. On this Russian, Ukraine Christmas eve, many will recall ‘The Christmas truce of World War I’. It has become legendary, especially among those who long for peace, even in the midst of war.  On a crisp, clear morning 100 years ago, thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front. In the hundred years since, the event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment […] - [Amazon workers announce strike date in first ever UK walkout](https://heartlandstribune.com/amazon-workers-announce-strike-date-in-first-ever-uk-walkout/): The first ever strike by UK workers at online giant Amazon is to be held later this month, it has been announced. Members of the GMB union based at a Coventry warehouse will walk out on January 25 in a dispute over pay after voting in favour of taking industrial action. GMB senior organiser Amanda Gearing said the workers, who are in a pay dispute, were set to make history. Amazon said it appreciated the work its teams carried out and they were offered competitive pay. The union organiser said: “They’ve [the workers] shown they’re willing to put themselves on the […] - [Taking healthcare workers from abroad is not the solution: I'm Alright Jack! Freedom of movement the Brain Drain.](https://heartlandstribune.com/im-alright-jack-freedom-of-movement-the-brain-drain/): Freedom of movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. When it comes to providing health care in the bloc’s poorest countries, it’s also a problem. We are constantly told that due to Brexit, there is a staff shortage in the NHS. The truth is, there were always staff shortages and stealing other countries’ trained healthcare workers is not going to solve the crisis. The European Commission published an annual report on skill shortages and surpluses in Europe. Its latest report confirms what our action showed on 29 October. Almost all EU countries (22) report a shortage of health care […] - [Ukraine Parliament Quotes Nazi Collaborator Stepan Bandera](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-parliament-quotes-nazi-collaborator-stepan-bandera/): Victory to Come When Russian Empire ‘Ceases to Exist’: Ukraine Parliament Quotes Nazi Collaborator Stepan Bandera Stepan Bandera is revered as a hero by many Ukrainians for leading the political wing of the anti-Soviet independence movement, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Its military wing — the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — waged partisan warfare during and after World War II. But Bandera — who was killed by a Soviet assassin in Munich in 1959 — is regarded as a traitor by others for leading an insurgent war against Soviet forces and collaborating with Nazi Germany. His forces also fought against the […] - [RMT calls out government for 'blocking' rail resolution ahead of strikes starting tomorrow](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-calls-out-government-for-blocking-rail-resolution-ahead-of-strikes-starting-tomorrow/): The start of 2023 will bring further stoppages by rail workers, bus drivers, teachers in Scotland, nurses, ambulance workers and civil servants. Unions are warning of an escalation in their activity. Rishi Sunak’s government is braced for strike ballots for teachers in England and Wales and firefighters to close in January, while junior doctors will also be balloted early in the new year. Unions are demanding pay rises for their members who are battling soaring inflation. Mick Lynch, head of the RMT, has said the union “will not bow to pressure from the employers and the government to the detriment of […] - [Extinction Rebellion to halt disruptive protests](https://heartlandstribune.com/extinction-rebellion-to-halt-disruptive-protests/): Environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion said Sunday it was halting its disruptive protests in the United Kingdom to try to win over more public support for its campaign against climate change. The grassroots group has staged acts of civil disobedience by closing key roads, train lines and bridges in central London, blockading oil refineries, smashing windows at a bank headquarters and spaying fake blood over the finance ministry building. When XR burst onto the scene four years ago, few could have imagined the seismic shift it would bring about in the climate movement, the climate conversation, and the world at large.  Their protests have garnered public attention but also widespread criticism as their stunts […] - [Labour Heartlands New Years Honours List](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-heartlands-new-years-honours-list/): The Labour Heartlands New Year’s Honours are awarded to the men and women that have throughout the year made a difference and worked tirelessly and unselfishly to bring about social justice and for the emancipation of the working class. HONOURED, MAN OF THE YEAR 2022 Our first award for ‘Man of the year’ goes to Mick Lynch, RMT general secretary. Mick gets the award for being a true advocate of the working class, standing up for not only RMT members but all workers everywhere. His quick wit and ability to articulate and empathise with our common struggle have earned him accolades […] - [Unions respond to Ben Wallace's rant on public sector pay talks and going back to the 70s](https://heartlandstribune.com/unions-respond-to-ben-wallaces-rant-on-public-sector-pay-talks-and-going-back-to-the-70s/): Ben Wallace rants, We’re not going back to the 1970s Unite the union responded to Ben Wallace’s comments on public sector pay disputes after Wallace went off on some poor imitation of an Alf Garnet rant about Trade unions seeking to hold the government “to ransom” by demanding direct talks on public sector pay. After speaking at Manchester airport, where he met military personnel covering for Border Force staff, the defence secretary rejected a charge from the new TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, that the government was sabotaging efforts to end the strikes. Wallace rejected Nowak’s call for ministers to join talks, saying […] - [US Energy companies make legal challenge to block EU windfall tax](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-energy-companies-make-legal-challenge-to-block-eu-windfall-tax/): US Energy giant Exxon sues EU in move to block new windfall tax on oil US oil major Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N is suing the European Union in a bid to force it to scrap the bloc’s new windfall tax on oil groups, arguing Brussels exceeded its legal authority by imposing the levy. Record profits this year by oil companies benefiting from high energy prices have boosted inflation around the world and led to fresh calls to further tax the sector. The windfall profits tax is “counter-productive,” discourages investments and undermines investor confidence, Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton said on Wednesday.  Exxon will factor in the tax as it considers future multibillion-euro investments in […] - [Paris shooting kills 3: Suspected Gunman, known Racist Arrested](https://heartlandstribune.com/paris-shooting-kills-3-suspected-gunman-known-racist-arrested/): Gunmen kills three in suspected racist attack at Kurdish centre in Paris On Friday, a 69-year-old gunman opened fire at a Kurdish cultural centre and a hairdressing salon in Paris, killing three people and injuring three others, witnesses and prosecutors said. French prosecutors said a shooting in central Paris left three dead and several injured on Friday. “There are three dead, one person in intensive care and two people with serious injuries, and the suspect, who was arrested, has also been injured, notably to the face,” a prosecutor told reporters at the scene. The lawyer of the Kurdish cultural center that had been […] - [Tory Britain: Trains Late, Fares Up, Wages Down!](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-britain-trains-late-fares-up-wages-down/): Rail fares in England are to rise by up to 5.9% from March 2023 the hike is still the second highest on record. The government said the annual increase was in line with July’s average earnings growth rather than the traditional retail price index due to “unprecedented levels of inflation”. The irony of that statement comes when you understand the government made sure that striking rail workers were offered less than a 6% pay rise by The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) in fact, a pay rise of 8% was offered over two years that means in real terms, a 4% pay […] - [Treachery As Its Own Rewards: Sir Keir Starmer's Nominee Tom Watson gets Peerage](https://heartlandstribune.com/treachery-as-its-own-rewards-sir-keir-starmers-nominee-tom-watson-gets-peerage/): The Labour Party is institutionally treacherous Where to start, first if you are to believe Sir Keir Starmer this will be a short stay in the House of Lords, but we all know Starmer never keeps a promise… They say everyone has a price and that is particularly true for Labour MPs. the going rate for treachery skulduggery and betrayal is to get made a peerage. Tom Watsons has been confirmed as a Lord today. nominated by Sir Keir Starmer and after two rejections the House of Lords today confirmed as Thomas Anthony Watson, Baron Watson of Wyre Forest. Watson had […] - [Labour MP Stephen Kinnock confirms the 'Scab Labour Party' supports the army being brought in to break strikes.](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-stephen-kinnock-confirms-the-scab-labour-party-supports-the-army-being-brought-in-to-break-strikes/): A LABOUR MP has said the party supports troops being called in by the UK Government to stand-in for striking workers Rishi Sunak has urged unions to call off the next wave of NHS strikes as it emerged some 1,300 troops are being deployed this week to ‘help cope’ with the fallout from strike action. This comes after ministers held a meeting of the emergency Cobra contingencies committee on Monday, with another planned for Wednesday. One of the largest health unions, Unison, accused the government of “intransigence” over pay. Ministers have said they are prepared to talk to unions, but not over wages. Patricia Marquis, from the […] - [High Court rules sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is legal](https://heartlandstribune.com/high-court-rules-sending-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-is-legal/): The High Court in London has today ruled the British government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is legal. London’s High Court said Britain’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is legal. A planned deportation flight in June was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The UK planned to send thousands of migrants who arrived in the country by crossing the channel to Rwanda, which is about 6,400 kilometres (3,977 miles) away from its shores. This came after the UK struck a deal with Kigali in April, aiming to send tens of thousands of migrants arriving on its shores to Rwanda. At […] - [Biden Killed Senate Resolution to End Yemen War](https://heartlandstribune.com/biden-killed-senate-resolution-to-end-yemen-war/): By Caitlin Johnstone It’s hard to think of a word to describe all this besides “evil.” If intervening to ensure the continued mass starvation of children and mass military slaughter of civilians is not evil, then nothing is evil, says Caitlin Johnstone. Sen. Bernie Sanders has withdrawn his bill to end U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen following reports that the Biden administration was working to tank the resolution, with White House aides reportedly saying they’d recommend the president veto it. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday night withdrew his request to vote on the Yemen War Powers Resolution […] - [MPs accused of Sex tourism and selling out to corporate interest as All-Party Parliamentary Groups rack up £450,000 in foreign trips](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-accused-of-sex-tourism-and-selling-out-to-corporate-interest-as-all-party-parliamentary-groups-rack-up-450000-in-foreign-trips/): Parliamentary trips ‘used for sex tourism and heavy drinking’ An investigation by Politico has shown that MPs within All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) have racked up £450,000 in foreign trips, while some MPs are accused of taking advantage of the trips and using the opportunity for sex tourism. APPGs are parliamentary groups devoted to a specific issue, but over 130 are dedicated to interest in a particular foreign country. These country-specific APPGs often arrange lavish visits to host nations for their members, sometimes with funding from those countries or associated organisations. This investigation centred around a small cluster of British MPs who […] - [What is Rishi Sunak's five-point illegal immigration plan?](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-is-rishi-sunaks-five-point-illegal-immigration-plan/): Rishi Sunak told the Commons on Tuesday that “enough is enough” and the system is “not fair”. This week we have witnessed the tragedy of seeing four migrants crossing the channel die after their small boat capsized in the freezing cold water in the early hours of the morning making the dangerous crossing to Britain. A further 43 people were understood to have been saved in a joint rescue effort by the UK coastguard, air ambulance service, the French Navy, the RNLI – and a fishing boat crew who pulled people to safety. More than 44,700 people have made the Channel crossing […] - [EU Parliament removes Eva Kaili as vice-president after Qatar corruption allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/eu-parliament-removes-eva-kaili-as-vice-president-after-qatar-corruption-allegations/): The authorities in Belgium started a sweeping operation to detain and question five people including former and current members and employees of the European Parliament as part of an inquiry into suspected bribes by Qatar, officials in Brussels. The police operation, which began on Friday and was still underway today, is now focused on what could be the biggest scandal in the history of the European Parliament. Among those taken in for questioning on Friday was Eva Kaili of Greece, one of the Parliament’s vice presidents. Parliament, sitting in Strasbourg, the European Parliament on Tuesday ousted the MEP and vice-president who […] - [The Biggest Obstacle To Real Freedom Is The Belief That We Already Have It](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-biggest-obstacle-to-real-freedom-is-the-belief-that-we-already-have-it/): By Caitlin Johnstone If you live in one of the so-called free democracies of the western world, the worst mistake you can make is to buy into the hype. To believe you are a free individual in a nation that respects and protects your freedom and individuality. Whenever I broach this subject I always get a deluge of objections along the lines of, “Well I’d much rather live where I live than under an authoritarian regime like in Iran or China! You would never be allowed to criticize your rulers the way you do if you lived in one of those […] - [CHILDREN AND OVER 60s CAN EAT FOR JUST £1 AT ASDA FOR REST OF THIS YEAR](https://heartlandstribune.com/children-and-over-60s-can-eat-for-just-1-at-asda-for-rest-of-this-year/): KIDS Eat for just a £1 at ASDA Cafés across the UK for the rest of the year – with no minimum adult spend Kids can eat for just £1 at Asda cafes across Edinburgh and the rest of the UK this festive season. The supermarket is running its “Kids Eat for £1” as well as their “OAP Winter Warmer” Café £1 meal deal, with over a million meals already served throughout the country. The scheme comes as the cost of living crisis continues, with the prices of energy and food rising, making it increasingly difficult for many households. The £1 […] - [Qatar ‘corruption’ scandal rocks EU Parliament: EU Vice President Eva Kaili arrested in Brussels ](https://heartlandstribune.com/qatar-corruption-scandal-rocks-eu-parliament-eu-vice-president-eva-kaili-arrested-in-brussels/): Belgian police arrested Greek MEP Eva Kaili, vice-presidents of the European Parliament. Five arrests and at least 17 searches were carried out this Friday in Brussels as part of a vast anti-corruption investigation carried out by the federal prosecutor’s office. Among them, Luca Visentini, newly elected Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation, the former S&D MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri as well as FG, former parliamentary assistant to Mr Panzeri, current collaborator linked to the S&D group and companion of Ms Eva Kaili, 44, a former Greek television presenter now MEP since 2014 and EU Vice-president. The arrest is in connection […] - [Wes Streeting Labour shadow Health Secretary undermines nurses' wage negotiations](https://heartlandstribune.com/wes-streeting-labour-shadow-health-secretary-undermines-nurses-wage-negotiations/): Wes Streeting says he wouldn’t meet the demands for nurses’ pay While appearing on Preston in the continued battle to appear competent as Labour shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, has gone ahead and undermined nurses’ wage negotiations stating: “Inflation plus 5% is not a sum I’d be able to afford if I was Health Secretary” By even suggesting this he has now placed the nurses in an extremely awkward position. The Shadow Health Secretary Streeting went on to say he wouldn’t meet the RCN’s demands for nurses’ pay, adding that politicians shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep. The situation now leaves […] - [Why offshore windfarms are so lucrative to the government and the King](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-offshore-windfarms-are-so-lucrative-to-the-government-and-the-king/): As the argument rages over windfarms we look behind the rhetoric and see who really benefits. Downing Street appears likely to allow new onshore wind projects in England after years of an effective ban, Grant Shapps has indicated, with ministers giving way in the face of a growing backbench Conservative rebellion. This government U-turned over its ban on onshore wind by saying turbines could be installed if the projects gain the support of local communities. The Department for Levelling Up has launched a consultation to explore how councils can “demonstrate local support and respond to views of their communities when considering onshore wind […] - [Breaking: Julian Knight senior Tory MP suspended after complaint to police](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-julian-knight-senior-tory-mp-suspended-after-complaint-to-police/): The Conservatives have removed the whip from Julian Knight after a complaint was made to the Metropolitan police. Julian Knight has been suspended as a Conservative MP after a complaint was made to the Metropolitan Police, a party spokeswoman has said. Chief Whip Simon Hart removed the Tory whip, meaning Mr Knight no longer sits in the Commons as a Conservative, after the complaint was made on Wednesday. She declined to comment on the nature of the complaint as it is now under investigation. Mr Knight, who has been an MP since 2015, chairs the culture committee in the House of Commons. He represents […] - [Tories open UK's first coal mine in 30 years: I hope Thatcher is turning in her grave](https://heartlandstribune.com/tories-open-uks-first-coal-mine-in-30-years-i-hope-thatcher-is-turning-in-her-grave/): The UK will build its first new coalmine for three decades at Whitehaven in Cumbria Many an old miner will be sat at home watching the news wondering when the world really did turn upside down, with not a single mention of the ideological decision to take on the miners for no other reason than to reduce the power of the unions. The Tories have gone and opened up a coal mine, we can only hope Thatcher is turning in her grave. For all the weak-livered liberals who think that’s a bit hard, then I would point out that hard is what happened […] - [German Police arrest members of the 'Reichsbürger' movement after plot to overthrow government](https://heartlandstribune.com/german-police-arrest-members-of-the-reichsburger-movement-after-plot-to-overthrow-government/): Reichsbürger’ movement plot to overthrow the government Police have arrested 25 suspected members or supporters of a “domestic terrorist organization” aiming to overthrow the German state. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the network was part of the “Reichsbürger scene.” In a nationwide raid, 25 suspected members and supporters of a terrorist organization were arrested early Wednesday. The raids were announced by Germany’s federal prosecution agency and German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann. Buschmann said the investigations were directed against a suspected terrorist network with known ties to the Reichsbürger movement. He said that the raids had taken place on individuals suspected of planning an armed […] - [Ambulance strike dates announced as Government refuses to open pay talks](https://heartlandstribune.com/ambulance-strike-dates-announced-as-government-refuses-to-open-pay-talks/): The coordinated walkout by the three main ambulance unions – Unison, GMB and Unite – will affect non-life threatening calls only. The Unite, Unison and GMB unions have all announced industrial action for Wednesday 21 December in England and Wales Members of GMB, which represents nearly a third of the 50,000-strong workforce, will then follow that up with another walkout on 28 December. It comes as Royal College of Nursing members are also preparing to go on strike on 15 and 20 December in parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The impact of the first ambulance walkout will be patchy […] - [The Great Covid Robbery: Tory peer Michelle Mone to take leave of absence from Lords after corruption allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-covid-robbery-tory-peer-michelle-mone-to-take-leave-of-absence-from-lords-after-corruption-allegations/): Tory peer Michelle Mone is to take a leave of absence from the Lords “to clear her name”, amid allegations she benefitted from a company she recommended for a Covid contract. It means she will not attend sittings of the House, vote on any proceedings or be able to claim any allowance. Baroness Mone has been linked to PPE Medpro, which won government contracts during the pandemic. Her spokesman said the allegations had been “unjustly levelled against her”. He said the leave of absence was “with immediate effect” and was Baroness Mone’s decision. A leave of absence removes her from public […] - [WATCH: John Pilger on the Fall of the British Press](https://heartlandstribune.com/watch-john-pilger-on-the-fall-of-the-british-press/): Mark Curtis of Declassified UK speaks with legendary journalist John Pilger, who began filing for the Daily Mirror in the 1960s, about the fall of British journalism. John Pilger is a figure that encapsulates what real journalism should be… It’s only fair to give our readers some background on john Pilger in an attempt to show the importance and relevance of such an outstanding journalist openly discussing the decline in British journalism. John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. […] - [Sir Keir Starmer promises a consultation on the consultation to abolish the House of Lords](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-promises-a-consultation-on-the-consultation-to-abolish-the-house-of-lords/): Labour to abolish the House of Lords “If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell to you” Labour has unveiled its blueprint for an overhaul of the UK constitution, based on tackling regional inequalities and moving political power away from London, and described by Sir Keir Starmer as an end to short-term “sticking plaster politics”. At the centre of the plans, set out in a 155-page document, is an overarching commitment to decentralisation, including a new constitutional commitment for Westminster to respect the autonomy of local and regional government. The report, put together by a commission headed by the former Labour […] - [Iran disbands ‘morality police’ amid two and half months of nationwide protests](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-disbands-morality-police-amid-two-and-half-months-of-nationwide-protests/): Iran has scrapped its morality police after more than two months of protests triggered by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country’s strict female dress code, local media said Sunday. Demonstrators have burned their mandatory hijab head coverings and shouted anti-government slogans, and a growing number of women have refrained from wearing the hijab, particularly in parts of Tehran. Women-led protests, labelled “riots” by the authorities, have swept Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died on September 16, three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran. On September 13, 22-year-old […] - [Police watchdog chief Michael Lockwood resigns over investigation into 'historical allegation'](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-watchdog-chief-michael-lockwood-resigns-over-investigation-into-historical-allegation/): Who watches the watches? Home Secretary Suella Braverman revealed she had accepted Michael Lockwood’s resignation as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct after he was asked to either quit or be suspended. The head of the police watchdog has resigned over a “historical allegation”, the home secretary has said. Suella Braverman revealed she had accepted Michael Lockwood’s resignation as director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct after he was asked to either quit or be suspended. Yesterday, Mr Lockwood said he had resigned for “personal and domestic reasons”. “I took immediate action upon being made aware that […] - [The Guardian Could Help Assange By Retracting All The Lies It Published About Him](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-guardian-could-help-assange-by-retracting-all-the-lies-it-published-about-him/): By Caitlin Johnstone The Guardian has joined The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País in signing a letter from the five papers which collaborated with WikiLeaks twelve years ago in the publication of the Chelsea Manning leaks to call for the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange. This sudden jolt of mainstream support comes as news breaks that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been personally pushing the US government to bring the Assange case to a close. The Guardian’s participation in this letter is particularly noteworthy, given the leading role that publication has played in manufacturing public support for his persecution […] - [MPs raked in £9.6m from second jobs in a year](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-raked-in-9-6m-from-second-jobs-in-a-year/): While millions struggle to make ends meet during the cost of living crisis, MPs raked in nearly £10 million from second jobs in a year. The former health secretary is tipped to receive £400,000 for ‘I’m A Celebrity’. But other MPs are also on the make… MPs are using their position as a springboard to promote themselves not their causes and definitely not their constituents or parties. Open Democracy’s recent revelations have shown MPs never for one minute took it seriously when we expressed our demands the do the job they’re paid to do in representing the people rather than using […] - [Because 'Publishing Is Not a Crime,' Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Julian Assange Charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/because-publishing-is-not-a-crime-major-newspapers-push-us-to-drop-julian-assange-charges/): After years of silence, outlets to publish WikiLeaks material, including the Guardian, come together to oppose the prosecution of Julian Assange The outlets have demanded the US government must drop its prosecution of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange because it is undermining press freedom, according to the media organisations that first helped him publish leaked diplomatic cables. Twelve years ago today, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País collaborated to release excerpts from 250,000 documents obtained by Assange in the “Cablegate” leak. The material, leaked to WikiLeaks by the then American soldier Chelsea Manning, exposed the inner workings of […] - [How Western civilisation could collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-western-civilisation-could-collapse/): Some possible precipitating factors are already in place. How the West reacts to them will determine the world’s future, says Rachel Nuwer. This article By Rachel Nuwer was first published in 2017. Since then the world has turned upside down, the very ground we stand on has shifted several times from Covid to the US moving its sphere of influence and foreign policy from the Middle East and Afghanistan to the very heart of Europe and the ongoing war in Ukraine, however, the points and focus of this article are very relative today. The political economist Benjamin Friedman once compared modern Western society […] - [Strike Wave Rocks Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/strike-wave-rocks-britain/): While the Labour Party offers milquetoast solutions to the cost-of-living crisis and displays outright confusion over whether it backs striking workers, the unions are setting the opposition agenda, writes Marcus Barnett. In Britain today, anyone asking a worker about the direction the country is headed will be unlikely to receive a printable answer.  Stumbling from crisis to crisis, the country is on its third prime minister of the year. Energy bills have skyrocketed by 96 percent since last winter, and rent has shot up by as much as 20 percent, while inflation — which currently stands at 12.3 percent — has been predicted to rise […] - [Bernie Sanders Open borders: That's a right-wing proposal, right wing people would love open borders.](https://heartlandstribune.com/bernie-sanders-open-borders-thats-a-right-wing-proposal-right-wing-people-would-love-open-borders/): Bernie Sanders Reminds Voters That He Is Absolutely Against Open Borders. The argument about immigration continues. The CBI is calling for more migration, they literally want cheap labour to cover vacancies in low-paid sectors. Tony Danker called on politicians to be “practical” about immigration at the CBI’s conference in Birmingham. The UK should use immigration to solve worker shortages and boost economic growth, the boss of the UK’s biggest business group has said. His speech comes as many firms struggle to recruit staff. Yet there are 5 million economically inactive people in this country. And many would agree the government’s first […] - [Myths About Socialism: Redistribution of Wealth?](https://heartlandstribune.com/myths-about-socialism-redistribution-of-wealth/): Probably one of the most common right-wing arguments against social welfare spending is that it constitutes “redistribution of wealth” or “sharing the wealth,” and is thus a road to socialism. Indeed, “socialism” is often defined by these reactionaries as the redistribution of wealth, which is seen as the ultimate evil because it leads to socialism, which is evil, and it’s evil because it entails the redistribution of wealth – you get the idea. There are a few notable problems with this. First, socialism is far more than simply the “redistribution of wealth.” Second, redistribution of wealth happens all the time under […] - [Eurozone heading into recession at the end of this year, Brussels says](https://heartlandstribune.com/eurozone-heading-into-recession-at-the-end-of-this-year-brussels-says/): There is no let-up anywhere, the greedy oligarchs have led us all into a recession. A eurozone recession is looming the only question is, Just how bad will it be? Europe is sliding into recession as persistently high inflation and economic uncertainty stifle spending and energy blackouts loom.   “Evidence for a recession is accumulating,” said Commerzbank economist Christoph Weil following the PMI survey release. In addition to skyrocketing prices hitting spending and production, “uncertainty about future gas supplies is making companies more cautious, which argues for less investment.” The European Central Bank now expects a technical recession this winter, defined as two consecutive […] - [Autumn Budget: We have all become victims of market forces](https://heartlandstribune.com/autumn-budget-we-have-all-become-victims-of-market-forces/): This has been a budget for the market, by the market, on approval of the market. If Liz Truss’s historically short tenure as prime minister showed us anything, it showed the power of the markets. That power was so great that within minutes of her appointed chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget statement being announced, outside influences flexed their muscles, and a series of events were put in place that would inevitably see yet another prime minister removed with not one public vote cast. It was the market’s swift and withering verdict on Truss’s tax-cutting agenda that came with a response that degraded […] - [I have never been as worried or angry as I am now about what is about to hit the UK](https://heartlandstribune.com/i-have-never-been-as-worried-or-angry-as-i-am-now-about-what-is-about-to-hit-the-uk/): Professor Richard Murphy writes that Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Budget will fail to huge swathes of the UK whilst being yet another Tory gift to the wealthy This was a terrible budget for most people in the UK. For sure, it protected pensioners and those on benefits and the minimum wage. It was also great for those with wealth – who will enjoy much higher interest rates on their savings. But for everyone else it was dire. The failure to increase tax bands that say when tax must start to be paid in line with inflation will increase taxes for most people […] - [Ukraine war: Poland says missile deaths an unfortunate incident probably fired by Ukrainian air defence](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-war-poland-says-missile-deaths-an-unfortunate-incident-probably-fired-by-ukrainian-air-defence/): Missile strike in Poland ‘probably an unfortunate accident’ used by Ukrainian air defence, says president A missile struck the village of Przewodów in Poland on Tuesday, a few miles away from the Ukrainian border, killing two farmers and destroying a tractor. The incident is the first time a Nato country has been hit during Russia’s war in Ukraine. Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has said the missile that landed in his country and killed two people appears to be an “unfortunate accident”. It was highly probable that the rocket, which was Russian-made, was used by the Ukrainian air defence, he added. There were no grounds to believe […] - [Claims Russian missiles kill two people in NATO member country Poland](https://heartlandstribune.com/claims-russian-missiles-kill-two-people-in-nato-member-country-poland/): Russian missiles cross into Poland during a strike on Ukraine Russian missiles have killed two people in NATO member Poland, a senior US intelligence official has told the AP news agency. A Russian missile barrage on the Ukrainian power grid sent the war spilling over into neighbouring Poland this Tuesday, it was claimed a missile hit NATO member Poland killing two people. The strike it was claimed also cut electricity to much of Moldova. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has called an urgent meeting to discuss national security, a government spokesman said on Twitter. State news agency PAP said the meeting […] - [Hit List: Dennis Skinner's unheeded warning to Neil Kinnock about Labour's move to the centre](https://heartlandstribune.com/hit-list-dennis-skinners-unheeded-warning-to-neil-kinnock-about-labours-move-to-the-centre/): Labour Civil War Following Neil Kinnock’s decision not to vote for Tony Benn in Labour’s Deputy Leadership election in 1981, he clashed with Dennis Skinner in a Tribune meeting. Kinnock boasted at a 1981 Tribune conference fringe about his supposed bravery in continuing when he claimed he was on a left-wing ‘hit list’, Skinner laid some working-class truth on him: Those who know and care what politics is really about – life and death for millions – don’t worry about incurring the wrath of opponents. They know being in Parliament is a privilege – and consider being on political ‘hit lists‘ […] - [Suella Braverman to sign revised deal with France on Channel migrants](https://heartlandstribune.com/suella-braverman-to-sign-revised-deal-with-france-on-channel-migrants/): The home secretary will sign the agreement with French interior minister Gerald Darmanin today. Home Secretary Suella Braverman will travel to Paris to sign a new joint declaration with French officials to ramp up efforts to stop migrant crossings in the Channel. The home secretary will sign the agreement with French interior minister Gerald Darmanin on Monday morning. According to the Financial Times, the agreement will significantly increase the 200 French officers and volunteers who operate on Channel beaches and encourage France to aim for a higher proportion of migrants prevented from leaving. It will also include a rise in payments from London […] - [James Connolly: A Continental Revolution 1914](https://heartlandstribune.com/james-connolly-a-continental-revolution-1914/): By James Connolly, 15 August 1914.Transcribed by Workers’ Web ASCII Pamphlet Project in 1997. The outbreak of war on the continent of Europe makes it impossible this week to write to Forward upon any other question. I have no doubt that to most of my readers Ireland has ere now ceased to be, in colloquial phraseology, the most important place on the map, and that their thoughts are turning gravely to a consideration of the position of the European socialist movement in the face of this crisis. Judging by developments up to the time of writing, such considerations must fall far short of affording satisfying […] - [Liverpool dockers celebrate major victory after Unite secures inflation-busting pay deal worth between 14.3% and 18.5%](https://heartlandstribune.com/liverpool-dockers-celebrate-major-victory-after-unite-secures-inflation-busting-pay-deal-worth-between-14-3-and-18-5/): Dockers from the Port of Liverpool have accepted an Inflation-busting pay rise after nearly two months of strike action. Around 600 port operatives from Mersey Docks and Harbour Company staged the industrial action for nearly two months after first walking out on September 19 in a row over pay and conditions at the port. Further action was due to take place on November 14 – but Unite, the union representing the dockers, confirmed earlier this week that an agreement had been reached and the deal would be put to the union members to vote on. At a mass meeting held yesterday, Thursday, November […] - [Nurses across UK back strikes in pay dispute](https://heartlandstribune.com/nurses-across-uk-back-strikes-in-pay-dispute/): Nurses across the UK have voted to strike over pay with action expected to start by the end of the year. The walkout will involve Royal College of Nursing members in more than half of hospitals and community teams, but emergency care will still be staffed. Nurses in every service in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted for action. In Wales all but one health board did. Many of the biggest hospitals in England will see strike action by RCN members but others narrowly missed the legal turnout thresholds to qualify for action.    All NHS employers in Northern Ireland and Scotland will […] - [2022 US Elections: Dead politician re-elected in Pennsylvania](https://heartlandstribune.com/2022-us-elections-dead-politician-re-elected-in-pennsylvania/): The Senate is in the balance while controversially one Senator has been voted in even though he died last month. The Democrats are trying to hold on to control of the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress. Before Tuesday’s election, the Senate was split 50-50 but the Democrats had control through the casting vote of vice-president Kamala Harris. With only a few seats left to call the Democrats have taken Pennsylvania, John Fetterman beating Trump-endorsed candidate Mehmet Oz. They have also held onto New Hampshire where the Republican candidate had been polling well. “Even if the Democrats lose the House, and they appear to […] - [Disgraceful behaviour by Starmer's shadow cabinet member Wes Streeting forced to apologise after calling Jeremy Corbyn 'senile' in the Commons](https://heartlandstribune.com/disgraceful-behaviour-by-starmers-shadow-cabinet-member-wes-streeting-forced-to-apologise-after-calling-jeremy-corbyn-senile-in-the-commons/): Labour’s Wes Streeting caught on mic calling Jeremy Corbyn ‘senile’ this is an insult to the millions of dementia sufferers and their families. Starmer’s Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: Wes Streeting forced to apologise after Disgracefully calling Jeremy Corbyn ‘senile’ in Commons Labour frontbencher and acting Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting has apologised for calling Jeremy Corbyn “senile” during a Commons row over Rishi Sunak’s continued attacks on the former Labour Party leader. Corbyn attempted to raise a point of order after the prime minister retreated into an attack on the […] - [Gavin Williamson Out Again: This Time Resigning After Bullying Claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/gavin-williamson-out-again-this-time-resigning-after-bullying-claims/): Gavin Williamson has resigned as a government minister after allegations of bullying, saying he aims to clear himself of “any wrongdoing”. Sir Gavin Williamson has resigned from the Cabinet after a series of bullying accusations were made against him, including allegedly telling an aide to “slit your throat”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed Sir Gavin as Minister of State without Portfolio after arriving in No10 last month. He said he “refuted” how his “past conduct” had been characterised. However, he said the claims had become a distraction from the government’s “good work”. He added he would comply with a complaints process concerning messages he sent […] - [Keir Hardie: I make no apology for bringing the question of Socialism before the House of Commons](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-hardie-i-make-no-apology-for-bringing-the-question-of-socialism-before-the-house-of-commons/): The foundations of the Labour Party were laid by the working class, on its cornerstone chiselled deeply in bold letters is the word ‘socialism’. It really doesn’t matter how hard the present Labour Party under the tenure of Sir Keir Starmer try to shove the Left-wing down the proverbial memory hole, Starmer and his regime won’t last forever, in fact, the sooner it sinks with the weight of its own treachery and hypocrisy the better. The Labour Party after over 120 years has become little more than a poor reflection of its founding ideology and its ambition to create a world […] - [RMT SUSPENDS RAIL STRIKES](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-suspends-rail-strikes/): RMT suspends strikes after securing intensive negotiations with rail bosses. Rail union RMT has suspended planned strikes on Nov 5, 7 and 9 and will now enter into a period of intensive negotiations with Network Rail and the train operating companies. It is thought a deal on pay could be announced in the coming days. Management previously offered Network Rail staff a rise of 8 per cent over the next two years, which was rejected as too low. Mick Lynch, the union’s general secretary, has previously said he wanted a rise at least equal to inflation, which is currently running at 10.1 per […] - [HOW SHELL AND BP FINANCED BRITAIN’S COLD WAR PROPAGANDA MACHINE](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-shell-and-bp-financed-britains-cold-war-propaganda-machine/): Formerly top secret files show how the two oil corporations bankrolled UK covert propaganda operations during the 1950s and 60s. The goal was to secure British access to key oil supplies across the developing world. This article was first published as a Declassified UK article by JOHN MCEVOY. “Handsome” sums were provided by BP and Shell to the Information Research Department (IRD), which was Britain’s Cold War propaganda arm between 1948 and 1977, declassified files show.  The IRD used the secret subsidies to fund British covert propaganda operations during the 1950s and 1960s across the Middle East and Africa, where Britain’s oil interests were substantial. Today, […] - [Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan wounded after 'assassination attempt'](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-wounded-after-assassination-attempt/): Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has been shot in the leg in what his supporters say was an assassination attempt. A gunman opened fire while Mr Khan, 70, was giving a speech to supporters at a rally in Wazirabad in Punjab province, officials said, wounding him and some of his supporters. Khan, who had been leading a protest march to the capital, Islamabad, demanding snap elections, was taken to a hospital in Lahore. The identity of the gunman, who was arrested by police at the scene, was not immediately clear. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Video showing attempted assassination […] - [Matt Hancock loses Tory whip after reportedly signing up for I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-hancock-loses-tory-whip-after-reportedly-signing-up-for-im-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-here/): With Hancock’s history, he should be facing jail, not a jungle challenge. Matt Hancock has had the Tory whip suspended with immediate effect after reportedly signing up for ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! The former health secretary and West Suffolk MP is effectively expelled from his party and must sit as an independent until, or if, the whip is restored. Mr Hancock will halt representing his constituents to appear on the show, which starts on November 6 on ITV. It seems pretty amazing when you look at it, after all the wrongs Matt Hancock has carried out while Health […] - [Polling reveals nearly two-thirds of the public support nursing staff taking strike action](https://heartlandstribune.com/polling-reveals-nearly-two-thirds-of-the-public-support-nursing-staff-taking-strike-action/): As the RCN’s historic ballot enters its final days, new polling reveals nearly two-thirds of the public strongly supports strike action as concern over the number of nursing staff working in the NHS peaks. For the first time in its 106-year history, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has asked 300,000 of its members if they want to mount a campaign of industrial action. It comes amid warnings that record numbers of nurses are leaving the profession. The RCN said new analysis by London Economics has found that pay for nurses has declined at twice the rate of the private sector in […] - [Leftist Lula wins race for Brazil's presidency](https://heartlandstribune.com/leftist-lula-wins-race-for-brazils-presidency/): On Sunday, former Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a tight runoff race that marked a stunning comeback for the leftist leader. Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) on Sunday said the country’s presidential election was “mathematically defined” with former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking more votes than incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Lula had 50.8% of votes compared with 49.2% for Bolsonaro with 98.8% of voting machines voting machines counted, according to date published on the TSE website. The Supreme Electoral Court, which runs the elections, said Lula’s win was a mathematical certainty. All eyes are now on Bolsonaro and […] - [Man kills himself after attacks on UK migrant processing centre in Dover](https://heartlandstribune.com/man-kills-himself-after-attacks-on-uk-migrant-processing-centre-in-dover/): A man threw petrol bombs at a new British immigration border force centre in Dover, England. He then drove off and killed himself, according to a photographer present at the scene of the incident The attacker, a white man in a checked shirt, drove up to the centre in a white SEAT sports utility vehicle at around 1120 GMT. He got out and threw three petrol bombs, one of which failed to go off, the photographer said. He then drove to a nearby petrol station, tied an improvised noose around his neck, attached it to a metal pole and drove off, […] - [Antonio Gramsci: Now is the time of monsters](https://heartlandstribune.com/antonio-gramsci-now-is-the-time-of-monsters/): Thought for the day… “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” -Antonio Gramsci - [Energy Crisis: European Energy Giants Report 'Obscene' Profits as Millions Face Cold and Hunger](https://heartlandstribune.com/energy-crisis-european-energy-giants-report-obscene-profits-as-millions-face-cold-and-hunger/): Shell profits are “obscene” – especially at a time when millions are struggling Energy supply is just one big cash machine Energy giants Shell and Total have reported massive profits as sky-high energy prices fuel a devastating cost-of-living crisis across the continent, with families struggling to afford heat and electricity as the winter months fast approach. Shell, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, posted $9.5 billion in global third-quarter profits—more than double the $4.2 billion it reported during the same period last year. The United Kingdom-based corporation also announced plans to reward shareholders by buying back $4 billion worth of its stock and […] - [For Queen and Country: Mourn you Black B*stards, MOURN!](https://heartlandstribune.com/for-queen-and-country-mourn-you-black-bstards-mourn/): At the end of Black history month, Gavin Lewis explores British colonialism and the uneasy relationship after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.Read more… By Gavin Lewis After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, media sports pundit and retired footballer Trevor Sinclair, posted the following tweet: “Racism was outlawed in England in the 60’s & its been allowed to thrive so why should black & brown mourn!! #queen.”  While some may question the sensitivity or not, of the timing, these are hardly incomprehensible or particular inaccurate sentiments for a Black Briton to articulate, particularly given Black History Month was just a few weeks […] - [As Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak Won’t Change the Course for the Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/as-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-wont-change-the-course-for-the-tories/): BY PHIL BURTON-CARTLEDGE Rishi Sunak, the wealthiest MP in the British Parliament, has now become prime minister. After months of chaos and scandal, his task will be to steady the Tory ship. Expect more austerity as the Conservative Party continues to unravel. Since November last year, the UK’s ruling Conservative Party has been gripped by rebellion, chaos, and a collapse in popular support. Be it revelations that Boris Johnson partied in Downing Street while the nation groaned under the weight of COVID restrictions or Liz Truss’s tax cuts for the rich during a sharp rise in inflation, this ten-month period has […] - [Of the Markets, By The Markets, For The Markets](https://heartlandstribune.com/of-the-markets-by-the-markets-for-the-markets/): Article by Gary Lefley Who Rules Britain? The Truss government announced a ‘mini’ budget. The markets didn’t like it. The government reversed all its proposed measures. The Prime Minister was forced to resign. This was not dictated by Parliament, let alone the electorate. Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, commented while Truss was still in Office: “Whether or not she remains Prime Minister, her whole agenda now, her ability to pursue her political project is really out of her hands. Her fate is now in the hands of the markets”. The tail wagged the dog and Truss […] - [Boris Johnson out for 60](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-out-for-60/): Boris Johnson will not stand in the Conservative leadership race, leaving Rishi Sunak very likely to enter No 10. The former prime minister had not formally declared but he had told supporters he wanted to run, drumming up backing from seven cabinet ministers – Jacob Rees-Mogg, James Cleverly, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Nadhim Zahawi, Alok Sharma, Simon Clarke and Chris-Heaton Harris. Johnson has said he is not running after only making it to about 60 declared backers by Sunday evening – well short of the 100-MP threshold required to make it on to the ballot. The former prime minister claimed that he did […] - [Tory MP says he's Sunak's 100th supporter](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-says-hes-sunaks-100th-supporter/): Rishi Sunak is believed to have become the first Tory leadership candidate to have amassed sufficient support to make it to the ballot of Conservative colleagues. The former chancellor’s supporters said on Friday night he had received nominations from 100 Tory MPs to pass the threshold required way ahead of Monday’s deadline. Tobias Ellwood claims to be Rishi Sunak’s 100th supporter – if he is, that would mean the former chancellor has already passed the threshold for nominations to be the next Tory leader. The free mkt experiment is over – it’s been a low point in our Party’s great history. […] - [Labour MP Christian Matheson resigns over sexual misconduct](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-christian-matheson-resigns-over-sexual-misconduct/): Labour MP Christian Matheson has quit after a parliamentary watchdog recommended he be suspended for “serious sexual misconduct”. Two allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr Matheson by a former member of his staff have been upheld. The MP for Chester allegedly invited her on a “sexually motivated” private trip abroad, the report said. He admitted he had committed a minor breach of the code and tendered his resignation with “great sadness”. The Independent Expert Panel parliamentary watchdog had recommended the Labour MP was suspended from the Commons for four weeks for “serious sexual misconduct”. According to the report, the invitation for […] - [Liz Truss Resigns after 44 Days of Chaos now the Tory Buzzword to stave off a general election will be Stability.](https://heartlandstribune.com/liz-truss-resigns-after-44-days-of-chaos-now-the-tory-buzzword-to-stave-off-a-general-election-will-be-stability/): Liz Truss has resigned as Prime Minister, firing the starting gun on another Conservative leadership election. In her resignation statement outside Number 10, Truss said the leadership election will take a week. That week will see the coronation of a new Tory Prime minister, the bookies have Rishi Sunak odds on favourite but of course, Penny Mordaunt will be seen as the unity candidate, however, there are a few curve balls being thrown into the ring, including the massively popular Bring back Boris campaigners pushing from all sides to make their voices heard. Johnson was forced out of No 10 on […] - [Russian jet 'released missile' near RAF aircraft during patrol over Black Sea](https://heartlandstribune.com/russian-jet-released-missile-near-raf-aircraft-during-patrol-over-black-sea/): A missile was released from a Russian jet fighter near an unarmed RAF plane on a routine patrol over the Black Sea, the defence secretary has said. Ben Wallace said it happened on 29 September and that Russia has acknowledged the incident took place in international airspace. Russia said the incident was a “technical malfunction”. The British defence secretary called it “potentially dangerous”. UK patrols over the Black Sea were initially suspended, but have now resumed and are escorted by fighter aircraft, Mr Wallace added. - [Fracking Chaos from Tory MPs as Labour motion to force vote on bill is defeated](https://heartlandstribune.com/fracking-chaos-from-tory-mps-as-labour-motion-to-force-vote-on-bill-is-defeated/): A Labour motion that would have forced a vote on a bill to ban fracking has been defeated amid farcical scenes in the House of Commons. MPs have rejected Labour’s motion to allocate Commons time to consider banning fracking, in a vote initially designated by the Tory whips as a “confidence motion” in Liz Truss’s government. Labour’s motion was defeated by 230 votes to 326, majority 96, but the Commons heard there were “very strong rumours” the Government chief whip Wendy Morton had resigned. This came after allegations of bullying levelled against Government whips, with Labour former minister Chris Bryant saying […] - [Documentary 'Ithaka': The fight to free Julian Assange premiers at Human Rights Film Festival Berlin](https://heartlandstribune.com/documentary-ithaka-the-fight-to-free-julian-assange-premiers-at-human-rights-film-festival-berlin/): Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton, was in Berlin for the German premiere of the documentary where he talked about the latest developments surrounding his imprisoned son. The first scene of the documentary “Ithaka,” which celebrated its German premiere at the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin, shows police carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Embassy of Ecuador in London and into a high-security vehicle on April 11, 2019. Dodging an international arrest warrant, Assange had spent seven years without leaving the London embassy. But he was arrested shortly after Ecuadorian authorities revoked his political asylum due to a set of disputes. Since then, Assange has […] - [Jeremy Hunt may have done enough to stave off another Black Monday but he did nothing for the people.](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-hunt-may-have-done-enough-to-stave-off-another-black-monday-but-he-did-nothing-for-the-people/): Hunt saves the bankers leaving the people to pay. Hunt may be patting himself on the back and Truss may have a little reprieve while the markets readjust but for the people, the damage is done! The partnership between Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss has brought with it the worst min budget in decades, without even having the chance to be implemented it has quite literally ruined millions of people throughout the UK. The markets reacted so badly that it caused the Bank of England to step in and raise interest rates in some sort of economic jiggery-pokery to stop pension […] - [Striking posties become more determined than ever as Royal Mail threaten to axe up to 10,000 jobs](https://heartlandstribune.com/striking-posties-become-more-determined-than-ever-as-royal-mail-threaten-to-axe-up-to-10000-jobs/): As the UK’s largest industrial dispute rumbles on, strikers’ determination hardens and pressure grows on discredited bosses… Some 110,000 postal workers walked out on strike for the sixth time yesterday from units all over the country, in a massive rejection of the latest attacks on terms and conditions by senior Royal Mail leaders – attacks which appear to be rebounding spectacularly on those company chiefs. Every one of the union’s 10 divisions reported bigger pickets, stronger support for the action and a renewed determination to prevail over the destructive agenda being pursued by CEO Simon Thompson and his regime. Now Royal […] - [They came as a pair they should leave as a pair: The sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng is not enough, Truss next](https://heartlandstribune.com/they-came-as-a-pair-they-should-leave-as-a-pair-the-sacking-of-kwasi-kwarteng-is-not-enough-truss-next/): Kwasi Kwarteng sacked after six weeks as chancellor Downing Street has confirmed that Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked after he and Liz Truss introduced a disastrous mini-budget that caused market turmoil, a bailout of pension funds and rising mortgage rates. The sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng is not enough Liz Truss is just as responsible if not more so for the economic collapse created by her chancellor, this was a joint monetary policy that the prime minister without reservation backed to the hilt. On the 29th of September immediately after the devastating fallout of the mini-budget Prime Minister Liz Truss insisted the […] - [Tulsi Gabbard quits Democratic party, attacking ‘elitist cabal of warmongers’](https://heartlandstribune.com/tulsi-gabbard-quits-democratic-party-attacking-elitist-cabal-of-warmongers/): Former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful says party is dominated by those espousing ‘cowardly wokeness’ The former congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has announced her departure from the Democratic party, calling it an “elitist cabal of warmongers”. Tulsi Gabbard an Iraq war veteran remains a major critic of the US proxy war in Ukraine. In her statement she says… I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work […] - [Starmer sacks his chief of staff to give more power to right winger David Evans](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-sacks-his-chief-of-staff-to-give-more-power-to-right-winger-david-evans/): Starmer claims this is about putting Labour on an election footing, something they have declared several times in recent months. The truth is, this is a Power Grab… Sir Keir Starmer has sacked his chief of staff claiming it to be part of a major shake-up in what he says is designed to take advantage of “the Conservative Party implosion” and put the party on a general election footing. The Labour leader spoke to party staff at 10am to inform them of the changes, which will see chief of staff Sam White leave his role. Speaking alongside the party’s general secretary, […] - [Book Review: Ten Years Hard Labour – Chris Williamson](https://heartlandstribune.com/book-review-ten-years-hard-labour-chris-williamson/): In the first of our Book Reviews, Alex Mair looks at Chris Williamson’s Ten Years Hard Labour. On Thursday 8 June 2017, Chris Williamson was returned to parliament as the Labour MP for Derby North. With most of the pollsters and mainstream media predicting an electoral wipe out for the Labour Party, Chris Williamson, like many Labour politicians, exceeded expectations. Williamson turned a voting deficit of 41 into a majority of 2,015. He stood on a proudly socialist platform, as the ‘most loyal Corbyn supporter in parliament’, and possibly the only vegan former bricklayer socialist MP. When Chris was returned to […] - [France suffering fuel shortage as workers strike for more pay from profiteering Energy companies](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-suffering-fuel-shortage-as-workers-strike-for-more-pay-from-profiteering-energy-companies/): Petrol pumps have been running dry in France as striking energy workers disrupt deliveries. As frustration mounts among motorists, businesses and beyond, President Emmanuel Macron has called for calm.  A strike by workers at France’s oil refineries is disrupting fuel supplies in Europe’s third-largest economy, another blow to the country as it battles a sprawling energy crisis. Workers have gone on strike at oil refineries that handle more than half the country’s fuelmaking. Two have fully halted while a third is moving toward running at technical minimum levels. Together they account for more than half of France’s capacity to make diesel, gasoline […] - [Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refuses to back nurses or striking workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-repeatedly-refuses-to-back-nurses-or-striking-workers/): Keir Starmer has refused to back striking NHS workers, as the main nurses’ union ballots its members for industrial action over pay. Nurses urged to strike for the first time over pay. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is balloting 300,000 of its members about strike action over pay and staff shortages. The ballot is the first in the union’s 106-year history, it is in protest at the government’s decision in July to award most NHS staff a poor 5% pay rise. The RCN is now campaigning for a rise of 5% above inflation, which is currently 10.1%. Strike action is always a last resort. But it can […] - [Tory Conor Burns sacked from government and loses whip over 'serious misconduct' claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-conor-burns-sacked-from-government-and-loses-whip-over-serious-misconduct-claims/): Tory minister Conor Burns had the party whip suspended pending an investigation into allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”, according to the Whips’ Office. It is understood a third party made a complaint to Tory whips about Conor Burns’ behaviour towards a man at the party conference in Birmingham earlier this week. Further details were unclear but a source said the alleged incident was said to have happened in the hotel bar.  A Whips’ Office spokesman said: “We have suspended the whip pending investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour earlier this week. “We take all such allegations extremely seriously. The Prime Minister has been […] - [Watch Stella Assange Slap The Mustache Off John Bolton's War Criminal Face](https://heartlandstribune.com/watch-stella-assange-slap-the-mustache-off-john-boltons-war-criminal-face/): By Caitlin Johnstone Stella Assange just delivered a beatdown on one of her husband’s persecutors that was so scorched-earth demolishing I feel like I need a cigarette after watching it. In an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange explained the threat her husband’s persecution poses to press freedoms around the world and the profound suffering his imprisonment has inflicted upon him. As some kind of bizarre counter-balance to the family of a persecuted journalist pleading for basic human rights, Morgan invited on John Bolton, the man who was the National Security Advisor to President Trump when […] - [A Kingly Proposal: Letter from Julian Assange to King Charles III](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-kingly-proposal-letter-from-julian-assange-to-king-charles-iii/): By Julian Assange To His Majesty King Charles III, On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.” Ah, but what would that bard know of mercy faced with the reckoning at the dawn of your historic reign? After all, one can truly know […] - [RMT Union Votes to Continue Strike Action](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-union-votes-to-continue-strike-action/): RMT Members Vote Overwhelmingly in Favour of Fresh Rail Strikes In a clear message to their employers, members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union have voted overwhelmingly in favour of fresh rail strikes. The dispute centres around pay, job security and working conditions, and if unresolved, industrial action could continue until November. Almost 90% of the 20,000 eligible workers employed by 14 train operating companies voted in favour of further action on a turnout of 70%. All ballots passed the 50% participation threshold imposed by the government’s anti-trade union laws, giving the RMT a clear mandate to call for […] - [Energy Profits Soar: Shell Enjoy a Profiteering Bonanza Leaving Consumers Struggling to Pay Bills](https://heartlandstribune.com/energy-profits-soar-shell-enjoy-a-profiteering-bonanza/): Shell’s Record Profits Leave Consumers Struggling to Pay Energy Bills Shell, Europe’s largest oil and gas company, is enjoying a “profiteering bonanza” while the rest of the nation suffers from their #Greedflation in the midst of a cost of living crisis they and other Energy companies caused. Shell recorded first-quarter profits are over $9.6bn (£7.6bn) this year. Despite declining oil and gas prices from last year’s highs, the company’s adjusted earnings exceeded expectations, topping the previous first-quarter profit record set last year at $9.1bn for the same period. The company attributed its success to its trading teams, who were able to […] - [John Pilger: The Coming War — Time to Speak Up](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-pilger-the-coming-war-time-to-speak-up/): “The war drums are beating again.” John Pilger saw it coming long before most dared to speak. His 2023 warning about the coming war with China reads today like prophecy. The same script, the same fear machine, the same enemies of truth. China remains the contradiction at the heart of global capitalism, the factory of the world, fuelling Western profits while being cast as the next great threat. Either this is the biggest propaganda operation since Iraq, designed to funnel billions into the war industry, or the lunatics really are running the asylum. Pilger reminded us that silence is complicity. Those […] - [Sue Gray Refused To Co-Operate With Inquiry Into Job With Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/sue-gray-refused-to-co-operate-with-inquiry-into-job-with-labour/): Former Partygate investigator Sue Gray refuses to take part in inquiry into proposed move to Labour Party A government inquiry into former Partygate investigator Sue Gray’s proposed move to the Labour Party has been put on hold after she refused to participate in the probe. Gray’s appointment as the Labour leader’s chief-of-staff caused controversy among Tory MPs, given that she led the official government probe into Downing Street rule-breaking during lockdown. The cabinet office is now investigating when Gray’s discussions with Sir Keir Starmer and or the Labour Party about the senior party role actually began, while the anti-corruption watchdog, the […] - [Keir Starmer's Broken Pledges Highlights Trust Issues for Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmers-broken-pledges-highlights-trust-issues-for-labour/): Broken pledges: Labour’s U-turn on tuition fees a sign of pragmatic politics or a betrayal of young voters? Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer is set to break yet another pledge as the party looks to abandon its commitment to abolish university tuition fees. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday morning, Starmer confirmed that the party would “move on” from the promise, which was also included in the party’s 2017 and 2019 manifestoes under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer personally committed to scrapping tuition fees during his leadership campaign in 2020, including the policy in his list of […] - [Nurses to provide minimal staffing during Sunday's strike, says NHS England](https://heartlandstribune.com/nurses-to-provide-minimal-staffing-during-sundays-strike-says-nhs-england/): Nurses to provide minimal staffing during strike action In a bid to minimize the impact of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) strike, union leaders have agreed that a small number of nurses will provide a minimal level of staffing in intensive care and trauma services on Sunday. The strike, which begins at 20:00 BST and will run until the end of Monday, is the largest industrial action so far and comes after RCN members rejected a government offer of a 5% pay rise for 2023-24 and a one-off payment of at least £1,655 to top up last year’s salary. The […] - [Antisemitism: The Guardian Publishes a Box of Tropes](https://heartlandstribune.com/antisemitism-the-guardian-publishes-a-box-of-tropes/): The Liberal Guardian newspaper was last night accused of ‘shocking’ antisemitism after publishing an offensive cartoon of ex-BBC chairman Richard Sharp featuring Jewish stereotypes. The Guardian has found itself embroiled in controversy after publishing an antisemitic cartoon of outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp. The media group was quick to apologise and remove the drawing from its website, acknowledging that it “did not meet our editorial standards.” The cartoon, drawn by Martin Rowson, depicted Mr Sharp with exaggerated facial features, carrying a box marked Goldman Sachs containing a squid and what appears to be a puppet of Rishi Sunak. The imagery used […] - [A Unite the Union Proposed Rule Change Could Push Labour into Supporting PR](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-unite-the-union-proposed-rule-change-could-push-labour-into-pr/): AV and PR happening one rule change at a time… In recent years, there has been a growing call for a fairer electoral system in the UK, with many arguing that the current first-past-the-post system does not accurately represent the diverse views of the electorate. However many people that see AV and PR as a means of a fairer election system have been let down by Sir Keir Starmer’s rejection of Electoral Reform. In a recent statement, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson revealed that the Labour leader has a long-standing view against proportional representation (PR). The statement came in response to questions […] - [Far-right Party Joins Formal Talks to Form Finland's Next Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/far-right-party-joins-formal-talks-to-form-finlands-next-government/): Is Finland’s Future: Back to the Far Right? The far-right Finns Party has joined official talks to form the next government in Finland, in a move that would give the Nordic nation its most right-wing government in almost 100 years. In a move that could result in Finland’s most right-wing government in almost a century, the leader of the National Coalition Party, Petteri Orpo, announced on Thursday that his party would start official negotiations with the far-right Finns Party, Christian Democrats, and Swedish People’s Party to form a coalition government. While this would give Orpo a narrow majority of 109 seats […] - [Tory MP Andrew Bridgen Kicked out of Party over Covid Vaccine Comments and Lobbying Breaches](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-kicked-out-of-party-over-covid-vaccine-comments-and-lobbying-breaches/): MP Andrew Bridgen expelled from Conservative Party over Covid vaccine and lobbying rule breaches The Conservative Party has expelled MP Andrew Bridgen after he compared Covid-19 vaccines to the Holocaust and was found to have breached lobbying rules. The member for North West Leicestershire had already lost the party whip, meaning he was sitting as an independent. But the Tories have now stripped him of his party membership as well. Mr Bridgen has spent months voicing concerns about the safety of Covid vaccines. In December he called in Parliament for a “complete suspension” of the vaccines based on what he described as, […] - [Pax Americana: Endless Conflict and Domination in the Name of Global Peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/pax-americana-endless-conflict-and-domination-in-the-name-of-global-peace/): Breaking the Fortress: Truth, Lies, and Secrets in American Geopolitics “The United States is not a leaky old battleship, but rather a carefully constructed fortress designed to protect the interests of the powerful. However, no matter how many walls they build or how high they make them, the truth will always find a way to break through and reveal the secrets hidden within.” These latest leaks, force us all to sift through them like detectives in a cheap thriller, trying to separate the lies from the truth and discern the hidden motives of those behind them. But when we examine the […] - [Diane Abbott has Labour whip suspended](https://heartlandstribune.com/diane-abbott-has-labour-whip-suspended/): Diane Abbott loses the Labour whip Labour MP Diane Abbott has had the whip suspended following remarks in which she suggested Jewish people do not face racism but instead face prejudice. Abbot the former shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn apologised over the comments and said the letter published in The Observer had been an “initial draft” sent by mistake. The letter stated that Jewish, Irish and traveller communities have experienced “prejudice”, but added: “This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.” The letter was sent to the Observer in response to […] - [France Refuses to Provide Ukraine with Maps to Target Belarus](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-refuses-to-provide-ukraine-with-maps-to-target-belarus/): French Refusal: Ukraine Denied Access to Maps for Drone Missions in Belarus France has declined Ukraine’s request for digital maps of Belarus, which would allow Ukraine’s fighter planes and drones to carry out low-altitude missions over its neighbour. These maps, called DTED, provide detailed topography and data on obstacles and military equipment in the area, including radar equipment or anti-aircraft batteries. These maps are essential for combat aircraft or drones to carry out low-altitude missions. According to Le Monde, Ukraine had asked Paris for the map, but the French Defense Ministry declined to comment on the matter. Paris has refused to […] - [Dominic Raab Resigns as Deputy Prime Minister Amid Bullying Accusations](https://heartlandstribune.com/dominic-raab-resigns-as-deputy-prime-minister-amid-bullying-accusations/): Raab’s Departure Raises Serious Questions About Conduct and Culture of Those in Power In a stunning development on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab resigned from his position following a months-long independent investigation into formal complaints about his behaviour from several civil servants. The investigation found evidence of bullying in two incidents – one during his stint at the foreign office and another when he was at the Ministry of Justice from 2021 to 2022. Raab’s announcement on Friday came the day after Sunak received the findings into formal complaints that he had been abusive towards staff. Raab, […] - [Twitter Boss Elon Musk Slams Pronoun Declarations as 'Virtue-Signaling' Used as a 'Shield' by Bad People](https://heartlandstribune.com/twitter-boss-elon-musk-slams-pronoun-declarations-as-virtue-signaling-used-as-a-shield-by-bad-people/): Elon Musk Criticizes Pronoun Declarations as ‘Virtue-Signaling’ In recent years, the ultra-liberal gender ideology has given birth to the trend of people announcing their preferred pronouns. This has been picked up by some businesses and until this week by social media platforms, that is until this week when Billionaire business tycoon and Twitter boss Elon Musk criticized this pronoun phenomenon as “virtue-signaling” and suggested that bad people use them as a “shield.” Musk made his comments in response to tweets about a suspect in a child pornography case who recently committed suicide, who apparently included pronouns on his Instagram profile. “Pronouns […] - [Greedflation: Why are food prices rising so much?](https://heartlandstribune.com/greedflation-why-are-food-prices-rising-so-much/): Food Price Inflation in the UK: Separating Fact from Fiction As food prices in the UK soar to their highest levels in over 45 years, many mainstream media outlets and industry representatives have been quick to blame poor harvests, reduced availability, Brexit, and even a weakening pound. However, a closer look at the facts reveals a different story, one that challenges the dominant narratives and sheds light on the real reasons behind the astronomical prices that consumers are facing at the checkout and on their bills. Contrary to popular claims, tomato production worldwide actually peaked soon after the bad harvests in […] - [SNP in Turmoil: Second High-Profile Arrest in Weeks](https://heartlandstribune.com/snp-in-turmoil-second-high-profile-arrest-in-weeks/): Crisis Deepens for SNP: Treasurer Arrested, Party Under Scrutiny SNP leaders held emergency talks following the arrest of Colin Beattie, the party’s treasurer since 2016, earlier today. Mr Beattie was detained by police investigating the party’s funding and finances. This development came just before First Minister Humza Yousaf was scheduled to make his first major statement in Holyrood, outlining his priorities. Anas Sarwar, leader of Scottish Labour, condemned the SNP as being “engulfed in scandal” as he awaited entry into the chamber. Sarwar criticized the current state of the government, referring to it as a “lame duck first minister and a […] - [Parliament Watchdog Opens Investigation into Prime Minister Rishi Sunak](https://heartlandstribune.com/parliament-watchdog-opens-investigation-into-prime-minister-rishi-sunak/): Parliamentary commissioner opens probe into possible conflict of interest for Rishi Sunak The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, has opened an investigation into Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak over a possible failure to declare an interest. An update to the parliamentary website shows the investigation, opened on Thursday, relates to paragraph six of the code. The investigation relates to rules requiring MPs to declare their interests, particularly in relation to paragraph six of the code, which requires Members to be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest in any proceeding of the house or its committees. A Downing […] - [America World Police: The True Face of US Imperialism, Oil in Syria](https://heartlandstribune.com/america-world-police-the-true-face-of-us-imperialism-oil-in-syria/): The True Face of US Imperialism: Oil in Syria Corrupting the World: The US as ‘World Police. The United States has long been known for positioning itself as the world’s police force, intervening in conflicts worldwide in the name of promoting peace and democracy. However, recent events in Syria suggest that if the US is indeed the world’s police, then its actions are more akin to those of a corrupt police force. The US has been accused of using its power to steal and exploit resources that do not belong to it. The accusation that the US is stealing oil from […] - [The Vienna Model: A Blueprint for Social Housing in the 21st Century](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-vienna-model-a-blueprint-for-social-housing-in-the-21st-century/): Good social housing should be a life choice, not a fallback. The promise of good social housing by the government fails constantly. There is no excuse other than feeding the banks and making debt slaves out of all of us. It’s good quality social housing that’s needed and governments should stop trying to fill the pockets of the banks by pushing people into so-called affordable housing. There’s no excuse. The Clement Attlee government embarked on a massive public housing campaign in the aftermath of World War II. The government pledged to build 500,000 houses a year, targeting areas that had been […] - [Royal College of Nursing Members Vote for Fresh Strike Action After Rejecting Government Pay Offer](https://heartlandstribune.com/royal-college-of-nursing-members-vote-for-fresh-strike-action-after-rejecting-government-pay-offer/): Royal College of Nursing to Strike Again After Rejecting Government Pay Offer In a blow to the government, members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have voted to reject the latest pay offer and will strike for 48 hours without exemptions from 8 pm on April 30 to 8 pm on May 2. The result came despite a recommendation from union leaders that members accept the offer. This will be the first time that emergency department, intensive care unit, cancer care, and other service staff who were previously exempt from industrial action will strike. The results of the RCN’s consultation […] - [Zelensky Accused of Embezzling Millions from US Funding](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-accused-of-embezzling-millions-from-us-funding/): Seymour Hersh Accuses Zelensky of Embezzlement Biden administration and Congress have now set aside a similarly staggering $113 billion in American taxpayer funds for Ukraine in a conflict that has no end in sight. The bill on the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion confirms the U.S. is by far the world’s biggest contributor to Volodymyr Zelensky’s war effort – followed by the UK and European Union – and the White House has signalled support will continue. But Americans are starting to wonder where the money goes, how it is being spent, and if the cost of the aid is worth […] - [Double Standards and Dirty Dealings: The Tory Party's Damaging Legacy of Sleaze](https://heartlandstribune.com/double-standards-and-dirty-dealings-the-tory-partys-damaging-legacy-of-sleaze/): From ‘I’m a Celebrity to the Standards Commissioner: The Fall from Grace of Matt Hancock Has Only Just Begun” Tory Sleaze: Matt Hancock among three MPs under investigation by Standards watchdog Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, is among three Tory MPs who have been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog. The commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, has launched a series of inquiries into allegations of sleaze in the Tory Party. Hancock is being investigated over allegations that he broke the MPs’ code of conduct by “lobbying the commissioner in a manner calculated or intended to influence his consideration” of whether a […] - [The Voice of Nye Bevan Echoes in Junior Doctors' Strike](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-voice-of-nye-bevan-echoes-in-junior-doctors-strike/): Political Dysfunction and Strikes: The Sad State of 21st-Century Britain Tomorrow, junior doctors in England will embark on their second round of strike action, adding to the ever-growing list of examples of Britain’s chronic political dysfunction. Junior doctors will stage a 96-hour strike in April as the dispute between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Government continues. Members of the union staged their first walkout in March, joining other NHS workers including nurses and ambulance workers in taking industrial action. More than 250,000 appointments and operations are expected to be cancelled during the April walkout. The strike will start at 7am […] - [Sir Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry Accused of Hypocrisy in Labour's Attack Ads](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmer-and-emily-thornberry-accused-of-hypocrisy-in-labours-attack-ads/): It’s hard to defend your position on the failure of sentencing when it’s you who set the guidelines… Labour is still digging that hole… Labour’s Ad campaign has dominated the media for the last week, all for the wrong reasons. Labour’s campaign ads attacking Rishi Sunak for allegedly going easy on child sex abusers sparking a heated debate over criminal justice and political ethics. While many have criticized the ad for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and lacking evidence, others have accused Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer of hypocrisy, after all, he was the DPP that sat on the 2012 sentencing council while […] - [The Ministry of Propaganda: BBC Labelled Government Funded Media](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-ministry-of-propaganda-bbc-labelled-government-funded-media/): The BBC has objected to being labelled as “government-funded media” on its main Twitter account. Twitter describes its “government and state-affiliated media account labels” on its help page as: “Labels on state-affiliated accounts provide additional context about accounts that are controlled by certain official representatives of governments, state-affiliated media entities and individuals associated with those entities.” The outlet reported that while its main account @BBC, which has 2.2m followers, has been given the label, other accounts that have a larger following associated with the BBC’s news and sport output are not currently being described in the same way. The British broadcaster […] - [Greedflation: The Oligarchy and Corporate Profiteering The Real Cause of the Cost-of-Living Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/greedflation-the-oligarchy-and-corporate-profiteering-the-real-cause-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis/): The Cost of Living Crisis: Injustices and Failures to Tackle Inflation Root Causes in the UK The cost-of-living crisis is one of the most pressing issues facing the British people today. With inflation at a 30-year high, and wages failing to keep up, many families are struggling to make ends meet. All this in our modern society, we have supposedly created a system that not only protects the country from economic stresses but the people too, or so the story goes. To tackle this issue we have not only the government which is supposed to create a stable thriving economy that […] - [Labour's Shift From Corbyn's Kinder, Gentler Politics to Starmer's Gutter Ads and Dog-Whistles Tactics](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-shift-from-corbyns-kinder-gentler-politics-to-starmers-gutter-ads-and-dog-whistles-tactics/): Starmer is really clearing out the closet, gone are the days of, Corbyn’s kinder, gentler, politics Labour’s back in the gutter and their first call is a Dog whistle. Sir Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to retract a highly disturbing attack advertisement, which accuses Rishi Sunak of condoning child abuse by not believing in their imprisonment. This social media post, widely denounced by politicians from all sides and even high-profile Labour allies, has been dubbed “gutter politics.” Moreover, sources suggest that members of Sir Keir’s own shadow cabinet are uneasy about this gutter-type tactic. While Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell […] - [French Protesters Vow No Let-Up in Bitter Pension Battle, Pledging to be the Sole Check on Macron's Power](https://heartlandstribune.com/french-protesters-vow-no-let-up-in-bitter-pension-battle-pledging-to-be-the-sole-check-on-macrons-power/): French Protesters Vow No Let-Up in Bitter Pension Battle In the latest chapter of France’s ongoing battle over pension reform, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, vowing to continue their fight against President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed changes. Despite harsh crackdowns by police and government officials, the protesters remain determined to make their voices heard, claiming they are the only check on Macron’s power. Clashes broke out in several cities, including in Paris, where some protesters briefly set fire to the awning of a famed brasserie prized by the French president. Macron, currently on a visit to China, […] - [Tory MP Scott Benton Caught in Lobbying Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-scott-benton-caught-in-lobbying-scandal/): Conservative MP Scott Benton was caught in an undercover sting operation offering lobbying services MP for Blackpool South, Scott Benton, has been caught up in a lobbying scandal after he was secretly filmed by reporters from The Times offering to use his position to lobby ministers and share sensitive information in exchange for payment. In the undercover sting operation, Benton was recorded offering to table parliamentary questions and leak confidential policy papers. He also offered to act as an intermediary between businesses and government officials, claiming that he had direct access to ministers and could help them bypass traditional lobbying channels. […] - [Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell arrested in SNP funding probe](https://heartlandstribune.com/nicola-sturgeons-husband-peter-murrell-arrested-in-snp-funding-probe/): Peter Murrell arrested in SNP finance probe Police Scotland have arrested the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Peter Murrell, as part of an ongoing investigation into the party’s funding. Murrell, the husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, was taken into custody on Wednesday morning and is currently being questioned by detectives. Mr Murrell resigned as the party’s chief executive last month, a post he had held since 1999. He has been married to Ms Sturgeon since 2010. Officers were also at the SNP’s Gordon Lamb House headquarters in Edinburgh following the arrest, which comes just a week after Ms Sturgeon […] - [Trump indictment: Donald Trump indicted on 34 counts of fraud](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-indictment-donald-trump-indicted-on-34-counts-of-fraud/): Trump faces criminal charges in court after historic indictment. Donald Trump indicted on 34 counts of fraud Former US President Donald Trump has been indicted on 34 counts of fraud by a grand jury in New York. The charges relate to Trump’s business dealings in the state, and include allegations of tax evasion, insurance fraud, and bank fraud. Trump is the first former US president to be indicted. He has denied all of the charges, calling them “a political witch hunt”. He pleaded ‘not guilty’ to 34 counts against him before Judge Juan Merchan shortly after 2.40pm, becoming the first current […] - [Finland to Join NATO: A Bold Move Or A Dangerous Escalation](https://heartlandstribune.com/finland-to-join-nato-a-bold-move-or-a-dangerous-escalation/): Finland to Join NATO: A Dangerous Escalation… Finland is set to join NATO, which will significantly increase tensions between Russia and the West. The decision comes in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has prompted a rethink of European security arrangements. Finland’s decision to join NATO triggered a heated debate about the military alliance’s expansionist policies and the implications of Finland’s membership for regional security. The move comes at a time when tensions between Russia and NATO are at an all-time high, and the world is grappling with the consequences of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. While Finland has […] - [Prominent Russian Military Blogger Killed in St. Petersburg Blast](https://heartlandstribune.com/prominent-russian-military-blogger-killed-in-st-petersburg-blast/): Are we seeing a dangerous escalation in the Ukraine-Russian military conflict? St. Petersburg was rocked by a powerful blast that injured at least 19 people in a café in the city centre. The explosion, believed to have been caused by an improvised explosive device (IED), also claimed the life of a prominent Russian military blogger. Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin) was a vocal supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was a guest speaker at an event hosted by the cafe when the bomb went off. Videos posted on social media show an explosion and injured people on the street. […] - [Monks in Defiance: The Ecclesiastical Standoff at the Ukrainian Monastery](https://heartlandstribune.com/monks-in-defiance-the-ecclesiastical-standoff-at-the-ukrainian-monastery/): Ukrainian Orthodox Church Resists Eviction from Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery Monks in Defiance: In the ancient heart of Kyiv, a most unseemly conflict has erupted, pitting the devout against the state, and laying bare the tangled web of ecclesiastical and political allegiances that have long haunted this troubled land. At the centre of this maelstrom stands the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a 980-year-old monastery that has become the latest battleground in the ongoing struggle between Ukraine and Russia. It was there that scuffles broke out outside the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery on Thursday as Orthodox monks and their supporters defied an eviction order issued by […] - [The Final Act of Betrayal: In a Twist of The Knife Corbyn Officially Blocked From Standing As Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-final-act-of-betrayal-in-a-twist-of-the-knife-corbyn-officially-blocked-from-standing-as-labour-mp/): Corbyn’s Final Labour Hour Is To Feel The Stab In The Back From The Party He Gave So Much To. In an act of political treachery that would make Brutus blush, the Labour Party has formally barred Jeremy Corbyn from standing as an MP in the next general election. The former leader, who dedicated his life to the party’s principles, finds himself cast out, a victim of Labour’s internal machinations. The Labour Party was founded on the principles of social democracy and has a proud history of fighting for the rights of workers and the disadvantaged. However, in recent years, the […] - [The Judas Doctoring: Starmer To Block Jeremy Corbyn From Standing As Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-judas-doctoring-starmer-to-block-jeremy-corbyn-from-standing-as-labour-mp/): The Erosion of Democratic Representation: Keir Starmer’s Personal Vendetta Against Jeremy Corbyn The principles of democracy are built upon fair representation, with citizens having a say in who represents them within their constituencies. However, it appears these values have been ignored by Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to block former leader Jeremy Corbyn from running as a candidate. This block comes after Starmer’s long-running attacks against the people’s representative and choice of MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn. It has now culminated into a diktat to the NEC telling them not to allow Jeremy Corbyn to stand as the Labour candidate for […] - [In a Spectre of Revolutions, Past: French Royal Banquet Cancelled](https://heartlandstribune.com/in-a-specter-of-revolutions-past-french-royal-banquet-canceled/): King Charles’s visit to France postponed amid protests Emmanuel Macron says it would not have been ‘serious or good sense’ for next week’s visit to go ahead. As the flames of discontent rage across France, fanned by the winds of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, you cannot help but be reminded of the echoes of a revolution that once shook both France and Britain to its core. Even today the French Revolution strikes fear within the establishment, etched into their collective memories the understanding of how tenuous their position of power is when the masses realise their own potential. The recent […] - [Banking Crisis: Stocks Slide As Contagion Fears Flare Up, Deutsche Bank Hammered](https://heartlandstribune.com/banking-crisis-stocks-slide-as-contagion-fears-flare-up-deutsche-bank-hammered/): Banking stocks slump as sector fears grow Banking stocks across Europe have fallen once again, as fears of contagion resurface following the collapse of three US banks and UBS’s rescue of Credit Suisse in recent weeks. Germany’s Deutsche Bank, the biggest lender in the country, is among the hardest hit, as the cost of insuring against bank defaults surged. The Euro Stoxx banks index is down by 4.6%, while the UK’s banks index lost 3.7%. This comes after a turbulent week, despite reassurances from German chancellor Olaf Scholz, French president Emmanuel Macron and European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde that the […] - [In Defence of the Junior Doctors: A Battle for Fairness and the Future of the NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/in-defence-of-the-junior-doctors-a-battle-for-fairness-and-the-future-of-the-nhs/): Junior doctors announce four days of strikes – as health secretary hits out at ‘unreasonable demand’ The British Medical Association (BMA) said members will stage a 96-hour walkout from 11-14 April, in an escalation of a row over pay and conditions. In the ongoing battle for fair pay and working conditions, junior doctors in England have announced they will strike for four consecutive days next month. This comes after accusing the government of refusing to make a reasonable offer that would address the concerns of these frontline healthcare workers. It’s important to understand the gravity of the situation at hand. Junior […] - [Book Review: Brexit, Kant & Othello](https://heartlandstribune.com/book-review-brexit-kant-othello/): Brexit, Kant & Othello: How Brexit was misunderstood, why you think the world is going mad, and what to do about it. Author S. James delivers a thought-provoking and insightful analysis of the current political and social climate surrounding Brexit. S. James masterfully dissects the perplexing phenomenon of Brexit, weaving together political analysis, philosophical inquiry, and literary references with razor-sharp wit and eloquence. The author delves into the heart of the Brexit conundrum, revealing how it has been fundamentally misunderstood by both its proponents and detractors. Drawing on the works of “Immanuel Kant” and Shakespeare’s “Othello,” James delves deeper into the […] - [The Met's Unholy Trinity: Racism, Misogyny, and Homophobia](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-mets-unholy-trinity-racism-misogyny-and-homophobia/): The Metropolitan Police is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic, findings of a review into Britain’s biggest force, the Met. The founding of The Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 was a watershed moment in the history of law enforcement in London. For over a century, it has been celebrated as a model of public service, upholding the values of fairness, justice, and protection for all citizens. However, as the recent report by Louise Casey has revealed, the Met’s legacy is now tarnished by a dark reality of institutional racism, misogyny, and homophobia. This damning indictment has shaken the very […] - [The Iraq War: A Never-Ending Tragedy of Deceit, Denial, and Impunity](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-iraq-war-a-never-ending-tragedy-of-deceit-denial-and-impunity/): A Legacy of Shame and the Unending Quest for Truth Twenty years have passed since the drums of war were beaten, heralding the invasion of Iraq by a coalition led by the United States and the United Kingdom. It was a war sold to the public on the pretext of disarming a despotic regime of its weapons of mass destruction. Yet, as the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the truth emerged, revealing a sinister tapestry of deceit, manipulation, and abuse. In the shadows of the grand narrative of Western democracy, lies the unspoken legacy of the Iraq War, an indelible […] - [Rail Strikes: RMT Members Accept New Offer, Ending Dispute with Network Rail](https://heartlandstribune.com/rail-strikes-rmt-members-accept-new-offer-ending-dispute-with-network-rail/): The Iron Horse of Progress: A Triumph for the Working Class The Rail, Maritime, and Transport (RMT) union has announced that its 20,000 members have voted to accept a new and improved offer from Network Rail, effectively ending the trade dispute between the two parties. The offer covers pay, jobs, and conditions and was accepted by a margin of three to one, with a turnout of nearly 90%. The RMT National Executive has confirmed that this vote brings the dispute to a close. This new offer comes after the most recent strike action in January and the threat of further action. […] - [Times Up For Credit Suisse: UBS To Take Over Swiss Central Bank Confirms](https://heartlandstribune.com/times-up-for-credit-suisse-ubs-to-take-over-swiss-central-bank-confirms/): UBS to Buy Credit Suisse in Historic Deal in Hopes of Ending Banking Crisis. As news of UBS’s takeover of Credit Suisse spreads throughout the financial world, there is no shortage of opinions on what this means for the banking industry and the Swiss economy as a whole. But what does this development truly signify, and what can we expect from the new financial landscape that is emerging? Credit Suisse is one of the world’s largest wealth managers and is one of 30 global banks ranked as systemically important, meaning the deal could ripple through global markets. It is also one […] - [Another Sickening Betrayal: Britain Tells Afghans In Hiding They Can Come To Uk – But Only If Taliban Approves Documents](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-sickening-betrayal-britain-tells-afghans-in-hiding-they-can-come-to-uk-but-only-if-taliban-approves-documents/): Afghans are being asked to “sign their own death warrant.” Ministry of Defence ‘apologises unreservedly’ after independent investigation reveals Afghans were asked to get evacuation documents certified by Taliban Desperate Afghans who are hiding from the Taliban have been given a glimmer of hope in the form of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme (Arap). The scheme was introduced to help those who aided British forces during the war to relocate to the UK. However, the latest news surrounding Arap is a shocking display of insensitivity towards the plight of the Afghan people. UK officials have reportedly informed Arap applicants that […] - [Remember When The US Threatened To Arrest ICC Judges If They Pursue Americans For War Crimes](https://heartlandstribune.com/remember-when-the-us-threatened-to-arrest-icc-judges-if-they-pursue-americans-for-war-crimes/): The US’s Arrogance and Corruption Towards ICC Reveals Hypocrisy in Pursuing War Crime Allegations Against Putin As the saying goes, “the fish rots from the head down,” and the stench of corruption emanating from the United States in its dealings with the International Criminal Court (ICC) is no exception. Five years ago, the US threatened to jail and sanction ICC judges who dared to bring charges of war crimes against American soldiers in Afghanistan. Now, the US is applying pressure on the ICC to bring charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the world of international justice, the United States of […] - [Travel Delays: Passport Office Workers To Go on Five-Week Strike](https://heartlandstribune.com/travel-delays-passport-office-workers-to-go-on-five-week-strike/): Government under pressure to resolve strike before holiday period begins… The right to strike is a fundamental aspect of any democratic society. It is the ability of workers to withdraw their labour in protest of unsatisfactory job conditions, wages, and benefits. However, the exercise of this right is not always straightforward, as demonstrated by the ongoing dispute between the Passport Office and its employees. As reported by the BBC, more than 1,000 workers at the Passport Office are set to go on strike for five weeks, starting from the end of March 2023. Those working in Durham, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newport, […] - [If The ICC Are Handing Out Arrest warrants For War Crimes, They shouldn't Stop At Putin.](https://heartlandstribune.com/if-the-icc-are-handing-out-arrest-warrants-for-war-crimes-they-shouldnt-stop-at-putin/): Don’t Stop at Putin: ICC Should Prosecute All War Criminals, Including Zelensky, Bush, Blair and Biden It’s not often that we see a major world leader being the subject of an arrest warrant issued by an international court. But that’s exactly what’s happened with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The warrant may be “symbolic,” as a lawyer and legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg has pointed out, but it does send a message: no one is above the law. the message should extend to everyone involved in this […] - [France, a Nation On The Edge After Government's Pension Reforms Bypass Democratic Process: Macron Uses Executive Order To Push Bill Through](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-a-nation-on-the-edge-after-governments-pension-reforms-bypass-democratic-process-macron-uses-executive-order-to-push-bill-through/): France, a Nation on the Edge. French President Emmanuel Macron rammed a controversial pension reform through parliament without a vote by invoking a special executive measure. With the opposition braced for a no-confidence vote and the unions threatening more strikes, France witnessed a dramatic week in politics. The decision to invoke the special power – article 49.3 – was made during a cabinet meeting at the presidential palace, just minutes before the scheduled vote, as Mr Macron had no guarantee of securing a majority in the assembly. In the grand tradition of French politics, the issue of pension reform has become […] - [The Labour Files: The Forde Response, Nothing From Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-files-the-forde-response-nothing-from-starmer/): When you keep sweeping things “under the rug” eventually you’re going to trip from the mess you’ve made.  Documents obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit have revealed shocking revelations behind the “anti-Semitism crisis” that shook the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The documents, social media data, and covert recordings show how senior officials within the party attempted to undermine Corbyn’s support and silence debate about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Forde’s report was met with controversy, particularly due to its criticism of the BBC’s 2019 Panorama documentary, “Is Labour Anti-Semitic?” Despite pressure from the broadcaster to remove this criticism, Forde stood […] - [Financial Contagion: Credit Suisse To Borrow €51 Billion From Swiss Central Bank](https://heartlandstribune.com/financial-contagion-credit-suisse-to-borrow-e51-billion-from-swiss-central-bank/): Financial contagion refers to “the spread of market disturbances – mostly on the downside – from one country to the other, a process observed through co-movements in exchange rates, stock prices, sovereign spreads, and capital flows, or banks going bust, again!“ Another day, another banking crisis. The news that Credit Suisse is set to borrow a staggering 51 billion Swiss francs ($54 billion) from the Swiss central bank in order to shore up its balance sheet is yet another reminder of the fragility of the global financial system. This latest crisis at Credit Suisse, one of the world’s largest and most […] - [Are we heading for another Banking crisis and who will pay?](https://heartlandstribune.com/are-we-heading-for-another-banking-crisis-and-who-will-pay/): Can the Banking crisis be contained? The memories of the 2008 financial meltdown are still fresh in our minds, and it’s hard to ignore the parallels with the current economic climate, three banks bust in three days. At the moment there is a huge effort to uphold confidence and stability in the banking sector but the truth is it’s struggling once again. Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is the largest since Washington Mutual went bust in 2008, a hallmark event that triggered a financial crisis that hobbled the economy for years. The 2008 crash prompted tougher rules in the United States and […] - [Junior Doctors Strike Demanding Better Pay And Working Conditions](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-strike-demanding-better-pay-and-working-conditions/): Junior doctors paid lower hourly rate than workers to get at Pret Junior doctors in the UK have taken to the streets in protest over their wages and working conditions. And let me tell you, as someone who has always been a staunch defender of workers’ rights, I stand firmly with these Junior doctors and health workers in general in their fight for better pay and conditions. Some 98 per cent of the 45,000 junior doctors balloted by the BMA voted in favour of strike action. It was a record number of junior doctors voting for strike action. The strikes will […] - [Italy says 30 migrants missing after boat capsizes making the crossing to the EU](https://heartlandstribune.com/italy-says-30-migrants-missing-after-boat-capsizes-making-the-crossing-to-the-eu/): Thirty missing, 17 rescued as boat capsizes north of Libya Rome (AFP) – About 30 migrants were missing and presumed drowned after the overcrowded boat they were on capsized during a rescue attempt by a cargo ship off Libya’s coast, Italy’s coastguard said on Sunday. Seventeen migrants were saved and a search was underway for the missing after the early-morning attempted rescue in a search-and-rescue zone under the jurisdiction of Libya, the coastguard said.  “During the rescue operations… the boat capsized during the transfer of the migrants: 17 people were rescued and recovered by the (cargo) vessel while approximately 30 migrants were missing,” said the coastguard. […] - [Christopher Hitchens: Free Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/christopher-hitchens-free-speech/): As the great Christopher Hitchens once said, “the principle of free speech is indivisible and non-negotiable, and it must be defended everywhere, from Myanmar to Manchester.” Today, we find ourselves in a moment where this principle is being tested once again, in the controversy surrounding former footballer Gary Lineker and his comments on social media. Lineker, who has been an outspoken advocate for some progressive causes, recently found himself in hot water after expressing his support for refugees and criticising the British government’s handling of the crisis in Afghanistan. Personally, I have never been a fan of Linekers or of what […] - [Let Gary Lineker Speak: Why His Right to Free Speech Matters More Than Your Discomfort](https://heartlandstribune.com/let-gary-lineker-speak-why-his-right-to-free-speech-matters-more-than-your-discomfort/): We must all defend Gary Lineker’s right to Free speech Gary Lineker has been forced off his Match of the Day duties by the BBC because he won’t apologise for his comments on social media. This came after his Tweet where he expressed his views on the recently proposed small boat legislation announced by the government. In the Tweet, Gary Lineker states: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany […] - [Asylum Seekers: We Need A Grown-up Cross-party European Wide Discussion Without The Dog Whistles](https://heartlandstribune.com/asylum-seekers-we-need-a-grown-up-cross-party-european-wide-discussion-without-the-dog-whistles/): Warning long read… Stopping small boats is ‘priority’ for British people, says Rishi Sunak and he claims he is up for a fight… Sunak says he is up for the fight on illegal Channel crossings but this is much more complex than that. Rishi Sunak has said he is “up for the fight” to bring in new legislation to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel on small boats to reach the UK. The prime minister said he was confident the government would win any legal battles over the “tough, but necessary and fair” measures. Earlier his home secretary, Suella Braverman, announced […] - [U.S. Officials Intelligence claim Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Nordstream Pipelines: “If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you”](https://heartlandstribune.com/u-s-officials-intelligence-claim-pro-ukrainian-group-sabotaged-nordstream-pipelines-if-you-believe-that-i-have-a-bridge-in-brooklyn-to-sell-to-you/): Ukraine has denied any involvement in September’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany. The denial follows a report from the New York Times, which cites anonymous US intelligence officials who suggest a pro-Ukrainian group was to blame. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said Ukraine “was absolutely not involved”. Moscow questioned how the US could make assumptions without an investigation. Coordinated fake news media campaign Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the report a “coordinated fake news media campaign” and told the state news agency Ria-Novosti those who attacked the […] - [RMT Suspends Rail Strikes After New Pay Offer](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-suspends-rail-strikes-after-new-pay-offer/): The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has announced the suspension of a series of rail strikes, which were set to take place across the UK rail network. The RMT National Executive Committee has taken the decision to suspend all industrial action on Network Rail following receipt of a new offer from the employer. The suspension of the strikes will allow for further discussions and negotiations to take place, which will hopefully lead to a fair and equitable settlement for rail workers. The suspension of the rail strikes is a positive development, which will be welcomed by commuters and rail workers […] - [Boris Johnson: The Boy Who Would Be King Dishing Out Titles For All The Family](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-the-boy-who-would-be-king-dishing-out-titles-for-all-the-family/): Boris Johnson nominates his father for a knighthood Once again, we find ourselves confronted with a display of privilege and elitism that is all too common in our political system. I speak, of course, of Boris Johnson’s decision to nominate his father for a knighthood This move is a slap in the face to the very idea of democracy, and it demonstrates a total lack of respect for the millions of ordinary people who struggle every day just to make ends meet, never mind jocky family members into a position of rank and entitlement. It’s pure nepotism, a morbid symptom of […] - [Labour Democracy: Why Keir Starmer's Interference in Jeremy Corbyn's Candidacy is a Threat to Constituency Rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-democracy-why-keir-starmers-interference-in-jeremy-corbyns-candidacy-is-a-threat-to-constituency-rights/): Sir Keir Starmer’s Dangerous Game: The Threat to Democracy in the Labour Party It really doesn’t matter if you are a Labour member or voter, it really doesn’t matter if you support the Labour Party at all. but it does matter if you believe in democracy and the rights of people to choose who represents them. The Labour Party has a long and proud tradition of standing up for the rights of the working class and the marginalised. One of the core principles of this tradition is the idea of democracy – the belief that the people should have a say […] - [Manchester Arena attack: families accuse MI5 of ‘devastating’ failure](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchester-arena-attack-families-accuse-mi5-of-devastating-failure/): The families of victims of the Manchester Arena attack accused MI5 of a “devastating” failure after an official inquiry found the agency missed a “significant opportunity” to stop the deadliest terror plot in Britain since the 7 July 2005 attacks in London. A public inquiry led by Sir John Saunders concluded that there was a “realistic possibility” that the bomber could have been thwarted if the security services had acted more decisively on intelligence. The inquiry began in 2019 and has found that MI5 missed a ‘significant opportunity’ to prevent the attack, which was carried out by a lone suicide bomber […] - [THE LOCKDOWN FILES: Calls for Criminal Investigation Into Matt Hancock's Handling of Covid in Light of Leaked Files](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-lockdown-files-calls-for-criminal-investigation-into-matt-hancocks-handling-of-covid-in-light-of-leaked-files/): The former health secretary has been accused of ignoring advice to test all people entering care homes during the first lockdown in 2020 – something he has denied. The recent revelations from The Telegraph and THE LOCKDOWN FILES have once again raised concerns about the actions of government officials during the Covid-19 pandemic. The fact that more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages were obtained between Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials during the height of the pandemic is alarming in itself, but the content of those messages is even more concerning. One of the most significant allegations made against the former […] - [Book Review: The Death of the Left, Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again](https://heartlandstribune.com/book-review-the-death-of-the-left-why-we-must-begin-from-the-beginning-again/): The Death of the Left… As a lifelong advocate for the socialist cause, I have had the pleasure of reading Simon Winlow and Steve Hall’s latest book, The Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again. And I must say, it is a thought-provoking and deeply insightful work. The authors’ premise is simple but profound: the left, as we know it, is dead. The once-proud movement that fought for workers’ rights, equality, and social justice has been co-opted and corrupted by the very system it sought to overthrow. And it is time for us to acknowledge this […] - [Post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland: The Windsor Framework](https://heartlandstribune.com/post-brexit-deal-on-northern-ireland-the-windsor-framework/): The Windsor Framework The Windsor Framework: What is in the new post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland? it is designed to tackle the issues impacting Northern Ireland since the UK left the EU – and the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol came into force. But what does the new deal entail? This is an early look at what has been announced Sunak. The agreement in principle reached by the UK and EU regarding the Windsor Framework. The agreement will introduce two new routes for goods when they are travelling from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. Products which are travelling through NI to get to the […] - [Is Establishment Commentariat Fascist-Racism Provable, and Measurable?](https://heartlandstribune.com/is-establishment-commentariat-fascist-racism-provable-and-measurable/): RIP Journalism Is Establishment Commentariat Fascist-Racism Provable, and Measurable? Gavin Lewis looks at the examples from Trevor Phillips, Paul Mason, John Ware, Polly Toynbee By GAVIN LEWIS Few would argue with the fact that journalistic standards in the west have collapsed to the point of non-existence.  In the US this has occurred since Reagan-era abolitions of the regulation of the media, which previously had demanded strict levels of factual content.  In 90s Britain’s New Labour government spin machine would join in the increasing post-1970s general Murdochisation of the media, in ensuring only the voices of powerful vested interests are heard and […] - [Tony Benn 'Will and Testament'](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-benn-will-and-testament/): The LeFT needs a new beginning, taking the best from the old and building on the new. “The things that are most popular in British society today are little pockets of socialism, where areas of life have been excluded from the crude operation of market forces and are protected for the benefit of the community.” Tony Benn There have been many upheavals in politics over the last decade. Tony Benn had anticipated many things while giving us many warnings. His views on the EU became a reality while his philosophy helped guide many Left-wing leave supporters throughout the years of turmoil […] - [Jeffrey Sachs: UNSC On Nord Stream Sabotage](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeffrey-sachs-unsc-on-nord-stream-sabotage/): “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines on Sept. 26, 2022, constitutes an act of international terrorism and represents a threat to the peace,” – Jeffrey Sachs. Tumbleweed. That is the sound in the major mainstream media — both foreign and domestic — following the charges by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States led a covert operation to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022. The story, released on Hersh’s new Substack last week, unleashed a Twitter war between Hersh’s defenders and detractors, but a simple Google search betrays a dearth of mainstream coverage, with only brief […] - [Ukraine: The war didn't start in February last year, the war started in 2014 Understanding that is the route to peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-the-war-didnt-start-in-february-last-year-the-war-started-in-2014-understanding-that-is-the-route-to-peace/): Ukraine one year on and our fate lay in the hands of madmen, Putin, Zelensky, and Biden the Harbingers of the Apocalypse NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a doorstep announcement that confirmed what many people already understand he stated: “The other thing I will say is that the war didn’t start in February last year. The war started in 2014. And since 2014, NATO Allies have provided support to Ukraine, with training, with equipment, so the Ukrainian Armed Forces were much stronger in 2022, than they were in 2020, and 2014. And of course, that made a huge difference when […] - [Ukraine: UN members endorse resolution to end war](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-un-members-endorse-resolution-to-end-war/): On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, roughly three-quarters of UN member states endorsed a resolution calling for “just and lasting” peace. China and India were among the major abstentions. UN General Assembly members on Thursday voted in favour of a motion put forward by Germany calling for peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Thursday that calls for Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine and demands the withdrawal of its forces, sending a strong message on the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion that Moscow’s aggression must end. In all, […] - [Off-duty police officer shot in Omagh](https://heartlandstribune.com/off-duty-police-officer-shot-in-omagh/): An off-duty police officer has been shot at a sports complex in Omagh, County Tyrone. An off-duty police officer was taken to hospital after being shot at outside the sports complex in the County Tyrone town on Wednesday night. There are unconfirmed reports that he was hit multiple times on the Killyclogher Road at about 20:00 GMT. The victim is currently being treated at Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Londonderry. His condition is unknown. Ulster Unionist assembly member Tom Elliott said the shooting had taken place “in front of young people at football coaching session”. He said it was a “despicable and […] - [High Energy Cost Creating Food Shortages Round Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/high-energy-cost-creating-food-shortages-round-europe/): Why is there a shortage of tomatoes and other fruit and vegetables in the EU and UK? It doesn’t take much for the usual ‘Remain Hysterians’ to pump out fake news while jumping on the bandwagon if they think they can point a finger at Brexit. However, in doing so it always amazes me how little European news the Europhiles actually read… Recent days have shown some supermarket shelves low on fresh produce, particularly Tomatoes. This has led to a social media campaign by die-hard Remainers/Rejoiners to spread fake news claiming the shortages are down to Brexit. Apart from the disinformation, […] - [Nurses to suspend 48-hour strike as talks with government start](https://heartlandstribune.com/nurses-to-suspend-48-hour-strike-as-talks-with-government-start/): Nurses in England have suspended next week’s 48-hour strike as they start talks with the government over pay. A statement has been released by the UK government late Tuesday evening.  It states: “The Government and Royal College of Nursing have agreed to enter a process of intensive talks. Both sides are committed to finding a fair and reasonable settlement that recognises the vital role that nurses and nursing play in the National Health Service and the wider economic pressures facing the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister’s priority to halve inflation. The talks will focus on pay, terms and conditions, and […] - [Sabre Rattling or a Prelude to World War 3: Putin’s State of the Nation Speech, Biden's Rallying of the Troops, Neither Bodes Well for the People](https://heartlandstribune.com/sabre-rattling-or-a-prelude-to-world-war-3-putins-state-of-the-nation-speech-bidens-rallying-of-the-troops-neither-bodes-well-for-the-people/): Both President Biden and Putin have made addresses today both rattled sabres US President Joe Biden rallied NATO allies in Poland on Tuesday to stress that the United States is squarely behind Ukraine and committed to bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank. Earlier, Russia’s Vladimir Putin said Moscow would suspend its participation in the last remaining arms control treaty with Washington. This comes as Poland’s president urges the West to step up support for Ukraine President Andrzej Duda urged leaders of Western countries to stand firm in their support for Ukraine on Tuesday saying: “I call on all European states, NATO states, to show solidarity with Ukraine, […] - [Junior doctors overwhelmingly vote for strike action](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-overwhelming-vote-for-strike-action/): Junior doctors in England have voted in favour of taking strike action in their fight to get more pay. Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) are now expected to take part in a 72-hour walkout, possibly as early as mid-March. The union said junior doctor roles had seen pay cut by 26% since 2008 once inflation was taken into account. The BMA announced this afternoon that almost 37,000 junior doctors in England had taken part in the vote on strike action, out of more than 47,600 eligible, which it said was the “largest ever turnout” for a ballot of doctors […] - [BREAKING: Police have recovered a body in the search for Nicola Bulley](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-police-have-recovered-a-body-in-the-search-for-nicola-bulley/): A body has been found in the search for the missing woman Nicola Bulley, police have said. Bulley, 45, a mortgage adviser from Inskip, Lancashire, vanished while walking her dog after dropping off her daughters, aged six and nine, at school more than three weeks ago, on 27 January. Lancashire police said that no formal identification has yet been carried out. Procedures to identify the body are on-going, they said. Within a week of her going missing, Lancashire police said they believed she had fallen into the river while walking her dog, Willow, along the River Wyre. Piecing together CCTV footage, mobile […] - [Jack London: The Scab](https://heartlandstribune.com/jack-london-the-scab/): In the history of modern class struggle, those who cross picket lines to fill jobs temporarily vacated by workers on strike are known as “scabs.” Scabs are thus low-cost replacement workers, whose willingness to work for less and betray their fellow workers allows employers to starve out the more organised regular workforce. They are therefore looked down upon, understandably, and treated with rightful disdain. Ode To A Scab After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab.A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a […] - [Government urged to get round the table: Nurses announce biggest strike to date no services will be exempt](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-urged-to-get-round-the-table-nurses-announce-biggest-strike-to-date-no-services-will-be-exempt/): The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced its biggest walkout of the pay dispute in England. Following months of inaction from the UK government, RCN members in England will strike around the clock for 48 hours in March, with no wide-ranging derogations in place and increased strike benefit payments available to striking members. RCN strikes will take place at 128 NHS employers in England next month, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunack continues to ignore calls for talks on pay, leaving nursing staff in England behind. The next strikes will run without pause for 48 hours from the morning of Wednesday […] - [Michael Parenti: U.S. CAPITALISM OR DIE](https://heartlandstribune.com/michael-parenti-u-s-capitalism-or-die/): The Emperor’s New Clothes: an Interview with Michael Parenti Interview by Dennis Soron For well over thirty years, Michael Parenti has been a leading figure on the U.S. Left, providing incisive commentary on many of the very issues that now loom largest in the contemporary political landscape – including American imperialism, terrorism, the ideological distortions of the corporate media, and the corrosive influence of wealth and elite power upon popular democracy. A prolific author, a charismatic speaker, and a regular guest on radio and television talk shows, Parenti communicates his message in an accessible, provocative, and historically informed style that is unrivalled […] - [The Long Coup: Fait Accompli Starmer Stops Jeremy Corbyn Standing as Labour MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-long-coup-fait-accompli-starmer-stops-jeremy-corbyn-standing-as-labour-mp/): Sir Keir Starmer announces Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for election as a Labour candidate While addressing antisemitism in the labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer made it clear that his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn will not stand in the general election as a Labour candidate. Tonight the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to bar him from standing for the party at the next general election, calling it a “flagrant attack” on democracy. Mr Corbyn said it was up to local party members to choose their candidate, not Labour leaders. The Islington North MP, who sits as an […] - [Nicola Sturgeon Resigns as First Minister of Scotland](https://heartlandstribune.com/nicola-sturgeon-resigns-as-first-minister-of-scotland/): Nicola Sturgeon resigns as First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has had a long and impressive political career and is widely regarded as one of the most effective politicians of her generation. Ms Sturgeon became the first woman first minister of Scotland back in 2014, succeeding Alex Salmond, and has since gone on to become the longest serving since devolution to Scotland. But she has been involved in the SNP all her adult life, joining the party at the age of 16. As first minister, she has secured election successes at every poll and continued to push for Scottish independence, campaigning […] - [How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream-pipeline/): The following article is reproduced form from the website of independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh with thanks. The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The centre’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat and a dance school are across what is […] - [Whatever They Decide These UFOs Are, The Answer Will Be More US Militarism](https://heartlandstribune.com/whatever-they-decide-these-ufos-are-the-answer-will-be-more-us-militarism/): By Caitlin Johnstone US war planes have shot down three unidentified objects in North American airspace over the last three days, which is entirely without precedent. On Sunday an octagon-shaped object was reportedly shot down over Lake Huron near the Canadian border after first being detected some 1,300 miles away over Montana on Saturday night. On Saturday a cylindrical object was reportedly shot down over Canada’s Yukon territory by an American F-22, and on Friday an object “about the size of a small car” was reportedly shot down after being detected over Alaska. Unlike the Chinese balloon that was shot down earlier this month which the US claims was an instrument of […] - [The Culture Wars of Woke Imperialism: How Progressive Liberalism is Killing the UK’s Left](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-culture-wars-of-woke-imperialism-how-progressive-liberalism-is-killing-the-uks-left/): “The left will end up eating itself” Warning long read article… We’re in a culture war and it’s killing us all… Woke! well, I’m awake and whatever woke was, whatever once stirred people to awake from slumber has now been transmogrified into an instrument of oppression, wielded by the zealous practitioners of cancel culture. it’s now nothing but a weapon of subjugation and used by those that want to rid themselves of all who disagree with them. It is a bitter irony that these self-styled warriors for social justice have adopted the tactics of those they claim to despise. They engage […] - [MPs' pay will increase to £86,584 plus expenses a year after they were awarded a nearly 3% pay rise.](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-pay-will-increase-to-86584-plus-expenses-a-year-after-they-were-awarded-a-nearly-3-pay-rise/): It comes as the government is locked in bitter industrial disputes with public sector workers people that actually do, do something to help the people of Britain. Unions are demanding inflation-busting pay rises which ministers claim they can’t afford. Paramedics, teachers, postal workers, rail workers and civil servants are also striking for similar deals. Unions have threatened to strike for as long as it takes to achieve their demands, but ministers in England have insisted they are not affordable. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is coming under pressure to resolve the disputes, after some strikes in Wales and Scotland were called off […] - [Jared O'Mara: Former Labour MP jailed over £52,000 fraud to pay drug debt](https://heartlandstribune.com/jared-omara-former-labour-mp-jailed-over-52000-fraud-to-pay-drug-debt/): Jared O’Mara: Former Labour MP who tried to claim £52,000 of taxpayers’ money to help fund a cocaine habit has been jailed for four years. The disgraced MP was accused of trying to claim up to tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ money to fund an “extravagant lifestyle – drink, cigarettes and, above all, cocaine”. Jared O’Mara sent fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which regulates MPs’ business costs and pay. He was thousands of pounds in debt to a drug dealer, his trial heard. O’Mara, who quit the Labour party about a year after being elected […] - [Jared O'Mara: Former Labour MP found guilty of fraudulent expenses claims](https://heartlandstribune.com/jared-omara-former-labour-mp-found-guilty-of-fraudulent-expenses-claims/): Former Labour MP who submitted fake expenses of £24,000 to fund his cocaine habit has been convicted of fraud. Jared O’Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, was thousands of pounds in debt to a drug dealer, the trial at Leeds Crown Court was told. He submitted fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which regulates MPs’ business costs and pay. He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges. Co-defendant Gareth Arnold was found guilty of three out of six fraud […] - [Kim Johnson MP attacked by Starmer’s Autocracy after citing Israeli Fascism](https://heartlandstribune.com/kim-johnson-mp-attacked-by-starmers-autocracy-after-citing-israeli-fascism/): Starmer and the Betrayal of the Fight Against Fascism. By Gavin Lewis The news that Kier Starmer’s Labour autocracy has forced Kim Johnson MP to apologise for describing the Israel regime as fascist, should concern us all.  Rather than handing out political carte blanches, the people that actually fought the Nazis and/or were oppressed by them, demanded that we be ever vigilant against the rise of such politics again.  As the German-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt stated  “I left Germany guided by the resolution…Never again!”  (‘Never again’ invoked frequently by countless post-war human rights activists would also later be the campaign […] - [Pakistan blocks Wikipedia claiming 'sacrilegious' content](https://heartlandstribune.com/pakistan-blocks-wikipedia-claiming-sacrilegious-content/): Wikipedia has been blocked in Pakistan which claims they hosting “blasphemous content”. Wikipedia was blocked in Pakistan on Saturday after authorities censored the online encyclopedia for hosting “blasphemous content.” On Wednesday said the website had until late Friday to heed the warning, without elaborating on the content in question. The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum. Social media giants Facebook and YouTube have also been blocked in the past by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority over content deemed […] - [Governments have lost control the Oligarchy is winning](https://heartlandstribune.com/governments-have-lost-control-the-oligarchy-is-winning/): Politicians and the Energy Companies Monopoly Profiteering You’re getting ripped off. Oil and gas giant Shell has reported record annual profits after energy prices surged. Profits hit £32.2bn ($39.9bn)in 2022, double last year’s total and the highest in its 115-year history. The energy companies have a stranglehold on the market. They have been able to hike prices to extortionate levels, and the knock-on effect is that every other sector of society has been forced to raise their prices. The government is too weak to take on the energy companies, and MPs and politicians are often in the pocket of these corporations. […] - [Not a Wheel Turns, Not a Phone Rings: The Power of the Working Class](https://heartlandstribune.com/not-a-wheel-turns-not-a-phone-rings-the-power-of-the-working-class/): The strength and potential of the working class is unmatched and unstoppable. When you think about it, the working class is pretty amazing. We go to work every day, doing everything from flipping burgers to designing software to teaching kids, and we don’t even get paid a lot of money for it. In fact, a lot of us are barely scraping by. The Critical Role of the Working Class in Wealth Creation The working class is the backbone of wealth creation. Without its members, nothing would move. Ted Grant best captures the power of the working class when he stated: “Not […] - [77 Brigade: The British Army spied on its citizens during lockdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/77-brigade-the-british-army-spied-on-its-citizens-during-lockdown/): A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised the Government’s Covid lockdown policies. An investigation by the civil liberties campaign group said a whistleblower had claimed that troops were used to “spy” on the British public. Military operatives in the UK’s ‘information warfare’ belonging to the 77 brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Conservative MPs David Davis and Chris Green along with high-profile journalists who had raised doubts about the official pandemic response. They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming […] - [Nadhim Zahawi Tory Party chairman sacked over tax scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/nadhim-zahawi-tory-party-chairman-sacked-over-tax-scandal/): Nadhim Zahawi sacked: What Sir Laurie Magnus found in his tax row investigation Nadhim Zahawi was sacked as Tory party chairman on Sunday by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following the publication of Sir Laurie Magnus’s report, which looked into whether the former minister had fallen foul of the ministerial code. Sunak last week ordered his ethics adviser to investigate Zahawi following claims he had paid a penalty as part of a reported £4.8 million settlement with tax officials. It was alleged that Zahawi did not declare the dispute with tax authorities. Sir Laurie Magnus, the new ethics adviser, was tasked with carrying out the investigation […] - [Seven Dead, Three Wounded in Jerusalem Synagogue Shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/seven-dead-three-wounded-in-jerusalem-synagogue-shooting/): Police say that the shooter fired at a group of worshipers as they exited the synagogue. The gunman has been reportedly killed. Hamas claims responsibility. Police say that the shooter fired at a group of Jewish worshipers exiting the synagogue. The gunman has been reportedly killed. Israeli police described it as a “terror attack” and said it took place in a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, considered by Israelis to be a neighbourhood within Jerusalem, while Palestinians and most of the international community consider it occupied land illegally annexed after the Six-Day War in 1967. According to Israel Police, the gunman arrived […] - [Russia declares US and NATO on path to full-fledged military conflict in Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-declares-us-and-nato-on-path-to-full-fledged-military-conflict-in-europe/): Washington and its allies are putting the world at risk, Russia’s deputy envoy to the OSCE has warned. This comes after the U.S. officially announced it will send American tanks to Ukraine as part of a coordinated effort with Germany, and the UK. The US are to send 31 Abrams M1 tanks, the UK commitment is 14 Challenger 2 tanks, while Germany will supply Ukraine with a massive 112 Leopard 2 battle tanks, that’s 157 of the most sophisticated deadliest armoured killing machines available to any modern army, and the largest deployment of main battle tanks sent to the Russian front […] - [Matt Hancock 'confronted at Tube station' as 61-year-old man arrested](https://heartlandstribune.com/matt-hancock-confronted-at-tube-station-as-61-year-old-man-arrested/): Matt Hancock Next Stop Covid Inquiry A 61-year-old man has been arrested over an alleged assault on former Health Secretary Matt Hancock on the London Underground. The alleged attack on the I’m A Celeb contestant happened yesterday morning at Westminster Underground station, close to the Houses of Parliament, the Mirror reports. Police were called to the station shortly before 9am on January 24 after being reports of a man being assaulted and harassed. Footage of the incident, shared on social media, shows the backbench MP allegedly being confronted by a man who followed him through the barriers, down an escalator and onto a train. In the footage, the man […] - [The Business of War: Zelensky Thanks BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-business-of-war-zelensky-thanks-blackrock-jpmorgan-goldman-sachs/): A message from our corporate sponsors… A thank you to those who create the global economic strength of America Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked “those that create the global economic strength of America” and the U.S. corporations for supporting the Ukrainian war effort, saying the companies’ support is an opportunity for “big business” in an address Monday. Zelenskyy spoke during the meeting of the National Association of State Chambers about how “American business can become a locomotive of global economic growth” after the war ends, according to a press release. He specifically thanked BlackRock, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for their cooperation with Ukraine in the […] - [The NHS Funding Crisis: Richard Murphy Provides The Cure](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-nhs-funding-crisis-richard-murphy-provides-the-cure/): We need a functioning NHS because, without health, there is no wealth in any economy. The National Health Service (NHS) is facing a funding crisis. The NHS is an aging population, and the cost of providing medical care is growing. There is a £30 billion funding black hole that no party in the UK is willing to talk about. We need a functioning NHS because, without health, there is no wealth in any economy. The NHS is probably one of the most important assets we have and essential to the well-being of the people of the UK, and it needs to […] - [Migrant boat sinks in Channel killing six people](https://heartlandstribune.com/migrant-boat-sinks-in-channel-killing-six-people/): Surviving the Unforgiving: Migrant Boat Disaster Claims Lives in Channel Six dead, two missing after boat sinks in Channel… The grim incident unfolded in the waters of the English Channel, where the perilous journey of migrants took a tragic turn as a boat carrying them sank off the French coast, resulting in the loss of six lives. A spokesperson from French coastal authority Premar reported that two people might still be unaccounted for, underscoring the perilous journey that these desperate souls embarked upon. In a coordinated effort, British and French coastguards managed to rescue around 58 survivors from the turbulent sea. […] - [Legionella Scare Rocks Bibby Stockholm: Asylum Seekers Forced to Flee Controversial Barge](https://heartlandstribune.com/legionella-scare-rocks-bibby-stockholm-asylum-seekers-forced-to-flee-controversial-barge/): Voyage of the Damned: The Bibby Stockholm Fiasco In a rather chilling display of ineptitude and disregard for human welfare, that could have come straight out of the annals of a Kafkaesque tragedy, the Bibby Stockholm, a massive vessel hired by the Home Office under the auspices of an eye-watering £1.6 billion immigration deal, have proven to be harbouring more than just the echoes of governmental folly, but a potential breeding ground for disease. The latest revelation: a lurking presence of legionella bacteria lurking within the vessel’s water system. Imagine, if you will, a rusting behemoth afloat in the serene waters […] - [Perverts, Pimps and Politicians: Unmasking Epstein's Vile Network](https://heartlandstribune.com/perverts-pimps-and-politicians-unmasking-epsteins-vile-network/): The Sordid Truth: How the Powerful Protected a Monstrous Sex Offender The tentacles of Jeffrey Epstein’s depraved empire wound their way deep into the upper echelons of the global elite. As the latest revelations make clear, powerful institutions and individuals enabled the notorious sex offender right up until his demise. And few bear more shame in this regard than JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank. Despite his 2008 conviction for child prostitution, JPMorgan continued its lucrative relationship with Epstein for years. The bank only cut ties in 2013, and even then seemingly due to reputational concerns rather than moral outrage. Throughout the […] - [Leaked Cable Reveals U.S. Pressure on Pakistan to Oust Imran Khan](https://heartlandstribune.com/leaked-cable-reveals-u-s-pressure-on-pakistan-to-oust-imran-khan/): Khan’s Fall: A Tale of Power, Corruption, and Imperialism US Diplomacy or Regime Change? A reportedly leaked classified Pakistani government cable is raising new questions about alleged US involvement in the political turmoil that led to Imran Khan’s removal as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from power in 2022. The cable details a March 2022 meeting between Pakistani officials and US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu, in which Lu reportedly said it would be easier for the US to forgive Pakistan if Khan was ousted in an impending no-confidence vote. Lu also suggested Khan’s neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of […] - [Our Democracy Under Threat: Electoral Commission Data Breach Puts Millions at Risk](https://heartlandstribune.com/our-democracy-under-threat-electoral-commission-data-breach-puts-millions-at-risk/): Our Data Sold, Our Democracy Undermined: The Implications of the Electoral Commission Hack The revelation that the Electoral Commission suffered a “complex cyber-attack” that gave hackers access to the personal details of millions of UK voters is deeply troubling. Though the Commission asserts the stolen data itself does not present a high risk, make no mistake – this attack threatens to both exploit voters financially and undermine trust in our democratic process. The commission believes the attackers were “hostile actors” who gained access to copies of the electoral register between August 2021 and October 2022. That’s over a year of unauthorised […] - [The Incestuous Relationship Between Journalists and the Establishment  ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-incestuous-relationship-between-journalists-and-the-establishment/): Journalists and the mainstream media should ask the question – “Are we the baddies?” The incestuous relationship between mainstream media and power is not unique to the United States. As Caitlin Johnstone highlights, the cosy dynamic between journalists and politicians permeates Western media, including British outlets. Johnstone traces how the composition of newsrooms has evolved to overrepresent elite circles. Where working-class perspectives once diversified coverage, now Ivy League and Oxbridge dominate. And proximity breeds sympathy. The old adversarial dynamic between reporters and officials has melted into an “us vs. them” mentality where journalists identify more with their well-heeled subjects than their […] - [The Great Bank Robbery: How Higher Rates Fill Bankers' Pockets While Fleecing Rent and Mortgage Prisoners](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-bank-robbery-how-higher-rates-fill-bankers-pockets-while-fleecing-rent-and-mortgage-prisoners/): Usury Unmasked: Bank of England’s Highwayman Tactics So, the Bank of England has decreed that the rack must be tightened another notch, condemning multitudes to penury. This latest gratuitous increase in the rate of interest cements the supposition that our outwardly genteel central bankers are, in truth, no better than highwaymen garbed in black waiting to bob the worker before his pay can even buy the bacon. While affecting a grave concern for the evils of inflation, the Bank’s desperate jiggery-pokery only compounds the economic chaos for which their own reckless policies are culpable. Far from containing the plague of rising […] - [The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polanyi](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-transformation-the-political-and-economic-origins-of-our-time-by-karl-polanyi/): The Great Transformation: Essential Reading for Our Time If you have ever wondered how, it got so bad, how the odds are so stacked against the working class…read on… In the vast expanse of literary creations, only a select few dare to grasp the essence of our reality. Among these illuminating works, Karl Polanyi’s magnum opus, “The Great Transformation,” emerges as an intellectual tour de force. Indeed, one finds a paucity of literary tomes that truly grasp the essence of our human condition. Yet, within the realm of intellectual exploration, Karl Polanyi’s magnum opus, “The Great Transformation,” stands as a beacon […] - [Climate Crisis Inc.: BP's Gluttonous $2.6 Billion Second-Quarter Bonanza](https://heartlandstribune.com/climate-crisis-inc-bps-gluttonous-2-6-billion-second-quarter-bonanza/): The Warped Morality of Fossil Fuel Barons: BP’s Shameful Profits The gluttonous executives at British Petroleum have once again gorged themselves on profits wrung from the slowly broiling carcass of Planet Earth. Reporting second-quarter earnings of $2.6 billion this week, these captains of corruption boasted of lavishing their shareholders with dividends fattened by the incineration of our common future. Profits soar as global oil and gas market prices tumble since reaching a peak last year. The global oil price averaged $76.60 a barrel in the last quarter, down sharply from an average of about $112 a barrel in the second quarter […] - [Sunak's Plunder: The Prime Minister Is Selling Off Britain's Future for the Benefit of His Own Family](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunaks-plunder-the-prime-minister-is-selling-off-britains-future-for-the-benefit-of-his-own-family/): The Sell-Off of North Sea Oil Licenses: A Smash-and-Grab Robbery The question on many people’s minds is why Rishi Sunak is involved in politics, given his incredibly wealthy background, with a wife richer than the King and a billionaire father-in-law. Critics argue that he has not demonstrated a genuine concern for the welfare of the general public beyond his own family’s interests. Some question his patriotism, pointing to his personal donations to schools and colleges in the US rather than directing his largesse to those struggling within his own constituencies. However, it seems the riddle of Rishi Sunak’s political motivations is […] - [Costa Coffee's Gender Madness: The Dark Side of Woke Capitalism](https://heartlandstribune.com/costa-coffees-gender-madness-the-dark-side-of-woke-capitalism/): The Absurdity of Costa Coffee’s Trans Activist Advertising In our modern world of inversions, falsehoods and general madness, even something as innocuous as a coffee shop can promote dangerous nonsense. The latest evidence is Costa Coffee’s ludicrous campaign featuring a character with mastectomy scars. Apparently, this cartoon figure with its surgically removed breasts is meant to show Costa’s praiseworthy commitment to ‘inclusivity and diversity’. But like so much of today’s transgender activism, it is shallow virtue-signalling that ignores reality. ‘The executives clearly have no idea what message this conveys, that irreversible surgery on healthy female breasts is to be applauded. Is […] - [Strikes called off as Teacher Unions Accept Pay Deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/strikes-called-off-as-teacher-unions-accept-pay-deal/): Teacher Strikes in England End with Union Win The National Education Union (NEU) announced that 86% of their members voted to accept the improved pay offer, with a high turnout of 60%. This demonstrates the resolve among teachers to fight for fair compensation. The NASUWT, NAHT and ASCL unions also voted to accept the deal, showing the power of co-ordinated industrial action across multiple unions. These unions had been gearing up for an even larger wave of walkouts this autumn, which would have significantly escalated pressure on the government. However, once Rishi Sunak finally agreed to implement pay review recommendations in […] - [Gas Barons Profit While People Suffer: Time to Reclaim Our Common Wealth from the Oligarchs](https://heartlandstribune.com/gas-barons-profit-while-people-suffer-time-to-reclaim-our-common-wealth-from-oligarchs/): British Gas owner Centrica sees profits leap almost 900% to £969mUnderlying earnings at Centrica’s gas and electricity supply arm leapt 889 percent to £ 969 million in the six months to June 30 from £ 98 million a year earlier. Nationalisation places people over profit. It’s time to reclaim our stolen commonwealth and rejuvenate the public good. While the common folk sink under soaring costs for food, rent and heat, the Gas Barons revel in their ill-got billions, plundered from the captive populace – a ninefold profit surge off the people’s hardship, enabled by craven politicians who stripped the nation’s resources […] - [Nigel Farage's Bank Account Closure: A Wake-Up Call for Political Bias in Banking](https://heartlandstribune.com/nigel-farages-bank-account-closure-a-wake-up-call-for-political-bias-in-banking/): The Threat of Political Bias in Banking Regardless of one’s views on Nigel Farage, the decision by Coutts bank to shut down accounts associated with him sets a worrying precedent. Whether left wing or right wing, no citizen should face financial exclusion due to their political opinions. This is bigger than Farage or the Brexit debates. It’s about whether banks get to quietly control who participates in public life. Maybe today it’s a right-wing loudmouth feeling the heat. Tomorrow it could be any troublemaker rocking the boat too much – environmentalists, minorities, activists of all types. Once political discrimination becomes normalized, […] - [The National Debt Myth: How Politicians and the Media Peddle Economic Fiction](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-national-debt-myth-how-politicians-and-the-media-peddle-economic-fiction/): The National Debt Bogeyman: Exposing the Great Fiscal Fraud Politicians love to cry wolf about the dangers of the ballooning national debt. They warn it’s an existential threat to our economy, a burden stealing from future generations. This fiscal fraud is used to justify austerity policies that only exacerbate inequality and human suffering. The truth about the national debt is far different from the debt hysteria peddled to the public. “There is no debt crisis.” This bold statement from economic expert Professor Richard Murphy rebuts the endless fearmongering about government debt. Politicians and media pundits love to portray the national debt […] - [A Clean Slate: Why UK Rivers Should Follow France's Lead](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-clean-slate-why-uk-rivers-should-follow-frances-lead/): For the last 100 years swimming in the River Seine was banned because of the levels of water pollution, that’s about to change. But as the 2024 Paris Olympics approaches, the once filthy River Seine is being transformed into a venue clean enough for swimming races. This Olympic makeover offers a model for restoring Britain’s polluted waterways. For over a century, wastewater pouring into the Seine made swimming hazardous. But after years of infrastructure upgrades and €1.4 billion invested, Paris’ main artery will host Olympic triathlons. By 2025, public swimming sites will allow locals to dive in. “Seeing athletes compete safely […] - [Craig Murray: Democracy’s Demise](https://heartlandstribune.com/craig-murray-democracys-demise/): What we had from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not what we have now. We live instead in a post-democratic society. By Craig MurrayCraigMurray.org.uk British Labour leader Keir Starmer’s determination to use his refusal to alleviate child poverty as the issue with which to demonstrate his macho Thatcherite credentials, has provided one of those moments when blurred perceptions crystallise. A Labour government in the U.K. under Starmer will bring no significant changes in economic or foreign policy and will make no difference whatsoever to the lives of working class people. If dividends were taxed at […] - [Starmer Gaslighting Labour’s National Policy Forum](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-gaslighting-labours-national-policy-forum/): Starmer’s Post-Defeat Reflection: Gaslighting and Priorities In the aftermath of a bruising defeat in Boris Johnson’s former seat, Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, attempted to rally his party while conveniently ignoring his own glaring shortcomings. With an audacious display of gaslighting, Starmer urged Labour to reflect on their priorities and questioned whether they truly align with the working people. It’s hard to take this seriously when Starmer himself has consistently stifled major policies that could genuinely benefit the working class, from nationalisation to a £15 minimum wage. You just can’t help but be sceptical when Sir Keir Starmer questions if Labour’s […] - [RMT Suspends Strike Action on London Underground](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-suspends-strike-action-on-london-underground/): RMT has suspended all strike action planned for next week on London Underground. The RMT has taken the decision to suspend all planned strike action on the London Underground for the following week, citing progress made in the ongoing pensions and jobs dispute. The tube union has been engaged in talks with TfL through ACAS, aiming to find a resolution to the longstanding issues concerning pensions, jobs, and working conditions. After pressure from union negotiators and the threat to bring the capital to a standstill for a week, significant concessions were made by TfL where their original plans for jobs cuts […] - [Political Tide Turns: Rishi Sunak's Narrow Escape and Labour's Failure to Capitalise](https://heartlandstribune.com/political-tide-turns-rishi-sunaks-narrow-escape-and-labours-failure-to-capitalise/): By-election results show voters are fed up with the status quo As the dust settles on the recent by-elections, Rishi Sunak clings to his only remaining hold in Uxbridge, seen by many as a result of Ulez. The race in Boris Johnson’s former constituency was a nail-biter, but Sunak’s party emerged victorious, avoiding a potentially “disastrous” triple by-election defeat. In the West Country, the Lib Dems celebrated a triumph in Somerton and Frome after the ex-Tory MP’s departure following a drug scandal. The by-election saw the Liberal Democrats overturn a significant Tory majority, leading by 11,008 votes. The swing of 29 […] - [The Race To The Bottom: Who will win the by-elections?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-race-to-the-bottom-who-will-win-the-by-elections/): Sunak braces for triple by-election blow Votes are being counted in three by-elections that were triggered by the resignation of sitting Conservative MPs. The seats for grabs include Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire, Somerton and Frome in Somerset, and former PM Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip in west London. The Conservatives hold majorities of around 20,000 in Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome – but a smaller majority in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. This leaves Rishi Sunak bracing himself for a possible triple by-election blow, a crucial test of his leadership, as polls close and ballots are counted […] - [Sir Kid Starver: Labour's Refusal to Tackle Child Poverty](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-kid-starver-labours-refusal-to-tackle-child-poverty/): What’s The Point of Labour, Under Sir Keir Starmer? In a political landscape dominated by grand promises and ambitious rhetoric, the Labour Party finds itself once again entangled in a thorny dilemma, one that has earned its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, a rather unflattering moniker – “Sir Kid Starver.” The source of this derisive nickname lies in the party’s refusal to address a contentious policy: the two-child benefits cap, which has been criticized for plunging families into poverty. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has been tight-lipped when questioned about whether a Labour government would increase spending on public services. However, […] - [Jamie Driscoll Standing as Independent for North East Mayor After Labour Betrayal](https://heartlandstribune.com/jamie-driscoll-standing-as-independent-for-north-east-mayor-after-labour-betrayal/): Jamie Driscoll confirms he is standing as an independent candidate for north-east mayor Jamie Driscoll, the left-wing regional mayor of the North of Tyne, has made the decision to part ways with the Labour Party following what he perceives as a betrayal in the north-east mayor race. Driscoll had been excluded from the race after his appearance alongside Ken Loach, the renowned film director and former Labour member. The move has ignited a contentious factionalism dispute within the party. Labour figures have suggested that Driscoll’s candidacy was blocked because he took part in an event with Loach, who was expelled from the party […] - [Dr David Kelly Testified In Front Of A Select Committee 'Iraq Had No Biological Weapons', Two Days Later He Was Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/dr-david-kelly-died-18-years-ago-today-after-testifying-in-front-of-a-select-committee-on-wmd-two-days-later-he-was-dead/): The Mysterious Death of Dr David Kelly In the dark corridors of political intrigue and government deceit, few stories captivate the public’s imagination and fuel conspiracy theories quite like the enigmatic demise of Dr David Kelly. A renowned weapons expert who fearlessly testified before a select committee, unequivocally proclaiming, “Iraq had no biological weapons,” only to meet a tragic end just two days later. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his death have left a trail of unanswered questions, fostering a climate of suspicion and raising doubts about the true nature of his untimely demise. In this article, we delve into the perplexing […] - [The Tolpuddle Martyrs: A Working Class Struggle](https://heartlandstribune.com/tolpuddle-martyrs/): “Every generation has to fight the same battles as every other. There’s no final victory and no final defeat. So everybody has to learn from what’s happened in the past and do the best they can…” -Tony Benn A Working Class Struggle The stark differences between the 21st century and the early 19th century in the Western world are undeniable, and rightly so. If we fail to make progress over a span of more than 200 years, then any hope of true emancipation becomes a fading illusion. However, what remains a constant truth is that our working class struggles have undergone […] - [Land of Broken Promises: D-day Veteran Forced into Hostel, Exposing Failures in Veteran and Elderly Care](https://heartlandstribune.com/land-of-broken-promises-d-day-veteran-forced-into-hostel-exposing-failures-in-veteran-and-elderly-care/): Is This Truly a Land Fit for Heroes? It seems not… Alfred Guenigault, a 98-year-old World War Two paratrooper and D-day veteran, has been evicted from his rented bungalow in Dorset and forced to move into a single room in a hostel. This eviction came under a ‘no-fault’ notice, leaving Alfred and his family in a state of uncertainty and distress. Alfred, who bravely landed at Pegasus Bridge during the Normandy landings, now feels that his war medals, including the prestigious Legion D’Honneur, hold little value in the face of such treatment. Living with his daughter Deb Dean and her husband […] - [Democratic Reform in Trade Unions: Navigating the Gatekeepers and Challenges](https://heartlandstribune.com/democratic-reform-in-trade-unions-navigating-the-gatekeepers-and-challenges/): Democracy’s Struggle: The Gatekeepers In the intricate realm of democratic reform within trade unions, the path to change is often riddled with obstacles and gatekeepers. It begs the question: Who holds the keys to transformation? Are their missteps a result of incompetence or deliberate hindrance of motions for democratic change they deem unfavourable? A recent incident involving Unite the Union’s Rules Conference sheds light on these complexities. An amendment proposing a shift from the first-past-the-post voting system to a single transferable preferential voting system for General Secretary became the focus of these gatekeepers. The proposed preferential voting system allows voters to […] - [The Storming of the Bastille: Shaking the Foundations of Power in Revolutionary France](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-storming-of-the-bastille-shaking-the-foundations-of-power-in-revolutionary-france/): The Storming of the Bastille Throughout the annals of history, there exist moments that resonate with such intensity that they leave an indelible mark upon the collective memory of a nation. Yet, there are certain events that possess an extraordinary power, shaking the very foundations of Europe itself and causing even the most mighty kings and emperors to tremble in anticipation of the profound repercussions that would ensue. The Storming of the Bastille, without a shadow of a doubt, belongs to this exceptional category—a defining moment forever woven into the intricate tapestry of French history. It stands as an enduring testament […] - [Government Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Funding Public Pay Rises](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-robbing-peter-to-pay-paul-funding-public-pay-rises/): Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: The Grim Reality of Public Pay Rises Adds Up to More Cuts and Austerity It didn’t have to be this way… The recent announcement of pay rises for millions of public sector workers seems like a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. While it may appear as a positive development, it is important to dig deeper into the details. Rishi Sunak has accepted all the recommendations of independent pay review bodies, which include increases for police officers, junior doctors, and teachers. However, the government has instructed government departments to fund these pay rises from […] - [The Cats Out of the Bag: Huw Edwards, A Dead Cat's Tale](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-cats-out-of-the-bag-huw-edwards-a-dead-cats-tale/): Wife of Huw Edwards names him as BBC presenter at the centre of allegations In a curious tale reminiscent of a proverbial dead cat, Huw Edwards, the well-known BBC presenter, has been named by his wife, Vicky Flind, in relation to allegations of payments for sexually explicit images. The Metropolitan police recently announced that they found no evidence of a criminal offence committed by Edwards and would be ending their inquiries into the matter. This in no way means the tale ends here… As is often the case with such peculiar tales, they possess an uncanny ability to linger in the […] - [Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird](https://heartlandstribune.com/book-review-to-kill-a-mockingbird/): Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” The publication of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” on 11 July 1960 was a landmark event in literature, not only for its artistic merit, but also for its moral courage. The novel confronts us with some of the most enduring and essential questions of human existence: How can we empathise with those who are different from us? How can we resist the tyranny of the majority and the pressure of conformity? How can we discern the truth from the lies, and the good from the evil? How can we live with integrity and dignity […] - [BBC Nonce: The Story That Never Was "Two plus two equals five"](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbc-nounce-the-story-that-never-was-two-plus-two-equals-five/): Self-evident truth and self-evident falsehood “Two plus two equals five” (2 + 2 = 5) is a mathematically incorrect phrase – George Orwell. In George Orwell’s seminal dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the phrase “Two plus two equals five” (2 + 2 = 5) represents a mathematically incorrect statement used to illustrate the totalitarian regime’s manipulation of truth. The novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, encounters this distortion of reality during his torment in Room 101. O’Brien, the interrogator, explains to Winston that the Party’s control over physical reality is inconsequential as long as the citizens of Oceania surrender their own perceptions to the […] - [Escalation and Hypocrisy: The Perilous Path of Cluster Bomb Supply in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/escalation-and-hypocrisy-the-perilous-path-of-cluster-bomb-supply-in-ukraine/): In the realm of warfare, there exists a repugnant weapon that thrives on chaos and devastation—the cluster bomb. The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) was born out of a collective determination to address the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm to civilians caused by cluster munitions. Britain has been a leading light on the issue of cluster bombs. Following the lead on landmines of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Foreign Office proved one of the main movers of the ground-breaking 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, helping to persuade 22 of 30 Nato allies to sign up to the agreement to ban their […] - [Celebrating Working-Class Pride: The Durham Miners Gala and its Enduring Significance](https://heartlandstribune.com/celebrating-working-class-pride-the-durham-miners-gala-and-its-enduring-significance/): Stepping into the Pages of History: The Durham Miners Gala and Its Living Heritage On Saturday, the historic Durham Miners’ Gala will once again fill the streets with thousands of participants, marking the 137th edition of this grand event. Since its inception in 1871. The annual Durham Miners’ Gala stands as a testament to the unwavering spirit of the mining community, persevering through adversity and evolving into a cherished tradition that embodies the values of solidarity, enjoyment, and the enduring strength of community bonds. Against all odds, the Durham Miners’ Gala, an enduring tradition, has withstood the closure of every deep […] - [KEIR STARMER’S SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MURDOCH PRESS](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmers-special-relationship-with-the-murdoch-press/): As England and Wales’ senior public prosecutor, Keir Starmer accepted more hospitality from Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers than the rest of the British press combined, indicating his current cultivation of the Murdoch media is a long-term project. This article first appeared in DECLASSIFIED UK, 5 JULY 2023, written by MATT KENNARD Keir Starmer had struck up a close relationship with the Murdoch media even before he entered politics, it can be revealed. When Starmer served as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from 2008-13 he accepted hospitality from the Murdoch-owned media on ten occasions, according to his hospitality register seen by Declassified.  This included […] - [The Price of Neglect: Why Water Bills Are Set to Surge in 2025](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-price-of-neglect-why-water-bills-are-set-to-surge-in-2025/): The Troubled Waters: Monopoly Companies and the Exploitation of Privatised Resources In a country where The reservoirs of profit flow freely, but the rivers of clean water remain choked with excrement, negligence and avarice we see how Monopoly resources, in this case, water have been nothing more than wells of riches for companies, who armed with exclusive control over our vital resources, have been plunging consumers into a deep pool of debt, with their poor performance, and environmental negligence. As the boss of regulator Ofwat, David Black, struggles to defend the industry’s reputation, he admits that higher bills loom on the […] - [The NHS at 75: Bevan's Vision Transformed Healthcare Forever](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-nhs-at-75-bevans-vision-transformed-healthcare-forever/): The NHS will last as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it. -FOOD FOR RAVENS, WRITTEN BY TREVOR GRIFFITHS. From Resistance to Resilience: The Birth and Evolution of the NHS On its 75th birthday, we look back at the remarkable history of the National Health Service (NHS), a beacon of healthcare that has transformed the lives of countless individuals in the United Kingdom. The roots of the NHS can be traced back to a post-war political consensus that recognised the need for a comprehensive healthcare system accessible to all. However, translating this vision into reality was no […] - [Government Strikes Blow to Freedom of Expression with Controversial 'Anti-Boycott Bill'](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-strikes-blow-to-freedom-of-expression-with-controversial-anti-boycott-bill/): The Anti-Boycott Bill: A Menacing Blow to Justice, Rights, and Democracy In a classic display of government manoeuvring, this week we witnessed the passage of plans to stop UK public bodies from boycotting foreign countries and British companies that trade with them representing a further attack on the right to freedom of expression. The passage of the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, colloquially known as the ‘anti-boycott Bill.’ Is a piece of contentious legislation that aims to curtail our ethical considerations in procurement and investment by prohibiting local authorities, universities, and public sector pension funds from taking principled […] - [Pumping Up Profits: How Supermarkets Exploit Motorists at the Pump](https://heartlandstribune.com/pumping-up-profits-how-supermarkets-exploit-motorists-at-the-pump/): Unleaded Greed: Supermarkets’ Shameful Tactics to Maximize Fuel Profits Supermarkets have been charging drivers filling up at the pumps 6p per litre more than they should have been last year. Throughout 2022 it is estimated that motorists were charged an extra £900 million on the forecourt in 2022, according to the Competitions and Markets Authority. The rapacious greed of the supermarket chains, which have long exploited their captive customers with exorbitant prices for basic goods, was exposed once again by a scathing investigation that found how they fleeced motorists who had paid nearly £1bn too much in fuel costs last year. […] - [Happy Birthday Julian Assange: The High Price of Truth](https://heartlandstribune.com/happy-birthday-julian-assange-the-high-price-of-truth/): “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”― George Orwell Happy Birthday Julian Assange: A Prisoner of Conscience in the Modern World On his 52nd birthday, Julian Assange, the journalist, whistleblower, truth-sayer, son, husband, and father, finds himself confined within the walls of Belmarsh prison—a sombre occasion that serves as a stark reminder of his enduring captivity and the victim of state revenge. As the oppressive walls of Belmarsh prison enclose around him, we are confronted with the grim reality of a man whose only “crime” was exposing the dark underbelly of war crimes and government wrongdoing. His […] - [From Nanterre to Marseille: The Spreading Flames of Discontent in France](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-nanterre-to-marseille-the-spreading-flames-of-discontent-in-france/): France in Turmoil: Riots and Unrest Grip the Nation Following Police Shooting The streets of France have descended into chaos as the nation grapples with a wave of riots and violence that shows no signs of abating. The catalyst for this widespread unrest was the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. during a routine traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. As the country enters its third day of protests, President Emmanuel Macron finds himself facing a nation on the edge, desperately seeking solutions to quell the flames of anger and frustration. In response to the escalating situation, Macron held […] - [How Privatisation Drowned Thames Water in Debt](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-privatisation-drowned-thames-water-in-debt/): Thames Water’s Debt Crisis: Privatisation Fails the Public Again Thames Water, the rapacious and incompetent private company that has been plundering and polluting the waterways of England for decades, is finally facing the consequences of its mismanagement and malfeasance. Along with its equally dismal counterpart Southern Water, it has consistently failed to meet the most basic standards of sewage treatment, pollution prevention, and sewer flooding prevention, earning the wrath and fines of the regulators. There should be a full inquiry into how this scandalous situation was allowed to persist, and who among the supine and toothless watchdogs of Ofwat and the […] - [House Flipping: Labour's Controversial Endorsement of Right to Buy Scheme](https://heartlandstribune.com/house-flipping-labours-controversial-endorsement-of-right-to-buy-scheme/): Labour’s Flipping Houses With Yet Another Poor Excuse For a U-turn Joan Maynard traditional Labour MP and trade unionist, was reputed to have said: “If both front benches are agreed, it’s probably bad news for the workers. And if a minister ever gets up and says ‘We’re going to have to take some tough choices and some tough decisions,’ it’s a disaster for the working class.” Well, folks it not only looks like both the Tories and Labour agree, yet again, but this time we are in for a disaster. Labour’s Lisa Nandy, Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, and […] - [While We're Fighting The Wolves at the Door Multimillionaire PM Sunak Gives a Mocking Call for Brits to show Some Grit](https://heartlandstribune.com/while-were-fighting-the-wolves-at-the-door-multimillionaire-pm-sunak-gives-a-mocking-call-for-brits-to-show-some-grit/): Rishi Sunak’s Mocking Call: Brits Urged to ‘Show Grit’ by Multimillionaire PM Rishi Sunak’s recent call for Brits to “be a Brit and show some grit” feels nothing short of a condescending mockery. It’s akin to the infamous phrase “Let them eat cake,” Yes, the multimillionaire Prime Minister expects us peasants to simply fend for ourselves. Easier said than done when you haven’t got the wolves knocking on your door. Simply telling struggling borrowers to ‘hold your nerve and trust my plan’ doesn’t hold water neither does it offer confidence to the millions in rented accommodation just as likely to see […] - [The Wagner Rebellion: A Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-wagner-rebellion-a-riddle-wrapped-in-a-mystery-inside-an-enigma/): Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. -Winston Churchill Famously, Winston Churchill defined Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of Moscow as the “other” – an inscrutable and menacing land that plays by its own rules, usually to the detriment of those who choose more open regulations or not as the case may be. In the past few days, we’ve certainly seen a riddle and a mystery if not the enigma…you cannot help but feel a sense of bewilderment when confronted […] - [Assange, Manning, and Snowden: Standing Up for Truth and Freedom of Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/assange-manning-and-snowden-standing-up-for-truth-and-freedom-of-speech/): Julian Assange: A Symbol of Truth and the Overt Side of Censorship In the intricate tapestry of modern history, certain individuals rise to prominence not only for their own actions but also for the ideas they represent. Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, is undoubtedly one of these figures. Over the years, he has become a symbol of truth and transparency in a world plagued by hidden agendas and manipulation. Yet, as Stella Assange, his wife, recently revealed, Julian’s current predicament underscores the darker side of censorship. In a recent speech, Stella Assange shed light on the alarming state of her […] - [Moscow Security Forces on Alert: Wagner Group Leader Faces Criminal Investigation](https://heartlandstribune.com/moscow-security-forces-on-alert-wagner-group-leader-faces-criminal-investigation/): Rising Tensions: FSB Targets Wagner Group Leader Over Alleged Call for Mutiny Criminal Case Initiated by FSB Following Wagner Group Leader’s Call for “Armed Rebellion” Russia has launched an investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, on allegations of promoting a mutiny against the government, as stated by Russia’s anti-terrorism committee on Friday. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group, said the Russian army attacked his troops on Friday. “We were ready to make concessions to the defence ministry, surrender our weapons,” Prigozhin said in an audio message released by his […] - [Brexit: The Red Wall's Resolute Decision: Why Remain Failed in the Labour Heartlands and It Always Will.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-red-walls-resolute-decision-why-remain-failed-in-the-labour-heartlands-and-it-always-will/): Brexit, Seven Years and Counting… Regardless of the multitude of objections raised by Remainers, both genuine and spurious, the fundamental fact remains unchanged: people voted to leave the European Union. It was not due to a bus promising a weekly contribution of £350 million to the NHS, a piece of propaganda that was debunked on the very day it emerged. Instead, the driving force behind the Brexit decision was the demand for democracy, accountability, and the restoration of sovereignty to the heart of Westminster, rather than in the distant corridors of Brussels. I was not because some rich Torie wanted to […] - [The Windrush Generation and the Following Very British Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-windrush-generation-and-the-following-very-british-scandal/): The Windrush Betrayal: How Britain Broke Its Promise to Caribbean Patriots The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948, carrying 492 passengers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands of the British West Indies. They were responding to the call of the mother country, which needed workers to rebuild its shattered economy after the Second World War. They came with hope and loyalty, expecting to be welcomed as British citizens and contributors to the Commonwealth. They were wrong. For decades, the Windrush generation and their descendants have faced discrimination, hostility and neglect from the British government and society. […] - [We are Living in The Middle of a Robbery and The Government are Acting as an Accomplice](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-are-living-in-the-middle-of-a-robbery-and-the-government-are-acting-as-an-accomplice/): From Robber Barons to Mafiocracy: Exposing the Globalised Cartel Behind the Cost of Living Crisis The world has once again found itself teetering on the edge of crisis, this time in the form of soaring energy prices and rising inflation. The poorest households are bearing the brunt of this crisis, while the government’s response has been woefully inadequate. The Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) was a welcome relief for many households, but it did little to address the root causes of the crisis. The real culprits are the energy companies, who have been raking in record profits while ordinary people struggle […] - [The Big Lie: It Wasn't Antisemitism That Killed The Corbyn Project It Was The Remainers](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-big-lie-it-wasnt-antisemitism-that-killed-the-corbyn-project-it-was-the-remainers/): “He Who Controls the Past” And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed —if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth.– George Orwell -1984 In an era dominated by political deception and smears, the documentary film “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie,” crafted by the acclaimed radical filmmaker Platform Films, plunges deep into the shadows of the Labour Party. With compelling contributions from notable figures like Jackie Walker, Ken Loach, Andrew Murray, Graham Bash, and Moshe Machover, and the commanding narration of Alexei Sayle, this feature-length documentary uncovers a […] - [The Iron Heel: It's them and us, it always has been](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-them-and-us-it-always-has-been/): The Elites Are Fighting a Vicious Class War All the Time -Noam Chomsky How lucky we are to have such a splendid choice of political parties in this country! On the one hand, we have the Tories, who bravely defend the interests of the rich and powerful by waging endless wars and plundering the planet. On the other hand, we have Labour, who nobly protect the interests of the poor and oppressed by… well, by doing exactly the same thing. In the never-ending cycle of political shifts, people often find themselves wondering why change remains elusive, regardless of which party occupies […] - [MPs Deliver Verdict on Boris Johnson over Partygate](https://heartlandstribune.com/mps-deliver-verdict-on-boris-johnson-over-partygate/): MPs approve Johnson #Partygate report The House of Commons has voted to accept the privileges committee report on the conduct of former prime minister Boris Johnson during Partygate. In a momentous decision that reverberated through the halls of the House of Commons, Members of Parliament voted to accept the hard-hitting report by the privileges committee, which meticulously scrutinized the conduct of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the infamous Partygate scandal. The resounding result spoke volumes: 354 MPs stood in favour of approval, while a paltry seven voted against. Thus, the die has been cast – the report has received the seal of […] - [MP David Warburton Resigns Amidst Sexual Misconduct Allegations: Tory Party Faces Yet Another By-Election](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-david-warburton-resigns-amidst-sexual-misconduct-allegations-party-faces-yet-another-by-election/): Political Fallout: David Warburton’s Resignation Puts Pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak To Call a General Election Party finds itself embroiled in yet another scandal as the suspended MP David Warburton resigns from his seat, triggering yet another by-election. This development comes as a blow to the already beleaguered party, with Warburton facing allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. The saga began in April 2022 when Warburton was suspended pending an investigation by the independent complaints and grievance scheme (ICGS). The investigation centred around allegations of harassment and drug use, which Warburton vehemently denies. However, he claims that he was […] - [The Battle of Orgreave](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-battle-of-orgreave/): Monday, 18 June 1984, was the most violent day of the year-long miners’ strike. On that fateful day in June 1984, a clash of epic proportions erupted outside the Orgreave Coke works near Rotherham. Thousands of determined pickets faced off against a massive deployment of 5,000 officers brought in from all corners of the country. The ensuing Battle of Orgreave, widely regarded as one of the most violent confrontations during the year-long miners’ strike, left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the mining community. Amidst the chaos and brutality, 95 individuals found themselves charged with riot and violent disorders. […] - [Selling Out the NHS: The Shocking Links Between Labour MPs and Private Healthcare Donations](https://heartlandstribune.com/selling-out-the-nhs-the-shocking-links-between-labour-mps-and-private-healthcare-donations/): Labour’s Shame: Senior Party Members Linked to Private Healthcare Interests In a shocking revelation, the Every Doctor campaign group has unearthed a web of connections between Members of Parliament and the private healthcare sector. The investigation focused on the 2022/3 register of interests of MPs at Westminster, mapping out those who receive financial contributions or benefits from entities associated with for-profit healthcare enterprises. Much like ‘The Foodbank map’ or The ‘My Little Crony’ map that shows how large numbers of contracts have been handed out to Conservative Party political donors, family members and employers during the coronavirus pandemic the Privatisation Map […] - [Michael Lockwood: Former Head of Police Watchdog Charged with Rape](https://heartlandstribune.com/michael-lockwood-former-head-of-police-watchdog-charged-with-rape/): From Oversight to Accused: Former Police Watchdog Director Faces Serious Charges Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three counts of rape involving a girl under the age of 16. The charges come after a historical allegation against Lockwood, which led to his departure from the IOPC in December. Rosemary Ainslie, head of the special crime division at the CPS, stated that the decision to proceed with charges was made after careful consideration of the evidence provided by Humberside Police. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) […] - [Privileges committee: Boris Johnson would face 90-day suspension if he were still MP](https://heartlandstribune.com/privileges-committee-boris-johnson-would-face-90-day-suspension-if-he-were-still-mp/): Johnson may have flown the Coop but he’s still creating havoc in a Tory civil war Johnson may have departed from Westminster, but his disruptive influence continues to fuel the ongoing Tory civil war. Supporters of Boris Johnson have launched scathing attacks against both the select committee and any Conservative MPs who have endorsed its conclusions. This development comes in the wake of the select committee’s announcement that had Boris Johnson still been an MP, it would have recommended a 90-day suspension as a disciplinary measure. Initially, the committee was inclined to propose a suspension lasting more than 10 sitting days, […] - [Glenda Jackson: Oscar-winning actress and former Labour MP, dies aged 87](https://heartlandstribune.com/glenda-jackson-oscar-winning-actress-and-former-labour-mp-dies-aged-87/): From Two-Up, Two-Down to the Triple Crown Throne Today, we bid farewell to a true legend who embodied the spirit of unyielding talent and unwavering conviction. Glenda Jackson, the renowned English actress and politician, passed away on June 15, 2023, leaving behind a remarkable legacy that has forever shaped the realms of acting and public service. Born into humble beginnings on May 9, 1936, Glenda Jackson emerged from a world defined by scarcity and hardship. Growing up in a modest two-up, two-down house in Birkenhead, Cheshire, she found solace and inspiration in the world of cinema, her namesake being the Hollywood […] - [Remembering Bob Crow: A Firebrand Leader and Working Class Hero](https://heartlandstribune.com/remembering-bob-crow-a-firebrand-leader-and-working-class-hero/): A Tribute to Bob Crow: A Champion for Workers’ Rights On this day, as we mark what would have been his 62nd birthday, we pay tribute to the indomitable spirit of Bob Crow, the charismatic trade union leader who fearlessly championed the rights of the working class until his untimely departure in 2014. As the General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), Crow left an indelible mark on the British trade union movement, embodying the spirit of a true socialist and champion of democracy. Born in Epping, Essex, into a working-class family, Crow’s humble upbringing […] - [Hush Money or Justice? JPMorgan's Epstein Settlement Raises Concerns](https://heartlandstribune.com/hush-money-or-justice-jpmorgans-epstein-settlement-raises-concerns/): JPMorgan’s Dirty Dealings: The Epstein Settlement and Its Implications In a calculated move to preserve its tarnished reputation, JPMorgan Chase announced a settlement with one of the victims of the paedophile and sexual predator, Jeffrey Epstein. This carefully orchestrated agreement aims to put on a facade of justice while leaving many unanswered questions and potential accomplices unscathed. The unnamed victim, referred to as Jane Doe 1, had filed a lawsuit alleging that JPMorgan Chase knowingly benefited from and facilitated Epstein’s heinous sex trafficking operation. While the settlement is touted as being in the best interests of all parties, one cannot help […] - [Labour Party Grapples with Another Suspension: Shadow Minister Bambos Charalambous Suspended](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-grapples-with-another-suspension-shadow-minister-bambos-charalambous-suspended/): Labour Party Whip Suspended for Shadow Minister Bambos Charalambous Shadow minister Bambos Charalambous finds himself embroiled in a storm of controversy as the Labour Party suspends him from his duties following a complaint about his conduct. Charalambous, the MP for Enfield Southgate and a shadow Foreign Office minister under Sir Keir Starmer, is currently under investigation by Labour’s independent complaints process. The suspension entails administrative measures, including the suspension of the party whip in the House of Commons. Charalambous has voluntarily stepped down from his frontbench role on the shadow foreign affairs team. In response to the situation, Charalambous has expressed […] - [Breaking: Boris Johnson Stepping Down as an MP with Immediate Effect](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-boris-johnson-stepping-down-as-an-mp-with-immediate-effect/): Boris Johnson is standing down immediately Boris Johnson is standing down as the Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, it has been reported. The move by the former prime minister will trigger an immediate by-election. He took the move after the Privileges Committee of the House of Commons reportedly found he misled Parliament & recommended sanction of more than 10 days. Johnson told the Times: “It is very sad to be leaving parliament – at least for now – but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, […] - [Boris Johnson's Resignation Honours List: A Masterclass in Cronyism and Machiavellian Politics](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnsons-resignation-honours-list-a-masterclass-in-cronyism-and-machiavellian-politics/): From Contention to Confirmation: The Honours List Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, a conspicuous testament to cronyism and political manoeuvring, has at long last been ratified by the government’s unyielding hand, following months of contentious wrangling. Behold, unveiled in all its grandeur, the comprehensive catalogue of accolades bestowed upon the privileged few by the esteemed premier—a roll call of peerages, meticulously tailored to curry favour and reinforce the entrenched elite. Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list reverberates with the dishonourable names of individuals deeply entangled in the Partygate scandal. Amongst them stands Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary under Johnson, whose shameless […] - [Honours List Drama: Nadine Dorries' Timely Resignation Raises Eyebrows](https://heartlandstribune.com/honours-list-drama-nadine-dorries-timely-resignation-raises-eyebrows/): Nadine Dorries’ Departure: A Convenient Move Prior to the Honours Revelation Nadine Dorries has announced she is standing down with immediate effect. In a calculated move that raises eyebrows and invites speculation, former Tory minister Nadine Dorries has made a consequential announcement—she is stepping down from her role as a Member of Parliament. Dorries, who previously served as the culture secretary and enjoyed a close alliance with Boris Johnson, declared her resignation “with immediate effect,” citing the need for fresh leadership to take charge. The announcement came with a short tweet: “It has been an honour to serve as the MP […] - [Julian Assange Denied Appeal: A Blow to Press Freedom and Justice](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-denied-appeal-a-blow-to-press-freedom-and-justice/): Assange’s Hopes Dwindle: High Court Refuses Appeal, Threatening His Freedom and Journalism Worldwide In a disheartening turn of events, the High Court of England and Wales has shattered Julian Assange’s hopes for an appeal, leaving him exposed to extradition to the United States. The court’s three-page decision swiftly rejected all eight grounds put forth by Assange’s legal team, dealing a severe blow to the WikiLeaks publisher’s fight against espionage and computer intrusion charges. Despite this setback, Assange’s legal team still has one remaining option within the UK’s judicial system. They have five days to request a hearing before the court, grasping […] - [Eurozone's Optimism Shattered: Recession Strikes Amid Energy and Food Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/eurozones-optimism-shattered-recession-strikes-amid-energy-and-food-crisis/): Eurozone Slides Into Recession: Energy Crisis and Inflation Weigh Heavily The eurozone, contrary to previous forecasts, has succumbed to a recession as data released on Thursday revealed a second consecutive quarter of economic contraction. The region’s growth momentum has been gnawed at by a perfect storm of energy shocks, Russia’s war in Ukraine, mounting inflation, and tightening monetary policies, leading to a premature dent in politicians’ optimistic outlook on the eurozone’s economic resilience. According to revised data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, the GDP of the 20-nation currency area shrank by 0.1 percent in the first three months of 2023. […] - [Thoughtcrime Witchhunt: The Oxford Union's Battle Against Gender-Critical Feminists](https://heartlandstribune.com/thoughtcrime-witchhunt-the-oxford-unions-battle-against-gender-critical-feminists/): “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell The saga surrounding Kathleen Stock’s invitation to speak at the Oxford Union has captivated media attention for weeks. Outraged by the invitation, hundreds of students are planning protests, with the LGBTQ+ society condemning the decision. The Oxford Students’ Union has severed financial ties with the Oxford Union, jeopardising its very existence. Open letters have been exchanged in a war of words between students and academics. We’ve all heard how LGBT+ activists stormed the talk with feminist Kathleen Stock at the Oxford […] - [Mel Gibson Strikes at the Heart of the Multibillion-Dollar Child Sex Trafficking Industry](https://heartlandstribune.com/mel-gibson-strikes-at-the-heart-of-the-multibillion-dollar-child-sex-trafficking-industry/): Claims Mel Gibson is making a documentary on the $34 billion global child sex trafficking market! Jeffery Epstein is the tip of the iceberg. In the seedy underbelly of the internet, whispers of an upcoming docuseries by Tim Ballard and acclaimed actor Mel Gibson have ignited a firestorm of speculation and anticipation while striking fear in the hearts of others. On Tuesday, the Twitter page Leading Report tweeted what it claimed to be breaking news. “Mel Gibson is allegedly making a 4-part docuseries on the $34 billion global child sex trafficking market involving countries like Ukraine,” it wrote. The tweet was viewed over […] - [Artificial Intelligence: The Modern Prometheus or Frankenstein's Monster](https://heartlandstribune.com/artificial-intelligence-the-modern-prometheus-or-frankensteins-monster/): AI’s Dual Nature: Opportunities and Concerns in the Era of First Contact In the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), a cacophony of voices has arisen, echoing a Claxton-sounding and dire warning as the general public ventures closer to these emergent technological platforms. Experts, with an air of cautiousness, implore us to “pay attention” to the profound possibilities of harm that AI may bring, further asserting that governments lack the know-how to regulate this technology safely. However, amidst the apocalyptic overtones that emanated from 350 AI experts just last week, proclaiming a potential extinction event for humanity, there also lies an ocean […] - [Charity Begins at Home: Unfortunately, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sees that as America](https://heartlandstribune.com/charity-begins-at-home-unfortunately-british-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-sees-that-has-america/): UK Schools Struggle as Rishi Sunak’s Donations Flow Overseas: A Stark Contrast in Priorities In a striking display of misplaced priorities, Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and his wife, Akshata Murty, have donated a staggering $3million to Claremont McKenna College in California. The prestigious American college boasts a state-of-the-art computing lab, named the Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab, complete with top-of-the-range computers and high-end chairs costing £650 each. While Sunak and Murty bask in the glory of their names emblazoned on a sign outside the lab, schools in Sunak’s own North Yorkshire constituency are left struggling […] - [Labour's Authoritarian Streak: Jamie Driscoll Barred, Starmer's Hypocrisy Exposed](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-authoritarian-streak-jamie-driscoll-barred-starmers-hypocrisy-exposed/): Double Standards in the Labour Party: Jamie Driscoll’s Exclusion and Keir Starmer’s Hypocrisy Once again, the Labour Party finds itself mired in accusations of double standards, this time with the exclusion of Jamie Driscoll, the popular North of the Tyne mayor, from the Labour North East mayoral race. The reason cited for his exclusion? His association with acclaimed filmmaker Ken Loach, specifically sharing a stage to discuss Loach’s filmmaking at a Newcastle venue. The irony is palpable. Ken Loach, a renowned director, was expelled from the Labour Party for his refusal to sever ties with individuals and groups that had fallen […] - [The Corbynista Outcast: Labour's Decision to Exclude Jamie Driscoll Bangs Another Nail in Labour's Coffin](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-corbynista-outcast-labours-decision-to-exclude-jamie-driscoll-bangs-another-nail-in-labours-coffin/): Labour’s Purge of the Left: The Exclusion of Jamie Driscoll and the Battle for North East Mayoralty In a stunning turn of events, the race for the North East mayoralty has encountered a dramatic twist as Jamie Driscoll, the successful left-wing mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority, has been excluded from Labour’s selection contest. Driscoll, often regarded as the “last Corbynista in power,” has been a frontrunner for the position and enthusiastically launched his campaign last month. The decision to leave him off the longlist of candidates has left his main rival, Kim McGuinness, the Northumbria Police and Commissioner […] - [Boris Johnson Bypasses Government to Hand Over Unredacted WhatsApp Messages](https://heartlandstribune.com/boris-johnson-bypasses-government-to-hand-over-unredacted-whatsapp-messages/): From Lockdowns to Cover-ups: what’s really behind Johnson’s WhatsApp Messages In the realm of political power plays and hidden agendas, there’s a high-stakes battle over Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages. As the government resists releasing the messages to the Covid inquiry, questions arise: Whose interests are they truly protecting? Rishi Sunak’s government is trying to block inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett’s order to release WhatsApp messages and diaries, arguing that it should not have to hand over material which is “unambiguously irrelevant”. However, a defiant Johnson has said: “I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it.” Johnson’s eagerness to bypass […] - [Judge orders the CPS to come clean about the destruction of key documents in Julian Assange's case](https://heartlandstribune.com/judge-orders-the-cps-to-come-clean-about-the-destruction-of-key-documents-in-julian-assanges-case/): Judge orders the Crown Prosecution Service to come clean about the destruction of key documents on Julian Assange In a groundbreaking ruling on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case surrounding Julian Assange, Judge O’Connor has ordered the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to reveal information regarding the destruction of key documents. This decision marks the first crack in the wall of secrecy surrounding the case, which has faced years of obstruction. WIKILEAKS state – In addition to the ruling, Labour MP John McDonnell has just obtained new information from the Crown Prosecution Service. McDonnell is calling for an independent inquiry into […] - [#MeToo: Labour MP Geraint Davies loses whip over sexual harassment allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/metoo-labour-mp-geraint-davies-loses-whip-over-sexual-harassment-allegations/): Labour suspends MP over ‘incredibly serious allegations’ Labour has suspended MP Geraint Davies pending an investigation into reports of “incredibly serious allegations of completely unacceptable behaviour”. The decision to administratively suspend the Swansea West MP means he will have the whip removed in Westminster while a review is carried out. It follows claims against the veteran politician, which were reported by the website Politico. A Labour spokesperson said: “These are incredibly serious allegations of completely unacceptable behaviour.” We strongly encourage anyone with a complaint to come forward to the Labour Party’s investigation.” “Any complainant will have access to an independent support […] - [Parody and Protest: Roger Waters and Charlie Chaplin's Battle Against Fascism](https://heartlandstribune.com/parody-and-protest-roger-waters-and-charlie-chaplins-battle-against-fascism/): From Waters to Chaplin: Reviving the Spirit of Resistance Through Art After the controversy, of Germany’s investigation into the renowned musician and Pink Floyd co-founder, Roger Waters, unfolds. The scrutiny arises from Waters’ recent concert performance in Berlin, where Waters took the stage donned in a Nazi-inspired uniform, wielding an imitation machine gun as part of a skit. The recreation of a scene from Pink Floyd’s 1982 film “The Wall” was intended to mock Nazi ideology, a performance art form he has been known for since the early ’80s. One that has received awards and even a stamp issued by the […] - [After Clearing MI5 of Torture, Keir Starmer Attended its Chief’s Farewell Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/after-clearing-mi5-of-torture-keir-starmer-attended-its-chiefs-farewell-party/): The year after he protected Jonathan Evans from possible prosecution, the U.K. Labour leader — then senior public prosecutor — went to the spymaster’s farewell drinks, paid for by the security agency, Matt Kennard reports. By Matt Kennard Declassified UK The leaving party took place on April, 16l 2013 when Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions, the most senior public prosecutor in England and Wales. Starmer recorded in his Crown Prosecution Service hospitality register that he had “drinks” with “Sir Jonathon [sic] Evans KCB.” KCB stands for Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, a knighthood awarded by the British Crown […] - [Artistic Parody or Criminal Act? Roger Waters Investigated by German Authorities for Mocking Nazis](https://heartlandstribune.com/artistic-parody-or-criminal-act-roger-waters-investigated-by-german-authorities-for-mocking-nazis/): Roger Waters is under investigation by German authorities for doing what he’s always done, mocking Nazies. Police in Germany have launched an investigation into the Pink Floyd co-founder and renowned musician, Roger Waters, after his recent performance at a concert in Berlin stirred controversy. Waters, known for his artistic provocations, wore a Nazi-inspired uniform and fired an imitation machine gun as part of a skit during the show. The recreation of a scene from Pink Floyd’s 1982 film “The Wall” aimed to mock the Nazi ideology, and Berlin, with its historical significance, served as a poignant backdrop. @rogerwaters, faces investigation in […] - [Inflation's Chokehold: Germany Enters Recession, Casting Shadow over Eurozone](https://heartlandstribune.com/inflations-chokehold-germany-enters-recession-casting-shadow-over-eurozone/): German economy enters recession amid worsening outlook Germany has long been the shining star of the European Union, its industrial prowess a source of envy for many. However, the economic titan now finds itself grappling with the gloomy clouds in a recessionary summer. As inflation continues to rise, consumers are tightening their belts, sending shockwaves through the German economy and leaving a trail of economic contraction in its wake. The outlook for the remainder of the year appears just as bleak, painting a worrisome picture for both Germany and the wider Eurozone. Recent data from the Federal Statistical Office, Destatis, has […] - [From Freedom of Movement Advocate to Immigration Opportunist: Keir Starmer A Political Weathercock in Action](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-freedom-of-movement-advocate-to-immigration-opportunist-keir-starmer-a-political-weathercock-in-action/): Flip-Flopping Keir Starmer’s Immigration Acrobatics: A Weathercock in the Political Storm The Labour Party has accused the government of “breaking promises” on migration as official figures are expected to confirm that numbers have increased. The Labour leader made the charge as official figures due out today are expected to show that net migration has increased to more than 700,000 in the year to December 2022. At this point, it doesn’t matter where you stand on immigration what does matter is where our politicians stand and more so can we believe them… In the ever-volatile landscape of British politics, few demonstrate the […] - [Lords' Amendments Rejected: Government Pushes Forward with Anti-Strike Legislation](https://heartlandstribune.com/lords-amendments-rejected-government-pushes-forward-with-anti-strike-legislation/): Strike Rights Under Threat: MPs Choose Bosses Over Workers’ Well-being In a crucial vote on the Lords’ amendments to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, Members of Parliament have given their backing to controversial legislation that aims to grant employers and ministers the authority to dismiss workers who refuse to cross their own picket lines and ensure a yet-to-be-defined minimum service level during strikes in various sectors, including transport and education. The Bill faced fierce opposition from peers in the House of Lords, who successfully passed multiple amendments aimed at protecting workers. One key amendment removed the threat of dismissal for […] - [Battle for Fair Pay: Junior Doctors Prepare for a New 72-Hour Walkout](https://heartlandstribune.com/battle-for-fair-pay-junior-doctors-prepare-for-a-new-72-hour-walkout/): Junior doctors in England have announced a new 72-hour walkout in June after the latest round of government pay talks broke down. In a resolute act of protest, junior doctors in England have declared their intention to stage a 72-hour walkout in June. This move comes as a direct response to the breakdown of government pay talks and the inadequacy of the proposed 5% pay rise, which the British Medical Association (BMA) union has deemed as not “credible.” Scheduled to commence at 07:00 on Wednesday, June 14th, and conclude at 07:00 on Saturday, June 17th, the strike is intended to send […] - [Rachel Reeves: Labour's Economic Plans Take Flight, in Business Class](https://heartlandstribune.com/rachel-reeves-labours-economic-plans-take-flight-in-business-class/): Rachel Reeves: Flying High on Hypocrisy In the realm of politics, the clash between rhetoric and reality is often a very fertile ground for hypocrisy to flourish. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor of the Labour Party, found herself in the eye of a storm after she took a business class flight to New York. The irony was not lost on those who have closely followed Labour’s narrative of economic equality and fiscal responsibility. Ms Reeves, claiming to be on a mission to “promote Labour’s economic plans,” showcased her grand gesture by posting a picture of her luxury ticket on social media. […] - [The Bilderberg Conspiracy: A Deep Dive into the Shadowy Assembly of Power](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bilderberg-conspiracy-a-deep-dive-into-the-shadowy-assembly-of-power/): British Politicians In the Shadows of Influence: The Hidden Agenda of Bilderberg In the splendid seclusion of Lisbon’s Pestana Palace, the annual Bilderberg Meetings unfolded, an exclusive gathering of the world’s powerful elites, diplomats, and lobbyists. The veil of secrecy surrounding this event raises questions that demand answers. Who are these influential individuals, and in whose name do they convene to discuss matters that will inevitably affect the lives of countless people? Who sits at the helm of this clandestine high council? This annual event, known for its networking, diplomacy, and lobbying, raises questions about the true agenda and the individuals […] - [Levellers Day: An Agreement Of The Free People of England](https://heartlandstribune.com/levellers-day-an-agreement-of-the-free-people-of-england/): The Levellers: Champions of Democracy and Radical Reform Each year, since its inception in 1975, Levellers’ Day has become a cherished tradition in the idyllic Oxfordshire town of Burford. This annual gathering serves as a poignant commemoration, paying homage to the indomitable spirit of the three Levellers who were executed there. As the town comes alive on the Saturday closest to 17th May, a vibrant tapestry of history, remembrance, and celebration unfolds. Levellers’ Day embraces a different theme with each passing year, encapsulating the diverse struggles and triumphs that have shaped our collective pursuit of freedom and justice. In the morning, […] - [Democracy Under Threat: Labour's Move to Silence Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/democracy-under-threat-labours-move-to-silence-corbyn/): Corbyn’s Bid for MP Re-Election Sparks More Controversy Within Labour Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn finds himself at odds with his own party as he expresses his intention to continue serving as the Member of Parliament for Islington North. This came after the local party, in a nearly unanimous decision, passed a motion supporting Corbyn’s candidacy and asserting their democratic right to select their own representative. However, if Corbyn chooses to run as an independent candidate, it is highly likely that he will face expulsion from the Labour Party, potentially marking the end of his association with the party. The motion […] - [It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2025 and believe...](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-not-okay-to-be-a-grown-adult-in-2023-and-believe/): It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2025 and believe all the bullshit they’re telling you… ❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2025 and believe the US and UK are pouring weapons into a foreign nation to defend freedom and democracy. ❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2025 and believe the mainstream media who have lied to us about every war is somehow telling the truth about this one. ❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2025 and believe serious military conflicts consist of Good Guys fighting Bad […] - [Bevan’s Warning: How Joining the EU Would Result in a Political Malaise](https://heartlandstribune.com/bevans-warning-how-joining-the-eu-resulted-in-a-political-malaise/): That Malaise has Brought about the Failure to Seize the Opportunities of Brexit Nye Bevan once aptly stated regarding the UK’s prospect of entry into the European Union (then known as the EEC) that: “The conception of the Common Market is the result of a political malaise following the failure of Socialists to use the sovereign power of their parliaments to plan their economic life”. Regrettably, the UK disregarded Bevan’s advice and, under the Tories in 1973, joined that very union. However, it was this decision that laid the foundation for the prevailing malaise, which has permeated all mainstream political parties […] - [Slum Landlords Given Free Rein as Government Removes Basic Housing Protections for Asylum Seekers](https://heartlandstribune.com/slum-landlords-given-free-rein-as-government-removes-basic-housing-protections-for-asylum-seekers/): Tories Plans to Remove Basic Housing Protections for Asylum Seekers The government is paving the way for slum landlords by removing essential housing protections. Under new rules aimed at relocating tens of thousands of asylum seekers from hotels to the private rented sector, landlords would be exempted from regulations encompassing electrical safety and minimum room sizes. Campaigners are sounding the alarm, cautioning that the government’s actions could result in people being crammed into cramped spaces, exacerbating the already dire crisis in asylum seeker accommodation. Ministers, led by Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Housing Secretary Michael Gove, are pushing for the implementation […] - [Zelensky's Starring Role in Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelenskys-starring-role-in-dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/): We have now entered the world of Dr Strangelove Today Ukraine get the bomb… the UK hand over Storm Shadow missiles… It has been over a year since Russia made its decisive move into the Ukrainian civil war, dispatching troops to the Donbas region, an area encompassing approximately 50,000 square kilometres, accounting for around 13% of Ukraine’s total land area. This contested region comprises Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, with Donetsk covering roughly 26,500 square kilometres and Luhansk spanning around 26,200 square kilometres. It was in this troubled territory that a significant portion of Ukraine’s population resided—4.5 million individuals caught in the […] - [RMT Union Welcome Move to Strip the Transpennine Express Franchise from Rail Privateer First Group](https://heartlandstribune.com/rmt-union-welcome-move-to-strip-the-transpennine-express-franchise-from-rail-privateer-first-group/): TransPennine Express to be brought under government control due to ‘continuous cancellations’ The Transport Secretary has today (11 May 2023) announced he will not renew or extend Transpennine Express’s (TPE) contract at the end of the month. This will bring the company into operator of last resort (OLR) from 28 May 2023. The decision follows months of significant disruption and regular cancellations across Transpennine Express’s network, which has resulted in a considerable decline in confidence for passengers who rely on the trains to get to work, visit family and friends and go about their daily lives. Recent data showed that TransPennine […] - [The Twitter Trial: How a Left-Wing Academic Tried to Silence a Working-Class Firefighter](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-twitter-trial-how-a-left-wing-academic-tried-to-silence-a-working-class-firefighter/): UCU General Secretary Jo Grady pays Paul Embery Twitter libel damages UCU General Secretary Dr Jo Grady has agreed to pay substantial damages to firefighter, trade unionist and writer Paul Embery, after defaming him on Twitter. In a society plagued by political correctness and the suppression of dissenting voices, Paul Embery, firefighter and trade unionist from Norfolk, has emerged as a shining example of resilience and integrity. As the recent court hearing revealed, Embery’s battle against union leader Dr Jo Grady’s defamatory tweets not only secured justice for himself but also struck a blow against the dominant narrative of the liberal […] - [Labour Party: Senior Aide Retains Job Despite Sexual Harassment Findings](https://heartlandstribune.com/scandal-in-labour-party-senior-aide-retains-job-despite-sexual-harassment-findings/): Labour Party: An Unacceptable Failure in Addressing Sexual Harassment The Labour Party’s handling of a sexual harassment complaint has come under fire after a woman’s complaint against a senior party aide was upheld twice over the course of three years, yet the man has been allowed to keep his job advising a member of the shadow frontbench. The woman, who was groped by the man when she was a former intern in her early 20s, expressed her disappointment with the party’s inaction, which left her feeling let down. Despite the party’s insistence that all complaints of sexual misconduct are taken seriously […] - [LBC's James O'Brien: Centrist Lapdog or State Propaganda Machine?](https://heartlandstribune.com/lbcs-james-obrien-centrist-lapdog-or-state-propaganda-machine/): Gaslighting and Propaganda: The James O’Brien Show In an age where journalism should be the bastion of truth and impartiality, it is disheartening to witness the rise of individuals like James O’Brien, who masquerade as journalists but serve as mere mouthpieces for the establishment. O’Brien’s recent antics have exposed not only his blatant arrogance and ignorance but also his condescending and rude demeanour towards those who hold differing opinions. The centrist lapdog has made a name for himself by attacking individuals with socialist tendencies, branding them as threats to society. However, his real agenda seems to be not only upholding the […] - [The Rise of Independent Left Wing Groups: A Response to Labour’s Right Wing Shift](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rise-of-independent-left-wing-groups-a-response-to-labours-right-wing-shift/): As a Hung Parliament Looms Labour’s Losses to Independents Reflect the Public’s Demand for Genuine Representation The local election results have shown a trend towards the emergence of independent groups and individuals, indicating a growing dissatisfaction with the dominant Parties. Labour has failed to make significant gains against the Tories, leaving the possibility of a hung parliament. However, the real victors in these elections are the independent left-wing groups and emerging parties such as the Greens. Particularly notable are those independents who have departed from the Labour Party due to its right-wing shift under Sir Keir Starmer. Salt of the Earth […] - [Labour Would 'NOT' Repeal Anti-Protest Laws: Another Betrayal of the British People](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-would-not-repeal-anti-protest-laws-another-betrayal-of-the-british-people/): Labour’s Abandonment of Principles: The Betrayal of the British People on Anti-Protest Laws Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy’s recent comments on the anti-protest laws have once again revealed Labour’s lack of conviction and the abandonment of its duty to defend the rights of the British people. During his appearance on LBC radio, Lammy shamefully announced that a Labour government would not engage in the necessary task of scrutinizing and repealing Tory legislation. This revelation comes on the heels of the arrest of the head of anti-monarchy group Republic at the Coronation—an event marred by controversy and heavy-handed government tactics. The passing […] - [Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession: A Republic, if You Can Get It](https://heartlandstribune.com/of-monarchy-and-hereditary-succession-a-republic-if-you-can-get-it/): Long Live the King. Long live the Republic. George Orwell once remarked that an English intellectual would rather be caught stealing from the poorbox than be seen standing to attention for God Save the King. Well, it seems those intellectuals have finally found something they value even less: their principles. As King Charles III ascended to the throne amidst pomp and circumstance, the calls for a republic fell silent, drowned out by the sycophantic cheers of the elites. Meanwhile, the working class was left to fend for itself, struggling for a living wage and barricading their doors against the energy bailiffs. […] - [A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England 1649](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-declaration-from-the-poor-oppressed-people-of-england-1649/): Gerrard Winstanley & The Diggers In 1630, a 21 year old textile trader moved to London. He did well at first, but as a result of the abuse of power by both the King and Parliament and then the outbreak of the English Civil War which started twelve years later, he saw his business ruined and in 1643 he became bankrupt. His father-in-law helped him move to Cobham in Surrey, where he initially worked as a cowherd. However, by the time of the defeat of the Royalist side and King Charles’s execution in early 1649, he and a group of others in a similar situation […] - [Labour Fails to Secure Overall Majority in Latest Vote Share Projection](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-fails-to-secure-overall-majority-in-latest-vote-share-projection/): Labour Have a Long Way to Go… Starmer’s jubilation over the local elections is more of the tale of the one that got away, more accurately, it’s the exaggeration it was this big… Sir Keir Starmer’s posturing over the local election results is reminiscent of a fisherman boasting about the size of the one that got away. The truth is that Labour’s gains were more a result of Tory collapse than Starmer’s appeal, leaving the party still adrift in the face of thirteen years of Tory turmoil. If Labour cannot reverse this trend, the prospect of a hung parliament looms large, […] - [HMRC examines if Dodgy Dave failed to fully disclose Greensill private flights as taxable perks](https://heartlandstribune.com/hmrc-examines-if-dodgy-dave-failed-to-fully-disclose-greensill-private-flights-as-taxable-perks/): Cameron Faces Tax Probe Over Undisclosed Greensill Flights HMRC is probing whether former Prime Minister David Cameron failed to declare taxable perks from his work lobbying for the collapsed finance firm Greensill Capital. According to the Guardian, officials are scrutinising private flights laid on for Cameron, specifically jets to and from his holiday homes. As part of his lucrative Greensill role, Cameron allegedly enjoyed multiple taxpayer-funded flights aboard company planes. Destinations included Cornwall, where the ex-PM owns a £2 million holiday home, and Oxfordshire, a short drive from his primary residence. Such free flights should have been logged as a taxable […] - [Fragile Hope: First Hostages to be Freed Under Israel-Hamas Deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/fragile-hope-first-hostages-to-be-freed-under-israel-hamas-deal/): Israel and Hamas agree to hostage release deal, 4-day pause in fighting Amidst the death and despair in Gaza, a tentative flicker of hope emerges. Israel has approved an initial agreement with militant group Hamas to free some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a brief ceasefire. It offers a small measure of relief for the ravaged enclave after almost two months of ruthless war. The Israeli government voted on Wednesday to back a deal to release some of the roughly 240 Israeli hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza in exchange for a multi-day truce and the freeing of a greater […] - [Hunt Set to Hike Minimum Wage to £11.44, But Workers Still Left Behind](https://heartlandstribune.com/hunt-set-to-hike-minimum-wage-to-11-44-but-workers-still-left-behind/): Workers’ Winter of Discontent The national living wage will rise to £11.44 per hour from April. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has confirmed a significant increase in the minimum wage starting next April. The so-called National Living Wage will rise from £10.42 to £11.44 per hour for over-23s – a 9.8% boost representing around £1,800 extra annually for full-time employees. For the first time, under-23s will also benefit. 21 and 22-year olds will see the minimum wage jump over 12% to match the new £11.44 rate. Currently, at £10.18 per hour, this delivers a roughly £2,300 pay bump for younger full-time staff. While […] - [From Enniskillen to Gaza: Corbyn's Call to End Violence Echoes Wilson's Legacy](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-enniskillen-to-gaza-corbyns-call-to-end-violence-echoes-wilsons-legacy/): Gaza’s Cry for Peace: Corbyn Channels Gordon Wilson’s Remarkable Journey Jeremy Corbyn recently invoked Gordon Wilson’s remarkable response to personal tragedy in Northern Ireland as inspiration for ending today’s violence between Israel and Palestine. Writing for the Tribune the article starts: “Daddy, I love you very much”. Those were the last words of Gordon Wilson’s daughter, Marie, on the 8 of November 1987. Both Gordon and Marie had been attending a Remembrance Day parade in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen when a bomb exploded, planted by the Provisional IRA just behind the cenotaph. Buried under the rubble, Gordon held his daughter’s hand […] - [Labouring Under Illusions: Starmer, Tories, and the Folly of Trickle-Down](https://heartlandstribune.com/labouring-under-illusions-starmer-tories-and-the-folly-of-trickle-down/): The Big Lie of Trickle-Down For decades, the British public has been sold the myth of “trickle-down economics” – the notion that as the rich get richer, the benefits eventually flow down to everyone else. Working families were reassured not to worry about the growing chasm between haves and have-nots, and told that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” But this is a monstrous deception bordering on farce. As one expert stated, it’s “nonsensical” to think further riches for the elite translate into improved fortunes for the masses. If trickle-down worked as promised, income inequality would not have reached levels last […] - [Gaslighting Gaza: Spoils of War Israel's Gas Grab](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaslighting-gaza-spoils-of-war-israels-gas-grab/): Blood and Energy: Israel’s Gaze Fixed on Gaza’s Gas Riches Amid Genocidal War As Israel’s horrific bombardment of Gaza continues, the death toll exceeds 11,000. Mainly helpless civilians caught in airstrikes followed by ruthless ground invasion. Israel is hellbent on destroying Hamas no matter the cost, even as the UN warns of genocide. But this is more than collective punishment for Hamas’ attacks. It is a calculated land grab, with resources as the prize. In 1999, gas deposits were found off Gaza’s shore. The discovery of Gaza’s Marine 1 and 2 gas fields promised economic prosperity. But Israel blocked Palestinian development, […] - [How every MP voted on Gaza ceasefire amendment](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-every-mp-voted-on-gaza-ceasefire-amendment/): MPs voted 293 to 125, with a majority of 168 rejecting the SNP’s King’s Speech amendment calling for “all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza. Below is a breakdown of how they voted. Here are the Labour MPs who supported the continuation of this collective punishment. MPs who it appears are in favour of more war, more death, and more genocide…Of course, pretending they want a humanitarian pause, whatever they think that is, absolves their conscience… How did your MP vote on the Gaza ceasefire motion? MPs rejected an SNP amendment to the King’s Speech calling for a […] - [Israeli soldiers raid al-Shifa Hospital, World Leaders Stay Silent](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-soldiers-raid-al-shifa-hospital-world-leaders-stay-silent/): UN Alarmed as Israel Raids Gaza’s Largest Hospital Western world leaders remain silent on the ongoing genocide in Gaza the only official voice of dissent comes from the people and the United Nations as its top humanitarian official expressed alarm as Israeli forces raided al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, on Wednesday. “Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” said UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths. “The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff, and all civilians must override all other concerns.” However, the UN’s expression of “alarm” over Israel’s brazen hospital bombing rings hollow while Gaza burns. Where is the global outrage and action as war […] - [Labour Rebels Defy Starmer Over Gaza Ceasefire](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-rebels-defy-starmer-over-gaza-ceasefire/): Starmer Rebellion Exposes Labour Divisions on Gaza A faction of Labour MPs rebelled against party leader Sir Keir Starmer by voting for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, resulting in resignations from his frontbench. The rebellion came after the vote on an SNP amendment to a government motion on its plans for the year ahead, presented at the King’s Speech last week. It called for an end to the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and urged “all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire”. It was defeated by 125 votes to 294, with the 56 Labour rebels joining other opposition parties […] - [From Pigs to Prophets: Moses' Descendant David Cameron's Divine Diplomacy](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-pigs-to-prophets-moses-descendant-david-camerons-divine-diplomacy/): A Satirical Look at David Cameron’s Ancestry and the Claim of Being Directly Descended from Moses’ As tensions mount in the Middle East, cries abound for an impartial voice to cool tensions and end the bloodshed. Who better to play wise diplomat than former PM David “Pig Lover” Cameron, now mysteriously instated as Lord of the realm, Foreign Secretary, without democratic mandate? Clearly, we must ignore any biases like his passion for porcine romances. And pay no mind to the fact he may be Moses reincarnate, as Dr Yaakov Wise of the University of Manchester points out, having traced Cameron’s ancestry […] - [Suella Braverman’s Tent Ban Scrapped: Cruelty Averted, But Morality Exposed](https://heartlandstribune.com/suella-bravermans-tent-ban-scrapped-cruelty-averted-but-morality-exposed/): Cruelty Averted, But Morality Exposed In a rare moment of sanity, the Tory government has scrapped proposals to criminalise charity distribution of tents to the homeless. The morally bankrupt plan, brainchild of hardline former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, would have banned tents for rough sleepers in city centres. This targeting of vulnerable groups epitomises her tenure as home secretary. While the ban’s removal is a relief, its mere consideration exposes the rotten core of Conservatism. We must now applaud basic human decency as if it were a grand achievement. Outlawing tents for the homeless should be unconscionable, not a policy debated […] - [We Got it Wrong: An Apology to Mr Hague](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-got-it-wrong-an-apology-to-mr-hague/): An Apology to Mr Hague In an article published on 20 December 2022 under the headline “Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Bolsover resigns after revelations of his involvement in the ‘miners scandal’”, we incorrectly repeated false allegations about Jerry Hague, a prospective Labour Party candidate, based on an article published in The Times on 19 December 2022. We accept that The Times has published an apology to Mr Hague in respect of the false allegations in that article, have agreed to pay him substantial damages and costs, and have removed the article. We further accept that our article of 20 December 2022 […] - [Bleak Times Ahead: Tories Target the Disabled](https://heartlandstribune.com/bleak-times-ahead-tories-target-the-disabled/): Shattered Compass: Tories’ New Low in the War on the Poor Under draconian new proposals, hundreds of thousands stand to lose vital support payments of £390 per month. Those with severe disabilities, chronic pain, and mental health conditions will be forced to job hunt or face sanctions. The message is clear – no matter how unwell, the disabled must work or risk losing everything. This represents yet another cruel attack on the vulnerable by a government that has completely lost its moral compass. It comes as no surprise that, having showered billions on its cronies through pandemic corruption and fraud, the […] - [Clowns in Downing Street: Sunak's Circus of Chaos](https://heartlandstribune.com/clowns-in-downing-street-sunaks-circus-chaos/): Sunak’s Reshuffle, Cameron’s Comeback: Leaves Us With Clowns to The Left and Jokers to the Right Sunak’s Circus All Change at Downing Street… In a day of high political drama, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak comprehensively reshuffled his cabinet, sacking Home Secretary Suella Braverman and replacing her with James Cleverly. In perhaps the most shocking appointment in recent memory, Sunak then recalled former PM David Cameron from retirement, awarding him a life peerage so he could be installed as Foreign Secretary. Sunak’s drastic moves come amidst growing pressure from his own backbenches following Braverman’s controversial remarks regarding pro-Palestine protesters. The hardline Home […] - [Beyond Orwell: Braverman's Act of Stochastic Terrorism](https://heartlandstribune.com/beyond-orwell-bravermans-act-of-stochastic-terrorism/): Selective Outrage and the Struggle for Truth The selective outrage emanating from the establishment right in response to the recent protests reveals rank hypocrisy of the highest order. While we must unequivocally condemn the atrocities of October 7th, it is crucial to emphasise that such acts should never serve as collective punishment or the justification for the genocide of a people unfortunate enough to have been born in a coveted land. We must also recognise that the masses who marched around the world on Saturday did not march in support of Hamas, but rather expressed a universal plea for peace – […] - [Armistice Day](https://heartlandstribune.com/armistice-day/): Armistice Day: WWI was meant to be the war that ended all wars. It wasn’t. It was the British author, H.G. Wells, that coined the expression: “The war that will end war” to describe World War One, which had broken out in Europe in September 1914. Wells believed the conflict would create a new world order that would make future conflict impossible. It would do so, Wells believed, by crushing the militarism of Germany under the Kaiser and its allies, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The Allies – Great Britain, France, and Russia – were, Wells wrote, not only soldiers in […] - [From Past to Present: Armistice, Veterans, and Gaza's Plea for Peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-past-to-present-armistice-veterans-and-gazas-plea-for-peace/): Honouring the Fallen by Marching For Peace Armistice- An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the Latin arma, meaning “arms” and -stitium, meaning “a stopping”. This Armistice Day witnesses two interconnected marches converging on London – one by veterans to honour our fallen heroes. The other a peace protesters calling for Gaza’s relief. Despite distinct aims, a unifying spirit binds them – ending violence […] - [ULEZ and the Corrupt ‘Welfare for the Rich’ Policy Model.](https://heartlandstribune.com/ulez-and-the-corrupt-welfare-for-the-rich-policy-model/): ULEZ and the Corrupt ‘Welfare for the Rich’ Policy Model. By Gavin Lewis London entryist neoliberal Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is attempting to territorially expand an imposed system of £12.50 daily penalties largely on low-income drivers of traditional petrol/diesel vehicles beyond a certain age of manufacture – this supposedly to create an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).  Yet at its core, penalising low-income groups is not why the UK Labour Party based upon Democratic Socialist ideals, was founded. By comparison, in 1981 against the tide of Margaret Thatcher’s tightening monetarist grip on the country, traditionalist Labour’s Greater London Council (GLC) led […] - [Remembrance Day: Marching for Peace Honours the Fallen](https://heartlandstribune.com/remembrance-day-marching-for-peace-honours-the-fallen/): From Flanders to Gaza: Reshaping Remembrance in Troubled Times This Remembrance Day, thousands will march through London calling for peace as Israel’s onslaught on Gaza continues. Critics decry this act of conscience, claiming the occasion solely for nationalism. They betray its essence. The Armistice ending World War I took effect at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. This solemn commemoration was instituted to mourn those lost in war, reflecting on the duty we owe them as beneficiaries of their sacrifice. What was that duty if not to defend liberty, justice and human rights – the very […] - [Keir Starmer: A Trojan Horse For a New Age of Authoritarianism](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-a-trojan-horse-for-a-new-age-of-authoritarianism/): Unmasking Keir Starmer: The Global Elite’s Puppet in British Politics Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, as the song has it— The authoritarians who grace, or disgrace, our world like Starmer represents more of the same – a sad testament to the establishment’s intractable grip. It’s almost funny to watch the liberal enablers cheering a Trojan Horse into power. Keir Starmer’s ascent parallels dictators rising amidst chaos to promise order under an iron fist. The familiar script of idealists enabling authoritarians risks playing out again under the guise of pragmatic centrism. Throughout history, the working class endures the […] - [Labour Friends of Israel Must be Proscribed](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-friends-of-israel-must-be-proscribed-if-the-labour-party-is-to-move-on-from-antisemitism/): Who do you serve? Four years ago, I highlighted the pernicious influence of the Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) on the Labour Party. Today, as the Gaza crisis lays bare the humanitarian cost of unconditional Labour Party support for Israel, the need to combat this foreign sway is more urgent than ever. After looking at the influence waged by Labour Friends of Israel I called for their proscription, expressing concerns about the group’s pervasive impact on the party. It is disheartening to note that today, this same influence persists, even as Gaza burns and the entire region remains […] - [Israel-Palestine war: Israeli minister says nuking Gaza 'an option'](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-palestine-war-israeli-minister-says-nuking-gaza-an-option/): Israeli Minister’s Nuclear Threat on Gaza Spurs Outrage Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu has sparked outrage after suggesting nuclear bombing Gaza was “one of the possibilities” for responding to rocket attacks. Amichai Eliyahu of the far-right Jewish Power party made the provocative remarks in a radio interview. Eliyahu advocated using atomic weapons on the besieged Palestinian enclave, callously claiming no civilians remained there. He told Israel-based Radio Kol Berama that “nuking” Gaza is “one of the possibilities”. When it was pointed out to the minister that there are some 240 hostages currently held in the Gaza Strip, Eliyahu doubled down. “I […] - [The Remembrance Day Hypocrisy: Veterans on the Frontlines of the UK's Homelessness Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-remembrance-day-hypocrisy-veterans-on-the-frontlines-of-the-uks-homelessness-crisis/): Suella Braverman’s Tent Ban: Hypocrisy Exposed as UK Face Homelessness Crackdown Banning Homeless Tents: The Latest Heartless Tory Move… In a cruel twist, the King’s Speech will highlight Suella Braverman’s plan to ban tents for rough sleepers – inflicting misery instead of addressing soaring poverty. This Dickensian proposal criminalises the destitute while ignoring the roots of Britain’s homelessness crisis. According to Whitehall insiders the UK home secretary’s proposals also include a new civil offence to deter charities from giving tents to homeless people. Charities could be fined for doing so under the plans if the tents cause a nuisance. These measures […] - [Covid inquiry: Hancock ‘wanted to decide who should live or die’ if NHS overwhelmed](https://heartlandstribune.com/covid-inquiry-hancock-wanted-to-decide-who-should-live-or-die-if-nhs-overwhelmed/): Chaos and Indifference: The Charlatans We Have in Charge As the Covid inquiry continues, a picture emerges of incompetence and callousness amongst our supposed leaders during the pandemic. Their self-serving priorities exacerbated the crisis at public expense. Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock wanted to play God, personally deciding who would “live or die” if hospitals were overwhelmed. “Fortunately, this horrible dilemma never crystallized,” noted Simon Stevens in a witness statement. It was noteworthy that Hancock’s stance, formed during a planning exercise at the Cabinet Office in February 2020, was contrary to that of his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, who had advocated leaving […] - [Mandelson’s Sham Analogy of the IRA and Hamas Whitewashes Gaza Crimes](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelsons-sham-analogy-whitewashes-gaza-crimes/): The Dark Prince Emerges from Shadows to Spin New Lies As Gaza burns, the Blairite Warlock Peter Mandelson has the gall to equate Israel’s brutality with Britain’s conflict in Northern Ireland. This false equivalence aims to provide moral cover for war crimes and Labour’s stance. Lord Mandelson ranted some demonic spell while on his podcast ‘How to Win an Election’ hoping to beguile the Blairite coven suggesting: “This is cold blooded murder that has been visited on the Israeli people,” “And for them just to sort of do nothing and not to take the fight to Hamas, to stop them doing […] - [From Grimsby to Gaza Lessons from Kaufman's Brave Dissent on Denouncing Israeli War Crimes](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-grimsby-to-gaza-lessons-from-kaufmans-brave-dissent-on-denouncing-israeli-war-crimes/): The boot stamping Gaza today can crush Grimsby tomorrow. Our fates are intertwined. It would be easy to close our doors to the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza. Some may urge ignoring Gaza’s agony, claiming we should focus solely on domestic struggles. But true socialists cannot turn a blind eye to human suffering, whether in Grimsby or Gaza. If internationalism means anything, it must mean solidarity with the oppressed worldwide. Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. To rationalise indifference is to surrender moral principle. The struggle for Palestinian liberation is interconnected with all fights against imperialism. To be human is to recognise […] - [Orwellian Reality: MP Andy McDonald Suspended for Gaza Peace Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/orwellian-reality-mp-andy-mcdonald-suspended-for-gaza-peace-speech/): Thoughtcrime in British Politics: MP Andy McDonald’s Suspension and the Erosion of Dissent “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ” ― George Orwell Westminster’s metamorphosis into an Orwellian enforcer of approved thought continues. The latest victim of the purge is MP Andy McDonald, suspended for referencing “between the river and the sea” in a speech supporting peace. His crime was nuance exceeding prescribed limits. It comes as Labour frontbenchers have openly defied their leader by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as the death toll […] - [ThoughtCrime: Tory MP Sacked for Daring to Suggest Gaza Ceasefire](https://heartlandstribune.com/thought-crime-tory-mp-sacked-for-daring-to-suggest-gaza-ceasefire/): MP Sacked for Urging Gaza Ceasefire as Dissent Crushed “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, 1984 Orwell’s dark prophecy becomes reality as Tory MP Paul Bristow was sacked simply for requesting a Gaza ceasefire. His benign appeal to protect life contravened the party line. Truth and humanity must be subjugated to political orthodoxy. Paul Bristow has been asked to leave his position as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) after writing to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to urge a “permanent” break in fighting between Israel […] - [Biden’s Pontius Pilate Moment: How America Ignores the Suffering of Gaza Under Israeli Bombardment](https://heartlandstribune.com/bidens-pontius-pilate-moment-how-america-ignores-the-suffering-of-gaza-under-israeli-bombardment/): Biden Washing his Hands of Responsibility: Israel’s Modern-Day Pontius Pilate As the death toll in Gaza climbs, the US refuses substantive action to restrain Israel, merely paying lip service to protecting civilians. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claimed Israel bears the “burden” of sparing innocents in its bombardment of the trapped enclave. But America’s continued diplomatic shielding of Israel rings hollow beside the mounting tragedy. “There is a burden, as I said before and as the president has said, on Israel to take the necessary steps to distinguish between Hamas, who does not represent the Palestinian people, and innocent Palestinian civilians” […] - [Palestine: The Land of the Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestine-the-land-of-the-dead/): Gaza’s Descent into Hell as Old Rules Crumble This latest turmoil in Palestine heralds an ominous new chapter, and for many, a final one. It follows Hamas’ audacious yet brutal October 7th attacks striking deep into Israel, both physically and psychologically. Breaching walls and evading intelligence defences, Hamas inflicted grave losses, killing over 1400 and taking 222 hostages—this ruptured old paradigms. Israel’s aura of invincibility shattered as darkness descended on Gaza. Hamas won tactically but at immense human costs. A cost that will multiply for years to come, with no end to the death of this fateful day. Israeli leaders have […] - [MP Crispin Blunt Arrested: Westminster's Moral Erosion When Lawmakers Become Scandal-Makers](https://heartlandstribune.com/mp-crispin-blunt-arrested-westminsters-moral-erosion-when-lawmakers-become-scandal-makers/): Ex-Tory MP Crispin Blunt Arrested on Suspicion of Rape and Possession of Drugs Yet another Tory MP arrested for alleged sexual crimes reveals the cesspit of depravity festering at the heart of Westminster. The latest debauched mediocrity to embarrass the party only highlights the moral decay corroding our ruling class. Tory MP Crispin Blunt has confirmed that he was arrested on Wednesday in connection with an allegation of rape. In a statement, the Reigate MP, who had the whip suspended on Thursday, said he had twice been interviewed by police “in connection with this incident”. Mr Blunt said he originally raised […] - [From Out of The Memory Hole: NATO's Eastward Crawl One Inch at a Time](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-out-of-the-memory-hole-natos-eastward-crawl-one-inch-at-a-time/): The Memory Hole Regurgitates Unpalatable Truths About NATO’s Eastward Crawl A revelatory video detailing the West’s broken promise not to expand NATO eastward has emerged from the memory hole, that repository of inconvenient facts. The truth has an obstinate way of persisting, despite the tireless efforts of war’s scribes and mythmakers to erase it. Play this for Biden, Stoltenberg, Scholz and the other political clergy who ritually intone that no deal was ever struck. The historical record belies their gospel. To secure Soviet approval for a unified Germany, the West plainly pledged not to encroach one inch further upon their sphere […] - [Gaza: UN's Call for Ceasefire Results in Israel Call on UN Chief to Resign](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-uns-call-for-ceasefire-results-in-israel-call-on-un-chief-to-resign/): Israel calls for UN chief to Resign for saying Hamas Attack ‘did not happen in a Vacuum’. “Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticise and oppose.” – George Orwell. As the conflict between Israel and Hamas rages on, we witness the tragic consequences of a seemingly endless cycle of violence. Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel have fueled regional turmoil, prompting a fierce retaliation that raises moral questions. Israel’s collective punishment – depriving Gaza of water, electricity and aid – affects the innocent, not just extremists. The forced displacement of Gazans is a prelude […] - [Israel-Palestine war: Archbishop of Canterbury calls for Gaza ceasefire in break from UK policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-palestine-war-archbishop-of-canterbury-calls-for-gaza-ceasefire-in-break-from-uk-policy/): Archbishop Issues Ceasefire Plea, Breaking with UK Policy on Gaza In a bold break from the British government’s stance, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Sunday. He demanded an end to Israel’s bombing of civilians, joining Middle East church leaders in their plea. The archbishop’s urgent appeal directly contradicts Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s refusal to back a UN ceasefire resolution last week. However, it aligns Welby with protesters who marched through London Saturday condemning Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The church leaders expressed horror over civilian deaths, including a strike on a Gaza church shelter […] - [Julian Assange's Legacy Honoured with Ossietzky Prize](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assanges-legacy-honoured-with-ossietzky-prize/): Assange’s Battle for Truth: The Ossietzky Prize of Courage Julian Assange Awarded Ossietzky Prize for Exposing Abuses of Power. Imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been awarded the Ossietzky Prize by PEN Norway for his critical journalism exposing severe war crimes and human rights violations. The annual prize honours those who have made significant contributions to freedom of expression, often at great personal cost. It is named after the German pacifist and journalist Carl von Ossietzky, who during the interwar years strongly warned against the rise of Nazism in Germany. It was Ossietzky who revealed that the German authorities were secretly […] - [Gaza's Suffering Deepens as US Blocks Ceasefire Call](https://heartlandstribune.com/gazas-suffering-deepens-as-us-blocks-ceasefire-call/): Gaza’s Humanitarian Crisis: US and UK’s Controversial Stance Around the world, calls for a ceasefire are intensifying as a response to the escalating violence in Gaza, which has resulted in the loss of countless Palestinian lives and a growing humanitarian catastrophe. Israel’s far-right government has ordered extensive airstrikes, causing widespread devastation and pushing the death toll even higher, with fears of an impending ground invasion. The situation is not only taking a heavy toll on Palestinians but also raising concerns about the potential for further conflict across the Middle East. Yet both the US at the UN and the UK at […] - [The Fog of War: Uncovering Truth Amidst False Flags and Plausible Deniability](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fog-of-war-uncovering-truth-amidst-false-flags-and-plausible-deniability/): “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” – Howard Zinn “In war, the first casualty is truth.” Aeschylus’ timeless words ring true as deception and propaganda dominate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rival claims over the deadly Gaza hospital airstrike showcase the difficulty in discerning truth amidst this fog of war. While some speak of a false flag attack, the murky details place this outside the classic definition. False flags involve covertly carrying out an attack while falsely blaming another party, providing pretext for retaliation. Historical examples abound, from Nero’s burning of Rome falsely blamed on […] - [Gaza Crisis Exposes Hypocrisy of Labour's Human Rights Rhetoric](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-crisis-exposes-hypocrisy-of-labours-human-rights-rhetoric/): Academics challenge Starmer to accept Israel’s siege of Gaza is against international law The ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict has exposed deep divisions within the Labour Party. Some members are incensed by the party’s reluctance to strongly criticise Israel’s actions, while others support Starmer’s position, especially in the wake of Hamas’s attacks, linking it to his campaign against anti-Semitism within the party. First, let us not indulge in weaselly equivocation – the nihilistic savagery of Hamas merits only unstinting condemnation. Its latest orgy of bloodletting fully displayed the depraved death cult that lurks in the heart of such entities. However, in the interests […] - [From Human Rights to Accusations of War Crimes Support: Labour's Leaders in Spotlight](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-human-rights-to-accusations-of-war-crimes-support-labours-leaders-in-spotlight/): Labour leadership issued notice of intention to prosecute for complicity in war crimes in Gaza The stench of hypocrisy emanating from the Labour Party has become overpowering. This band of lickspittle lawyer-politicians, who never tire of flaunting their human rights credentials, now stand accused of aiding and abetting war crimes. The latest ludicrous figures facing potential prosecution are none other than Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry, and Shadow Defiance Secretary David Lammy. All highly-paid servants of the British people. All supposedly committed to truth, justice and human rights. And yet all apparently happy to justify the […] - [From Bullying to Indecent Exposure: The Legacy of Tory MP Peter Bone](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-bullying-to-indecent-exposure-the-legacy-of-tory-mp-peter-bone/): Decay in Democracy: The Depravity and Scandal of Britain’s Political Class The festering canker of sleaze and corruption that lies at the heart of our governing class has once again revealed itself. The latest ludicrous figure to be caught with his trousers down is the Tory MP Peter Bone, facing suspension for allegedly exposing himself to a young staffer. One is hardly surprised. Our so-called representatives increasingly resemble a sordid circus of degenerates and reprobates, making a mockery of the institutions they are sworn to uphold. This latest absurd case – straight out of a Whitehall farce – simply confirms that […] - [Nakba From Siege to Exodus: Gaza's Never-Ending Tragedy](https://heartlandstribune.com/nakba-from-siege-to-exodus-gazas-never-ending-tragedy/): Impending Gaza Ground Invasion: Collective Punishment a Nakba an Act of Genocide The Israeli military, on Friday, ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region inhabited by 1.1 million people, roughly half of the territory’s population, all within a tight 24-hour window, as reported by a U.N. spokesperson. This so-called evacuation decree by the Israeli military impacts a staggering 1.1 million individuals, essentially compelling the entire population of the territory to squeeze into the southern half of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Israel continues its strikes across the region, including in the southern areas. This directive comes ahead of an impending ground […] - [The Faustian Pact: Labour's Soul Bargained Away](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-faustian-pact-labours-soul-bargained-away/): Starmer’s Corporate Council: Selling Democracy to the Highest Bidder Sir Keir Starmer’s shameless courting of big business at the Labour conference should concern anyone who cares about democracy. In his keynote speech prior to the conference proper, the ever-flexible Starmer boasted of creating a “partnership” with business leaders, he told the special forum in Liverpool: “If we do come into government, you will be coming into government with us.” His message was clear – you scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours. This smacks of the same corporatism that has infected our politics and corrupted democracy through lobbying for years. Pretending that […] - [Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-intelligence-suddenly-knows-exactly-where-hamas-is/): By Caitlin Johnstone It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in. When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas. The phrase “Hamas […] - [Sir Keir Starmer's Supporting a Mediaeval Siege of Gaza](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmers-supporting-a-mediaeval-siege-of-gaza/): While Starmer is okay with a mediaeval siege to collectively punish Palestinians. The UN condemns the siege of Gaza with the UN Secretary-General saying he is ‘deeply distressed’ by Israel’s complete siege of the Gaza Strip which will worsen an already dire situation. He also says this latest fighting did not arise from a vacuum, but from a decades-long occupation with no end in sight. Starmer’s Gaza Tunnel Vision In an act of utter tone-deafness, Sir Keir Starmer has labelled Hamas “terrorists” while affirming Israel’s right to pummel Gaza. To him, this is no complex conflict, but a medieval morality play […] - [Glitter Heckler Disrupts Starmer Speech, Highlights Calls for Democratic Reform](https://heartlandstribune.com/glitter-heckler-disrupts-starmer-speech-highlights-calls-for-democratic-reform/): Starmer Accosted at Labour Conference by People Demand Democracy Probably the bright spot of the entire conference came when a protestor interrupted Sir Keir Starmer’s keynote address at the Labour conference this week, providing one of the gathering’s few galvanizing moments. After sprinkling Glitter the heckler shouted “True democracy is citizen-led” before being removed by security. The outburst drew attention to growing discontent with the state of British democracy. The heckler represented the group People Demand Democracy, which accuses the two main parties of perpetuating a “democratic deficit.” In open letters addressed to both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, […] - [Media Bias in the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Selective Outrage on Display](https://heartlandstribune.com/media-bias-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict-selective-outrage-on-display/): Saint Jeremy vs the Centrist Snake Pit Naive souls may imagine the sainted Jeremy Corbyn suffered only at the hands of Fleet Street’s ravenous right-wing pack. But the martyr’s path was equally beset by serpents lurking in centrist grasses. For Labour’s leftward lurch threatened not just blue tribunes but their centrist mimics too. In the complex and highly charged Israel-Palestine conflict, media bias has become a pervasive issue that transcends political ideologies. While it’s often assumed that centrist media outlets provide a more balanced perspective, recent events in Israel and Palestine suggest otherwise. The treatment of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour […] - [SNP's First Test Under Humza Yousaf Ends in Defeat in Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election](https://heartlandstribune.com/snps-first-test-under-humza-yousaf-ends-in-defeat-in-rutherglen-and-hamilton-west-by-election/): Labour’s Michael Shanks Prevails in Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, Defeating SNP Challenge Labour emerged triumphant in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, dealing the SNP an embarrassing rebuke. Anas Sarwar’s party secured a resounding victory, trouncing Humza Yousaf by nearly 10,000 votes – a difficult night for the SNP deputy. But does this truly constitute progress, or merely shuffling deck chairs on Britain’s sinking ship of state? Our politics sink into a race to the bottom, where apathy reigns and holding one’s nose to vote against the alternative passes for democracy. Labour may have won but it got a lower vote than […] - [Jail Blair, Bush & Cheney First](https://heartlandstribune.com/jail-blair-bush-cheney-first/): Jonathan Cook responds to Cheney’s warning against the re-election of Donald Trump. By Jonathan CookMintPress News There is not much to thank Dick Cheney for. But perhaps he deserves credit for one thing: illustrating how effectively our political systems can rehabilitate even the most monstrous of moral monsters. Just watch this short clip that went viral on X (formerly Twitter), in which Cheney warns against the re-election of Donald Trump. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has proven a big hit with Democratic party supporters, those who once reviled Cheney for his role in invading Iraq. In the video, Cheney declares: “In our nation’s […] - [Corruption vs. Aid: The Unspoken Battle in U.S.-Ukraine Relations](https://heartlandstribune.com/corruption-vs-aid-the-unspoken-battle-in-u-s-ukraine-relations/): Leaked U.S. strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat. It’s claimed Biden frets far more about Ukrainian corruption than his sunny speeches suggest. A leaked strategy document shows the White House exhorting Kyiv to clean house, lest aid dries up. However, that’s the worry right there, ‘aid drying up’, not so much the corruption. In this context, the calls for reform appear more as muted rhetoric than genuine efforts for change. This confidential document exposes the yawning gap between Washington’s public cheerleading and its candid fears. With copious aid dollars at stake. Of course, there is one of two […] - [George Galloway: Are You Racist?](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-galloway-are-you-racist/): A Remarkable Moment: George Galloway’s Impromptu Rhetorical Brilliance In the cacophonous world of politics, moments of authenticity stand out like diamonds in the rough. While rhetoric and doublespeak dominate the airwaves, occasionally words emerge carrying weight far beyond partisan feuding. Such rare clarity reminds us that sincerity still survives in public life. One such moment occurred in 2013 when George Galloway, the firebrand former Labour and Respect MP, activist and now leader of the Workers Party, faced an unexpected challenge during a debate at the Oxford Union. This confrontation brought forth a response that showcased Galloway’s rhetorical brilliance and unshakable moral […] - [Captured Truth: The Ongoing Battle for Julian Assange's Freedom](https://heartlandstribune.com/captured-truth-the-ongoing-battle-for-julian-assanges-freedom/): WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange: The Journalist Who Dared to Speak Truth to Power In the heart of Britain’s top security prison, Belmarsh, one man sits incarcerated, not for any crime he committed, but for revealing uncomfortable truths to the world. Julian Assange, the renowned founder of WikiLeaks, is a symbol of journalistic integrity, transparency, and unwavering commitment to the pursuit of justice. His prolonged incarceration serves as a stark reminder of the challenges faced by those who dare to expose the dark underbelly of power. The story of Julian Assange, the renowned investigative journalist and founder of WikiLeaks, is one that forces […] - [My Old Man's a Toolmaker: The Ballad of Keith Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/my-old-mans-a-toolmaker-the-ballard-of-keith-starmer/): Satire’s Dead When The Truth is Unsaid… Narratives can often be a delicate dance of storytelling and image-building. One such narrative, woven by the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, revolves around his working-class roots and the challenges he faced growing up. He frequently draws upon his father’s profession as a toolmaker to paint a relatable picture of himself as a man of the people. But as with any well-crafted story, there’s more beneath the surface. In this satirical piece, we delve into the Ballad of Keith Starmer, a look at that narrative that raises questions about authenticity, privilege, […] - [Fortress Europe's Crumbling Ramparts: EU Fails on Migration Laws](https://heartlandstribune.com/fortress-europes-crumbling-ramparts-eu-fails-on-migration-laws/): Brussels Bureaucrats Fiddle While Borders Crumble European justice and home affairs ministers met in Brussels this week amid growing pressure for the bloc to agree on a new migration and asylum pact. But again they failed to come to any meaningful agreement. Thursday’s summit of interior ministers in Brussels was about the rules that apply when a migrant first arrives on the external border of the EU. It came amid a rise in the number of people arriving in Italy from Tunisia and but also increased arrivals to the Greek islands of Samos and Lesbos, the EU said. This EU failure to seal […] - [Labour's Tax Twirls: VAT Charade for Elite Schools](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-tax-twirls-vat-charade-for-elite-schools/): Weathervanes of Westminster: Labour’s Spinning and Twisting on Private Schools Ah, Labour – the flippiest, floppiest weathervanes in politics! Barely a gust of wind blows past before they spin and twist their position. As Tony Benn once wisely said, better a signpost than a weathercock. At least the Tories nail their colours to the mast, even as the ship sinks. But Labour? Why, they couldn’t pick a policy and stick to it if you covered their manifesto in superglue. Just look at their latest pirouette on private schools. In 2021, they boldly declared these elite institutions would lose charitable status under […] - [Legal Reckoning: JPMorgan's Landmark $75 Million Settlement in Epstein Sex-Trafficking Case](https://heartlandstribune.com/legal-reckoning-jpmorgans-landmark-75-million-settlement-in-epstein-sex-trafficking-case/): Unmasking Epstein’s Enablers: The Rotten Pillars of His Empire The tentacles of Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation wound deep into the halls of power, yet many associates remain unexposed. With his 2008 plea deal, the full client list of this morally bankrupt financier was buried. Who else rode on his infamous ‘Lolita Express’? Which of the so-called elite figures turned a blind eye to enable Epstein’s perversions? At long last, the noose begins to tighten on some of Epstein’s enablers. Banks that profited from his billions are now paying the price. JPMorgan Chase recently settled with the US Virgin Islands […] - [Stuff HS2! The North Needs Vision, Not London's Folly](https://heartlandstribune.com/hs2-dennis-skinner-do-i-want-to-get-to-london-30-minutes-quicker/): HS2: Dennis Skinner, Do I Want to Get to London 30 Minutes Quicker? Skinner was at his best, when he asked the most relevant questions about the inflated price of HS2 from £30 billion to over £100 billion, stating: “Could I spend that money in a different way? And the answer is yes, every time!” The Folly of HS2: A Boondoggle Doomed to Bankrupt Britain’s Future What possessed our bungling overlords to imagine the peasantry desired faster access to London, as local communities face immiseration? This absurdity was matched only by Boris Johnson’s plan for the Irish Sea bridge. When dear […] - [Lest We Forget? : Zelensky and Trudeau Honour Ukrainian Waffen SS Veteran](https://heartlandstribune.com/lest-we-forget-zelensky-and-trudeau-honour-ukrainian-waffen-ss-veteran/): Honouring the Dishonourable: Canadian Parliament’s Shameful Salute to Ukrainian Nazi In a gesture that has sent shockwaves through the global community, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led the Canadian Parliament in a standing ovation for a 98-year-old man, Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the Waffen-SS, during President Zelensky’s visit to Ottawa. You have to ask, in their adulation for all things Ukrainian, have Western leaders lost all sense of history and decency? By applauding a veteran of Hitler’s SS, they insult the sacrifice of those who bled to defeat fascism. There can be no statute […] - [The 'Truth Defence' Exposed How The Establishment Pushed Tory Lies in The 2019 GE](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-truth-defence-exposed-how-the-establishment-pushed-tory-lies-in-the-2019-ge-but-we-all-know-the-defeat-for-labour-was-an-inside-job/): The Labour Party’s Betrayal and the Establishment’s Vendetta: A Tale of Lost Hope Yes, the press did a job on Corbyn, but the Labour Party stuck the knife in! In the annals of political history, few sagas are as emblematic of betrayal and intrigue as the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour Party. While the press may have wielded its venomous pen against him, it was the very party he sought to lead that plunged the dagger into his back. The establishment’s response to the prospect of a principled, progressive, and left-wing leader assuming the mantle of prime […] - [The Orwellian Threat: Brand vs. Big Brother](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-orwellian-threat-brand-vs-big-brother/): Assault on Dissent: Britain’s Crackdown on Independent Media In a world where information is power, the battle for freedom of speech and independent journalism has never been more vital. Recent developments surrounding Russell Brand, though coloured by shocking allegations, underscore the broader issue of government interference and its ramifications for democracy. In today’s digital age, accusations in the media often morph into trials by social media, as we navigate the treacherous waters of cancel culture, we all have the right to speculate and give opinions, however, with such serious accusations the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of our justice system, is […] - [Extravagance for the Few, Deprivation for the Many](https://heartlandstribune.com/extravagance-for-the-few-deprivation-for-the-many/): A Vulgar Banquet, A Vulnerable People: The Growing Chasm The King and Queen were guests of honour at the star-studded dinner in the Hall of Mirrors, nice gig if you can get it… What a sign of these warped times that our beloved leaders can indulge in gallivanting hedonism while the people they claim to serve starve and shiver. The symbolism of this garish gala should not be overlooked. Macron fêted the monarch just shy of 231 years since the French cast off the yoke of tyranny on September 21st, 1792. What insult to the martyrs of the revolution, now spun […] - [After Decades of Corruption, Murdoch Abdication Changes Nothing](https://heartlandstribune.com/after-decades-of-corruption-murdoch-abdication-changes-nothing/): The Rupert Murdoch Succession: Lachlan Murdoch Inherits the Media Kingdom News broke that ancient media mogul Rupert Murdoch is finally relinquishing his throne, passing the sceptre to offspring Lachlan Murdoch. After nearly seven decades of kingly reign, the nonagenarian Murdoch is officially abdicating. Royal sycophants assure this changes nothing – the kingdom shall remain as always, corrupt. Rupert Murdoch has poisoned democracy worldwide for over half a century. As the Machiavellian media mogul finally departs, his malign impact remains intact. Murdoch simply passes the baton to spawn who share his absence of ethics. From slimy tabloids to partisan propaganda channels, the […] - [Guilty Until Proven Loyal: Diane Abbott's Kafkaesque Ordeal](https://heartlandstribune.com/guilty-until-proven-loyal-abbotts-kafkaesque-ordeal/): The Kafkaesque ordeal of Diane Abbott lays bare the hypocrisy festering at the heart of Starmer’s Labour. The sorry saga of Diane Abbott’s suspension exposes the injustice thriving under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. Britain’s first black female MP faces expulsion for vague charges of antisemitism, while damning revelations about racism within Labour are brushed aside. The party once dedicated to equality now crushes dissent with zealous persecution. Due process and natural justice are discarded to purge outspoken leftists from Labour’s ranks. No defence nor apology can redeem those accused of contradicting the party line. The Forde Report’s findings are clear – […] - [Can't Wait for Next Weeks Sunday Times: Do You Think They Will Name The Tory MP Accused of Rape](https://heartlandstribune.com/cant-wait-for-next-weeks-sunday-times-do-you-think-they-will-name-the-tory-mp-accused-of-rape/): Beyond Scandal: The MP Accused of Rape They Won’t Name The Sunday Times didn’t hesitate to name Russell Brand as a rapist, now I just can’t wait till next Sunday to see if we get another story that also genuinely serves the public interest. The story that involves a Member of Parliament out on bail, facing accusations of rape. The one where this undisclosed Conservative MP, who, yes, you guessed it… for legal reasons, remains unnamed, found himself under arrest in May 2022 on charges including indecent assault, sexual assault, and rape, among others. Astoundingly, he has been granted bail on […] - [Brand on the Pyre: How the Media Became Judge and Jury](https://heartlandstribune.com/brand-on-the-pyre-how-the-media-became-judge-and-jury/): Russell Brand May Be Many Things, But He Deserves a Fair Trial What has become of the cherished tradition of innocent until proven guilty? In the regrettable modern climate of trial by media, even a whiff of scandal is enough to condemn a man in the court of public opinion. So it goes with the unsavoury allegations recently levelled against Russell Brand. While the claims themselves certainly warrant investigation, the baying mob seems to have already decided his guilt based on hearsay and decades-old rumours. In a more sensible era, we might have paused to consider a few salient facts before […] - [So, This Is Happening: Russell Brand Denies allegations](https://heartlandstribune.com/so-this-is-happening-russell-brand-preempt-allegations/): In the Spotlight: Russell Brand’s Allegations and Counterarguments Social influencer Russell Brand has been accused of serious sexual misconduct, including rape, in an investigation published by the Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches. The allegations span a 7-year period during Brand’s rise to fame. According to the media channel and importantly to note, not the police. Four women in interviews with journalists have allegedly detailed abusive behaviour and sexual assault by Brand between 2006-2013. The accusations are alarming, though key details remain unclear. Brand denies all wrongdoing, claiming the relationships were consensual. We must approach such allegations carefully. Sexual assault victims […] - [Beyond Brexit: Seizing the Opportunity for Real Change](https://heartlandstribune.com/beyond-brexit-seizing-the-opportunity-for-real-change/): Brexit’s Promise: Transforming British Lives Through Accountability In the wake of the referendum civil war that was Brexit, one thing stands resolute: the demand for accountability through the restoration of democracy. The 2016 vote was no mere whim; it was a fervent cry from the people to reclaim power that had been willingly surrendered to distant bureaucrats, yearning to return it to the hands of the electorate. The vote was a cri de coeur from the people to wrest control back from the Euro-apparatchiks and restore it within the Westminster-ward. But that democratic muscle weakened when laws governing Britain were brewed […] - [Víctor Jara, a murdered Chilean folk singer who became an international icon of resistance.](https://heartlandstribune.com/victor-jara-a-murdered-chilean-folk-singer-who-became-an-international-icon-of-resistance/): Víctor Jara: The Haunting Echoes of His Final Song Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.  Víctor Jara named his last song after the place where he spent his final days: Estadio Chile, an indoor sports complex in Santiago. He wrote it on 16 September 1973, five days after a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet brought down the socialist government of Chile’s president Salvador Allende. Jara had been arrested the day after the coup and held in the stadium that had […] - [EHRC Antisemitism Report: Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley's Legal Battle Ends in Settlement](https://heartlandstribune.com/ehrc-antisemitism-report-ken-livingstone-and-pam-bromleys-legal-battle-ends-in-settlement/): EHRC Antisemitism Report: Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley Accept Settlement Offer Justice has prevailed as former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and ex-Labour councillor Pam Bromley, both mentioned in the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) report regarding alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party, challenged the report’s findings through a judicial review. However, today, both Mr Livingstone and Ms Bromley reached an agreement with the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC’s report from October 2020 spotlighted Mr Livingstone and Ms Bromley, suggesting they had “contributed” to “unlawful harassment related to Jewish race and religion.” In response, both Mr Livingstone and […] - [Why Remoaners are still going after Eddie Dempsey](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-remoaners-are-still-going-after-eddie-dempsey/): They can barely disguise their disdain for working-class Leave supporters. It seems middle-class Remoaners are going after Eddie Dempsey again, after self-styled pro-EU activist Femi Oluwole released an attack video against him last week. There are several reasons for this obsession with Dempsey. He is the senior assistant secretary-general of the Brexit-supporting National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). He comes from a working-class background. And, like his union, he himself is a fervent backer of Brexit. He is everything bourgeois liberals and lefties hate. Back in 2019, left-wing Remainers thought they had evidence showing that Dempsey was far right and racist […] - [They're all in the Same Boat Now: Starmer Brings the Bluster Against Migrant Gangs](https://heartlandstribune.com/theyre-all-in-the-same-boat-now-starmer-brings-the-bluster-against-migrant-gangs/): Starmer Parks His Tank in The Sun: Desperate Migration Posturing Starmer, in an attempt to flex his political muscles, has boldly parked his tank right on the Tories’ front lawn. His latest desperate gambit to out-flank the Tories on migration comes right out of the New Labour playbook. More tough rhetoric, police crackdowns and promises to get migration “under control” – haven’t we heard this song before? I’m sure all those Sun readers are thrilled to have Sir Keir as their newest convert as he penned a lengthy op-ed in the Murdoch Red Top and for afters, Starmer sat down for […] - [Starmer's 70s Album Cover Brochure: Labour's Got a Style-Over-Substance Quandary](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-70s-album-cover-brochure-labours-style-over-substance-quandary/): From Vision to Vanity: Keir Starmer’s Photo Op Politics Keir Starmer’s groovy 70s album cover for the Labour conference brochure has drawn laughs, but it reveals a deeper truth: Labour is all about style over substance these days. While Corbyn fans were labelled a “cult,” Starmer’s PR evokes a 1970s variety show host clutching at dreams of celebrity. Maybe his swingin’ poses were inspired by watching too much Val Doonican while high on nostalgia? The photoshopped aura of visionary leadership rings hollow without any actual vision or policies. But ideas are hard – it’s easier to fake inspiration like an Instagram […] - [Tory Government's Rail Policies: Fares Surge and Ticket Office Closures](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-governments-rail-policies-fares-surge-and-ticket-office-closures/): Ticket Office Closures and Fare Hikes: The Tories’ Assault on UK Rail Passengers Rail passengers face the highest fare hike in 27 years despite the Tories’ brutal closure of ticket offices across the country. Analysis shows fares could surge by 8% next year, hammering commuters already reeling from the cost of living crisis. This comes as the government presses ahead with plans to gut 974 station ticket counters, sparking outrage. Former minister Norman Baker blasted the hikes as “eye-watering” and said the government should freeze fares until long-promised reforms occur. Yet the Tories remain stubbornly committed to making travel increasingly unaffordable […] - [The Left’s Right Turn: Behind The Media Myth Of Neoliberal Blairite Social Achievements](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-lefts-right-turn-behind-the-media-myth-of-neoliberal-blairite-social-achievements/): ‘Political language – and with variations, this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’ – George Orwell Lord Mandelson’s famous “lose, lose, Blair, Blair, lose” line peddles an alluring myth – that New Labour’s victories offer a roadmap back to power. But peel back the nostalgia and his “undisputable truths” dissolve into lies. Yes, Blair won elections by moving Labour to the centre and adopting a neoliberal posture. But at what cost? The “golden age” backdrop fades when you […] - [UK Government Faces International Censure Over Controversial Anti-Strike Legislation](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-government-faces-international-censure-over-controversial-anti-strike-legislation/): TUC Takes UK Government to the UN Over Controversial Strike Laws The draconian anti-strike laws recently forced through by the Tories have now incurred the wrath of the international community. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has lodged a new complaint with the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO), accusing the government of breaching international law. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak slammed the Tories’ strike act as “unworkable, undemocratic and almost certainly in breach of international law.” He argued it was designed not to resolve disputes but to deliberately escalate tensions. This comes after the ILO already issued a stinging rebuke to the […] - [The Elon Musk Paradox: How am I in this war?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-elon-musk-paradox-how-am-i-in-this-war/): Elon Musk vs. the War Machine Oh dear, it seems the darling of the technocrat class, Elon Musk, has sinned against the Church of Self-Destruction and the brethren of the military-industrial complex. More than 20,000 Starlink terminals were donated by Musk to Ukraine after Russia destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure at the beginning of the war in February 2022. These were donated for civilian use. However, the military plan was for Starlink satellites to aid Ukraine’s heroic resistance in a Pearl Harbor-style attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet. But the high Lord of nerds denied the laptop bombardiers their desired […] - [Gerrard Winstanley & The Diggers: Unearthing the Forgotten Heroes of English Socialism](https://heartlandstribune.com/gerrard-winstanley-the-diggers-unearthing-the-forgotten-heroes-of-english-socialism/): Unearthing the Legacy of Gerrard Winstanley, a Man Ahead of His Time In the annals of British history, one finds stories that have been conveniently buried beneath the grand narratives of kings and conquerors, tales that challenge the established order and stand as defiant milestones of socialism. Among these stories, none shines brighter than that of Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers—a movement born from the earth, a movement whose echoes still resonate through the corridors of time. Gerrard Winstanley, a name that should be on the lips of every student of British history, was not born to privilege and power. In […] - [From Wikileaks to the Lamb Vindaloo: The Irony of Justice in Modern Times](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-wikileaks-to-the-lamb-vindaloo-the-irony-of-justice-in-modern-times/): Assange vs. Khalife: Contrasting Fates in a Bungled Justice System A former British army officer and suspected terrorist strolled out of prison Wednesday dressed as a chef, because of course, he did. Young Daniel Khalife – apparently 6’2″ when not stooping to sneak by guards – simply let himself out of the kitchen freezer and clung merrily to a food truck’s undercarriage before disappearing into the ether. One pictures the guards’ faces when the alarm sounded: “He’s escaped? Dressed as a what? Why no, we didn’t frisk the sous chef making the lamb vindaloo, terribly sorry about that.” Cue nationwide panic […] - [Equal Pay Betrayed: Birmingham's Financial Fiasco Unveils the Hapless State of Politics](https://heartlandstribune.com/equal-pay-betrayed-birminghams-financial-fiasco-unveils-the-hapless-state-of-politics/): Bankrupted After Equal Pay Abuse: Birmingham’s City Labour Council Fails the Working Class The council has been in talks in recent months over the management of finances in Britain’s second city which has now fallen into financial collapse after a cheap shot over equal pay. Birmingham’s Labour Council has effectively declared bankruptcy, felled by a £760 million bill for equal pay claims. Barbara Castle must be turning in her grave. Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority not only in the country but in Europe has in effect declared itself bankrupt after issuing a section 114 notice, signalling that it does […] - [Labour's Bait and Switch: How Starmer Betrayed the Left, You're all Blairites Now](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-bait-and-switch-how-starmer-betrayed-the-left-youre-all-blairites-now/): Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Reshuffle: The Final Nail in the Socialist Coffin Keir Starmer has completed his centrist conquest of Labour, purging the party of the last vestiges of its socialist soul. With his latest reshuffle installing arch-Blairites in top positions, the betrayal is complete. Labour reshuffle cements what many suspected all along – the party has lurched decisively rightward under Starmer’s leadership. Gone are the dreams of democratic socialism. Labour is now unabashedly Blairite once more. While Starmer’s top team remain in place, the moves cement the party’s change in direction, with places for those sacked by Jeremy Corbyn, and […] - [Chris Pincher's Suspension Upheld: Another By-Election Looms for Sunak](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-pinchers-suspension-upheld-another-by-election-looms-for-sunak/): Sunak’s By-Election Headache Continues Rishi Sunak faces yet another by-election headache as disgraced MP Chris Pincher‘s appeal fails. The former Deputy Chief Whip, accused of inappropriate behaviour in a private members club last year, attempted to challenge an eight-week suspension from Parliament. However, the Independent Expert Panel dismissed his appeal, deeming the sanction neither arbitrary nor disproportionate. Pincher tried convincing the Independent Expert Panel to overturn his ban after a watchdog probe upheld complaints he’d drunkenly groped two men at a private member’s club last June. But the panel dismissed his appeal, deeming the eight-week suspension warranted despite Pincher’s protestations. Of […] - [Mick Lynch and Jeremy Corbyn Brew up a Storm as Rail Workers Protest Office Closures](https://heartlandstribune.com/mick-lynch-and-jeremy-corbyn-brew-up-a-storm-as-rail-workers-protest-office-closures/): Mick Lynch Warns of “a storm coming” Over Ticket Office Closures As rail workers rally against mass ticket office closures, their outrage spotlights the government’s recurring indifference to public needs. RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch issued a stark warning to the Tory government during a mass rally outside Downing Street, decrying the potential closure of up to 1,000 ticket offices over the next three years. Train operators argue that relocating staff to provide more face-to-face support will better serve customers, but this move has sparked concerns, particularly regarding its impact on individuals with disabilities and pensioners. The removal of ticket windows […] - [Urgent Update on School Safety: Risk of Sudden Collapse at 52 Schools in England](https://heartlandstribune.com/urgent-update-on-school-safety-risk-of-sudden-collapse-at-52-schools-in-england/): Chaos Strikes English Schools as Dangerous Buildings Force Last-Minute Closures Parents and students received startling news mere days before the new term begins – over 150 English schools possess buildings deemed unsafe due to the risk of sudden collapse. Weary headteachers now scramble to implement contingency plans, upending the start of school for thousands. The crisis stems from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), a material widely utilised until the 1990s and now discovered to deteriorate faster than anticipated. After a supposedly stable beam unexpectedly collapsed this summer, the government scrambled to reassess the risk, finding far more critical defects than previously […] - [Tory Titanic's Deck Chairs: Grant Shapps Takes the Helm as Defence Secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-titanics-deck-chairs-grant-shapps-takes-the-helm-as-defence-secretary/): Shapps at the Helm: Navigating the Challenges of Defence Gather round for the latest shuffle of the Tory Titanic’s deck chairs, starring none other than human revolving door Grant “Safe Pair of Hands” Shapps as our new Defence Secretary! Yes, the very same Shapps who has pinballed between Cabinet posts at dizzying speed is clearly the obvious choice to helm Britain’s armed forces. Should we be alarmed that a man who struggles with his own shadow portfolio now commands the entire military? With his sterling track record as a photocopier salesman and peddler of dubious get-rich-quick schemes, Shapps’ strategic brilliance is […] - [From Cold War to Modern Media: Operation Mockingbird's Ongoing Legacy](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-cold-war-to-modern-media-operation-mockingbirds-ongoing-legacy/): Operation Mockingbird: The Subtle Power of State Propaganda in Modern Media The existence of a truly Free Press immune from elite interests is largely an illusion in today’s society. Too many journalists and outlets are intellectual prostitutes, dutifully parroting official narratives and serving as mouthpieces for the powerful. The uncomfortable truth is that ostensibly independent media often operate as propaganda proxies, whether consciously or not. Their reporting frequently distorts truth to suit the agendas of politicians, spy agencies, mega-corporations and billionaire owners. Strings are pulled, stories are spun, dissent is marginalised. This manufactured reality advanced by the media machine keeps people […] - [Air Travel Chaos: Technical Glitch Grounds Flights, Strands Thousands](https://heartlandstribune.com/air-travel-chaos-technical-glitch-grounds-flights-strands-thousands/): Chaos in British Skies: Technical Glitch Causes Mass Flight Cancellations and Stranded Travellers Chaos gripped British skies on Monday as a technical glitch crippled air traffic control systems, causing mass flight cancellations and leaving thousands stranded. Despite claims the issue was “remedied”, the knock-on effects will likely persist for days. Thousands of frustrated travellers faced disruption after the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) reported issues processing flight plans, forcing them to be handled manually at severely reduced capacity. With airspace remaining open but traffic flow restricted, airports warned of ongoing backlogs and knock-on effects despite the problem allegedly being remedied. The […] - [Abandoning Wealth Tax: Labour's Betrayal From Class Struggle to Protecting the Elites](https://heartlandstribune.com/abandoning-wealth-tax-labours-betrayal-from-class-struggle-to-protecting-the-elites/): Principles vs. Power: Labour’s U-Turn on Wealth Tax and Progressive Agenda In the latest episode of Labour’s ideological contortions, the party has now ruled out a wealth tax. Gone is the fiery class warfare rhetoric, replaced by assurances Labour will not rock the fiscal boat or demand much from comfortable elites. Labour has now joined the Tories in protecting the dragon hoards of the mega-rich. What a shocker from this party of the people! Why tax those who can easily afford it when you can squeeze working class stiffs instead? You are left wondering what principles remain as Labour triangulates itself […] - [Dameless Dorries' Dramatic Departure: Theatrics and Tantrums in Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/dameless-dorries-dramatic-departure-theatrics-and-tantrums-in-westminster/): The Diva Departs: Nadine Dorries’ Theatrical Farewell to Westminster, what a Pantomime. Well, knock me down with a feather – the Right Honorable Member for Mid Bedfordshire has finally resigned, two months after vowing to depart “with immediate effect.” Apparently in Westminster-speak, “immediate” actually means “leisurely saunter off whenever I feel like it.” After drawing her ample MP’s salary for months while doing a cracking impression of the Invisible Woman, the magical Dameless Dorries has decided to release her abandoned constituency from purgatory. The poor townsfolk resorted to lighting smoke signals and praying to the Patron Saint of Absentee MPs, but […] - [Democracy for Sale: The Allure of Corporate Hospitality in Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/democracy-for-sale-the-allure-of-corporate-hospitality-in-westminster/): Theatre of Hypocrisy: Perks, Privilege, and Corporate Influence on Our Democracy The corridors of Westminster have long been adorned with broken promises and principles, cast aside like the words of a manifesto. Pledges dropped Sutley smoothed along the way with the allure of lavish ‘perks’ and donations that bring with them an enchanting spell creating an air of privilege on our politicians, each new freebie morphs into a gateway bribe dressed in the attire of respectability. Of course, these corporate benefactors all realise the truth in that old Yorkshire saying: ‘You won’t get owt for nowt’ They understand these thinly veiled […] - [Labour Sells its Soul for the Corporations' Shilling](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-sells-its-soul-for-the-corporations-shilling/): Labour’s Faustian Bargain: From Blue-Collar Advocacy to Corporate Embrace Once again the Labour frauds have betrayed their roots, as the tired old party slides further under the thumb of big business paymasters. As membership dwindles, corporate donations increasingly keep the wheezing operation afloat. Labour’s spending totalled £44.45m, with the party’s income up 3.5% on 2021, despite constantly losing members. When Starmer assumed leadership of the Labour Party, its membership, once a robust 523,332, dwindled to 432,213 by the close of December 2021. As 2022 drew to a close, the party’s ranks numbered 407,445 members, marking a decline from the preceding year […] - [Power Plays and Shadows: The Complex Legacy of Prigozhin's Alleged Demise](https://heartlandstribune.com/power-plays-and-shadows-the-complex-legacy-of-prigozhins-alleged-demise/): There’s daggers in men’s smiles. Russian President Vladimir Putin has finally broken his silence on the tragic plane crash that took the life of notorious mercenary leader Evgeny Prigozhin. In a brief statement issued during a meeting with the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Putin offered his “sincerest condolences” to the families of the victims, while also managing to subtly imply that Prigozhin’s demise was perhaps more than just a tragic accident. Evgeny Prigozhin was a man of many talents who made a “significant contribution” to the struggle against neo-Nazis in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, commenting […] - [Navigating the Murky Waters: Unveiling the Speculation Surrounding Prigozhin's Fate](https://heartlandstribune.com/navigating-the-murky-waters-unveiling-the-speculation-surrounding-prigozhins-fate/): Wagner chief listed among passengers on crashed plane – officials Evgeny Prigozhin was scheduled to fly on the Embraer Legacy jet that crashed with no survivors, authorities have reported Once again we find ourselves awash in a frothing sea of speculation and rumour following the mysterious air accident in Russia’s Tver region. The usual excitable voices are proclaiming the death of the Wagner Group’s Commander Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was apparently listed amongst the doomed passengers of the ill-fated Embraer jet. But can we really trust these feverish reports? I must confess a certain weary scepticism towards these latest claims. How convenient […] - [The Decline of an Empire: What if America Lost Its Economic Supremacy with the Rise of the BRICS](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-decline-of-an-empire-what-if-america-lost-its-economic-supremacy-with-the-rise-of-the-brics/): The Rising BRICS: Can They Topple Dollar Supremacy? The era of unrivalled American economic hegemony may be drawing to a close. The rise of the BRICS nations and increasing challenges to dollar dominance raise an intriguing question: What would the world look like if America were no longer the dominant global economic power? The impacts could be profound, both for America and the international system it has led since World War II. America’s domestic economy and way of life could face major upheaval. The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, a major source of American leverage, could be eroded. The […] - [The Enablers in the Shadows: Unaddressed Accountability in the Letby Case](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-enablers-in-the-shadows-unaddressed-accountability-in-the-letby-case/): Justice Delayed, Justice Denied: The Unanswered Questions in the Letby Hospital Horror There are some subjects so upsetting that putting words to paper feels a burden. To articulate the darkest deeds draws deep from the writer, leaving hollow melancholy in its wake. On such occasions, one would prefer to remain silent rather than voice the necessary questions – but this would be an abdication of duty. I know of nothing more upsetting, nothing more that leaves you so flattened while a dark depression sits on the periphery than to write about the murder of innocent children, babies. But if those with […] - [The Bank of England and Corporate Welfare: Making Billionaires from Quantitative Easing](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bank-of-england-and-corporate-welfare-making-billionaires-from-quantitative-easing/): Rethinking Monetary Policy: Addressing the Covert Corporate Welfare of QE and Greed In the United Kingdom, a resounding resurgence of corporate welfare has taken shape, with Quantitative Easing (QE) at its core. Initiated by central banks in response to the 2008 financial crisis, QE has proven to be a veiled form of corporate welfare, disproportionately benefiting the affluent while exacting costs from the working class and the middle class. The Bank of England’s acquisition of over £895 billion in bonds reveals the depth of this phenomenon. The lion’s share, totalling £875 billion, comprised UK government bonds, while the remaining £20 billion […] - [Beyond the Headlines: Former Independent on Sunday and New Statesman Editor Sentenced for Child Sex Abuse Images](https://heartlandstribune.com/beyond-the-headlines-former-independent-on-sunday-and-new-statesman-editor-sentenced-for-child-sex-abuse-images/): Guardians of Morality? The Fall of a Liberal Media Establishment Figure Peter Wilby, former editor of the Independent on Sunday, had more than 100 indecent images of children on his computer Yet another pillar of the liberal establishment has been exposed as a hypocrite, after a former newspaper editor admitted viewing repulsive images of child abuse. In a chilling revelation that sends shockwaves through the world of journalism, Peter Wilby, a former editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, has been handed a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to viewing child sexual abuse images online. This distressing saga […] - [Labour's Identity Crisis: Flipping on Workers' Rights Betrays Ideological Bankruptcy](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-identity-crisis-flipping-on-workers-rights-betrays-ideological-bankruptcy/): The Labour Party’s Latest Somersault on Workers’ Rights Shows its Ideological Bankruptcy The Labour Party has once again executed a slick political somersault, abandoning its supposed principles with the agility of an Olympic gymnast. The latest backflip concerns Labour’s policy on workers’ rights. Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has reportedly diluted his pledge to increase protections for people working in the ‘gig economy’, no doubt kowtowing to the party’s wealthy donors in the business community. This is hardly surprising coming from today’s Labour Party, which has all the ideological backbone of a jellyfish. The text agreed at last month’s National Policy […] - [Eleventh-Hour Twist: Socialist Candidate Secures Spanish Parliament Presidency](https://heartlandstribune.com/eleventh-hour-twist-socialist-candidate-secures-spanish-parliament-presidency/): Pedro Sánchez’s socialist candidate wins crucial vote for control of parliament The aftermath of the inconclusive national elections held on 23 July painted a complex picture, leaving no major party with a straightforward route to amass the necessary support for governing. As the political landscape hung in delicate equilibrium between left and right ideologies, a last-minute agreement ushered in an unexpected turn. Socialist contender Francina Armengol, with an eleventh-hour alliance with the hard-line faction of the Catalan independence movement, ascended to the role of parliament Speaker. Now Spain’s political theatre sees the socialist government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Pedro […] - [Curtains of Controversy: Edinburgh Fringe's Battle between Comedy and Cancel Culture](https://heartlandstribune.com/curtains-of-controversy-edinburgh-fringes-battle-between-comedy-and-cancel-culture/): What does it take to get cancelled at the Edinburgh Fringe? Let’s dissect this conundrum: at the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe, where laughter mingles with controversy, a peculiar paradox has emerged, shaking the very foundations of artistic expression and free speech. It appears that in this vibrant hub of comedy, a skewed sense of tolerance has led to a scenario wherein comedians who jest about heinous acts of raping and killing women find a welcoming stage, while those who dare to champion women’s rights face the merciless guillotine of cancellation. Consider the case of the notorious jester, Frankie Boyle. His […] - [Subterfuge in Suburbia: Bulgaria's UK Spies](https://heartlandstribune.com/subterfuge-in-suburbia-bulgarias-uk-spies/): Suspected Spies for Russia: A Web of Deception Unveiled in the Heart of Britain In the words of John le Carré, a master of espionage fiction himself, “The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.” In the case of Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova, the narrative woven goes beyond mere mats; it’s a tale of manipulation, intrigue, and a system of deception that dares us to peer beneath the surface and question the stories that lie hidden in plain sight. In the ever-thickening fog of global espionage, a crisp […] - [Unveiling the Fog of Myth: Reevaluating Japan's Surrender Amidst the Atomic Haze](https://heartlandstribune.com/unveiling-the-fog-of-myth-reevaluating-japans-surrender-amidst-the-atomic-haze/): Challenging the Conventional Narrative of the End of World War II As we mark the commemoration of the Japanese Empire’s Surrender anniversary, we plunge into the intricate tapestry woven with truths, falsehoods, and myths enshrouding this momentous historical juncture. Was Japan on the brink of surrender before the US unleashed their atomic fury upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki? By the summer of 1945, the tides of war had inexorably shifted. Japan stood at the precipice of defeat, its once-formidable naval and air forces decimated, its cities a haunting tapestry of destruction, and its economy in tatters. The flames of Allied vengeance flickered […] - [No one can get up much enthusiasm for a Government which puts you in jail if you open your mouth. -George Orwell](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-one-can-get-up-much-enthusiasm-for-a-government-which-puts-you-in-jail-if-you-open-your-mouth-george-orwell/): Imagine a world where you cannot speak aloud your thoughts for fear they upset someone. Imagine living in a dystopian nightmare where the very act of uttering “Men Are Not Women, and Other Uncomfortable Truths” within the sanctum of your own home could precipitate the police logging a “hate incident” against your name. A realm where legally enshrined rights to voice such opinions are rendered meaningless, eclipsed solely by another’s perception of offence. For the benighted souls trapped in the SNP’s Scotland, this Orwellian nightmare becomes reality come Monday. And no, this is no April Fool’s prank – merely the latest […] - [Wes Streeting's NHS Cure: Is to Steal the Emperor's New Clothes from the Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/wes-streetings-nhs-cure-to-steal-the-emperors-new-clothes-from-the-tories/): Wes Streeting’s NHS Approach: Borrowing from the Tories’ Failed Playbook What an utter charade! The Labour Party, in their desperation to appear “credible” to the establishment, are peddling the same threadbare myths as the Tories about the private sector riding to the rescue of our embattled NHS. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, prances about pontificating on his “ruthlessly pragmatic” agenda and championing private “partnerships”. His fluffy rhetoric about “reducing reliance” while exploiting “spare capacity” is nothing but a smokescreen for the same old privatisation agenda that has bled the NHS dry. The sophistry that the private hospital sector possesses some […] - [DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson quits after sex offence charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-quits-after-sex-offence-charges/): Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigns as Democratic Unionist Party leader after sex offence charges In an abrupt move that will jolt the decrepit establishments of Britain and Ireland, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has tendered his resignation as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. The Lagan Valley MP’s departure comes amid sordid allegations of historical sexual offences, for which he has been charged alongside a 57-year-old woman accused of aiding and abetting. The DUP, that redoubt of reactionary unionism, has seen fit to suspend Donaldson from membership pending the grimy judicial process. In a naked display of musical chairs among the discredited, they have […] - [A Grubby Display of Privilege: Tory Knighthoods in the Death Throes of a Discredited Regime](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-grubby-display-of-privilege-tory-knighthoods-in-the-death-throes-of-a-discredited-regime/): Shameless Spectacle: Tory Honours as Cheap Confetti What a shameless spectacle we have been subjected to, as the discredited Tory rabble fling knighthoods about like cheap confetti in their death throes. It seems no overblown ego or wealthy donor is too base to be fawned over in this unseemly parade of establishment privilege. Take Mohamed Mansour, for instance, that former minister of the Mubarak kleptocracy in Egypt who last year so generously gifted £5 million to the Tory coffers from his ample personal vault. His newly-minted ‘Sir’ title is little more than a bought indulgence, shamelessly bestowed by a Prime Minister […] - [The Death Throes of Tory Misrule: A Titanic Catastrophe](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-death-throes-of-tory-misrule-a-titanic-catastrophe/): The Death Throes of Tory Misrule: A Titanic Catastrophe Observe the pitiful spectacle of the Tory Titanic thrashing in its final death agonies – a behemoth of greed, arrogance and delusion sinking rapidly beneath the waves of its own making. Like that most infamous of doomed maritime arrogance, the RMS Titanic, this ship of feckless buccaneers is being dragged inexorably to the briny depths. They sank the economy through callous austerity dogma and reckless ideological vandalism. They sank any hopes of an equitable Brexit through endless chicanery and capitulation to big money interests. They sank their own mythical “levelling up” agenda, […] - [Julian Assange Granted a Fleeting Reprieve from US Injustice](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-granted-a-fleeting-reprieve-from-us-injustice/): Julian Assange staves off extradition to US for now For now, the valorous truth-teller Julian Assange has been granted a temporary stay from the remorseless clutches of American persecution. But make no mistake – this latest legal deferral is the flimsiest of reprieves in the face of an unrelenting, vindictive campaign by the US imperium to crush an embarrassing avatar of journalistic accountability. Almost five harrowing years have now been endured by Assange in the dank confines of Britain’s Guantanamo – the notorious Belmarsh prison gulag. Torn from his young family and entombed in a concrete vault, his Orwellian “crime” was […] - [UN Security Council passes resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire but who will enforce it?](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-security-council-passes-resolution-calling-for-gaza-ceasefire/): A Long-Overdue Censure of Israeli Barbarity At long last, the supine edifice of the United Nations has summoned a vestigial flicker of principle and called for an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s barbaric onslaught against the Palestinians of Gaza. This belated, heavily caveated censure comes a full six months into Netanyahu’s depraved welter of civilian massacres and collective punishment that has left over 32,000 innocents dead and rendered two million more displaced into the wilderness, now facing famine. For the first time since Zionist forces launched their blitzkrieg last October in retaliation for the Hamas attack the UN Security Council has finally […] - [Zionist Militancy Birthed Israel, Yet It Cries 'Terror' as European States Begin to Recognise Palestine](https://heartlandstribune.com/zionist-militancy-birthed-israel-yet-it-cries-terror-as-european-states-begin-to-recognise-palestine/): A Blood-Drenched Legacy Undermines Israel’s Moral Stance The brazen hypocrisy of the Israeli regime smoulders like an acrid cloud over its latest outburst of self-aggrandising indignation. How dare the renegade nations of Spain, Malta, Slovenia and Ireland even contemplate recognising Palestinian statehood? Why, this “rewards terrorism” howls Israel’s mendacious mouthpiece, Lior Haiat, as if Israel was not birthed in such violence. In an official statement, Israel accuses Spain, Malta, Slovenia and Ireland of offering ‘a reward for terrorism’ Israel’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat has said that Spain, Malta, Slovenia and Ireland are offering “a reward for terrorism” with a joint […] - [When I Look at The Labour Party it Fills my Eyes With Paragraphs of Disappointment](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-i-look-at-the-labour-party-it-fills-my-eyes-with-paragraphs-of-disappointment/): When I look at the Labour Party it fills my eyes with paragraphs of disappointment Once a bastion of hope for the working class, it now stands as a testament to the erosion of its founding principles. This pitiful spectacle, this hollow shell parading under the guise of progressivism, has undergone a grotesque transformation. Instead of offering a genuine alternative to the entrenched forces of Tory privilege, it has devolved into a pale imitation, a Tory Lite masquerading as a champion of the people. It’s a tragic regression, a surrender to the neoliberal agenda that ravages the nation’s soul. Instead of […] - [The North Rebels: Driscoll's Call to Action Independents Emerging Parties Against Labour's Stagnation](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-north-rebels-driscolls-call-to-action-independents-emerging-parties-against-labours-stagnation/): The exclusion of Jamie Driscoll from Labour’s ranks is a damning indictment of Sir Keir Starmer’s spineless leadership. This supposed moderniser has in fact revealed himself as a reactionary intent on purging the last vestiges of principle from a Party that has utterly lost its way. Jamie Driscoll, the North of Tyne mayor, should by rights have been embraced as the embodiment of Labour’s future – a man of the people who dared to speak truth to power and rouse the slumbering idealism of those betrayed by this bankrupt Establishment. Interviewing Jamie Driscoll, Owen Jones, a prominent left-wing voice closely aligned […] - [The Orwellian Decline of Labour: From Socialist Vanguard to Centrist Oligarchy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-orwellian-decline-of-labour-from-socialist-vanguard-to-centrist-oligarchy/): The Labour Party: A Case Study in Iron Law Oligarchy In the grand tradition of political alchemy, the Labour Party has transmuted itself from a champion of the working class into a glittering, self-serving elite. This sorry state of affairs perfectly exemplifies Robert Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy” – the notion that all organisations, no matter how noble their beginnings, inevitably morph into power structures dominated by a self-perpetuating elite. Michels, bless his cynical soul, saw right through the charade. He understood that complex organisations necessitate delegation, and with delegation comes power. Power, much like a particularly virulent strain of mould, […] - [The People's Verdict: Varadkar's Defeat and the Reassertion of Traditional Values](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-peoples-verdict-varadkars-defeat-and-the-reassertion-of-traditional-values/): The Fall of Varadkar: Ireland’s Rejection of Constitutional Amendments A solemn peal tolls across the Irish nation as Leo Varadkar’s tenure as Taoiseach draws to an unceremonious close. The proximate catalyst was his government’s resounding repudiation at the ballot box earlier this month, when the people delivered a decisive rejection of the twin referendum proposals to redefine family and care in the constitutional text. For many, these measures represented an unwelcome attempt to expunge womanhood’s hallowed place in the republic’s foundational charter and absolve the state of its sacrosanct obligations regarding care for the most vulnerable. While the three coalition parties, […] - [Starmer's Labour: Enforcing Ideological Purity Through Zionist Pilgrimages](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-labour-enforcing-ideological-purity-through-zionist-pilgrimages/): Labour’s Submission to Zionism: Rituals of Indoctrination and Allegiance The putrid stench of ideological submission wafts through the halls of the Labour Party. In a gesture reminiscent of forced ideological conformity rather than genuine solidarity, the Starmerite regime is sending its new cadre of parliamentary candidates on mandated pilgrimages to the Zionist state. One can only imagine the reprehensible indoctrination awaiting these unwitting participants, who will be paraded before the racist apartheid structures like compliant supplicants, subjected to systematic cleansing of any dissenting thoughts or traces of human conscience that might recoil from endorsing the genocidal oppression inflicted upon the Palestinian […] - [Starvation Seige: The Humanitarian Catastrophe Unfolding in Gaza](https://heartlandstribune.com/starvation-seige-the-humanitarian-catastrophe-unfolding-in-gaza/): Hunger and Conflict: Gaza’s Desperate Cry for Help As dawn’s pallid glow heralded Ramadan’s sacred commencement this Monday last, it cast as well a baleful pall across the bleeding streets of Gaza. For rather than the usual rites of fasting and spiritual renewal, the holy month’s arrival bore a crueller twist of fate – the harbinger of famine unrestrained upon this tormented land ravaged by an unholy war. Now the scales of mortal reckoning hang perilously in Gaza’s besieged streets, where famine’s ghastly spectre looms ever nearer. A clarion call resounds from the monitors of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification […] - [From Diplomacy to Democracy: The Workers Party's Choice Craig Murray for Blackburn](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-diplomacy-to-democracy-the-workers-partys-choice-craig-murray-for-blackburn/): The Workers Party’s Vision for Blackburn: Craig Murray at the Helm It was a crimson dawn for the workers’ struggle when the indomitable George Galloway secured his glorious return to Parliament in the Rochdale by-election. There’s been no resting on laurels. Riding this swell of momentum, The Workers Party now proudly unveil their candidate for Blackburn in the upcoming general election: Craig Murray. Murray’s very name carries the weight of credibility and conviction. A Scottish lion renowned for his lifelong crusade against human rights abuses, obfuscation, and global injustice, he has fearlessly championed these sacred causes at every turn. During his […] - [Diane Abbott’s suspension is an example of how Labour weaponises Antisemitism.](https://heartlandstribune.com/diane-abbotts-suspension-is-an-example-of-how-labour-weaponises-antisemitism/): “My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing”. -George Orwell. Exposing That Lie… As I have always maintained, the issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party has never been about genuinely eliminating such a toxic element from its ranks. Rather, it has […] - [Extremism: The War on Dissent Britain's Slippery Slope to Authoritarianism](https://heartlandstribune.com/extremism-the-war-on-dissent-britains-slippery-slope-to-authoritarianism/): Criminalising Dissent: Britain’s Dangerous Slide Towards Authoritarian Rule Once more, the icy grip of authoritarianism tightens around the necks of Britain’s struggling masses. This insidious endeavour, dripping with the familiar rhetoric of control, represents nothing short of a direct attack on the cherished principles of liberty while attacking democratic diversity and open dialogue. Under the guise of “security” and “social cohesion,” our precious freedoms are further stifled by a cabinet of clueless bureaucrats steering us into the murky waters of thought-policed uniformity. Their audacious redefinition of “extremism” is a brazen attempt to criminalise any dissenting voice that dares to challenge the […] - [The Enduring Legacy of Tony Benn: A Reflection on His Life, Work, and Ideas](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-enduring-legacy-of-tony-benn-a-reflection-on-his-life-work-and-ideas/): Tony Benn, a towering figure in British politics, left a lasting legacy that still resonates today. As we mark the anniversary of the passing of Tony Benn, it is worth considering what he would make of the current state of today’s Labour Party. Benn was a towering figure of the British left, a passionate advocate of socialism, and an unwavering critic of the neoliberal consensus that has held sway in British politics for the past several decades. His views on the Labour Party were complex and evolving even then, but it is clear that he would have much to say about […] - [I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!](https://heartlandstribune.com/im-as-mad-as-hell-and-im-not-going-to-take-this-anymore/): Mad as Hell? We Should Be! Time to Rewrite the Rules Have you ever felt a creeping sense of déjà vu that hangs heavy in the air? Like a scratched record playing on repeat, a glitch in the Matrix where history seems trapped in a loop, spitting out the same tired problems with a fresh coat of paint. The economy crumbles, existential threats loom, bubbles burst, corruption festers, scandals erupt, and the drums of war beat a familiar rhythm. These echoes resonate across the ages, as Tony Benn aptly observed: “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again. There’s […] - [Workers Party Triumph: George Galloway Takes on Labour and Tories in Maiden Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/workers-party-triumph-george-galloway-takes-on-labour-and-tories-in-maiden-speech/): The MP for Rochdale George Galloway Delivers Rousing Maiden Speech In his characteristic straight-talking style, the newly elected MP for Rochdale, George Galloway, issued a rousing clarion call in his maiden speech to the House of Commons. The longtime political firebrand pulled no punches in his criticism of both Labour and Tories while positioning himself as the true voice for the disaffected working people of his constituency. Galloway, leading the upstart Workers Party of Britain, hit the ground running by paying tribute to his Labour predecessor Sir Tony Lloyd as a “significant figure”, while lambasting the current state of the party. […] - [Big Money, Bigger Bigotry: Frank Hester and the Tory Party's Continued Moral Decay](https://heartlandstribune.com/big-money-bigger-bigotry-frank-hester-and-the-tory-partys-continued-moral-decay/): Frank Hester: A Portrait of Racism at the Heart of Tory Donations Well, well, the sordid depths to which the Conservatives will plumb for filthy lucre truly know no bottom. Their biggest donor, it would appear, is a corpulent vulgarian who spews bile about “shooting” Britain’s longest-serving Black MP with the same ease as he belches sulphurous fumes about “foreign” workers and “Chinese girls.” Frank Hester, the millionaire charlatan whose bottomless pockets are greasing the wheels of Sunak’s sputtering clown car, has been caught red-handed making vile racist comments that would make even the Rottweilers of the Monday Club blush. Apparently, […] - [Reform UK's New Recruit: Lee Anderson's Political Shape-Shifting](https://heartlandstribune.com/reform-uks-new-recruit-lee-andersons-political-shape-shifting/): Theatre of Chaos: Lee Anderson’s Move Reflects Westminster’s Decline Ah, the merry-go-round of British politics keeps on spinning! Lee Anderson, that champion of the working class, has once again switched sides with the steadfastness of a tipsy wanderer in a sea of political venues. He’s hopped from the Tories, ousted for his not-so-politically-correct remarks about London’s Muslim mayor, and landed in the lap of Reform UK – Farage’s brainchild that loves a good protest and a cushy parliamentary pension. In a press show more comical than a Shakespearian play, along the lines of Much Ado About Nothing, Anderson was unveiled as […] - [Tractors vs. Bureaucracy: Farmers Unite Against Unfair Food System](https://heartlandstribune.com/tractors-vs-bureaucracy-farmers-unite-against-unfair-food-system/): A Unifying Roar from the Fields – Farmers Demand Fair Shake in a Rigged System Across Europe’s farmlands, a storm of discontent is brewing. From sun-drenched Spain to windswept Ireland, farmers are rising up, united against a system stacked against them. Their grievances are a tangled web: crushing debt, supermarket bullying, and a relentless tide of cheap imports. Years of struggle have left them battered. Extreme weather events pummel their crops, while the burden of red tape grows ever heavier. Existing subsidies seem designed to benefit large agribusinesses, leaving many feeling increasingly marginalised. This week, a new frontline emerged. French and […] - [Nuland's Departure and the Ukraine Aid Investigation: Connecting the Dots](https://heartlandstribune.com/nulands-departure-and-the-ukraine-aid-investigation-connecting-the-dots/): Victoria Nuland’s Exit Fuels Speculation: DOJ Probes Billions in Ukraine Aid Intriguing rumours are swirling that the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI have initiated an investigation into the murky trail of billions allocated for Ukraine aid. This probe allegedly seeks to uncover the whereabouts of these funds, which were disbursed via the State Department and CIA. The abrupt departure of Victoria Nuland, the third-ranking U.S. diplomat overseeing Ukrainian affairs, has only fueled such speculation. Her hurried exit comes after years of manoeuvring the geopolitical chessboard around Russia’s embattled neighbour. The Russian foreign ministry immediately seized on the announcement, calling it […] - [Budget 2024: Breadlines to Get Longer, Cake to Be in Short Supply](https://heartlandstribune.com/budget-2024-breadlines-to-get-longer-cake-to-be-in-short-supply/): Peasants, Rejoice! A Satirical Take on the Tories’ Budget Charade Well, well, the high and mighty have deigned to share more crumbs from their groaning tables of excess! Today’s Budget ushered forth glad tidings from our overlords in their ivory tower redoubts. While the rabble struggles through the “cost of living crisis” – a turn of phrase that could only issue from the silk-lined pouches of those blissfully insulated from such vulgar concerns – this wildly out-of-touch Tory government couldn’t even muster the courtesy of offering jam today. It’s a case of ‘”‘Let them eat cake’, as the saying goes…if only […] - [The Miners Strike: 'The Battle of Hatfield Main' 1984-85](https://heartlandstribune.com/revisiting-the-miners-strike-the-battle-of-hatfield-main-1984-85/): 1984 Miners’ Strike: The Iron Heel of State Repression and Working-Class Defiance Growing up, I was fortunate to live near the fabled site of the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633, one of the most decisive clashes in Saxon England. The local tales of the Northumbrian King Edwin’s fateful stand against the Gwynedd-Mercian alliance captivated my youthful imagination. Little did I know that on the eve of my 18th birthday, another epochal battle would unfold on that same ground – one that would shape the future relationship between the working class and the establishment for generations. The Battle of Hatfield Main […] - [Gaza: "If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity"](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-if-i-were-to-remain-silent-id-be-guilty-of-complicity/): Gaza: An Open Wound on Humanity’s Conscience How I wish I could focus my pen on the stirring domestic issues of the day – the endemic corruption, the attacks on our civil rights, the fraying social fabric, the hollow slogans, the abandoned levelling up and the raging monster of inequality in this manufactured cost of living crisis orchestrated by corporate greed. I confess I wish to write of Grimsby’s blighted streets, victim of a neoliberal consensus, not Gaza’s smouldering rubble. But this luxury of choice is not afforded the trapped inhabitants of that open-air prison and at this dark hour, what […] - [Andrew Feinstein launches new ‘mass movement of the left’ to challenge Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/andrew-feinstein-launches-new-mass-movement-of-the-left-to-challenge-labour/): The Left Bites Back: Grassroots Resistance to Starmer’s Labour From Rochdale to Holborn Hot on the heels of George Galloway’s stunning Rochdale victory, a bridgehead has been established. Now the fight advances into the very heart of the establishment beast. This weekend, on the doorstep of Sir Keir Starmer’s own constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, that tireless crusader Andrew Feinstein will deliver a momentous endorsement for ‘Collective’. This new alliance of socialists, backed by an array of left-wing groups including the Workers Party, could blossom into the mass movement the left has craved. After socialist comrades from TUSC and other […] - [Westminster Trembles: Galloway's Landslide Victory in Rochdale](https://heartlandstribune.com/westminster-trembles-galloways-landslide-victory-in-rochdale/): The Lion Roars Again: George Galloway takes Rochdale George Galloway has won the Rochdale by-election with 12,335 votes. The Workers Party of Great Britain candidate overturned a Labour majority in the Greater Manchester seat. The irrepressible lion of the left, George Galloway, has conquered Rochdale in a landslide victory that will send tremors through the halls of Westminster. This tireless titan and scourge of the political establishment stormed to triumph on a platform of hope, proudly raising the banner of “democratic socialism”The Workers Party” in this former Labour stronghold. The neoliberal hordes that have bled Rochdale dry with austerity will shudder […] - [There are no more words to say on 'Gaza’ Swedish MEP’s silent protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/there-are-no-more-words-to-say-on-gaza-swedish-meps-silent-protest/): Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani spent most of her allotted speaking time at an EU parliamentary session in silence to protest Israel’s war on Gaza, before saying there were “no more words to speak about what’s going on in Gaza” and that “human rights have a skin colour”. “There are no more words to express what’s going on in Gaza, Mr. President of this session. There are no more laws to break, and there are no more appeals that we can make regarding the ongoing hypocrisy. Our collective humanity has failed; we pledged not to fail, but here we are failing again. […] - [Rochdale: The North Revolts - Galloway Set to Storm Labour Stronghold](https://heartlandstribune.com/rochdale-the-north-revolts-galloway-set-to-storm-labour-stronghold/): Rochdale By-Election: Westminster Trembles as Galloway Closes In At last, are we about to see a breath of fresh air waft through the stale chambers of Westminster? The irrepressible gorgeous George Galloway, a lion of the left unfettered by the fetid political orthodoxies, stands poised to claim the Rochdale seat in next week’s by-election. The bookies overwhelmingly fancy this veteran warrior’s chances, and who can doubt them? But then again don’t sit on your laurels if you bet on the old war horse who isn’t afraid to face the neoliberal hordes of Westminster get out and vote this Thursday. After Labour […] - [Dog whistles Over London](https://heartlandstribune.com/dog-whistles-over-london/): Tory MP Lee Anderson Suspended Over ‘Dog Whistle’ Comments About Sadiq Khan Lee Anderson, Conservative MP for Ashfield, has been stripped of the party whip after refusing to apologise for claiming that London mayor Sadiq Khan had “given away” the capital to Islamists. In an appearance on GB News on Friday, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party stated that Khan had handed control of London to “his mates”, widely interpreted as a dog whistle referring to Muslims. Speaking on GB News, the Tory MP for Ashfield said that Mr Khan had “given our capital city away to his mates”. […] - [Mendacity and Manipulation: Hoyle's Integrity Sacrificed for Starmer's Rigged Ceasefire Vote](https://heartlandstribune.com/mendacity-and-manipulation-hoyles-integrity-sacrificed-for-starmers-rigged-ceasefire-vote/): Cloak and Dagger: How Starmer Rigged the Ceasefire Vote Sir Keir Starmer has acknowledged that he had discussions with Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle before the Ceasefire vote, where he admitted to “urging” Hoyle to select his Amendment to the SNP motion. While he firmly denied threatening Hoyle, he avoided addressing whether any Labour MPs had done so. It was noted that Starmer had meetings with Hoyle and Labour’s Chief Whip, as mentioned by Stephen Flynn on Channel 4 News. Once again the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer reveals the tawdry machinations behind his polished public facade. His admission that he personally […] - [Gaza's Grim Milestone: Starmer's Ceasefire Call at 30,000 Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/gazas-grim-milestone-starmers-ceasefire-call-at-30000-dead/): 30,000 Souls Later: Starmer’s Belated Call for Gaza’s Ceasefire Sir Keir Starmer’s endless equivocation over the horrific slaughter in Gaza exposes both his lack of principle and the moral bankruptcy of New Labour. For month after month, as the bombs rained down and the bodies piled up, this petty politician sat on the fence, unwilling to take a stand. Now the SNP has tabled a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that will be debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday, which will further highlight Labour’s divisions. The motion condemns the military assault on Gaza, which has now […] - [Whodunnit in Siberia: Kremlin Critic Navalny Dies in Prison](https://heartlandstribune.com/whodunnit-in-siberia-kremlin-critic-navalny-dies-in-prison/): Poisoned Again, or Putin’s Last Silencing Act? Remember Navalny? The man who dared expose Putin’s opulent palace, the one poisoned with Novichok nerve agent, the one jailed on trumped-up charges? Yeah, him. Now, conveniently “unwell” after a walk, he’s gone. The prison service’s tale of resuscitation attempts rings hollower than a Kremlin propaganda show. The body is still warm, but the questions are already burning hot. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most vocal critic, lies dead in a Siberian prison. The official cause? Unclear. The stench of foul play? Overwhelming. The resounding question…whodunnit? The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said Navalny had […] - [Gas Grab Off Gaza: Corporate Greed Meets International Lawlessness](https://heartlandstribune.com/gas-grab-off-gaza-corporate-greed-meets-international-lawlessness/): Pillage on the High Seas: Corporate Vultures Plundering Gaza’s Gas Reserves Face Legal Storm Forget the quaint notion of “war crimes” for a moment. Let’s talk about good, old-fashioned piracy. Not swashbuckling pirates on the high seas, mind you, but corporate buccaneers plundering the very seabed of besieged Gaza. While the world’s attention is diverted by this latest “conflict” (a euphemism so threadbare it deserves sainthood), Israel’s Ministry of Energy, in its usual display of arrogance, handed out exploration licenses for gas reserves off Gaza’s coast. Without hesitation, the corporate vultures began circling, and energy giants swooped in, – companies like […] - [Labour's Self-Inflicted Quagmire: Starmer Silences Israel Dissent](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-self-inflicted-quagmire-starmer-silences-israel-dissent/): Labour suspends second parliamentary candidate over Israel comments Labour withdrawal backing for Graham Jones, candidate for Hyndburn, follows Starmer’s action against Azhar Ali in Rochdale Let’s be blunt: the Labour Party finds itself in a tangled mess of its own making. Sir Keir Starmer, once hailed as the steady hand, now appears to be dancing with two left feet and a tin ear. The suspension of two parliamentary candidates over their comments on Israel is more than just a PR disaster; it exposes the festering wounds of factionalism and muddled thinking beneath the surface. Antisemitism is abhorrent, and any comments that […] - [Rochdale By-election: Labour's Selective Outrage Exposes Moral Bankruptcy](https://heartlandstribune.com/rochdale-by-election-labours-selective-outrage-exposes-moral-bankruptcy/): Labour withdrew support for Rochdale by-election Labour’s decision to withdraw support for Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali reeks of hypocritical political expedience rather than sincere principle. While Ali’s comments were deemed unacceptable, and his apologies paraded in front of Jewish communities it was clear Labour only acted due to both media and social media pressure after initially defending him. Unsurprisingly this exposes the hollowness of Sir Keir Starmer’s vows to strongly confront antisemitism. Azhar Ali’s comments came in the form of a conspiracy theory when he allegedly claimed Israel deliberately allowed 1,400 of its citizens to be massacred on October 7th 2023 in […] - [The Left Bites Back: Grassroots Resistance to Starmer's Labour From Holborn to Rochdale](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-left-bites-back-grassroots-resistance-to-starmers-labour-from-holborn-to-rochdale/): Jewish Former South African MP Feinstein Challenges Starmer in Holborn St Pancras The announcement that Andrew Feinstein will stand against Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras signifies a grassroots revolt against the rightward drift of today’s Labour Party. As a veteran anti-apartheid activist and MP in South Africa, Feinstein embodies the passionate socialist principles that Labour has betrayed under Starmer’s tepid leadership. Feinstein is a credible candidate with an outstanding resume. Andrew Josef Feinstein is a former South African politician, activist, filmmaker, and author. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1994 to 2001 under the ruling ANC […] - [Labour's Road To Perdition](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-road-to-perdition/): Labour’s Bankrupt Vision: The Duty to Resist Centrist Complacency Sir Keir Starmer’s “new” Labour Party represents the tragic demise of real progressive politics in Britain. This hollowed out shell now stands for nothing beyond bland managerialism. In cravenly chasing centrist votes, Labour has abandoned its duty to offer transformative solutions to the crises facing working people. On issue after issue, Starmer has jettisoned principled stances in favour of cynical political positioning. Any pretence of vision has been replaced by vapid soundbites and facile gimmicks aimed at marginal voters. This cowardly triangulation will do nothing to address the profound sicknesses afflicting our […] - [Labour's Latest Betrayal: A Cowardly Retreat on the Environment](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-latest-betrayal-a-cowardly-retreat-on-the-environment/): Labour’s Green Betrayal: Starmer’s Retreat from £28 Billion Pledge Labour’s latest pathetic capitulation reveals the tragic truth about Sir Keir Starmer’s feeble leadership. In a desperate bid pretending to be fiscally responsible, Labour has now abandoned its pledge to invest billions in green jobs. This cowardly surrender exposes the hollowness at the heart of Starmerism. The party had previously promised £28 billion per year for environmental projects. This visionary proposal offered hope of transforming Britain into a leader in clean energy. But in his confusion and weakness, Starmer has tossed this commitment aside like an inconvenient burden. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves […] - [Hamas Delegation to Seek Ceasefire in Cairo Talks](https://heartlandstribune.com/hamas-delegation-to-seek-ceasefire-in-cairo-talks/): Hamas has proposed a 135-day ceasefire deal to end the ongoing conflict in Gaza even after Netanyahu rejected it Hamas official Osama Hamdan announced that a delegation led by high-ranking member Khalil al-Hayya will head to Cairo on Thursday to engage in ceasefire discussions with Egypt and Qatar. This comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s ceasefire proposal, to which Hamdan responded that Hamas is prepared to deal with all options. Hamas proposed a three-stage ceasefire deal on Tuesday that would last 135 days, lead to the end of Israel’s war on Gaza and the exchange of Israeli captives […] - [Landmark Victory for Free Expression: Professor David Miller Triumphs Over Censorship](https://heartlandstribune.com/landmark-victory-for-free-expression-professor-david-miller-triumphs-over-censorship/): Academic’s Anti-Zionism Ruled Protected Belief in Landmark Verdict A great victory has been won for free expression, as Professor David Miller has triumphed over the forces attempting to censor criticism of Zionism. Sacked by the University of Bristol over alleged antisemitic remarks, an employment tribunal has ruled Prof Miller was unfairly dismissed due to his anti-Zionist philosophical beliefs. In this seminal judgment, the first of its kind, anti-Zionism has been established as a protected characteristic under equality law. Prof Miller sagely argued that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist and colonial – views now shielded from discrimination. His position echoes the 1975 […] - [Mammon's Hold on the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/mammons-hold-on-the-labour-party/): Finance firms gave Labour £2m in two years before banker bonuses U-turn One might have hoped the great financial crash of 2008 would end, once and for all, Labour’s unseemly dalliance with the masters of high finance. But it seems the Party has learned nothing, as this reckless affair has been rekindled under Sir Keir Starmer. Not only are we still paying for the sins of Bankers past, but Labour seems doomed to relive its failed romance, as mammon’s temptations lure Labour into another ruinous liaison with the money men of the City. Bankers and City-linked firms have handed Labour the equivalent of […] - [Israel's Brutal Assult on Gaza 'Plausibly' Amounts to Genocide, US Court Finds](https://heartlandstribune.com/israels-brutal-assult-on-gaza-plausibly-amounts-to-genocide-us-court-finds/): US Judge Admits Horror of Gaza Genocide A grave injustice has been laid bare, as a federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s ruthless military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide. Yet the court dismissed the case against US support for Israel’s barbarism, absurdly claiming it lacks jurisdiction over matters of foreign policy. We must condemn this cruel charade of justice. The evidence of potential genocide is overwhelming, as the judge himself conceded, yet he abdicated his duty under a vague appeal to “political questions.” This is moral cowardice masquerading as judicial restraint. However. The judge noted that the […] - [Crony Capitalism: Sunak Family Firm in Line for Millions in New Public Contracts](https://heartlandstribune.com/crony-capitalism-sunak-family-firm-in-line-for-millions-in-new-public-contracts/): Corporate Government: Sunak’s Family and the Privatisation of Public Money As greed corrodes the soul of our politics, the unseemly scramble for preferential government contracts reaches new lows. The latest revelations around Infosys, the IT firm part-owned by Rishi Sunak’s wife, make an unsavory spectacle. While the prime minister publicly preaches probity, his family engorges itself at the public trough. Infosys has secured plum positions as a supplier on major contracts worth upwards of £750 million. The firm was founded by Sunak’s father-in-law and grants the Sunak family millions in annual dividends. Conveniently, it now stands to reap taxpayers’ money through […] - [Israeli Forces Dressed as Medics Raid Hospital in Jenin, Three Palestinians Executed](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-forces-dressed-as-medics-raid-hospital-in-jenin-three-palestinians-executed/): CCTV footage shows a dozen Israelis disguised as doctors, patients and other Palestinian civilians storming the hospital Israel’s latest grisly escapade in Jenin Hospital encapsulates its descent into lawless barbarity. Brazenly disguised as medical staff, Israeli secret police executed three Palestinian fighters receiving treatment. This breach of international codes banning violence against healthcare facilities demonstrates how the Zionist state now operates as a rogue military unfettered by civilized norms. The chilling CCTV footage could be mistaken for some gangster film, yet the actors are Israel’s “elite” forces. Such extrajudicial assassinations were once the province of the Stern Gang or Irgun terrorists; […] - [To Catch A Copper: The Shocking Reality of Britians Modern Bobbies](https://heartlandstribune.com/to-catch-a-copper-the-shocking-reality-of-britians-modern-bobbies/): To Catch a Copper: Unmasking the Rot Within Britain’s Police Force The disturbing new Channel 4 documentary series To Catch a Copper offers a sobering glimpse into the decay infecting parts of Britain’s police forces. Following in the footsteps of Line of Duty-style internal investigators, this jaw-dropping chronicle exposes the corruption and abuse festering within Avon and Somerset Constabulary. The program’s first shocking episode depicts police responding to a mentally distressed woman on Clifton Suspension Bridge. Rather than compassion, the attending officers treat her with sneering aggression, subjecting the vulnerable soul to pepper spray and excessive force before joking about getting […] - [Resisting the UniParty in a Brave New World](https://heartlandstribune.com/resisting-the-uniparty-in-a-brave-new-world/): The Desolate Landscape of Unprincipled Opportunism: A Lament for the Current Political Era What wretched times these are, when the great parties of the state have collapsed into a miasma of unprincipled opportunism. Where once respectable philosophies contended, now the avaricious forces of Mammon hold sway. In better years, the left proffered policies of collectivism, idealistically advocating the uplift of the masses through state beneficence. Their hearts pulsed for the common man. Meanwhile, conservatives stood for continuity, championing institutions and mores that bound generations in a rich inherited tapestry. Change proceeded cautiously, organically, eschewing rash innovative conceits. But alas, from the […] - [Gaza and the ICJ: A Stark Test for Global Commitment to Justice](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-and-the-icj-a-stark-test-for-global-commitment-to-justice/): ICJ’s Landmark Ruling: Israel Ordered to Prevent Genocide in Gaza The International Court of Justice made a historic ruling today ordering Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. This landmark decision should have affirmed that no state, not even powerful ones like Israel, stand above international law. The ruling issued by the ICJ ordered six provisional measures including for Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide Convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance […] - [Silence Speaks Volumes: Sunak Faces Demands to Denounce Israel's Actions as War Crimes](https://heartlandstribune.com/silence-speaks-volumes-sunak-faces-demands-to-denounce-israels-actions-as-war-crimes/): Cowardly Silence: Rishi Sunak Challenged Over UK’s Response to Gaza Atrocities Rishi Sunak faces growing demands to openly condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza as war crimes, following the killing of a Palestinian man carrying a white flag. During Prime Minister’s Questions, SNP MP Stephen Flynn challenged Sunak over recent ITV footage showing Israeli forces fatally shooting 51-year-old Ramzi Abu Sahloul in a supposed Gaza “safe zone.” Flynn insisted this constituted a clear war crime. Stephen Flynn said: “Last night as Tory MPs were once again fighting amongst themselves the public were sat at home watching John Irvine of ITV News report […] - [Top Tories Warn: Get Rishi Out or Lose Out](https://heartlandstribune.com/top-tories-warn-get-rishi-out-or-lose-out/): Sunak’s Days Numbered as Tories Face Oblivion, Warns Former Ally Rishi Sunak’s time as PM looks limited as warnings grow that he’ll lead the Tories to electoral oblivion. Former ally Sir Simon Clarke says the party faces “extinction” under Sunak’s “uninspiring leadership.” A new poll suggests a fresh Tory leader touting core Conservative values could defeat Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. When asked to choose between Starmer and a tax-cutting successor getting tough on migration, voters in most seats favoured the hypothetical new Tory. Sir Simon Clarke, who served in the Treasury while Mr Sunak was chancellor, said “Extinction is a very […] - [On the Brink: Fresh US-UK Strikes in Yemen Raise Stakes for Regional Conflict](https://heartlandstribune.com/on-the-brink-fresh-us-uk-strikes-in-yemen-raise-stakes-for-regional-conflict/): US And UK Launch Fresh Strikes on Houthis in Yemen Notching Up The prospect of Regional Conflict By Paul Knaggs The Pentagon said Monday’s strikes hit eight targets, including an underground storage site and Houthi missile and surveillance capability. The US and UK said they were trying to protect the “free flow of commerce”. A joint statement issued by the Pentagon confirmed “an additional round of proportionate and necessary strikes” against the Houthis. The statement added: “Our aim remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea, but let us reiterate our warning to Houthi leadership: we will not […] - [Israel Gaza: EU’s top diplomat accuses Israel of funding Hamas](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-gaza-eus-top-diplomat-accuses-israel-of-funding-hamas/): Israel financed Hamas to weaken the Palestinian Authority, Josep Borrell says Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has accused Israel of financing Hamas to “weaken the Palestinian Authority of Fatah.” Kudos to EU top diplomat Josep Borrell for openly accusing Israel of financing Hamas, despite the inevitable backlash. Sometimes the truth hurts, but must be confronted. For too long, the sham of Israeli counterterrorism against Hamas cloaked a sinister collusion with the same militants. Borrell boldly called out this charade – that Hamas served Israel’s interest in dividing Palestinian leadership. Claims that Netanyahu’s government has allowed funding to Hamas, […] - [Caitlin Johnstone: Welcome to the Empire](https://heartlandstribune.com/caitlin-johnstone-welcome-to-the-empire/): Ever the victim of unprovoked attacks from the people it has been strangling. Ever the shining city on a hill of human corpses. Ever the defender of the poor, helpless plutocrats of Wall Street. By Caitlin Johnstone Welcome to the Empire Where genocide is self-defence and peace rallies are genocide Where war criminals are the victims and the hospitals are Hamas Where calls for freedom are hateful and ceasefires are anti-semitic Where civilians get called terrorists and real terrorists get Nobel Peace Prizes Where the propaganda is journalism and the journalism is propaganda Where the democracy is real and the apartheid […] - ['Children Are Dying' as Gaza Famine Arrives With 'Incredible Speed'](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-famine/): Citing Israel’s declaration of “complete siege,” one critic said the war on Gazan civilians is “proceeding exactly as planned,” including newborns dying within days because their undernourished mothers can’t feed them. Article by BRETT WILKINS Gaza’s children—already reeling from 103 days of U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of them—are now dying of starvation, with adults likely to soon follow, as famine rapidly grips the besieged Palestinian enclave, doctors and United Nations officials said this week. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans, half of whom are children, are starving as Israel’s bombardment and siege have “brought famine […] - [Rwanda or Bust: Sunak's Rwanda Asylum Policy Threatens Leadership](https://heartlandstribune.com/rwanda-or-bust-sunaks-rwanda-asylum-policy-threatens-leadership/): Sunak’s Political Whirlpool: Rivals Circle Amidst Rwanda Flagship Failures Rishi Sunak faces a defining showdown with his own Party MPs over his flagship Rwanda asylum policy, in a battle that may determine the fate of his lacklustre premiership. On Monday, Sunak suffered a massive 60-strong Conservative rebellion over proposed amendments to the Rwanda Bill, which aims to deport illegal migrants to the African nation. Wednesday may well see the end of Sunak… Rebel MPs insist the legislation requires strengthening to survive legal challenges and deliver on the Tory’s promise to curb illegal Channel crossings. The scale of mutiny exceeded expectations, delivering […] - [Crocodile Tears: Gaza And The West's Indifference](https://heartlandstribune.com/crocodile-tears-gaza-and-the-wests-indifference/): UN Chief Calls For ‘Immediate’ Ceasefire In Gaza: A Warning That Falls On The Collective Deaf Ears of Western Politicians The utter hypocrisy of Western leaders regarding the crisis in Gaza is appalling. As Israel bombards the besieged territory for over 100 days, killing tens of thousands, the so-called civilized world stands idly by. This feckless inaction in the face of what can only be called genocide exposes the moral bankruptcy of countries that lecture others about human rights. Yet again, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has pleaded for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Though his voice carries little weight with […] - [John Pilger: The Great Game of Smashing Nations](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-pilger-the-great-game-of-smashing-nations/): As the Middle East teeters on the brink of expanded conflict, John Pilger’s 2003 article serves as a vital warning from history. With Israel’s bombardment of Gaza followed by strikes on Yemen from the U.S. and U.K., tensions are reaching new heights. Pilger’s piercing analysis of the West’s disastrous intervention policies provides urgent lessons we cannot afford to ignore. By arming extremist “freedom fighters” to further imperial ambitions, the U.S. and U.K. directly contributed to decades of unimaginable suffering for ordinary Afghans, especially women. The same radical Islamic groups fostered then evolved into the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Rather than deter […] - [Sunak's Yemen Strikes Risk Middle East Conflagration](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunaks-yemen-strikes-risk-middle-east-conflagration/): With President Biden exhibiting signs of senility and unelected Prime Minister Richi Sunak Drownding in the Polls, We Inch Closer Reigniting A Middle East Conflict Somehow, I can’t help thinking we’ve all been here before… By Paul Knaggs In a controversial military intervention, UK and US forces have launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The raids early Friday, involving jets and cruise missiles, targeted over a dozen sites in Houthi-held areas. The pre-dawn airstrikes on Yemen by British and American forces represent a concerning escalation in the protracted conflict ravaging the nation. Under the premise of protecting shipping routes, the […] - [Post Office Scandal: Starmer Refuses to "Carry the Can" for Post Office Prosecutions](https://heartlandstribune.com/post-office-scandal-starmer-refuses-to-carry-the-can-for-post-office-prosecutions/): Starmer Faces Scrutiny Over Post Office Prosecutions Under His Watch By Paul Knaggs Sir Keir Starmer is facing tough questions over his role as Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the Post Office scandal. While campaigning for the Labour leadership, he boasted of “carrying the can” for any mistakes made under his watch at the CPS. Yet his past leadership now appears to be catching up with him. Although most Post Office prosecutions were private, the CPS tried 11 cases during Starmer’s tenure from 2008-2013. These occurred while he was DPP, resulting in convictions and even jail time based on […] - [The Post Office Scandal: A Rogue's Gallery of Those Who Presided Over Injustice](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-post-office-scandal-a-rogues-gallery-of-those-who-presided-over-injustice/): Long read warning: Just touching the tip of a very slippery iceberg… In Pursuit of Justice: Unmasking the Enablers of the Post Office Scandal By Paul Knaggs A web of corruption, conspiracy, and callousness sits at the heart of the Post Office Horizon scandal. This staggering miscarriage of justice, the largest in UK history, reveals an establishment that ruthlessly sacrificed integrity for profit and reputation. Over 700 innocent sub-postmasters suffered wrongful prosecution between 1999 and 2015 after flaws in the Horizon IT system falsely suggested missing funds. Yet those responsible have faced minimal consequences, many even rewarded with lucrative new roles. […] - [Israel at The Hague: Watching Lord Cameron Squirm, Will It Soon Come Back to Bite Him?](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-at-the-hague-watching-lord-cameron-squirm-will-it-soon-come-back-to-bite-him/): Lord Cameron’s Concerns: Unraveling the Legal Quandary in Israel’s Gaza Campaign Former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, now Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, awkwardly evades clear questions about whether Israel violated international law. Yet the facts speak for themselves – Israel’s siege starving Gaza of food, water, and power, alongside its brutal military assault killing thousands, can only be called collective punishment and crimes against humanity. There is no ambiguity here, only Lord Cameron’s telling reluctance to acknowledge the obvious. By quibbling around clear violations instead of speaking plain truth, he reveals the hollowness of his position. Empty rhetoric cannot disguise the […] - [Ex-Post Office Boss Paula Vennells Hands Back CBE After Public Outcry Over Horizon Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/ex-post-office-boss-paula-vennells-hands-back-cbe-after-public-outcry-over-horizon-scandal/): Paula Vennells: Ex-Post Office boss announces she’ll hand back CBE over Horizon scandal After immense public pressure, former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells has agreed to hand back the CBE honour she received in 2019. Vennells presided over the Horizon IT scandal that saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. A petition urging Vennells to relinquish her CBE crossed the one million signature threshold. Several government ministers also backed calls for her to return the honour, awarded for ‘services to the Post Office.’ In a significant intervention, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged his strong support if the honours […] - [Court Documents Unearth Disturbing Claims: Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Sir Richard Branson Named in Jeffrey Epstein's Sex Tapes](https://heartlandstribune.com/court-documents-unearth-disturbing-claims-prince-andrew-bill-clinton-and-sir-richard-branson-named-in-jeffrey-epsteins-sex-tapes/): Court Documents Unearth Disturbing Claims: Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Sir Richard Branson Accused of Involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Tapes Recently unsealed court documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contain shocking new allegations involving public figures. Among the explosive claims are accusations that Epstein secretly filmed Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Richard Branson engaging in sexual acts. The allegations come from Sarah Ransome, who identifies herself as a victim of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. In 2016 emails to a reporter, Ransome claimed Epstein recorded sex tapes of Prince Andrew, Clinton, and Branson with an unnamed female friend of […] - [Don't Believe the Hype: Corbyn Not Forming New Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/dont-believe-the-hype-corbyn-not-forming-new-party/): The Anatomy of a Smear: Dissecting the Jeremy Corbyn New Party Hoax Various media outlets, including ‘The London Economic,’ ‘Guido Fawkes,’ and ‘GB News,’ are circulating a baseless rumour suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn is in the process of establishing a new political party. It’s crucial to clarify that this claim appears to be a false flag, potentially carrying severe consequences for Corbyn within the Labour Party. It’s evident this is just the latest attempt by Corbyn’s enemies to undermine the former Labour leader and give Keir Starmer an excuse to expel him. Don’t fall for it. Supporters should view these claims […] - [Post Office scandal: Petition to Strip Shamed Post Office Boss of CBE Hits 1 Million](https://heartlandstribune.com/post-office-scandal-petition-to-strip-shamed-post-office-boss-of-cbe-hits-1-million/): Petition to Strip Shamed Post Office Boss of CBE Hits One Million A petition calling for former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE has now hit one million signatures, piling pressure on Rishi Sunak to intervene. Vennells was awarded the honour in 2019, despite presiding over the Horizon IT scandal that saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. She has refused to relinquish the CBE voluntarily. The figure has quickly risen after the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office shone a light on the IT scandal that led to hundreds of workers’ lives being ruined […] - [Ed Davey vs Mr Bates: Post Office Scandal From Ministerial Neglect to Consultant's Payday](https://heartlandstribune.com/ed-davey-vs-mr-bates-post-office-scandal-from-ministerial-neglect-to-consultants-payday/): Ed Davey and the Post Office Scandal: Unraveling the Tangled Web of Neglect and Profits By Paul Knaggs As Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey rushes to distance himself from the Horizon Post Office scandal, his murky past keeps popping up to haunt him. The Post Office affair, described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history, resulted in hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. More than 700 Post Office operators were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting. Lives were ruined, families destroyed, and reputations shattered. Four suicides were linked to the scandal. And all […] - [Police Investigate Post Office for Potential Fraud in Horizon Scandal Prosecutions](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-investigate-post-office-for-potential-fraud-in-horizon-scandal-prosecutions/): Police investigate Post Office over ‘potential fraud offences’ during Horizon IT scandal The Post Office is facing a criminal probe over potential fraud offences related to the prosecutions of postmasters during the Horizon IT scandal. Additionally, the police are separately investigating potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice. The Metropolitan Police confirmed they are investigating possible financial crimes like “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions.” Between 1999 and 2015, over 700 post office branch managers faced wrongful criminal convictions due to faulty Horizon accounting software, which falsely indicated missing money from their outlets. The faulty […] - [From Apartheid to Gaza: South Africa's Moral Leadership Confronts Israel](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-apartheid-to-gaza-south-africas-moral-leadership-confronts-israel/): South Africa Takes Israel to Top UN Court for Gaza ‘Genocide’ In a groundbreaking legal challenge, South Africa has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and petitioned the International Court of Justice to intervene urgently. Filed in late December, South Africa’s 84-page suit alleges Israel has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention through its sustained military assault on Gaza since October 2023. It chronicles evidence of large-scale killings, destruction of homes and infrastructure, expulsions, and blockade of humanitarian aid that collectively constitute genocidal actions under international law. Citing statements by Israeli leaders dehumanising Palestinians and calling for their destruction, […] - [Tory MP Chris Skidmore Quits Over 'Failing' Government Energy Plans](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-mp-chris-skidmore-quits-over-failing-government-energy-plans/): Chris Skidmore: Tory MP quits over new oil and gas licences In a scathing resignation, Conservative MP Chris Skidmore has announced he will step down next week in protest of the government’s controversial new energy policy. The Kingswood MP explained that his “personal decision” stemmed from his belief that constituents deserved the opportunity to elect a new representative, particularly given the contentious nature of the impending legislation. The bill, announced by the government in November, seeks to delineate a clear distinction from Labour, which has declared it will not grant new licenses if it assumes power. Skidmore slammed the Energy Bill […] - [Systemic Failures and Broken Lives: The Dark Legacy of the Post Office Horizon Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/systemic-failures-and-broken-lives-the-dark-legacy-of-the-post-office-horizon-scandal/): The Post Office IT Scandal: A Story of Ruined Lives and Evaded Accountability The Post Office Horizon scandal represents one of Britain’s greatest miscarriages of justice. For over 20 years, hundreds of postmasters were wrongly prosecuted and even jailed due to flaws in a computer system they did not understand and could not control. This callous indifference to the accuracy of digital evidence and presumption of guilt over innocence ruined livelihoods and shattered families. Yet years later, those responsible still evade consequences. In 1996, the Post Office began implementing the Horizon IT system developed by ICL, later Fujitsu, to integrate social […] - [Beyond the Picket Line: Junior Doctors Lead the Battle to Save Our NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/beyond-the-picket-line-junior-doctors-lead-the-battle-to-save-our-nhs/): Standing Up for the Backbone of Our NHS As junior doctors resume their valiant strikes amidst the winter crisis, their fight crystallises an endless struggle to protect our treasured NHS. It’s important to understand the gravity of the situation at hand. Junior doctors are a vital part of the healthcare system, often working long and gruelling hours in high-pressure environments to provide essential care to patients. However, despite their critical role, they are frequently undervalued and underpaid. This is not only unjust but also unsustainable in the long run, as it risks driving talented young doctors away from the profession and […] - [Why are Leaders of The Labour Party Members of The Same Anti-Democratic, Elitist Organisation as Child Abuser Jeffrey Epstein?](https://heartlandstribune.com/why-are-leaders-of-the-labour-party-members-of-the-same-anti-democratic-elitist-organisation-that-child-abuser-jeffrey-epstein-belonged-to/): Mandelson, Epstein, and the Tangled Web of Connections I don’t like to do too many articles on the same subject or at least not so close together but we have been inundated with emails to write more about Mandelson and Starmer’s connection to the Trilateral Commission and the direct and indirect connection to the convicted paedophiles Jeffery Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell. Unfortunately, it’s not light reading and leaves the reader with a disturbing aftertaste of the dark side of politics and the shadowy personalities within its circles. While many are aware of Jeffery Epstein’s well-documented political connections with former US presidents Clinton […] - [The Curious 50-Year History of New Year's Day as a Bank Holiday](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-curious-50-year-history-of-new-years-day-as-a-bank-holiday/): The Curious 50-Year History of New Year’s Day as a Bank Holiday As we recover from 2024’s celebrations, it may surprise some to learn that the New Year’s Day bank holiday is a relatively recent institution at just 50 years old. The origins of a New Year’s Day holiday are somewhat murky. One theory points to high employee absenteeism after raucous New Year festivities. Declaring a holiday could curb lost productivity. This was highlighted in a letter to the Times in January 1968. The post concerned the issue of absenteeism on January 1st and proposed moving a Spring holiday to January […] - [Happy New Year From Labour Heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/happy-new-year-from-labour-heartlands/): Dear Friends, As we turn the page on 2023, all of us at Labour Heartlands want to thank you for your loyal readership and support this past year. It is only through your dedication to our shared values that we can keep this site going strong as an independent progressive voice. For many 2023 has been a dark year, a hard year, with economic uncertainty and widening inequality inflicting real pain on communities nationwide. Wars and tyranny spreading around the world. But it was also a year that proved ordinary people have not lost their resolve. Across the country, you marched […] - [2024 The Uninspiring Duo: The Comming of The Great Electoral Swindle](https://heartlandstribune.com/2024-the-uninspiring-duo-the-comming-of-the-great-electoral-swindle/): Tories and Labour, Architects of the 2024 Electoral Swindle As we stand on the threshold of 2024, a looming certainty awaits us—the inevitable occurrence of a general election. The intricate web of parliamentary affairs, tainted by tiers of corruption, is poised for a seismic shuffle; its wings on both sides of the house will flutter briefly before settling down, seemingly renewed. Yet, amidst this political choreography, a disheartening truth will persist: the upcoming UK general election promises a singular outcome—the continued disappointment of the people. In a disconcerting display, both major parties showcase their inadequacies to govern, rendering 2024 a disheartening […] - [From Boxing Day Charity to Scrooge Mentality: Britain's Disturbing Shift](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-boxing-day-charity-to-scrooge-mentality-britains-disturbing-shift/): The Forgotten Origins of Boxing Day: The Dickensian Reality of Modern Britain Despite residing in the world’s 5th richest nation, a Dickensian wasteland of poverty and homelessness plagues modern Britain. The chasm between affluent and impoverished yawns ever wider as corporate greed and government indifference fuel a brutal cost of living crisis. Shamefully, over 139,000 children faced Christmas without a home this year, confined to temporary shelters if they were lucky. Many more will experience hunger and want amidst plenty. The poor are no longer merely forgotten – they are actively despised by those enriching themselves at society’s top. Origin of […] - [UN Prostrates Itself Before US Over Gaza Inaction](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-prostrates-itself-before-us-over-gaza-inaction/): Gaza Resolution Betrays Moral Bankruptcy and American Subservience The United Nations has again displayed its utter fecklessness and moral bankruptcy in adopting a disgracefully watered-down resolution on Gaza. Cravenly bowing before American might, it has abandoned even a pretence of leadership amidst unconscionable slaughter. Introduced by the UAE, the original draft urged an “urgent suspension of hostilities” to allow humanitarian access. But the noble UN could not countenance even this mealy-mouthed criticism of Israel, lest it displease Washington. So the text was gutted of any calls for meaningful accountability. The cessation of violence vital to saving lives was removed entirely. Spineless […] - [It's A Wonderful Life 'For Some': The Moral Bankruptcy of Modern Britain & its Politicians](https://heartlandstribune.com/its-a-wonderful-life-for-some-the-moral-bankruptcy-of-modern-britain-politicians/): Potter vs Bailey: The Moral Choice Facing Britain Today I am always touched by James Stewart’s brilliant portrayal of George Bailey particularly the ‘Just a Minute’ monologue. George Bailey the hero of that great Christmas morality tale, could have been speaking directly to 21st-century Britain in his impassioned speech to the villainous Mr Potter. The resonance of Bailey’s words echoes beyond the film’s era, offering a compelling reflection on the contemporary challenges faced by our own society. The greed and love of money Potter represents have increasingly taken root in our unequal land. As the super-rich get ever richer, the most […] - [Gaza: Draft UN Security Council Resolution Calls for 'Urgent Humanitarian Pauses](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-draft-un-security-council-resolution-calls-for-urgent-humanitarian-pauses/): The United Arab Emirates initially aimed to bring its draft resolution to a vote on Sunday, but to sidestep a potential US veto, the vote has been repeatedly postponed over the past few days. Despite ongoing negotiations and several modifications to the draft to accommodate the US, Washington remains opposed to the establishment of a UN mechanism for monitoring aid into Gaza. Security Council members are now anticipating a third US veto to impede council action on the Israel-Hamas conflict. While the United States and the United Kingdom have not publicly disclosed their voting intentions, it is anticipated that the draft […] - [Rotten Borough MP Peter Bone Faces Deselection After Recall Petition Success](https://heartlandstribune.com/rotten-borough-mp-peter-bone-faces-deselection-after-recall-petition-success/): Scandal-Hit Tory MP Faces Own By-Election Headache Rotten Borough MP Peter Bone faces his own deselection battle after constituents gathered sufficient signatures to force a recall by-election. This follows the charmless Bone being suspended for six weeks over bullying and sexually harassing staff. But true to the pinstriped gargoyle type that now populates the Tory backbenches, he bleats innocence and complains the process is ‘bizarre’ despite hard evidence upholding the claims. The Independent Expert Panel ruled Bone had exposed himself indecently during an official overseas visit. He was also found to have bullied and intimidated the staff member through verbal attacks, […] - [Wes Streeting: The 'Complacent' ‘Wasteful’ NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/wes-streeting-the-complacent-wasteful-nhs/): The NHS safe in whose hands? Labour’s Wes Streeting claims ‘wasteful’ NHS using winter crises as excuse for cashStreeting then vows to reform ‘complacent’ NHS. The fact he has the gall to say such a thing gives an indication of what his reforms will be. never mind adopting the majority privatised Singapore model he so loves… Cash for Influence: Labour’s Top Figures Graced by Private Healthcare Donors What is more surprising (some would argue more disappointing) is to see a cohort of extremely senior Labour Shadow Cabinet members represented. Four Labour frontbenchers reached the top 10 in the private healthcare entities and […] - [Snouts In The Trough: Baroness Michelle Mone £60m PPE Porkie Exposes Westminster Rot](https://heartlandstribune.com/snouts-in-the-trough-baroness-michelle-mone-60m-ppe-porkie-exposes-westminster-rot/): Rotten Core of Britain’s Establishment: Baroness Mone’s Deception and Entitlement Cast aside the dewy-eyed denials – Ex-Tory crony Baroness Mone has now squealed on herself over wallowing in pandemic profits. The peer has confessed to lying about her snout being firmly in the trough alongside husband Doug Barrowman’s to the tune of £60 million. This comes as the National Crime Agency probes the fat cat couple for alleged fraud in relation to lucrative government PPE contracts. Documents suggest they extracted obscene wealth via offshore trusts as dodgy protective equipment went unused. Yet this is not merely a tale of elite avarice. […] - [Trilateral Commission Triumvirate: Starmer's Labour a Comfortable Home for Former Tory Minister Rory Stewart](https://heartlandstribune.com/trilateral-commission-triumvirate-starmers-labour-a-comfortable-home-for-former-tory-minister-rory-stewart/): The Uniparty’s Final Surrender: Keir Starmer’s Labour and the End of Ideological Opposition Rory Stewart, the liberal Tory darling who backed every culturally destructive policy of the Cameron years, now fancies himself swanning into a ministerial position under Sir Keir Starmer. What a perfect match of vanities that would be! The fact that an ex-Tory minister feels Starmer’s Labour Party is an exciting prospect and one he would be willing to join now negates the question of how far to the right has Labour travelled. The question is moot. The only issue now is how much further Sir Keir Starmer plans […] - [The Thames Water Tragedy: How a National Asset Became a Playground for Fat Cats and Sewer Rats](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-thames-water-tragedy-how-a-national-asset-became-a-playground-for-fat-cats-and-sewer-rats/): Thames Water’s Downward Spiral: Debt, Dysfunction, and the Folly of Privatisation Oh dear. Yet another grotesquely overpaid fat cat has oozed his way to the top of one of our once-great national utilities, ready to gorge himself on the carcass of Thames Water while customers suffer, infrastructure crumbles, and sewage gushes into our waterways. Thames Water has named Chris Weston, a former executive at British Gas, as its new chief executive, offering a salary package of up to £2.3 million annually. Tasked with the formidable challenge of steering the heavily indebted utility back on course, Weston assumes his role on 8 […] - [Israeli Ambassador Dismisses Notion Palestinian Home Land](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-ambassador-dismisses-notion-palestinian-home-land/): Israeli ambassador denies Palestinians have a right to a state Israeli Envoy Dismisses Palestinian Statehood as “Absolutely No” Israel’s ambassador to the UK has sparked outrage after bluntly rejecting the notion of an independent Palestinian state in a television interview. Tzipi Hotovely dismissed the two-state framework as a “failed” paradigm that must be replaced, denying Palestinians a right to sovereign territory of their own. “The answer is absolutely no,” Hotovely responded when asked point blank if the vision included Palestinian statehood. She defiantly declared the idea obsolete nearly three decades after the Oslo Accords held out hope for a negotiated settlement […] - [Horror in Gaza: Eyewitnesses Describe Israeli Soldiers Executing Children in a Classroom](https://heartlandstribune.com/horror-in-gaza-eyewitnesses-describe-israeli-soldiers-executing-children-in-a-classroom/): Footage shows bodies piled up after Israeli attack on Gaza school Harrowing images and testimony are emerging from a school in northern Gaza where witnesses say Israeli soldiers massacred civilians execution-style as they sought shelter from fierce urban combat. Survivors discovered piles of bodies inside Gaza’s Shadya Abu Gazela school just west of the Jabalia refugee camp. They describe soldiers storming classrooms and callously gunning down terrified families, including women, children and even infants. “The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families at point-blank range,” one witness reported. “Many families came searching for their children and found them all killed, executed at […] - [Rwanda or Bust: What a Hill to Die on…](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunaks-rwanda-gambit-teeters-as-tory-rebels-threaten-revolt/): Sunak’s Rwanda Gambit Teeters as Tory Rebels Threaten Revolt Yet another unelected Tory Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak faces a defining test of leadership as rebels threaten to torpedo his flagship Rwanda asylum policy when it comes to a crunch Commons vote on Tuesday. Despite frantic last-minute pleas, enough Tory MPs look set to abstain or vote down the bill to potentially inflict a humiliating political defeat. The rebel ranks comprise both moderate ‘One Nation’ Tories opposing provisions that could breach international law, and the party’s ascendant right-wing seeking even harsher anti-immigration measures. Their contradictory demands leave Sunak squashed in the middle […] - [DWP Bank Account Intrusion: The Heavy Hand of Big Brother Falls Hardest on Those Already Reeling](https://heartlandstribune.com/dwp-bank-account-intrusion-the-heavy-hand-of-big-brother-falls-hardest-on-those-already-reeling/): Big Brother Tightens Grip: Benefits Claimants Targeted… While The Rich Continue to Hide Their Wealth in Offshore Accounts in This New Age of Haves and have-nots… The UK government’s newly unveiled bank account monitoring scheme targeting benefit claimants provides yet another example of how policies and systems disproportionately burden vulnerable populations. This dystopian intrusion into personal finances deals another blow to struggling groups already reeling amid a prolonged cost-of-living crisis, not of their making. While the stated aim of detecting fraud may hold superficial appeal, the scope reveals a distorted set of priorities that sacrifice privacy upon the altar of public […] - [US Vetoes Ceasefire: Israel Asserts the Ultimate Right To Extinguish a People](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-vetoes-ceasefire-israel-asserts-the-ultimate-right-to-extinguish-a-people/): From Afghanistan to Gaza: The Absurdity of American “Moral Clarity” The US has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The US, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is the sole nation to vote against a ceasefire in Palestine. The UK abstained in the vote. This means that the resolution has failed. In reply, the US declared: that an unconditional ceasefire’ is unrealistic and two-state solution is needed. The US representative told the Security Council that “no country could or should tolerate what Hamas did on 7 October”.“If any […] - [Galloway Lays Out Workers Party's Plan to Storm Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/galloway-lays-out-workers-partys-plan-to-storm-parliament/): Galloway Lays Out “Breakthrough Plan” For Workers Party in 2024 Election In his barnstorming conclusion to the 2023 Workers Party Congress, veteran firebrand George Galloway outlined ambitious plans to achieve electoral breakthroughs in the next general election, likely in 2024. Galloway pulled no punches in mobilising delegates and supporters for an all-out campaign putting “up to 50 candidates” up for parliamentary seats across Britain. He set the target of either taking constituencies from establishment parties or at least decimating their majorities. The long-time Pro-Palestinian advocate and former vice-president of the Stop the War Coalition highlighted widespread public disgust at Western leaders enabling […] - [Censorship: Don't Be Fooled - Facebook is No Bastion of Free Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/dont-be-fooled-facebook-is-no-bastion-of-free-speech/): The Battle for Online Freedom: Facebook’s Subtle Stranglehold on Dissenting Voices Despite posturing as a digital public square enabling open sharing, Facebook increasingly squeezes dissenting voices. Politically inconvenient content and non-mainstream opinions face shadowbanning – covert censorship making posts invisible to others while the original poster remains unaware. This deceptive practice hides the scope of constrained expression. But telltale signs persist – suddenly reduced engagement on normally popular content, and inability for personal profiles to reshare page posts. The overall effect resembles targeted strangulation of ideas questioning status quo politics or economics. Didn’t realise Facebook restricts discourse? More users find themselves […] - [Thatcher's Shadow: Starmer Shows his Tory Blue Beating Heart](https://heartlandstribune.com/thatchers-shadow-starmer-shows-his-tory-blue-beating-heart/): Starmer Triggers Outrage Praising Thatcher’s “Meaningful Change” Spitting on The Communities She Decimated. In an inflammatory article bound to enrage Labour’s base, Sir Keir Starmer provocatively praised Margaret Thatcher for “unleashing entrepreneurialism” and bringing “meaningful change” as PM. The Labour leader’s inverted historical revisionism triggered immediate disgust. Union leaders and activists decried Starmer’s servile fawning over an anti-working class leader who devastated communities nationwide. To them, Thatcher’s toxic legacy was destroying industry, crushing the miners after their valiant 1984 strike against pit closures, and decimating manufacturing. Her policies brought “change” via mass unemployment and urban decay, not aspiration and empowerment. By […] - [Pummeled Khan Younis Becomes Gaza's Latest Charnel House](https://heartlandstribune.com/pummeled-khan-younis-becomes-gazas-latest-charnel-house/): Khan Younis: A Funeral Pyre Emerges as Israel Escalates Bombardment As Israel intensifies its ruthless bombardment of Gaza, the southern city of Khan Younis now resembles a funeral pyre – its overwhelmed hospitals overflowing with dead and dying after the heaviest air assault of this lopsided war. Panicked residents described relentless bombing exceeding previous nights of horror as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter in the area, after being told to flee the north of the territory, which was Israel’s main target in the early stages of the war. Now trapped civilians who obeyed the edict from Netanyahu to […] - [QR Codes of Despair: Israel's Cynical Use of Technology Amidst Gaza's Communication Blackout](https://heartlandstribune.com/qr-codes-of-despair-israels-cynical-use-of-technology-amidst-gazas-communication-blackout/): Lights Out: The Tragedy of Gaza’s Communication Blackout and Israel’s QR Code Charade As the tenuous 7-day truce expired, Israeli warplanes again pummel targets across Gaza with continuous airstrikes that Gaza health officials say have now killed over 100 Palestinians. Neither side announced a ceasefire extension, both reiterating readiness to resume hostilities. In a chilling cynical move on Friday morning, Israel’s military began dividing Gaza into dozens of numbered blocks. It dropped leaflets with QR codes showing locals which zone they occupy, demanding targeted evacuations before bombing those areas. Earlier plans outlined striking Gaza’s South to force displacements before razing districts […] - [Sunak, Cameron and King Charles each take own private jets to travel to Cop28](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunak-cameron-and-king-charles-each-take-own-private-jets-to-travel-to-cop28/): Rules for Rulers: Elites Jet to Climate Summit Three for One, not in this game… Another day, another case study in “rules for thee and not for me” hypocrisy from our esteemed leaders. As King Charles, PM Sunak and Lord Cameron each jet off in their own private ride to climate talks, we peasants get fined for going 20mph over limits. Maybe I’d accept a lift to Dubai too if asked nicely? But of course, such luck is reserved only for the highest of the high-and-mighty. Us average earthlings barely deserve the oxygen we breathe, let alone a comfy plane seat […] - [Nottingham City Council Declares Bankruptcy Over Budget Black Hole](https://heartlandstribune.com/nottingham-city-council-declares-bankruptcy-over-budget-black-hole/): Nottingham City Council’s Fiscal Freefall: From Austerity to Bankruptcy Nottingham City Council has issued a Section 114 notice, effectively declaring bankruptcy after revealing it cannot legally deliver a balanced budget this year. The struggling Labour-run council admits having a “significant gap” in finances due to funding cuts and soaring demand. Issuing the section 114 means all non-essential spending gets suspended as the council enters crisis talks. The authority can now only maintain services it must provide by law. Nottingham’s financial troubles stem from various factors – past failed investments like the collapsed Robin Hood Energy scheme have drained reserves. Central government […] - [Oligarchic Rule: The High Cost of Inequality in the UK](https://heartlandstribune.com/oligarchic-rule-the-high-cost-of-inequality-in-the-uk/): UK’s Oligarch Rule: Propping Up Inequality, Abandoning The People As the baton readies itself to be passed to the left wing of the Uniparty, the masses feel a consistent downward shove. Behind Westminster’s rotating doors, backroom deals and cronyism reveal an unsettling reality – both Tories and Labour govern for oligarchs, not citizens. It shows in black and white a digital record of this dystopian Britain in the making. The UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries. Leaders like Sunak and […] - [Race Against Violence: Ceasefire Countdown Gaza's Fragile Hope](https://heartlandstribune.com/race-against-violence-ceasefire-countdown-gazas-fragile-hoperace-against-violence/): Ceasefire Hangs in Balance: Delayed till Friday Devastating Strikes on Gaza Continue A long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza now has an official start time, raising hopes that over six weeks of horrendous violence may soon pause. Qatar mediator Majed al-Ansari announced the truce will commence at 7am local time on Friday and last four days initially. It was originally slated to begin on Thursday but faced unexplained delays, despite frantic last-minute diplomacy. As part of phased deals secured through arduous negotiation, Hamas will release the first group of hostages in the afternoon, including 13 women and children. Further prisoner swaps aim to […] - [Southport’s Dark Hour: A Community’s Grief Hijacked by Political Opportunism](https://heartlandstribune.com/southports-dark-hour-a-communitys-grief-hijacked-by-political-opportunism/): Grief Exploited: Southport’s Dark Hour The tragic events in Southport have cast a long shadow over our nation, leaving us all grappling with a profound sense of loss and horror. The senseless deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9), Bebe King (6), and Elsie Dot Stancombe (7) have torn at the very fabric of our society, leaving wounds that will take generations to heal. Yet, in the midst of this darkness, we find ourselves witnessing a spectacle that tramples on the memories of these innocents. The far right, ever opportunistic, has seized upon this tragedy with unseemly haste, twisting the narrative to […] - [Political Déjà Vu: Labour’s Fiscal Plan Tory Austerity](https://heartlandstribune.com/political-deja-vu-labours-fiscal-plan-tory-austerity/): Labour’s Austerity Playbook: Echoes Tory Tactics Chancellor Rachel Reeves has donned the sackcloth of austerity, meticulously arranging her rhetorical ducks in a row to explain why this Labour government offers no more change than a broken vending machine. Echoing the ghost of George Osborne past, Reeves delivered a speech in the House of Commons that could have been plucked straight from the Conservative playbook circa 2010. With all the enthusiasm of a dental patient facing root canal, she outlined a £22 billion “black hole” in public finances, conveniently discovered mere moments after Labour took office. You can almost hear the collective […] - [Huw Edwards charged with making indecent images of children](https://heartlandstribune.com/huw-edwards-charged-with-making-indecent-images-of-children/): Former BBC News anchor Huw Edwards faces serious legal charges, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police. The 62-year-old broadcaster has been charged with three counts related to indecent images of minors, stemming from alleged offences between December 2020 and April 2022. The charges pertain to 37 images reportedly shared via a messaging application. Edwards was taken into custody last November and formally charged in June. He is scheduled to appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court this week. Law enforcement has emphasised the active nature of this case, strongly cautioning both media outlets and the public against publishing any content that […] - [Breaking: Major Incident Declared Following Multiple Stabbings in Southport](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-major-incident-declared-following-multiple-stabbings-in-southport/): Eight victims treated for stab injuries – ambulance service A major incident has been declared in Southport following reports of multiple stabbings on Hart Street. Emergency services, including police and ambulance crews, have responded en masse to the scene. The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has confirmed that paramedics have treated eight patients with stab injuries. These victims have been transported to various hospitals, including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Aintree University Hospital, and Southport and Formby Hospital. Children’s hospital declares ‘major incident’ In response to the incident, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool has declared a major incident. The hospital’s emergency […] - [Junior Doctors Strike: Labour’s NHS Pay Offer A Shiny Facade on an Old Tale](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-strike-labours-nhs-pay-offer-a-shiny-facade-on-an-old-tale/): Red Ties and Red Herrings: Labour’s Flawed NHS Pay Offer As the great wheel of British politics turns once again, and we find ourselves under the rule of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government. We might have hoped for a sea change in the treatment of our beleaguered NHS, but alas, it seems the new bosses bears a striking resemblance to the old. The Labour government, in a display of generosity, has magnanimously offered junior doctors in England a 22.3% pay rise over two years. This supposed ‘olive branch’ comes after months of industrial action, during which our NHS heroes have battled […] - [A Carnival of Controversy: Paris Olympic Opening’s Cultural Clash](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-carnival-of-controversy-paris-olympic-openings-cultural-clash/): A Blasphemous Burlesque: Paris Olympics When you think you’ve seen it all, up pops the next shocker – The Paris Opening Ceremony – a spectacle that managed to outdo even the wildest fever dreams of a Dante’s Inferno on acid. Let’s not mince words here, comrades. This wasn’t just an opening ceremony; it was a full-frontal assault on good taste, common sense, and apparently, the sensibilities of anyone who doesn’t think “blasphemous burlesque” is an appropriate theme for a global sporting event. Now, before the liberal elite start screeching about “right-wing pearl-clutching,” let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t about prudishness […] - [Magic Money Tree: Spending a Political Choice](https://heartlandstribune.com/magic-money-tree/): Labour’s Two-Child Cap: A Stark Choice in a Nation of Plenty Beneath the veneer of political discourse in Britain lies a stark reality: the supposed ideological divide between Labour and the Conservatives has eroded into a mere façade. For over a decade, Labour vociferously condemned Tory austerity measures, decrying their devastating impact on society’s most vulnerable. Yet, as power shifts, we witness not a red revolution but a Red Tory resurgence under Keir Starmer’s stewardship. This metamorphosis of Labour into a pale imitation of its conservative counterpart exposes a fundamental truth: how a government allocates resources is not a matter of […] - [The Emperor's New Energy Policy: GB Energy's Windswept Illusions](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-emperors-new-energy-policy-gb-energys-windswept-illusions/): Labour’s Energy Secretary Selling Wind in a Can More theatre, more ‘newspeak‘, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has unveiled its grand plan for energy independence: Great British Energy. This supposedly revolutionary initiative promises to harness the power of British seabeds for wind farm development, aiming to make the UK more self-reliant for energy. However, like many political sleights of hand, this ‘new’ policy is little more than old wine in new bottles, served with a hefty side of public subsidy. The government has stated that the British seabed owned by the Crown Estate will be used to help build wind farms […] - [Big Brother Approves: Labour's Orwellian Newspeak a Rebrand of Migration](https://heartlandstribune.com/big-brother-approves-labours-orwellian-newspeak-a-rebrand-of-migration/): Newspeak in Action Language Control: From ‘Illegal’ to ‘Irregular’ Migration The linguistic acrobatics of power never cease to astound. In a move that would make Big Brother himself nod with approval, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has decided to rebrand ‘illegal migration’ as ‘irregular migration‘. This isn’t just a harmless semantic shuffle; it’s a calculated attempt to sanitise a contentious issue through linguistic sleight of hand. Welcome, dear readers, to the brave new world of political Newspeak, where the very foundations of our discourse are being eroded before our eyes. Let us not delude ourselves: this verbal conjuring trick isn’t merely […] - [Heil Starmer: Seven Labour MPs Suspended for Daring to Vote Against The Government's Cruel Two-Child Benefit CapheilHail Starmer: Seven Labour MPs Suspended for Daring to Vote Against The Government's Cruel Two-Child Benefit Cap](https://heartlandstribune.com/hail-starmer/): Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer has suspended seven Labour MPs for daring to vote against the government’s cruel two-child benefit cap. Sir Keir Starmer suffered his first rebellion as the Scottish National Party brought an amendment to throw out the cruel two-child benefit cap, which has been widely criticised by child poverty charities and campaigners. Charities, unions and even former home secretary Suella Braverman have all urged the new PM to dump the cap, brought in nearly a decade ago as one of George Osborne’s austerity measures. The charity Action for Children has called the policy “cruel” and warned it “creates […] - [Kim Cheatle: Secret Service Director Steps Down After Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump](https://heartlandstribune.com/kim-cheatle-secret-service-director-steps-down/): WASHINGTON — In a stunning turn of events that has rocked the corridors of power, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has fallen on her sword, bowing to a crescendo of bipartisan demands for her resignation in the wake of the shocking assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Cheatle’s performance before the House Oversight Committee was a masterclass in evasion and bureaucratic doublespeak, a display that left lawmakers from both sides of the aisle seething with frustration. Her refusal to provide straight answers to straightforward questions was not merely an insult to the American people, but a betrayal of her […] - [The Tories’ Rwanda Scheme: A £700 Million Farce in Political Absurdity](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-tories-rwanda-scheme-a-700-million-farce-in-political-absurdity/): The Tragicomic Farce of the Tories’ Rwanda Deportation Plan If the world is a stage then in the grand theatre of political absurdity, few productions have matched the tragicomic farce of the Tories’ Rwanda scheme. This wasteful and morally bankrupt as the Tories’ ill-fated Rwanda deportation plan. Like a demented gambler throwing good money after bad, the Conservative Party has managed to fritter away a staggering £700 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on this cruel and unworkable fantasy. Let us pause for a moment to consider the sheer scale of this profligacy. Seven hundred million pounds sterling, enough to fund thousands […] - [Biden Steps Down: The Dems’ Last-Minute Scramble in a Lost Race Against Trump](https://heartlandstribune.com/biden-steps-down-the-dems-last-minute-scramble-in-a-lost-race-against-trump/): Trump’s Triumph: Biden’s Exit and the Democrats’ Desperate Search for a Leader Well, well, well. What a relief! Old Joe Biden, that paragon of establishment virtue, has finally thrown in the towel. And not a moment too soon, I might add. The Democratic Party, in its infinite wisdom, had been clinging to this political fossil like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. Now they find themselves adrift in a sea of chaos, wondering how they managed to sail into such treacherous waters. Let’s not mince words here. Biden’s debate performance against Trump was a spectacle of geriatric befuddlement that […] - [The ICJ's Verdict on Israel: Too Little, Too Late for Gaza’s Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-iccs-verdict-on-israel-too-little-too-late-for-gazas-dead/): The Facade of International Justice: Israel’s Occupation and the ICJ’s Belated Response UN court orders Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories… The United Nations’ top court, in a moment of rare clarity, has finally uttered what we on the left have long known: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is as illegal as it is immoral. This pronouncement, albeit non-binding, opinion, lacking the teeth of enforceability, carries the weight of truth that even the most ardent Zionist apologists cannot ignore. However, we must view this development with a critical eye, recognising it as a tardy and inadequate response to decades […] - [ICC: Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant Expected Within 2 Weeks](https://heartlandstribune.com/icc-warrants-for-netanyahu-gallant-expected-within-2-weeks/): ICC Warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant: A Watershed Moment in International Justice The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague stands on the precipice of a decision that could redefine the landscape of international justice. Within a fortnight, the court is expected to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, according to reports from Israel’s Channel 14. This development marks a seismic shift in the ICC’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and poses profound questions about accountability for alleged war crimes. The Charges: A Damning Indictment ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s accusations are nothing short […] - [The Emperor's New Clothes: Starmer's Labour Laid Bare](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-emperors-new-clothes-starmers-labour-laid-bare/): The Emperor’s New Clothes: Starmer’s Hollow Vision for Economic Growth Just Another Housing Gamble As the King’s Speech fades into the ether, echoing off Westminster’s crumbling walls, one word lingers like a bad smell: “growth.” Sir Keir Starmer’s government chants it with the fervour of snake-oil salesmen, as if mere repetition could conjure economic miracles. But strip away the glossy veneer, beneath the slogans and platitudes lies a stark reality: a government seemingly bereft of substantial policies. It’s reminiscent of the tale of the emperor’s new clothes – all pomp, no substance. At the heart of Labour’s plan lies a misguided […] - [The Machiavellian Machinations of Sir Keir Starmer: A Tale of Political Treachery](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-machiavellian-machinations-of-sir-keir-starmer-a-tale-of-political-treachery/): When Starmer Says “Hope!” Don’t Forget How He Left Hope Sat On An Empty Commons Bench, Abandoned! On June 25, 2016, as the dust settled on Britain’s seismic decision to leave the European Union, a dark chapter in Labour Party history began to unfold. While the nation reeled from the aftershocks of the referendum and the sudden resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, the opposition stood poised to offer leadership and direction. Instead, what transpired was a breathtaking act of political treachery that would not only reshape the Labour Party but alter the course of British democracy for years to come. […] - [Former President Donald Trump Injured in Assassination Attempt at Pennsylvania Rally](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-president-donald-trump-injured-in-shooting-at-pennsylvania-rally/): Gunshots reportedly fired at Donald Trump rally – as former president rushed off stage Butler, Pennsylvania – Former President Donald Trump was abruptly rushed offstage with visible injuries to his ear and face after a shooting incident during a Saturday evening rally. Reports confirm that both the shooter and an audience member have died in the incident. Incident Details During the rally, loud gunshots were heard, causing chaos among the attendees. Trump fell to the ground, appearing to be injured, after the initial shots. Security personnel quickly surrounded him, and the Secret Service escorted him off the stage. Despite the injuries, […] - [Media Manipulation: The Contrasting Coverage of Gaza and Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/media-manipulation-the-contrasting-coverage-of-gaza-and-ukraine/): The Hypocrisy of War: A Tale of Two Conflicts In the grand theatre of global conflict, we find ourselves witnessing a masterclass in double standards and selective outrage. The contrast between Western responses to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war lays bare the rank hypocrisy at the heart of our foreign policy and media coverage. As George Orwell presciently wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” By controlling the narrative, by deciding where the story begins, our media and political leaders shape our understanding of these conflicts and, by extension, our acceptance […] - [The Starmer Doctrine: Feeding War, Starving Children](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-starmer-doctrine-feeding-war-starving-children/): War Over Welfare: Starmer’s Costly Pledge Amid UK Child Poverty As NATO celebrated its 75th anniversary, a grim irony unfolded. Sir Keir Starmer, our newly minted Prime Minister, jetted off to Washington to pledge fealty to the military-industrial complex. Now, as he wings his way back to British soil, the stark reality awaits him: children across the UK have gone to bed hungry, their growling stomachs a damning counterpoint to the fanfare abroad. The contrast between Starmer’s largesse in foreign affairs and the dire situation at home could not be more pronounced, setting the stage for a reckoning with his party’s […] - [Israel Lobby Funded Half of New UK Cabinet](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-lobby-funded-half-of-keir-starmers-cabinet/): By John McEvoyDeclassified UK Pro-Israel lobbyists have donated to 13 out of Labour’s 25 cabinet members since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified revealed. The list of recipients includes Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner,  Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Jonathan Reynolds, who will oversee arms exports to Israel as U.K. trade secretary, is another beneficiary, alongside Labour’s election mastermind Pat McFadden, whose responsibilities now include national security.   Some of the donations were provided by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobby group which takes MPs on “fact-finding” missions to the region. […] - [NATO at 75: President Starmer Flies to Washington](https://heartlandstribune.com/nato-at-75-president-starmer-flies-to-washington/): NATO’s Diamond Jubilee: Celebrating Seventy-Five Years of Global Tension Ah, the grand spectacle of NATO’s diamond jubilee! Seventy-five years of keeping the peace through the barrel of a gun, or so the story goes. What began as a cosy little club for Western powers to huddle together against the big, bad Soviet bear has metamorphosed into a voracious beast, gobbling up territory faster than you can say “not one inch eastward”. Remember that quaint promise made to Gorbachev back in 1990? “NATO won’t expand eastward,” they said, hands on hearts, eyes twinkling with sincerity. Well, they certainly kept their word – […] - [The Great Deception: Labour’s Victory is an NHS Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-deception-labours-victory-is-an-nhs-crisis/): The Great Deception: Labour’s Hollow Victory and the NHS’s Perilous Future In the wake of last Thursday’s general election, we find ourselves in a curious predicament. The nation celebrates the ousting of a 14-year Tory kleptocracy, yet fails to recognise the Pyrrhic nature of this supposed victory. Labour, under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, has slipped into power with a staggering supermajority of 412 seats – a feat that future historians will undoubtedly scrutinise with bewilderment. As Noam Chomsky astutely observed, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very […] - [The Book of Numbers: A Post-Election Reckoning](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-book-of-numbers-a-post-election-reckoning/): Numbers Don’t Lie: The Democratic Deficit in British Politics As the dust settles on this electoral battlefield, we find ourselves knee-deep in the deluge of statistics, percentages, and vote shares. It’s a numbers game, dear reader, and one that paints a picture more complex and troubling than the mainstream media would have you believe. The political classes and their media courtiers are frantically shuffling figures, desperately trying to paint a picture that suits their narrative. But as George Orwell so aptly put it, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” So let us engage in a […] - [Shock for Labour: Jonathan Ashworth loses Leicester South Seat](https://heartlandstribune.com/shock-for-labour-jonathan-ashworth-loses-leicester-south-seat/): Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth has lost his Leicester South seat, which he has held since 2011. Ashworth received 13,760 votes, but lost out to independent candidate Shockat Adam, who gained 14,739 votes. What goes around comes around indeed. In a delicious twist of political irony, Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s erstwhile golden boy and professional backstabber, has been unceremoniously ejected from his Leicester South seat. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Ashworth, who’s held the seat since 2011, found himself outmanoeuvred by independent candidate Shockat Adam. It seems the good people of Leicester South have finally cottoned on to Ashworth’s particular brand of political chicanery. Let’s […] - [Jeremy Corbyn Beats Labour Winning Islington North](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-beats-labour-winning-islington-north/): Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected as the parliamentary member for Islington North. Jeremy Corbyn has won in Islington North as an independent candidate. He won 24,120 votes – with Labour candidate Praful Nargund only taking around 16,000. He has held the seat for more than 40 years and the people of Islington have chosen to return him to parliament… Congratulations Jeremy Corbyn. - [Reform UK’s Rise: The End of Politics as We Know It?](https://heartlandstribune.com/reform-uks-rise-the-end-of-politics-as-we-know-it/): Counting Votes, Planning Funerals: The Night That Will Define Politics As the clock strikes the end of polling day, the real drama begins. The votes are cast, the die is thrown, and now we wait with bated breath to see what political Frankenstein’s monster will emerge from this electoral laboratory. The question isn’t whether Labour will win – that’s as certain as death and taxes (though with Rachel Reeves in No. 11, even taxes for the wealthy might not be so assured). No, the real intrigue lies in who will rise from the ashes of this democratic inferno to become Her […] - [The Great Reset: Labour's Plan is Control and Conformity](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-reset-labours-plan-is-control-and-conformity/): Political Bait-and-Switch: Labour’s Plan for Control and Conformity Every vote, every f****** vote for Labour is a vote to take away your liberties, your rights and freedoms. It’s an act of political self-harm, a willing surrender of the very principles that underpin our democracy. This is a rigged system; you think it’s a coincidence the Tories have depleted themselves. Turning themselves into an unelectable zombie Party? It’s not, they just couldn’t push it any further, Labour will now carry the torch of neoliberalism. You think it’s just a culture war, do you? You say we shouldn’t get involved, that it distracts […] - [The “Hold-your-nose” Election](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-hold-your-nose-election/): Guest post by Dr Duncan A. Heining, Long post warning… The “Hold-your-nose” Election If pollsters’ and pundits’ predictions prove accurate, on Thursday 4th July voters will return Labour to power with a massive majority… In the latest issue of New Left Review, Oliver Eagleton notes an array of centrist chatterers who project onto Starmer, a political chameleon if ever there were one, their differing hopes for a new ‘Ukania’. Such voices aside, it is difficult to find much enthusiasm anywhere for the current leadership’s shop-soiled Blairism. Perhaps twenty or thirty years from now, historians will, with justification, dub this the “Hold-your-nose” […] - [The Last Chance for Democracy: Defying the Duopoly #GeneralElection2024](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-last-chance-for-democracy/): “I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.” — Eugene V. Debs Ah, the fetid stench of this general election campaign week wafts across our benighted land. What a putrid offering it is, dear reader! We find ourselves once again at the precipice, staring into the abyss of political bankruptcy that masquerades as democracy in this sceptred isle. On one side, we have the Conservatives – a shambling corpse of a party, animated solely by the dark magic of corporate greed and the lust for power. After 14 […] - [Whistleblowers and Watchdogs: Assange’s Legacy in a Post-Truth World](https://heartlandstribune.com/whistleblowers-and-watchdogs-assanges-legacy-in-a-post-truth-world/): The Price of Truth: Assange, Activism, and the Death of Journalistic Integrity Ah, the sweet sound of justice’s rusty wheels finally creaking into motion! Julian Assange’s release from Belmarsh’s concrete embrace after 1,901 days is indeed a cause for celebration. But let’s not pop the champagne corks just yet, shall we? This victory, hard-won as it is, merely proves that if you bang your head against a brick wall long enough, eventually even the most obstinate of establishments might develop a migraine. The journey to this day has been long and fraught with challenges. Assange and his family have endured unimaginable […] - [Palestinians Flee as Israeli Forces Return to Gaza's North](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestinians-flee-as-israeli-forces-return-to-gazas-north/): A World Watching: Gaza’s Plight and the Global Failure of Conscience As the great George Orwell once said, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” And what a deceit we find ourselves in, as the blood-soaked sands of Gaza bear witness to a tragedy of biblical proportions. The Israeli war machine, fuelled by Western complicity and arms, continues its relentless assault on a population already brought to its knees. Once again, we see Palestinians flee their homes, this time in Gaza City’s Shejaiya district. Palestinians fled eastern Gaza City on Thursday under heavy bombardment as the […] - [Wagering Democracy: The Westminster Betting Debacle](https://heartlandstribune.com/wagering-democracy-the-westminster-betting-debacle/): A Loaded Dice: The Betting Scandal Exposing More Political Rot In a display of political ineptitude that would make Machiavelli weep, both our esteemed governing parties have found themselves embroiled in a betting scandal that would be comical if it weren’t so utterly depressing. It seems our would-be leaders can’t resist a flutter, even when the stakes are their own political careers and the trust of the electorate. First, we had the Tories, those paragons of fiscal responsibility, caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Not content with merely gambling away the nation’s future, they decided to have a punt […] - [Julian Assange is Free](https://heartlandstribune.com/julian-assange-is-free/): Julian Assange is Free: A Triumph of Global Activism In a stunning turn of events that has sent shockwaves through the global community, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been released from Belmarsh maximum security prison after 1901 days of incarceration. On the morning of June 24, Assange walked out of the prison that had been his home for over five years, granted bail by the High Court in London. Later that afternoon, he boarded a plane at Stansted airport, departing the UK and marking the end of a chapter that has been closely watched by press freedom advocates worldwide. […] - [Get The Tories Out: But ‘Be Prepared for a Decade of Struggle Under Labour,’ says Mick Lynch](https://heartlandstribune.com/get-the-tories-out-but-be-prepared-for-a-decade-of-struggle-under-labour/): Get The Tories Out, But Don’t Expect Smooth Sailing with Labour “Vote the Tories Out, But Brace for a Decade of Struggle Under Labour,” Warns Mick Lynch In a rousing keynote address at the RMT’s Hull AGM, General Secretary Mick Lynch delivered a message of both hope and caution. While urging voters to oust the Tories, he simultaneously prepared his members for a prolonged fight under a potential Labour government. Lynch began by commending RMT members for their “combative spirit” in the face of Tory hostility. Their resilience, he noted, secured vital victories: a hard-won pay deal and the preservation of […] - [The Housing Crisis: Labour's Missed Opportunity](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-housing-crisis-labours-missed-opportunity/): Mortgage-Serfs and Neoliberal Lies: The Truth Behind Labour’s Housing Plan No matter how Starmer’s outriders try to sell it, snake oil remains snake oil. What’s worse is that Labour’s entire manifesto rides on the precarious hope of Britain’s housing market booming. But as history has taught us time and again, every boom inevitably leads to a bust. If only Labour had dared to dream as Attlee and Nye Bevan once did, this could have been a different game entirely. Instead, in the face of Britain’s most acute housing crisis in generations, Labour’s proposed solutions ring hollow, echoing the very neoliberal policies […] - [Breaking the Chains: Why I'm Voting Workers Party of Britain and So Should You](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-the-chains-why-im-voting-workers-party-of-britain-and-so-should-you/): Democracy of the Dead: Breaking Free G.K. Chesterton once observed, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” This election, tradition be damned, we must shatter these chains and dare to vote for genuine change! Champagne Socialists and Tory Austerity: A Call for Real Change As we stand on the precipice of yet another general election, the stench of political decay hangs heavy in the air. The duopoly of Labour and the Conservatives, those twin pillars of British political life, have long since crumbled into a heap of neoliberal […] - [Bankrolling Politics: Labour's Rise as the New Party of Big Money](https://heartlandstribune.com/bankrolling-politics-labours-rise-as-the-new-party-of-big-money/): He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune: The Shifting Tides of British Political Funding It’s a common adage that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” But when it’s our political representatives being bankrolled, who truly wields power in our purported democracy? Recent data from the Electoral Commission paints a stark picture of the changing landscape of political donations in Britain. Labour, once trailing in fundraising, has emerged as the new darling of big-money donors. In the first week of the 2019 general election, the Conservatives raised a staggering £5.7 million in donations. Over the four weeks leading to […] - [Tory Sinking Ship - Pirates of Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-sinking-ship-pirates-of-westminster/): The Sinking Tory Ship and the Rise of Neoliberal Labour The upcoming election will bear witness to a seismic shift in British politics – one that could very well mark the sinking of the Conservative Party after nearly two centuries at the helm. This historic upheaval, however, has been catalysed not by a formidable opposition from the Labour Party, as Sir Keir Starmer and his acolytes would have you believe, but by the Tories’ own relentless misrule and abject failures over 14 disastrous years in power. The Tory ship, its hull thoroughly rotted by corruption and incompetence, its tattered sails billowing […] - [Tory Ruin and Labour's Betrayal: Britain's Political Downfall](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-ruin-and-labours-betrayal-britains-political-downfall/): From Majesty to Misrule: The Collapse of UK Political Integrity Two images encapsulate our present moment with stark clarity: The Queen sitting alone at her husband’s funeral while her government flouted lockdown rules, and Karl Marx’s vandalised tomb in Highgate Cemetery. These powerful symbols reflect the moral decay and ideological abandonment plaguing our political landscape. As this benighted nation stumbles towards yet another electoral purgatory, the governing Tory regime teeters on the precipice of a well-earned oblivion. This creation, once the supposed byword for steadfast conservative virtue, a keeper of the institutions and agencies that make up these green and pleasant […] - [The Starmer Deception: The Rule of Oligarchy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-starmer-deception-the-rule-of-olicharchy/): The Starmer Deception ‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.’ George Orwell, 1984 Let’s be clear – when Keir Starmer glibly insists he “always knew” Labour would lose in 2019, recognise it as the arrogant confession of premeditated sabotage that it is. This was no mere miscalculation or political misstep, but the culminating phase of a calculated inside job meticulously orchestrated over years to extinguish the very prospect of democratic socialism taking root in Britain. Labour’s crushing defeat cannot be simply waved away as fallout from trumped-up antisemitism smears, Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed unelectability, or […] - [Hamas Calls For 'Complete Halt' in Gaza Amid Ceasefire Negotiations](https://heartlandstribune.com/hamas-calls-for-complete-halt-in-gaza-amid-ceasefire-negotiations/): Hamas seeks ‘complete halt’ to war in Gaza proposal response Amid diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has submitted its response to a US-backed proposal, with the militant group insisting on an Israeli commitment to a permanent end to hostilities. In a statement, Hamas and its allies in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) expressed “readiness to positively” engage in reaching a deal to halt the escalating violence that has ravaged the besieged enclave. The proposed ceasefire plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council on Monday, calls for an initial six-week truce that would eventually transition into a permanent cessation […] - [The EU Goose Steps to the Right as Far-Right Parties Surge in EU Elections](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-goose-steps-to-the-right-as-far-right-parties-surge-in-eu-elections/): 80 Years on From D-Day The EU Suffers Amnesia. In a deeply concerning shift, the European political landscape has taken an unmistakable lurch to the far-right following the recent elections to the European Parliament. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has been forced into a dramatic move, dissolving the National Assembly and calling snap elections after his centrist party suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s ultra-nationalist National Rally. Le Pen’s hard-right forces nearly doubled their support, raking in a staggering 32% of the vote – a 10 point increase from 2019 and more than double Macron’s 15% tally. A […] - [Trilaterals Over Westminster: Starmer's Hypocrisy in Denouncing the Deep State He Belongs To](https://heartlandstribune.com/trilaterals-over-westminster-starmers-hypocrisy-in-denouncing-the-deep-state-he-belongs-to/): Sir Keir Starmer’s Deep State Denial: He’s hoping we forget his membership of the Trilateral Commission The Washington Post, renowned for uncovering the Watergate scandal, also shed light on the Trilateral Commission, an organisation often associated with the controversial concept of the “Deep State.” In a 1992 article titled “Beware the Trilateral Commission!“, David Mills described the group as “the shadow government,” “the Establishment,” and the “global elite” operating behind closed doors. Mills wrote: “Behind closed doors (of course), they are meeting this weekend in Lisbon. Some call them “the shadow government,” “the Establishment,” the “global elite” that runs the world. […] - [Starmer's Nuclear U-Turn: A Tale of Mass Deception](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-nuclear-u-turn-a-tale-of-mass-deception/): Starmer’s Nuclear Hypocrisy: Flip-Flopping His Way to No.10 The hypocrisy reeks thicker than cheap cologne on a used car salesman. Our esteemed politicians prattle on endlessly about integrity and truth, all while exhaling noxious plumes of deception thick enough to choke the most gullible among us. Whether the falsehoods tumble from Rishi Sunak’s mouth or the drearily monotonous tones of Sir Keir Starmer, the lies flow unconstrained by partisan allegiance – fuelled solely by an insatiable lust for power at any cost. But few have proven themselves more masterful at this insidious art of mass deception than the current Labour leader […] - [A Defiant Stand: Maldives Bans Israelis in Solidarity with Besieged Gaza](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-defiant-stand-maldives-bans-israelis-in-solidarity-with-besieged-gaza/): Maldives bans Israeli passport holders over war in Gaza The Indian Ocean archipelago’s ban comes in solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza facing unrelenting attacks and mass hunger. In a bold and defiant move, the idyllic Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives has taken a stand against the unrelenting violence and devastation unfolding in Gaza. Amidst mounting public anger over the plight of the besieged Palestinian people, the Maldivian government has announced a ban on Israeli passport holders, effectively closing its doors to tourists from the embattled nation. As Palestinian civilians continue cowering under the relentless hail of Israeli ordnance, […] - [No Ceasefire: Netanyahu Pursues Genocide Against Palestinians](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-ceasefire-netanyahu-pursues-genocide-against-palestinians/): “Total Victory”: Netanyahu Pursues Genocide Against Palestinians In a grim escalation of rhetoric, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brazenly declared there will be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are utterly destroyed, and all hostages released. His uncompromising stance arrives just as US President Joe Biden announced Israel had proposed a three-stage plan to Hamas aimed at reaching a potential ceasefire agreement. While a senior Hamas official claimed they “will go for this deal” if Israel honours it, Netanyahu’s bellicose doubling-down lays bare the true objective behind Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of the besieged strip: the […] - [The Dementia Dilemma: Biden's War Path to Armageddon](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-dementia-dilemma-bidens-war-path-to-armageddon/): From Proxy Conflict to Global Crisis: Biden’s Dangerous Gambit Could Kill Us All It’s the open secret nobody in mainstream politics or media dares voice – Joe Biden’s faculties are rapidly deteriorating in what increasingly appears to be outright dementia. From rambling incoherence to unsettling memory lapses, the accumulating gaffes have become impossible to ignore for any objective observer. Yet such is the deferential court culture surrounding the American presidency that even when the supposed leader of the free world seems adrift in perpetual confusion, all continue pivoting and performing their choreographed roles as if nothing is amiss. And so despite […] - [Shaheen vs. Labour: Racism Allegations and Forde Report Disregard](https://heartlandstribune.com/shaheen-vs-labour-racism-allegations-and-forde-report-disregard/): Starmer’s Labour: Racism, Controversy, and Internal Divisions Exposed As the Labour Party gears up for the upcoming general election, a cloud of controversy looms over it another question of racism and internal divisions. Even after ‘The Forde Report’, an independent inquiry commissioned by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in 2020 thrust these issues into the spotlight, exposing uncomfortable truths and raising questions about the party’s commitment to addressing the systemic discrimination Labour stands accused of once again. The report, delivered by barrister Martin Forde in July 2022, painted a disturbing picture of the Labour Party’s culture and practices. Its findings […] - [Junior Doctors' Pre-Election Strike a Pivotal Test for Starmer's "New" Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-pre-election-strike-a-pivotal-test-for-starmers-new-labour/): The Doctor’s Call: Strike Puts Starmer’s Leadership to the Test As Britain barrels towards its most consequential general election in a generation, a fresh wave of industrial action is set to bring Keir Starmer’s true colours into sharp relief. With junior doctors announcing a 5-day walkout starting June 27th – just one week before polling day – the Labour leader will face intense scrutiny over whether his “opposition” amounts to anything more than reheated Tory austerity. While the Conservative government has expectedly doubled down on its entrenched hostility to public sector workers, dismissing the BMA’s pay demands as beyond the realm […] - [Abbott's Ordeal: The Tragedy and Treachery of Starmer's Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/abbotts-ordeal-the-tragedy-and-treachery-of-starmers-labour-party/): The Labour Party is Institutionally Treacherous. Once again, Sir Keir Starmer has reminded us all why describing the Labour Party as a “progressive” force is akin to terming Genghis Khan a philanthropic daycare provider. In the latest debacle exemplifying their rapid descent into an authoritarian personality cult, revelations have emerged of Starmer’s bare-faced deception over the Diane Abbott disciplinary saga. For weeks, the Knight Commander has maintained a brazen lie, insisting repeatedly that Abbott’s case was still in the hands of the NEC, even as the investigation had been completed as far back as December 2023. It was only through an […] - [Outgoing Tory MP Lucy Allan Quits Party After Suspension for Backing Rival](https://heartlandstribune.com/outgoing-tory-mp-lucy-allan-quits-party-after-suspension-for-backing-rival/): Telford Turmoil: Lucy Allan’s Rebellion Reflects Broader Tory Tensions The fissures within the Conservative Party have widened further as outgoing MP Lucy Allan resigned from the party entirely following her initial suspension for endorsing the Reform UK candidate in Telford. Allan’s defection represents another body blow to Rishi Sunak’s already embattled premiership just weeks before the General Election. The Tories had swiftly suspended Allan for throwing her support behind Reform UK’s Alan Adams rather than the official Conservative candidate Hannah Campbell. In a pointed rebuke to her former party, Allan stated she “couldn’t just let the Labour candidate have a walkover” […] - [Gaza Massacre: Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens at UN Shelter in Rafah](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-massacre-israeli-strikes-kill-dozens-at-un-shelter-in-rafah/): Gaza Massacre: Dozens Killed as Israel Bombs Displaced Palestinians In a devastating escalation of the ongoing violence in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 45 people and wounded dozens more at a United Nations shelter where thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in Rafah. The strikes, which the Gaza government has described as a “horrific massacre,” targeted the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, where an estimated 100,000 people had fled after being driven from their homes by Israel’s ground offensive in the area over two weeks ago. The attack comes just two days after the International Court of […] - [Conscription Comeback: Sunak's Bombshell Plan to Revive National Service](https://heartlandstribune.com/conscription-comeback-sunaks-bombshell-plan-to-revive-national-service/): Tories Double Down on Draconian Delusions with National Service Ploy Just when you thought the Tory brain trust couldn’t descend any deeper into authoritarian fantasia, Rishi Sunak has lobbed a policy grenade sure to furrow brows across the nation: mandatory national service for all 18-year-olds. In a naked pander to the withered jingoist contingent that still pines for a return to Empire, the PM envisions conscripting an entire generation into a year of military service or civil drudgery. All to supposedly instil some reheated notion of “national purpose” and “shared culture” upon Britain’s unruly youth. It reeks of the desperate flailing […] - [The Last Day of Tory Rule: Prorogation Ceremony Ends Business in Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-last-day-of-this-tory-government-prorogation-ceremony-ends-business-in-parliament/): A Farcical Finale to 14 Years of Tory Trashing So the threadbare curtain falls on another act of Britain’s interminable Tory tragicomedy. The usual Renaissance Fair pantomime of antiquated ermine and doffed caps duly performed to prorogue this shambling parliament. A quaint, ceremonial full stop to over a decade of conservatism conserving nothing but decay. The pomp and circumstance of Black Rod summoning the Commons representatives, the doffing of bicorn hats, and the proclamation of “the King wishes it” in French all seem like relics of a bygone era, ill-suited to address the pressing issues facing the nation. As our bewigged […] - [Keir Starmer: 'My Dad Was a Toolmaker' and Other Little Grifts](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-my-dad-was-a-toolmaker-and-other-little-grifts/): The Long Grift, a Grift of Mass Deception. Grifters come in various guises. The archetypal grifter is the smooth-talking con artist accumulating riches through scams and deception. But the political grifter also flourishes – cunning operators leveraging positions of public trust for entry into elite circles of influence and affluence. Rather than pickpocket the vulnerable, these grifters target the body politic itself. They sing seductive songs of change to gain power, later shedding populist skins when opportunity beckons. The political grift follows a well-worn path – ascending the ranks in parliament or Congress before cashing in through the “revolving door.” This […] - [The Fight for Democracy: Jeremy Corbyn and the Battle for Representation](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fight-for-democracy-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-battle-for-representation/): Democracy Under Siege: The Battle for Islington North As the nation braces itself for a snap general election on the 4th of July, a storm of controversy is brewing within the ranks of the Labour Party. At the heart of this tempest lies a fundamental question: Do the people of Britain truly have the democratic right to choose their own representatives? The exclusion of Jeremy Corbyn, the former party leader and long-standing MP for Islington North, from the party’s shortlist for the constituency has ignited a firestorm of outrage. Corbyn, who has been sitting as an independent MP since his suspension […] - [A Clash of Mediocrity: Sunak vs. Starmer in the Midsummer Election Bout](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-clash-of-mediocrity-sunak-vs-starmer-in-the-midsummer-election-bout/): Ding Ding! Dishy Rishi vs. Sir Kid Starver: A Spectacle of Stagnation Well, well, well…the Tory tailor has finally exhausted his bag of stitched-up tricks and decided to let the People speak. How merciful of Rishi Sunak to finally submit to this outdated ritual of democracy. Do wake me when it’s over, won’t you? In the blue corner, the plucky but punchless “Dishy Rishi” Sunak, former chancellor, austerity enforcer turned butter-wouldn’t-melt underdog. And facing him in…well… the blue corner, Sir Keir “Kid-Starver Starmer,” mouthing platitudes while madly shadow boxing with his own irrelevance. So let the phantom bout of the gamma-minus […] - [Ireland, Norway and Spain recognise Palestine as an Independent State](https://heartlandstribune.com/ireland-norway-and-spain-recognise-palestine-as-independent-state/): A Flicker of Hope Amidst Gaza’s Agony As the genocidal onslaught in Gaza grinds on, a rare glimmer of hope has pierced the darkness. In a diplomatic gambit aimed at forcing accountability, Ireland, Norway and Spain have officially recognised the State of Palestine, with more European nations expected to follow suit imminently. The tripartite recognition not only lends vital legitimacy to Palestinian sovereignty, but also represents a stinging rebuke of Israel’s unconscionable assault on the beleaguered Gaza Strip. With over 35,000 Palestinian casualties to date by UN estimates, the vicious operation has prompted growing outrage worldwide. By granting formal statehood, these […] - [Feinstein's Challenge: A New Hope for Holborn & St Pancras](https://heartlandstribune.com/feinsteins-challenge-a-new-hope-for-holborn-st-pancras/): Feinstein vs. Starmer: A Battle for the Soul of Holborn & St Pancras In an era where political integrity often takes a backseat to opportunism, Andrew Feinstein’s announcement that he will stand against Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency is a breath of fresh air. As a former African National Congress MP who resigned on principle over a corrupt arms deal, Feinstein brings a track record of unwavering commitment to ethics rarely seen in British politics today. While Starmer’s Labour lurches further rightward, abandoning progressive pledges and embracing austerity, Feinstein represents the antithesis – a proud Jewish activist […] - [Benjamin Netanyahu: International Criminal Court prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister and Hamas leaders](https://heartlandstribune.com/benjamin-netanyahu-international-criminal-court-prosecutor-seeks-arrest-warrants-against-israeli-prime-minister-and-hamas-leaders/): A prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants to be issued for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar over alleged war crimes. The International Criminal Court has thrown down the gauntlet against the architects of Gaza’s latest unimaginable horror. Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for the top leadership of both Israel and Hamas over the civilian carnage this past October – a bold strike at the impunity long enjoyed by those who treat human life as disposable. Khan did not mince words, accusing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas chief Yahya […] - [The Scottish Greens Orwellian Purge: Follow the Science on Climate Change Rejecting Biological Truth in the Name of Gender Ideology](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-scottish-greens-orwellian-purge/): The Scottish Greens’ Orwellian Purge: Silencing Dissent on Gender Ideology “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell Ah, the sweet scent of doublethink wafting through the corridors of power. When the arbiters of truth declare “Your nan is a man,” the fabric of reality frays like an old cardigan. Suddenly, we’re thrust into an Orwellian hellscape where “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” The Scottish Greens have embraced this dystopian absurdity with open arms, demanding we “follow the science” on climate change while rejecting biology outright. The grand inquisitors have […] - [Jeremy Corbyn: Islington North Ground Zero for Labour's Democratic Soul](https://heartlandstribune.com/islington-north-ground-zero-for-labours-democratic-soul/): Democracy Drowning in the Labour Party’s Authoritarian Riptide As Labour kicks off its candidate selection process for the Islington North constituency, the writing is emphatically on the wall – the hollowing out of any semblance of internal democracy within the party ranks is nearing completion under Sir Keir Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian stewardship. It matters not whether you’re a card-carrying Labour member or have never aligned with the party’s historic stances. It ultimately means little if your sympathies lie with Jeremy Corbyn’s democratic socialist vision or Sir Keir Starmer’s embrace of centre-right domestication. For what’s at stake here transcends partisan loyalties and […] - [The Two-Child Benefit Cap: Beyond 'One Boy, Two Bills, and a Fry Up](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-two-child-benefit-cap-beyond-one-boy-two-bills-and-a-fry-up/): Labour’s Identity Crisis: From Council Estate Roots to Champagne Politics, Labour’s Lost it’s Way Once heralded as the party of the working class, Labour has embarked on a shameless lurch to the right that would make Thatcher blush. Under Keir Starmer’s “leadership”, they’ve abandoned their principles faster than a rat fleeing a sinking ship. In a twisted turn of events, it falls to the likes of Suella Braverman – that bastion of compassionate conservatism – to call out cruelty in retaining the two-child benefit cap. Braverman shocked Westminster by calling for an end to the controversial policy brought in by the […] - [Bloody Profits: UK's Shameless Arms Sales Amid Gaza Genocide](https://heartlandstribune.com/bloody-profits-uks-shameless-arms-sales-amid-gaza-genocide/): Profits before Peace When Death Comes Knocking, Profits Take Precedence This week, as the world’s spotlight fixated on the inanity of a Eurovision song contest, Joe Biden upended a cornerstone of American foreign policy by warning that the US would withhold arms from Israel should it proceed with its planned invasion of Rafah – the besieged Gazan city where 1.4 million souls currently take shelter amidst the rubble. The UN reports over 80,000 Palestinians have already fled Rafah since Monday, with Israeli tanks massing ominously at the edges of the densely populated urban centre. Yet Netanyahu remains undeterred, pledging to “eliminate […] - [Crown The Witch: The Unpolitical Chaos of Eurovision 2024](https://heartlandstribune.com/crown-the-witch-the-unpolitical-chaos-of-eurovision-2024/): Drama, Resignations, and Flag Parades: Eurovision’s Political Non-Event Political Satire… While protests and petitions tried to ban Israel’s entry, the organisers insist the competition is apolitical. And of course, it’s true – Eurovision is not political…well, unless you’re Russian, in which case you’ve been banned from the competition since your little dust-up with Ukraine back in 2022. Some wars are politically incorrect, while others are free game, it seems. However, no matter how fervently they try to perpetuate the lie, it’s been a chaotic Eurovision 2024 so far. Again, remember, none of it is political… Tonight, the Eurovision Song Contest has […] - [The Rise of Red Tories: How Starmer's Labour Abandons Leftist Principles](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rise-of-red-tories-how-starmers-labour-abandons-leftist-principles/): Sir Keir Starmer’s True Agenda: Undermining the Left and Pulling UK Politics Rightward With each calculated move, it becomes increasingly evident that Starmer’s grand stratagem extends far beyond resolving the thorny issues plaguing Britain. Rather, his every action seems meticulously orchestrated to compound crises, capitalising on public frustrations to fundamentally shift the nation’s political trajectory rightward – all while eviscerating what little remains of the left-wing movement. His latest proclamation epitomises this insidious agenda: an outright rejection of safe routes for refugees. A stance that not only defies basic humanitarian principles but actively exacerbates the very problem it purports to solve. […] - [Labour's Border Policy: King Canute Had More Chance Turning Back the Tide Than Starmer Stopping Small Boats](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-border-policy/): Canute Redux: Starmer Grappling with Unstoppable Tides and Small Boats As Sir Keir Starmer unveils his grand plans to tackle the small boats crisis, one can’t help but draw parallels to the mythical King Canute, arrogantly commanding the tides to halt their relentless advance. For all his bold proclamations, Starmer shows about as much chance of stemming the flow of asylum seekers as Canute did of turning back the ocean’s waves. Starmer’s proposals, trumpeted as a radical departure from the Tories’ failures, amount to little more than a rehashed regurgitation of past recommendations – a £75 million gambit funded by pilfering […] - [Russia Victory Day: Commemoration of The End of WWII](https://heartlandstribune.com/russia-victory-day-commemoration-of-the-end-of-victory-day/): From Moscow to the West: Reflecting on Victory Day’s Legacy and Lessons for All “Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army that it can never be repaid.” — Ernest Hemingway Victory Day, observed on the 9th of May, holds immense importance as it commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. The annual Victory Parade, held in Moscow’s iconic Red Square, serves as a poignant reminder of the significant achievements and sacrifices made by soldiers during the war. The Liberation of Europe stands as a testament to the end of Nazi occupation […] - [Keir Starmer's Red Tory Rebrand Goes From Strength to Strength](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmers-red-tory-rebrand-goes-from-strength-to-strength/): Labour’s Betrayal: From Left Values to Tory Converts Just when you thought Sir Keir Starmer’s complete ideological overhaul of the Labour Party couldn’t become any more farcical, he’s only gone and welcomed yet another disaffected Tory MP into the big red tent. Yes, friends, the latest rightward lurch in Starmer’s relentless pursuit of power at all costs is the defection of none other than Natalie Elphicke – a woman so irredeemably right-wing that even many of her new Labour colleagues are aghast. For the overwhelming majority still labouring under the quaint delusion that Labour remains a party promoting workers’ interests or […] - [We are all Starving for Peace While Politicians Feed the Hunger of War](https://heartlandstribune.com/we-are-all-starving-for-peace-while-politicians-feed-the-hunger-of-war/): Ukraine: The Hunger for War Will Never be Satisfied When it is Fed by Blood and Money Imagine walking into a bustling restaurant where every table sits empty, save for one – a lone soldier with “War” scrawled across his back, feasting opulently as harried waiters in the guise of powerful political figures incessantly pile his plate high with billions upon billions in cash offerings. All around him, other tables marked “Healthcare,” “Schools,” “Housing,” and “Arts” remain barren and unserved as the haute cuisine of death is repeatedly overfunded. This vivid 1953 Soviet-era caricature by Yuliy Ganf captured with haunting prescience […] - [Lost Hopes in Gaza: Israel's Duplicitous Warfare Crushes Peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/lost-hopes-in-gaza-israels-duplicitous-warfare-crushes-peace/): Israel hits Rafah after Hamas accepts truce deal Once again, the Palestinian people of Gaza have had their tenuous hopes for peace brutally dashed by the Israeli government’s duplicitous conduct. Despite Hamas leaders accepting a ceasefire proposal brokered by Qatar and Egypt after days of intense negotiations, Israel has brazenly continued its military assault – carrying out strikes in Rafah even as it purportedly considers the deal. The contemptuous treatment of this potential truce shows Israel’s utter disregard for Palestinian lives. Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh announced the group had agreed to the proposed three-phase 126-day plan to cease hostilities and ultimately reach […] - [Northern Gaza in ‘full-blown famine’, UN food agency chief says](https://heartlandstribune.com/northern-gaza-in-full-blown-famine-un-food-agency-chief-says/): Complicity in Genocide: Western Silence Enables Israeli Atrocities in Gaza As the International Criminal Court investigates alleged war crimes by Israel in Gaza, Western governments continue rendering unconscionable support to the apartheid state’s militarised suppression of Palestinians. The grotesque loss of civilian life stemming from Israel’s disproportionate retaliation against Hamas has plunged the territory into a humanitarian nightmare – and our leaders’ refusal to forcefully condemn this brutality is cravenly enabling the perpetuation of genocide. Let us be clear: the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks that killed over 1,200 Israelis were utterly abhorrent acts of terrorism that warranted a response. However, […] - [Press Freedom Day: The Case of Julian Assange, If We Tolerate This…](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-case-of-julian-assange-if-we-tolerate-this/): Free Julian Assange: A Test of True Press Freedom As we in the West have the audacity to celebrate World Press Freedom Day, Julian Assange languishes in Britain’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison, awaiting potential extradition to the U.S. This grim reality lays bare the utter hypocrisy of lauding press freedoms while one of the few publishers daring to expose corrupt power systems rots in a cell. Make no mistake, the past decade has been a watershed era for disclosure of vital information in the public interest. However, that truth-telling has emanated from a handful of brave souls like Assange, risking everything to […] - [They're Trying to Work Their 'Wokery' to Cancel George Galloway](https://heartlandstribune.com/theyre-trying-to-work-their-wokery-to-cancel-george-galloway/): George Galloway vs. Cancel Culture – Galloway Wins George Galloway has found himself in the crosshairs of an unjustified Twitter cancel mob stirred up by Novara Media’s distortion of his comments on sex education. The liberal-left media outlet released a video clip where Galloway, expressed disagreement with teaching young children that non-heterosexual relationships are “exactly the same and as normal” as the traditional family unit. Novara portrayed this as an attack on the LGBTQ community, but a closer look at the full transcript reveals something quite different. Galloway stated clearly that he wants his children “to be taught that there are […] - [The Battle for Women's Rights: Starmer's Retreat and the Rise of the Party For Women](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-battle-for-womens-rights-starmers-retreat-and-the-rise-of-the-party-for-women/): Starmer’s U-Turn on Trans Rights: Too Little, Too Late! Once again, Sir Keir Starmer has demonstrated his utter lack of backbone when it comes to standing up for women’s rights against the onslaught of gender ideology. His recent pathetic attempts to backtrack on his previous embrace of the pernicious notion of “self-identification” for trans individuals are too little, too late. Let us not forget that just two years ago, this so-called leader of the Labour movement committed to introducing self-ID, a policy that would have allowed any man to simply declare himself a woman and gain access to female-only spaces and […] - [International Workers' Day: Celebrating the Struggles and Triumphs of Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/may-day-celebrating-the-struggles-and-triumphs-of-workers/): International Workers’ Day: A Global Reminder of Workers’ Struggle for Rights and Dignity International Workers’ Day, commonly referred to as May Day, is a day dedicated to celebrating and honouring the contributions of workers who have fought and made sacrifices for improved working conditions, equitable wages, and social justice. Originating in the United States during the late 19th century, this holiday has transcended borders and now holds cultural and political significance in numerous countries worldwide. On the 1st of May, workers and activists come together to commemorate the struggles of the past and recommit themselves to the ongoing battle for workers’ rights. As […] - [Tory Privatisation vs. Labour's Pharma Controversy: East Midlands Mayor Election Showdown](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-privatisation-vs-labours-pharma-controversy-election-showdown/): From Blood Plasma to Private Pharma: East Midlands Race For Mayor As polling predicts a Labour victory in Thursday’s historic East Midlands mayoral election, serious questions are emerging over the party’s candidate’s cosy ties to private pharmaceutical giants. But are Tory pot-shots over Claire Ward’s corporate advisory roles mere deflection from their own party’s sordid record of enabling healthcare profiteering? Brendan Clarke-Smith, the Tory MP for Bassetlaw, is flagging Labour candidate Claire Ward’s undeclared relationship with global pharmaceutical giant Alliance Healthcare. Mr Clarke-Smith, writing to NHS England’s chief executive Amanda Pritchard, said: “It seems via LinkedIn that Ms Ward assumed this […] - [US Reportedly Working to Stop ICC From Issuing Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-reportedly-working-to-stop-icc-from-issuing-arrest-warrant-for-netanyahu/): The Moral Bankruptcy of the “Rules-Based Order”: The U.S. Intervention to Protect Israeli Leaders from ICC Prosecution Israel Scrambles as Netanyahu, Gallant and IDF Chief Face ICC Arrest Warrants for War Crimes in Gaza. Warrants could be issued this week against Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and army chief Herzl Halevi. Some legal experts say the attorney general and army lawyers are also partly to blame for not doing enough to prevent Israeli violations of international law However, reports are emerging of a frantic American diplomatic intervention to shield Israeli officials from potential war crimes charges over the Gaza massacre, the […] - [Dan Poulter Jumping Ship Shows Labour Safe Harbour for Right Wing Tories](https://heartlandstribune.com/dan-poulter-jumping-ship-shows-labour-safe-harbour-for-right-wing-tories/): Tories Jumping Ship Shows Labour to be a Safeplace for the Right-Wing The Labour Party has shifted so far to the right under Sir Keir Starmer that it has become a veritable safe Harbour for disaffected Tories to jump ship. The latest defector is former Conservative minister and MP Dan Poulter, dealing a blow to Rishi Sunak’s government just days before the local elections. Dr Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich since 2010, announced his decision to cross the floor to Labour, accusing his former party of becoming a “nationalist party of the Right.” The former health minister […] - [Gaza's Mass Graves: Double Standards and Hypocrisy of a Rules-Based Order](https://heartlandstribune.com/gazas-mass-graves-double-standards-and-hypocrisy-of-a-rules-based-order/): The Bloody Hands of Hypocrisy of a Rules-Based Order Remember when Antony Blinken waxed poetic about a “rules-based international order” upheld by lofty UN charters and human rights declarations? A noble vision indeed – “reflections of the world’s shared aspirations” to prevent conflict and uphold the rights of all people through laws and institutions. Yet for the rest of us confronted with reality, the rhetoric rings bitterly hollow. This vaunted rules-based order seems to exist only when the West can point its accusatory finger at its enemies or those conveniently labelled “rogue states”. Just like this amoral Tory government, our leaders […] - [The Moral Conscience of Parliament: Remembering Frank Field](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-moral-conscience-of-parliament-remembering-frank-field/): A Politician’s Highest Calling: Remembering Frank Field I always believed that one of the main jobs of any politician, no matter which party, was to work toward the betterment of the people they represented. This can come in many forms, from workers’ rights to infrastructure, but nowhere is that job more worthy than when it is to lift the poor and downtrodden from their anguish. In that, Frank Field excelled. The passing of Frank Field at the age of 81 marks the loss of one of Parliament’s most resolute and principled voices. For over four decades, Lord Field dedicated himself to […] - [War on Gaza: As more bodies found, UN’s official ‘horrified’ by mass graves reports](https://heartlandstribune.com/war-on-gaza-as-more-bodies-found-uns-official-horrified-by-mass-graves-reports/): UN human rights chief calls for independent and transparent inquiry after Palestinian authorities uncover hundreds of bodies at Asser Medical Complex and al-Shifa Hospital. The Horrors of Gaza: A Brutal Assault on Humanity Each day brings fresh horrors from Gaza, a stark reminder of the depravity of war and humanity’s darkest impulses. As the rubble settles, we are confronted with evidence so grim, so abhorrent, that it casts a long, indelible stain on history’s conscience. Are we bearing witness to war crimes of the most unconscionable scale? Or will this too be another episode of denial, obfuscation and historical revisionism regarding […] - [The Ukraine-Russia War: Sacrificing the Domestic for the Imperial](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-ukraine-russia-war-sacrificing-the-domestic-for-the-imperial/): The War Must Go On! Pax Americana… World leaders are applauding the US House for approving a massive $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. This, coupled with significant support from the UK and EU, raises a crucial question: can the West afford this unwavering support in the face of its own economic struggles? Billions upon billions haemorrhaged into the gaping maw of perpetual conflict. No wonder President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his gratitude to the US House of Representatives for approving a new $61bn (£49bn) package of military assistance for Ukraine after months of delays. He said the aid could save thousands […] - [Sunak has a Solution to Our Problems: A War on Disabled People](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunak-has-a-solution-to-our-problems-a-war-on-disabled-people/): By Launa K They are the cause of everything we used to blame on refugees At a time when everything is unaffordable and the NHS is collapsing under a waiting list of 7.6 million and we are at the brink of World War III and the Tories can’t go two days without a sex scandal, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has identified the solution to our problems: a war on disabled people. I know what you’re all thinking: Oh, thank god! Those bastards with musculoskeletal problems and stage 4 rectal cancer and ALS are worse than Putin and Hamas! […] - [Mark Menzies Affair: If This is The Mother of All Parliaments, She Must be Blushing with Embarrassment](https://heartlandstribune.com/mark-menzies-affair/): Mark Menzies Resigns Tory Whip: Another Tale of Sleaze and Corruption in Westminster If this is the mother of all parliaments, she must be blushing with embarrassment at her horde of degenerate children. Mark Menzies resigns the Tory whip after the party opens an investigation into claims he misused campaign funds. The circumstances surrounding the misuse are ambiguous at best, but just scratching the surface leaves a sticking residue under the nails you know will take some scrubbing to remove. The Times broke the story of how Mark Menzies, MP for Fylde, was under investigation over allegations that he misused campaign […] - [George Carlin: There’s a Reason Education Sucks](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-carlin-theres-a-reason-education-sucks/): George Carlin tried to warn us all in 2005 “But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea […] - [Advocating for High-Quality Council Housing Over Labour's "Mortgage Trap"](https://heartlandstribune.com/advocating-for-high-quality-social-housing-over-labours-mortgage-trap/): Advocating for High-Quality Council Housing Over Labour’s “Mortgage Trap” Labour’s promise to reform planning laws and “kick-start 1.5 million new homes” sounds appealing on the surface. But make no mistake – this is little more than a thinly veiled attempt to create a new generation of mortgaged families enslaved to the banking industry. Instead of helping ordinary people, it allows greedy developers to pave over our cherished green spaces with shoddy, sub-standard housing built as cheaply as possible. Deregulation means lower quality materials and workmanship that homeowners will have to pay thousands to rectify down the line. We don’t want more […] - [Labour Heartlands Calls for Rejection of Starmer's Neoliberal Agenda](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-heartlands-calls-for-rejection-of-starmers-neoliberal-agenda/): Labour Heartlands Editorial. An Official Rebuke of Starmer’s Capitalist Aberration As a community rooted in the traditional values of Labour Heartlands, we advocate for a 21st-century socialism that champions equal opportunity, public asset ownership, and a vision of society where every individual has the chance to thrive. Our ethos centres on empowering workers, industrial strategies, and fostering an educated healthy society, while promoting social equality to ensure a future where prosperity is shared by the many, not hoarded by the few. Occasionally, individuals join our group under the misconception that our name implies unwavering support for the Labour Party and its […] - [A World in Flames: The Toll of Endless Cycles of Violent Retribution](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-israel-a-world-in-flames/): Israel on High Alert as Iran Retaliates with Missile and Drone Attack Iran has launched aerial drones towards Israel, indicating what appears to be a long-expected retaliatory strike. Israeli television reports that the attack is anticipated to reach Israel by 02:00 on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday). According to Iranian state media, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claim to have launched both missiles and drones at Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have declared a state of high alert, asserting they are closely monitoring all potential targets. In response to the escalating situation, Israel’s Prime Minister has convened a meeting of his war […] - [Scotland's Hate Crime Law: A Dystopian Descent into Snitch Culture](https://heartlandstribune.com/scotlands-hate-crime-law-a-dystopian-descent-into-snitch-culture/): Scotland’s Free Speech Crisis: 7,000 “Thought Crimes” in a Week As the jackbooted spectres of authoritarianism stalk the land under the sinister pretext of “protecting the vulnerable.” in the newly-minted dystopia that is Scotland, a bone-chilling surge of civic ratting has metastasised in the wake of the SNP’s odious “Hate Crime” legislation’s advent – over 7,000 online “crime reports” lodged by the police in the first week alone. Let that abhorrent statistic sink in. In a supposed liberal democracy of the modern West, thousands of citizens have eagerly betrayed their neighbours, colleagues and kindred to the punitive arm of the state […] - [Free Assange: US May End Witch Hunt After Years of Abuse](https://heartlandstribune.com/free-assange-us-may-end-witch-hunt-after-years-of-abuse/): Freedom of Speech on Trial: Julian Assange Matters After over a decade of relentless persecution more befitting a Kafkaesque totalitarian dystopia than a supposed beacon of democratic values, the faintest glimmer of rationality may finally be penetrating the miasma enshrouding Julian Assange’s unconscionable ordeal. In comments doubtlessly sending shockwaves through the bowels of America’s bloated national security karass, President Biden has confessed to “considering” acceding to Australia’s impassioned pleas to abandon this draconian prosecution circus. A Glimmer of Sanity in the Assange Fiasco? Don’t Hold Your Breath Let’s be clear – the mere acknowledgement that the arbitrary internment and prolonged psychological […] - [From Dick Pics to Data Breaches: The Downfall of William Wragg](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-dick-pics-to-data-breaches-the-downfall-of-william-wragg/): Corruption and Compromise: The Wragg Affair Once again, the murky depths of Westminster’s intrigue have spat out another sordid tale, encapsulating the profound contradictions gnawing away at the heart of Britain’s political elite. This time, the spotlight falls on William Wragg, the now-former Tory MP who has relinquished his Party whip in the wake of a seedy cyber-blackmail scandal, where he not only swapped ‘dick pics’ but passed sensitive information and contact numbers of other MPs and associates to shadowy figures who then went on to exploit those MPs too. Apparently lured by the digitized sirens wailing from gay hook-up app […] - [Unmasked: Pfizer's Ethical Bankruptcy in the Covid Era](https://heartlandstribune.com/unmasked-pfizers-ethical-bankruptcy-in-the-covid-era/): The Dark Side of Big Pharma: Pfizer’s Regulatory Violations As my old mom used to say, it will all come out in the wash, and this needs a really good wash! Once again, the unvarnished avarice and ethical bankruptcy polluting the very marrow of Big Pharma stands cruelly exposed by the latest shameful rulings against covid profiteer Pfizer. This regulatory revanchism comes courtesy of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, the industry’s own self-appointed guardians tasked with maintaining the very “high standards” their pharmaceutical patrons so egregiously desecrate. In a withering judgment, the watchdog accused the vaccine behemoth of “bringing […] - [Streeting's Sellout: Labour's Privatisation Agenda for the NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/streetings-sellout-labours-privatisation-agenda-for-the-nhs/): Wes Streeting’s Profiteering Doublespeak Betrays the NHS Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has launched an extraordinary attack on those rightly opposing his plan to increasingly privatise NHS services should Labour take power. In crass remarks to “ The Sun”, yes, it’s worth repeating, “The Sun”, the frontbencher derides what he claims are “middle-class lefties” critical of outsourcing healthcare to profit-driven private providers as representing “the real betrayal.” he also claims – he was “up for the fight” with NHS unions. This is naked projection of the highest order. For it is Streeting himself who personifies the unforgivable treachery against Britain’s envied public […] - [Gaza: Ireland Severs Financial Ties to Israel's Apartheid Regime](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaza-ireland-severs-financial-ties-to-israels-apartheid-regime/): A Righteous Rebuke to Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity In a moral stand befitting its heritage, Ireland has struck a principled blow against Israel’s genocidal campaign by instructing its sovereign wealth fund to divest from six complicit Israeli companies. The €15 billion Ireland Strategic Investment Fund will immediately liquidate its €2.95 million shareholdings in several of Israel’s most prominent financial exploitation vehicles – including behemoth banks like Hapoalim, Leumi, and Discount Bank instrumental in funding the illegal occupation and settler colonial project. Finance Minister Michael McGrath acknowledged this decisive move comes in response to the corporate sector’s brazen profiteering from Palestinian subjugation […] - [There is an Alternative: A Blueprint for Modern Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/there-is-an-alternative-a-blueprint-for-modern-britain/): Clement Attlee’s Old Economic Vision: A Blueprint for Modern Britain In the annals of political rhetoric, few phrases have reverberated as resoundingly as Margaret Thatcher’s resolute declaration: “There Is No Alternative.” A slogan wielded with unwavering conviction, it encapsulated her fervent belief that the market economy stood as the pinnacle of human achievement—a beacon of prosperity that brooked no dissent. As the echoes of Thatcher’s mantra fade into history, we find ourselves at a crossroads, where the very foundations of economic orthodoxy tremble under scrutiny. Yet this scarcity thinking was always a mere political convenience, a “big lie” to uphold imbalanced […] - [The Killing of Aid Workers in Gaza is a New Low for Israel and a Blow to Humanitarian Efforts](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-killing-of-aid-workers-in-gaza/): Israel-Gaza latest: Aid charity told IDF of movements so deadly attack ‘makes no sense’ Israeli airstrikes on aid workers delivering food in Gaza killed at least seven people — including a U.S.-Canada dual citizen and citizens of Australia, Poland and the United Kingdom. It’s the latest Israeli military action to hit humanitarian efforts in the besieged Palestinian territory. The dogs of war have been unleashed, and the streets of Gaza continue to run red with the blood of the innocent. What vile depravity could possess the Zionist aggressors to massacre humanitarian workers whose sole purpose was to alleviate suffering? Three British […] - [Tory Dissent: MPs Denounce Government's Cruel Homeless Policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/tory-dissent-mps-denounce-governments-cruel-homeless-policy/): Government’s Draconian Homeless Law Sparks Tory Rebellion: A Cry for Compassion In a rare breach of the Tory ranks, renegade MPs have joined forces with homeless campaigners to denounce the government’s draconian new assault on the most destitute in society. The sordid spectacle of ministers squabbling over how pungent the stench of poverty must waft before the baton descends underscores their fundamental inhumanity. The wretched Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was reduced to admitting utter ignorance of what legally constitutes an “excessive odour” warranting state sanction against the homeless. It comes after more than 40 Tory MPs are expected to rebel against […] - [Labour's Loyalty to Arms Profits: Ignoring Israel's Alleged War Crimes](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-loyalty-to-arms-profits-ignoring-israels-alleged-war-crimes/): Labour’s Moral Bankruptcy: The Shameful Continuation of Arms Sales to Israel LABOUR has backed selling arms to Israel – with a top MP saying they had not seen evidence the country was breaking international humanitarian law. Despite a mounting cache of evidence that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in its bombardment of Gaza, the craven capitulators of the Labour Party persist in sanctioning arms sales to that belligerent regime. In a shocking Sky News interview, one of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief lickspittles reaffirmed they would continue arming the Israeli war machine even under a Labour government. Pat McFadden, the Shadow […] - [Trial by Jury: A Cornerstone of Justice Under Threat](https://heartlandstribune.com/trial-by-jury-a-cornerstone-of-justice-under-threat/): From Magna Carta to Magistrates: Is Britain Abandoning Trial by Jury? Former President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, has been appointed to carry out an independent review into the criminal courts. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer appointed Sir Brian Leveson, renowned for his inquiry into press standards, to lead a “once in a generation” review of the court system. The commission will report to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood. Leveson is looking into the spiralling backlog of cases in England and Wales that has pushed the justice system to its breaking point. Speaking candidly about the crisis, Sir Brian […] - [US & Israel Destroyed Syria & Called it Peace](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-israel-destroyed-syria-called-it-peace/): By Jeffrey D. SachsCommon Dreams In the famous lines of Tacitus, Roman historian, “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” In our age, it is Israel and the U.S. that make a desert and call it peace.  The story is simple. In stark violation of international law, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers claim the right to rule over 7 million Palestinian Arabs. When Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands leads to militant resistance, Israel labels the resistance “terrorism” and calls on the U.S. to overthrow the Middle East […] - [The Twilight of European Consensus: France and Germany at the Crossroads](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-twilight-of-european-consensus-france-and-germany-at-the-crossroads/): The EU’s Twin Engines Stall: France and Germany Face Political Chaos In the grand theatre of European politics, two of the continent’s most powerful nations are experiencing seismic tremors that threaten to reshape the entire political landscape. France and Germany—long considered the twin engines of European integration—now find themselves in a state of unprecedented political fragmentation. In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s political machinery has descended into what can only be described as controlled chaos. The process itself was emblematic of the disorganisation plaguing Macron’s administration. Reports described a “tense” two-hour meeting between Bayrou and Macron at the Élysée, during which Bayrou […] - [No surprise Americans are ‘rooting for’ the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killer](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-surprise-americans-are-rooting-for-the-unitedhealthcare-ceos-killer/): Belén Fernández Al Jazeera columnist On the morning of December 4, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare – the largest health insurer in the United States – was fatally shot in New York City. At the time of writing the suspect had yet to be apprehended and a motive not established, although the words “depose”, “deny”, and “delay” were found written in permanent marker on bullet casings at the crime scene – a potential allusion to manoeuvres by health insurance companies to avoid paying for the things they are supposed to pay for. In the social media world, the tears for Thompson were […] - [Chris Hedges Report: The Middle East After Assad](https://heartlandstribune.com/chris-hedges-report-the-middle-east-after-assad/): By Chris HedgesThe Chris Hedges Report The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, ending a 55-year dynasty begun by his father, dramatically shifts the pieces on the chessboard of the Middle East. The rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is armed and backed by Turkey and was once allied with Al Qaeda. It is sanctioned as a terrorist group. Turkey’s primary goal is to prevent an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria where Kurds have formed an autonomous enclave. But it may not only be Turkey that is behind the overthrow of Assad. It may also be Israel. […] - [Drowning in Greed: How Thames Water Exposes the Moral Bankruptcy of Privatisation](https://heartlandstribune.com/drowning-in-greed/): Thames Water Bonuses: Fatcats Feast While Sewage Spills Soar Let’s call it what it is—an absolute scandal. Thames Water, drowning in nearly £16 billion of debt and a 40% surge in pollution incidents, has the audacity to defend handing out £770,000 in bonuses to executives. Meanwhile, customers are being lined up to foot the bill with a proposed 59% hike in water bills. The firm has said customer bills need to rise or else it will not be able to recover from its financial crisis. However, if the company does collapse, water supplies will not be affected. The CEO, Chris Weston—a […] - [The Damascene Conversion of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani: A True Transformation or Manchurian Candidate?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-damascene-conversion-of-abu-mohammed-al-jolani/): Damascene Conversion or Manchurian Candidate Just as St Paul the Christian bashing Pharisees had his own conversion on the road to Damascus, it seems Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, once branded as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, has apparently undergone a similar miraculous transformation. Today, the former jihadist leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, stands as the de facto ruler of Syria, following his coalition’s lightning offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long regime. But is this metamorphosis genuine, or are we witnessing a carefully scripted performance worthy of international espionage thrillers? Jolani’s rise from an al-Qaeda lieutenant to […] - [Labour’s A&E Pledge Abandoned: Patients Left Waiting as Promises Collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-ae-pledge-abandoned-patients-left-waiting-as-promises-collapse/): Labour ditches Streeting pledge to meet four-hour A&E target by 2029 Labour Backtracks on A&E Promise: Another Hollow Pledge Crumbles… Labour has quietly abandoned its headline pledge to restore A&E performance standards within its first term, exposing the yawning chasm between electoral rhetoric and governmental reality. Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s unequivocal commitment in June—that Labour would return to treating 95% of A&E patients within four hours by 2029—now lies in tatters. Downing Street’s mealy-mouthed response reveals the brutal truth: another promise consigned to the dustbin of political expediency. At a pre-election event Streeting, when asked about the target by the Health […] - [Warm Homes, Cold Hearts: MPs Claim £300,000 For Energy Bills Amid Winter Fuel Payment Cut](https://heartlandstribune.com/warm-homes-cold-hearts/): The Energy Hypocrisy: Labour Ministers Claim Hundreds of Thousands as Pensioners Struggle While pensioners shiver and struggle with heating bills, Britain’s political elite quietly claim £300,000 in energy expenses—a stark tableau of institutional hypocrisy. Thirty-six Labour ministers, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, have charged taxpayers for their second home energy costs. The average claim? A comfortable £1,080—three times more than pensioners received in winter fuel payments. This isn’t just an accounting issue. It’s a moral indictment. These are the same MPs who slashed winter fuel support for over 10 million pensioners, now warming themselves at taxpayer expense. Thirteen cabinet members who voted […] - [Sir Keir Starmer's Endless Relaunches: A Ship Going Nowhere](https://heartlandstribune.com/sir-keir-starmers-endless-relaunches-a-ship-going-nowhere/): How many relaunches does it take to steer a government? For Sir Keir Starmer, the answer seems to be: perpetually one more. Like a captain constantly adjusting a rudderless vessel, Starmer has transformed governance into an art of perpetual recalibration. His “Plan for Change” is less a strategic roadmap and more a testament to political indecision—a maritime metaphor of a leader who promises destination while continuously readjusting the compass. Let’s count the casualties of Starmer’s rhetorical inflation. Five Missions in July 2023. Six First Steps in June 2024. Seven Pillars of Growth by October. Now, six more “milestones” in December. This […] - [France in Freefall: Barnier's Downfall Exposes the Rot of Macron's Centrism](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-in-freefall-barniers-downfall-exposes-the-rot-of-macrons-centrism/): In a seismic political moment, the French government has collapsed, with Michel Barnier ousted by an overwhelming 331-vote no-confidence motion—the first such governmental implosion since 1962. This is more than a mere political shuffle; it’s a stark indictment of Emmanuel Macron’s increasingly precarious political project. Barnier’s downfall came after he brazenly used presidential decree to force through a budget that would slash €60 billion in social spending—a move that united both the far-left and far-right in opposition. The irony is delicious: a centrist technocrat undone by the very political polarization he claimed to transcend. Macron appointed former EU Brexit negotiator Barnier […] - [George Galloway Triumphs: X's Label Exposed as Digital McCarthyism](https://heartlandstribune.com/george-galloway-triumphs-xs-label-exposed-as-digital-mccarthyism/): When Platforms Become Judge Jury and Stick a Label on It: Galloway’s Triumph Against X In a landmark legal victory, George Galloway has forced Elon Musk’s X to pay legal costs after the platform wrongly labelled him “Russia-state affiliated,” exposing the dangerous arbitrariness of social media political tagging. The High Court in Dublin ordered X to cover Galloway’s expenses, validating his argument that the label was a baseless, reputation-damaging smear. This ruling goes beyond an individual dispute—it’s a critical challenge to tech platforms’ unaccountable power to brand political commentators. Galloway, Leader of the Workers Party of Great Britain and a veteran […] - [Proportional Representation: A Symbolic Win in a Broken System](https://heartlandstribune.com/proportional-representation-a-symbolic-win-in-a-broken-system/): Electoral Reform Campaigners Celebrate Symbolic Win as MPs Back PR Bill In the hallowed chambers of Westminster, a narrow vote has exposed the fragile heart of British democracy. Sarah Olney’s proportional representation (PR) bill passed by a razor-thin margin of 138 to 136—a moment both momentous and meaningless. The vote is a mirage of change. Under the 10-minute rule, this bill is destined for legislative purgatory, doomed to disappear without substantive debate. Yet its passage reveals a deeper truth: the current electoral system is a rigged game that serves power, not people. The Broken Machine of British Democracy Britain’s political landscape […] - [The Hunter Biden Pardon: Presidential Power and Corruption](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-hunter-biden-pardon-presidential-power-and-corruption/): The Hunter Biden Pardon… President Joe Biden has laid bare the most fundamental hypocrisy of political power—that the rules are for others… In a move that has sent shockwaves through Washington and beyond, President Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter, effectively shielding him from potential prison time for gun and tax convictions. The decision marks a stark reversal of Biden’s previous pledges and raises profound questions about presidential power, familial privilege, and the very foundations of justice for all. Just weeks before Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced, and a little over a month before Trump returns to the […] - [A Convenient Fall from Grace: The Curious Case of Louise Haigh’s Resignation](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-convenient-fall-from-grace-the-curious-case-of-louise-haighs-resignation/): P&O Scandal Fallout: Did Louise Haigh’s Principled Stance Seal Her Fate? When Louise Haigh stepped down as Transport Secretary this morning, the official story was one of past mistakes catching up with the present. A decade-old spent conviction, already disclosed when she joined Keir Starmer’s team, was suddenly splashed across headlines, and just like that, one of Labour’s brightest rising stars was out. But this resignation doesn’t feel like justice or accountability—it reeks of something far more calculated. Haigh’s fall comes suspiciously soon after she dared to call out P&O Ferries, the “rogue operator” infamous for its ruthless treatment of British […] - [Scottish Government Steps Up as Labour Fails Pensioners on Winter Fuel Support](https://heartlandstribune.com/scottish-government-to-restore-winter-fuel-payments/): Scottish government to restore winter fuel payments While the Scottish government announces plans to restore winter fuel payments for all pensioners next year, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has taken a starkly different approach. Despite election promises to cut energy bills, Labour removed critical support for some of the most vulnerable in society and cut the winter fuel benefits for over 10 million pensioners. Rachel Reeves’s budget offered no relief from the soaring cost-of-living crisis either. Instead, it delivered prolonged higher interest rates and inflation, compounding the struggles of ordinary households. Adding to the plight Labour’s much-vaunted pledge to reduce energy […] - [BlackRock’s Britain: How Corporate Giants are Rewriting the Social Contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/blackrocks-britain-how-corporate-giants-are-rewriting-the-social-contract/): BlackRock to Rebuild Britain: When Democracy Becomes a Corporate Ledger The Illusion of Choice… Who truly governs Britain? Not Parliament. Not the people. BlackRock… Gone are the days when political parties offered competing ideological visions. Today, Labour and the Conservatives are not opposing forces—they are rival management teams serving either corporate elites or oligarchic power. Our democratic institutions are now hollowed-out façades, their strings pulled by financial juggernauts like BlackRock. The Illusion of democratic representation has crumbled. What we’re witnessing is not governance, but corporate colonisation—a bloodless coup executed through boardroom handshakes and political genuflection. The Labour Party’s transformation is a […] - [Liz Kendall, From Promises to Punishment: Labour’s Betrayal of Young Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/liz-kendall-from-promises-to-punishment/): Labour’s U-Turn on Youth Opportunity: From Jobs in the North East to Benefit Sanctions Liz Kendall says young people who won’t take up work will lose benefits… Work and pensions secretary says she will transform opportunities as Starmer bemoans ‘bulging benefits bill’ Remember the days of dead-end jobs with low pay and no prospects? When exploitative employers thrived, and Dickensian work conditions were tolerated because the choice was brutally simple: work or starve? For those of us old enough to recall the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), we recognise the machinery of exploitation being reassembled before our eyes—a system where young people […] - [Enemy of the Farmer: How Inheritance Tax Policies Betray Rural Communities](https://heartlandstribune.com/enemy-of-the-farmer-how-inheritance-tax-policies-betray-rural-communities/): Farmers: When Did the Left Forget Marx? One of my favourite plays is Enemy of the People an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen that delves into the conflict between personal integrity and societal norms. The play centres on Dr Thomas Stockmann, who discovers a serious contamination issue in his town’s new spas, endangering public health. There’s one particular scene where Dr Stockmann uses a metaphor to tell the people what he sees. He asks them to imagine they were scots on a mountain top they are watching a column of their own soldiers marching along. The scouts see they […] - [A Tale of Two Farms: How Britain's New Inheritance Tax Protects the Rich and Punishes the Family Farmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-tale-of-two-farms-how-britains-new-inheritance-tax-protects-the-rich-and-punishes-the-family-farmer/): Farmers Inheritance Tax: Why the Rich Win and Farmers Lose in Britain There is widespread misinformation about the government’s new inheritance tax policy for family farmers, fuelled partly by the government’s failure to clearly explain its rationale and partly by the mistaken belief that it will also affect mega-corporations and aristocratic landowners. It won’t. No Aristocrats or landed gentry will be hurt in the making of this legislation. Rest assured, neither the Duke of Cornwall nor King Charles will be losing sleep over their vast estates and rolling farmlands. Their toes remain uncurled, their fortunes untouched, and their pheasant shoots uninterrupted. […] - [ICC arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant, Hamas’s Deif](https://heartlandstribune.com/icc-arrest-warrants-for-israels-netanyahu-and-gallant-hamass-deif/): The Moral Reckoning: ICC Arrest Warrants Expose the Brutality of War and a Nation Accused of Genocide The International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Secretary Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif represents a watershed moment in international justice. This is not merely legal procedure—it is a profound moral statement about the unacceptable human cost of warfare and a finger pointed directly at the perpetrators of genocide. What makes this moment historic isn’t just the ICC warrants, but the unprecedented international acknowledgment that even democratic states can commit crimes against humanity. The […] - [Ukraine: One Thousand Days of War and Not a Dove in Sight](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine/): The Hawks’ Feast: How War Became Britain’s Primary Export In the waning moments of his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower—a five-star general who understood war’s true cost—delivered a prophetic warning that haunts us today. Standing before a nation still flush with post-war optimism, he spoke of an emerging “military-industrial complex” that could threaten the very democracy it claimed to protect. His words were not a caution, but a funeral dirge for democratic accountability. Of course, the Industrial arms complex is now global, its influence dictating decisions made in governments around the world. Threats of war, even rumours of war can send their […] - [Nero in the White House: Biden Fiddles While Peace Burns](https://heartlandstribune.com/nero-in-the-white-house-biden-fiddles-while-peace-burns/): Biden’s Final Act: A Lame Duck on the Edge of World War Three History may look back on this as the moment we completely lost our sanity—if, that is, there’s still anyone left to remember. Picture the scene: An American president—deemed too cognitively impaired to face charges for mishandling classified documents, let alone run for re-election—has just authorized strikes that could trigger World War Three. If this sounds like fiction, welcome to 2024’s darkest plot twist. To understand this act of apparent madness, we must first reckon with its architect. In February 2024, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation revealed a president […] - [Doublethink on Gaza: How Labour is Trying to Rewrite the Definition of Genocide](https://heartlandstribune.com/doublethink-on-gaza-how-labour-is-trying-to-rewrite-the-defention-of-genocide/): When 2+2= Equals Denial: Labour’s Gaza Rhetoric and the Death of Truth “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Orwell’s darkly prophetic words from 1984 ring with chilling relevance as we witness the British government’s linguistic gymnastics over Gaza. But perhaps the most pertinent Orwellian observation for our times is this: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Today, Sir Keir Starmer, self-declared Zionist and leader of what was once the party of the working class, is attempting to convince us that two plus two equals five. […] - [The Death of Free Speech: Britain's Dark Descent into Silence](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-death-of-free-speech-britains-dark-descent-into-silence/): The Death of Debate: How Britain’s Police Are Stopping Free Expression When they came for the left-wing journalists, the right stayed silent. When they came for the right-wing journalists, the left contemplated their own silence. Now, as the shadows of authoritarian overreach lengthen across Britain’s once-hallowed tradition of free expression, we must ask ourselves: Who will be left to speak at all? The recent police investigation of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson – for the Orwellian crime of causing “offence” through social media – marks a chilling new chapter in Britain’s descent into thought-crime territory. This isn’t some mass round-up of rioters […] - [The Fall of Canterbury: A Tale of Two Houses](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fall-of-canterbury-a-tale-of-two-houses/): From Westminster to Canterbury: The Rot in Britain’s Institutions of Power When Sir Keir Starmer condemned Justin Welby’s handling of church abuse cases, declaring that victims had been “failed very, very badly,” he spoke from the highest position in the land. Yet his words carry a peculiar irony, not only echoing through the gilded chambers of Westminster where his own party’s peers sit comfortably alongside those who have dined with convicted sex traffickers but also haunting his own past. For it was under Starmer’s watch as Director of Public Prosecutions that Jimmy Savile, perhaps Britain’s most notorious predator, continued to walk […] - [Britain’s Power Play: Energy, Water, and the System Rigged Against You](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-power-play-energy-water-and-the-system-rigged-against-you/): The Great British Shakedown: How the System Really Works What a bloody insult. What a slap in the face. While millions of Britons huddle under blankets, unable to afford heating their homes, our energy giants are quite literally lighting cigars with proverbial £50 notes. The same companies that plead poverty when asked to fix leaking pipes or clean up rivers are somehow managing to shower their shareholders with record dividends. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Let me paint you a picture of modern Britain that would make Dickens blush. The UK now pays more for its energy than any other […] - [Labour's Trump Problem: From Awkward Tweets to All-Out Lobbying Who’s Pulling Starmer’s Strings?](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-trump-problem/): From Twitter Warriors to Diplomatic Beggars: Labour’s Trump Problem Have you ever watched someone try to un-swallow their own words? It’s happening right now in Westminster, and it’s not a pretty sight. Labour’s top brass are performing political gymnastics that would make a circus contortionist wince as they attempt to embrace a man they spent years painting as democracy’s greatest threat. With Donald Trump returning to the White House, Britain’s political establishment faces a corner of its own making. The same Labour politicians who once branded Trump a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” are now desperately searching for diplomatic olive branches. This would […] - [Starmer’s Immigration Policy Mirrors Tory Failures on Refugees](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-immigration-policy-mirrors-tory-failures-on-refugees/): Why Starmer’s £75M Crackdown on Smuggling Gangs Won’t Stop Channel Crossings Only Safe Routes Can Prime Minister Starmer says we must stop smuggling gangs “before they act.” His solution? Throw another £75 million at the problem. A familiar tune, isn’t it? Labour, like the Tories before them, seem intent on perpetuating the same failed policies that have led to the tragic loss of life in the English Channel. More money for border security, more rhetoric about cracking down on smugglers – but where are the concrete proposals to actually stop people risking everything to reach our shores? The truth is, Starmer’s […] - [The Devil’s Choice: The US Election Won't Result in Less War, Just Different Wars](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-devils-choice/): The False Choice: Both Candidates Offer More War How America’s Election Could Reshape Global Conflicts… Have you ever noticed how, despite all the heated rhetoric about “choice” in democratic elections, when it comes to matters of war and peace, voters are increasingly offered what amounts to no choice at all? As Britain watches the American electoral drama unfold – with implications both foreign and domestic that will inevitably wash up on our shores – we’re witnessing a disturbing pattern that should give pause to anyone concerned with democratic accountability in foreign policy. The current presidential race presents a masterclass in the […] - [Israel’s Mossad Implicated in Far-Reaching Italian Spy Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/israels-mossad-implicated-in-far-reaching-italian-spy-scandal/): A major espionage scandal has erupted in Italy, implicating Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad in what Italian officials are calling “a threat to democracy.” The operation allegedly involved the systematic hacking of government databases and collection of sensitive information on high-ranking Italian officials, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The Digital Dragnet: How a Private Intelligence Firm Exposed the Shadowy World of Modern Espionage In the narrow streets of Milan, far from the marble halls of Rome’s government buildings, a small private intelligence firm called Equalize was allegedly pulling off one of the most audacious hacking operations in modern European history. What […] - [The Great British Farm Betrayal: How Labour's Tax Policy Threatens Our Country Side and Food Sovereignty](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-british-farm-betrayal/): How Labour’s Tax Policy Threatens Our Country Side and Food Sovereignty The most profound changes in a nation’s character rarely announce themselves with dramatic flourish. They creep in through the quiet corridors of power, wrapped in bureaucratic paper and stamped with legislative seals. Today, we face such a moment as Labour’s inheritance tax proposal threatens to fundamentally reshape British agriculture – not through bold declaration, but through the subtle arithmetic of tax policy. The Death of the Family Farm by a Thousand Cuts What appears on paper as a simple tax adjustment – capping inheritance tax relief at £1 million – […] - [The Jarrow March a Communities Fight to Work](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-jarrow-march-a-communities-fight-to-work/): The Jarrow March of 5–31 October 1936 In the bleak years of the 1930s, the Great Depression cast a long and ominous shadow over Britain. Nowhere did this shadow loom larger than in the industrial heartlands, and among them, the town of Jarrow stood out as a symbol of economic despair. By the mid-1930s, Jarrow, a once-thriving shipbuilding town in County Durham, was brought to its knees. The closure of Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, which had employed a significant portion of the town’s workforce, pushed unemployment rates to a staggering 70%. During these years unemployment benefits lasted for 26 weeks; […] - [Labour's Budget: A Shadow of Progressive Promise](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-budget-a-shadow-of-progressive-promise/): Rachel Reeves’ £12.21 Minimum Wage: Just Don’t Cut It! When Alistair Darling last brandished the Chancellor’s red box from 11 Downing Street in March 2010, Labour still believed in protecting society’s most vulnerable. His final act as Chancellor? A £600 million commitment to the Winter Fuel Allowance – a lifeline now stripped from most pensioners by the very party that created it. Fast forward to Rachel Reeves’ latest budget, and we witness the peculiar spectacle of a Labour Chancellor embracing austerity’s ghost. Yes, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 per hour, delivering a £1,400 annual boost to over 3 million […] - [Labour's Fare Betrayal: Starmer Takes £520 a Year Out of the Pockets of Workers Travelling by Bus](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-fare-betrayal/): Labour Continues to Hit The Workers. In a move that would make Margaret Thatcher proud, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced that bus fares will rise to £3, abandoning the previous £2 cap with all the careful consideration of someone who’s never had to count pennies for their weekly commute. This isn’t just about an extra pound per journey – it’s about the hollowing out of Labour’s soul, one policy retreat at a time. Let’s pause to appreciate the exquisite irony: here we have a Labour leader who, while wearing the sackcloth of fiscal responsibility like a banker’s pinstripe suit, […] - ['Nobody is Above the Law': Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson Jailed for 18 Months](https://heartlandstribune.com/nobody-is-above-the-law-stephen-yaxley-lennon-aka-tommy-robinson-jailed-for-18-months/): ‘Nobody is Above the Law’: Tommy Robinson Jailed for 18 Months After Admitting Contempt of Court Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after admitting to 10 breaches of a High Court libel order. The 41-year-old activist appeared at Woolwich Crown Court in south London on Monday after missing a previous hearing, during which he was charged with contempt for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, handed himself in to police in Folkestone, Kent, on Friday. His actions, which Mr Justice Johnson described as “blatant” and “flagrant” […] - [Forgotten Histories: Scotland’s Coal Slaves and the Hidden Legacy of British Bondage](https://heartlandstribune.com/forgotten-histories-scotlands-coal-slaves-and-the-hidden-legacy-of-british-bondage/): Britain’s Complex Legacy of Bondage: From Scottish Mines to Colonial Empire When King Charles III expressed his “greatest sorrow” over Britain’s slavery past to Commonwealth leaders in Samoa this week, he walked the careful line between acknowledgement and apology that British monarchs have tread for generations. The irony of his position could hardly be more stark: his own namesake, King Charles II, was arguably one of history’s most prolific slave traders, having established the Royal African Company in 1672. Under that royal seal, this company trafficked approximately 80,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, with a quarter of them—some 20,000 souls—perishing during […] - [Special Relationship or Electoral Interference? Labour's American Adventure Sparks Trump's Fury](https://heartlandstribune.com/special-relationship/): Trump accuses UK’s Labour Party of ‘foreign interference’ “The British are coming. The British are coming”… The ghosts of 1812 aren’t stirring yet, but a new Anglo-American political drama is unfolding with distinctly modern complications. This time, instead of redcoats marching on Washington, it’s Labour Party staffers heading to North Carolina—and Donald Trump’s campaign is crying foul. At the heart of this diplomatic dust-up is a now-deleted LinkedIn post that has evolved into an international incident. Labour’s director of operations, Sofia Patel, advertised what seemed routine in British political circles: an opportunity for party staffers to volunteer in American battleground states, […] - [Firearms officer cleared of Chris Kaba shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/firearms-officer-cleared-of-chris-kaba-shooting/): Firearms Officer Cleared in Chris Kaba Shooting Case A firearms officer who fatally shot Chris Kaba during a police stop in Streatham, south London, has been acquitted of murder. Martyn Blake, 40, was cleared by a jury after a trial at the Old Bailey, where he denied intending to kill the 24-year-old during the incident in September 2022. The court heard that Blake fired a single shot through the windscreen of the Audi Q8 driven by Mr Kaba after the car was linked to a shooting in nearby Brixton the previous evening. During the operation, a helicopter and six police vehicles […] - [The Aberfan Disaster](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-aberfan-disaster/): The 1966 Aberfan Disaster, one of Britain’s most tragic mining disasters, where a collapsing mountain of coal waste killed 116 school children. The last sounds heard in Pantglas Junior School were children’s voices raised in excited chatter about the coming half-term holiday. No one heard the mountain move. On that fog-shrouded Friday morning of October 21, 1966, mothers stood in doorways across Aberfan, watching their children navigate the rain-slicked streets of their Welsh mining village. As the children left the coal-fire warmth of home they emerged into streets shrouded with a dense, cold fog. Mothers waved goodbye from the doorstep, never […] - [The New Inquisition: How Counter-Terror Laws Became a Weapon Against Journalism](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-new-inquisition-how-counter-terror-laws-became-a-weapon-against-journalism/): “Freedom of the press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.” ― George Orwell The Arrest of Asa Winstanley: UK’s War on Independent Journalism When ten Metropolitan Police officers descended on journalist Asa Winstanley’s North London home before dawn, they weren’t hunting for terrorists. They were hunting for words. This raid, conducted under the guise of counter-terrorism law, represents something far more sinister than a simple police operation. It marks the moment when Britain’s slide from democracy to soft authoritarianism became impossible to ignore. Let us be crystal clear about what happened: Armed officers invaded […] - [Labour's Attempt to Medicate the Unemployed Away](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-attempt-to-medicate-the-unemployed-away/): A Bitter Pill to Swallow: Labour’s Dystopian ‘Make Work Pay’ Scheme Is this what passes for progressive policy in 21st century Britain – doling out weight loss drugs to the unemployed? Have we truly sunk so low that we now seek to medicate away the symptoms of an unjust economic system rather than treat the disease itself? Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, once the stalwart champion of working people, has unveiled its latest masterstroke to solve Britain’s unemployment and productivity crisis: free weight-loss jabs for the jobless obese. You can almost hear the ghost of George Orwell cackling from beyond the […] - [The General's Plan: Israeli attack on Northern Gaza "Surrender or Starve"](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-generals-plan/): ‘Surrender or starve’ strategy displacing thousands amounts to crimes against humanity On Saturday morning, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesman posted a chilling message on social media: residents of the ‘D5’ area in northern Gaza must move south immediately. The area, split into dozens of blocks on a grid drawn by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had been labelled a “dangerous combat zone.” With a map attached, marked by a large yellow arrow pointing south along Salah al-Din Road, the message made no mention of when—or if—people could return to their homes. The IDF’s warning was clear: the operation will continue “with […] - [Deliberate Targeting: Ireland France and Italy Condemn Israeli Attacks on UN Troops](https://heartlandstribune.com/deliberate-targeting-un-troops/): France and Italy summoned Israeli ambassadors after UN peacekeepers struck by Israeli forces French Ministry for Foreign Affairs says Israel’s targeting of UNIFIL troops was “deliberate.” PARIS — France and Italy are demanding answers from Israeli envoys after United Nations peacekeepers in south Lebanon were wounded in separate incidents on Thursday and Friday, amid Israel’s expanding ground invasion of its northern neighbour Lebanon. The two countries, which supply large amounts of troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon known as UNIFIL, summoned Israel’s ambassadors to their respective capitals in response to incidents in which four peacekeepers were injured, one of whom required hospitalization. […] - [Labour's Employment Bill Won't be Slaying any Dragons](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-employment-bill-wont-be-slaying-any-dragons/): Labour’s Employment Bill: A Charade of Progress Here we are, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, with a Labour government wielding a 404-seat majority – a parliamentary juggernaut with the power to reshape Britain’s economic landscape. And what do we find? certainly not the bold, transformative policies you would expect from such unfettered authority, but rather another dreary act in the long-running farce titled “Pretending to Care About the Working Class While Courting Big Business”. This is a Labour government that, when faced with its first real test of mettle, chose to withdraw The Winter Fuel Payment from […] - [Gender and the Law: The Vitruvian Woman on Trial](https://heartlandstribune.com/gender-and-the-law-the-vitruvian-woman-on-trial/): The Supreme Court’s Gender Debate: Can We Redefine Biological Reality? Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man stands as a testament to Renaissance ideals – a masterpiece that melds art, science, and philosophy. Within its elegant lines, we see humanity perfectly balanced between the divine circle and the earthly square, a microcosm of the universe itself. This vision, grounded in both philosophical reflection and scientific observation, placed humans as integral, rational beings within the cosmic order. Yet today, in a world increasingly unmoored from such certainties, we find ourselves adrift in a sea of subjective realities. The once-clear lines of biology and identity […] - [After a Year of Bloodshed in Gaza, One Word Remains: #Enough](https://heartlandstribune.com/after-a-year-of-bloodshed-in-gaza-one-word-remains-enough/): After a Year of Bloodshed in Gaza: We have one word to give. “ENOUGH!” After the initial horrors of October 7th 2023 what has followed for twelve long months is the world witnessed the unrelenting destruction of Gaza, a campaign of such brutality that it makes a mockery of the very concept of ‘self-defence’ and ‘proportionate response’. Night after night, our television screens have flickered with images so horrific they would make even the most hardened war correspondent blanche. Yet, for all this carnage, for all this ‘strategic’ devastation, the hostages remain unreturned, their fates hanging in the balance like some […] - [Labour's House of Cards: Sue Gray's Resignation](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-house-of-cards-sue-grays-resignation/): The Mandarin War: Sue Gray Vs The McSweeney Boys Sue Gray – the very woman who once held Boris Johnson’s feet to the fire over Partygate – now finds herself victim of a Mandarin civil war. Her resignation as Prime Minister Starmer’s chief of staff, barely three months into Labour’s tenure, speaks volumes about the rot festering at the heart of our political system. Thanking Ms Gray for her work, Prime Minister Starmer said he was “delighted” she would stay by his side in her new role, and added the shake-up showed his “determination to deliver”. However, just a few weeks […] - [Assange Breaks Silence: A Damning Indictment of Western Hypocrisy](https://heartlandstribune.com/assange-breaks-silence-a-damning-indictment-of-western-hypocrisy/): Breaking Silence: Assange Warns of a Dark Crossroad for Journalism In a room thick with tension and unspoken truths, Julian Assange – that thorn in the side of the powerful – finally broke his silence. After years of confinement, caught up in a ‘Kafkaesque’ nightmare, the WikiLeaks founder addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. His words, though softened by years of isolation, cut through the air like a scythe through wheat. “I eventually chose freedom over unrealisable justice,” Assange declared, his voice carrying the weariness of a man who has fought a Sisyphean battle against the might of […] - [Starmer Tries to Close the Stable Door While Keeping His Wardrobe Full](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-tries-to-close-the-stable-door-while-keeping-his-wardrobe-full/): Sir Keir Starmer’s Champagne Problem… After weeks of revelations laying out the full wardrobe of freebies Labour MPs have received, our esteemed Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer—that champion of the working class, that beacon of integrity, and the toolmaker’s son—in a display of contrition as shallow as a puddle on Downing Street’s doorstep, has deigned to pay back up to £6,000. A token repayment for some of his lavish indulgences. You might be tempted to applaud, were it not for the stench of hypocrisy that clings to this gesture like the morning-after miasma of a Bullingdon Club bacchanal. In a move […] - [Iran Launches Unprovoked Attack on Country That Committed Year-Long Genocide and Threatened to Destroy it!](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-launches-unprovoked-attack/): Laura K and Normal Island News Political satire… Why is Iran like this? In harrowing scenes, Iran has launched a salvo of hypersonic missiles at Israel that have rendered the iron dome useless and caused explosions across the country. This unprovoked attack came after Israel peacefully committed a year-long genocide, bombed an embassy, destroyed schools, universities and hospitals, starved 2.1 million civilians, carried out multiple assassinations, murdered 162 journalists and 222 UN workers, built a centre dedicated to the rape and torture of prisoners, launched large-scale terror attacks in Beirut, and invaded Lebanon. Why is Iran like this? Among Iran’s targets were military […] - [British Politics: Nepotism, Cronyism, and the Failing Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/british-politics-nepotism-cronyism-and-the-failing-democracy/): Nepotism in British Politics: How Power Stays in the Family The state of British politics is not just disappointing; it’s a festering wound on the body politic, oozing with nepotism, cronyism, and a brazen disregard for the people. We’ve not so much swapped out one set of crooks for another as we’ve witnessed a changing of the guard in a kleptocracy masquerading as a democracy. Let’s take a moment to shine a harsh light on the case of Liam Conlon, Labour MP for Beckenham and Penge, and son of the infamous Sue Gray. Who knew? This sorry tale reads like a […] - [Scott Ritter: Life, Preempted](https://heartlandstribune.com/scott-ritter-life-preempted/): Policymakers in both the U.S. and Europe are undertaking increasingly brazen acts of escalation in Ukraine designed to bring Russia to the breaking point. By Scott RitterSCOTT RITTER EXTRA If you’re not thinking about the end of the world by now, you’re either braindead or stuck in some remote corner of the world, totally removed from access to news. Earlier this month we came closer to a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Today we are even closer. Most scenarios being bandied about in the Western mainstream media that involve […] - [Rosie Duffield Slams Starmer’s Hypocrisy as She Resigns from Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/rosie-duffield-slams-starmers-hypocrisy-as-she-resigns-from-labour/): Rosie Duffield’s Scathing Resignation: Labour’s Hypocrisy Exposed Ah, at last! A glimmer of integrity in the murky swamp of Labour politics. Out of the 404 Parliamentary Labour MPs left standing, it seems we’ve stumbled upon one with a backbone – a rare find indeed in these days of spineless sycophancy. Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, has decided to jump ship from the good vessel Labour, finding its new course under Captain Starmer too nauseating to stomach. In a scathing resignation letter that reads like a charge sheet against the party’s leadership, Duffield has laid bare the rot at the heart […] - [The Working Class Ain't Daft: They Know the True Cost of Alli's Generosity, 'Cos It'll Be Them That Pays It.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-working-class-aint-daft/): Working title “What’s The Price of a Political Party Nowadays?” ALTERNATIVELY… “How deep are Lord Alli’s pockets? Deep enough to buy the Labour Party, that’s for sure. The only question that remains is: what does he want for his money?” In the gritty streets and mill towns of Britain, where every penny’s earned through sweat and toil, there’s an old saying that rings truer than ever: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” And by God, don’t the working class know it. So when we hear of Lord Alli’s “generosity” to the Labour Party – his lavish gifts to Starmer, […] - [Lebanon: Israel's War Machine Rolls On](https://heartlandstribune.com/lebanon-israels-war-machine-rolls-on/): The Israeli War machine continues its blitzkrieg while preparing for a ground offensive. The Israeli war machine rumbles on, its gears greased with the blood of innocents and the oil of Western complicity. As we watch this macabre dance unfold, You can’t help but feel we’ve slipped into some dystopian alternate reality, where the oppressed have become the oppressors, and the world looks on in mute acceptance. You could be forgiven for thinking they’ve stumbled into an episode of “The Man in the High Castle”. The sheer audacity of Israel’s actions would be almost admirable if it weren’t so horrifying. Lt […] - [Labour Party Conference: Donations, Genocide, Arms, and Paint](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-party-conference-donations-genocide-arms-and-paint/): Youth Demand Action at Labour Conference Amid Middle East Escalation At 10:50 am, as the party faithful shuffled into their echo chamber of mediocrity, these brave souls marched up to the security check-in and brandished their spray cans like weapons of mass disruption. “GENOCIDE” they wrote, bold as brass, before the long arm of the law – conveniently dressed in civvies – tackled them mid-“CONFERENCE”. A Youth Demand spokesperson, clearly not schooled in the Starmerite art of mealy-mouthed equivocation, laid bare the hypocrisy at the heart of Labour’s newfound love affair with the arms industry. “Labour is still arming Israel despite […] - [The New Farmyard Order: Labour’s Moral Collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-new-farmyard-order-labours-moral-collapse/): Rachel Reeves Asked: What’s the Difference Between You and Them “The creatures outside looked from Labour to Tory, and from Tory to Labour, and from Labour to Tory again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” In the farmyard of British politics, a curious transformation has taken place. Labour, once fierce critics of Tory excess, have taken up residence in the farmhouse. And as we gaze into the spectacle of British politics, we find it increasingly difficult to distinguish them from their predecessors. Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Chancellor, found herself cornered on Good Morning Britain, forced to defend the […] - [Selling Out: Labour Given £4m from Tax Haven Hedge Fund with Shares in Oil and Arms](https://heartlandstribune.com/selling-out-labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms/): From Hope to Hypocrisy: Labour’s Descent into Tory Land “Change is coming,” Sir Keir Starmer boldly declared to Labour activists on the eve of their Liverpool conference. Indeed, change has come, but not the kind Labour voters might have hoped for. Instead of a shift towards the interests of working people, we’re witnessing a transformation that would make even the most ardent Tory blush with embarrassment. The gathering follows a tumultuous period for the government, marred by questions over donations of clothing and gifts, and damaging briefings about No 10’s operations. Yet, in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy, Starmer, Deputy PM […] - [Israel-Hezbollah Conflict: A Powder Keg Primed to Explode](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-hezbollah-conflict-a-powder-keg-primed-to-explode/): From Gaza to Lebanon: Israel’s War Machine Keeps Rolling In a chilling escalation of Middle Eastern tensions, Israel stands poised on the precipice of a major offensive against Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia. This isn’t merely sabre-rattling; it’s the death rattle of regional stability, threatening to plunge us into a maelstrom of violence that could engulf the entire region. Since Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, we’ve witnessed the unfolding of a catastrophic genocide in Gaza. The Israeli response has been nothing short of apocalyptic, with over 40,000 Palestinian civilians – mostly women and children – slaughtered in a relentless campaign of […] - [Caitlin Johnstone: War Crimes & Western Hypocrisy](https://heartlandstribune.com/caitlin-johnstone-war-crimes-western-hypocrisy/): If some other governments — say Russia, China or Iran — were even suspected of being responsible for Israel’s terror attacks on Lebanon, U.S. officials would be churning out denunciations. By Caitlin JohnstoneCaitlinJohnstone.com.au Listen to Tim Foley reading this article. The death toll has risen to 12 from Israel’s terror attack in Lebanon on Tuesday which detonated explosive materials hidden in thousands of pagers. Another 20 people were then killed in another attack on Wednesday with a second wave of explosions, this time using walkie talkies and home solar energy systems.  The total death toll now sits at 32. Two children and four healthcare workers are among the dead. Thousands […] - [Lebanon Pager Terror Offensive: Cold War Tech Meets Modern Warfare](https://heartlandstribune.com/lebanon-pager-terror-offensive-cold-war-tech-meets-modern-warfare/): A Grim Turn in Modern Warfare: Exploding Pagers Kill 9 and Wound Thousands in Lebanon In a chilling display of technological warfare, Lebanon has been brutally thrust into a new era of terror. A series of meticulously coordinated explosions have torn through the country, leaving a trail of carnage that would make even the most hardened war correspondent blanch. At least nine lie dead, including an innocent child, while over 2,750 souls writhe in agony – victims of a blatant act of terror. so precisely targeted, it seems ripped from the fevered imagination of a Cold War spymaster. This isn’t merely […] - [Gift-Gate Redux: Starmer Once Declared 'The rules are very clear'](https://heartlandstribune.com/gift-gate-redux-starmer-once-declared-the-rules-are-very-clear/): Gift-Gate Strikes Again: Tory, Labour, New Boss Same as The Last! In a plot twist that would make the writer of Rules of the Game reach for his typewriter, our esteemed Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has not only been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar he’s been caught out in his hypocrisy too. Let us recap on this fashion faux pas, shall we, as our would-be Emperor struts around Italy in his new clothes? Lord Alli, a Labour peer and Starmer’s most generous personal donor, has been playing the role of a capitalist fairy godmother to the […] - [Junior doctors accept 22% pay rise to end strikes](https://heartlandstribune.com/junior-doctors-accept-22-pay-rise-to-end-strikes/): Junior Doctors in England Accept Government’s 22% Pay Rise Offer, Ending Long-Running Dispute Junior doctors in England have officially accepted the government’s offer of a 22% pay rise over two years, bringing an end to their 18-month dispute with the British government. The decision follows a vote by members of the British Medical Association (BMA), with 66% of nearly 46,000 members who participated in the online ballot voting in favour of the deal. This marks the conclusion of a dispute that involved 11 separate strikes, during which junior doctors demanded better pay. However, the BMA has warned that further above-inflation pay […] - [A National Disgrace: It's a let off for Huw Edwards'](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-national-disgrace-its-a-let-off-for-huw-edwards/): Child Protection vs Celebrity Privilege: The Huw Edwards Case Sparks Outrage The sentencing of Huw Edwards marks yet another dark chapter in British journalism. Once the face of BBC News, Edwards now stands disgraced, his reputation in tatters. The suspended sentence he received seems a mere slap on the wrist for crimes that warrant far harsher punishment. Edwards, 63, stood before Westminster magistrates court looking “pale and tired” – a far cry from the polished anchor who once announced the Queen’s death. Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, in a performance worthy of the West End, declared Edwards‘ “long-earned reputation is in tatters” […] - [#ItWasAScam: Corbyn, Gaza, and The Jewish Chronicle](https://heartlandstribune.com/itwasascam-corbyn-gaza-and-the-jewish-chronicle/): The Jewish Chronicle Fueled a War of Words and Lies Who would have thought that the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper would turn out to be little more than a propaganda pamphlet for the Israeli government? Well, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, I suppose. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s lay down some facts. The newspaper has been peddling fabricated stories about Gaza. Stories that not only have been used to influence public opinion but also the direction of the Israeli military strategy. This is not merely a journalistic scandal. It is a grave indictment of […] - [The Starmers’ New Threads: Labour’s Cronyism Comes Unstitched](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-starmers-new-threads-labours-cronyism-comes-unstiched/): Starmer’s Tailor-Made Scandal: Cronyism Wears a New Suit in Labour In a twist that would make Hans Christian Andersen reach for his quill, it seems our esteemed Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has been caught with his ethical trousers down. The Party that once trumpeted an end to cronyism has instead embraced it with the enthusiasm of a child in a sweet shop or should that be designer shop… Let’s unpick this sartorial scandal, shall we? Lord Alli, a Labour peer and Starmer’s most generous personal donor, has been playing fairy godmother to the Starmer household. Not content with gifting Sir […] - [Raising the Stakes in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/raising-the-stakes-in-ukraine/): John Wight on the grim context of the latest escalatory development in the blood-soaked proxy conflict between Russia and the West. By John Wight The legendary Athenian historian and general, Thucydides, was a man who believed in the supposed verities of war and conflict as a means by which to settle the affairs of state. It is therefore no accident or surprise that his classic account of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BC remains a staple of military academies throughout the West. Therein lies the problem, because unlike in the days of antiquity, when wars between the great […] - [Privatisation or Bust: Starmer’s Stark NHS Reform Ultimatum](https://heartlandstribune.com/privatisation-or-bust-starmers-stark-nhs-reform-ultimatum/): Starmer’s NHS Threat: No Money Without Reform, Privatise or Perish Who would have thought we’d see the day when a Labour Prime Minister would resort to blackmail, holding the nation’s health service hostage unless we acquiesce to his grand designs for ‘reform’? Well, dear reader, some of us did, and we shouted ourselves hoarse trying to warn you well before the ballot boxes were dusted off and Starmer got his foot in the doorway of No. 10. “No extra NHS funding without reform,” declares Prime Minister Starmer, his words dripping with the oily sheen of neoliberal dogma. Let us translate this […] - [Robbing Peter to Arm Pavlo: Labour's Twisted Priorities](https://heartlandstribune.com/robbing-peter-to-arm-pavlo-labours-twisted-priorities/): A Winter Betrayal: Pensioner’s Fuel Allowance to Fund Ukrainian War In a display of political alchemy that would make even the most brazen charlatan blush, our esteemed Labour government has pulled off a feat of breathtaking audacity. Within a mere 24 hours of plundering the pockets of over 10 million British pensioners, these neoliberal jugglers have conjured up a cool £600 million for Ukraine. It’s a piece of accounting magic that would leave Lehman Brothers slack-jawed – now you see your winter warmth, now you don’t! After plunging millions of British pensioners into a winter of discontent by stripping them of […] - [Labour's Frozen Heart: The End of Winter Fuel Payments for Millions](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-frozen-heart/): Starmer’s Cuts Leave 10 Million Pensioners Out in the Cold The Labour government has driven a stake through the heart of pensioner welfare. Tuesday’s Commons vote saw the death knell of winter fuel payments for millions, with cries of ‘shame’ echoing off the decaying walls of the Commons – a fitting chorus for this betrayal of the elderly. Starmer’s cut to the winter fuel allowance not only survived it was carried with a vote tally of – 348 to 228 – reading like a tombstone for Labour’s once-vaunted commitment to social justice. In a twist of irony that would be comical […] - [Labour's Chilling Betrayal: The Winter Fuel Allowance Debacle](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-chilling-betrayal-the-winter-fuel-allowance-debacle/): Labour’s Winter Betrayal: Pensioners Left Out in the Cold As the frost of political expedience settles over Westminster, we find ourselves witness to a spectacle that would make even the most cynical observer’s jaw drop. The Labour Party, once the self-proclaimed champion of the working class and vulnerable, is poised to plunge millions of pensioners into a winter of discontent that would make Thatcher proud. Today, MPs will vote on Labour’s plan to strip the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners. It’s a move so callous, so divorced from the party’s roots, you have to take a look […] - [From Bevan to Streeting: How Labour is Privatising the NHS](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-bevan-to-streeting-how-labour-is-privatising-the-nhs/): Labour’s NHS Transformation: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing In a move that would make Nye Bevan turn in his grave, the Labour Party seems hell-bent on finishing what the Tories started – the slow, insidious privatisation of our beloved National Health Service. Under the guise of ‘reform’ and ‘reducing waiting lists’, our supposed defenders of the working class are laying out the red carpet for private healthcare vultures to feast on the carcass of our public institutions. In reality, Labour’s so-called transformation of the NHS is a Trojan horse, smuggling private interests into the sanctum of public healthcare. Wes Streeting, our […] - [UK Quietly Ties Nuclear Arsenal to Washington](https://heartlandstribune.com/uk-quietly-ties-nuclear-arsenal-to-washington/): By Richard Norton-TaylorDeclassified UK Richard Norton-Taylor says the Starmer government’s rewriting of a transatlantic treaty undermines persistent claims that Britain’s Trident missile system is operationally independent. Labour has reinforced the “special relationship” with Washington by agreeing to make Britain’s nuclear arsenal permanently dependent on the U.S. In one of its first, but little-noticed foreign policy moves, Labour has amended the Eisenhower-era 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) that is crucial to Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system. Officials deleted a long-standing sunset clause that required it be renewed every 10 years.  All references to an “expiry date” have been removed “to make the entirety of the MDA […] - [Labour's Cold Comfort: Rachel Reeves' Decade-Long Plan to Freeze Out Pensioners](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-cold-comfort-rachel-reeves-decade-long-plan-to-freeze-out-pensioners/): Labour’s Winter of Discontent: The Betrayal of Britain’s Pensioners The mask has slipped, and the true face of Labour’s neoliberal consensus stands revealed. In the theatre of British politics, where the actors change but the script remains depressingly familiar, we find ourselves witnessing a performance that has been a decade in the making. The Labour Party, once the self-proclaimed champion of the working class and vulnerable, again drops its mask to reveal a face that’s indistinguishable from the Tories. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in a move that reeks of neoliberal orthodoxy, announced the axing of the £300 Winter Fuel Payment for 10 […] - [August Landmesser: The Story Of The Man Behind The Crossed Arms Who Stood Defiant Against the Tide of Tyranny](https://heartlandstribune.com/august-landmesser/): In the Face of Tyranny: August Landmesser’s Symbolic Resistance There are moments captured in time that speak volumes about the human spirit’s capacity for courage in the face of overwhelming odds. One such moment is crystallized in a photograph taken on June 13, 1936, at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg. Amidst a sea of arms raised in Nazi salute, one man stands apart, his arms defiantly crossed. This man was August Landmesser, and his story is a testament to the power of individual conscience and the strength of love in the darkest of times. As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once observed, “What […] - [Starmer's Britain: The Chilling Arrest of Sarah Wilkinson](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-britain-the-chilling-arrest-of-sarah-wilkinson/): Starmer’s Britain: Where Freedom of Speech Ends with a Knock on the Door ‘No one can get up much enthusiasm for a Government which puts you in jail if you open your mouth’ – George Orwell In the twilight of our once-cherished liberties, we find ourselves witnesses to a grim spectacle: the death throes of free speech in Britain. Under the watchful eye of Prime Minister Starmer, our nation has embarked on a perilous journey towards a dystopian future that would make George Orwell’s Winston Smith weep. Sarah Wilkinson, a British human rights activist arrested for the grave crime of… typing […] - [Is the UK Government Really Broke? A £22 Billion "Black Hole"? But We're a Sovereign Nation That Prints Its Own Currency—We Can’t Go Bust! Change My Mind.](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-22-billion-black-hole/): Is the UK Government Really Broke? —We Can’t Go Bust! Change My Mind. We’ve all heard the dire warnings. A £22 billion “black hole” in our finances. Tough choices ahead. Tax hikes on the horizon. It’s the same old story, whether it’s the Tories or Labour holding the purse strings. But what if I told you it’s all a grand illusion? Here’s a bold claim for you: The UK, as a sovereign nation that prints its own currency, cannot go bankrupt. More provocatively, money is not the issue when it comes to funding government projects or policies. Sounds too good to […] - [Broken Britain: Starmer's Illusion of Change](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-broken-britain/): If Tory Policies Broke Britain, How Will Labour’s Tory Policies Ever Possibly Fix It? Prime Minister Starmer, our supposed saviour from Conservative misrule, now warns of “painful” budgets ahead. It’s a classic bait-and-switch manoeuvre: voters took the bait of change, and now face the switch to more of the same. The question looms large: If Tory policies broke Britain, how can Labour’s Tory-lite approach possibly mend it? Starmer’s reference to a “£22bn black hole” in national finances smacks of the same fear-mongering tactics employed by his predecessors. It’s a convenient narrative to justify austerity measures and tax hikes, conveniently ignoring that […] - [The Great Labour Exodus: A Party Without a People](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-labour-exodus-a-party-without-a-people/): Labour’s Membership Meltdown: Starmer’s Struggles as Party Shrinks Labour membership sinks to lowest level in 10 years under Starmer… Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has managed to achieve a dubious milestone: its lowest membership numbers in a decade. It seems the Party that once boasted of its grassroots support is now watching those roots wither at an alarming rate. The figures paint a picture that’s about as pretty as a politician’s promises. Labour shed a whopping 37,000 members in 2023, bringing its total to a mere 370,450. To put that in perspective, it’s as if the entire population of a small […] - [Tony Blair's NHS 2.0: A Brave New World of Digital Doctoring](https://heartlandstribune.com/tony-blairs-nhs-2-0-a-brave-new-world-of-digital-doctoring/): Are Labour Heading For Chatbot Doctors? In a move that’s sure to raise eyebrows and blood pressures across the UK, former Prime Minister and current Labour whisperer Tony Blair has unveiled his vision for the future of the NHS. Spoiler alert: it involves fewer GPs and more chatbots. Yes, you read that right. Blair’s think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), accidentally leaked a report proposing a radical overhaul of the NHS. The plan? To consolidate GP practices into super primary care centres serving up to 250,000 patients each. It’s like supersizing your healthcare, but instead of fries, […] - [A Good Party Is Hard to Find: Labour Has No Real Plan to Fix UK Rivers, Feargal Sharkey Warns](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-good-party-is-hard-to-find/): “A Good Party Is Hard to Find: Feargal Sharkey Singer Sharkey’s Labour Lament” Feargal Sharkey once sang about matters of the heart, but now he’s crooning a different tune – one of political disappointment. The punk rocker turned environmental crusader is learning the hard way that a good political party, like true love, can be hard to find. After being wooed by Labour’s green promises, Sharkey finds himself facing a familiar refrain: campaign pledges often hit a sour note once the election music stops. In a tale as old as politics itself, it seems the Labour Party has swiftly cast aside […] - [Education, Education, Education: Debt, Debt, Debt](https://heartlandstribune.com/education-education-education-debt-debt-debt/): Student Debt Crisis: A National Disgrace Let’s talk about the elephant in the room – student debt. It’s not just a problem; it’s a national disgrace. Almost 1.8 million people in the UK owe £50,000 or more in student loans. Over 61,000 souls are saddled with debts exceeding £100,000. And for 50 unfortunate individuals, the debt mountain towers above £200,000. Currently, £20 billion per year is loaned to around 1.5 million higher education students in England. The value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2024 reached £236 billion. This isn’t education; it’s indentured servitude. While the powers that be […] - [Richard Medhurst Detained: Is the UK Suppressing Press Freedom Under Anti-Terror Laws?](https://heartlandstribune.com/richard-medhurst-detained-is-the-uk-suppressing-press-freedom-under-anti-terror-laws/): UK’s Terrorism Act: A New Tool for Silencing Journalists? What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side. – George Orwell In a deeply troubling development, British journalist Richard Medhurst recently became the target of what appears to be a deliberate effort to stifle press freedom. Medhurst, widely respected for his critical reporting, was detained under the UK’s contentious Terrorism Act upon his arrival at Heathrow Airport. Medhurst, an internationally accredited journalist, was subjected to a harrowing 24-hour ordeal. He was handcuffed, isolated, and interrogated under […] - [Are We Feeding the Industrial Arms Complex to Fight a Paper Tiger](https://heartlandstribune.com/are-we-feeding-the-industrial-arms-complex-to-fight-a-paper-tiger/): If Ukraine Is Winning, Why Are We Sacrificing to Fund the Arms Industry? Volodymyr Zelensky has openly declared that Ukraine’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow. This is the first time the Ukrainian president has clearly stated the objective of the operation, which was launched on August 6. Previously, he had hinted that the aim was to protect communities in Ukraine’s bordering Sumy region from constant shelling. In his nightly address, Zelensky said, “It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall to destroy as much Russian war […] - [Colombia’s Petro Signs Decree Banning Coal Exports to Israel](https://heartlandstribune.com/colombias-petro-signs-decree-banning-coal-exports-to-israel/): Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro signed a decree banning coal exports to Israel in a bid to pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the conflict in Gaza.  In a bold move that’s sure to ruffle feathers in the corridors of Western power, Colombia’s firebrand president Gustavo Petro has taken aim at Israel’s war machine. He’s hit them where it hurts – right in the coal chute. The decree, dated August 14, isn’t pulling its punches. It’s grounded in international law and human rights concerns, citing the dire situation in Gaza since Israel’s military onslaught began in October 2023 […] - [Senior British Diplomat Mark Smith Resigns Over UK’s Arms Sales to Israel](https://heartlandstribune.com/senior-british-diplomat-mark-smith-resigns-over-uks-arms-sales-to-israel/): Not in Our Name: The UK’s Complicity in Gaza’s Genocide The relentless assault on Gaza has now claimed over 40,000 lives, a staggering toll that lays bare the utter moral bankruptcy of Western governments. Their spineless failure to bring meaningful pressure on Israel to end this carnage isn’t just cowardice – it’s outright complicity in genocide. Now, in a rare act of conscience, a senior British diplomat has resigned in protest over the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel. Mark Smith, formerly of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has had enough of the government’s hypocritical nonsense about “robust and transparent” […] - [The Revolving Door of Power: Cronyism The Corfield Controversy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-revolving-door-of-power/): Cronyism: The Corfield Controversy When Labour swept to power, many hoped for a departure from the cronyism that had become synonymous with Tory rule. Alas, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. The recent appointment of Ian Corfield to a top Treasury role serves as a stark reminder that the revolving door between politics and finance continues to spin, regardless of which party holds the keys to Number 10. Corfield, a former banker and senior Labour Party adviser, donated over £20,000 to Labour politicians, including now-Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in the run-up to the general election. His […] - [The Peterloo Massacre: When Demands for Justice Faced the Sword of Authority](https://heartlandstribune.com/peterloo-massacre/): Peterloo Massacre: Marching for Democracy “Rise like Lions after slumber in unvanquishable number-Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you Ye are many they are few.” ― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy: Written on Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester In the annals of history, certain events cast an indelible shadow, reminding us of the price paid for the progress we often take for granted. The pages of August 16, 1819, stand as a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dared to demand more from their leaders, and the tragic consequences […] - [Big Brother Britain: The Battle for Free Speech, Resisting the Erosion of Our Rights in the Digital Age](https://heartlandstribune.com/big-brother-britain/): From Xenophobia to Censorship: The Elite’s Strategy to Silence Dissent In the theatre of modern politics, a sinister play unfolds before our eyes. The elite, masters of manipulation, deploy their time-tested strategy of divide and conquer. They orchestrate chaos, then swoop in with ‘solutions’ that invariably erode our hard-won freedoms. Let’s be clear from the outset: this discussion is not about isolated tragic events like those in Southport or the stabbing of a British army officer on the streets of Britain. These horrific incidents deserve our grief and attention. However, we must remain vigilant about how such events can be weaponised […] - [Israeli Strike on School Brings Gaza's Grim Toll to Nearly 40,000 in a World of Deafening Silence](https://heartlandstribune.com/israeli-strike-on-school/): Gaza’s Grim Toll: 40,000 Dead and the World’s Deafening Silence The relentless assault on Gaza is now reaching 40,000 lives, a staggering toll that lays bare the moral bankruptcy of Western governments who continue to turn a blind eye to this unfolding genocide. Their cowardice in failing to bring meaningful pressure on Israel to end this carnage is a damning indictment of their complicity and moral decline. Today, the Israeli air strike on the Tabeen school compound in Gaza City, which killed at least 80 displaced Palestinians seeking shelter, is but the latest in a long string of atrocities. That such […] - [Fighting Fascism: The Need to Address Social Inequality](https://heartlandstribune.com/fighting-fascism-the-need-to-address-social-inequality/): Guest post by Jack Morriss We need to isolate fascists from the deprived and downtrodden The riots that have swept across England and Northern Ireland have not taken place in a social vacuum. Descriptions of mindless violence and criminal thuggery give the impression that the riots have come out of nowhere or are the sole outcome of fascist agitation. There can be no doubt that a loose set of neo-fascist actors, either through physical organisation on the ground or via online encouragement through popular apps like Telegram, have played a significant role. The attempt to set fire to a hotel housing […] - [The Battle of Cable Street: They Shall Not Pass](https://heartlandstribune.com/day-the-east-end-said-no-pasaran-to-blackshirts/): ¡No pasarán!: The Day The East End Said ‘They shall not pass’ On October 4, 1936, the streets of London’s East End became a battleground for the soul of Britain. It was on this day that an unlikely coalition of Jews, communists, trade unionists, Labour Party members, Irish Catholic dockers, and local residents united in a fierce display of solidarity against the rising tide of fascism. Their enemy? Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), who had planned to march their Blackshirts through the heart of a predominantly Jewish community. Their intention was clear: to intimidate, to divide, and to […] - [The Triumph of Inhumanity: Video of Gang Rape of Palestinian Male Prisoner by Israeli Soldiers Released](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-triumph-of-inhumanity/): Exposing the Horrors at Sde Teiman: Shown in video of the gang rape of a Palestinian male prisoner by IDF As the old adage goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Tragically, these words have found new resonance in the sordid revelations emerging from Israel’s Sde Teiman detention facility and the silence of British media. Footage of IDF soldiers allegedly gang raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility was broadcast on N12 on Tuesday. Late last month, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the alleged rape of a […] - [¡No pasarán! The People, Not Police, Quell the Riots](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-pasaran-the-people-not-police-quell-the-riots/): No Pasarán: Britain’s Streets Echo with Defiance The rallying cry of “¡No pasarán!” – “They shall not pass!” – once shouted on the streets of Madrid against fascist forces, has found new life in the hearts and voices of Britain’s people. As communities across the nation gathered in a powerful show of solidarity, they sent a clear message: not in our name will hatred and division reign. In a twist of irony that would make Orwell proud, it was not the heavy-handed tactics of the state that quelled the threatened violence. Despite Prime Minister Starmer’s ominous promises of authoritarian crackdowns and […] - [2016 Labour's Rachel Reeves Warned of 'Tinderbox' UK 'Exploding' Into Riots If Immigration Is Not Curbed By Brexit](https://heartlandstribune.com/2016-labours-rachel-reeves-warned-of-tinderbox-uk-exploding-into-riots/): The Hypocrisy of Labour: Starmer’s Hardline Approach to Civil Unrest That Could Have Been Avoided. The streets of Britain burn, and what does our esteemed Prime Minister Starmer propose? More authoritarian laws, more censorship, all in the name of combating “misinformation.” As George Orwell astutely observed, “No one can get up much enthusiasm for a Government which puts you in jail if you open your mouth.” Yet, before we cheer ourselves into dystopia, we must turn a critical eye on this Labour government that seems all too eager to strip away our liberties. As riots continue to ravage Britain, Prime Minister […] - [The Shock Doctrine: The Tragic Tightrope Balancing Safety and Liberty](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-shock-doctrine/): From Crisis to Control: The Quiet March of Authoritarianism The shock doctrine strikes in moments of upheaval. It comes in the first instance of change—be it natural calamity, war, political upheaval, economic turmoil, or civil unrest. In our disorientation, we become vulnerable. When leaders exploit this chaos to force unpopular systems upon their people—political, religious, or economic—it’s a clear sign of anti-democratic intent, regardless of how they came to power. The Tragic Tightrope: Liberty in Peril The riots scarring our nation and the cynical exploitation of the heartrending events in Southport sicken us all. The chaos on our streets is not […] - [Sunderland: Britain's Streets Echo with Anger: A Nation Divided](https://heartlandstribune.com/sunderland-britains-streets-echo-with-anger-a-nation-divided/): This is England: Overturned car set alight and beer barrels and stones thrown at police amid face-off with hundreds of demonstrators Clashes between police and rioters led to three injured officers being taken to hospital, though one had since been discharged, Northumbria Police said. Beer cans and stones were thrown at police in riot gear outside a mosque, and there were other clashes between officers and demonstrators around the city. Eight people have been arrested for a range of offences, including violent disorder and burglary. Northumbria Police Ch Supt Helena Barron said officers had been met with “serious and sustained” levels […] - [GPs vs. Labour: GPs Down Stethoscope as Healthcare Showdown Begins](https://heartlandstribune.com/gps-vs-labour-gps-down-stethoscope-as-healthcare-showdown-begins/): Labour’s Healthcare Gamble: GPs Down Stethoscopes Amid Contract Dispute For the first time in six decades, these pillars of primary care have decided to down stethoscopes and pick up placards. The British Medical Association (BMA) reports that over 8,500 GPs participated in the vote, with an astounding 98.3% backing collective action. This strike, scheduled to begin next Thursday, could potentially last for months, significantly impacting the National Health Service (NHS). The root of this conflict lies in the rejection of a national contract that offered GPs a mere 2% increase in salary and contract amount. In response, the BMA has provided […] - [The Austerity Switch: The Disappearing Act of Labour’s Promises](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-austerity-switch-the-disappearing-act-of-labours-promises/): Remember when the Red Tories attacked the Blue Tories over the injustice of taking away Winter Fuel Payments We find ourselves in the curious position of watching a Labour government don the moth-eaten cloak of austerity. You might have thought such garments had been consigned to the dustbin of history once a Labour government got in, but it seems Sir Keir Starmer and his merry band have been rummaging through the Tory dressing-up box. The decision to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners is a masterstroke of political sleight of hand. Had this been the work of our Conservative friends, […] - [Michael Parenti: The Myth of Capitalism](https://heartlandstribune.com/michael-parenti-the-myth-of-capitalism/): The 1% Pathology And The Myth of Capitalism – Michael Parenti At Labour Heartlands, we believe in giving voice to those who challenge the comfortable lies of power.Today, we feature a sharp, essential lecture: The Myth of Capitalism by Michael Parenti. Born in 1933, Michael Parenti is an American political scientist, historian, and cultural critic whose work spans the scholarly and the accessible. A former university lecturer and political candidate, Parenti has spent decades exposing the brutal realities hidden beneath the myths of Western democracy and corporate capitalism. In this lecture, Parenti tears the mask off modern capitalism — showing how […] - [Virginia Giuffre, Key Epstein Accuser Who Sued Prince Andrew, Dies by Suicide at 41 ](https://heartlandstribune.com/virginia-giuffre-key-epstein-accuser-who-sued-prince-andrew-dies-by-suicide-at-41/): Virginia Giuffre’s Death: The Silencing of Epstein’s Most Courageous Accuser Virginia Giuffre, the woman whose courage brought global attention to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network, has died by suicide at the age of 41, her family has announced. Giuffre, a mother of three and prominent campaigner against sexual abuse, was found unresponsive on Friday at her farm in Neergabby, Western Australia. West Australia Police confirmed that her death is under investigation by Major Crime detectives but said early indications suggest it is not suspicious. In a public statement, Giuffre’s family described her as a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual […] - [Power Failure: The Political Cowardice Behind Britain's Energy Crisis](https://heartlandstribune.com/power-failure-the-political-cowardice-behind-britains-energy-crisis/): Britain isn’t just being let down—it’s being systematically stripped in a sabotage of its industrial future. While politicians from both major parties smile for cameras and mouth platitudes about “growth” and “investment,” they continue to hand over our essential energy infrastructure to profiteers and multinational corporations with no allegiance to this country. The result? Britain now suffers from some of the highest electricity prices in Europe—crippling both households and what remains of our industrial base. The numbers tell the brutal truth. Between 2020 and 2024, energy companies have made an operating profit of over £483.4 billion. Our energy-intensive manufacturing firms—steel, glass, […] - [Class War by Birthday: How Labour Is Cutting Off Lifelong Learning at 60](https://heartlandstribune.com/class-war-by-birthday/): Labour’s Learning Lockout: Why Is the Party Shutting Doors on the Over-60s? “Education is the best provision for the old.” – Aristotle A timely quote, especially when you realise that staying mentally active — through learning, challenging the mind, and trying new things — is linked to a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The science calls it “cognitive reserve”: the brain’s ability to withstand damage and delay decline. What a life saver. And what a money saver. Dementia care costs anywhere from £28,700 to £80,500 a year depending on severity. So why aren’t we doing everything we […] - [Pope Francis Dies Aged 88, Just Hours After Easter Message of Peace ](https://heartlandstribune.com/pope-francis-dies-aged-88-just-hours-after-easter-message-of-peace/): Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, just hours after delivering his final Easter message calling for peace in Gaza and Ukraine.  The global Catholic community now mourns a leader who dared to speak uncomfortable truths in an age of silence. Whether condemning the arms trade, challenging the cruelty of global capitalism, or calling for justice in Gaza and Ukraine, Pope Francis stood firmly against the powers that profit from war and inequality. His humility and defiance made him a rare voice of conscience — not only for Catholics, but for anyone seeking moral clarity in a corrupt world. […] - [How Workers Won the Right to Bank Holidays ](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-workers-won-the-right-to-bank-holidays/): From Factory Floors to Free Mondays: The Radical History of Bank Holidays As you lie in bed this Easter Monday, savouring that delicious sense of liberation—no alarm, no commute, no boss peering over your shoulder—spare a thought for the long and surprisingly radical history behind your bonus day of rest.  Bank holidays, like so many things working people now consider basic, were not handed down by generous bosses or benevolent rulers. They were carved out over centuries—by custom, by defiance, and by collective action. Behind every leisurely Monday morning lie the fingerprints of resistance and reform.  It’s a Bankers Holiday The […] - [The Revolutionary Jesus: Tony Benn on Christianity and Socialism](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-revolutionary-jesus-tony-benn-on-christianity-and-socialism/): Tony Benn, the conscience of the British left for over half a century, emerged from a family deeply rooted in radical Christian tradition. His maternal lineage traced back to nonconformist dissenters who rejected established church hierarchies in favour of a more democratic and egalitarian approach to faith. This religious heritage would profoundly shape his political philosophy throughout his remarkable forty-seven years in Parliament. Benn’s mother, Margaret Wedgwood Benn (herself descended from the progressive Wedgwood family), was no ordinary theologian. As a founder of the League of the Church Militant—the organisation that would later evolve into the Movement for the Ordination of […] - [What the Supreme Court Gender Ruling Actually Means: A Material Analysis of Sex-Based Rights ](https://heartlandstribune.com/what-the-supreme-court-gender-ruling-actually-means/): Supreme Court Rules: A Woman Is an Adult Human Female – What That Means for Law, Rights, and Reality  The landmark Supreme Court ruling that the definition of “woman” relates to biological sex has finally cleared up a 15-year legal ambiguity that left public services, employers, and women’s organisations in an impossible position. The consequences of this ruling will reverberate across single-sex spaces, employment law, and public services throughout the UK.  For the first time, the courts have tested whether someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) who identifies as female should be treated as a woman under the 2010 Equality […] - [EHRC Takes Charge: Enforcing Women's Rights After Landmark Court Decision](https://heartlandstribune.com/ehrc-takes-charge-enforcing-womens-rights-after-landmark-court-decision/): Biology Over Ideology: UK’s Highest Court Affirms Women’s Sex-Based Rights In a rare moment of clarity amid years of ideological confusion, the UK Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that under the Equality Act, the terms “woman” and “sex” refer to biological reality – a decision that prioritises material facts over subjective identity claims. This landmark judgment represents a vital reassertion of women’s sex-based rights and protections that have been increasingly eroded under the guise of progress.  The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has wasted no time in following through on the implications of this ruling. Baroness Falkner, the EHRC chairwoman, […] - [Another Day, Another Labour Scandal: Former Minister Charged with Electoral Fraud ](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-day-another-labour-scandal-former-minister-charged-with-electoral-fraud/): Porky-Pie Politician Strikes Again: Labour Veteran Charged With Electoral Fraud Just when Labour thought they might enjoy a moment’s respite from controversy, another skeleton has come tumbling out of the party’s crowded closet. Frank McAveety, a senior Glasgow councillor, former council leader, and one-time Scottish Labour minister, has been charged with electoral fraud in what appears to be a particularly brazen case of residential deception.  Police Scotland have confirmed that a 62-year-old man – identified by multiple sources as McAveety – “has been arrested and charged in connection with fraud offences in the Glasgow area between 2022 and 2024.” A report […] - [The House Always Wins: How Tory Insiders Tried to Cash In on Democracy ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-house-always-wins-how-tory-insiders-tried-to-cash-in-on-democracy/): Not Just Bad Apples: The Rotten Barrel of Tory Rule If you were seeking a perfect metaphor for the terminal decay of the last Tory government, look no further than the extraordinary spectacle of 15 people, including a former Tory MP and several senior Party officials, being charged with gambling offences over bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election.  This is what 14 years of Tory rule ultimately delivered: a political culture so thoroughly corrupted that those with privileged access to power saw nothing wrong with using confidential information about something as fundamental as an election date to […] - [Labour's Shame: Birmingham Council Wages Class War on Bin Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-shame-birmingham-council-wages-class-war-on-bin-workers/): Would YOU Take an £8k Pay Cut? Birmingham’s Bin Workers Say No Would you accept an £8,000 pay cut? That’s the question Birmingham’s bin workers have answered with a resounding “no” as they continue their strike against a Labour council that seems determined to balance its books on the backs of its lowest-paid employees.  For over a month now, mountains of rubbish have festered on Birmingham’s streets while the city council engages in what can only be described as a propaganda war against its own workforce. The latest offer from the council has been “overwhelmingly” rejected by Unite members, and with […] - [The Uncompromising Legacy of Christopher Hitchens: Free Speech in a Censored Age](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-uncompromising-legacy-of-christopher-hitchens/): Remembering Christopher Hitchens: Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! On this day, we commemorate the life and legacy of Christopher Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011), the fiercely intellectual, unapologetically outspoken writer and polemicist whose defence of free speech remains as vital today as it was during his lifetime. A prolific author, journalist, and debater, Hitchens dedicated his career to challenging dogma, dismantling authoritarianism, and upholding the principle that open discourse—no matter how uncomfortable—is the bedrock of a free society.  At a time when censorship, “cancel culture,” and ideological conformity threaten dissent, Hitchens’ arguments resonate with renewed urgency. He famously asserted […] - [Lord of the Rings: Transport Minister Caught Texting Behind the Wheel ](https://heartlandstribune.com/lord-of-the-rings-transport-minister-caught-texting-behind-the-wheel/): Why was the transport minister texting while driving? He couldn’t get a signal… Transport Minister Lord Peter Hendy has found himself in a rather awkward predicament after being caught texting while driving a vintage bus through London’s rush hour traffic. The irony of the nation’s transport czar flouting basic road safety rules has not been lost on observers.   The noble lord was spotted by a passenger tapping away on his phone while piloting an old Routemaster bus during a charity event last month. He was apparently messaging a friend about a prostate cancer test – a worthy topic, though perhaps best […] - [Steel Resolve: Why Nationalisation Is Not Just Necessary, But Inevitable](https://heartlandstribune.com/steel-resolve-why-nationalisation-is-not-just-necessary-but-inevitable/): Emergency Measures Aren’t Enough – Full Nationalisation Is the Only Answer At last, a moment of clarity cuts through Westminster’s fog. The emergency recall of Parliament to potentially save British Steel isn’t just good policy—it’s the bare minimum of what a self-respecting industrial nation should do when faced with the collapse of a strategic industry. But make no mistake: this “special measures” bill should be merely the prelude to full nationalisation, not a hesitant half-step.  I’ve spent decades watching successive governments—Conservative and New Labour alike—treat Britain’s industrial heritage as an embarrassing relic, something to be auctioned off to the highest foreign […] - [Theme Parks Won't Save Britain: Why We Need a 21st Century Industrial Revolution](https://heartlandstribune.com/theme-parks-wont-save-britain-why-we-need-a-22nd-century-industrial-revolution/): From Steel to Silicon: The Bold Plan to Build Britain’s Next Great City Britain’s economy is spiralling, global trade is fracturing, and supply chains are snapping like cheap plastic. So, what’s Sir Keir Starmer’s master plan? Build a bloody theme park. Yes, really. As tariffs rattle stock markets from Beijing to New York, and nation-states scramble to claw back manufacturing sovereignty, the Prime Minister’s idea of serious economic planning is to slap a rollercoaster on a failing economy and hope for the best. Universal Studios will bring growth, jobs, and joy, he says — as if Britain’s collapse into deindustrialised irrelevance […] - [Trump's Tariff War Enters Next Phase: What It Means for Britain's Working Class Now ](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumps-tariff-war/): As the clock ticks toward midnight in Washington, the next devastating phase of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff offensive is about to slam into the global economy. With the White House confirming that increased duties on China will proceed as planned—pushing total tariffs to an unprecedented 104%—and approximately 60 other nations facing heightened levies, the trade war has officially escalated from skirmish to all-out economic conflict.  “President Trump has a spine of steel and he will not break,” declared press secretary Karoline Leavitt, signalling that despite market turmoil that has wiped trillions from global valuations, the administration remains unmoved. While US Treasury […] - [The EU Folds: Brussels Signals Retreat in Face of Trump's Trade Offensive ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-eu-folds-brussels-signals-retreat-in-face-of-trumps-trade-offensive/): EU offers Trump removal of all industrial tariffs The European Union has blinked first in its brewing trade confrontation with Donald Trump, offering a “zero-for-zero” tariff agreement on industrial goods while scaling back planned retaliatory measures against Washington’s steel and aluminium duties.  Following Monday’s emergency meeting of trade ministers in Luxembourg, EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic revealed the bloc would significantly reduce its planned countermeasures, originally valued at €26 billion ($28 billion). This retreat signals growing divisions within the EU as member states with strong American trade dependencies push for appeasement rather than confrontation.  “We are finalising the list tonight, but […] - [Labour MP Dan Norris Arrested on Suspicion of Rape and Child Sex Offences](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-dan-norris-arrested-on-suspicion-of-rape-and-child-sex-offences/): Labour MP Dan Norris has been arrested on suspicion of rape and child sex offences in a shocking development that sent tremors through Westminster yesterday. The MP for North East Somerset and Hanham—who defeated Conservative heavyweight Jacob Rees-Mogg in last year’s general election—was immediately suspended from the Labour Party and had the whip withdrawn following his arrest on Friday. Avon and Somerset Police confirmed they arrested a man in his sixties on suspicion of multiple serious offences, including sexual offences against a girl under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, rape under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, child abduction, and misconduct in […] - [The End of Globalisation? Why Trump's Tariff War Might Just Spark the Fourth Industrial Re-Evolution ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-end-of-globalisation-why-trumps-tariff-war-might-just-spark-the-fourth-industrial-re-evolution/): The Death of Globalisation: How Trump’s Tariffs Exposed a Broken Economic Model Globalisation has enabled corporate profit on an unprecedented scale. For decades, multinational corporations outsourced production to countries where labour was cheap—often exploitative, sometimes forced. Back home, these companies reaped enormous markups, while workers in the West were told to accept their redundancy as part of ‘progress.’ It became more profitable to import than to manufacture, and as a result, nations like Britain were reduced to service-based economies with fragile industrial backbones.  This model has always favoured the few over the many. But now, it is collapsing under its own […] - [The Great Unraveling: Trump's Tariff Bomb Reshapes World Order Overnight](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-unraveling-trumps-tariff-bomb-reshapes-world-order-overnight/): “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” – Lenin  Trump’s Tariff Bomb: Global Power Dynamics Shattered Overnight  In the early hours of Thursday morning, Donald Trump unleashed what he proudly termed his “liberation day”—a sweeping economic bombardment that may ultimately redraw the map of global trade and power. With a stroke of his pen, the US President slapped a universal 10% tariff on imports from across the world, with harsher penalties of 20% for the European Union and a crushing 25% on all foreign cars entering American shores.  This is not merely a policy change; […] - [Banning Le Pen Won’t Save Democracy—It’s Killing It](https://heartlandstribune.com/banning-le-pen-wont-save-democracy-its-killing-it/): France’s Establishment Just Declared War on Democracy—And Lost In the gilded halls of European power, a disturbing truth is emerging: when the elite cannot win at the ballot box, they will simply change the rules of the game.  The naked cynicism of this manoeuvre is breathtaking. Prosecutors took the extraordinary step of requesting Le Pen’s immediate ban from running for office rather than waiting until the appeals process concluded—a stunning departure from French legal norms. The judges complied, citing the “gravity” of her crime, while conveniently ignoring similar cases involving establishment figures that resulted in no meaningful consequences. The optics matter…This […] - [Labour’s Class War: It's Been 10 Years in The Planning](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-class-war-its-been-10-years-in-the-planning/): Rachel Reeves’ Welfare Cuts Expose Labour’s True Neoliberal Agenda Ten years ago, Rachel Reeves made her intentions crystal clear when she declared: “We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work.” These weren’t offhand remarks, but a manifesto—one that the Labour Party has now eagerly embraced in government.  The spring statement, euphemistically described as “difficult decisions,” represents not a reluctant compromise but the fulfilment of a decade-long agenda. The £5 billion slashed from disability benefits isn’t an unfortunate necessity—it’s the deliberate implementation […] - [Neoliberal Labour: Derbyshire Councillors Resignations Expose Party’s Rightward Shift](https://heartlandstribune.com/neoliberal-labour/): Derbyshire Councillors Leave Labour: ‘It’s Not the Party I Joined Three Derbyshire councillors have resigned from the Labour Party, exposing the growing chasm between Sir Keir Starmer’s neoliberal government and the working-class communities it once claimed to represent.  Councillors Chris Kane, Emma Stevenson and Sandra Peake—all veterans of Bolsover District Council—have abandoned their Labour affiliation in the latest rebellion against the party, becoming independents in a principled stand against what the Party has become under its current leadership.  There are currently about 3250 people examining benefit fraud while there are only 300 HMRC people examining the fraud by those that are […] - [Military Keynesianism: Austerity for the Poor, Billions for War Labour’s Broken Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/military-keynesianism/): Military Keynesianism: How Labour’s Defence Spending Fails Britain In what can only be described as a grotesque parody of economic vision, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal announcement, euphemistically termed a “Spring Statement” rather than the emergency budget it truly represents, reveals not merely a continuation but an enthusiastic embrace of the neoliberal orthodoxy that Labour once existed to challenge. Beneath the veneer of progressive rhetoric lies the unmistakable architecture of austerity, militarism, and class warfare that would make even the most ardent Thatcherites nod in approval.  At the heart of Reeves’ statement lies a revealing admission: Britain’s industrial strategy will be anchored […] - [Fair Play: World Athletics Enforces Mandatory Sex Verification in Women’s Sports](https://heartlandstribune.com/fair-play-world-athletics-enforces-mandatory-sex-verification-in-womens-sports/): Safeguarding Fair Competition: World Athletics Takes Bold Step With Sex Verification Tests World Athletics has approved the introduction of cheek swabbing to determine an athlete’s gender with the organisation’s president Sebastian Coe saying the decision was taken to “doggedly” protect the female category. World Athletics has announced a groundbreaking measure to protect the integrity of women’s sports by introducing mandatory biological sex verification for all athletes entering female competitions. Sebastian Coe, president of the governing body, revealed after a World Athletics Council meeting that they plan to implement non-invasive testing methods—either cheek swabs or dry blood tests—that would only need to be […] - [Degrees of Deception: How the UK’s Student Loan System Became a Fraudster’s Paradise](https://heartlandstribune.com/degrees-of-deception-how-the-uks-student-loan-system-became-a-fraudsters-paradise/): Universities Money Laundering Schemes: Student Loan Fiasco Exposed In a stunning display of bureaucratic awareness that would impress even the most oblivious of observers, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has launched an investigation into what she calls “one of the biggest financial scandals universities have faced” – as if this particular train wreck wasn’t visible from miles down the track. The revelation that thousands of students are allegedly enrolling in degree courses with zero intention to study – but every intention to pocket up to £25,440 in loans – has apparently caught our government completely by surprise. Who could have possibly foreseen […] - [Red Austerity: Labour's Road to Poverty](https://heartlandstribune.com/red-austerity-labours-road-to-poverty/): Labour’s Fiscal Rules Are Crushing the Poor—And the Public Knows It All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns… How do we measure a nation’s success when every metric points to decline? Once upon a time, economists and politicians told us that GDP growth would float all boats. Now, as families across Britain sink deeper into financial quicksand, we’re discovering the cruel joke behind that promise. The measure of a truly successful economy isn’t abstract growth figures but the concrete reality of family prosperity—and by both standards, Labour’s economic stewardship is proving […] - [From Welfare to Warfare: Benefit Cuts and Military Conscription](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-welfare-to-warfare-benefit-cuts-and-military-conscription/): Labour’s Draft of Desperation: Britain’s Young Face a Grim Choice, Poverty or the Front Lines Eight months into Labour’s reign, you might be forgiven for checking the colour of the rosette pinned to our collective misery. The promised dawn of compassionate governance, the hope, the change has instead revealed itself as the same neoliberal nightmare, only now dressed in red. While pensioners spent the winter huddling beneath insufficient blankets and food banks stretched their resources beyond breaking point, our self-proclaimed people’s government has found billions to feed the insatiable appetite of distant conflicts. Ukraine receives an open checkbook while our own […] - [The Coming Storm: Labour's War on the Vulnerable Has Only Just Begun ](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-coming-storm-labours-war-on-the-vulnerable-has-only-just-begun/): When Sir Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street last July, his words dripping with promises of change, millions of disabled and chronically ill people permitted themselves a dangerous luxury: hope. After enduring fourteen years of Tory brutality—a regime that transformed the welfare system into a mechanised instrument of suffering and death—one that left nearly 90 people dying each month after being declared “fit for work”—surely Labour would bring compassion back to government?  That fragile hope now lies shattered. Labour’s plans to slash £6 billion from disability benefits have exposed the brutal truth: this isn’t just a continuation of […] - [Starmer's NHS Revolution: Taking Healthcare "Back to the Heart of Government"… or Just Another Political Smokescreen? ](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-nhs-revolution/): So, Keir Starmer has decided to abolish NHS England and bring the health service “back to the heart of government.” Funny how this massive structural overhaul didn’t warrant even a footnote in Labour’s manifesto.  But here we are, watching another government perform emergency surgery on our ailing health service.  This bold move leaves us with two possibilities: either it’s a panicked response to the spiraling waiting lists and the bottomless money pit the NHS has become, or it’s genuinely the prescription our healthcare system needed all along. The diagnosis remains unclear.  Let’s not kid ourselves though – somewhere in the fine […] - [The Great Betrayal: Starmer's Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-betrayal-starmers-labour/): Labour Heartlands, Editorial Every promise broken. Every pledge discarded. Every vulnerable person sacrificed on the altar of fiscal responsibility has brought us all to this point. Since 2018, we warned you about Starmer with increasing urgency while being branded “Tory Enablers” by the very same centrists who now coldly shrug as disabled people face the prospect of nothing but degrigation. These political opportunists—who wept crocodile tears over Tory cruelty—now rationalise identical policies when implemented under a red banner. The disabled community bears witness to this betrayal, not in abstract economic terms, but in missed meals, unheated homes, and silent suffering behind […] - [Ukraine Launches Massive Drone Attack on Russia as Peace Talks Begin](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-launches-massive-drone-attack-on-russia-as-peace-talks-begin/): In a stark display of military timing, Ukraine has launched what appears to be its largest drone attack against Russia since the war began, killing three people and injuring 18 others—including a child—just as peace negotiations were set to commence in Saudi Arabia. The massive assault targeted ten Russian regions simultaneously, with Moscow bearing the brunt of the offensive. Russian officials report that 91 drones were intercepted over the Moscow region alone, with Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claiming approximately 70 specifically targeted the capital. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 337 Ukrainian drones were neutralised overnight. The ministry’s statement detailed that […] - [The Cruel Hand of the Red Tories: Labour's Betrayal of Britain's Most Vulnerable](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-cruel-hand-of-the-red-tories/): Have we truly learned nothing from the deaths of thousands? When Labour swept to power seven months ago, many disabled people allowed themselves a fragile hope. After fourteen years of Conservative brutality that saw the disabled community systematically attacked, degraded, and – let us not mince words – killed through callous policy, surely a Labour government would restore humanity to our welfare system? How swiftly that hope has evaporated. The leaked documents from the Department for Work and Pensions revealing plans for £6 billion worth of benefit cuts expose Labour’s true colours: Red Tories in all but name, continuing the grim […] - [Europe’s Puppet Show: War, Lies, and Profits](https://heartlandstribune.com/europes-puppet-show-war-lies-and-profits/): Article by Gordon Liddle The sense of panic amongst the European elites is a thing to behold. As Drumf jerks his piece of string, they jump like electrified marionettes. None of them seem to have the ability of critical thinking, simply the will to grasp in desperation whatever they think makes them viable to their owners, whilst at the same time manufacturing consent with a media blitz and staged performances to be imbibed by the ignorant and fully bamboozled population at large. It’s a thing to behold. The one bright spot is that we can see the European elected and unelected […] - [Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating Lasting Peace in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeffrey-sachs-negotiating-lasting-peace-in-ukraine/): By Jeffrey D. SachsCommon Dream There should be little doubt about how a lasting peace can be established in Ukraine. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of signing a peace agreement in Istanbul, with the Turkish government acting as mediator. The U.S. and U.K. talked Ukraine out of signing the agreement, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have since died or been seriously injured. Yet the framework of the Istanbul Process still provides the basis of peace today. The draft peace agreement (dated April 15, 2022) and the Istanbul Communique (dated March 29, 2022) on which it was based, offered a sensible […] - [Ukraine: Has Zelensky Got the Minerals for Peace?](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-has-zelensky-got-the-minerals-for-peace/): “Any fool can start a war, but it takes real leadership to secure the peace.” – David Lloyd George The Power of the Purse: How Trump’s Aid Freeze Changed Everything In a stunning demonstration of US financial leverage, a single announcement—Washington’s “pause and review” of military aid to Ukraine—has utterly transformed the geopolitical landscape. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who just days ago stood defiant in European capitals, has dramatically reversed course, extending an olive branch to Donald Trump and declaring himself “ready to work under Trump’s strong leadership” to achieve lasting peace. This remarkable pivot comes mere days after their explosive […] - [Schrödinger's Superpower: The Russian Bear or Paper Tiger](https://heartlandstribune.com/schrodingers-superpower-the-russian-bear/): Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment places a cat in a sealed box with a radioactive atom that may or may not decay and trigger a poison. Until observed, the cat exists in a quantum superposition, simultaneously alive and dead. This paradox perfectly encapsulates how Western powers portray Russia today: a nation that somehow exists in two contradictory states at once. This paradox reflects the notion of the Russian bear, symbolising the duality of perception surrounding Russia’s global stance. According to NATO and Western media, Russia is both an existential threat capable of rolling tanks across Europe at a moment’s notice and a […] - [Trump, Zelensky, and the $500 Billion Shakedown](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-zelensky-and-the-500-billion-shakedown/): Trump, Zelensky: Fallout He’s Gambling with World War 3 Zelensky—the world’s most successful arms salesman—arrived in his trademark combat fatigues (because apparently the White House is an active combat zone now). After what must have been a delightful private chat about mineral rights, arms deals, and “where’s all that money gone”, Washington’s Ukrainian guest emerged with a face like a wet Wednesday. The photo op quickly devolved into a shouting match that would make reality TV producers weep with joy, It looked like a rerun of Jerry Springer… But let’s not lose sight of what we witnessed: the masks finally slipped. […] - [Two-Tier Britain: Mike Amesbury MPs Get Slaps on the Wrist, The Public Gets the Full Force of the Law](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-tier-britain/): Two-Tier Justice: Equal Under the Law? Not if You’re in Westminster In what can only be described as a stark illustration of Britain’s increasingly two-tier justice system, suspended Parliamentary Labour MP Mike Amesbury walks free after a successful appeal against his prison sentence for violently assaulting a constituent. Meanwhile, ordinary people continue serving multi-year sentences for social media posts. Caught on Camera The CCTV footage is unambiguous and disturbing. Amesbury knocked his constituent to the ground, pursued him into the road, and delivered at least five more punches while taunting: “You won’t threaten your MP again, will you, f***ing soft lad.” […] - [Starmer’s Plan for UK Growth Is the Ukraine War](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-plan-for-uk-growth-is-the-ukraine-war/): Wars can be useful to governments, and the horrendous conflict in Ukraine is so proving.  In his announcement of increases in UK military spending, Keir Starmer strongly referenced Ukraine and the threat from Russia and said the new “investment” will “create a secure and stable environment in which businesses can thrive, supporting the Government’s number one mission to deliver economic growth”. He added: “The increased spending will sustain our globally competitive industry, supporting highly skilled jobs and apprenticeships across the whole of the UK.” Starmer sees the increase in funds to the military as part of Labour’s Plan for Change, its overarching economic […] - [The Empire Strikes a Deal: Ukraine’s Resources, America’s Profits](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-empire-strikes-a-deal-ukraines-resources-americas-profits/): From Battlefield to Business Deal: Ukraine’s Minerals Are the Real Prize So, for those who were outraged at Trump potentially ending the war in Ukraine—congratulations. You got exactly what you wanted, and so did Trump. The war continues, but with new terms of engagement. Ukraine has now agreed to a minerals deal with the United States. From the Oval Office, where executive orders flow like water, Trump clarified what Ukraine receives in exchange for its natural wealth: “The right to fight on.” Let that sink in. Not peace. Not territorial integrity. Not NATO membership. But the “right” to continue a war […] - [Ukraine: The True Cost of Endless War The Working Class Pays the Price](https://heartlandstribune.com/ukraine-the-true-cost-of-endless-war/): From The Butcher’s Bill to Your Energy Bill: The Working Class Pays the Price Three years ago today, as tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders, we witnessed one grinding conflict morph into another – the eight-year civil war giving way to a broader confrontation with Russia. Now, as peace talks hover on the horizon, the hawks circle overhead, their appetite for conflict undiminished by the staggering human cost. Yet the true tragedy isn’t just in the battles fought, but in the peace they are trying to prevent. The numbers tell a story too devastating to comprehend: 14,000 lives lost in the civil […] - [Labour MP Mike Amesbury Jailed for Assault in Late-Night Drunken Attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-mp-mike-amesbury-jailed-for-assault-in-late-night-drunken-attack/): Suspended Labour MP Mike Amesbury has been sentenced to 10 weeks in prison after admitting to a violent assault on a man during a night out in his Cheshire constituency. The 55-year-old MP for Runcorn and Helsby was caught on CCTV punching Paul Fellows, 45, to the ground outside a taxi rank in Frodsham in the early hours of October 26. Amesbury then followed his victim onto the road, striking him at least five more times while taunting him: “You won’t threaten your MP again, will you, fucking soft lad.” ‘You Were Only Stopped by the Public’ Sentencing Amesbury at Chester […] - [Labour Should be Preparing for Peace, not More War](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-should-be-preparing-for-peace-not-more-war/): Diane Abbott: The Last of Labour’s Anti-War Voices Speaks Out At a time when the Labour Party has abandoned even the pretence of opposition to militarism, Diane Abbott remains one of the few voices in Westminster willing to challenge the dangerous delusions driving British and European foreign policy. As the world watches the war in Ukraine reach a turning point, she questions the panic gripping Western capitals—not over continued bloodshed, but over the possibility of peace. In this powerful piece, Abbott dismantles the case for endless war, exposes the hypocrisy of NATO’s posturing, and warns of the devastating consequences for working […] - [From the Memory Hole 2022: Bernie Sanders' Unheeded Ukraine Warnings](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-the-memory-hole-2022-bernie-sanders-unheeded-ukraine-warnings/): From the Memory Hole: When Bernie Was Right About Ukraine While Trump orders peace in Ukraine and the narrative shifts from Biden’s “forever war” to a new Pax Americana, let’s retrieve another prophetic voice from Orwell’s memory hole. On February 10, 2022, just two weeks before Russian forces crossed into Ukraine, Bernie Sanders stood on the Senate floor to deliver a warning that now reads like a tragic prophecy. Sanders, like Corbyn, saw through the war hawks’ simplistic narrative. “I am extremely concerned when I hear the familiar drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding […] - [From the Memory Hole 2014: Corbyn Was Right About Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-the-memory-hole-2014-corbyn-was-right-about-ukraine/): From the Memory Hole: Corbyn’s Unheeded Warnings on Ukraine Three years into a war that’s fed the military-industrial complex while decimating working-class lives on both sides, Trump demands peace while Starmer beats the drums of endless conflict. How did we get here? Let’s retrieve two prophetic voices from Orwell’s memory hole—Jeremy Corbyn’s warnings from Parliament and his later public statements in 2014. “In Parliament this week,” Corbyn observed then, “there were a number of tin-pot generals using the opportunity of the Ukrainian crisis to insist that Britain should rapidly and exponentially increase military expenditure.” How familiar that sounds today, as Starmer […] - [Between Orwell and Eisenhower: The Military-Industrial Complex's Iron Grip on Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/between-orwell-and-eisenhower/): The Prophets Were Right: Britain’s War Machine Devours Its Own Two ghosts haunt today’s headlines. Orwell, who warned of endless wars designed for control. Eisenhower, who saw the military-industrial complex’s poison creeping through democracy’s veins. As Sir Keir Starmer that noble knight of the establishment pledges ‘British boots on Ukrainian soil‘ while telling pensioners to tighten their belts, their prophecies aren’t just validated—they’re understated. Follow the money. Britain, a sovereign nation that prints its own currency, discovers £4.5 billion for Ukraine’s military in 2025 while pleading poverty to WASPI women seeking justice. The package? £3 billion in “lethal aid”—how’s that for […] - [Panic in Paris: Europe Scrambles as Trump Moves to End the Ukraine War](https://heartlandstribune.com/panic-in-paris-europe-scrambles-as-trump-moves-to-end-the-ukraine-war/): The End of Another Forever War: European Leaders Panic as Peace Threatens Profits For the last three years, the Western establishment has funnelled billions into Ukraine, fuelling what has effectively become a forever war. Not a single Western leader has seriously pursued a peace deal. Instead, under Joe Biden’s drumbeat of war, the conflict has been a lucrative venture—arms manufacturers raking in profits, politicians securing their geopolitical leverage, and taxpayers footing the bill. But now, the game is changing. With Donald Trump back in the White House, gleefully dismantling the ‘New World Order’ one executive order at a time, he has […] - [The Great Unravelling: JD Vance's Munich Speech and the Reshaping of the Western Order](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-unravelling/): The Munich Doctrine: JD Vance’s Speech That Shattered the Atlantic Alliance History’s pivotal moments often arrive disguised as routine diplomatic engagements. On Valentine’s Day 2025, in the same hall where Putin declared his challenge to American unipolarity in 2007, JD Vance delivered what may prove to be an equally watershed address – one that signals not just the end of the post-war consensus, but the active dismantling of the Western alliance from within. The parallels with Putin’s 2007 speech are as striking as they are ironic. Where Putin attacked American hegemony from outside, Vance has attacked it from within – laying […] - [The End of an Affair: JD Vance’s Speech and the Long Kiss Goodbye to NATO and Europe.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-end-of-an-affair/): The End of an Affair: JD Vance’s Valentine’s Day speech Some breakups are long overdue. When JD Vance rose to speak at the Munich Security Conference this Valentine’s Day, the gathered Western elite expected the usual diplomatic niceties. What they got instead was a divorce notice served in public – one that stripped bare the pretence of American-led “democracy” and revealed the naked power politics beneath. The irony was exquisite. For decades, we on the British left have watched as our sovereignty was carved up between Brussels bureaucrats and Washington warmongers while an army of liberals ran interference weaponising a culture […] - [From HBOS Complaints Desk to Chancellor: The Curious Case of Rachel from Accounts](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-hbos-complaints-desk-to-chancellor/): From Bank Complaints to Budget Cuts: The Curious Case of Rachel from Accounts When Labour promised us an economic mastermind as Chancellor, who knew we’d end up with someone who couldn’t master her own expenses? The revelation that Rachel Reeves—our supposed financial wizard—may have been more familiar with the complaints department than the economics floor at HBOS adds a particularly rich irony to Britain’s current economic malaise. Let’s begin with the CV sleight-of-hand. Reeves claimed to be an economist at HBOS, a credential that helped burnish her image as Labour’s financial genius-in-waiting. Reality, as it often does, tells a different tale. […] - [Whitewashing War Crimes: How Britain Launders Its Arms Trade](https://heartlandstribune.com/whitewashing-war-crimes-how-britain-launders-its-arms-trade/): The Foreign Office’s Dirty Laundry: How Britain Launders Its Arms Trade It all comes out in the wash… When a whistleblower steps forward to expose government malfeasance, the first instinct of those in power is to reach for their trusty bottle of institutional bleach. But Mark Smith’s revelations about the Foreign Office’s arms export with their cheap bottle of ‘chicanery’ cannot be so easily washed away, it implies complacency to war crimes. Mark Smith’s whistleblowing article published in the Guardian becomes hard reading when you realise the implications. You stop and ask yourself that awkward question in its revelations “Are we […] - [Labour's Toxic Culture: 'Trigger Me Timbers'](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-toxic-culture/): Labour’s Rot Runs Deep: The “Trigger Me Timbers” Scandal Exposes a Party in Moral Freefall. When Sir Keir Starmer vowed to clean house in the Labour Party, who could have guessed he meant selectively fumigating only the rooms that housed the left wing? When he promised to root out antisemitism, who would have thought it would be done with the precision of a gardener pruning inconvenient branches while letting the rest of the rot spread unchecked? Well—most of us, actually.  The latest Labour WhatsApp scandal—dubbed ‘Trigger Me Timbers’—tells us everything we need to know about its participants’ mindset before we’ve read […] - [Trigger Me Timbers: Labour's 'Toxic Culture' The Rot Continues](https://heartlandstribune.com/trigger-me-timbers-labours-toxic-culture-the-rot-continues/): A Return of the Nasty Party Second Labour MP suspended: Burnley MP Oliver Ryan suspended by Labour over messages on WhatsApp group… Sir Keir Starmer is struggling to get a grip on the snowballing WhatsApp scandal that has forced an apology from a second MP in his Party. This comes with the further resignations of councillors Claire Reid, Jack Naylor and George Newton, who all represent Denton wards over comments made in the same chat group. A spokesperson for Tameside Labour said: “Following reports over the weekend of messages shared in a historic WhatsApp group, councillors Reid, Naylor and Newton have decided to step away from […] - [USAid The Price of Free Press: How Global Media Is Bought and Manipulated](https://heartlandstribune.com/usaid-the-price-of-free-press-how-global-media-is-bought-and-manipulated/): Manufacturing Consent: The Global News Cartel Bought and Paid For. A Legacy of Control… “Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticise and oppose,” wrote George Orwell. Yet in 2025, we’re discovering that the threat to press freedom isn’t just from corporate moguls – it’s from state actors masquerading as champions of free media. The roots of this control run deep. Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s Cold War programme to manipulate domestic American news media, wasn’t just a historical anomaly – it was a blueprint. When the 1975 Church Committee exposed the Agency’s extensive connections […] - [Sanctioning Justice: The Dangerous Precedent of Trump’s ICC Order](https://heartlandstribune.com/sanctioning-justice-the-dangerous-precedent-of-trumps-icc-order/): The Death of International Justice: Trump’s War on Accountability “Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” Orwell’s warning echoes today as President Trump, alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court. In doing so, he didn’t just attack an institution – he hammered another nail into the coffin of international accountability. The irony is staggering. Here stands a president, who himself faced multiple indictments, now declaring that the world’s foremost institution for prosecuting war crimes is “illegitimate.” The same court that emerged from the ashes of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, created precisely to ensure that “never again” […] - [Pax Americana: Gaza and the Dawn of a New Age of Empire](https://heartlandstribune.com/pax-americana/): The Fall of Gaza, the Rise of Empire On October 7, 2023, Hamas shattered the morning calm with an attack that would trigger fifteen months of unprecedented devastation. The immediate toll was horrific: 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals dead, 815 of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage. But what followed would reshape the Middle East forever. Israel’s response was total. After the initial bombing campaign, ground forces invaded on October 27, launching a series of brutal offensives that would reduce Gaza to ruins. The Rafah assault, three battles for Khan Yunis, the siege of North Gaza—each operation more devastating than the […] - [The Corporate Capture of Our Democracy: A View from the Cheap Seats](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-corporate-capture-of-our-democracy-a-view-from-the-cheap-seats/): From Public Service to Corporate Servitude: How Britain’s Government Serves Big Business Ask this government a simple question: Who do you serve? They’ll offer the usual platitudes—“the British people,” “working families,” “hardworking taxpayers.” But in a moment of rare candour that should alarm anyone who cares about democratic governance, Treasury Minister Lord Livermore laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Britain’s government now openly positions itself as a facilitator for corporate interests rather than a representative of its people. Speaking to an audience of 700 corporate lobbyists—representing banks, arms manufacturers, pharmaceutical giants, and energy companies—Livermore didn’t just acknowledge their influence; he celebrated it. […] - [A Tale of Two Princes: The Saga of "Andy and Mandy"](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-tale-of-two-princes/): Mandy and Andy: Britain’s Double Standard on Epstein Connections When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein’s British connections, Prince Andrew has dominated headlines—the disgraced royal whose fall was as spectacular as it was deserved. Yet another figure in this sordid saga has not only escaped similar scrutiny but continues to ascend the corridors of power: Lord Peter Mandelson. While Prince Andrew has been rightfully cast into the wilderness for his association with Jeffrey Epstein, Lord Peter Mandelson, architect of New Labour, Trilateral Commission member and now appointed British Ambassador to the United States, continues to fail upward with remarkable resilience. His rise […] - [From Rotherham to Rochdale: The Silence is Deafening](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-rotherham-to-rochdale-the-silence-is-deafening/): Breaking the Chain of Silence: Why Britain Needs a Royal Commission on Systematic Child Protection Failures and Grooming Gangs The recent arrests of two former South Yorkshire Police officers in Rotherham expose just one thread in a vastly larger tapestry of institutional failure. Evidence now points to organised child exploitation networks operating across at least 50 towns and cities in Britain, suggesting a scale of abuse far beyond what official reports have acknowledged. While children were being systematically abused, police officers – now alleged to have been perpetrators themselves – were in positions of authority over investigations into these very crimes. […] - [Labour's Betrayal: Thatcher’s Children Wear Red Roses](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-betrayal/): Thatcher’s Children: The Metamorphosis of Labour “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from man to pig again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” —George Orwell, Animal Farm In British politics today, Orwell’s warning resonates with chilling precision. Starmer’s Betrayal: Thatcherism in Disguise… We warned this would happen. We laid it out plainly—Starmer’s Labour is a project of restoration, not transformation. Restoration of elite control, of corporate dominance, of the Labour Party as an obedient servant to power. Chomsky saw it clearly, describing Starmer as the man tasked with neutralising […] - [Building to the Left of MAGA Square: The Great Working-Class Rebellion](https://heartlandstribune.com/building-to-the-left-of-maga-square-the-great-working-class-rebellion/): The Great Working Class Rebellion: A Tale of Two Nations In the wake of Donald Trump’s historic re-election, something extraordinary is happening on both sides of the Atlantic. While pundits try to work out the blueprint fixating on Elon Musk’s ‘X’ and the ever-popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast as cause for the Trump landslide, they miss the deeper tremors reshaping our political landscape. At the epicentre stands J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice president, whose journey from Appalachian poverty to power embodies a working-class revolution that now echoes across the ocean. The Trump-Vance alliance represents something unprecedented in modern politics: a fusion of […] - [The Anatomy of Monsters: A Requiem for Innocence](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-anatomy-of-monsters-a-requiem-for-innocence/): The Monsters We Ignore: The Recurring Tragedy of Our Collective Failures In the dark theatre of human horror, the stage is never empty. Each monstrous act is not an aberration, but a recurring performance that reveals the most terrifying truth: evil is not an accident, but a persistent condition of our human landscape ignored and allowed to flourish. The Southport attack is not a singular tragedy, but a continuation—a grotesque echo of our collective failure to confront the darkness that dwells within societal shadows. Axel Rudakubana did not emerge from a vacuum, nor was he manufactured by social media algorithms. He […] - [The Traitors: Starmer’s Globalist Coup and the Corporate Conversion of British Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-traitors/): Traitors in the Castle When The Traitors started trending on X, I braced myself for some juicy expose on British politics. Instead, I stumbled upon a whirlwind of tweets dissecting the gripping reality show: 22 strangers holed up in a Scottish castle, tasked with completing challenges while three secret saboteurs, “traitors”, wreak havoc from within. Backstabbing, deceit, paranoia, it’s all there. After reading a few of the tweets, I understood why I was drawn to #TheTraitors I thought how like British politics, the essence of the game never changes it seemed to me that #TheTraitors reflected British politics perfectly. But of […] - [Labour's Non-Dom Tax Fiasco: A Tale of Capitulation and Broken Promises](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-non-dom-tax-fiasco-a-tale-of-capitulation-and-broken-promises/): Labour’s Non-Dom Tax Reform: A Spectacular Failure of Policy and Nerve Remember when Labour heralded its plan to scrap the non-dom tax allowance as a bold move to make the wealthiest shoulder the burden of rebuilding Britain’s public services? Rachel from accounts, our esteemed ‘pie in the sky’ Chancellor promised to work s** and wonders with the tax gain from Non-doms adding billions to the public purse after closing this loophole. That lofty promise now fading faster than one of Sir Keir Starmer’s pledges. Far from raising the billions Labour claimed, the policy has led to an exodus of foreign millionaires—and […] - [Welcome to Starmer’s Britain: Where Your Bank Account is Public Property and Your Car Keys Belong to the State](https://heartlandstribune.com/welcome-to-starmers-britain/): Bank Spying and Benefit Bashing: The Dark Side of Labour’s Fraud Crackdown In a move that would make George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Love‘ blush, Labour has unveiled its latest weapon against the poor: the power to confiscate driving licenses from benefit claimants who can’t repay alleged overpayments. Let’s pause to appreciate the twisted logic here – people with “no job, no income, and no savings” will somehow be motivated to repay money they don’t have by losing their ability to drive to potential job interviews or even jobs if they were lucky enough to get one. The sheer cynicism of this […] - [Labour Government Continues Unlawful Assault on Disability Benefits, Following Tory Blueprint](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-government-continues-unlawful-assault-on-disability-benefits-following-tory-blueprint/): Labour’s Betrayal: The Cruel Continuation of Tory Disability Cuts When Sir Keir Starmer boasted to The Sun about having the “balls to take an axe to Britain’s benefits bill,” while pledging £3.5 billion annually to Ukraine for as long as it takes, whatever that means, he laid bare a stark moral contradiction. Here was a Labour leader who could find billions for foreign military aid yet saw fit to celebrate cutting support from Britain’s most vulnerable citizens. The irony couldn’t be more caustic – or more revealing. In that single moment, Starmer exposed the hollow core of today’s Labour Party: a […] - [Joe Biden’s Final Shot: Blanket Pardons and Farewell to Accountability](https://heartlandstribune.com/joe-bidens-final-shot-blanket-pardons-and-farewell-to-accountability/): Pardon Power Play: Biden’s Parting Shot at American Justice Betraying the People In an unprecedented abuse of presidential power that would make Nixon blush, Joe Biden’s final act as President wasn’t a dignified farewell – it was a wholesale distribution of get-out-of-jail-free cards to family, friends, and political allies. The scope is staggering: his brothers James and Frank, sister Valerie, son Hunter, Covid czar Fauci, January 6th committee members, and even former military brass Mark Milley – all preemptively pardoned for any possible wrongdoing. It’s a family-sized serving of immunity, wrapped in the thin veneer of protecting against “politically motivated prosecutions.” […] - [Live: Donald Trump inaugurated as 47th US president ](https://heartlandstribune.com/live-donald-trump-inaugurated-as-47th-us-president/): Donald Trump‘s inauguration as the 47th US president in a ceremony at Washington DC today (20 January). Join us as Donald Trump takes the oath of office and steps into history as the 47th President of the United States, becoming the first leader since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms in the White House. Set against the backdrop of Washington DC’s punishing sub-zero temperatures, the ceremony will be held indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985. In his inaugural address, Trump will declare the dawn of a “thrilling new era” for America, promising sweeping change and bold leadership. “I return to […] - [Public Order or Orwellian Overreach: Corbyn and McDonnell Agree to Police Interview](https://heartlandstribune.com/public-order-or-orwellian-overreach/): Permits for Protest: Flowers, Dissent, and Starmer’s Britain There’s a peculiar irony in watching Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, being interviewed under caution by police for the crime of laying flowers. Welcome to Sir Keir Starmer’s vision of law and order, where peaceful protest must be preapproved, predetermined, and preferably performed in whispers. Let that sink in: a 75-year-old former Leader of the Opposition and his 73-year-old former Shadow Chancellor are being treated like common criminals for participating in a pro-Palestinian rally. Their grave offence? Attempting to lay flowers in memory of dead children. In Starmer’s Britain, even mourning must […] - [The Fragile Thread of Peace: Netanyahu's Ominous Warnings Cast Shadow Over Gaza Ceasefire](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fragile-thread-of-peace-netanyahus-ominous-warnings-cast-shadow-over-gaza-ceasefire/): In a move that surprises no one but disappoints everyone, Prime Minister Netanyahu has thrown yet another spanner into the desperately needed Gaza ceasefire – mere hours before it was set to begin. His sudden demand for a complete hostage list feels less like diplomacy and more like a calculated excuse to keep his military options open. Meanwhile, bombs continue to fall on Gaza’s trapped civilians, each hour of political theatrics measured in lives lost. The timing is particularly telling: by raising these demands hours before implementation, he creates a ready-made justification for potential failure. Let’s examine the terms of this […] - [Welcome to The Palace of Varieties: Spiking Scandals and Subsidised Sins](https://heartlandstribune.com/welcome-to-the-palace-of-varieties-spiking-scandals-and-subsidised-sins/): Closing Time at Westminster: Strangers’ Bar Shut Down So Strangers’ Bar, that notorious Westminster watering hole where our nation’s future is regularly drowned in single malt, has finally closed its doors – temporarily, mind you, we wouldn’t want our elected representatives to get too thirsty. The official reason? A reported drink-spiking incident. How fitting that in a place where political careers go to die, someone thought to make the process more efficient. The Metropolitan Police are investigating the alleged spiking incident, but they might want to investigate the broader poisoning of our political culture while they’re at it. Parliament’s own complaints […] - [A Fragile Promise of Peace: Gaza's Latest Ceasefire Deal](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-fragile-promise-of-peace-gazas-latest-ceasefire-deal/): Gaza Ceasefire Agreement Ratification In the blood-stained ledger of Middle East peace agreements, we’ve learned to temper hope with history. The latest ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, ratified by Israel’s security cabinet after an anxiety-inducing delay, offers a glimmer of light in the darkness that has engulfed Gaza for fifteen brutal months. But as with all such agreements in this troubled region, the devil lurks not in the details, but in the trust required to implement them. The mathematics of human exchange makes for grim reading: 33 hostages for a thousand Palestinian Hostages/prisoners, six weeks of peace bought with careful […] - [The Empty Theatre of Labour's NHS Management](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-empty-theatre-of-labours-nhs-management/): From Promises to Panic: Labour’s Struggles to Revive the NHS When did we become satisfied with politicians who mistake Twitter-ready soundbites for actual healthcare policy? It seems not only Wes Streeting, Labour’s Health Secretary, but the entire Labour Party has perfected the art of performative outrage while patients literally die in hospital corridors. It’s political theatre at its most cynical – and most dangerous. Remember those stirring campaign speeches? Those passionate promises about saving our NHS? Well, welcome to Labour’s reality check, where Wes Streeting’s perfectly polished soundbites echo through hospital corridors where patients are literally dying. And where is Sir […] - [Peace in the Eleventh Hour: Biden's Last Dance with Genocide and Redemption](https://heartlandstribune.com/peace-in-the-eleventh-hour/): The End of Bloodshed or Just Another Chapter? A Gonzo Dive Into Gaza’s Ceasefire Rejoice, they tell us. Rejoice and send your prayers skyward—to God, to Allah, or to the cold, unfeeling stars above—because the killing in Gaza will pause. Hostages will come home, at least some of them, and maybe, just maybe, the world will see a flicker of hope on the horizon. But as we stand here, knee-deep in blood and rubble, let’s not pretend that hope isn’t wearing a grim, threadbare coat. After 15 months of horror, an agreement has been brokered: a ceasefire, a hostage release deal, […] - [From Dhaka to Downing Street: The Quiet Corruption We Choose to Ignore](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-dhaka-to-downing-street/): Family Ties and Ministerial Lies: The Hypocrisy of UK Anti-Corruption Efforts A scandal that threatened to shake both British and Bangladeshi politics to their core erupted and then died a few hours ago. The now former Labour Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq at the centre of an explosive corruption investigation that feels ripped from the pages of a political thriller has now resigned. The allegations? A jaw-dropping £3.9 billion embezzlement scheme tied to a Russian nuclear power plant, shadowy financial networks, and dynastic family ties spanning continents will still remain. Siddiq, who was ironically placed as anti-corruption minister for the UK financial […] - [Labour's Growth Fantasy: Building Castles in the Cloud While Britain Crumbles](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-growth-fantasy-building-castles-in-the-cloud-while-britain-crumbles/): Labour Unveils AI Strategy: ‘Mainlined into the UK’s Veins’ for Nationwide Impact – It just won’t be enough… In the face of zero economic growth and mounting business concerns, Labour’s grand vision for Britain’s future appears to be little more than a collection of buzzwords and borrowed Conservative policies. Rather than wielding their supermajority to implement bold housing reforms and industrial strategy, they’ve opted for the tried-and-failed approach of letting developers call the shots while chasing AI dreams. The numbers tell a damning story: zero growth between July and September, economic contraction in October, and a business community growing increasingly nervous […] - [Labour MPs Break Ranks to Demand National Inquiry on Grooming Gangs](https://heartlandstribune.com/national-inquiry-on-grooming-gangs/): Restoring Trust: Why Only a National Inquiry Can Heal This Wound In what can only be described as a glacial awakening to public outrage, Labour MPs are finally beginning to break ranks over the need for a national grooming gang inquiry. The real question is: what took so long? Sarah Champion, the Rotherham MP whose constituency witnessed what’s been called “the biggest child protection scandal in UK history,” has executed a remarkable U-turn. Just a week ago, she argued against an inquiry, claiming it would mean “another 10 years of waiting.” Now, she admits that “nothing less than a national inquiry” […] - [Former Labour Minister Arrested in Child Protection Operation](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-labour-minister-arrested-in-child-protection-operation/): Can 2025 Get Any Worse for Labour? (Spoiler: Yes, It Can) Just when you thought Labour’s 2025 couldn’t possibly spiral further into the abyss, hold their collective beer, it just did… While Sir Keir Starmer’s been busy playing whack-a-mole with Elon Musk’s Twitter torpedoes about historical grooming gang failures, his party’s delivered yet another masterclass in spectacular self-destruction. Enter stage left: Ivor Caplin, former Labour Minister and, as of January 11, the star of a viral video that’s definitely not the kind of social media presence Labour’s PR team was hoping for. Sussex Police—presumably not operating a parody account—confirmed they’ve arrested […] - [Beyond Numbers: Gaza The Hidden Death Toll](https://heartlandstribune.com/beyond-numbers-gaza-the-hidden-death-toll/): What’s in a Number? “Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped off.” Paul Brodeur once wrote. Nowhere is this more evident than in Gaza, where the grim arithmetic of war has become a battleground itself. A groundbreaking UK study published in The Lancet suggests we’ve been severely undercounting the dead. The study, employing the rigorous “capture-recapture” methodology—a technique battle-tested in conflict zones worldwide—presents a haunting revelation: an estimated 64,260 Palestinians killed from traumatic injuries through June 2024. This figure towers 41% above the Gaza Health Ministry’s official count of 37,877. The implications are staggering. This isn’t merely about correcting the […] - [Once Upon a Betrayal: Sir Keir and the Wolves in Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/once-upon-a-betrayal-sir-keir-and-the-wolves-in-the-westminster/): Little Red Starmer and the Billionaire Wolves: A Modern Political Fairy Tale Once upon a time, in a land increasingly less great than it used to be, there lived a knight who’d forgotten why fairy tales exist. You see, dear reader, our ancestors didn’t write these dark warnings for entertainment – they wrote them because wolves are real, they’re hungry, and they’re clever enough to wear whatever costume suits the season. But Sir Keir Starmer, our pristinely polished knight of the realm and Prime Minister seems to have missed story time at school. Watch him now, striding into the dark forest […] - [Breaking Free: How Meta Is Restoring Free Expression to the Digital Public Square](https://heartlandstribune.com/meta-free-expression/): Meta’s Free Speech Revolution: Breaking the Chains of Digital Censorship Facebook’s parent company Meta is finally dismantling its suffocating system of content controls, marking a vital return to genuine free expression online. The $1.6 trillion company’s announcement signals more than a policy shift – it’s an admission that Big Tech’s experiment with algorithmic truth-policing has failed. For years, Facebook users have endured shadowbans, arbitrary account restrictions, and opaque “fact-checking” systems that seemed designed to suppress rather than inform. Grassroots movements, independent journalists, and ordinary users found their voices muted by unaccountable third-party arbiters of truth. Even discussions of mainstream topics like […] - [The Great NHS-Sell Off: How Labour Plans to Turn Your GP into a Private Healthcare Salesman](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-nhs-sell-off/): GPs to become Reps for Private Health Care. In a move that would make Nye Bevan turn in his grave, the Labour Party seems hell-bent on finishing what the Tories started – the slow, insidious privatisation of our beloved National Health Service. Under the guise of ‘reform’ and ‘reducing waiting lists’, our supposed defenders of the working class are laying out the red carpet for private healthcare vultures to feast on the carcass of our public institutions. Remember when doctors were healers rather than salespeople? Welcome to Labour’s brave new world of healthcare, where your GP earns £20 for every patient they redirect away […] - [Silence of the Complicit: Starmer's Empty Words and Britain's Grooming Gang Shame](https://heartlandstribune.com/silence-of-the-complicit-starmers-empty-words-and-britains-grooming-gang-shame/): Grooming Gang Whistleblower Challenges Establishment’s Legacy of Failure A devastating critique of Britain’s political and legal establishment has emerged from one of the country’s most respected police whistleblowers, raising serious questions about institutional accountability in the fight against child exploitation. Maggie Oliver, whose resignation from Greater Manchester Police in 2012 helped expose systemic failures in tackling grooming gangs, has launched a searing indictment of both major political parties’ handling of child sexual exploitation cases. “The machinery of justice has failed these children at every level,” Oliver states, calling for criminal accountability for officials who “knowingly ignored these crimes.” Her demands for […] - [NHS Hospitals Reintroduce Face Mask Mandates Amid Soaring Flu Cases and Critical Incidents](https://heartlandstribune.com/hospital-introduces-mandatory-face-mask-rule/): NHS hospitals reintroduce face mask requirement as soaring flu cases see critical incidents declared English hospitals are facing unprecedented pressure as the number of flu patients has quadrupled in the past month, according to the latest NHS data. Amid surging demand and a spike in winter viruses, several NHS trusts have declared critical incidents, reintroducing face mask requirements in clinical areas to curb the spread of infections. Flu-related hospital admissions have skyrocketed to an average of 4,469 patients per day over the past week, with 211 requiring critical care. This sharp rise in cases, coupled with fears of worsening conditions due […] - [Jimmy Reid: 'A rat race is for rats. We're not rats'](https://heartlandstribune.com/jimmy-reid-a-rat-race-is-for-rats-were-not-rats/): Alienation: Described as ‘the greatest speech since President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address’. This speech was not just ahead of its time, it was prophetic. Jimmy Reid’s 1972 address remains a searing indictment of the alienation and division wrought by unchecked economic forces, putting to shame many politicians and unionists who, even today, fail to grasp the depth of the class struggle and its corrosive effects on society. Jimmy Reid, a Scottish trade union activist, orator, politician, and journalist from Govan, Glasgow, rose to international prominence for his role as a leader and spokesman in the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ legendary work-in between June […] - [Mass Exodus: Labour's Authoritarian Shift Sparks Council Rebellion](https://heartlandstribune.com/mass-exodus-labours-authoritarian-shift-sparks-council-rebellion/): In a dramatic display of principle over Party loyalty, twenty councillors in Broxtowe have dealt a striking blow to Sir Keir Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian Labour leadership. This isn’t merely a local spat – it’s a vivid illustration of the growing chasm between Labour’s traditional values and its current trajectory toward centralised control. The rebellion, led by Council leader Milan Radulovic – a 42-year veteran of the Party – represents more than just frustration over policy disagreements. It’s a desperate cry against what many see as Labour’s betrayal of its foundational principles. When a man who has dedicated four decades to a […] - [The Great Urban Purge: How Britain’s Cities Are Being Cleansed of Their Poor](https://heartlandstribune.com/gentrification/): The Urban Purge: Gentrification and Social Dumping in Britain’s Cities In the shadow of gleaming glass towers and luxury developments, a silent war is being waged against Britain’s working class. Not content with mere gentrification, our cities have embarked on something far more sinister: the systematic expulsion of their poorest residents through what can only be described as social dumping. A quarter of the way into the 21st century the 6th richest country in the world is now employing the twin forces of gentrification and social dumping to purge poorer, working-class people from their cities, leaving them displaced and disconnected from […] - [The Prophetic Pen of John Pilger: A Glimpse into the Ominous Shadow of Conflict in Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-prophetic-pen-of-john-pilger-a-glimpse-into-the-ominous-shadow-of-conflict-in-ukraine/): John Pilger’s Ability in Unveiling the Unspoken Truth. In the realm of political analysis, there are few voices as prescient and perceptive as that of John Pilger. In 2014, he penned an article for The Guardian that eerily foreshadowed the brewing storm of conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent entanglement of Western powers. As events unfold today, we find ourselves confronted with the undeniable accuracy of Pilger’s words, underscoring the significance of his insight. In his article, Pilger astutely highlighted the escalating tensions in Ukraine and warned of the potential for the United States to be the catalyst for a devastating […] - [John Pilger: Silencing the Lambs — How Propaganda Works](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-pilger-silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works/): The Echo of Truth: John Pilger’s Legacy in an Age of Manufactured Consent A year has passed since we lost John Pilger, and the silence his absence leaves grows more deafening by the day. As bombs rain down on Gaza, as Yemen burns, as the machinery of Western imperialism grinds on with renewed vigour, we are forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: journalism without Pilger is like a compass without true north. He understood what many of today’s courtier journalists refuse to acknowledge – that the greatest crimes are not committed in shadows but in broad daylight, dressed in the respectable […] - [Flatlining Hope As 'Rachel From Accounts' Budget Fails](https://heartlandstribune.com/flatling-hope-as-rachel-from-accounts-budget-fails/): Neoliberalism with a Red Rosette: Labour’s Budget Fails the Nation The verdict is in on Rachel Reeves’ inaugural budget, and it’s a damning one: Britain isn’t just stagnating – it’s actively sleepwalking toward recession under Labour’s tepid stewardship. The “Rachel from Accounts” approach to running the world’s sixth-largest economy has delivered exactly what you’d expect: spreadsheet solutions to structural problems. Balanced books at the cost of broken communities. Don’t be fooled by the tired excuse that Labour needs more time to implement its agenda. We’re not asking for miracles – But where is the urgency? Where is the willingness to take […] - [BBC's Silent Night: 'Freezing This Christmas' The Song They Don't Want You to Hear](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbcs-silent-night/): Frozen Out: BBC Silences Pensioner Satire This Christmas When did the BBC become so squeamish about political satire? A scathing musical critique of Sir Keir Starmer’s and Rachel Reeves’s assault on pensioner welfare is storming the download charts, yet our public broadcaster seems to have developed a convenient case of selective deafness. “Freezing This Christmas” by Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers (a title that manages to be both wickedly funny and devastatingly accurate) sits atop the UK’s official singles downloads chart, its popularity driven by a brutal truth: up to 4,000 pensioners could die this winter due to Labour’s callous […] - [Sir Keir Starmer’s House of Cronies: Labour’s Lords Hypocrisy](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-house-of-cronies-labours-lords-hypocrisy/): Cronyism by Another Name: Starmer’s Lords Revealed Remember when Sir Keir Starmer, that paragon of principled politics, stood before the nation promising to “restore standards in public life”? Oh, how we laughed – or at least, you should have. Because here we are, barely five months into his premiership, watching him stuff the House of Lords like a Christmas turkey with Party loyalists, failed MPs, and his own former chief of staff in an act that could only parallel the cronyism of Boris Johnson The breathtaking audacity of it all! A government that swept into power with 411 seats – a […] - [Trilaterals over Washington: Peter Mandelson ‘Prince of Darkness’ US Ambassador](https://heartlandstribune.com/trilaterals-over-washington-peter-mandelson-tipped-to-be-us-ambassador/): The Global Chess Game: Trilateralism’s Last Gambit in an America First-World In the grand theatre of global politics, sometimes the most telling moves are the ones that seem most absurd at first glance. As the world braces for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Britain prepares to send Lord Peter Mandelson, a major player and architect of globalisation, European project evangelist, Trilateral Commission member, and notorious friend of Jeffrey Epstein, to serve as ambassador to Washington. If this doesn’t strike you as darkly comedic, you haven’t been paying attention. The appointment would be more than merely ironic; it’s emblematic of […] - [The Nuclear Shadow: Labour Minister Caught in £3.9bn Bangladesh Corruption Storm](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-nuclear-shadow/): Global Corruption Scandal: Labour’s Tulip Siddiq Accused of Role in £3.9 Billion Fraud In a scandal that threatens to rock both British and Bangladeshi politics, Labour Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq finds herself at the centre of an explosive corruption investigation that reads like a political thriller. The allegations? A staggering £3.9 billion embezzlement scheme involving a Russian nuclear power plant, family dynasties, and international intrigue. Siddiq, who ironically oversees anti-corruption efforts in UK financial markets as Economic Secretary to the Treasury, is alleged to have played a pivotal role in a 2013 deal that artificially inflated the cost of Bangladesh’s Rooppur […] - [Festive Fables: How Christmas Stories Reinforce Class Divides](https://heartlandstribune.com/festive-fables-how-christmas-stories-reinforce-class-divides/): Material Morality: The Hidden Lessons of Santa’s Gift Economy The brilliant Diane Morgan, in her portrayal of Philomena Cunk in ‘The World According to Cunk‘, has a knack for revealing uncomfortable truths while deftly puncturing life’s small hypocrisies. In Cunk on Christmas, she delivers a particularly biting observation: “The good children will get lots of presents and so, it turns out, will the bad children. In fact, the only ones who won’t get very much are the poor children. That’s because Santa judges a child’s goodness based largely on parental income.” This satirical quip raises a deeper, troubling question: when we […] - [Starmer’s WASPI Betrayal: More Pensioners Left Out in the Cold](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-waspi-betrayal/): Broken Promises, Broken Trust: Labour’s WASPI Betrayal In a stark betrayal that lays bare the hollow promises of modern politics, Labour has turned its back on the WASPI women who have fought tirelessly for justice. The very party that once championed their cause now stands accused of the most cynical of political betrayals. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s hypocrisy could not be more transparent. Just two years ago, he stood before the nation, decrying the “real injustice” faced by women born in the 1950s. “All your working life you’ve got in mind the date on which you can retire and get […] - [Scholz Defeated: The Collapse of Germany’s Coalition Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/scholz-defeated-the-collapse-of-germanys-coalition-government/): Fault Lines of Europe: The Crumbling Foundations of the Franco-German Axis When historical fault lines crack, the tremors are rarely subtle. The pillars of EU stability—France and Germany—have begun to crumble, revealing a landscape of political fragmentation that threatens to reshape an entire continent’s future. Last week, France witnessed, President Macron’s presidency in termoul his government devolved into a political carousel, with François Bayrou becoming the fourth Prime Minister this year—less an appointment and more a last-gasp attempt to stitch together a governing coalition that’s still unravelling at the seams. The French political landscape has transformed into a battleground where Marine […] - [Rules-Based Hypocrisy: The Golan Heights Edition](https://heartlandstribune.com/rules-based-hypocrisy-the-golan-heights-edition/): If the “rules-based order” had a motto, it might read: For some, the rules; for others, the exceptions. Israel’s Golan Heights expansion is the latest proof. This week, it’s the Golan Heights—a region annexed by Israel in 1981 after being seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. On Sunday, Netanyahu announced plans to double the population there, justifying the move with the usual platitudes: “Strengthening the Golan is strengthening Israel,” he declared, with the kind of brazen confidence that would make a colonial administrator blush. It comes after Israel agreed on Sunday to double its population on the occupied Golan […] - [Thoughtcrime at Heathrow: From Father Ted to 1984 The Chilling Reality of Starmer's Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/thoughtcrime-at-heathrow/): When Police Become the Ministry of Truth In Oceania, thoughtcrime was punishable by death. In Starmer’s Britain, it merely requires five armed officers, a prison cell, and a court order banning you from social media. Graham Linehan discovered this week that George Orwell’s dystopian fiction has become democratic reality, complete with the kind of bureaucratic absurdity that would have made the author weep at his own prescience. The comedy writer behind Father Ted found himself living through a scene from 1984 when five armed Thought Police intercepted him at Heathrow for the crime of posting three tweets about transgender issues. His […] - [Brexit Didn’t Cause the Boats: It Changed the Route](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-didnt-cause-the-boats/): How Labour and Tory Complicity Turned Asylum Into a £15bn Cash Cow It’s fascinating to watch the new round of propaganda being circulated throughout social media on small boat crossings, as if the subject isn’t toxic enough already. The latest offering is “Blame it on Brexit”, the reflexive cry of the ultraliberal commentariat whenever waves of Channel crossings dominate headlines. This comfortable myth allows politicians to avoid confronting the truth: the boats didn’t appear because of Brexit, and the Dublin Agreement wouldn’t have stopped them. What we are really witnessing is not simply a migration crisis, but a £15 billion racket, […] - [Blairites to the Rescue: Starmer Reshuffle Imports Old Guard to Fix A Failing Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/blairites-to-the-rescue/): Every Toolmaker knows, A Bad Worker Blames his Tools Dennis Skinner had it right: “When posh boys are in trouble, they sack their servants.” The Beast of Bolsover’s acid observation rings truer than ever as Keir Starmer frantically reshuffles his No 10 operation like a desperate middle manager blaming everyone but himself for systemic failure. Starmer displays remarkable difficulty building and maintaining his teams, a pattern that reveals more about his leadership than any amount of spin can disguise. The latest round of musical chairs sees Darren Jones moved from Treasury Chief Secretary to the newly invented role of “Chief Secretary […] - [Bell Hotel Ruling: A Symbol of Britain’s Broken Asylum System](https://heartlandstribune.com/bell-hotel-ruling/): The Bell Hotel Saga: A Mirror to Britain’s Broken Asylum System The Court of Appeal has overturned an injunction that briefly ordered the forced removal of asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping. On paper, it is a technical ruling: judges weighed the fears of local residents against the danger of incentivising protest, and concluded that the “status quo” must be maintained until the case is heard in October. But beneath the legalese lies a snapshot of a national crisis. Hotels up and down the country become holding pens for migrants, predominantly young men, while angry residents stage protests outside […] - [Gunboats and Oil Wells: America's Venezuelan Heist](https://heartlandstribune.com/gunboats-and-oil-wells-americas-venezuelan-heist/): Drug War Gunboat Diplomacy: Unmasking America’s Venezuelan Oil Grab Gunboat diplomacy… the art of making offers that smaller nations can’t refuse by parking warships off their coasts, emerged during the nineteenth century when Western imperial powers carved up Asia, Africa, and the Middle East among themselves. The rules were elegantly simple: when conventional diplomacy failed to secure what empires wanted, fleets of warships would suddenly appear on the horizon of uncooperative countries. Usually, the mere sight of overwhelming naval firepower was enough to produce the desired capitulation without the mess of actual warfare. This represents hegemony in its purest form, using […] - [Britain’s Race to the Bottom: Farage’s Mass Deportation Fantasy](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-race-to-the-bottom-farages-mass-deportation-fantasy/): From Jackboots to Suits: The Modern Marketing of Mass Deportation When a political leader announces that he will round up and deport 600,000 people, one is entitled to ask: what century are we living in? Nigel Farage and his Reform Party now promise just that, a vast machinery of expulsion, unprecedented in modern British history, and chillingly reminiscent of Europe’s darkest decades. Farage said his party would bar anyone who comes to the UK on small boats from claiming asylum, under plans announced earlier. It says it would make £2bn available to offer payments or aid to countries like Afghanistan to […] - [Starmer's "Win-Win" EU Deal Fails to Halt Soaring UK Food Inflation](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-win-win-eu-deal-fails-to-halt-soaring-uk-food-inflation/): Westminster Fantasy vs. Kitchen Table Reality: Starmer’s Broken EU Vow Remember Keir Starmer’s solemn promise that his EU reset deal would deliver cheaper food and energy for British families? The Prime Minister stood before cameras proclaiming a “win-win” outcome as he sealed his high-stakes agreement with concessions on youth visas and fishing rights, assuring struggling households that relief was finally coming. Well, here in the real world, far from Westminster’s fantasy economics, working families are still waiting for that promised win to wash ashore at Dover. Instead of cheaper shopping baskets, they’re facing the harsh reality of Starmer’s broken promises printed […] - [Starmer's Nightmare: Over a Quarter of Members Eye Corbyn Defection](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-nightmare-over-a-quarter-of-members-eye-corbyn-defection/): Poll: 28% of Labour Members Would Consider Joining Corbyn’s New Party When over a quarter of your own party members would consider abandoning you for the leader you spent years systematically destroying, you’ve achieved something remarkable: creating your own gravediggers from the very people who put you in power. The exclusive Survation poll for LabourList reveals the devastating reality facing Keir Starmer, 28% of Labour members would consider joining Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party, a figure that should terrify every Blairite apparatchik who thought they’d buried democratic socialism forever. This isn’t merely dissatisfaction; it’s a rebellion brewing within Labour’s […] - [The Final Act: Israel's Long-Planned Conquest of Gaza Enters Its Endgame](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-final-act/): Israel’s Gaza City Offensive: The Final Mask of Pretext Slips Away The mask has finally slipped completely. Israel’s military announced this week that it has begun “preliminary actions” for a ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City, confirming what honest observers understood from the beginning: this was never about rescuing hostages or defeating Hamas. This is the completion of a decades-long project to seize total control of Gaza and the West Bank, using October 7th as the pretext for ethnic cleansing that was always the ultimate objective. Defence Minister Israel Katz’s approval of the Gaza City operation, scheduled […] - [The Elephant in the Room for Zara Sultana’s “Your Party”](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-elephant-in-the-room/): “Not Negotiable” – The Feminist Red Line Sultana’s New Party Can’t Ignore Zara Sultana’s recent interview with New Left Review was, in many ways, inspiring. Her call for a genuinely member-led party, one that rejects top-down control, cronyism, and internal stitch-ups, will resonate with anyone sick of Westminster politics as usual. She’s right that if this new project is to mean anything, it must empower people at the grassroots, not replicate the hollow hierarchies of Labour or the other parties. But here’s the rub. Sultana also pledged to “resolutely” advocate for a pro-trans socialist programme. She insists these discussions must happen […] - [The Profits of War: Why Peace in Ukraine Terrifies Europe’s Investors](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-profits-of-war/): There is a dark, unspoken truth hanging over the latest round of “peace talks” between Trump, Putin, Zelensky and the European leaders: war has become too profitable to end. For three years, the war in Ukraine has been framed in noble language, a fight for freedom, sovereignty, and the defence of democracy. But behind the rhetoric lies a grubby economic reality. Billions in public money, funnelled through “support packages” and “aid commitments,” have not rebuilt homes, schools, or hospitals in Ukraine. They have flowed directly into the bank accounts of Western arms manufacturers and their shareholders. They are underwriting the profits […] - [Ricky Jones: Councillor cleared of encouraging violent behaviour](https://heartlandstribune.com/ricky-jones-councillor-cleared-of-encouraging-violent-behaviour/): “Cut Their Throats” vs “Burn the Hotels”: Why Two Hate Speech Cases Had Very Different Outcomes It’s like dousing an already raging inferno with petrol, the flames leap higher, the heat becomes unbearable, and the public’s trust in the system burns away. The case of Labour councillor Ricky Jones is one of those moments where the verdict may be legally sound, but the optics are politically combustible. Jones, 58, stood trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after video emerged of him telling a crowd at an anti-racism rally in Walthamstow that the throats of “disgusting Nazi fascists” should be cut. The footage, […] - [Zionism vs. Judaism: Why the Distinction Matters in the Israel-Palestine Debate](https://heartlandstribune.com/zionism-vs-judaism/): A Necessary Distinction: Unpacking Zionism and Judaism It’s easy to get lost in the noise when talking about Israel, Palestine, and the conflict that has defined the region for over a century. But to have an honest conversation, we need to start with two crucial, and often deliberately blurred, distinctions. First, Judaism is a religion, not a race. Second, Zionism is a political ideology, not a synonym for Judaism itself. Judaism is a Global Faith, Not a Single People Judaism is a faith that spans the globe and contains a stunning diversity of people. It’s not just a European religion. From […] - [365 Arrests in London as Government’s Ban on Palestine Action Sparks Mass Defiance](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestine-action-2/): At least 365 arrests at Palestine Action ban protest “Censorship is the shadow of power. And in Britain today, that shadow is growing darker by the day. ” This weekend, London’s streets will become the arena where that shadow meets resistance… Westminster was turned into the stage for a mass act of civil disobedience today as hundreds openly defied the government’s ban on Palestine Action, a group now proscribed as a “terrorist organisation” under the Terrorism Act 2000. At least 365 people were arrested after they unveiled placards reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” in Parliament Square. The action […] - [Rushanara Ali Labour’s Homelessness Minister Quits After Slapping Tenants with £700 Rent Hike](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-homelessness-minister-quits/): Labour’s Hypocrisy Laid Bare: Homelessness Minister Quits After Evicting Tenants to Hike Rent by £700 In a scandal soaked with bitter irony, Rushanara Ali, Labour’s now-former Homelessness Minister, has resigned after evicting tenants from her London property only to relet it weeks later with a whopping £700-a-month rent increase. Yes, you read that right. The person charged with tackling homelessness was, at the same time, profiting from a practice that pushes ordinary people closer to the streets. Ali’s tenants were handed notice last November, told the house was going on the market for sale. But surprise, surprise, the property was never […] - [UK’s Border Farce: BBC Infiltrates People Smuggling Gangs as Government Taskforce Flops](https://heartlandstribune.com/people-smuggling-gangs/): Violent Channel smuggling gang’s French and UK network exposed by undercover BBC investigation Seems Starmer’s Taskforce Was Nothing More Than A PR Stunt Chasing Shadows While the BBC Does the Real Work… Sir Keir Starmer unveiled his latest flagship initiative in May a “dedicated taskforce” to tackle organised immigration crime and people-smuggling gangs. Bold words. But here’s the thing: the BBC seems to be doing a far better job of exposing these gangs than the Government ever has. While Starmer and Farage compete over who can sound tougher on small boats, a BBC investigation has already infiltrated one of the most […] - [Thatcher’s Rotten Legacy: Offshore Bonuses, Raw Sewage, and the Sham of “Private Efficiency”](https://heartlandstribune.com/yorkshire-water/): Yorkshire Water boss was paid extra £1.3m via offshore parent firm While working people across Yorkshire are forced to tighten their belts, pay ever-rising water bills, and dodge sewage in the rivers while on a hosepipe ban, the boss of Yorkshire Water has quietly pocketed an extra £1.3 million through an offshore Jersey-registered company that answers to no one but profit. Nicola Shaw, the current chief executive of Yorkshire Water, has been handsomely rewarded by Kelda Holdings, the shadowy offshore parent company owned by a patchwork of global investors, including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and Wall Street’s Corsair Capital. Shaw received […] - [Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: How The London Economic Are Hijacking 'Your Party'](https://heartlandstribune.com/wolves-in-sheeps-clothing/): Policy Sabotage 101: How Clickbait Headlines Weaponise EU Rejoin to Fracture ‘Your Party’ “Remember, your words can plant gardens or burn whole forests down,” wrote Gemma Troy. Sometimes those words must expose the forest fires already burning, even when it means standing alone against comfortable deceptions that too many prefer to ignore. No one relishes writing exposés, but when supposedly progressive outlets masquerade as grassroots movements while serving corporate masters, silence becomes complicity. The London Economic, that supposed beacon of “kinder, more compassionate politics”, stands exposed as something far more nefarious: a corporate propaganda vehicle masquerading as independent journalism while hijacking […] - [Goya to Gaza: The Online Safety Act's First Victims Reveal Its True Purpose](https://heartlandstribune.com/goya-to-gaza/): In Case You Forgot: The Online Safety Act Is a Censorship Tool Gaza, Ukraine, and even parliamentary debate are censored. Welcome to Britain’s ‘safe’ internet. Remember our warning that the government’s so-called Online Safety Act would be used not to protect children, but to silence dissent, suppress news, and curtail free expression? Well, here it is. In less than a week, Social media platforms are already blocking legitimate public interest content, posts about the genocide in Gaza and war in Ukraine, political speeches, and even classic artwork, under the guise of compliance with the UK’s new law. BBC Verify has revealed […] - [The False Flag of a Palestinian State: How Western Leaders Engineer Plausible Deniability](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-false-flag-of-a-palestinian-state/): Do not be seduced by the siren song of diplomacy. Look closely, and you’ll see the false flags of deception. What is coming is a Greater Israel When politicians promise the impossible while the possible slips through their deliberately opened fingers, we witness not diplomacy but deception elevated to statecraft. Keir Starmer’s announcement that Britain will recognise Palestine as an independent state, hedged with conditions so elaborate they would embarrass a Jesuit theologian debating angels on pinheads, represents the latest masterpiece in the art of organised inaction disguised as principled leadership. This bamboozle serves a darker purpose: creating plausible distance between […] - [A Chink of Light: High Court Gives Green Light to Challenge Government's Draconian Palestine Action Ban](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-chink-of-light/): Palestine Action has won permission to challenge its controversial ban by the UK government under terrorism legislation. In a rare glimmer of judicial sanity, the High Court has granted Palestine Action permission to challenge the Labour government’s authoritarian decision to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation. This isn’t just a procedural victory; it’s a vital pushback against an authoritarian government that is wielding the bludgeon of the state against legitimate protest. The ruling from Mr Justice Chamberlain is a direct rebuke to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s move to ban the direct-action group. The ban, rushed through after activists caused damage at […] - [The Rotten Heart of Britain: Five Survivors of Rotherham Grooming Gangs Say They Were Also Raped by Police Officers](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rotten-heart-of-britain/): Rotherham’s Ultimate Betrayal: Police Officers Abused’ Grooming Gang’ victims “You cannot force out the darkness; you can only bring in the light. But what happens when those promising the light are the same people who helped maintain the dark?“ What does it tell us about the rottenness at the heart of British institutions when those sworn to protect children instead join their abusers? The question haunts every revelation emerging from Rotherham, where new evidence reveals that police officers didn’t merely fail to stop the systematic rape of vulnerable girls, they participated in it, turning squad cars into mobile torture chambers and […] - [The Quiet Revolution: Why 'Your Party' Are Storming In at 500,000 and Counting](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-quiet-revolution/): The Quiet Revolution: 500,000 People Crashed a Website to Join Corbyn & Sultana’s Insurgency and Here’s Why… When 500,000 people crash a website within 72 hours to join a political movement, creating what may be the largest Party formation in modern European history, you might expect wall-to-wall media coverage. You might anticipate breathless analysis of this seismic shift in British politics, urgent discussions about what drives such extraordinary mobilisation, perhaps even grudging acknowledgement that something genuinely significant is occurring beneath the surface of our managed democracy. Instead, we have witnessed something far more revealing: the sound of establishment silence. Mainstream media […] - [US Imperialism: Trump Demands Tribute, EU Folds](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-imperialism/): Trump’s Turnberry Shakedown: How the EU Learned the Price of Economic Vassalage Donald Trump has forced through a transatlantic trade agreement with the European Union during his visit to Scotland, striking the deal not in Brussels or Washington, but on the golf course at his luxury Turnberry resort. In scenes that would make any Roman emperor giggle, the American president received European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen like a vassal come to pay tribute. And pay tribute she did, to the tune of hundreds of billions. But here’s the thing: the EU is finally getting a taste of its own […] - [Britain’s New Thought Police: How Labour Plans to Police Your Online Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-new-thought-police/): Britain’s Thought Police Are Here and They’re Coming for Dissent, Not Criminals Just when you thought this government couldn’t sink any lower, it drafts in an elite squad of detectives, not to tackle knife crime or protect vulnerable women, but to trawl your Facebook and ‘X’ posts. Yes, a specialist police unit is being set up to monitor anti-migrant sentiment online. The new National Internet Intelligence Investigations team will operate from the very heart of power, Westminster, coordinated by the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC). Its remit? Not to stop crime, but to predict civil unrest and “maximise social media intelligence.” […] - [Socialised Losses, Privatised Profits: The Great NatWest Heist](https://heartlandstribune.com/privatising-profit-socialising-loss/): Socialised Losses, Privatised Profits: How Rachel from Accounts Gifted Billions to Banking Parasites The Neoliberal Playbook: How NatWest’s Windfall Proves the System Is Rigged… What does it tell us about the moral bankruptcy of British capitalism when a bank rescued from collapse by public money immediately rewards private shareholders with those same public funds? The answer arrived this week with NatWest’s announcement of a £1.5bn windfall for investors, a grotesque celebration occurring mere weeks after the government sold its final stake in the institution that public money saved from extinction during the 2008 financial crisis. The mathematics of this grand larceny […] - [When Healing Becomes Rebellion: The Doctors' Strike That Exposes Britain's Broken Contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/doctors-strike/): Wes Streeting once boasted, “We didn’t have national strikes under the last Labour government” Well, you do now… What manner of society have we constructed when those who dedicate their lives to healing must withdraw their labour to secure basic dignity? As 50,000 resident doctors across England and Wales prepare for five days of strike action beginning this Friday, we witness not merely an industrial dispute but a fundamental breakdown in the social contract that once bound profession to purpose, service to reward, healer to community. The stark arithmetic tells its own story. Since 2008, junior doctors, now euphemistically rebranded as […] - [Democracy Breaks Free: The Launch That Terrifies Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/jeremy-corbyn-zarah-sultana-launch-a-new-party/): Your Party Clears The Way: Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana Launch a New Party What does it mean when the most vilified politician in modern British history becomes the bearer of the nation’s democratic hopes? The answer arrived this week with Jeremy Corbyn’s confirmation that he and Zarah Sultana have launched a new political party, a development that should send tremors through every comfortable assumption about Britain’s managed democracy. “It’s time for a new kind of political party. One that belongs to you.” With these words, Corbyn and Sultana have thrown down a gauntlet that the establishment hoped never to see […] - [The Miners' Last Stand: Will the Orgreave Inquiry Finally Speak Truth to Power?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-miners-last-stand/): Thatcher’s Bloody Reckoning: Why the Orgreave Inquiry Matters Now More Than Ever The announcement of a national inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave arrives with the punctuality of British Rail in its dying days, decades after the wounds were inflicted and long after many of those who suffered have departed this world without ever seeing justice. Forty years of dust settling on the broken bones and shattered lives of striking miners, forty years of official silence deafening the roar of righteous anger. Forty years, yes, forty years for the British state to finally acknowledge what every decent person witnessed on their […] - [Raisins and Racism: The Observer Apologises for ‘RACIST’ Cartoon of Zarah Sultana](https://heartlandstribune.com/raisins-and-racism/): The Raisin Box Republic: How Britain’s Liberal Press Perfected Respectable Racism When did we decide that racism becomes acceptable if wrapped in sufficient layers of plausible deniability and executed with a public school accent? The question haunts me as I contemplate The Observer’s grotesque cartoon depicting Zarah Sultana as a caricature on a box of raisins, a piece of visual bile so nakedly prejudiced that even its perpetrators felt compelled to slink away in embarrassment after publication. Yet the real scandal is not that such poison found its way into Britain’s oldest Sunday newspaper. The true outrage lies in our collective […] - [When Pensioners Become Terrorists: Britain's Descent into Authoritarian Absurdity](https://heartlandstribune.com/audrey-white-arrested/): When Pensioners Are Terrorists: Audrey White and the Criminalisation of Conscience in Starmer’s Britain… What kind of nation handcuffs a 74-year-old woman for holding a placard? This week in Liverpool, Audrey White, veteran trade unionist, feminist, and lifelong socialist, was arrested under the Terrorism Act. Her crime? Expressing solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide. This wasn’t just an act of heavy-handed policing. It was a grotesque illustration of Britain’s descent into authoritarian absurdity, where the line between democratic dissent and “terrorism” has been deliberately and dangerously blurred. White’s arrest, alongside three others at a peaceful demonstration, is not some isolated anomaly; it […] - [Biology Strikes Back: Fact-Based Sex Ed Returns to British Schools](https://heartlandstribune.com/biology-strikes-back/): The Great Unwoke-ening: Science Returns to Sex Education For years, our classrooms have been hijacked by ideological zealots masquerading as educators. Children were told that boys could magically become girls, that feelings trumped facts, and that biology was just another opinion in the marketplace of ideas. But now, after relentless pressure from parents, teachers, and campaigners who refused to be silenced, the Department for Education has finally surrendered to reality. From July 2025, new statutory guidance on Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) will come into effect, and biology is back where it belongs: at the heart of education. This isn’t […] - [Criminal Investigation into Kneecap Dropped: But the Stench of the Thought Police Remains](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-drop-investigation-into-kneecap/): So, Avon and Somerset Police have quietly dropped their investigation into Irish rap trio Kneecap after deciding there’s “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. Not that there was ever a realistic chance of conviction, but that’s hardly the point, is it? Let’s not kid ourselves: this wasn’t about upholding the law. It was about sending a message. A message from the state, cloaked in legalese, warning artists, activists, and anyone daring to speak outside the Westminster-approved script: We’re watching you. The so-called offence? A throwaway remark at Glastonbury, where Kneecap referenced a pending court case involving one of their members, Liam Óg Ó […] - [The Purge Continues: Diane Abbott Latest Victim of Starmer's Authoritarian Machine](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-purge-continues/): Authoritarianism in a Red Tie: The Starmer Regime Strikes Again We all know it now: the Labour Party is no longer a movement, it’s a machine. A cold, corporate vehicle of authoritarianism, driven by a man who’s traded principle for power and wears obedience like a badge of honour. Sir Keir Starmer, a tin-pot technocrat with the manners of a bureaucrat and the instincts of a despot, is riding high on a majority not earned through vision or hope, but handed to him because the Tories had rotted to the core. This is what happens when you vote for the so-called […] - [Red Flag Over Westminster: How Starmer Turned Labour Into the Thought Police](https://heartlandstribune.com/red-flag-over-westminster/): “When fascism comes to Britain, it will be wrapped in a red rosette and carrying a welfare reform bill.” Most dictators don’t seize power at the barrel of a gun… they win elections. They smile, speak of “grown-up government,” then slowly strangle dissent in the name of “discipline” and “unity.” That’s how it begins. Today, Keir Starmer has taken another step closer to making the Labour Party indistinguishable from the authoritarian neoliberal machine it once claimed to oppose. Four Labour MPs – Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman, Chris Hinchliff, and Rachael Maskell – have had the whip removed for doing the unthinkable: […] - [Starmer's Authoritarian Purge: Democracy Dies in the Labour Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-authoritarian-purge/): From Opposition to Oppression: Inside Starmer’s Ruthless Purge of Rebel MPs This is no longer a democracy; it’s authoritarian rule under Starmer’s iron fist… Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has suspended three Labour MPs, Brian Leishman, Chris Hinchliff, and Neil Duncan-Jordan, for the crime of standing up for their constituents against welfare cuts. Their suspension for “organising on the welfare rebellion and other insurrection” reveals the true nature of Starmer’s Labour: a Party where conscience is treason and representing your voters is sedition. This is Starmerism. “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was […] - [Reclaiming Our Flag: Why the Working-Class Left Must Re-Embrace Patriotism](https://heartlandstribune.com/reclaiming-our-flag/): When the Left abandons cultural identity, the Right doesn’t just fill the void…they weaponise it. For too long, the British Left has been wilfully blind to a political truth as stark as the morning light: when we abandon our nation’s cultural identity, the reactionary right weaponises it against us. While we’re tangled in abstract theories, debating the finer points of some obscure academic text, the hard right is out there, shamelessly wrapping themselves in the Union Jack and declaring themselves the sole guardians of British identity. This isn’t just a problem; it’s a profound, self-inflicted wound. This wholesale rejection of national […] - [The Last Jury: How Britain is Quietly Dismantling Eight Centuries of Justice](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-last-jury/): The Jury: On Trial, and Under Threat 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Last Jury (MP3) Today, Parliament debates the quiet dismantling of eight centuries of democratic justice, where the Jury itself is on trial and under threat. It comes as Parliament convenes to debate the findings and proposals of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, we witness the quiet dismantling of a cornerstone of British democracy. This isn’t the dramatic overthrow of a coup, but a death by a thousand cuts, veiled in the mundane language of “administrative reform” and “efficiency.” These seemingly benign terms mask a profound assault on […] - [Orwell Was A Snitch: The Truth Behind the "List"](https://heartlandstribune.com/orwell-was-a-snitch/): Love, Death, and the List: In Defence of “George Orwell was a Snitch” How a dying man’s love for truth and a woman became history’s most misunderstood act in defence of democratic socialism Was George Orwell a government snitch? The accusation hangs in the air like cigarette smoke in a Fitzrovia pub, acrid and persistent, repeated so often it’s mistaken for fact. Seventy-five years after a dying author handed thirty-eight names to a beautiful woman in a Cotswold sanatorium, we’re still trapped in the same lazy caricature: the visionary who warned us about thought police, we’re told, became Big Brother’s willing […] - [Von der Leyen's Tainted Victory: Brussels' Corrupt Grip Tightens](https://heartlandstribune.com/von-der-leyens-tainted-victory/): Von der Leyen’s Pyrrhic Victory: How Brussels’ Elite Survived Another Scandal When surviving a no-confidence vote becomes a victory, you know democracy is broken. Ursula von der Leyen has survived a no-confidence vote, but the 360-175 margin tells a different story than Brussels wants to admit. This wasn’t a triumphant vindication of leadership. It was a showcase of everything rotten in the European project: unaccountable elites, corporate backroom deals, and the steady march toward militarised authoritarianism that serves capital above citizens. Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea triggered the motion with hard evidence of institutional corruption, €21.5 billion in secretive vaccine contracts with […] - [No Epstein 'Client List'? The People Aren’t Buying It.](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-epstein-client-list-the-people-arent-buying-it/): In a move that insults both intelligence and justice, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI have officially declared that Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex offender, suspected blackmailer of presidents, princes, and plutocrats had no “client list,” and that his death in federal custody was nothing more than a “suicide.” The American people and indeed the world are expected to accept this with a straight face. We won’t. Let’s be blunt: this isn’t just a failure of justice. It’s a coordinated protection racket for the global elite. And the silence is deafening, from Trump to Biden, Prince Andrew to Peter Mandelson. Each, […] - [The Great Lie: How Politicians Use 'Market Forces' to Hide Their Cruelty](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-lie-how-politicians-use-market-forces-to-hide-their-cruelty/): The Truth About Money They Don’t Want You to Know Labour Heartlands Editor’s Introduction Ever wondered why politicians always claim there’s no money for hospitals, schools, or benefits, but somehow there’s always billions for bombs, bank bailouts, and corporate subsidies? Ever questioned why Rachel Reeves cries about having to attack disabled people while maintaining that the government’s “hands are tied” by financial markets? You’re right to be suspicious. Because it’s all lies. Professor Richard Murphy, one of Britain’s foremost experts on how money actually works, has spent years exposing the biggest con trick in modern politics: the myth that sovereign governments […] - [The Demise of the Labour Party: Tony Benn's Warning Fulfilled.](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-demise-of-the-labour-party-tony-benns-warning-fulfilled/): The Betrayal of Socialist Principles: Tony Benn’s Prescient Warning for the Fate of the Labour Party “If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media – having tasted blood – would demand next that it expelled all its Socialist and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the […] - [Breaking the Chains: Sultana and Corbyn Smash the Two-Party Stitch-Up](https://heartlandstribune.com/breaking-the-chains/): One year ago today, millions of voters believed in change. Now they know better… Today marks exactly one year since Labour’s landslide victory on July 4th, 2024. One year since millions of working people voted for hope over despair, for change over more of the same, for a government that might actually give a damn about ordinary lives. Has there ever been a political party elevated to office with such soaring expectations that has fallen so spectacularly short? The verdict is in after twelve months of Starmer’s “change”; they are absolutely, catastrophically terrible. Attacking disabled people. Slashing winter fuel payments. Keeping […] - [The State of Britain: A Socialist's Lament for a Betrayed Nation](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-state-of-britain-a-socialists-lament-for-a-betrayed-nation/): The State of Britain: An Uncomfortable Truth, Billions for Hotels, Cuts for Disabled, Open Doors for Reform 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The State of Britain: A Socialist’s Lament for a Betrayed Nation (MP3) I’ve got a confession to make, and it won’t sit well with the dinner-party left or the careerist Labour hacks in Westminster. It will completely outrage the latte-drinking liberals, but it needs to be said. I am a lifelong socialist. I believe in solidarity, sanctuary, and standing with the oppressed. These are not mere words to me; they are the bedrock upon which my political convictions have been […] - [Trouble at t'Mill: Starmer Trips, Reeves Weeps, and Labour Betrays Its Roots](https://heartlandstribune.com/trouble-at-tmill-starmer-trips-reeves-weeps-and-labour-betrays-its-roots/): Absolutely miserable… Well, if omens mean anything, Keir Starmer should’ve gone back to bed. The Prime Minister began the day by tripping over his own doorstep, literally. And from there, things only went downhill. By midday, the man leading what’s laughably still called the Labour Party was knee-deep in a PR disaster of his own making. His government’s flagship welfare reforms, a bill that even Iain Duncan Smith would have turned his nose up at as a nasty piece of business, limped through Parliament. A grotesque spectacle that saw Labour ministers voting to make life harder for disabled people, poorer families, […] - [Labour’s Welfare Reform Bill Passes– At the 11th Hour, With U-Turns, Chaos, and Cuts Cloaked in Compassion](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-welfare-reform-bill-passes/): PIP changes have NOT been scrapped: The Welfare Bill will still kill disabled people “We all want the Labour government to succeed,” said rebel MP Paula Barker.After tonight’s vote, millions of sick and disabled people are asking: succeed at what? The Labour government’s Welfare Reform Bill has passed its first major hurdle in Parliament, but not with honour, not with unity, and certainly not with clarity. What we witnessed in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening was not policymaking. It was a panicked, last-ditch scramble to avoid a public mutiny, cobbled together through late-night emails, contradictory statements, and backroom deals. […] - [Finally, the Bosses Face Questions: Hospital Chiefs Arrested Over Lucy Letby Case](https://heartlandstribune.com/hospital-chiefs-arrested-over-lucy-letby-case/): Three ex-bosses of Lucy Letby arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter After years of focusing solely on Lucy Letby, the police have finally started asking the questions that should have been asked from day one: what did the hospital management know, when did they know it, and why didn’t they act? On Monday, Cheshire Police arrested three senior figures from the Countess of Chester Hospital leadership team on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. These are the people who ran the institution where babies died between 2015 and 2016, the same people who continued drawing executive salaries while parents buried their […] - [Starmer’s Arrogance: How the Welfare Bill Tore Open Labour’s Democratic Facade](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-arrogance/): Starmer: ‘Too arrogant to listen’ This Friday marks one year since Starmer’s Labour marched triumphantly into government on a tidal wave of promised “change.” But after twelve months of broken pledges, authoritarian drift, and a leadership more obsessed with appeasing investors, BlackRock and foreign wars than uplifting the vulnerable, the honeymoon is well and truly over. Nowhere is this betrayal more stark than in the government’s latest war on the welfare state, a grotesque nod to Thatcherite cruelty dressed up in centrist technobabble. And for once, even The Guardian, long a loyal apologist for ‘Starmerism’, couldn’t look away. Its headline said […] - [Glastonbury: Tony Benn's Spirit of Resistance Continues](https://heartlandstribune.com/glastonbury/): Glastonbury: The Tony Benn Years and the Spirit of Resistance Beyond the sanitised BBC broadcast, Glastonbury is more than a music festival it is the gathering of tribes, the heartbeat of rebellion, the drumbeat of dissent that echoes through Avalon’s ancient fields. Rooted in myth, soaked in counterculture, Glastonbury acts as a conscience of the people, a wild communion of music, myth, and meaning where politics is not avoided, but embraced with muddy boots and open hearts. Glastonbury’s power isn’t just musical, isn’t just spiritual, it’s political, reaching back to layers of history that predate Westminster by millennia. This is sacred […] - [The Orgreave Cover-Up: When Justice Goes Through the Shredder](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-orgreave-cover-up-when-justice-goes-through-the-shredder/): When the state destroys evidence, it’s not incompetence, it’s policy. Northumbria Police has just pulled off one of the most brazen acts of evidence destruction in recent British history, the force casually announcing they “disposed of” two boxes of crucial records pertaining to the Miners’ Strike and the infamous ‘Battle of Orgreave‘. This, of course, comes just as the long-awaited official inquiry into the violent confrontation that saw mounted police charge into crowds of striking miners forty years ago. The force blithely confirmed that two boxes, brimming with data relating to the year-long strike and the violent confrontation at Orgreave in […] - [Palestine Action: From Protest to Proscription, Starmer's Authoritarian Drift](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestine-action/): “I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail.” — Muhammad Ali, boxer and anti-war activist. Protest Is Not Terrorism: Labour’s Assault on British Democratic Tradition The working class has always been the engine of protest, the inconvenient truth-teller that has dragged this country towards something resembling democracy. Without it, we don’t just become a province of Oceania, we become “Airstrip One,” plunging headfirst into a chilling dystopia where Orwell’s Big Brother doesn’t just watch, he’s our constant, suffocating family member. The Labour government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation isn’t […] - [Britain's Brilliant New Bombers: All The Cost, None Of The Control!](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-brilliant-new-bombers/): Well, isn’t this simply grand? Prime Minister Starmer, in his infinite wisdom (and presumably under heavy “persuasion” from our American overlords), has just unveiled a truly revolutionary defence strategy. Forget actually defending British soil; we’re investing in the future of performative military spending! According to a beaming Sir Keir at the NATO summit in The Hague, the UK government is now officially on the hook for at least 12 brand-spanking-new F-35A fighter jets. And at a cool £80 million a pop, these aren’t just any old jets. Oh no, these beauties are “able to bear nuclear weapons if necessary.” Because, apparently, […] - [Starmer's War Economy: Britain Commits to Permanent Military Industrial Complex](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-war-economy/): The Defence Delusion: Why Britain’s Military Spending Protects Everyone Except the British So it’s official: Britain will now commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence by 2035. After weeks of diplomatic wrangling and NATO pressure, Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a plan that sees Britain fall dutifully into line. But let’s be clear: this isn’t about genuinely protecting the British people. It’s about appeasing NATO, playing imperial dress-up, and channelling public wealth into a military-industrial complex that serves everyone but us. Starmer’s government has framed this defence hike as a “whole-of-society” approach, 3.5% for traditional military spending, plus another 1.5% […] - [Trump Attacks Iran: Now is The Time of Monsters](https://heartlandstribune.com/us-attack-iran-now-is-the-time-of-monsters/): How “America First” Became Israel First… and put the rest of the world one step closer to World War III “We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.” So declared President Donald Trump on Saturday, announcing with characteristic bravado that American stealth bombers had joined Israel’s week-long assault on Iran. The man who promised to keep America out of “costly foreign conflicts,” who mocked the value of American interventionism, […] - [The Lost Science of Summer Solstice: What Our Ancestors Knew That We've Forgotten](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-lost-science-of-summer-solstice-what-our-ancestors-knew-that-weve-forgotten/): Solstice Alignments and Sacred Geometry: A Forgotten Legacy The Stone Circle Conspiracy: Why Modern Science Still Can’t Explain Neolithic Genius… This Saturday, June 21st, at exactly 3:42 am, the Earth will quietly reach a cosmic turning point, the Summer Solstice. That’s the precise moment when the North Pole tilts closest to the Sun, giving us the longest day of the year and marking the official start of astronomical summer. It’s not the moment the Sun rises that comes a little later, around 4:45 am across Britain, but at 3:42 am, Earth reaches its maximum tilt toward the Sun for the entire […] - [The Rebel Town Festival: Forgotten Martyrs, William Jobling, and the Story of the Jarrow Seven](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rebel-town-festival-forgotten-martyrs-william-jobling-and-story-of-the-jarrow-seven/): From Jarrow to Botany Bay: The Tragic Tale of the Banished Miners In the annals of trade union history, the names of the Tolpuddle Martyrs stand as a symbol of workers’ struggle against exploitation. Their tale of deportation to Australia for daring to fight for workers’ rights and protect their income is etched in our collective memory. However, some tales remain untold, obscured by time and overshadowed by more well-known events. Such is the case with the story of the Seven Men of Jarrow an event that took place in 1832 – two years before Tolpuddle. Alongside their narrative, we unravel […] - [The Whip or Your Conscience: Foxcroft's Choice Every Labour MP Now Faces](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-whip-or-your-conscience/): When Harming the Vulnerable Becomes Government Policy: We’re Witnessing the Death of Labour’s Soul The Last Honourable Labour Whip… In a Party that’s not only lost its moral compass, Vicky Foxcroft’s resignation reminds us what principles actually look like and how rare they’ve become. Sometimes it takes someone walking away to show you just how far everyone else has fallen. When Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft resigned as government whip yesterday over plans to slash disability benefits, she didn’t just quit a job; she exposed the moral bankruptcy of a Party that’s forgotten what it’s supposed to stand for. While her colleagues […] - [Bilderberg's Dark Secret: The NHS, Our Data, and The Architects of a Technocratic Future](https://heartlandstribune.com/bilderbergs-dark-secret/): Beyond Democracy: Bilderberg, AI, and the Privatisation of Public Health And so, another June passes, and with it, the shadowy conclave known as the Bilderberg Meeting concludes its annual pilgrimage. What did they discuss, these self-appointed masters of the universe? We, the uninvited, are permitted precisely two crumbs of information: a guest list and a deliberately anodyne agenda. Everything else, the whispered agreements, the furtive handshakes, the grand designs for our collective future, remains shrouded in a secrecy as impenetrable as their security cordon. No minutes, no statements, no accountability. It is a calculated affront to any notion of democratic transparency, […] - [Whitewash From Whitehall: National Grooming Gangs Inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/whitewash-from-whitehall-national-grooming-gangs-inquiry/): You cannot force out the darkness; you can only bring in the light. But what happens when those promising the light are the same people who helped maintain the dark? The Bandwagon That Became Policy In January, Starmer accused those demanding a national inquiry of “amplifying” far-right demands and riding political bandwagons. His defence now that he was merely “calling out” politicians like Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who he suggests, while “in power, had said and done nothing”- reveals the shallow political calculation behind his original position. Starmer’s criticism of the Tories rings hollow when his own response has been to […] - [Britain Finally Faces Its Grooming Gang Shame: Starmer's Belated U-Turn on National Inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/britain-finally-faces-its-grooming-gang-shame-starmers-belated-u-turn-on-national-inquiry/): You cannot force out the darkness; you can only bring in the light. After months of resistance, political pressure, and moral cowardice, Britain will finally confront the systematic sexual abuse that authorities spent decades ignoring. Sir Keir Starmer has announced a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, a decision that should have been automatic, obvious, and immediate, but instead required months of political pressure, public outcry, and ultimately the intervention of a tech billionaire to shame the British establishment into action. The Prime Minister’s announcement, delivered on his way to a G7 summit as if it were an afterthought, represents […] - [Political Terrorism Comes to Minnesota: Democratic Lawmakers Targeted in Coordinated Assassination Plot](https://heartlandstribune.com/political-terrorism-comes-to-minnesota-democratic-lawmakers-targeted-in-coordinated-assassination-plot/): Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman killed, State Sen. John Hoffman in grave condition in ‘targeted political violence’ When political violence reaches the point of door-to-door executions, we’re no longer talking about polarisation; we’re witnessing the collapse of democratic norms in real time. Minnesota woke up Saturday to the kind of political terrorism that transforms democracies into battlegrounds. A gunman impersonating a police officer executed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home, then attempted to murder State Senator John Hoffman and his wife in a coordinated assassination campaign that has left one Democratic lawmaker dead and another fighting for life. […] - [Middle East on Brink: Israel Strikes Iran's Nuclear Heart](https://heartlandstribune.com/middle-east-on-brink-israel-strikes-irans-nuclear-heart/): Israel Recklessly Gambles Everything on “Operation Rising Lion” ” and the World Holds Its Breath From Gaza’s devastation to nuclear brinkmanship, Israel’s increasingly isolated government has chosen military escalation over diplomatic restraint, bringing the world a step closer to the abyss. What does it take to stop a man with nothing left to lose? Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s embattled prime minister, has just answered that question with airstrikes, assassinations, and a gamble that could set the Middle East ablaze. In the dead of night, 200 Israeli jets and covert drones struck deep into Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, air defences, and most provocatively, […] - [The £121 Million Question: Michelle Mone's PPE Windfall Under High Court Scrutiny](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-121-million-question-michelle-mones-ppe-windfall-under-high-court-scrutiny/): DHSC’s £122m claim against Michelle Mone-linked company reaches high court Government is seeking to recover money paid to PPE Medpro, which was recommended to ministers by peer While reporting on this issue, we bear in mind this is an ongoing legal case… When NHS workers were dying for lack of proper PPE, Conservative peer Michelle Mone’s associates secured a £121 million contract, now the subject of a High Court battle after the government claims the gowns were unusable. The High Court this week is hearing what may be one of the most significant public procurement disputes in modern British history. The […] - [The Butcher of the Treasury: How Rachel Reeves' Austerity 2.0 Slaughtered 109,000 Jobs Last Month](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-butcher-of-the-treasury/): The Employment Tax: Rachel Reeves’ NIC Hike Became a Job Destruction Machine When a government destroys a quarter of a million jobs and calls it fiscal responsibility, you know the lunatics have seized the Treasury. Today, Rachel Reeves will stride to the dispatch box and announce her latest round of “tough decisions” while carefully avoiding mention of the economic carnage her policies have already unleashed. One hundred and nine thousand jobs lost in a single month the worst employment collapse since the first Covid lockdown. Over 250,000 jobs vanished since her autumn budget. Unemployment at a four-year high. Business leaders blamed […] - [Labour's NHS Betrayal: Training Britain's Home Grown Future Nurses Gutted](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-nhs-betrayal-training-britains-future-nurses-gutted/): How Starmer’s Government is Strangling Our NHS at its Supposed Second Birth All eyes are on the Treasury this week as Rachel Reeves is set to lay out her spending review to Parliament on Wednesday. Rachel Reeves will take to the dispatch box and announce a record-breaking £30 billion boost to the NHS. The headlines will scream investment. Labour will clap itself on the back. But beneath the surface, something far uglier is taking place, a quiet cull of the very institutions that train the people who make the NHS possible. Because while the Chancellor talks of “rebuilding Britain,” her government […] - [The Rake Strikes Twice: Rachel Reeves’ Humiliating Winter Fuel Debacle – Time to Go](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rake-strikes-twice/): The Chancellor, who promised to be the Iron Lady of fiscal discipline, has just executed a humiliating U-turn on winter fuel payments that tells you everything you need to know about this government’s competence, priorities, and complete detachment from political reality. After months of defending the indefensible, Reeves finally bowed to public fury and restored winter fuel payments to pensioners earning £35,000 or less. This isn’t just a policy reversal, it’s a reflection of incompetence. The Anatomy of a Disaster Let’s trace the timeline of this fiasco. Last July, barely weeks after their landslide victory, Labour decided their first major domestic […] - [Freedom Flotilla: IDF ordered to stop Gaza-bound aid ship carrying Greta Thunberg](https://heartlandstribune.com/freedom-flotilla-idf-ordered-to-stop-gaza-bound-aid-ship-carrying-greta-thunberg/): Greta Thunberg is prepared to give her life in exchange for 100 kilograms of flour for the starving in Gaza.” Let that sink in. A 22-year-old climate activist is risking her life to deliver food to starving civilians under siege. You don’t have to agree with Greta on climate change or anything else, for that matter, but what you can’t deny is this: while she risks everything to defy a military blockade with sacks of flour, the so-called leaders of the so-called free world won’t even risk a raised eyebrow. Her courage exposes their cowardice. They could stop this genocide without […] - [The Reform Hokey Cokey: Yusuf's 24-Hour U-Turn](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-reform-hokey-cokey-yusufs-24-hour-u-turn/): You put your chairman in, you take your chairman out, in-out-in-out, you shake it all about… Just when you thought Reform UK couldn’t get any more farcical, Zia Yusuf has performed the political equivalent of the Hokey Cokey. After dramatically quitting as party chairman over the burka ban controversy, he’s now back, 24 hours later, in a shiny new role inspired by Musk’s, Doge. The Great Flip-Flop Two days ago, Yusuf declared that getting a Reform government elected was no longer “a good use of my time” and dramatically resigned in disgust over the party’s direction. Yesterday, after receiving “a huge […] - [D-Day: The Normandy Landings Strategy, Sacrifice, and Survival](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-facts-you-may-not-know-about-d-day/): Reflections on the Triumph of D-Day: Unveiling Fascinating Aspects of the Momentous WWII Operation Today marks a significant milestone in the annals of history, as we commemorate the moment when the tides began to turn against the Nazis during World War II. On June 6, 1944, in what has come to be known as the Normandy landings or “D-Day,” thousands of brave men and women prepared to partake in an operation that would signal the beginning of the end of the war. With meticulous planning and the involvement of over 130,000 Allied troops, this audacious endeavour would forever etch its name […] - [Burka Ban Row Triggers Reform UK Chairman’s Exit](https://heartlandstribune.com/burka-ban-row-triggers-reform-uk-chairmans-exit/): Has the veil slipped, revealing a Party less about policy, more about reheated culture wars…Is this the real face behind Reform? Zia Yusuf has resigned as chairman of Reform UK, and despite the diplomatic language about it no longer being “a good use of my time,” this is a damning indictment of everyone involved. Let’s cut through the political spin. Yusuf didn’t just wake up one morning and decide politics was boring. His resignation came immediately after he publicly called it “dumb” for Reform’s newest MP to demand Sir Keir Starmer ban the burka. The Party chairman, supposedly steering the ship, […] - [Warfare over Welfare: Starmer's Phoney War](https://heartlandstribune.com/warfare-over-welfare-starmers-phoney-war/): Eisenhower’s Warning: How Your Money Funds Their Wars Starmer says ‘it’s Securing Britain’s Future’, but it’s their profits they’re doing it for… “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961 That was 1961. A Republican president. A five-star general. A man who’d seen war up close and understood its true cost. He tried to warn us about what was coming: a cancer that would eat democracy from within, a union of arms manufacturers, politicians, and profiteers that would push […] - [Fourth Man Arrested at Stansted Over Fires Linked to Keir Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/fourth-man-arrested-at-stansted-over-fires-linked-to-keir-starmer/): Fourth man arrested at Stansted Airport over fires at properties linked to Keir Starmer A fourth suspect has been arrested in connection with a string of suspected arson attacks targeting properties associated with Sir Keir Starmer. The 48-year-old man was detained at Stansted Airport on Monday by Met Police officers on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. The arrest follows a series of incidents earlier in May, including a car fire on 8 May, a blaze at a converted house in Islington on 11 May, and two further fires in Kentish Town on 12 May. Ukrainian […] - [Europe's War Hawks Drive Us Toward Nuclear Catastrophe](https://heartlandstribune.com/europes-war-hawks-drive-us-toward-nuclear-catastrophe/): Taking us to The Edge of Reason… The US is now pushing both Ukraine and Russia toward a ceasefire. Even Washington recognises this conflict has reached a dangerous tipping point where miscalculation could trigger global catastrophe. But while Trump’s administration represents a step change from Biden’s proxy war strategy, the so-called “coalition of the willing”, led by Starmer, Macron, Metz and hawkish elements within the EU, are recklessly accelerating toward wider conflict; it seems their economies have too much invested in war for peace. They are gambling with nuclear fire. And we are the stakes… Crossing Red Lines In the last […] - [NHS Sold Out: How Private Healthcare Lobbyists Bought Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/nhs-sold-out-how-private-healthcare-lobbyists-bought-westminster/): Labour’s Shame: Senior Party Members Linked to Private Healthcare Interests “The NHS will last as long as there’s folk left with faith to fight for it” – Aneurin Bevan And at this rate, that’s looking like till the end of this parliament… The cry goes up from surgeries and hospital corridors, from overstretched nurses and worried patients: Who is fighting for the NHS? The answer, more and more, appears to be: no one in Westminster. The latest revelations from campaign group EveryDoctor uncover a web of financial ties so dense, so shameless, it reads less like democratic governance and more like […] - [A New Party for a Broken Nation: The Rise of the NDP](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-new-party-for-a-broken-nation-the-rise-of-the-ndp/): Can Britain’s New Left Break the Tory-Labour Duopoly? There is a cry for a new left-wing party echoing across Britain, a resounding call for real change. For over a century, the political landscape has been dominated by a tired duopoly: Labour and the Tories, two faces of a system that no longer serves the people it claims to represent. Protest votes have been scattered to the Greens, Lib Dems, and independents, but beneath the surface, a more profound shift is underway; a growing constellation of serious alternatives is beginning to take shape. The Workers Party of Great Britain has proven that […] - [Rachel Reeves to Announce Billions in Regional Spending: Pie in the Sky Doesn’t Feed the Whippets](https://heartlandstribune.com/rachel-reeves-to-announce-billions-in-regional-spending/): Another Day, Another ‘Levelling Up’ Lie: Why the North Keeps Getting Shafted Pie in the sky doesn’t put bacon on the table, clothes on the kids’ backs, or food in the whippet’s bowl. And no matter how glossy the announcements from Westminster, people in the old industrial heartlands are sick to death of being sold shiny illusions from behind a London desk. Here we go again. Next month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce “billions” in extra capital spending for areas outside the South East. We’re told this will follow a review of the Treasury’s infamous Green Book, the bureaucratic […] - [Paul Doyle: Liverpool Parade Rampage Suspect Charged](https://heartlandstribune.com/paul-doyle-liverpool-parade-rampage-suspect-charged/): Ex-Royal Marine Commando Charged After 79 Injured in Liverpool Victory Parade Crash A dad-of-three and former Royal Marine has been charged after a vehicle drove into crowds celebrating Liverpool FC’s Premier League title win, leaving 79 people injured, including a child who remains in hospital with serious injuries. Paul Doyle, 53, from the West Derby area of Liverpool, is facing multiple charges including dangerous driving, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent to cause GBH, and attempted GBH. He is due to appear at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on Thursday. The horrifying incident unfolded on Monday afternoon as thousands of […] - [From Assange to Winstanley: Dawn Raids & Thought Crimes How Britain’s Police State Targets Journalists Exposing Gaza ](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-assange-to-winstanley/): Britain’s Authoritarian Playbook for Silencing Dissent Democracy Dies in the Dawn Light… What does it tell us about the state of British democracy when ten Metropolitan Police officers can storm a journalist’s home at dawn, armed with illegally obtained warrants, simply because a journalist dared to report uncomfortable truths about Gaza? The answer arrived last week in a damning court ruling that should make every defender of press freedom, and indeed, every British citizen who believes in the rule of law, sit up and take notice. Judge Mark Lucraft KC didn’t merely slap the Metropolitan Police on the wrist; he delivered […] - [Liverpool Parade: 53-Year-Old British Man Arrested After Car Drove into Crowd](https://heartlandstribune.com/liverpool-parade-53-year-old-british-man-arrested-after-car-hits-drove-into-crowd/): BREAKING: 53-Year-Old British Man Arrested After Car Hits Pedestrians in Liverpool City Centre Merseyside Police have confirmed that a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area has been arrested following a serious incident on Water Street this evening. Emergency services rushed to the scene shortly after 6:00pm after reports that a car had collided with multiple pedestrians in the heart of Liverpool’s city centre. The full extent of injuries is not yet confirmed, and there is no official word on fatalities. The incident occurred just hours after large crowds had gathered nearby to celebrate Liverpool FC’s Premier League trophy parade. […] - [Rebuild or Rot: Tariffs, The Case for British Industrial Renaissance](https://heartlandstribune.com/rebuild-or-rot/): If Trump’s Tariffs Have Shown Us Anything, It’s That We Must Rebuild or Rot For decades, tariffs have been dismissed as crude relics of a bygone era, blunt instruments unsuited to our sophisticated global economy. But after thirty years of offshoring, deindustrialisation, and environmental devastation, it’s time to dust them off. Because the real obscenity isn’t a tariff on foreign goods, it’s a trade system built on exploitation, child labour, and national suicide disguised as economic progress. It’s time we stopped calling that “free trade” and started calling it what it is: a race to the bottom that’s destroying both planet […] - [The Corbyn Waiting Room: How Good Intentions Became Political Purgatory](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-corbyn-waiting-room-how-good-intentions-became-political-purgatory/): Despite the Headlines, Jeremy Corbyn Has Not Announced a New Political Party Despite breathless headlines and wishful speculation, Jeremy Corbyn has not launched a new political Party. He hasn’t announced one, endorsed one, or committed to leading one. Earlier this May, over 200 people gathered in Huddersfield for what some hoped might signal the birth of something transformative. The People’s Alliance for Change and Equality (PACE) brought together a notable line-up: former Labour MP Claudia Webbe, former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, Independent MP Iqbal Mohammed, Liverpool councillor Alan Gibbons, former Respect leader Salma Yaqoob, and, inevitably, Corbyn himself. But […] - [Too Little, Too Late: Starmer's Damascene Conversion on Gaza](https://heartlandstribune.com/too-little-too-late-starmers-damascene-conversion-on-gaza/): Look at Sir Keir Starmer now, suddenly “outraged” and “deeply concerned” as 14,000 Gazan babies face starvation. The same Keir Starmer who nodded approvingly as Israel turned off water and power to 2.3 million civilians. The same Keir Starmer who kept the weapons flowing as hospitals were bombed to dust. The same Keir Starmer who couldn’t find his spine for nearly 2 years of slaughter. This isn’t a moral awakening. This is damage control. With The Hague sharpening its knives for Netanyahu and his enablers, our Foreign Office has made a remarkable discovery: apparently genocide is bad for Britain’s brand. Who […] - [Free from Brussels: Why Britain's Working Class Must Forge Its Own Future ](https://heartlandstribune.com/free-from-brussels-why-britains-working-class-must-forge-its-own-future/): Rejoining the EU? Not If You Care About Britain’s Working Class The EU was never built for workers. It was designed by bankers, for bankers, with a rulebook written in the language of capital. Those pushing for a return to Brussels’ embrace, whether through Starmer’s “reset” or eventual ‘rejoin’, have conveniently forgotten that the loudest and most principled opposition to the European project once came from the democratic socialist tradition. Brexit Was a Working-Class Revolt Against the EU’s Neoliberal Empire The Working Class Voted Out for a Reason  It wasn’t xenophobia or nostalgia that drove Brexit. It wasn’t racist pensioners or […] - [From Sunderland to Brussels: Starmer Abandons the Working Class Again](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-sunderland-to-brussels-starmer-abandons-the-working-class-again/): Starmer’s EU Crawl: How Political Class Failed Britain Before Brexit and Will Fail Again The Neoliberal Reset… As Sir Keir Starmer’s negotiators burn the midnight oil ahead of his grand EU love-in with Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, it’s worth remembering one simple truth: the political class that impoverished Britain within the EU is the same political class now desperate to drag us back into its orbit. This isn’t about Brexit versus Remain anymore. It’s about a fundamental failure of Britain’s political establishment, regardless of Party badge, to serve the interests of ordinary people while blaming others for their […] - [Keir Starmer Accused of Complicity in Gaza Genocide Amid Mass Protest](https://heartlandstribune.com/keir-starmer-accused-of-complicity-in-gaza-genocide-amid-mass-protest/): 600,000 March on Downing Street While Starmer Turns His Back on Gaza Genocide As Israel intensifies its bombing campaign in Gaza, preparing for yet another ground assault to add to its mounting war crimes, 600,000 British citizens delivered a message that Sir Keir Starmer seems determined to ignore: cut ties with the perpetrators of genocide. In one of the largest demonstrations since Britain’s illegal invasion of Iraq, central London was transformed Saturday into a sea of Palestinian flags and demands for justice as hundreds of thousands marked the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, “the catastrophe” that saw Zionist militias ethnically cleanse […] - [Taxi For Lammy: A Tale of Two Journeys](https://heartlandstribune.com/taxi-for-lammy-a-tale-of-two-journeys/): A Foreign Secretary’s Alpine Misadventure We’ve all got a bad taxi tale after a heavy Saturday night out, but this diplomatic drama takes the fare, the tip, and possibly the luggage as well. Two journeys unfolded simultaneously last month: one across the picturesque Alps, the other through the treacherous terrain of international incident, media spin, and political career suicide. David Lammy, our esteemed Foreign Secretary and Labour MP for Tottenham, found his spring holiday transformed into what can only be described as a master class in how to confirm every stereotype about entitled politicians who’ve forgotten where they came from. This, […] - [Thames Water Failing: Thatcher left this country “Plundered”](https://heartlandstribune.com/thames-water-is-failing/): The betrayal continues. No matter the rosette colour pinned to the government benches, the result remains grimly consistent: a conveyor belt of public money into private pockets. Our water, our energy, our railways, our NHS, each transformed into extraction machines designed to siphon wealth from the many to the few. Our resources, our basic needs, our pockets, they steal from… Thames Water stands as perhaps the most grotesque monument to this national plundering. Drowning in £20 billion of debt, leaking both sewage and money, teetering on the edge of collapse, and yet somehow, miraculously, always managing to find the cash for […] - [Another Day, Another Scandal: Tory MP Charged With Sexual Assaults at Elite Private Club](https://heartlandstribune.com/another-day-another-scandal/): The Palace of Varieties’ The Darkest Show Westminster, the “Palace of Varieties” as the legendary Dennis Skinner aptly called it, continues its long tradition of moral squalor and sexual misconduct. While schoolchildren are taught that Parliament is the cradle of democracy, in reality, it’s more often the brothel of power, where deviancy is dressed in pinstripes and protected by privilege. For such a small collection of people, our political class certainly produces an extraordinary number of sex pests, gropers, and alleged assailants. In the latest episode of “MPs Behaving Badly,” Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Patrick Spencer has been charged […] - [Labour's War on the Disabled Puts Tory Cuts to Shame](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-war-on-the-disabled-puts-tory-cuts-to-shame/): From Opposition to Oppressor:  Starmer’s Benefit Cuts Target Disabled & Poor Families Remember when Sir Keir Starmer, that paragon of principled opposition, stood in the Commons and denounced the Tories’ £20 Universal Credit cut as “indefensible,” “unfair,” and “unacceptable”? How his voice quivered with righteous indignation as he championed the vulnerable against Conservative cruelty? What hollow performance that was. With the government benches still warm from those pampered Tory behinds, Starmer has revealed his true colours, not red, but the deepest, darkest blue. The Wolf of Westminster has shed his sheep’s clothing, and his first meal is the disabled and the […] - [Ministry of Truth Redux: Media Lies, NATO Expansion, and the Road to Kyiv](https://heartlandstribune.com/ministry-of-truth-redux/): The Architects of Conflict: How the West Was Manufactured Into War in Ukraine  In George Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth rewrote history to fit the Party’s latest lies, and the Ministry of Peace waged endless wars in the name of harmony. Today, Orwell’s fiction has become our foreign policy. The war in Ukraine is not just a tragedy, it is a meticulously scripted performance, choreographed by the empire and sold to the public as liberation. In a rare moment of candour, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, offers a devastating account of […] - [The Poppy Has Withered: Harry Leslie Smith's Warning We Failed to Heed](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-poppy-has-withered-harry-leslie-smiths-warning-we-failed-to-heed/): On this 80th anniversary of VE Day, as the last veterans gather in dwindling numbers, I find myself returning to the prophetic words of Harry Leslie Smith. His 2013 Guardian article “This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time” resonates even more powerfully today than when he wrote it, twelve years and countless conflicts ago. Harry Leslie Smith, RAF veteran, working-class warrior, and defender of the welfare state, died in 2018 at the age of 95. If he were alive today, I suspect he would look upon these celebrations with a mixture of sorrow and righteous anger. He […] - [VE Day: Remembering Those Who Fought Fascism So We Might Live Free](https://heartlandstribune.com/ve-day-remembering-those-who-fought-fascism-so-we-might-live-free/): Today marks the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, a moment to pause and honour the sacrifice of millions who stood against the darkest tide of fascism the world has ever known. As the dwindling number of veterans, many now centenarians, gather at memorials across Britain, we at Labour Heartlands offer our profound gratitude. These men and women, from miners who swapped coal faces for battlefields, to factory workers who exchanged production lines for front lines, represent the finest tradition of working-class internationalism. D-Day remains history’s largest amphibious invasion, a testament to what ordinary people can achieve when unified against […] - [VE Day: The End of WWII in Europe](https://heartlandstribune.com/ve-day-the-75th-anniversary-of-end-of-wwii-in-europe/): The Day that Changed the World: Remembering VE Day 1945 May 8th, 1945, will forever be etched in the collective consciousness of those who bore witness to it, the indelible mark of VE (Victory in Europe) Day. It signified the long-awaited culmination of an arduous struggle spanning nearly six years, a war that exacted a devastating toll, claiming the lives of millions, laying waste to homes, families, and cities, and subjecting entire nations to unfathomable suffering and deprivation. As news of Germany’s unconditional surrender reverberated across the globe, a wave of profound relief washed over the masses, for the burdensome weight […] - [The Left's Missing Piece: Why Vision Matters More Than Party Cards](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-lefts-missing-piece/): Beyond Starmer’s Wasteland: The Urgent Need for a New Working-Class Politics Under the shadow of Chesterfield’s famous crooked spire, I carried out my annual May Day pilgrimage, that essential gathering of the British left in its most traditional sense. As always, the parade was magnificent: trade union banners held high, brass bands playing, the PCS Samba Protest Band lifting the crowds and the weathered faces of men and women who’ve spent decades in the struggle, marching alongside fresh-faced youth not yet beaten down by capitalism’s relentless assault. The guest speakers came and went, some inspiring, others rehashing familiar rhetoric. But as […] - [A Garland for May Day](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-garland-for-may-day/): 🌹 A Garland for May Day 🌹 This stunning cover art from The Clarion, 1 May 1895, wasn’t just decoration—it was a declaration of war against exploitation. Illustrated by Walter Crane, one of Britain’s most politically radical artists, for his collection Cartoons for the Cause, this powerful image celebrated international workers’ solidarity during the rise of socialist and trade union movements in Britain. Crane’s deliberate use of red flowers, the freedom of the flying doves, and the breaking chains all symbolise liberation from capitalism’s bonds. The central female figure represents both liberty and the dignity of labour—a radical vision in Victorian […] - [Open Letter to Labour MPs: Remove Starmer, or the Ballot Box Will Remove You](https://heartlandstribune.com/open-letter-to-labour-mps/): A message from the betrayed, the forgotten, and the no-longer-silent majority After just ten months in power, the verdict is in. The public hasn’t just spoken, it has roared. The message is loud and clear, whether you’re ready to hear it or not. Dump Starmer or Face Electoral Oblivion… The Catastrophe You Cannot Spin Away Labour didn’t just lose a few council seats. You were routed. You suffered the worst local election defeat in your party’s 124-year history, losing two-thirds of your councillors in a single night. You failed to gain control of a single council anywhere in the country. Not […] - [From Welfare State to Surveillance State: Labour's Algorithmic Crackdown on the Poor](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-welfare-state-to-surveillance-state/): The Rich Hide Billions While Labour Riles Through Your Pittance  Red Tories, Blue Methods: Labour’s Dystopian Mass Surveillance Plan Would Create Financial Apartheid… Oh, how wonderful to live in Starmer’s Britain, where the government’s idea of justice is to deploy algorithmic bloodhounds to sniff through the bank accounts of pensioners and disabled people while billionaires continue stashing their wealth in offshore hidey-holes with the full blessing of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.  Welcome to the new age of haves and have-nots, where if you’re wealthy enough to hire a tax consultant, your financial affairs remain sacrosanct, but if you’re poor enough […] - [Carney, Starmer and Merz: The Rise of The Trilaterals](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rise-of-the-trilaterals/): Carney’s Canada, Starmer’s Britain, Merz’s Germany: The New Technocratic Axis Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has claimed a remarkable election victory in Canada, dealing a devastating blow to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who not only lost the federal election but his own seat in Carleton, Ontario. The Canadian electorate’s rejection of Poilievre represents a two-fingered salute to Trump’s escalating trade war, and something far more significant for those paying attention.  Carney’s ascent to power completes a troubling trifecta. The former Goldman Sachs banker and Bank of England governor now joins Sir Keir Starmer and incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as the third […] - [Starmer's Labour Shows Its Disciplinary Double Standards Over Clive Lewis Post ](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-labour-shows-its-disciplinary-double-standards-over-clive-lewis-post/): In an all-too-familiar display of selective outrage, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has rushed to discipline one of its few remaining left-wing MPs while continuing to ignore inflammatory statements from its pro-Israel contingent.  Clive Lewis, the Norwich South MP who once had the temerity to challenge Starmer for the Party leadership, has been formally reprimanded for sharing a social media post that accused the Prime Minister of taking “Israel’s money and orders” a statement the Party apparatus has condemned as containing “incorrect and unacceptable tropes.”  The post in question, originally shared by historian Louise Raw, featured an image of a distressed […] - [Airstrip One on Standby: When the Gunships Arrived, We Knew What Would Follow](https://heartlandstribune.com/airstrip-one-on-standby/): The gunships arrived first. That should have told us everything. The strategic movements of forces to Airstrip One indicate a serious military posture. Between 3 and 6 January, at least eleven US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlifters touched down at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. These were not routine training flights. Most originated from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known colloquially as the Night Stalkers. Two AC-130J Ghostrider gunships landed at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. MH-47 Chinooks and MH-60M Black Hawks, the modified helicopters that belong to America’s most elite rapid-response forces, were reportedly […] - [Piracy by Another Name: When the Rules-Based Order Becomes a Permissions-Based Racket](https://heartlandstribune.com/piracy-by-another-name/): When does sanctions enforcement become an act of war? That question ceased being theoretical on Wednesday morning, 190 miles off Iceland’s southern coast, when US military forces boarded and seized the Russian-flagged oil tanker Marinera in international waters. The vessel, empty of cargo but laden with geopolitical significance, had been pursued across the Atlantic for over two weeks by American Coast Guard cutters, surveillance aircraft, and special operations forces staging from British bases. Russian naval assets, including a submarine, shadowed the chase. The boarding was successful. No shots were fired. And the world has moved one boarding party closer to the […] - [The Carve-Up Begins: The Birth of a New Totalitarian Order?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-carve-up-begins/): From Caracas to Greenland: The Return of Raw Resource Imperialism When the Chinese state broadcaster’s former interpreter warns that his country “will not allow you to fire the second shot,” we should perhaps stop pretending this is normal diplomatic theatre. When the President of the United States threatens military force to seize Greenland while his special forces kidnap a sovereign head of state for the crime of nationalising oil that was, in living memory, his country’s own property, we might consider that something fundamental has shifted. The question is not whether we stand at a dangerous juncture. The question is what […] - [When Contracts Trump Carriers: How Beijing Turned Trump's Venezuela Raid Into the Opening Shot of a New Cold War](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-contracts-trump-carriers/): Venezuela Raid: China’s ‘Lawfare’ Response and a New World Order comes with a $105 Billion Question: Can Contracts Survive Regime Change? Does anyone seriously believe that Washington’s midnight raid on Caracas was about cocaine or that Nicolás Maduro will get a fair trial? In the early hours of 3 January 2026, over 150 American aircraft bombed Venezuela’s capital while Delta Force operators plucked Nicolás Maduro from his presidential compound and flew him, handcuffed and blindfolded, to a Manhattan courtroom. Donald Trump, basking in Mar-a-Lago’s winter sun, declared the United States would “run Venezuela” and hinted at seizing the country’s oil reserves. […] - [Pax Americana Without Apology: Trump Claims Venezuela, Oil and All](https://heartlandstribune.com/pax-americana-without-apology/): “We’re Going to Run It”: Trump Announces US Military Occupation of Venezuela The old empires at least had the decency to lie about their intentions. They spoke of civilizing missions and the white man’s burden, of bringing enlightenment to backward peoples. The pretence was grotesque, but it was there. Donald Trump dispensed with even that courtesy on Saturday. Hours after US forces bombed Caracas and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro, he stood before the cameras at Mar-a-Lago and announced: “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” Not “support democracy.” Not […] - [Oil, Arrest Warrants and Airstrikes: Venezuela as Imperial Crime Scene](https://heartlandstribune.com/oil-arrest-warrants-and-airstrikes-venezuela-as-imperial-crime-scene/): Let’s Not Kid Ourselves: From Iraq to Caracas: The Same War Script, the Same Resource Prize There are moments in history when the mask slips so completely that even the official story reads like satire. Saturday morning in Caracas was one of them. According to Donald Trump, the United States has conducted a “large-scale” military strike on Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and flown them out of the country to face trial in America. If true, this represents one of the most brazen violations of international law since the invasion of Iraq. If untrue, it still […] - [This is Not a Silver Lining: It's a Market Warning of Economic Collapse](https://heartlandstribune.com/this-is-not-a-silver-lining/): The Silver Signal: A Cost-of-Living Crisis and Geopolitical Fracture When markets hedge, they do so quietly. When silver breaks records, it tells us something politicians refuse to acknowledge. But the metal is only the canary. The coal mine is Britain’s catastrophic dependence on supply chains controlled by a strategic rival. There is a peculiar honesty about precious metals. They cannot be spun by press officers, massaged by statisticians, or explained away by ministers clutching their briefing papers. When an ounce of silver is worth more than a barrel of oil, pushing above £60 per troy ounce (its sterling equivalent of the […] - [A New Year's Message from Labour Heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-new-years-message/): To our readers, supporters, contributors, and fellow travellers, As the year turns, we want to thank you. Not with platitudes, but with honesty. The past year has not been easy for the common people of this country. Living standards have continued to fall, trust in institutions has drained away, and politics has too often felt like something done to us rather than with us. Many of you feel politically homeless. We hear that, because we feel it too. It has not been an easy year for Labour Heartlands either. Like much independent working-class media, we have faced real financial pressure simply […] - [The Slow Normalisation of Militarisation: Inside the UK's New Defence Scheme A Gap Year in Uniform](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-slow-normalisation-of-militarisation/): A Gap Year in Uniform? “Militarised Keynesianism isn’t an industrial strategy, it’s a business model that requires permanent WAR to stay profitable…” The government has announced a new “gap year” scheme offering young people a short, paid taste of life in the Army, Navy or RAF. It’s being sold as an opportunity. In reality, it reads more like a sticking plaster over a much deeper wound. Let’s be honest about what’s going on. We’re told 150 young people will be recruited in the first year, with vague promises of growth later. No clear pay. No clear career pathway. No clarity on […] - [Merry Christmas: Wishing You All Health, Wealth and Happiness in The New Year Ahead.](https://heartlandstribune.com/merry-christmas-to-all-wishing-you-health-wealth-and-happiness-in-the-new-year-ahead/): Warm Christmas Wishes As the glow of Christmas lights chases away the winter darkness, we at Labour Heartlands want to extend heartfelt greetings to all our wonderful readers. Especially our loyal supporters who, throughout the year, have kept our site going strong, enabling us to provide ad-free content. We are sincerely grateful. In this festive season, we hope you enjoy quality time with loved ones, comfort foods, and a respite from the grind of daily life. Even as the world sometimes seems full of gloom, let us not lose sight of the spirit of Christmas -believer or not – family, generosity, […] - [When Piracy Becomes Policy: America's Venezuelan Oil Grab and the Return of Gunboat Diplomacy](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-piracy-becomes-policy/): Gunboat Diplomacy Returns: The US Blockade of Venezuela When does a naval blockade stop being law enforcement and become what it actually is: piracy on the high seas? The answer, apparently, is when Washington decides that international law is an inconvenience rather than a constraint. The US Coast Guard is currently pursuing vessels in international waters near Venezuela, having already seized two oil tankers this month alone. On Saturday, a tactical team boarded a Panama-flagged vessel in international waters. Another pursuit is underway. The Trump administration calls this sanctions enforcement. Venezuela calls it piracy. International law suggests Venezuela has the better […] - [War at All Costs: How the West's Ukraine Billions Fund Corporate Boardrooms While Working-Class Bodies Fill Trenches](https://heartlandstribune.com/war-at-all-costs/): The Forever Wars… When the cheques being written exceed the GDP of nations, when the sums involved could rebuild entire regions, and when the bills keep mounting while the bodies keep falling, you have to stop and ask: who exactly is this war serving? The European Union has just committed €90 billion to Ukraine over two years. Not as a gift, mind you, but as a loan backed by European taxpayers rather than frozen Russian assets (Belgium’s concerns about potential liability proved sufficient to scupper that more palatable arrangement). This comes atop the United States’ staggering $175 billion in approved spending […] - [Pandora's Bank Vault: Why Seizing Russian Assets Will Break International Law](https://heartlandstribune.com/pandoras-bank-vault/): The Legal Minefield: Why Seizing Russian Assets Could Backfire on the West Whatever view you may take of the war in Ukraine, whether Russia is seen as an aggressor or as a state intervening after years of civil conflict, NATO expansion and geopolitical pressure, one fact remains unchanged: international law does not bend to moral narratives or political convenience. Across Europe, governments are now considering the unprecedented seizure of Russian state assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort. This is being presented as justice, accountability, even necessity. But beneath the rhetoric lies a far more serious question, one that has little to […] - [FEAR INC: THE MANUFACTURED CONSENT FOR PERMANENT WAR](https://heartlandstribune.com/fear-inc-the-manufactured-consent-for-permanent-war/): Manufacturing Fear to Fund a War Economy They are at it again. Can you hear the drumbeat? It is getting louder, faster, and more frantic. The establishment and their media stenographers are busy building a consensus, ramping up the fear, and preparing the ground. Preparing it for what? For the only solution they ever have: handing over more of your public money to the industrial arms complex. We have seen this playbook before. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Libya threatened regional stability. Assad must go. The threat is manufactured, the fear is amplified, and the solution is presented as a […] - [Wes Streeting's Smear Campaign: Flu, Fear and Strikes](https://heartlandstribune.com/wes-streetings-smear-campaign/): The BMA Strikes Back: Accusing Streeting of “Scaremongering the Public” Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer are weaponising the winter flu crisis to break the BMA, proving once again that this Labour government is more interested in fighting its own workforce than saving the NHS. When a Labour Health Secretary sounds indistinguishable from his Tory predecessors, something has gone profoundly wrong. Wes Streeting is weaponising winter flu to break the British Medical Association, proving that this government cares more about crushing its own workforce than saving the NHS. The flu comes every December. It is as predictable as Christmas itself. Yet here […] - [Jennifer Melle: The NHS's Caught in an Ideological Purity Spiral](https://heartlandstribune.com/jennifer-melle-nhs-ideological-purity-spiral/): NHS Punishes Nurse for “Misgendering” a Racist Paedophile Patient. The case of Jennifer Melle shows an NHS that will discipline women for stating biological reality while tiptoeing around convicted sex offenders. This is what institutional capture looks like. There is a line every civilised society should be able to draw without hesitation… On one side: a black nurse with twelve years’ unblemished service, racially abused by a convicted male paedophile, standing her ground on matters of biology and conscience. On the other: the NHS Trust that gave her a final written warning, referred her to regulators as a “potential risk to […] - [Borders, Big Business and a Broken Social Contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/borders-big-business-and-a-broken-social-contract/): Why Defending Britain’s Borders Is a Working-Class Issue When did defending your country’s borders become right-wing? When did suggesting that mass migration serves Capital rather than the common people become unspeakable in polite progressive company? And when, precisely, did the British left decide that working-class communities must simply absorb unprecedented demographic change while being called bigots for noticing? These questions cut to the heart of what socialism means. Because if socialism is not about protecting the material interests of working people, the security of their communities, and their democratic right to determine who enters their country, then it is not socialism […] - [Sandie Peggie and the Institutional Madness That Chose Ideology Over Women](https://heartlandstribune.com/sandie-peggie/): Nurse Sandie Peggie wins harassment claim against NHS Fife A 318-page tribunal judgment confirms what working women already knew: Britain’s public institutions will sacrifice them on the altar of fashionable nonsense Ask yourself a simple question. What kind of health service suspends an experienced nurse for objecting to undressing beside a man in a women’s changing room? What kind of organisation spends over £250,000 of public money defending that suspension? And what kind of political class watches this unfold and calls it progress? The answer arrived in 318 pages: the kind captured by ideology so completely that biological reality, women’s dignity, […] - [Trans Liberation or Socialism: You Can't Have Both](https://heartlandstribune.com/trans-liberation-or-socialism-you-cant-have-both/): Socialism or Ultra-Liberalism? The Left’s Defining Choice The entire trans debate is coming to a head, and the left is fracturing along predictable lines. The Girl Guides have reversed their 2017 policy and banned males who identify as women from their ranks. The Women’s Institute, which has welcomed women since the 1970s, has followed suit. Meanwhile, Your Party, the newly formed outfit claiming to be a socialist alternative, has overwhelmingly voted to enshrine “trans liberation” in its founding documents. These demands, backed enthusiastically by Zarah Sultana, come from the Trans Liberation Group, an extremist faction that wants to defy the Supreme […] - [Welcome to the Ministry of Truth: Labour's 'Fear Act' Receives Royal Assent](https://heartlandstribune.com/welcome-to-the-ministry-of-truth-labours-fear-act-receives-royal-assent/): Welcome to the Ministry of Truth: How Labour’s Fraud Act Deputises Your Bank as State Informant The Ministry of Truth is Open for Business: New ‘FEAR Act’ Unleashes Orwellian Nightmare on the Working Class… When a piece of legislation acquires a nickname before it even receives Royal Assent, you know something has gone badly wrong. The “FEAR Act” they are calling it, and fear is precisely what the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025 is designed to instil. Not in tax evaders hiding millions in offshore accounts. Not in the organised criminal gangs milking public contracts for billions. But […] - [The Last Jury: When Labour Tore Up Magna Carta](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-last-jury-when-labour-tore-up-magna-carta/): Labour Is Extinguishing the Light of English Liberty 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Last Jury: When Labour Tore Up Magna Carta (MP3) When a government announces it will strip away an 800-year-old constitutional protection in the name of efficiency, you know something has gone terribly wrong. Not with the system it claims to fix, but with the government itself. David Lammy, Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, stood before Parliament this week to announce what he doubtless considers a triumph of pragmatic modernisation. Jury trials, that ancient bulwark against tyranny, will now be abolished for any offence carrying a likely sentence […] - [Post Office scandal: Police consider corporate manslaughter charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/post-office-scandal/): Police Weigh Corporate Manslaughter Charges as Post Office Scandal Probe Reaches “Persons of Interest” Police investigating Britain’s worst miscarriage of justice are now considering corporate manslaughter charges. The National Police Chiefs’ Council confirmed that fifty-three persons of interest are now under examination, with eight individuals remaining formal suspects in Operation Olympos, the sprawling criminal investigation into the Post Office Horizon scandal. This is not merely a story of faulty software. Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongfully convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty Horizon data, with about 700 of these prosecutions carried out by […] - [Budget Fallout: Sir Keir Starmer Denies Misleading on the State of Public Finances](https://heartlandstribune.com/budget-fallout/): Budget Fallout: PM Defends Chancellor Amidst “Misleading” Claims, Economic Uncertainty Lingers When the Chancellor Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Black Hole What does it tell us about the state of British politics when even the BBC’s political editor, typically as circumspect as a Victorian undertaker, feels compelled to accuse a Labour Chancellor of misleading the public? Chris Mason’s unusually blunt assessment that Rachel Reeves “misled” voters in the run-up to her Budget represents more than journalistic candour. It exposes the rot at the heart of a government that has mastered the dark art of manufactured crisis. The facts, when […] - [The Stillborn Revolution: How Your Party Died Before It Was Even Named](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-stillborn-revolution/): The Graveyard of Socialist Hopes: On The Menu Infanticide and Fratricide, Your Party’s Liverpool Debacle. 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Stillborn Revolution: How Your Party Died Before It Was Even Named (MP3) Can a political movement survive when its founders cannot occupy the same room without accusations of witch hunts, sexist boys’ clubs, and smears? The answer arrived in Liverpool this weekend, where the wreckage of what might have been Britain’s socialist future lay scattered across the conference floor of a party that hasn’t even settled on a permanent name. By a margin so razor-thin it might as well have been […] - [Labour Heartlands: 'Your Party' Conference Message](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-heartlands-your-party-conference-message/): A Message to Those Still Fighting for a Working-Class Alternative Let’s be honest: we’ve been watching the unfolding drama inside Your Party (the rows, the withdrawals, the donations vanishing into administrative purgatory, the liberal identity-politics tug-of-war, the expulsions) and we can all see the same thing. There is potential for a new working-class party in Britain. But only if someone finally gets a grip on party discipline and cuts loose the liberal anchor that’s dragging the whole project to the seabed. For all our disagreements with Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and the assorted leadership clique around them, the simple truth is […] - [Labour Ditches Day-One Protection from Unfair Dismissal: The Party of Business Completes Its Betrayal of Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-ditches-day-one-protection-from-unfair-dismissal/): When did anyone seriously expect Labour to keep its word on workers’ rights? Somewhere between Tony Blair’s Clause IV moment and Rachel Reeves prostrating herself before the City, the party of Keir Hardie became the party of boardroom appeasement. This week’s humiliating U-turn on day-one protection from unfair dismissal simply confirms what we already knew: Labour stopped being a workers’ party long ago. The betrayal is precise and documented. In their 2024 manifesto and accompanying “Plan to Make Work Pay,” Labour explicitly promised to introduce basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal. Ministers […] - [Your Party Members Have Just Hours Left: The Democratic Window Is Slamming Shut](https://heartlandstribune.com/your-party-the-democratic-window-is-slamming-shut/): If You Want a Democratic Party, Participate Now, or Forever Hold Your Peace Your Party members have entered the most critical 36 hours in the party’s short existence. The founding documents have been published. The amendment portal is open. And the clock is ticking, loudly, mercilessly. This is not a drill. This is not a rehearsal. This is the moment that decides whether Your Party becomes a genuine democratic movement owned by its members, or another stage-managed Westminster project, designed in committee rooms and simply rubber-stamped by exhausted grassroots volunteers. Because the truth is stark: Members now have less than 14 […] - [Graham Linehan’s Years of Persecution: Court Clears Him of Harassment](https://heartlandstribune.com/graham-linehans-years-of-persecution-court-clears-him-of-harassment/): Graham Linehan’s long, punishing clash with gender-identity activists has taken yet another turn. After years of being hounded, blacklisted, and professionally destroyed for speaking out on what he argued were material, sex-based realities, the Father Ted co-creator has now been cleared of harassing a teenage trans activist online, though Westminster Magistrates’ Court convicted him of damaging her phone. The case stems from an incident outside a gender-identity conference in London last October, where Graham’s path collided with 18-year-old Sophia Brooks, a trans woman born male. The court heard that Graham “deliberately whacked” her phone from her hand before it landed in […] - [The Rot Runs Deep: Latest Cash-for-Access Scandal Proves the House of Lords is a Cesspit Beyond Reform](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rot-runs-deep-latest-cash-for-access-scandal-proves-the-house-of-lords-is-a-cesspit-beyond-reform/): The Soft Underbelly of the State: Lords Suspended for Rule Breaches Westminster’s oldest and most exclusive private members’ club is in trouble again. But let’s be honest, is anyone truly surprised? The stench of entitlement wafting from the Upper Chamber grew a little stronger this week as two peers were set to be suspended following yet another sordid chapter in Britain’s never-ending cash-for-access saga. It is absolute proof, if any were still needed, that the House of Lords remains an undemocratic relic, tailor-made for influence peddling and elite networking. Former Chief of the General Staff Lord Richard Dannatt and, shamefully, Labour’s […] - [The Socialism of the Hearth: An Anchor Against the Rootless Liberal Tide](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-socialism-of-the-hearth/): The Wigan Test: If Your Socialism Fails the Council Estate, It Fails Entirely 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Socialism of the Hearth (MP3) When Zarah Sultana declared there is “no room for socially conservative views in a left-wing socialist party,” she wasn’t simply staking out political territory. She was drawing a line through the very heart of the British working class, severing the labour movement from its deepest roots. And in doing so, she exposed a profound fracture in contemporary left politics: the unbridgeable chasm between a managerial liberalism that speaks in the language of academic abstraction, and a working-class socialism […] - [The Real Russian Stooge: Former Reform Leader Jailed for Kremlin Bribes](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-real-russian-stodge-former-reform-leader-jailed-for-kremlin-bribes/): Former Reform Leader, Nathan Gill, Jailed for Taking Kremlin Rubles Do you remember March 2018? The BBC’s Newsnight chose that moment to photoshop Jeremy Corbyn in a Russian hat, placing him before a menacing red Kremlin backdrop. The crime? He had dared to question the Government’s rush to judgment over the Salisbury poisonings. He had committed the unpardonable sin of asking for evidence before endorsing a new Cold War. The image was a disgrace, a piece of visual propaganda masquerading as journalism. Yet while the cameras focused their fury on a man whose greatest offence was advocating for peace, another drama […] - [The 28-Point Plan: What Trump and Putin Are Offering Ukraine](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-28-point-plan-what-trump-and-putin-are-offering-ukraine/): An exclusive look at the leaked peace proposal that European leaders were never meant to see The document arrived in Kyiv this week like a ransom note. Twenty-eight points, drafted in secret consultations between Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian presidential adviser Kirill Dmitriev, outlining the terms under which the killing might stop. Ukraine was not consulted in its creation. Europe was excluded from the negotiations. The plan was presented as a fait accompli: accept these terms, or continue dying. President Trump approved the 28-point plan this week, with involvement from Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and […] - [The Ukraine War is a Business Model: It's Time to End It](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-receives-draft-peace-plan-its-time-to-end-it/): Zelensky Receives Draft Peace Plan: Negotiation is the Only Path Out How many more must die before we admit the obvious? The war in Ukraine, now grinding through its fourth year, has become something far more sinister than a struggle between democracy and autocracy. It has become a business model. With claims of up to a million dead, civilian casualties have risen by 27 per cent this year compared to 2024, and yet the machinery of war churns on, feeding an insatiable appetite for profit that has little to do with the welfare of ordinary Ukrainians, Russians, or Europeans. The latest […] - [The Epstein Files: The President Blinked](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-epstein-files/): US House and Senate vote overwhelmingly to make the Justice Department release the Epstein files What does it tell us about American democracy when 427 members of Congress vote to compel a president to release documents he could have published on his first day in office? The question answers itself. Donald Trump made the release of the Epstein files a campaign promise. He controlled the Department of Justice. He could have ordered their publication with a phone call. Instead, for ten months, his administration threatened, obstructed, and smeared anyone who pushed for transparency as engaged in a “hostile act.” Then, when […] - [Autumn Budget: We Have All Become Victims of Market Forces](https://heartlandstribune.com/autumn-budget/): Autumn Budget: We Have All Become Victims of Market Forces By Paul Knaggs, Labour Heartlands Once again we face an Autumn Budget written for the market, by the market, and dictated on approval from the market. There is nothing new here. Market forces have been sucking the lifeblood of public wealth for decades, and every party that has entered office since the 1980s has bowed its head to these invisible masters. Tony Benn saw this coming long before it arrived fully formed. His warnings were not abstract theory but a map of exactly where Britain was going if it surrendered economic […] - [Your Party: The People's Money Ivory Towers and Empty Coffers](https://heartlandstribune.com/your-party/): When Revolutionary Rhetoric Meets Reality, Money Gets in The way… There’s a particular species of British political failure that repeats itself with depressing regularity. It begins with grand proclamations about standing for the many against the few, about smashing the establishment and building something new from the rubble. It ends, inevitably, with the same dreary spectacle: politicians bickering over money while their supporters watch on, betrayed once again by people who claimed to be different. Your Party, the would-be vehicle for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s latest attempt at radical politics, has managed to achieve this trajectory in record time. Somewhere […] - [The £1 Billion Propaganda Victory: BBC Handed Trump Proof of Fake News](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-1-billion-propaganda-victory/): Editorial Meltdown: Can We Still Trust the BBC? The Trump Edit Scandal Says Otherwise The BBC has issued a formal apology to Donald Trump after a Panorama documentary was found to have spliced together separate parts of his 6 January 2021 speech, creating what the corporation now admits was a “mistaken impression” that Trump had urged violent action. But while the BBC has expressed regret and pulled the 2024 program from broadcast, it is refusing Trump’s demand for compensation, ensuring the matter will remain in the courts and the headlines. The bigger question is how a public broadcaster, funded by millions […] - [The BBC and Miners' Strikes](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bbc-and-miners-strikes/): A Voice From Within: Tony Garnett Exposes the Lie of BBC “Impartiality” In the decades since the wireless first crackled to life, we have been told a comforting, self-congratulatory tale of the British Broadcasting Corporation: a bastion of neutrality, a voice of the nation, a trusted, independent oracle whose only allegiance is to the truth. It is a fairy tale funded by the public and meticulously upheld by the very establishment it purports to scrutinise. But no one stripped this illusion bare with such surgical precision as Tony Garnett, the legendary producer and director whose work with Ken Loach defined a […] - [BBC Faces $1 Billion Trump Lawsuit, But the Real Question Is: What Are You Paying For?](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbc-bias-leaked-memo-trump-lawsuit-trans-censorship/): A leaked internal memo has blown the lid off the BBC’s institutional bias, from skewed Gaza coverage and trans-issue censorship to the edited Trump documentary that sparked a $1 billion lawsuit. Two top BBC executives have resigned, and new revelations expose how liberal ideology has replaced journalistic integrity at the taxpayer’s expense. - [Mark Serwotka's Warning: Is Your Party Facing an Identity Crisis?](https://heartlandstribune.com/mark-serwotkas-warning/): Class vs. Identity: The Battle for Your Party’s Soul. The Party We Need, or the One Being Undermined? Mark Serwotka Sounds the Alarm on Your Party’s Identity Crisis When a trade union leader with Mark Serwotka’s credentials warns that toxic behaviour is already poisoning a fledgling political movement, you would do well to listen. Because what he describes is not merely organisational teething troubles or the usual factional squabbles that accompany any new party’s birth. It is something far more corrosive: the deliberate replacement of class politics with the very identity-obsessed liberalism that has already hollowed out every progressive movement it […] - [BBC in Crisis: Tim Davie Resigns Amid Impartiality Scandal | Labour Heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/bbc-in-crisis-tim-davie-resigns/): Tim Davie Resigns as BBC Director-General Amid Mounting Scandals Over Impartiality and Ideological Bias BBC Director-General Tim Davie has resigned, saying it was “entirely” his decision to quit after what he described as “mistakes” and a “current debate around BBC News” that had “understandably contributed” to his decision. The resignation comes just hours before the corporation is expected to issue a formal apology over serious breaches of editorial impartiality, including the editing of a Donald Trump speech in a Panorama episode that misrepresented the former US president’s remarks during the January 6th Capitol riots. BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness has […] - [The BBC's Ministry of Truth: When Britain's Public Broadcaster Decided Women Don't Exist](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bbcs-ministry-of-truth-when-britains-public-broadcaster-decided-women-dont-exist/): “The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”— George Orwell, 1984 BBC Caught in Its Own Web of Newspeak: When Saying ‘Woman’ Becomes a Thoughtcrime What does a woman need to know to understand she is a woman? According to the BBC, apparently nothing at all. Because if you know what a woman is, if you dare to say that women are adult human females, you have committed the cardinal sin of our age: you have noticed reality. When newsreader Martine Croxall changed the phrase “pregnant people” to “women” during a live broadcast, she wasn’t editorialising. She was stating […] - [Nandy's Duck: “It’s not cronyism, it just looks like cronyism…”](https://heartlandstribune.com/nandys-duck/): Lisa Nandy defended in ‘cronyism’ row over appointment of football regulator The duck test… “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”. The culture secretary apologised after she was found to have breached the governance code on public appointments by appointing a former Labour donor to the role. Lisa Nandy insists it’s not cronyism, merely a regrettable oversight. £2,900 from one of the very men she later installed as chair of the new football regulator? Just a coincidence, she says. Nothing to see here, folks, just another Westminster […] - [The Gunpowder Plot: The Other Man](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-gunpowder-plot-the-other-man/): What if we have been burning the wrong effigy for four hundred years? 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Gunpowder Plot: The Other Man (MP3) Every year, on the 5th of November, we gather around fires that roar against the autumn chill. We chant the same rhyme, throw another effigy onto the flames, and pretend it’s all just a bit of fun. Guy Fawkes, the face of the plot, the easy villain, burns on our behalf whilst we nibble toffee apples and marvel at fireworks. But the story is far deeper than this annual spectacle. It’s a tale of rebellion, desperation, and […] - [Farmers vs. Brussels: The Battle Over Ukrainian Grain Imports](https://heartlandstribune.com/farmers-vs-brussels/): Poland, Hungary and Slovakia Defy Brussels as Ukraine Trade Deal Takes Effect As the EU’s new trade deal with Ukraine comes into force, three member states, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, are openly defying Brussels by maintaining unilateral bans on Ukrainian imports. Their refusal highlights growing fractures within the bloc and the political risks of prioritising Ukraine’s economic integration over the livelihoods of European farmers. The European Commission has declined to rule out taking the countries to court for breaching single market rules, which prohibit member states from introducing their own trade barriers. “We see no justification for maintaining these national measures,” […] - [From Soul-Cakes to Supermarkets: The Theft of Halloween](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-soul-cakes-to-supermarkets-the-theft-of-halloween/): Our Forgotten Halloween: When Corporations Stole the Night from the Working Class… 🎧 AI Audio Trial: From Soul-Cakes to Supermarkets: The Theft of Halloween (MP3) Before Tesco sold us plastic skeletons, we had something real. Before Amazon delivered mass-produced costumes, we had tradition. Before capitalism commodified the dead, we had community. As a child, apart from birthdays and the start of school holidays, there were three dates that mattered more than any others: Christmas, Mischief Night, and Halloween. These were the pillars of a working-class childhood, the events we counted down to, the nights that made the rest of the year […] - [Andrew Stripped of ‘Prince’ Title But Not The Privilege](https://heartlandstribune.com/andrew-stripped-of-prince-title-but-not-the-privilege/): Andrew, Formerly Known as Prince The King has “initiated a formal process” to remove Prince Andrew’s titles, Buckingham Palace confirmed, and from now on, the man once known as His Royal Highness will simply be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. It’s an extraordinary moment in royal history. At 65, the King’s younger brother has faced years of scrutiny over his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a relationship that has cast a long shadow over the monarchy and damaged what little moral authority it still claimed to hold. Andrew’s fall from grace has been gradual but relentless: first the forced retreat from public life, […] - [The Truth Behind Your Party's "Rogue Founders" Story](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-truth-behind-your-partys-rogue-founders-story/): The Guardian’s Back at It: Manufacturing Your Party’s “Civil War Remember that so-called bastion of left-wing journalism, the guardian of the working class, that somehow turned into a liberal mouthpiece for the metropolitan middle class? The same Guardian that helped sabotage the Corbyn years and tossed Julian Assange under the bus? Well, here we go again. This time, they’re peddling another “exclusive,” claiming that Your Party, the fledgling left-wing movement linked to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, is preparing to sue three of its own founders. Conveniently sourced, of course, from anonymous insiders and screenshots. According to the Guardian, “Your Party […] - [Rachel Reeves Caught Renting Out Her Integrity](https://heartlandstribune.com/rachel-reeves-caught-renting-out-her-integrity/): Labour’s “Rachel from Accounts” seems to have discovered that rules, much like housing, are optional if you can afford them. Rachel Reeves has admitted she broke housing regulations after failing to obtain a selective rental licence for her London home, the same property she began letting out after moving into No. 11 Downing Street. According to reports in the Daily Mail, Reeves, who loves lecturing the public about responsibility and fiscal discipline, somehow overlooked the need to follow her own council’s rules. Southwark Council requires landlords in certain areas to get a licence before renting out their properties. The chancellor didn’t. […] - [YouGov Shock Poll: Labour at Record Low](https://heartlandstribune.com/yougov-shock-poll-labour-at-record-low/): Lowest Ever National Labour Voting Intention Recorded by YouGov. Highest Ever for the Greens. The Plaid Cymru victory in Caerphilly last week didn’t happen in isolation. It’s part of a much bigger political earthquake. The latest YouGov poll, commissioned by The Times, found that just 17% of voters would now back Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, the lowest figure in the party’s modern history. That means half of those who voted Labour in 2024 have already deserted the party less than a year into government. Meanwhile, Zack Polanski’s Greens are reaping the rewards of Labour’s drift into extreme centrism. The Greens have […] - [How Zack Polanski Stole Your Party's Wind](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-zack-polanski-stole-your-partys-wind/): How Zack Polanski Stole Your Party’s Wind (And Why You’re Letting Him) 🎧 AI Audio Trial: How Zack Polanski Stole Your Party’s Wind (MP3) The Greens are surging. Your Party is floundering. And if you can’t see why that’s a disaster for the left, you haven’t been paying attention. In May, when Zack Polanski launched his bid to lead the Green Party, they counted 60,000 members. Now they’ve hurtled past 150,000, eclipsing both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Their social media operation has transformed from clunky graphics and earnest tweets into slick, viral videos of Polanski urging us to “make […] - [Renters’ Rights Bill Becomes Law: Here’s What It Means for You](https://heartlandstribune.com/renters-rights-bill-becomes-law/): Renters’ Rights Act becomes law Described as the biggest shake-up to renting in England in more than 30 years, the Renters’ Rights Bill has officially become law. With nearly 20% of UK households now privately renting, the reforms will affect millions of tenants and landlords alike. The government says it will announce when each measure comes into force “in the coming weeks.” Long-Term Tenancies Replaced by Rolling Contracts Under the new law, all tenancies will move to periodic or rolling agreements, replacing the standard 12- or 24-month fixed contracts. This means renters can stay in their homes as long as they […] - [Starmer's Big Tech Surrender: U-Turn on Tech Fraud Law](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-big-tech-surrender/): The Corporate Capitulation: Starmer Folds to Silicon Valley Another U-turn. Another betrayal. Another reminder that for all Labour’s rhetoric about change, when corporate power flexes its muscles, Starmer folds like a cheap suit. The British government is preparing to roll back its pledge to make Big Tech companies pay for the tsunami of fraud originating on their platforms. According to sources with direct knowledge of the upcoming fraud strategy, there will be no financial incentive, no meaningful consequences, no tangible cost for social media giants like Meta or telecommunications firms like Virgin Media to crack down on the scams that are […] - [Britain's Rubicon: How Starmer Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-rubicon/): Beyond Borders: The Tomahawk Dilemma – Britain’s Next Step Toward Escalation 🎧 AI Audio Trial: Britain’s Rubicon: How Starmer Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (MP3) While some see the provision of advanced weaponry to Ukraine as a necessary response to Russian aggression, others warn of the perilous road ahead. The warmongers who clamour for escalation downplay the potential consequences, failing to grasp the gravity of what is unfolding. Now the debate has moved beyond Storm Shadow missiles, beyond air defence systems, beyond the incremental escalation we’ve been sleepwalking into for three years. Now we’re talking about Tomahawk cruise […] - [Zelensky's Back for More: Whose War is it Anyway?](https://heartlandstribune.com/whose-war-is-it-anyway/): He’s back… The greatest salesman in the world, Zelensky And watch how quickly Rachel Reeves finds yet more billions to keep funding this forever war, a war pushed, polished, and paid for by the arms industry and its well-fed lobbyists. Since 2022, the UK has committed up to £21.8 billion to Ukraine, including £13 billion in military support (with a £2.26 billion Export Finance loan) and another £5.3 billion in so-called non-military assistance, from bilateral aid packages to fiscal guarantees. That’s the single largest military outlay by any European country. President Zelensky has returned to the begging circuit, seeking new supplies […] - [Benevolent Fascism: The Moral Mask of Modern Power](https://heartlandstribune.com/benevolent-fascism-the-moral-mask-of-modern-power/): How Modern Power Rules with a Smile, And the Boot. Power, wherever it lives, has a habit of calling itself moral. Whether it wears a flag, a crown, or a constitution, it insists that it protects rather than rules. That is why the idea of benevolent fascism is so dangerous, because it feels virtuous while it consolidates control. The uniforms may be neat, the rhetoric clean, the purpose declared noble, but underneath lies the same arrangement of authority over consent. What was once imposed by bayonet is now justified by security briefings and procedural language. The courts become the new army. […] - [PMQs Dominated by Anger Over Grooming Gangs Inquiry](https://heartlandstribune.com/pmqs-dominated-by-anger-over-grooming-gangs-inquiry/): Survivors’ voices take centre stage as Keir Starmer faces tough questions in the Commons. Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions were dominated by fierce exchanges over the government’s handling of the national inquiry into grooming gangs. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch opened by citing the testimony of Fiona, an abuse survivor who resigned from the inquiry panel earlier this week. She asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “What’s the point of victims speaking up if we are just going to be called liars?” Starmer insisted the inquiry “will not be diluted” and promised it would address cultural and religious factors. He also confirmed that Baroness […] - [Can You Help?: Donate to Labour Heartlands](https://heartlandstribune.com/can-you-help/): Support Independent Journalism – Keep Labour Heartlands Alive! 🌟 At Labour Heartlands, we’ve always stood apart. Like most independent media outlets, we run at a loss, a loss I personally make up from my own pocket. I’ve refused to plaster this site with adverts or accept paid content because our integrity isn’t for sale. We’re committed to delivering ad-free, honest journalism that holds power to account and speaks up for ordinary people. But today, we need your help. Our hosting contract is up for renewal, and during this cost-of-living crisis, keeping Labour Heartlands online is becoming harder than ever. Like you, […] - [Labour's Grooming Gang Inquiry Becomes Another Establishment Cover-Up](https://heartlandstribune.com/grooming-gang-inquiry/): Grooming Gang Inquiry in Turmoil as Two Survivor Panel Members Resign, Calling it a Cover-Up Two women who survived some of the most horrific abuse imaginable have walked away from the government’s grooming gang inquiry. Not because they’re tired. Not because they’ve given up. But because they’ve recognised what many of us suspected from the start: this inquiry was never meant to find the truth. It was meant to manage it. Fiona Goddard and Ellie-Ann Reynolds, survivors of child sexual exploitation in Bradford and Barrow, resigned from the inquiry’s advisory panel on Monday. Their resignations weren’t quiet affairs. They were acts […] - [Met Police Drops Graham Linehan Case and Ends ‘Non-Crime Hate’ Investigations](https://heartlandstribune.com/met-police-drops-graham-linehan-case/): After the arrest of Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, Britain’s largest police force finally admits it should not be policing speech… The Metropolitan Police has announced it will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), saying the change will allow officers to “focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.” The announcement followed confirmation that the Met has dropped its case against Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 1 September on suspicion of inciting violence over posts on X (formerly Twitter). “This decision means that no charges will be brought against Graham Linehan […] - [Prince Andrew Takes the Heat: Lord Mandelson Hides in Plain Sight](https://heartlandstribune.com/prince-andrew-takes-the-heat/): Prince Andrew’s Downfall vs Starmer’s Silence: Two Standards, One Elite Club. The Trilateral Commission 🎧 AI Audio Trial: Prince Andrew Takes the Heat (MP3) Prince Andrew has surrendered his Duke of York title and his Order of the Garter membership. The media cycle churns. Royal commentators solemnly discuss the gravity of the moment. The Palace hopes this latest gesture will finally close the wound. Meanwhile, Lord Peter Mandelson, recently sacked as the UK’s Ambassador to the United States after barely warming the seat, faces no such reckoning. He remains a member of the Labour Party. He keeps his seat in the […] - [Prince Andrew Gives Up Royal Titles: A Public Relations Stunt](https://heartlandstribune.com/prince-andrew-gives-up-royal-titles/): Titles Gone, Privilege Intact: More Sackcloth and Ashes Prince Andrew has surrendered his Duke of York title and his membership in the Order of the Garter. Cue the solemn palace statements. Cue the royal commentators discussing the gravity of the moment. Cue the media treating this as some kind of meaningful accountability. It’s theatre. More sackcloth and ashes. A public spectacle Andrew and the Palace hope will be enough to make the problem go away. Again. Because here’s what hasn’t changed: Andrew remains a Prince. He remains eighth in line to the throne. He retains his Royal Lodge residence in Windsor […] - [Zack Polanski's NATO Shuffle: How to Sound Radical While Promising Nothing](https://heartlandstribune.com/zack-polanskis-nato-shuffle/): TRIGGER WARNING FOR ALL THE GREEN SHEEPLE… 🎧 AI Audio Trial: Before Parliament, Before Kings, There Was the Moot (MP3) It takes real political agility to say you want to leave NATO whilst promising to stay in it. But that’s exactly what Green Party co-leader Zack Polanski managed in a recent interview, delivering a masterclass in saying everything and nothing at once. Pressed on whether the UK should leave NATO, Polanski first pointed to “Green Party policy” to stay in NATO but reform it from within. Then, without missing a beat, he called for “removing nuclear weapons” and “building an alternative […] - [Caerphilly by-election: A Changing Land, the Fall of Labour’s Red Valleys](https://heartlandstribune.com/caerphilly-by-election/): The results of fourteen years of Tory neoliberalism gave us the Labour Party – and with it, a new era of neoliberalism, now it opens the gates to Reform… The absence of class politics and the surrender to globalisation are breeding nationalism. The so-called extreme centre has become a factory for populism, and out of that vacuum steps the Reform Party. The land that once gave birth to Labour’s song of solidarity is now humming a different tune. The sweet green valleys of Wales are changing key. A new poll ahead of the Caerphilly by-election has sent shockwaves through the Labour […] - [One Law for Them: When Stealing £122 Million Gets You Nothing But a Polite Request to Pay It Back](https://heartlandstribune.com/baroness-mone-scandal/): One Law for Them: The Chilling Double Standard of the Mone PPE Scandal Imagine if you were ordered to pay back millions and you simply didn’t. Actually, let’s make this more realistic. Imagine you owe your council £1,200 in council tax. You ignore the letters. You miss the deadline. What happens? Bailiffs at your door within weeks. County Court Judgement destroying your credit rating. Possibly prison if you can’t or won’t pay. The full weight of the state descends on you with terrifying speed and efficiency. Now imagine you’re Baroness Michelle Mone. Imagine your company owes the taxpayer £122 million for […] - [The Spies That Won’t Go Away](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-spies-that-wont-go-away/): When national security becomes national secrecy, truth is the first casualty. Two men, Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, were charged under the Official Secrets Act in April 2024. Both have consistently maintained their innocence. They were accused of gathering and providing information “prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state” between December 2021 and February 2023. Now, the so-called “China spy case” has collapsed in spectacular fashion. And with it, the credibility of the government’s own narrative on national security. Last week, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Stephen Parkinson, confirmed the charges were […] - [Before Parliament, Before Kings, There Was the Moot](https://heartlandstribune.com/before-parliament-before-kings-there-was-the-moot/): The Moot: England’s Lost Democracy of People, Power, and Oak Trees 🎧 AI Audio Trial: Before Parliament, Before Kings, There Was the Moot (MP3) It all began with a photograph my wife sent me on a Tuesday afternoon… I was sitting at my desk, drowning in the usual depressing news cycle, when her message pinged through. “Look at this,” she wrote. “Thought you’d like it.” The image post from that showed a spiral staircase, but not just any staircase. This was a perfect coil of medieval brickwork winding upward like something out of an illuminated manuscript, each step worn smooth by […] - [The Hostages Are Free: Now Let Justice Begin](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-hostages-are-free-now-let-justice-begin/): The Cost of Two Years of War Must be Justice After two years of hell, twenty Israeli hostages walked free from Gaza today. Parents reunited with sons. Children embraced fathers. Families torn apart by Hamas’s attack on October 7th, 2023, finally whole again. In Tel Aviv’s “hostages square,” 65,000 people roared as the news came through. Across Israel, millions wept with relief. This is cause for celebration. Every innocent life matters. Every family deserves to be reunited. Every hostage freed is a victory for our shared humanity over the barbarism of war. But we must be honest about what has taken […] - [Born and Bred: The New Hate Crime](https://heartlandstribune.com/born-and-bred-the-new-hate-crime/): When did it become illegal to say where you’re from? Welcome to the age of the Thought Police, where identity politics has swallowed common sense and even geography can get you cancelled. A councillor in Scotland is under police investigation for hate speech. Her crime? She said she was “born and bred here” during a television interview. That’s it. Three words. “Born and bred here.” For this supposedly inflammatory declaration of geographical origin, Claire Mackie-Brown, a Reform UK councillor, now faces a 22-page complaint to Police Scotland and the Ethical Standards Commissioner, plus calls for her suspension. Let me be clear […] - [Ceasefire Comes into Effect in Gaza Following Israeli Troop Withdrawal](https://heartlandstribune.com/ceasefire-comes-into-effect-in-gaza-following-israeli-troop-withdrawal/): Thousands of displaced Palestinians trek back to Gaza City amid scenes of devastation After two years of relentless bombardment, a fragile ceasefire has taken hold in Gaza. Israeli forces have withdrawn from several districts, leaving behind not liberation, but ruin. Thousands of displaced Palestinians are now making the long journey home, or what remains of it. They walk along broken roads, past the hollow shells of buildings that once were schools, homes, and hospitals. Many carry their lives in plastic bags or on their backs. Others pay extortionate prices for a place on a donkey cart, each clattering wheel a reminder […] - [The War in Gaza Has Ended](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-war-in-gaza-has-ended/): We have assurances the war has come to a complete end: Hamas chief Hamas chief Khalil el-Hayya, in a video message on Thursday, said he has received assurances from the mediators – Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the US – that Israel’s war on Gaza has come to a “complete end” via the implementation of the current ceasefire deal.  The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the Gaza ceasefire deal agreed upon one day earlier in Egypt. The ceasefire went into effect in the enclave at 1:30am local time, with reporters there confirming the skies have gone quiet. – The […] - [The Clay Cross Rebellion and the Death of Democratic Faith](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-clay-cross-rebellion-and-the-death-of-democratic-faith/): 🎧 Audio: The Clay Cross Rebellion Article Podcast (MP3) When Politicians and Councillors Were Comrades: Working for the People, by the People A few miles down the road from where I sit, there’s a small former mining village in Derbyshire that most people have never heard of. Yet what happened there in 1972 should be taught in every school, discussed in every town hall, and remembered by every politician who claims to serve the people. Clay Cross. The name might mean nothing to you now, but it should. Because what happened there tells us everything about what democracy can be, and […] - [The Tory Party Conference: Welcome to the Land of the Walking Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-tory-party-conference-welcome-to-the-land-of-the-walking-dead/): Thatcher’s Ghost and AI Churchill: The Pantomime of a Dying Party I was scanning the headlines this morning when one leapt out: “The Tory conference is a ghost town – even the protesters haven’t bothered to show up.” I had to laugh. I had almost forgotten the Tories were still around. If it were not for the occasional Prime Minister’s Questions on a Wednesday, during what feels like the shortest parliamentary sessions in living memory, we might all assume they had already been buried. What’s left of the Conservative Party now roams Westminster like a horde of political zombies, the walking […] - [The New Thoughtcrime: 500 Arrested for Supporting Palestine Action](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-new-thoughtcrime/): Arresting Vicars for Vigils: Britain’s Descent into Authoritarian Absurdity When did Britain decide that sitting quietly in Trafalgar Square, eyes closed in vigil, constitutes terrorism? On a Saturday that should have occasioned national reflection on the limits of state power, nearly 500 people were arrested in central London for the newly invented crime of holding cardboard signs. Their offence, in the eyes of the Metropolitan Police and His Majesty’s Government, was supporting Palestine Action, a direct-action group proscribed under anti-terrorism legislation in July. Not for plotting violence. Not for stockpiling weapons. But for damaging military aircraft destined for use in what […] - [Hamas Accepts Hostage Release Deal but Seeks Changes to Trump's Gaza Peace Plan](https://heartlandstribune.com/hamas-accepts-hostage-release-deal/): Hamas has responded to US ceasefire proposals by accepting key elements while requesting further negotiations on several critical points, hours before President Donald Trump’s Sunday deadline. In a statement, the movement agreed “to release all Israeli prisoners, both living and dead, according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal”, contingent on meeting field conditions for the exchanges. However, Hamas indicated that issues concerning Gaza’s future governance and Palestinian rights require continued discussion “within a national framework.” The response follows Trump’s ultimatum delivered Friday via Truth Social, threatening “all hell, like no one has ever seen before” against Hamas if […] - [Stand Against All Terror: Solidarity After Manchester Synagogue Attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/stand-against-all-terror-solidarity-after-manchester-synagogue-attack/): Labour Heartlands Editorial The attack on a Manchester synagogue that left three people dead, including the attacker, and others seriously injured, represents an appalling act of antisemitic violence. Every person committed to human dignity must stand unequivocally with Jewish communities across Britain in the aftermath of this horror. While the attacker’s precise motivations may emerge through investigation, the context cannot be ignored. Antisemitic incidents have risen sharply over the past two years, coinciding with Israel’s military operations in Gaza. This makes it essential to state clearly: Jewish individuals and community organisations in Britain bear absolutely no responsibility for the actions of […] - [Counter-Terror Police Update: Manchester synagogue attack](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchester-synagogue-attack/): Three people have been killed, including the attacker, in what police are treating as a terrorist incident at a synagogue in Manchester. The attack took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. What we know so far: Eyewitness Gareth Tonge, a local delivery driver, described the moment: “I saw a man bleeding out on the floor and another stabbing at windows, trying to get inside. Police arrived within seconds. They warned him, he didn’t listen, and they opened fire.” The North West Ambulance Service confirmed a major emergency response with paramedics, police, and helicopters deployed. Worshippers inside […] - [Fast Lane For Corruption: Baroness Mone-linked company ordered to pay £122m over PPE contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/fast-lane-for-corruption/): When Profiteering Meets Pandemic: The Mone-Barrowman PPE Scandal Reaches Its Reckoning A company linked to Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone has been ordered to repay £121.9 million after the High Court ruled it breached a government contract to supply surgical gowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling exposes not just contractual failure but the systematic corruption of procurement processes during Britain’s deadliest public health crisis in a century. PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman, supplied 25 million gowns that the Department of Health and Social Care described as “faulty” and non-sterile. Wednesday’s High Court judgment confirmed the […] - [The Ghost of Walter Wolfgang Will Always Haunt The Labour Party Conference](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-ghost-of-walter-wolfgang/): No Clearer, No Wiser: Labour Conference Ends as It Began Another Labour Party conference draws to a close, and we emerge no clearer, no wiser, only with Nigel Farage’s name echoing through the halls, Owen Jones ejected on spurious safeguarding grounds, and the ghost of Walter Wolfgang haunting every stage-managed standing ovation. Wolfgang. Remember that name. Refugee from Nazism, fighter for socialism, Labour member since 1948, opponent of the Iraq War. In 2005, aged 82, he was manhandled from the Labour conference for daring to shout “nonsense” during Jack Straw’s justifications for Iraq. The cameras caught it all: elderly Jewish escapee […] - [Trump's Gaza Plan: Tony Blair's Return to the Middle East is an Insult to the Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumps-gaza-plan/): The Arsonist of the Middle East: Tony Blair’s Return is an Insult to the Dead The White House has unveiled its peace plan for Gaza, and in a decision that defies both logic and decency, it includes a prominent role for Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister whose Middle East legacy consists primarily of rubble, displacement, and hundreds of thousands of dead. The 20-point plan, released moments before Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint press conference on Monday, proposes placing Gaza under transitional governance led by Trump and others, including Blair. The US President singled out the former PM for […] - [Counter-Terror Police Detain George Galloway at Gatwick Airport](https://heartlandstribune.com/counter-terror-police-detain-george-galloway-at-gatwick-airport/): Starmer’s Britain: When Dissent Becomes Terrorism George Galloway and his wife were detained by counter-terrorism police at Gatwick Airport on Saturday, a stark reminder that in Starmer’s Britain, the machinery of the surveillance state operates with chilling efficiency against political opponents as well as journalists and even comedians. The former MP was stopped by officers under Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act after arriving from Moscow via Abu Dhabi. The legislation allows authorities to stop, question, search and detain individuals at borders to determine if they have engaged in “hostile activity”, a conveniently elastic definition that can apparently […] - [From Blair to Starmer: The Authoritarian Revival of the Digital ID Card](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-blair-to-starmer-the-authoritarian-revival-of-the-digital-id-card/): “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it.” Orwell’s vision of omnipresent surveillance was meant as warning, not instruction manual. Yet here we are, watching Keir Starmer propose the very infrastructure Big Brother would have envied, a digital identity system that tracks every citizen’s movements through the necessities of daily life. The only improvement on Orwell’s design: shrunk to pocket size and marketed as a smartphone. The Brit-Card and Britain’s Surveillance Future Create the crisis, present the solution and each time, we lose another […] - [Sarkozy Sentenced: Former French President Jailed Over Gaddafi Funds](https://heartlandstribune.com/sarkozy-sentenced/): The Rotten Heart of Power: From Élysée Palace to Prison, Sarkozy Convicted in Gaddafi Corruption Case Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in connection with millions of euros of illicit funds from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Paris criminal court acquitted him of other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign financing, but the guilty verdict still marks a historic humiliation: Sarkozy is now the first French president to face jail time for crimes committed in office. He has vowed to appeal but must begin […] - [Corbyn Launches 'Your Party' Membership Without Its Co-Founder Sultana](https://heartlandstribune.com/corbyn-launches-your-party-membership-without-its-co-founder-sultana/): Your Party: Born in Confusion, Baptised in Ego Jeremy Corbyn has finally launched the membership scheme for the provisionally named “Your Party,” offering supporters the chance to participate in a founding conference on 29-30 November in Liverpool. At £5 per month, members can join a movement that promises grassroots democracy but immediately demonstrates the opposite. The conference arrangements reveal the contradictions lurking beneath the democratic rhetoric. While claiming to embrace “one person, one vote,” only 13,000 members, selected by lottery, will actually attend the two-day event where founding documents will be “debated and amended in person.” The rest, presumably, will be […] - [From Red Carpet to "Paper Tiger": Trump's Stunning Reversal on Putin](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-red-carpet-to-paper-tiger/): Trump’s Ukraine Volte-Face: From Capitulation to Total Victory in 24 Hours “Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war”: Shakespeare’s words feel prophetic as Donald Trump executed one of the most dramatic foreign policy reversals in modern presidential history. In a whiplash-inducing about-face, the President abandoned his insistence that Ukraine surrender territory for peace and instead declared that Ukraine could “fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” The stunning reversal came via social media just hours after his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York, a complete contradiction of the position Trump had held […] - [UN Experts Demand FIFA Suspend Israel Over Gaza Genocide Findings](https://heartlandstribune.com/un-experts-demand-fifa-suspend-israel-over-gaza-genocide-findings/): UN Experts Urge FIFA and UEFA to Suspend Israel Over Gaza ‘Genocide’ Israel should be expelled from international football over the “unfolding genocide” in Gaza, a panel of UN-appointed human rights experts declared Tuesday, challenging the sporting world’s studied neutrality in the face of systematic violence. “Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual,” the eight-member panel stated bluntly. “Sporting bodies must not turn a blind eye to grave human rights violations, especially when their platforms are used to normalise injustices.” The intervention strikes at the heart of sport’s uncomfortable relationship with politics. While football’s governing bodies – […] - [Palestine Recognition: Too Little, Too Late](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestine-recognition-too-little-too-late/): An Alibi in Advance: Western Leaders’ Belated Recognition of Palestine The UK has formally recognised Palestine as an independent state, Keir Starmer announced on Sunday, in a move the government hopes will demonstrate commitment to peace while easing domestic political tensions. Canada and Australia made similar declarations ahead of a UN General Assembly conference in New York. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately condemned the announcement as “absurd” and “a reward for terrorism.” Starmer insisted otherwise, promising further sanctions against Hamas leadership and declaring the terrorist group would play no role in a future Palestinian government. “Let’s be frank, Hamas is […] - [The Fundamental Question: Should the United Kingdom Recognise Palestine?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-fundamental-question-should-the-united-kingdom-recognise-palestine/): Strip away the conditions, the caveats, and the diplomatic hedging, and one fundamental question remains: Should the United Kingdom recognise Palestine? In July, under pressure from his own MPs, Keir Starmer announced that a Labour government would recognise Palestine. But the promise came loaded with conditions: recognition would only follow if Israel agreed to a ceasefire, if there was a “long-term sustainable peace” that delivered a two-state solution, and if the UN were allowed to restart aid flows into Gaza. In other words, Britain’s recognition of Palestinian statehood was made dependent not on the rights of Palestinians, but on the consent […] - [Trouble at the Mill: Cancel Your Direct Debits Corbyn's Urgent Warning to Your Party Supporters](https://heartlandstribune.com/trouble-at-the-mill-cancel-your-direct-debits-corbyns-urgent-warning-to-your-party-supporters/): Your Party in Chaos: Corbyn Tells 750k Supporters to “Ignore” Sultana’s Membership Email The honeymoon is over. What began as a promising left-wing alliance between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has collapsed into public acrimony, with the co-founders of Your Party now openly warring over the basic mechanics of running their fledgling movement. The latest crisis erupted this morning when Sultana unilaterally launched a membership portal for the as-yet-unnamed party, sending emails to all 750,000 supporters offering membership at £5 per month or £55 annually. Within hours, she was celebrating on social media: “10,000 have joined us as paid-up members! Some […] - [Mandelson, Epstein and Starmer: A Crisis of Credibility](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-epstein-and-starmer-a-crisis-of-credibility/): From “Fuck Off” to Fired: The Unravelling of Peter Mandelson in a System of Secrecy That Protects Its Own The debate over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador came to a head in the Commons today. What unfolded was not just another Westminster row but a moment that cut to the core of Britain’s political decay: a Prime Minister who has left the country vulnerable, its most important diplomatic post compromised, and his own moral compass in tatters. The fact is stark: Keir Starmer knowingly placed a man with five years’ worth of incriminating correspondence with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein into […] - [The EU Continues to Goosestep to the Right: AfD’s Surge in Germany Signals a Dangerous Drift](https://heartlandstribune.com/afd-surge-in-germany/): Support for ADF triples in Western German vote Support for Germany’s far right surged in local elections in the country’s most populous state on Sunday, sending a warning to conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s four-month-old national coalition with the Social Democrats, early projections showed. Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has more than tripled its support in local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state. Winning 16.5% of the vote, the party now commands a foothold in a region often seen as the bellwether of German politics. The governing Christian Democrats under Chancellor Friedrich Merz topped the poll with 34%, […] - [France's Credit Rating Downgraded: The Eurozone Crisis Never Ended](https://heartlandstribune.com/frances-credit-rating-downgraded-the-eurozone-crisis-never-ended/): France’s Credit Downgrade Exposes the Eurozone Trap For EU Rejoiners… For years, rejoiners have claimed the economy is the reason to crawl back to Brussels. But let’s be clear: nobody can predict the markets, not the IMF, not the Bank of England, and certainly not politicians with their “50 years of doom” forecasts. Markets thrive on chaos. Boom and bust is how speculators make their billions, while governments collapse and ordinary people foot the bill. Take the eurozone crisis. Traders coined the sneering acronym “the PIGS” to describe Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, Italy, entire nations reduced to gambling chips. Speculators […] - [Mandelson: The Crown of Thorns and the Prince of Darkness](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson/): The Trilateral Commission  Mandelson, Epstein, Starmer The Epstein affair resembles nothing so much as a rotten onion, each layer peeled back reveals fresh horrors, new connections, deeper corruption. The victims whose voices deserve amplification, the blackmail theories that explain so much yet prove so little, the FBI’s curious handling of evidence, the web of compromised politicians from Trump to Clinton, each represents a vital story demanding investigation. Yet to attempt comprehensive coverage would produce not clarity but confusion, not insight but information overload. This analysis concentrates on one particular slice of that putrid bulb: the Trilateral Commission connections that bind Mandelson, […] - [Starmer Forced to Sack Mandelson Over Epstein Ties](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-forced-to-sack-mandelson-over-epstein-ties/): Keir Starmer has been forced into sacking Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States, after fresh evidence exposed the full extent of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Foreign Office admitted the decision was made “in light of additional information” contained in emails between Mandelson and Epstein. The emails, officials say, reveal that “the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.” Most damning of all, Mandelson is said to have suggested that Epstein’s original conviction was “wrongful and should be […] - [Socialism or Liberalism? The Trans Ideology Litmus Test Dividing the Left](https://heartlandstribune.com/socialism-or-liberalism/): “Liberalism in a Red Dress”: Sultana is Shrinking the Socialist Tent This is not socialism, it’s liberalism in a red dress. Sultana’s Purity Politics… Zarah Sultana’s recent interview revealed a troubling authoritarian streak beneath her carefully burnished image of grassroots democracy. Before Your Party has held a single meeting or drafted a single policy, she has already drawn rigid ideological boundaries. “There is no room for socially conservative views in a socialist left-wing party. Period,” she declared, before Nish Kumar sneered that those who disagree should “join the Conservative Party and watch a Ricky Gervais Netflix special.” So much for the […] - [France Burns While Europe’s Centrists Fiddle: The Austerity Delusion Claims Another Government](https://heartlandstribune.com/france-in-turmoil/): The Bankruptcy of Centrism: France’s Government Collapses for Refusing to Inflict More Pain What does it tell us about the bankruptcy of European centrism when a government falls not because it failed to address poverty, inequality, or the energy crisis, but because it could not convince parliament to inflict more suffering on ordinary citizens? François Bayrou’s confidence vote defeat represents more than another French political crisis, it exposes the fundamental contradiction at the heart of liberal governance across Europe. Bayrou’s overwhelming 364-194 defeat came after he demanded parliamentary backing for €44 billion in austerity cuts. The irony would be amusing were […] - [Unions Warn Starmer: "Don't Water Down Workers' Rights Bill"](https://heartlandstribune.com/unions-warn-starmer/): When Labour Abandons Labour Unions warn government not to water down workers’ rights bill The question is, would anyone be genuinely surprised if they did? That is the question haunting trade union halls across Britain as Keir Starmer’s government eyes the Employment Rights Bill with the nervous glance of a politician calculating electoral arithmetic rather than moral imperatives. The departure of Angela Rayner, has left a vacuum at the heart of government that business lobbies are already rushing to fill. Within hours of her resignation, the Federation of Small Businesses was briefing journalists about “opportunities to fix the issues” with legislation […] - [Fourteen Years for a Placard: The UK's War on Free Speech](https://heartlandstribune.com/palestine-action-ban/): Terrorists Pensioners: The State’s War on Dissent What does it tell us about the state of British democracy when a 79-year-old woman from Dorset can be arrested under terrorism legislation for holding a piece of paper? When Sir Jonathon Porritt, environmental campaigner and former royal adviser, finds himself dragged from Parliament Square for the crime of peaceful protest? When almost 900 people, a majority of them pensioners in their seventies and eighties, are hauled away by police for expressing solidarity with Palestinian liberation? Saturday’s mass arrests outside the seat of our democracy represent something far more sinister than heavy-handed policing. They […] - [Government Reshuffle: Starmer Rearranges the Orchestra on a Sinking Ship](https://heartlandstribune.com/government-reshuffle/): Keir Starmer’s Panic Reshuffle: Shuffling the Deck of a Sinking Ship… Sir Keir Starmer has carried out his biggest reshuffle since taking office, but it comes after the resignation of Angela Rayner, who stepped down as Deputy Prime Minister, Housing Secretary, and Labour’s Deputy Leader after admitting she failed to pay full stamp duty on a flat in East Sussex, has forced the Prime Minister into damage control. Angela Rayner’s resignation represents more than the fall of a single politician; it exposes the hollowness at the heart of Keir Starmer’s project. Here was a woman whose working-class credentials were meant to […] - [The Rayner Reckoning: Labour's Double Standards](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-rayner-reckoning-labours-double-standards/): The Hollow Ring of Virtue Is there anything more tiresome than a politician’s confession? It is a performance as predictable and theatrical as a Punch and Judy show, where the sinner, having been found out, steps forward not to repent but to manage the fallout. The words are always the same: “I take full responsibility.” “Mistakes were made.” “I have now referred myself to the proper authorities.” These aren’t confessions; they are legal disclaimers wrapped in the cloak of contrition. And so it is with Angela Rayner, a politician who has, until now, built a public persona around a powerful, almost […] - [Bilderberg: The Secret Mandate](https://heartlandstribune.com/bilderberg-the-secret-mandate/): What the 72nd Bilderberg Meeting Reveals About Power Without Accountability From 9 to 12 April 2026, the world’s most powerful political figures, intelligence chiefs, defence contractors, and corporate oligarchs gathered in Washington D.C. behind closed doors. No minutes were taken. No votes were cast. No mandate was sought. Britain sent its Deputy Prime Minister and its first female MI6 chief. The man who paid for the Deputy PM’s previous Bilderberg trip was sitting in the same room. Tony Benn gave us the only questions worth asking. We put them to every person in that hotel, Five essential questions that must be […] - [BLUE PLANET, ALIEN WORLD](https://heartlandstribune.com/blue-planet-alien-world/):   For half a century, we have stared at the stars and asked the same question: are we alone? I grew up in the golden age of that question. ET phoning home. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. The haunting piano of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 1951 original, not the Hollywood remake. The X-Files, with its famous insistence that “the truth is out there”. Half the world has always wondered whether someone, or something, is out there. Maybe we are one step closer to that answer. But maybe the answer is in fact closer to home. For me, the […] - [Not a Wheel Turns: Ireland’s Revolt Against the Diesel State](https://heartlandstribune.com/not-a-wheel-turns/): Profiteering Energy Giants and the Green Transition: Are Crushing Working People Ireland’s Working-Class Revolt Against the Diesel State What is happening in Ireland this week is not an Irish story. It is a global one, and Ireland just happens to be the country where working people decided they had absorbed enough of it. Across the developed world, the same mechanism has been running for years. Energy prices spike. Governments gesture at relief. Oil and gas companies record the largest profits in human history. The cost of living rises. Wages do not. The people who move goods, grow food, drive buses and […] - [Good Law Project Labelled Busybodies as High Court Rejects Challenge to Single Sex Guidance](https://heartlandstribune.com/good-law-project-labelled-busybodies/): Same Battle, Different Grift Why Women Still Fight for Rights Already Confirmed by Courts The Supreme Court has confirmed women’s rights. Then the High Court confirmed them again. So why are working women still waiting, trade unions still silent, and a litigation company earning thousands still raising money after the judge told them to sit down? Tony Benn said it plainly, as he always did: there is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle, to be fought over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up. He meant it as a call […] - [Netanyahu: We have more goals to complete and are ready to resume fighting at any time; ‘the finger is on the trigger’](https://heartlandstribune.com/netanyahu/): Is anyone surprised? Benjamin Netanyahu never saw this as peace. Only a pause to reload. He’s backed the ceasefire on paper, while making it crystal clear it means nothing in practice. Israel stands ready to resume the war with Iran at a moment of his choosing, “finger on the trigger,” as he puts it. This isn’t diplomacy. It’s theatre. A two-week intermission in a war that was never meant to end. Donald Trump calls it victory. Netanyahu calls it unfinished business. The truth sits somewhere colder: a fragile truce built on shifting sand, with oil routes, power plays, and political survival […] - [Doctors Strike: The Cost of Healing, Why the Stethoscopes are Silent](https://heartlandstribune.com/doctors-strike-2/): Is the British State more interested in managing the decline of its greatest institution than in actually preserving it? This morning, as resident doctors, the backbone of our hospital wards, mount the picket lines once again, the air is thick with the usual government condemnations of “disruption.” Yet, we must ask: what is more disruptive to a nation’s health than the systematic, decade-long impoverishment of the very people we trust with our lives? The current six-day walkout, which began today, is not an act of greed; it is an act of survival for a profession that has reached its breaking point. […] - [The Tribes of Colour: From the Circus Maximus to the Death of the Citizen](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-tribes-of-colour/): The Arena in the Living Room Every Easter Sunday in Britain, the chariots thunder across the nation’s television screens in the ritual airing of Ben-Hur. The living room settles into comfortable ancient spectacle. We watch the factions collide in the dust of the arena, safely convinced that such primal, blood-soaked tribalism is a relic of a dead empire. But as the credits roll and we reach for our phones, the circus simply migrates from the screen to the palm of our hands. We have not outgrown the Hippodrome. We have merely digitised it. The visceral roar of the Roman crowd lives […] - [The Great British Energy Heist: How a Pricing System Became a Tool of State-Sanctioned Pillage](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-british-energy-heist/): Is a country still a sovereign nation if it cannot guarantee its people the basic warmth required to survive a northern winter? Or has the United Kingdom become something else entirely: a captive market, presided over by a government that acts less like a protector of the public interest and more like a debt collector for the global petrochemical elite? While the rhetoric in Westminster focuses on “global headwinds,” the ledger tells a different story. Since the dawn of the energy crisis, energy firms have extracted over £125 billion in profit from their UK operations alone. Globally, that figure rises to […] - [Britain Once Burned the White House Down: Now It Can't Even Say No](https://heartlandstribune.com/britain-once-burned-the-white-house-down-now-it-cant-even-say-no/): America Got Its Independence, Britain Forgot to Keep Its Own On the night of 24 August 1814, British forces under Major-General Robert Ross marched into Washington and set fire to the Presidential Mansion, the Capitol, and most of the federal buildings in between. The flames were visible for miles. It was, in part, retaliation for American forces burning York the previous year. Whatever you think of the act itself, one thing is beyond dispute: Britain was then a sovereign power, capable of independent decision and independent action. Two hundred and twelve years later, that same nation cannot tell an American president […] - [Britain’s Net Zero Hypocrisy: We've Stopped Producing Gas, Not Using It](https://heartlandstribune.com/britains-net-zero-hypocrisy/): Net Zero doesn’t end our need for gas. It just ends our control over it. Britain sits on its own energy resources while paying some of the highest energy prices in the developed world. That is not an accident. It is a policy. There is a sleight of hand at the heart of Britain’s Net Zero policy, and it is hiding in plain sight. When the government refuses new North Sea licences, it does not stop Britain using gas. It stops Britain producing gas. That distinction is everything, and politicians know it. The difference is made up by importing liquefied natural […] - [Charlie Kirk Shooting: Patsy on the Roof](https://heartlandstribune.com/patsy-on-the-roof/): If not Tyler Robinson’s weapon, then whose bullet killed Charlie Kirk? A patsy does not have to be innocent. He just has to be convenient. Tyler Robinson was on the roof. He had a rifle. He texted his partner about retrieving it from a “drop point.” He told his father what he had done. He walked into a sheriff’s office and surrendered. On any conventional reading, this is a man who wanted Charlie Kirk dead and went to considerable lengths to make it happen. But here is what the state cannot yet tell us: whether Robinson’s rifle fired the shot that […] - [THE BUTCHER'S BILL: TRUMP'S THREE-WAY TRAP IN THE PERSIAN GULF](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-butchers-bill/): Five Weeks In: Iran Isn’t Budging – The War America Can’t Win Is there any sight more pathetic than a superpower surprised by the fact that its enemy refuses to fall over? We are five weeks into a conflict that was sold as a clinical exercise in regime collapse, yet the “weakened” Iranian state continues to strike back. Blinded radars and downed AWACS aircraft prove that defiance is not yet exhausted. The American presidency now sits at a crossroads where every signpost points toward humiliation. The latest Centcom briefings reveal a military establishment preparing for a “crunch point.” But the political […] - [Israel Barred Gates of the Holy Sepulchre: The Dark Reality of Ben Gvir’s Security Policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/israel-barred-gates-of-the-holy-sepulchre/): Israel Barred Gates of the Holy Sepulchre On the holiest day of the Christian calendar, in the holiest city on earth, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church was turned away from the site of the Resurrection by Israeli police. Now ask yourself one question: what would the world be saying if it were the Western Wall? The gates of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were barred on Palm Sunday. Not by a storm. Not by a collapse of infrastructure. Not by any threat that a reasonable person, in any security briefing ever written, could seriously identify as a danger requiring the […] - [Neoliberalism in a Compostable Jacket: The Greens Vote Against Nationalising Energy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-greens-vote-against-nationalising-energy/): The Greens Radical Rhetoric: Neoliberalism in a Compostable Jacket How much is a radical reputation worth when it refuses to touch the levers of ownership? We are often told that the Green Party of England and Wales represents the last bastion of principled, transformative politics in an era of stultifying centrism. Their Leader, Zack Polanski, moves through the media with the ease of a man who believes his own press releases, speaking of wealth taxes and a “fairer” economy. Yet, when one peels back the organic, hand-knitted layers, the core is not Green; it is the same cold, grey steel of […] - [CAN THE LEFT MARCH FOR VICTORY WHILE LOSING THE WORKING CLASS?](https://heartlandstribune.com/marching-for-victory/): How the British Left Traded Solidarity for Virtue Signalling, and Why the Working Class Is No Longer Listening There is a speech circulating in left-wing circles in Dublin that ought to unsettle every socialist in Britain. Not the kind of unsettling that produces a conference resolution or a letter to the Guardian. The kind that keeps you awake at three in the morning. The kind that names a thing you have been half-knowing for years but have lacked the honesty, or the courage, to say aloud. The speech was delivered by László Molnárfi, former President of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union, […] - [The Steel Town Shiver: Why Brumby Should Haunt Westminster](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-steel-town-shiver/): It may not quite be the Ides of March, but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the mainstream parties. Reform UK has taken a ward in the heart of a key Red Wall town as Labour support continues to slip, in what will be seen as a bad by-election night for Keir Starmer. Starting in the British Steel town of Scunthorpe, Reform candidate Ellen Dew won the Brumby ward by-election, taking the seat from Labour. The by-election was triggered by the death of long-serving councillor and former Mayor of North Lincolnshire, Sue Armitage. Ellen Dew becomes the first Reform councillor on […] - [The World Is Waking Up: When Common Sense Became Revolutionary](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-world-is-waking-up-when-common-sense-became-revolutionary/): Common Sense Becomes Revolutionary: The Week Women’s Rights Stopped Being Negotiable From the Olympic stadium to the Brownie meeting hall, institutions that spent a decade bending to an imported culture war are quietly, steadily, bending back. The question is what the left does next. Something shifted this week. Two things happened, on the surface unrelated, that together tell you everything about where we have arrived, and where we are finally, tentatively heading back from. On Tuesday, Girlguiding announced that biological boys who identify as girls must leave the organisation by the 6th of September this year. The deadline follows last December’s […] - [Morgan McSweeney's Phone: Remote Kill](https://heartlandstribune.com/morgan-mcsweeneys-phone/): Number Ten wiped the phone. Then they asked us to believe it was stolen. The British state can read your emails, store your browsing history, track your car by number plate, monitor your bank transfers, and log your phone’s location within metres. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 requires telecoms companies to retain every citizen’s online activity for twelve months, accessible by the state without a warrant. Ministers have justified these extraordinary powers, repeatedly and without embarrassment, as essential for national security, crime prevention, and public safety. We are told, in the official language of reassurance, that nothing is truly lost. Every […] - [The Profits of War: Is the High Command Cashing in on the Chaos?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-profits-of-war-is-the-high-command-cashing-in-on-the-chaos/): 15 Minutes to Fortune: How Wall Street Cashed In on War Before the World Knew Is the fog of war being used as a literal smokescreen for a multi-billion dollar heist? Fifteen minutes before the world learned that war had been paused, someone already knew. At 6:49 am New York time on Monday 23 March, the market moved. In a single minute, 6,200 crude oil futures contracts changed hands, representing roughly 5.8 billion dollars of nominal value. At 6:50 am, more than a billion dollars of S&P 500 index futures were traded in a concentrated burst. Then, at 7:05 am, President […] - [The Four Thousand Kilometre Mirage: Is Diego Garcia the New '45-Minute' Lie?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-four-thousand-kilometre-mirage/): Are we being asked, once again, to believe in the impossible to justify the indefensible? In 2003, it was the infamous “45-minute” claim, a dossier-driven fiction that dragged Britain into the graveyard of Iraq. Today, as the smoke clears over the Indian Ocean, a new number is being etched into the public consciousness: 4,000 kilometres. On Friday, the world was told that Iran launched two ballistic missiles at the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia. This claim does not merely signal an escalation; it shatters the known laws of Iranian physics. For years, Tehran has maintained a 2,000-kilometre ceiling on its […] - [THE GREAT GAME: DIFFERENT EMPIRE, SAME VICTIMS](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-game/): 🎧 AI Audio Trial: The Great Game (MP3) “You have a great game to play, and it will be a terrifying one.” -Arthur Conolly, 1842. Arthur Conolly knew what he was talking about. The British intelligence officer who coined the phrase ‘The Great Game’ had played it himself, at close quarters, in the places where the stakes were not abstractions. He had spent years in Central Asia running the kind of missions that empires have always run: gathering intelligence, manipulating local powers, securing the routes along which profit travelled. The Great Game, as he named it, was a tournament of shadows, […] - [From Cromwell to Starmer: How Many Times Must We Kill the House of Lords?](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-cromwell-to-starmer/): From 1649 to 2026: Sir Keir Starmer’s Lords “Reform” Is a Patronage Machine Yesterday, 18 March 2026, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act received Royal Assent. The last 92 hereditary peers will lose their automatic right to sit and vote in Parliament. It is, by any reasonable measure, long overdue. It is also, by any honest measure, almost entirely beside the point. Today is 19 March 2026. On this day in 1649, the Rump Parliament did what Labour leaders since Keir Hardie have only dared to whisper in manifestos: they abolished the House of Lords. They declared it “useless and […] - [Lee Anderson's Valentine’s Day Grift: A Westminster Side-Hustle](https://heartlandstribune.com/lee-andersons-valentines-day-grift/): Lee Anderson’s Valentine’s Day Grift: Westminster’s Side-Hustle Culture Lives On With Love from me to you… Last month, while the rest of the country was grappling with the relentless squeeze of a stagnant economy, the Reform MP for Ashfield was reportedly busy. According to recent reports, Lee Anderson used his publicly funded parliamentary office to record personalised Valentine’s Day messages for the video-sharing platform Cameo. For a fee of up to £56, voters could buy a “romantic” slice of the Palace of Westminster. The Charity Shield Mr Anderson’s spokesperson claims the proceeds were donated to charity, which is a convenient moral […] - [The Petroyuan: A Silent Broadside in the Strait of Hormuz](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-petroyuan/): The Petroyuan Passage: A Shifting World Order Bypassing the Dollar… Is the supremacy of the United States dollar being dismantled not by a grand treaty, but by the quiet wake of a single oil tanker? On 15 March 2026, the MT Karachi, an Aframax-class vessel laden with Abu Dhabi’s Das crude, performed a feat that the combined might of the US Navy could not guarantee. It transited the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most volatile maritime chokepoint, with its transponder screaming its location to the heavens. While Western-aligned vessels remain anchored or diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, the MT […] - [A Wing, a Prayer, and a Bloodbath: Trump's Hollow Crusade in Iran](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-wing-a-prayer-and-a-bloodbath/): The Architects of Ruin: A Wing, a Prayer, and a Bloodbath How many times must the ghosts of the 20th century haunt the halls of the White House before the lesson of “regime change” is finally learned? We are witnessing the birth of a conflict that possesses all the hallmarks of a disaster: plenty of cordite, but no compass. The resignation of Joe Kent, a top US counterterrorism official, is the first definitive crack in the façade. When a man of Kent’s experience walks away from the levers of power, it is rarely over a minor disagreement. It is an act […] - [The Verdict of History: Why Keir Starmer Is Ignoring His Own Warning on Jury Trials](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-verdict-of-history/): Starmer’s 1992 Warning: Scrap Juries, Get “Conveyor-Belt Justice” The Architect of His Own Critique… Does a right cease to be “fundamental” simply because the Crown’s spreadsheets are in the red? This is the question currently facing the British public as the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, prepares to take a sledgehammer to an 800-year-old pillar of our democracy: the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers. The Government’s justification is the “backlog,” that modern bureaucratic monster used to excuse every erosion of liberty. But while Mr Lammy speaks of “efficiency,” a ghost from 1992 has emerged to pull the […] - [The Epstein Paradox: One Woman Jailed While 29 Powerful Men Got Away](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-epstein-paradox/): Millions of files, images, and videos, and one woman is in prison. The rest walked free. HOW EPSTEIN’S NETWORK BOUGHT ITS FREEDOM That is the central obscenity of the Epstein affair, and no amount of document releases, committee hearings, or carefully worded ministerial apologies will change it. Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted in December 2021 on five federal counts of sex trafficking and conspiracy, is serving twenty years at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas. Jeffrey Epstein, the man at the centre of the abuse operation, died in his cell in August 2019 in circumstances that the state insists were suicide and that […] - [Dunblane Remembers: 30 Years Since UK's Worst Mass Shooting](https://heartlandstribune.com/dunblane-remembers/): Today, the Scottish town of Dunblane marks thirty years since the worst mass shooting in British history. On the morning of 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into the gymnasium of Dunblane Primary School armed with four legally held handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In less than four minutes, sixteen children, all of them five or six years old, were dead. Their teacher, Gwen Mayor, who placed herself between the gunman and her pupils, died alongside them. Hamilton then turned one of the guns on himself. Fifteen others, twelve children and three adults, were wounded. Thirty years. And the […] - [The Bathrobes and the Beast: Epstein Andrew, Mandelson and the Photograph That Exposes the Establishment](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bathrobes-and-the-beast/): The Bathrobe and the State: What One Photograph Tells Us About the British Establishment A photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson in bathrobes alongside convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been released from the US Department of Justice files. It is the first known image of all three men together. It is also a portrait of a system that believed it would never face a reckoning. Is there anything more revealing than the sight of an English prince and a British statesman lounging in towelling robes, sipping from star-spangled mugs in the easy company of a monster? The image unearthed from […] - [Mandelson Files: Starmer Was Warned of Epstein Risk and Appointed Him Anyway](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-files/): The Warning Starmer Chose to Ignore The Mandelson Files confirm what we already knew: the Prime Minister was told of the ‘reputational risk’ before the appointment, and proceeded anyway. Now the British taxpayer is subsidising the consequences. There is a phrase that tends to appear in the suppressed documents, the buried memos, and the vetting files that powerful men would rather you never read. It is a quiet phrase, almost bureaucratic in its restraint. It asks you to note a ‘general reputational risk.’ Those four words, contained in a Cabinet Office due diligence document sent to Keir Starmer in December 2024, […] - [Trial by Jury: Starmer Knows The Price of Everything, The Value of Nothing](https://heartlandstribune.com/trial-by-jury/): Does the people’s right to be judged by their peers have an expiry date? In the windowless corridors of Whitehall, it seems the answer is yes, provided the backlog is long enough, and the political will is short enough. Today, Christopher Moran, a criminal barrister of nineteen years’ standing and a lifelong Labour loyalist, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister. It was not a letter of complaint, not a polite protest, not a note to be filed away and forgotten. It was a resignation. And it was, in its quiet, measured fury, one of the most damning indictments of this […] - [The Inquisition Comes to Lambeth: When Your Party's Heresy-Hunters Turned on Their Own](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-inquisition-comes-to-lambeth/): When the left trades free speech for heresy-hunting, it has already lost… “Is the Labour Party to remain a democratic party in which the right of free criticism and free debate is not merely tolerated but encouraged? Or are the rank and file of the party to be bludgeoned or cowed into an uncritical subservience towards the leadership?” Michael Foot wrote those words in Tribune in 1954. He was not predicting the future. He was issuing a warning. Seventy years later, the warning has been ignored, and not only by Labour. It has been ignored by the very people who would […] - [The Green Party’s War on Reality: Why Biology is Not a ‘Fantasy’](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-green-partys-war-on-reality/): How gender ideology, billionaire dark money, and authoritarian groupthink are tearing the Green Party apart… Is it possible for a political party to claim it is saving the planet while simultaneously denying the most fundamental biological reality of the species that inhabits it? The Green Party was once, however briefly, a genuine refuge for people who believed that politics ought to be grounded in material reality: in the physical world, in measurable consequences, in science. It believed in ecosystems and feedback loops; in the hard logic of cause and effect. It understood that you cannot simply wish away inconvenient truths, whether […] - [China Spy Arrest: Labour MP Joani Reid Suspended Herself](https://heartlandstribune.com/china-spy-arrest/): The Westminster Revolving Door: When Lobbying Becomes a Liability Can a democracy truly claim to be sovereign when the corridors of power are so porous that the distinction between public service and private influence has all but vanished? The arrest of David Taylor, husband of Labour MP Joani Reid, on suspicion of assisting Chinese intelligence is not merely a personal tragedy for a family in East Kilbride. It is a systemic alarm bell. But as we peel back the layers of this latest “spy scandal,” we find it is inextricably linked to a broader, more ancient rot in our political culture, […] - [A Rat Race for Influence: From Shipbuilding to Spying How Britain's Decline Made Us Vulnerable to China](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-rat-race-for-influence/): David Taylor, Husband of Labour MP Jodi Reid, Held on China Spy Charges Jimmy Reid stood in the Bute Hall of Glasgow University in April 1972 and told a generation to reject the values of the rat race. “A rat race is for rats,” he said. “We’re not rats. We’re human beings.” The New York Times printed the speech in full. It called it the greatest address since Lincoln at Gettysburg. Reid had spent the previous year leading the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in, staring down Edward Heath’s government, and saving six thousand jobs on the Clyde by the simple, radical act […] - [The Gilded Cage: Corruption, Corporatism, and the Betrayal of the Thin Blue Line](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-gilded-cage/): Greed Begets Greed… The chief executive of the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has been arrested on suspicion of corruption… How much is the soul of a public service worth? In the case of the Police Federation of England and Wales, the price tag for its Chief Executive appears to be £701,000 per annum. Yet, as the City of London Police’s fraud squad carries out raids across Wales and the Home Counties, the real cost is being measured in something far more precious: the total erosion of trust between a workforce and the institution meant to protect them. The […] - [Darren Jones Caught in Iran Hypocrisy "Ask the US" About Legality](https://heartlandstribune.com/darren-jones-caught-in-iran-hypocrisy/): The Geography of Hypocrisy: Why Legality Only Matters When it’s the Enemy When does a “manifestly illegal” act of war become a “specific and limited defensive purpose”? According to the current residents of Downing Street, the answer depends entirely on whose finger is on the trigger and which flag is flying over the target. This morning, the airwaves were thick with the stuttering justifications of Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. Pressed on whether the United States’ initial, unilateral strikes on Iran were legal, Jones offered a shrug that could be heard from Whitehall to Washington. “That’s a […] - [Iran, The Conveyor Belt of Consequence: War Abroad, Chaos at Home](https://heartlandstribune.com/iran-the-conveyor-belt-of-consequence/): Exporting Violence, Importing Chaos: The West’s Iran War and Europe’s Coming Crisis Every time the West and Israel light a fuse in the Middle East, Europe ends up breathing the smoke… We are still living with the aftershocks of Iraq: a shattered state, millions displaced, and a long tail of instability that didn’t stay “over there”. It travelled, in people’s lives, in trauma, in organised crime, in radicalisation, and in a migration system that has never recovered its footing. Now it’s Iran. A US-Israeli coalition has escalated into direct confrontation, Iran retaliates under the language of self-defence, and suddenly the drumbeat […] - [Murder Made Respectable: Britain's Silence on the Killing of Khamenei](https://heartlandstribune.com/murder-made-respectable/): The Cock Crowed Six Times: John Healey Refuses to Say If US-Iran Strikes Are Legal “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” — George Orwell, 1946 That grim observation has found its most comfortable home in eighty years in the mouth of Britain’s Defence Secretary. On this first day of March 2026, as smoke still rises over Tehran and Iranian missiles strike at Dubai, Doha and Bahrain, we are witnessing the construction of a new world order, one in which international law is not a universal standard but a private convenience for the powerful, invoked loudly […] - [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Dead](https://heartlandstribune.com/irans-supreme-leader-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-dead/): How does the world wake up when the sun rises over a decapitated state? Reports filtering through from Tehran this morning, first whispered and now thundering across state media, confirm that the central pillar of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead, a victim of a joint US-Israeli strike. The death of his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter was the first crack in the official silence. The subsequent reports of the Supreme Leader’s own demise would mark not just the end of an era, but the beginning of a terrifying and unpredictable vacuum. We are no longer discussing surgical strikes or […] - [Cleared but Not Clean: Operation Cannon, the Simons Resignation, and the Machine That Spied on Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/cleared-but-not-clean/): The departure of Josh Simons is being packaged as a noble sacrifice. It is nothing of the sort. It is a controlled detonation designed to bury the story that matters: how the think tank that bought a Labour leadership is now running the country, and how it responded to scrutiny not with openness, but with espionage. In the smoke-filled corridors of Westminster, they tell you that a resignation is an act of honour. It is the last refuge of the gentleman politician: fall on your sword, clear your desk, and allow the institution to exhale. The machine resets. The story dies. […] - [Freedom From Above: The Last Lie of Empire](https://heartlandstribune.com/freedom-from-above/): The Midnight Clearance: When ‘Freedom’ arrives by F-35 On the last day of February 2026, the United States and Israel bombed Iran. They called it freedom. They always do… Note the remarkable precision of the language. At four o’clock in the morning, somewhere between his dreams and his certainties, Donald Trump telephoned the Washington Post to explain that all he wanted was “freedom” for the Iranian people. Somewhere beneath the smoking ruins of University Street in Tehran, where American and Israeli missiles had landed minutes before, the children of that freedom were learning what the word means when it travels at […] - [ Churchill Statue Vandalised: "Greetings from The Hague" and the Question Nobody's Asking](https://heartlandstribune.com/churchill-statue-vandalised/): Greetings from The Hague: Who Does the Churchill Vandal Really Serve? Does the British state truly lack the capacity to protect a twelve-foot bronze icon in the most watched square mile on earth, or does it simply find the alternative more politically useful? Shortly after 4:00 a.m. on Friday, 27 February 2026, the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was found dripping in red paint. The slogans were unambiguous: “Zionist war criminal,” “Stop the Genocide,” “Globalise the Intifada,” “Never Again is Now.” the fourth face of the plinth was tagged in Dutch: “Groeten uit Den Haag”, Greetings from The Hague. […] - [The Gorton Guillotine: Why the Manchester Result is Labour’s Death Knell](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-gorton-guillotine/): The Gorton Guillotine and the End of Labour In 1999, Peter Mandelson told a cabinet colleague not to worry about the working class deserting Labour. “They’ve got nowhere else to go,” he said. Last night, in the early hours of a damp Manchester morning, the people of Gorton and Denton answered him. They found somewhere else to go. They found quite a few places, in fact. They Found Somewhere Else to Go… The results arrived just after 4 a.m., and with them came the kind of history that is not easily unmade. For the first time in nearly a century, this […] - [The Many, the Few and the One Who Might Walk: Your Party After the Coronation of Corbyn](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-many-the-few-and-the-one-who-might-walk/): Your Party Factional War: Corbyn Wins Jeremy Corbyn has his mandate. He has his committee majority. He is, in all but name, the leader of the left’s great new hope. But in politics, as in life, winning the argument inside the room counts for nothing if your co-founder is already checking the exits. There is a particular cruelty that the British left reserves for itself. It is not visited upon it by its enemies, though they are plentiful and well-resourced. It is self-administered, with a thoroughness and dedication that would be admirable in any other context. Today, on the very morning […] - [The Reckoning at the Gates of Manchester: What Gorton and Denton Tells Us About the Death of New Labour's Second Coming](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-reckoning-at-the-gates-of-manchester/): From 13,000 Majority to Third Place: Labour’s Gorton and Denton Reckoning Is this the moment the “Red Wall” in Manchester finally crumbles, not under the weight of a Tory surge, but beneath the suffocating hubris of its own leadership? As voters in Gorton and Denton head to the polls today, they are not merely choosing a local representative; they are delivering a verdict on a premiership that has become a carousel of U-turns, internal purges, and the return of a political era many thought long buried. The air in Gorton and Denton is thick with more than just the usual February […] - [The Spider's Web: Labour Together Darren Jones "In for a Pound"](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-spiders-web-labour-together/): When is a pound not a pound? Well, in the language of the modern Westminster operator, it appears the answer is straightforward: when it arrives not as cash but as a donation or a carefully arranged suite of professional services, staffed offices, and corporate-sponsored expertise. The defence, when challenged, is always the same. Technical. Legalistic. Designed to be true in the narrowest possible sense while being profoundly false in every sense that actually matters. The Rt Hon Darren Jones, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and previously Chief Secretary to the Treasury, offered precisely such a defence when scrutinised over […] - [The Prince of Darkness Meets the Dawn of Justice](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-prince-of-darkness-meets-the-dawn-of-justice/): Keir Starmer’s Mandelson Nightmare: The Arrest That Could Bring Down a Government How many times can a man betray the public trust before the iron gates finally swing shut? For decades, Peter Mandelson glided through the corridors of power, a spectral figure of New Labour artifice who seemed immune to the gravity that grounds lesser men. Twice, he resigned from Cabinet in disgrace. Twice, he returned, rehabilitated by the same networks that had never truly let him go. Today, that long immunity expired. This afternoon, the “Prince of Darkness“ was led from his north London home in Camden, wearing a grey […] - [John McDonnell Demands Independent Inquiry Into Labour Together Smear Operation](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-mcdonnell-demands-independent-inquiry-into-labour-together/): The Duty of Candour and the Shadow of Labour Together When the Hillsborough Law was finally introduced to Parliament, the Prime Minister spoke with a quiver of moral certainty about a new era of transparency. He promised that the British state would never again be permitted to hide from the people it serves. Why, then, does that same spirit of openness seem to evaporate at the threshold of the Labour Party’s own internal machinery? A growing cadre of Labour MPs, led by the veteran backbencher John McDonnell, is now demanding an independent investigation into the activities of Labour Together. This is […] - [The Company They Keep: Margaret Hodge From Islington to Ofcom…and The Scandals Left Behind](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-company-they-keep/): From Islington to Ofcom…and the scandals left behind… The race to lead Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s most powerful communications regulator, has reached its final, most cynical stretch. By April 2026, a single individual will hold the authority to define “misinformation” for the entire British public; to determine what is broadcast, what is permissible, and what is silenced. That individual, if the current frontrunner holds her position, will be Baroness Margaret Hodge: a woman whose political career is less a study in public service than in the dark arts of institutional survival. It is a prospect that ought to disturb anyone who […] - [The Prince and the Paedophile: The Bodyguards Who Saw Everything and Said Nothing](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-prince-and-the-paedophile/): The Crown’s Bodyguards: Who Were They Really Protecting? When Prince Andrew’s security detail watched him befriend a convicted paedophile, who were they serving? The public who paid them, or the prince who commanded them? Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, has finally lost his titles. The Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh, all gone. Buckingham Palace, in an unusually blunt statement, cited “serious lapses in judgment” concerning his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The palace confirmed the King has “initiated a formal process” to remove the titles, and Andrew must now vacate Royal Lodge […] - [A Birthday to Remember: The Arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the End of Impunity](https://heartlandstribune.com/arrest-of-andrew-mountbatten-windsor/): Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor Arrested as the Epstein Files Finally Close In Can a man be truly ‘private’ when his ledger is filled with the secrets of the state and the names of the damned? This morning, as the sun rose over the Sandringham Estate, the transition from Prince to prisoner was completed. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, celebrating his 66th birthday, did not wake to the customary royal salutes, but to the arrival of Thames Valley Police. He is currently in custody, held on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Carted off as any common criminal. The charge is as heavy as it is rare: […] - [Epstein Files UK: How Private Jets Became a Corridor for Child Sex Trafficking](https://heartlandstribune.com/epstein-files-uk/): The Tarmac Blind Spot: How Britain’s Private Jet System Became a Corridor for Child Sex Trafficking Why is it that a single parent claiming Universal Credit faces the most intrusive surveillance the modern state can devise, yet a convicted paedophile was able to shuttle young women and girls across British borders with the administrative efficiency of a parcel delivery? The answer is not a mystery. It is a system. And that system has a name: Fixed Base Operations. The US Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein files has done what three decades of British institutional inertia could not: it has […] - [Operation Cannon Fallout: Cabinet Office Launches Josh Simons Probe](https://heartlandstribune.com/operation-cannon-fallout/): The Cabinet Office Launches an Investigation Into the Cabinet Office. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? So, the Cabinet Office is investigating a Cabinet Office minister. Pause on that sentence for a moment. Let it settle. The very department charged with upholding standards in public life will now determine whether one of its own ministers breached those standards. Of course, the outcome will be a masterpiece of institutional self-restraint. Josh Simons, the former director of Labour Together and current parliamentary secretary in the Cabinet Office, stands accused of commissioning the US PR firm APCO to investigate the backgrounds of journalists to run […] - [Think of the Children: How Starmer’s Internet Crackdown Was Born in Labour Together’s War Room](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-internet-crackdown/): The Ministry of Truth: Starmer’s Plan to Regulate the Internet: From AI to Age Limits There is a rule in politics so reliable it ought to be carved above the door of every parliament: when a government says it is doing something for the children, check your civil liberties at the door. Today, Keir Starmer announced sweeping new powers to regulate the internet. AI chatbots will be brought under the Online Safety Act. A consultation beginning in March will consider banning under-16s from social media. VPN use by young people may be restricted. And, most significantly of all, ministers will seek […] - [Operation Cannon: Labour's War on the Fourth Estate](https://heartlandstribune.com/operation-cannon-labours-war-on-the-fourth-estate/): How Starmer’s Praetorian Guard Turned Spies on the Press, and Why It Matters More Than They Want You to Know Labour Heartlands Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four What does a political movement do when it has run out of arguments? When the facts are against it, when the documents are damning, when the money trail leads exactly where its enemies said it would? It does what every cornered power has done since the invention of the state: it turns on the people asking the questions. The story of […] - [Gaslighting Britain: Starmer's Manufacturing War](https://heartlandstribune.com/gaslighting-britain-starmers-manufacturing-war/): Britain’s War Economy: £73bn for Defence, 7.3 Million on Waiting Lists Here is a question that no one in polite political society seems willing to ask. If Russia cannot take a single Ukrainian city without three years of grinding attrition, a million casualties, and the near-collapse of its own conventional military, by what strategic logic is Britain being prepared for a generational war against the same opponent? It is Valentine’s Day, 2026, and the Prime Minister is in Munich whispering sweet nothings to an audience of defence ministers, arms dealers, and transatlantic policy architects. The romance, however, is not with the […] - [Defence Secretary John Healey: Funding Forever Wars](https://heartlandstribune.com/defence-secretary-john-healey-funding-forever-wars/): Funding Forever Wars: Britain’s £21.8 Billion Blank Cheque for Ukraine George Orwell, writing through the voice of Emmanuel Goldstein in Nineteen Eighty-Four, understood the true purpose of modern conflict with a clarity that ought to haunt us: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” He went further, explaining that perpetual warfare serves a precise economic function: “War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long […] - [The Shortest-Serving Mandarin: Sir Chris Wormald Quits as Cabinet Secretary](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-shortest-serving-mandarin/): Is Keir Starmer the Architect of His Own Chaos? Can a Prime Minister truly claim to be “rewiring Britain” when the only things being rewired are the nameplates on his staff’s office doors? Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street promising the clinical, forensic stability of a former Director of Public Prosecutions. Yet, eighteen months into his premiership, the “Whitehall machine” looks less like a refurbished engine and more like a demolition site. The departure of Sir Chris Wormald, the shortest-serving Cabinet Secretary in the century-long history of the role, is not merely another personnel change; it is a confession of systemic […] - [Pandora's Box Unleashed: The Epstein Files](https://heartlandstribune.com/pandoras-box-unleashed-epstein-files/): Be Careful What You Wish For The ancient Greeks understood something about human nature that we are only now rediscovering in real time: some knowledge, once released, cannot be contained. Pandora, driven by curiosity and the promise of truth, opened the forbidden box. Out flew every conceivable evil into the world. Disease, despair, cruelty, corruption. All the darkness that humanity would ever know, set loose in a single, irreversible moment. When the lid finally slammed shut, only one thing remained inside: Hope. We demanded that the box be opened. We insisted on seeing what lay inside. Now we know why the […] - [The Memory Hole: Why is David Lammy Deleting the People’s Records?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-memory-hole/): If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? More importantly, if a citizen is prosecuted in a British courtroom, the press is barred from the record, and the jury is removed from the box, does justice still exist? Under the stewardship of David Lammy, the Ministry of Justice has moved from mere incompetence to active suppression. By ordering the total deletion of the Courtsdesk archive, the government is not protecting “data privacy”; they are sanitising the record of a failing state. The Architecture of Secrecy The statistics unearthed by […] - [Sunlight is Not a Disinfectant When You're Hiding Your Own Shadow: Wes Streeting's Mandelson Problem](https://heartlandstribune.com/wes-streetings-mandelson-problem/): The Health Secretary’s WhatsApp dump reveals less about transparency and more about the anatomy of a leadership bid disguised as candour _______________________________________________ When a politician voluntarily publishes private messages, the first question is never what the messages contain. It is why they are being published now. On Monday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting handed his WhatsApp exchanges with Peter Mandelson to Sky News, declaring he had “nothing to hide.” The messages, spanning August 2024 to October 2025, show Streeting confiding in the disgraced peer that he feared being “toast at the next election,” that the government had “no growth strategy at all,” […] - [London Housing Crisis: The £107bn Offshore Property Scandal](https://heartlandstribune.com/london-housing-crisis/): When Your Home Became Their Portfolio When did the roof over a Londoner’s head become nothing more than a high-yield asset class for a shell company in the British Virgin Islands? Walk through Battersea. Look up at Circus West Village, the first phase of the Power Station redevelopment. Nearly every window frames an empty chair, an unlived-in kitchen. Of the 866 luxury apartments built here, 824 were sold before construction even began. The overwhelming majority went to overseas investors who will never turn a key in these locks, never complain about the boiler, never learn their neighbours’ names. This is not […] - [Maurice Glasman: New Labour Is "Sin" That Led to Perversion and Paedophilia](https://heartlandstribune.com/maurice-glasman/): From NCCL to Epstein: The Labour Paedophile Scandal Pattern When a political ideology ends not with a whimper but with criminal investigations into market manipulation and associations with convicted child sex offenders, perhaps the time has come to speak plainly about what that ideology actually was. Lord Maurice Glasman, founder of Blue Labour and until this morning a relatively circumspect critic of the Labour establishment, appeared on Sky Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips to deliver what can only be described as last rites. His message to Keir Starmer’s government: New Labour is not merely failed policy or mistaken strategy. It is […] - [Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney Resigns](https://heartlandstribune.com/morgan-mcsweeney-resigns/): The Price of Darkness: Why McSweeney Had to Go Is there a point where political pragmatism becomes a moral contagion? For five months, the heart of the British government has been pulse-checked by the ghosts of Jeffrey Epstein’s Caribbean lair. Today, the man who served as Keir Starmer’s ideological compass and chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, finally admitted that the needle has hit zero. McSweeney’s resignation is not merely a personnel change; it is a confession. By his own hand, he acknowledges that the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador was a catastrophic error of judgment that has “damaged our […] - [The Trilateral Web: How Epstein, Mandelson & Palantir Captured Britain's Surveillance State](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-trilateral-web-how-epstein-mandelson-palantir-captured-britains-surveillance-state/): An investigation into the elite networks linking convicted sex offenders, surveillance capitalists, and the Labour government It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. George Carlin’s line cuts deeper every year. But here’s the democratic demand he didn’t make explicit: we may not be in the club, but we have the right to know who is. British law requires MPs and police officers to declare membership in Freemasonry. The rationale is straightforward: secretive networks create opportunities for patronage, preferment, and conflicts of interest that undermine public trust. If we demand transparency about local lodge memberships, surely we should demand the […] - [The Labour Oligarchy: Tracing the Starmer-McSweeney-Mandelson Network of Power](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-oligarchy/): Labour Together, Power Forever: The Think Tank That Engineered an Oligarchy The Network That Bought British Democracy: How Mandelson’s Epstein Connections Lead Straight to Starmer’s Inner Circle When Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff hosts his mentor Peter Mandelson at the family home in Scotland, is he entertaining a disgraced peer under criminal investigation for leaking state secrets to a convicted paedophile? Or is he simply maintaining the patron-client relationships that built his career? The answer reveals how British politics actually works… Morgan McSweeney pushed harder than anyone for Mandelson’s appointment as US Ambassador. He did this knowing Mandelson had continued his […] - [Epstein Files: Document EFTA00144082 The Email That Will Haunt Starmer’s Premiership](https://heartlandstribune.com/epstein-files-document-efta00144082-the-email-that-will-haunt-starmers-premiership/): The Architect and the Apprentice: How the Starmer-Mandelson Bond Collapsed Under Epstein’s Shadow Is there a point where proximity to power becomes an indictment of character? We are often told that in the high-stakes world of international diplomacy and statecraft, one must inevitably rub shoulders with the unsavoury. But as the January 2026 unsealing of the Epstein archives continues to haemorrhage secrets, the “unfortunate association” defence is no longer tenable. The Epstein Files reveal connections that challenge the integrity of political figures. The resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Labour Party this week, facing both a police inquiry into market-sensitive leaks […] - [Former Labour MP Dan Norris Arrested on 'Rape and Sexual Assault' Charges](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-labour-mp-dan-norris-arrested-rape-sexual-assault-charges-dan-norris/): The Norris Affair: When “Integrity” Met Labour’s Selection Machine and Dan Norris Does power protect its own, or is the “Change” we were promised merely a cosmetic adjustment to a decaying façade? Dan Norris’s case raises questions about the integrity of the political system. In July 2024, the voters of North East Somerset and Hanham were told they were participating in a moral exorcism. By unseating the caricature of Victorian paternalism that was Jacob Rees-Mogg, they were ostensibly ushering in a new era of integrity, vetting, and professionalised governance. Out would go Mogg. In would come Dan Norris, vetted and approved […] - [Mandelson Resigns: The Prince of Darkness Meets the Dawn of Accountability](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-resigns-the-prince-of-darkness-meets-the-dawn-of-accountability/): Is it possible for a man to dedicate his life to a Party while simultaneously entangling his private life, clubs, and finances with a convicted predator? Lord Mandelson, the high priest of New Labour spin, has finally reached the end of his rhetorical tether. His resignation from the Labour Party this weekend, ostensibly to avoid “further embarrassment,” is not an act of nobility. It is a tactical retreat by a man whose proximity to the late Jeffrey Epstein has transitioned from a reputational stain to a potential criminal liability. The latest disclosures from the US Department of Justice are not merely […] - [From Rockefeller to Starmer: Mapping the Trilateral Network in the Epstein Files](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-rockefeller-to-starmer-mapping-the-trilateral-network-in-the-epstein-files/): The Architecture of Influence: Epstein, the Trilateral Commission, Network for a New World Order The Vision In 1949, George Orwell imagined a world divided into three perpetually warring superstates: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Each bloc controlled its population through surveillance, managed information, and the systematic erosion of independent thought. The Party’s slogan was clear: “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.” In 1973, David Rockefeller founded an organisation that divided the world into three regions: North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Its membership would be drawn from those who control finance, media, academia, and (notably) “a few trade union chiefs.” […] - [Jack the Ripper to Epstein Files: How Britain's Monarchy Has Always Protected Its Predators](https://heartlandstribune.com/jack-the-ripper-to-epstein-files/): Is it a glitch in the machinery of history, or a fundamental design feature, that the most grotesque allegations of perversion always seem to orbit the same gilded centres of power? From the fog-shrouded alleys of Victorian Whitechapel to the sterile, high-security hallways of the Southern District of New York, a single, recurring ghost haunts the British psyche: the image of the “Untouchable.” Whether it is the 19th-century whispers of Prince Albert Victor’s connection to the Ripper murders or the modern, forensic reality of Prince Andrew’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the pattern is identical. The pedestal is built high so that […] - [Starmer's China Visit: Economic Realities Behind the Bloomers They Won't Show on TV](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-china-visit-economic-realities-behind-the-bloomers-they-wont-show-on-tv/): Growth is a Hollow Promise When the Roots Are Planted in Someone Else’s Soil When the Prime Minister touched down in Beijing, he stumbled through state ceremonies and looked every bit the supplicant rather than the statesman, we are told this is progress. After 80 minutes with Xi Jinping, Sir Keir Starmer emerges triumphant, declaring “really good progress” on whisky tariffs and visa-free travel. But before we toast this diplomatic breakthrough with a discounted Scotch, we ought to examine the bill. The Exchange Eight days before Starmer’s plane left for Beijing, his government approved China’s application for a mega-embassy in London. […] - [The Digital Shredder: When Elites Delete the Evidence](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-digital-shredder-when-elites-delete-the-evidence/): The Digital Shredder: Ursula von der Leyen and the Death of Accountability Is the era of the sovereign citizen being replaced by the era of the sovereign CEO? When the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, negotiated a multi-billion-euro vaccine deal with Pfizer via private text messages, and then claimed those messages simply vanished into thin air, she did more than just dodge a transparency request. She signalled to every EU citizen in the West that the most consequential decisions of our age are now beyond the reach of the law, the ballot box, and the basic standards […] - [The Blue Blood and the Green Windfall: The King’s Ecological Shell Game](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-blue-blood-and-the-green-windfall/): The Crown’s Green Windfall: How the King Profits Millions from Your Energy Bills On a cold Wednesday night at Windsor Castle, the stars aligned, not in the heavens, but in the Waterloo Chamber. Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench, and Rod Stewart gathered for the first-ever film premiere in a royal residence. The feature? Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision, a ninety-minute hagiography of King Charles III’s lifelong environmental crusade. As the credits rolled on this cinematic ode to nature, narrated by Kate Winslet, a more grounded reality remained hidden beneath the waves of the British coastline. It is a reality where “harmony” looks […] - [Labour’s WASPI Betrayal: More Pensioners Left Out in the Cold](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-waspi-betrayal-pensioners-left-out-in-the-cold/): The Arithmetic of Contempt: Why 3.6 Million Women Are Worth Less Than One Year’s War When does betrayal become policy? When 270,000 women have already died waiting for justice. When £10.3 billion for British pensioners is “unaffordable” while £13 billion for Ukrainian weaponry flows without parliamentary debate. When Labour MPs who stood beside placards reading “Justice for Waspi Women” now occupy ministerial cars and vote to deny them compensation. Again. On Thursday, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden confirmed what Waspi campaigners had feared since November: the government’s “review” of compensation for 3.6 million women robbed of adequate pension notice was […] - [The Great Severance: EU's Russian Gas Ban is an Act of Self-Harm and Economic Suicide](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-great-severance/): The Great Severance: How Europe Chose Economic Suicide to Make America Great Again In the quiet boardrooms of Brussels and the echoing halls of Westminster, the “Great Severance” is being toasted as a triumph of principle. On January 26, 2026, the European Union formally adopted what may be remembered as the most destructive economic policy decision since the Great Depression. With the stroke of a pen, the Council gave final approval to permanently ban all Russian gas imports by late 2027, severing the energy artery that powered European industry for half a century. The decision was wrapped in the language of […] - [Holocaust Remembrance Day: Russian Liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp](https://heartlandstribune.com/holocaust-remembrance-day-russian-liberation-of-auschwitz-concentration-camp/): Liberation of Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz by Soviet Army On January 27th, 1945, Soviet soldiers of the Red Army marched into Auschwitz-Birkenau, a sprawling death camp that had become the grim epicentre of the Nazis’ genocidal “Final Solution.” As the Third Reich crumbled under relentless Allied pressure, these soldiers unwittingly entered a place that would become synonymous with humanity’s darkest hour. What they found was beyond comprehension: skeletal survivors clinging to life amidst the ruins of industrialized genocide. Over a million people, Jews, Poles, Romani, Soviet prisoners of war, and others, had perished within Auschwitz’s gates, many in the gas […] - [The Frankenstein Reanimation of a Failed Politician: Suella Braverman Defects to Reform UK](https://heartlandstribune.com/suella-braverman-defects-to-reform-uk/): Suella Braverman’s defection to Reform UK marks the eighth Tory MP to abandon ship. But what exactly has she abandoned? And what, beyond raw ambition, has she found? When does a political party cease to be a vehicle for principle and become merely a vessel for survival? The news that Suella Braverman has defected to Reform UK should surprise no one who has watched the slow-motion collapse of the Conservative Party. Following Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell, her departure marks the eighth sitting MP to join Nigel Farage’s ranks. She claims she has “come home.” If that is true, then the […] - [Michael Parenti: Remembering The People’s Historian](https://heartlandstribune.com/michael-parenti/): When a 92-year-old Marxist scholar dies peacefully in Berkeley, surrounded by family, the obituaries write themselves. Distinguished career. Important books. Influential thinker. All true, all bloodless. But Michael Parenti, who died on January 24, 2026, deserves better than the tepid respectability of academic remembrance. He spent six decades demonstrating that history’s ruling classes have always murdered their reformers, and that historians have spent centuries covering it up, and it’s our job to make sure they remain uncovered. Parenti made us ask the questions…Does history belong to those who lived it, or to those who have the leisure to write it? For […] - ["You Have No Idea What We're Facing": The Elite's Commodity Crisis and the End of Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-elites-commodity-crisis-and-the-end-of-democracy/): You People Have No Idea Whatsoever What We’re Facing: Why the New World Order Will Not Allow Democracy to Jeopardise Their Techno Paradise The elite have discovered a problem. The future they promised requires materials that do not exist in sufficient quantity. So they will take them. By force, if necessary. When billionaire mining magnate Robert Friedland stood before an audience at the University of Southern California in January 2025, he delivered something the assembled academics and business leaders were not expecting: the truth. “You people have no idea whatsoever what we’re facing,” he told them, his voice cutting through the […] - [Former Tory councillor admits drugging and raping wife over 14-year period](https://heartlandstribune.com/former-tory-councillor-admits-drugging-and-raping-wife-over-14-year-period/): In May 2010, Philip Young stood before his constituents and resigned as Swindon’s Cabinet Member for Culture, Regeneration and Economic Development. His reason was noble, even touching. He needed, he claimed, to “devote more time” to his family. “I don’t think it is fair on my family,” he told the local press, “to put them bottom of that priority list.“ We now know exactly what he meant by priorities… For the next 14 years, this respectable conservative politician did not cherish his wife, Joanne Young. He enslaved her. He drugged her. He raped her. And, in a grotesque parody of the […] - [Zelensky’s Davos Ultimatum: A "New World Order"](https://heartlandstribune.com/zelensky-a-new-world-order/): Zelensky’s Davos Ultimatum: A “New World Order” Built on Endless War, Not Diplomacy In a chilling address to the World Economic Forum (WEF), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stripped away the veneer of “defence” to reveal the true objective of the current conflict: the dismantling of the current international framework in favour of a militarised “New World Order.” For those of us watching the UK and EU leadership march in lockstep with endless escalation, Zelensky’s words confirm our worst fears. This is no longer about sovereignty; it is about a fundamental reshaping of global geopolitics, where diplomacy is abandoned in favour […] - ["Feel Good or Win?" The Brutal Internal Election That Will Make or Break Your Party](https://heartlandstribune.com/feel-good-or-win/): A political party is not a debating society. It is the voice of the people shaped to make change. Your Party stands at a crossroads that will determine whether it becomes a serious threat to the right-wing and Starmerite establishment or merely another footnote in the tragicomic history of British left-wing failure. The choice facing members in the upcoming Central Executive Committee elections is not about personalities. It is about physics. Do we build a machine capable of exerting force, or do we build a sanctuary for our own consciences? Labour Heartlands is unequivocally endorsing The Many slate, alongside the independent […] - [Trump: Putin's on his Gaza 'Board of Peace'](https://heartlandstribune.com/trump-putins-on-his-board-of-peace/): Trump’s “Board of Peace”: A $1 Billion Buy-In for the World’s Oligarchs Donald Trump stood before reporters in Davos and delivered what should have been an extraordinary diplomatic announcement. Vladimir Putin, he claimed, had accepted an invitation to join his newly minted “Board of Peace”. The Russian president would sit alongside world leaders on a body designed to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and, if Trump got his way, eventually supplant the United Nations itself. There was only one problem. Putin hadn’t actually accepted anything. Within hours of Trump’s declaration, the Kremlin issued its standard diplomatic demurral. Moscow was “studying the details”, spokesman […] - [Carney Davos, and the Funeral of the ‘Rules-Based’ International Order](https://heartlandstribune.com/carney-davos/): Stop Pretending: Carney’s Confession That the Global Game Was Rigged It is rare to hear a technocrat admit the game is rigged while the cards are still on the table. Usually, such confessions are reserved for memoirs written in the safety of retirement. Yet, in a moment of startling candour, Mark Carney, Canadian Prime Minister and former Governor of the Bank of England and the ultimate avatar of the Davos elite, has effectively read the last rites over the neoliberal fantasy. Speaking with the sombre tone of a man watching his stock portfolio dwindle, Carney declared that the current global crisis […] - [Jennifer Melle Reinstated: Women Are Pushing Back and Winning](https://heartlandstribune.com/jennifer-melle-reinstated-women-are-pushing-back-and-winning/): NHS Suspends Nurse for Misgendering: The Real Cost of Woke Ideology in Healthcare When did it become an act of courage for a nurse to call a man a man? When did stating biological reality transform from common sense into career-ending heresy? And when, precisely, did the institutions claiming to protect working-class women decide their dignity was worth less than an ideological abstraction? The Supreme Court answered these questions in April 2025. Five judges, unanimous, declared what everyone from your grandmother to the bloke down the pub already knew: in the Equality Act 2010, “woman” means biological woman. “Man” means biological […] - [Net Zero Is a Slogan: Reality Is Made of Steel](https://heartlandstribune.com/net-zero-is-a-slogan/): There is a specific kind of silence that falls over a steel town when the furnaces go cold. It is not peaceful. It is the heavy, suffocating silence of abandonment, the silence of promises broken and communities hollowed out. In October 2015, that silence descended on Redcar. SSI UK’s steelworks collapsed into liquidation. More than 2,000 skilled workers lost their livelihoods. The second-largest blast furnace in Europe, a 365-foot monument to a century of industrial heritage, fell dormant. By 2021, even that monument was gone, demolished in a controlled explosion that lasted seconds but echoed across generations. Now, on that very […] - [The Zombie Transplant: Andrew Rosindell and the Great Tory Migration](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-zombie-transplant-2/): The Zombie Transplant Accelerates: What Rosindell’s Move to Reform Reveals About Our Political Endgame British politics has entered its gothic phase. The lights are still on at Westminster, the corridors still echo with speeches, but the pulse grows fainter by the day. What we are witnessing is not renewal. It is reanimation. Over the last week, the zombie Tory Party has begun shedding limbs and grafting them onto Reform UK, calling the procedure a revolution. One by one, senior Conservatives cross the floor, not as penitents seeking redemption, but as veterans of the very order they now claim to oppose. Frankenstein’s […] - [The Manufactured Politician: Zarah Sultana and the Production Line to Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-manufactured-politician/): Is Zarah Sultana working class? The question itself reveals how thoroughly modern politics has been emptied of material content… I was recently asked this question and realised I had never examined it closely. Like most who follow politics, I had grown accustomed to politicians from comfortable backgrounds speaking for working people. It is the norm, not the exception. But when you look at Sultana’s trajectory from Birmingham to the House of Commons, what emerges is not simply a question of class identity. It is a question about how the political class now manufactures itself. The Facts of the Matter Sultana was […] - [The Architect of Ruins Returns: Why Tony Blair in Gaza is an Insult to History](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-architect-of-ruins-returns/): The silence of a graveyard is distinct from the silence of peace. As the dust settles on the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the living are left to count the dead among the rubble. In Washington, however, the noise is just beginning. On 15 January 2026, the White House announced that Tony Blair would join Donald Trump’s newly formed “Board of Peace.” He will sit alongside US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, and World Bank President Ajay Banga to supervise the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Blair describes himself as “honoured” by the appointment. He calls the initiative an “extraordinary […] - [The Naked Truth: Why the Darlington Ruling is a Victory for Working-Class Reality](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-naked-truth/): The female changing room is not a debating chamber. It is not a seminar room for gender theory, nor a “safe space” for the validation of metaphysical identities. It is a place of strictly material necessity. It is where tired women…nurses, cleaners, porters, strip off their uniforms at the end of a twelve-hour shift. It is a space of vulnerability, where the boundaries of privacy are not theoretical, but physical. For the eight nurses at Darlington Memorial Hospital, this space became a battleground. Not because they sought a fight, but because their employer decided that “ideology” trumped biology. What does it […] - [The Zombie Transplant: Why Jenrick’s Defection is a Reshuffling of the Rot](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-zombie-transplant/): Political parties do not die in public. They rot in private. Then they start moving again… This is where British politics now stands. Not at the birth of something new, but in the uncanny afterlife of something that should already be buried. The Tory Party is no longer a functioning organism. It is a political corpse, kept upright by habit and fear, animated by reflex rather than conviction. And Reform UK has assumed the role of resurrectionist, cutting into the body and extracting whatever still twitches, gambling that stitched-together parts might pass for renewal. The latest extraction is Robert Jenrick. His […] - [American Occupation: How Oceania Rises While Europe Watches](https://heartlandstribune.com/american-occupation/): What happens when the world’s most powerful military alliance cannot answer its most fundamental question: who defends Denmark when the aggressor is America itself? On Wednesday morning, Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers left the White House after what diplomats termed “frank but constructive” talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The diplomatic language masked a starker reality. “We didn’t manage to change the American position,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen admitted. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.” Ten days earlier, American forces had bombed Caracas, abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás […] - [Victory Tastes of Caution: The Digital ID Rollback and What It Reveals About Power](https://heartlandstribune.com/victory-tastes-of-caution/): When nearly three million people sign a petition, politicians notice. When that petition becomes the fourth largest in British parliamentary history, they retreat. The government’s hasty rollback of mandatory digital ID cards offers a rare glimpse of what public pressure can achieve. But before celebrating this tactical withdrawal, we should examine what it reveals about who shapes policy in Britain today, and what dangers persist despite the U-turn. This is not a story about sensible governance responding to legitimate concerns. This is about elite ambition colliding with democratic resistance, about technocratic hubris meeting its limits, and about a surveillance infrastructure that […] - [The Infrastructure of Control: How Britain's Online Safety Act Weaponises Child Protection for Mass Surveillance](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-infrastructure-of-control-how-britains-online-safety-act/): When did “keeping children safe” become shorthand for dismantling the last vestiges of private communication? The question demands an answer this week as the Starmer government threatens to ban Elon Musk’s X platform over its Grok AI tool creating sexualised images of minors. The Prime Minister’s language was emphatic: “This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting. And it’s not to be tolerated.” Few would disagree. But beneath the moral clarity lies something more troubling: a government exploiting genuine horror to construct surveillance infrastructure that would make the Stasi proud. The immediate crisis involves Grok’s image manipulation features, which users exploited to create non-consensual […] - [The Vicar of Bray Goes to Reform: Nadhim Zahawi, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the Great Elite Shuffle](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-vicar-of-bray-goes-to-reform/): Is there anything quite so wretched as an arsonist complaining about the smell of smoke? Nadhim Zahawi, the man who sat at the very heart of the Tory government for years, has defected to Reform UK. He claims the country has reached a “dark and dangerous” moment. He calls for a “glorious revolution” to overthrow the very bureaucracy he once commanded. It is a spectacle that demands not just our attention, but our cold, unblinking scrutiny. Here we have a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man who held the purse strings of the nation, now posing as an insurgent outsider. […] - [When Censorship Becomes Strategy: The State's War on Elon Musk](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-censorship-becomes-strategy/): When does legitimate regulation become political vendetta? This question sits at the heart of the British government’s extraordinary threat to ban X, a platform used by millions, over failures that plague the entire internet. The answer, it seems, lies not in the technology itself but in who controls it and what they have said about power, especially regarding Censorship. Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI and integrated into X, has become a factory for nonconsensual sexual imagery. Research by deepfake analyst Genevieve Oh found the tool churning out approximately 6,700 sexually explicit images per hour during a 24-hour […] - [South Africa Hosts BRICS Drills in a Direct Snub to Western Hegemony](https://heartlandstribune.com/south-africa-hosts-brics-drills/): While the US carries out piracy on the high seas, snatching oil tankers like sweets from a shop, a very different naval story is unfolding off Africa’s Cape Town coast. 🌊🚢 Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships are currently conducting a week-long joint naval drill in South African waters under the BRICS Plus framework, focused on maritime safety, anti-piracy training, and deeper military cooperation. This exercise wasn’t conjured up overnight; it was planned last year, but its launch comes at the exact moment geopolitical tensions are spiking, largely because the United States has been aggressively intercepting and seizing oil tankers linked to […] - [Trump's $200bn Gamble Exposes the Myth of Austerity Britain](https://heartlandstribune.com/trumps-200bn-gamble/): Trump orders a $200 BILLION mortgage bond purchase to push down U.S. mortgage rates. 🇺🇸📉 Donald Trump announced yesterday that he is directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds. The goal, he claims, is to drive down mortgage rates and restore housing affordability ahead of November’s midterm elections. Within hours, mortgage markets reacted. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, confirmed his office would execute the plan. Stock prices moved. Yields shifted. Here is what nobody in polite circles will say: Trump is not “finding” $200 billion. He is authorising it. The money […] - [Immigration Controls Debate: Why Borders Protect Workers](https://heartlandstribune.com/immigration-controls-debate-why-borders-protect-workers/): The Morning Star Is Right About Capital. It Is Wrong About the Border. The Morning Star says immigration controls always serve the boss. Marx said something more complicated, in the very letter Wilkes quotes. On 6 August, the Morning Star published a substantial reply to an argument I have made repeatedly in these pages: that the unrestricted movement of labour can serve capital as surely as the unrestricted movement of goods, by expanding the available workforce, weakening bargaining power, and letting employers import workers rather than invest in wages, training and the people already here. Roy Wilkes named me, named this […] - [The Charter of the Forest and the Theft of Our Common Wealth](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-charter-of-the-forest-and-the-theft-of-our-common-wealth/): What Springs From the People Must Serve the People… Eight hundred years ago, the law said Britain’s water, land and rivers belonged to everyone. In 1971, that law was struck down. Eighteen years later, they started selling us the rain. There is a sentence buried in the schedule of an obscure 1971 statute that deserves to be read aloud in every school in England. It repealed the Charter of the Forest of 1217, the document that had told the Crown, in plain and binding terms, that the forests, the rivers and the common land of this island belonged to the people […] - [The Case of the Journalist, the Professor and the Police Investigation](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-case-of-the-journalist-the-professor-and-the-police-investigation/): The Met Commissioner called it a mistake. Four months spent investigating Jack Grove, a journalist for asking questions of a Cambridge professor, Jason Arday and never once speaking to him, tells a different story. Scotland Yard Didn’t Drop the Ball. It Picked a Side. Sir Mark Rowley went on LBC this week and said the quiet part out loud. Asked why the Metropolitan Police spent four months investigating a journalist for the crime of asking questions, the Commissioner told Nick Ferrari: “We dropped the ball on that one, let’s not beat around the bush.” He added, more revealingly, that the complaint […] - [Epstein UK Inquiry: 12 Hours to Silence the Truth](https://heartlandstribune.com/epstein-uk-inquiry-12-hours-to-silence-the-truth/): THE INQUIRY THAT DIED BEFORE BREAKFAST A minister said the Prime Minister was looking at a public inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in Britain. Twelve hours later, Downing Street said he wasn’t. The speed of the correction is the story. On Tuesday night, victims minister Alex Davies-Jones told BBC Newsnight that Andy Burnham was “looking into” a public inquiry into the UK activities of Jeffrey Epstein. The Prime Minister would meet Epstein’s victims, she said. He was “taking this very seriously.” By Wednesday morning, the Press Association had been told that no public inquiry is being actively considered by No.10. Twelve […] - [Andy Burnham's Devolution: Rewiring the State, Unwiring Consent](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnhams-devolution/): Andy Burnham’s devolution plan asks the towns to fund the cities, and proposes to repeal the law that lets them object The King of The North Builds His Principalities Nothing about how Andy Burnham took power was unlawful. That is precisely what should frighten you. And here’s why… No law was broken. Sit with that sentence, because it is doing more work than it appears to. No law was broken when a sitting MP resigned his seat in May so that a man outside Parliament could have it, the first time that manoeuvre had been performed in decades. No law was […] - [BP Puts North Sea Business up for Sale](https://heartlandstribune.com/bp-puts-north-sea-business-up-for-sale/): The Means of Production Are For Sale BP has put the largest oilfield in Western Europe on the open market. The only question left is who buys it, and who the profit belongs to once they do. BP putting its North Sea operation up for sale is not a corporate triumph of “disciplined capital allocation,” no matter how many times the press release repeats the phrase. It is a retreat. A global giant drew decades of private profit from a national asset, and now that the fields are ageing and the easy money is gone, it is walking away. For the […] - [The Empty Delegation: How Four Trade Unions Sold Out Their Female Members](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-empty-delegation-how-four-trade-unions-sold-out-their-female-members/): From Cradley Heath to Liverpool: The History of Unions Betraying Female Workers UNISON, ASLEF, USDAW and the Musicians’ Union are boycotting Labour’s Women’s Conference because its formal proceedings are reserved for women. The Oldest Story in the Labour Movement Has a New Chapter, and It Stinks… In 1874, a bookbinder named Emma Paterson founded the Women’s Trade Union League because the unions of her day would not organise women. This is not a new story. It is, if anything, the oldest story in modern history, and not only in the labour movement. Men shut the door. Women build their own room. […] - [Social Care Reform: Can Andy Burnham Fix England's Broken System?](https://heartlandstribune.com/social-care-reform-can-andy-burnham-fix-englands-broken-system/): AS UNFAIR AS AMERICAN HEALTHCARE: BURNHAM’S SOCIAL CARE TEST There is a plaque waiting to be written for British social care, and it would read like a charge sheet. Baroness Louise Casey, who led the commission into social care under Keir Starmer, counted 22 attempts at reforming the sector in England since 1997, none of which fixed the foundations. Royal commissions, green papers, white papers, a Dilnot report, a Care Act, a levy announced and cancelled, a cap legislated and abandoned. A generation of politicians has treated the care of the old, the disabled and the dying as a problem too […] - [Technical Education: The Hard Hat and the Graduation Cap](https://heartlandstribune.com/technical-education-the-hard-hat-and-the-graduation-cap/): Why Burnham’s Technical Education Plan Might Actually Work This August, a few hundred young people in England will collect results in a qualification that no longer accepts students. The Onsite Construction T Level has been closed to new entrants. Uptake was limited and demand was judged insufficient, so the September 2024 intake became the last. Read that again slowly. A nation that cannot build enough houses, that cannot find enough bricklayers, roofers or groundworkers, has just shut down the technical qualification for building houses. Not because the work dried up. Because the pipeline into it was too thin to justify keeping […] - [Rajiv Menon KC Read Twelve Words From An Old Bailey Plaque: He Faces Two Years in Prison for it](https://heartlandstribune.com/rajiv-menon-kc-read-twelve-words-from-an-old-bailey-plaque/): British Justice Rajiv Menon KC Read Twelve Words From An Old Bailey Plaque: The State Spent Seven Months Deciding That Was A Crime... A jury’s right to follow its own conscience is the reason twelve strangers, not the state, get the final word on a person’s guilt. That right is on trial in England this week, and it is a barrister facing prison over it, not the man he was defending. Rajiv Menon KC stood before a jury at Woolwich Crown Court on 8 January 2026 and gave a closing speech that ran the better part of three hours. Somewhere inside […] - [A Northern Mayor in Downing Street: Why the Machine Always Wins](https://heartlandstribune.com/a-northern-mayor-in-downing-street-why-the-machine-always-wins/): Andy Burnham Drops Rent Freeze Within Week in Downing Street Andy Burnham built his reputation as the voice of the heartlands by promising to break the Westminster consensus and shield ordinary people from predatory markets. Five days after taking office, his administration used Housing Secretary Angela Rayner to disown the very rent freeze he spent three years demanding. The change you were promised lasted exactly one week. On BBC Breakfast, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner ruled out rent controls under Andy Burnham’s new government. “We won’t be looking at rent controls,” she said flatly. That sentence matters because three years ago, Andy […] - [From Starmer to Burnham: Labour's Treachery Tradition](https://heartlandstribune.com/from-starmer-to-burnham-labours-treachery-tradition/): Westminster is telling itself a story of long knives and palace intrigue. The truth is simpler and more damning: Keir Starmer destroyed his own premiership in plain sight, and the Labour machine has merely performed its oldest ritual, paying the disloyal and purging the loyal, exactly as it did to Jeremy Corbyn. Why the Plotters Always Win in Labour’s Westminster The Westminster village loves a conspiracy. Turn on the radio this week and you will hear the story being assembled in real time: the people who were most disloyal to Keir Starmer are the ones who have been most richly rewarded. […] - [Andy Burnham Gave Defence to the Minister Who Couldn't Say No to Palantir](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnham-gave-defence-to-the-minister-who-couldnt-say-no-to-palantir/): From the NHS to the MoD: Palantir’s Own Minister Takes Defence Wes Streeting stood down from a leadership challenge, endorsed Andy Burnham, and within weeks holds the department that pays Palantir a quarter of a billion pounds. The company did not need to lobby its new Secretary of State. It already knows him. The first thing to understand about Wes Streeting’s appointment as Defence Secretary is that Palantir did not need to be told. The American surveillance firm has spent three years building its position inside the British state: a £330 million data platform running through the NHS, a £240.6 million […] - [John Healey: Chancellor](https://heartlandstribune.com/john-healey-chancellor/): Andy Burnham’s first major appointment is John Healey as Chancellor. Healey replaces Rachel Reeves, who served throughout Keir Starmer’s premiership. A former Defence Secretary, he resigned on 11 June after a row over military spending. The Rawmarsh and Conisbrough MP has been in Parliament since 1997 and is steeped in the old Labour establishment. He served private secretary to Chancellor Gordon Brown from 1999 to 2001. Between 2001 and 2010, he successively served as adult skills minister, treasury minister, local government minister and housing minister. Burnham promised the biggest change in 40 years. His first Chancellor has spent nearly 30 of […] - [Can Andy Burnham Escape Labour's Broken Record?](https://heartlandstribune.com/can-andy-burnham-escape-labours-broken-record/): Burnham Promises Hope. Labour’s Record Demands Doubt Andy Burnham entered Downing Street promising a new political model, a new economic model and an end to rough sleeping. The words were better, the manner warmer and the first action welcome. But before Britain accepts the change of actor as a change of direction, Labour must answer for the last two years of failure. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on Monday, 20 July 2026, the seventh person to hold the office since the Brexit referendum and the sixth to enter Downing Street in the past decade. He did so before announcing his Cabinet, […] - [The UN Had To Tell Britain, Women Have Rights](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-un-had-to-tell-britain-women-have-rights/): IT TOOK GENEVA TO REMIND WESTMINSTER THAT WOMEN HAVE RIGHTS Women’s rights in Britain are not owned. They are held on licence, revocable whenever a man claims the female identity. July 2026 was the month the licence nearly got called in. On 14 July, in an office in Geneva, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls sat down and drafted a press release about the United Kingdom. Not about Afghanistan, where girls are barred from school. Not about Iran, where women are beaten for their hair. About Britain, the country that gave the world the suffragettes, the […] - [Andy Burnham Promises a Break With Starmer, but Britain Has Heard This Speech Before](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnham-promises-a-break-with-starmer/): The King is Dead; Long Live the Consensus Andy Burnham’s first speech as Labour leader contained language the Labour left has waited years to hear: neoliberalism named, privatisation condemned. It also contained a warning from recent history. Keir Starmer began with promises of unity, pluralism and socialist continuity too. The Good: Burnham Named the System Andy Burnham arrived as Labour leader promising hope, unity and a decisive break with the economic model of the past forty years. There was much in his speech worth welcoming. He named neoliberalism. He identified the centralisation of political power and the privatisation of economic power […] - [STARMER PROMISED TO ABOLISH THE LORDS HIS FINAL ACT: 26 MORE PEERS, ONE OF THEM BURNHAM'S](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-promised-to-abolish-the-lords/): Khan Gets a Peerage. Starmer Gets a Legacy of Broken Promises Keir Starmer called the House of Lords indefensible and promised to abolish it. Four days before leaving Downing Street he sent it 26 new members, one of them the mayor of London, a man with no announced ambition for the place and every reason to be useful in it. This was never really about Sadiq Khan. It is about a prime minister who kept exactly one promise: to break the rest. Starmer Promised to Abolish the Lords. His Final Act: To Add 26 Peers and One More Broken Promise Picture […] - [Peasants' Revolt: The Death of John Ball](https://heartlandstribune.com/peasants-revolt-the-death-of-john-ball/): Who Was Then the Gentleman? Six Centuries On, Still No Answer On 15 July 1381, the English state hanged, drew and quartered a priest for preaching that no man is born a lord. Six hundred and forty-five years later, his question has still not been answered. It has only been managed. The Day They Killed a Question Why is it that whenever the working class demands a fair return for their sweat, the ruling elite reacts not with economic logic but with the raw, penal violence of the state? It is a question that has echoed down the centuries, and one […] - [Internationalism Was Never About Open Borders](https://heartlandstribune.com/internationalism-was-never-about-open-borders/): ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY… Paris 1889: The Second International’s Founding Principle On 14 July 1889, socialist delegates from across the world gathered in Paris to form the Second International. Their principle was simple: “The worker’s struggle has no borders.” because capital crossed them too. Modern liberals have spent decades twisting that principle into an argument for the unrestricted movement of cheap labour. They are wrong. Ask them what internationalism means today and you will hear about open borders, labour mobility and the free movement of people as an unquestionable good. What you will rarely hear is the word that mattered […] - [Ann Widdecombe Death: Counter-Terror Police Take Over](https://heartlandstribune.com/ann-widdecombe-death-counter-terror-police-take-over/): WIDDECOMBE INVESTIGATION: COUNTER-TERROR POLICE TAKE OVER AS OFFICIAL ACCOUNT SHIFTS Forty-eight hours after police said there was nothing to suggest terrorism, counter-terror officers are now leading the inquiry into Ann Widdecombe’s death. A 28-year-old man from Rotherham has been re-arrested under terrorism powers. The public has been told, again, not to speculate. WHAT HAS CHANGED The investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe has been taken over by counter-terrorism police, in a significant escalation of a case that has shifted shape almost daily since the former minister was found dead at her Dartmoor home on Thursday 9 July. Counter Terrorism Policing […] - [Veteran broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan dies aged 68](https://heartlandstribune.com/veteran-broadcaster-dermot-murnaghan-dies-aged-68/): Dermot Murnaghan, former Sky News and BBC presenter, has died Veteran television journalist and broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan has died at the age of 68 following treatment for prostate cancer. His family said he died peacefully at his north London home on Saturday morning following a period of illness. Murnaghan revealed in June 2025 that he had been diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer. At the time, he urged men over 50, those in high-risk groups and anyone displaying symptoms to get tested, warning that the disease can progress without obvious signs. During a distinguished broadcasting career spanning more than four decades, Murnaghan […] - [The Bayeux Tapestry: A Banner of Conquest, Not Friendship](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bayeux-tapestry/): From 1066 to Starmer: The Norman Yoke Never Lifted When the establishment celebrates symbols of oppression, the working class should ask why. So France is lending Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, a so-called “powerful symbol” of our shared history. Politicians are calling it a grand gesture, a moment of cultural celebration between nations. The media gushes about this “priceless treasure” coming home. But let’s not be duped by state-sponsored PR campaigns wrapped in silk and symbolism. The Bayeux Tapestry isn’t just art, it’s a banner of conquest, a stitched account of how Norman invaders subjugated England, tore up its customs, and stamped […] - [Police launch murder investigation into Ann Widdecombe's death](https://heartlandstribune.com/police-launch-murder-investigation-into-ann-widdecombes-death/): MURDER INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED AFTER ANN WIDDECOMBE FOUND DEAD AT DARTMOOR HOME Devon and Cornwall Police say their inquiry is “moving at a significant pace” after the former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokeswoman, 78, was found with serious injuries at her home in Haytor on Thursday. Detectives are hunting a white male in connection with her death. WHAT WE KNOW Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed on Friday afternoon that a murder investigation has been launched following the death of Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative MP and minister who went on to become a Brexit Party MEP and Reform UK’s justice spokeswoman. […] - [The Wolf and the Tribute: How Labour Chose Warfare Over Welfare](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-wolf-and-the-tribute/): Fabian Society Exposed: Labour’s Original Sin How Labour chose warfare over welfare, and why its founders would approve On 4 January 1884, in a London drawing room, a handful of middle‑class intellectuals founded the Fabian Society. They were not workers. They were clerks, writers and academics. Within two years they had acquired the pair who would define them: a playwright named George Bernard Shaw and a civil service examiner named Sidney Webb. They chose their emblem with candour: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Shaw had it fired into a stained glass window in 1910, showing himself and Webb hammering the world […] - [Nigel Farage Claims Witch Hunt: Clacton Will Judge Him](https://heartlandstribune.com/nigel-farage-claims-witch-hunt/): The Ordeal of Nigel Farage: Not A Hot Iron In Sight Nigel Farage wants you to believe he is walking on hot coals. He is filling in a form, and he still might not manage that correctly. For the better part of five centuries, English justice rested on judicium Dei, the judgment of God, delivered through fire and water. An accused man might carry a red hot iron the length of a church, his hand bandaged and sealed for three days, the verdict written in whether the wound healed or festered. Or he was bound and lowered into a cistern: sink […] - [Before Britain Buys Manchesterism, Someone Should Read the Small Print](https://heartlandstribune.com/manchesterism/): Andy Burnham is about to become prime minister on the strength of what he built in Manchester. Before the country signs up to the national version, it is worth reading exactly what he built, and what even his own sympathetic economists admit it cannot yet do. By the time you read this, Andy Burnham may be closer to Downing Street than any man has come without a contested election since Gordon Brown glided into it in 2007, then spent three years never quite finding the nerve to ask the country if it agreed. This is not even the open chaos of […] - [Two Years of Starmer: The Lightness of the Gavel](https://heartlandstribune.com/two-years-of-starmer-the-lightness-of-the-gavel/): Starmer’s Authoritarian Britain… In two years, this government has arrested more than three thousand people for holding placards, made it a crime to stand outside a politician’s front door, moved to take the jury box away from defendants, and handed a surveillance contractor the keys to our medical records. He promised to tread lightly. He meant on the powerful. On the rest of us, the gavel has been coming down one law at a time. The Lightness of the Gavel… Two years ago today, standing on the threshold of Downing Street, Keir Starmer looked into the cameras and promised an exhausted […] - [Emma Bateman v Green Party: Three Expulsions, One Woman](https://heartlandstribune.com/emma-bateman-v-green-party-three-expulsions-one-woman/): Three Expulsions, One Woman: Why Emma Bateman’s Case Against the Green Party Matters to Every Member of Every Party The Green Party has expelled Emma Bateman three times over the same complaint. The courts settled years ago that beliefs like hers are protected in law. Her case will decide whether a political party can simply ignore that. How many times does a political party have to expel the same woman before we stop calling it discipline and start calling it what it is? The Green Party boasts that it is the only party in Britain without a whip. Its members, we […] - [Sheffield Council Becomes First in England to Oppose NHS Palantir Data Contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/sheffield-council-becomes-first-in-england-to-oppose-nhs-palantir-data-contract/): Sheffield Just Said What the Rest of England Is Thinking The first council in the country has voted to push Palantir out of the NHS. Ministers should listen before the 2027 review, not after. Let me ask you a question that sounds technical and is anything but. Who should hold the keys to your medical records: the health service you own, or a Californian surveillance firm best known for its work with spies, soldiers and immigration agents? Sheffield has given its answer, Sheffield City Council became the first local authority in England to approve a motion formally opposing Palantir’s involvement in […] - [The Cost of Trade: How Starmer's Deal with Trump's America Will Kill More Than Covid](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-cost-of-trade-how-starmers-deal-with-trumps-america-will-kill-more-than-covid/): While Westminster argues about warfare and welfare, the real security of the British people has already been signed away. The receipts are in the British Medical Journal, and the bill will be paid in lives. The Racket Every protection racket works the same way. A man walks into your shop and admires it. Nice little business you have here, he says. Shame if anything happened to it. Then he names his price. On 1 December 2025, the British government paid the man. The UK-US pharmaceuticals deal was announced as a landmark agreement to safeguard medicines access and drive investment. Strip away […] - [The Law of the Rigged Market: Energy Prices What Goes Up Never Comes Down](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-law-of-the-rigged-market/): Oil Prices Down: Energy Prices Still Up Oil has surrendered almost its entire war premium. Tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz again. Yet on the first of July your energy bill jumps 13 per cent, and the pumps refuse to fall. This is not gravity failing. It is extraction working exactly as designed. They tell us what goes up must come down. That is the law of gravity. But in Britain we live under a different law: the law of the rigged market. Under this law, prices rocket like a missile during a crisis and drift down like a […] - [Andy Burnham's Speech From No 10 North: Old Words, Different Postcode](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnhams-speech/): Strip the accent from Andy Burnham’s first big speech and you are left with Keir Starmer’s script, performed by a more popular actor, for an audience the machine has already decided will applaud. The speech: old wine in a northern bottle… Andy Burnham stood in a Manchester museum on Monday and told the country that Westminster is broken. He is right. He told us he will take power out of the centre, build a “No 10 North” to act as “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain,” and deliver the biggest council house building programme since the post war years. He […] - [Andy Burnham Coronation: Labour’s Hollow Crown](https://heartlandstribune.com/andy-burnham-coronation-labours-hollow-crown/): The King Is Dead. Long Live the King. Andy Burnham is about to be handed the country on fewer than 25,000 votes, and a party with a landslide majority could not produce a leader from its own benches to stand against him. Look past the coronation. It is not the illness. It is the X-ray, and the bone beneath is broken. They will tell you that Keir Starmer chose his moment and walked away with his head high. He did not. He was pushed, and he was pushed because his own party had become a thing the country could no longer […] - [The Darlington Nurses Won: The Unions Should Hang Their Heads](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-darlington-nurses-won-the-unions-should-hang-their-heads/): An NHS trust has paid out £187,000, apologised, and torn up its policy. But the real scandal is that the women who forced this victory had to win it alone, abandoned by the very unions that took their dues. This is not just a payout. It is a warning shot. County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has paid £187,000 in damages, issued a formal apology, withdrawn its “Transitioning in the Workplace” policy, and agreed to provide changing, washing and toilet facilities separated between biological men and biological women. It has also agreed to retrain its managers so the discrimination and […] - [Puberty Blockers: "Primum non nocere, first, do no harm"](https://heartlandstribune.com/puberty-blockers-primum-non-nocere-first-do-no-harm/): The Regulator Said Fourteen. The Government Said Eleven. MPs are scheduled to vote on the puberty blockers trial TODAY. Drugging physically healthy children to stop them turning into adults? Madness. – Jonathan Hinder M Today, the morning after Keir Starmer resigned and Labour began hunting for its seventh leader in a decade, the House of Commons will vote on the puberty blockers trial. The motion may not bind a thing. The government keeps its majority and can wave it away by teatime. But every Member will have to put their name to a side, and that is worth something. It tells […] - [The Last Fiction of Keir Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-last-fiction-of-keir-starmer/): He spent six minutes rewriting the past. The accounts tell a different story. There is a particular kind of lie that does not trouble itself to argue with the truth. It simply replaces it. On Monday morning, Sir Keir Starmer stood outside Downing Street and performed that replacement in full public view. In six minutes during his resignation speech, he rewrote the history of the Labour Party, casting himself as the surgeon who saved a dying patient and his predecessor as the disease. It was a fluent performance. It was also, in its founding claims, untrue. Orwell saw this coming, as […] - [Starmer Resigns: The Machine Finishes the Job](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-resigns-the-machine-finishes-the-job/): A protester’s anthem, a party’s long knives, and the summer Westminster learned to ignore the voters. The Machine Finishes the Job As Keir Starmer surrendered the Labour leadership at the lectern outside Number Ten this morning, a lone protester on the public street drowned him out with the anthem of the European Union. Ode to Joy, Beethoven’s hymn to the brotherhood of man, played at full volume over the very morning a party set about devouring one of its own. The man with the speaker was mourning the Europe this country voted to leave ten years ago this week, and refusing, […] - [Ten Years On, The Labour Party Knives Are Out Again](https://heartlandstribune.com/ten-years-on-the-labour-party-knives-are-out-again/): THE MACHINE EATS ITS OWN Almost ten years ago to the day, in the last week of June 2016, the Parliamentary Labour Party staged a slow-motion execution. They called it the chicken coup. One by one, over the course of a single rolling day and the days that followed, shadow ministers resigned in a choreographed cascade designed to make Jeremy Corbyn’s position impossible, less than a year after the membership had handed him the largest mandate in the party’s history. The trick of it was the choreography. No single resignation needed to be the fatal one. Each departing minister could simply […] - [Ten Years On: Labour Heartlands Becomes The Heartlands Tribune](https://heartlandstribune.com/ten-years-on-labour-heartlands-becomes-the-heartlands-tribune/): THE HEARTLANDS TRIBUNE Ten Years On, We Are Changing Our Name. Here Is Why. We did not change our name because we changed our politics. We changed it because the name no longer tells the whole truth. We have chosen this day deliberately. Midsummer is the old turning point, the longest day, the moment the year tips and the light begins its slow return journey toward winter. It is a day for letting go of what has run its course and turning to face what comes next. That is what we are doing. Labour Heartlands was born in a very particular […] - [Scotland’s Trans Prison Policy Ruled Unlawful](https://heartlandstribune.com/scotlands-trans-prison-policy-ruled-unlawful/): The Price of a Lie: What Cornton Vale Cost Women There is a particular kind of violence that does not leave a mark. It is the violence of being told that what you know to be true is, in fact, bigotry. It is the violence of watching the institutions built to protect you, the courts, the unions, the party that once called itself yours, look you in the eye and ask you to doubt your own body. For three years, women in Scotland’s prisons lived with that violence as policy. On 19 June 2026, the Court of Session ended it. Lady […] - [Makerfield Vote to Remove Starmer](https://heartlandstribune.com/makerfield-vote-to-remove-starmer/): Andy Burnham Takes Makerfield: The Coronation to a Coup Makerfield has not simply elected Andy Burnham. It has fired a warning shot through the windows of Downing Street. On the surface, Labour holds the seat. Andy Burnham wins. The machine will call it a great Labour victory. The loyalists will pretend this is proof the party is back. It is not. This was not a vote of confidence in Keir Starmer. It was a vote to begin the process of removing him. This was no ordinary by-election. It was the first since Leyton in 1965 to be triggered for the express […] - [Makerfield By-Election: Rage Against the Labour Machine](https://heartlandstribune.com/makerfield-by-election-rage-against-the-labour-machine/): Andy Burnham, the Safety Valve and the Labour Machine Andy Burnham, Makerfield, and the coronation engineered so the machine cannot lose A seat in Parliament is not a man’s to give away. It belongs to the people who live in it. Yet on 14 May, a Labour MP named Josh Simons stood up and announced he was handing his over. He did not resign because he was ill, or disgraced beyond endurance, or weary of public life. He resigned so that Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, could take his place, return to the Commons, and from there mount a […] - [Smyrtos Tanker Seizure: Newton’s Third Law The Reaction Is Never Equal](https://heartlandstribune.com/smyrtos-tanker-seizure-newtons-third-law-the-reaction-is-never-equal/): Escalation by Paperwork, Patrol Ship and Press Release A government with no direction has sailed Britain into deep water. This week, somebody started shooting. NEWTON’S THIRD LAW: THE REACTION IS NEVER EQUAL Every schoolchild is taught Newton’s third law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What the schoolroom leaves out is the small print. In the affairs of nations, the reaction is rarely equal, and it is almost never opposite. It is larger, it is sideways, and it has a way of becoming something nobody chose and nobody can stop. History is a catalogue of small incidents […] - [Starmer Arson Trial: El Money Mystery, Russia Sabotage or State Story](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial-2/): Why Arson, Not Terrorism? The Question the State Won’t Answer If the Russian government were behind the arson attacks on Sir Keir Starmer’s properties, why were the men in the dock convicted of arson, and not terrorism? The question is not mine alone. By Monday’s verdict the press had already settled the matter: this was a Russian attack on the Prime Minister, and the BBC published its own investigation that morning declaring the fires part of a Russian campaign of sabotage and lies. And yet, in the courtroom itself, no evidence was put before the jury that the handler known as […] - [Starmer’s Age Verification: Trojan Horse for Digital ID](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-age-verification-trojan-horse-for-digital-id/): How Do You Stop a Child Without Checking Every Adult? Ask yourself one plain question, and refuse to let go of it. How do you stop a fifteen-year-old girl from opening Instagram without first establishing the age of the forty-five-year-old man just about to log in? You cannot. There is no machine that quietly checks the child and waves the adult through unseen. To know that one user is too young, the system must interrogate every user. Which means it must interrogate you. This morning, in Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer announced a full ban on under-16s using the major social […] - [Let the Oil Flow: Trump’s Six-Word Confession](https://heartlandstribune.com/let-the-oil-flow-trumps-six-word-confession/): “Let the Oil Flow” Trump set fire to the Strait of Hormuz, then demanded applause for opening it. Four months, thousands of dead and one record quarter for the arms trade bankers and energy companies later, the taps are back on. Here is who paid, and who was never going to. Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946 Read the confession again, because they do not usually leave it lying around in the open. “Ships of […] - [Royal Marines Board Russian Tanker: A Dead Cat Story](https://heartlandstribune.com/royal-marines-board-russian-tanker-a-dead-cat-story/): Smyrtos Tanker Boarding: Theatre, Not Defence: Another Step Up The Escalation Ladder A government that cannot fund its own defence sends commandos into the Channel to prove that it can. Watch the footage if you like. Just understand it is the hand you are meant to watch. 42 Commando Abseils: Inside the Channel Tanker Raid Three days. That is the entire distance between a Defence Secretary walking out because Britain can no longer afford to defend itself, and the same government sending Royal Marines abseiling onto a tanker in the dark to persuade you that it can. In the small hours […] - [No Defence for Starmer: Seven Ministers Gone](https://heartlandstribune.com/no-defence-for-starmer-seven-ministers-gone/): Healey and Carns Resign: Starmer’s Defence Meltdown Seven ministers gone in a month, the Ministry of Defence in open revolt, and a question nobody in Westminster dares ask: more billions, yes, but billions for whom? When the loyalist’s loyalist walks out, the game is up. John Healey was not a plotter. He was not a Streeting, circling the wounded leader with a press operation and a glint in his eye. He was the man who sat through every humiliation of this government, every U-turn, every scandal, and said nothing. For two years, he carried the defence brief like a soldier carries […] - [Pride and Fall: How Rainbow Capitalism and Gender Ideology Killed the Gay Rights Parade](https://heartlandstribune.com/pride-and-fall/): Pride and Fall Pride, the old proverb warns, comes before a fall. And so it has proved. A movement born so that a man could love a man and a woman could love a woman has been captured twice over: by capital, which rented its flag, and by an ideology that now brands same-sex attraction itself a heresy. It is a story of pride and prejudice both, and what is falling is not gay people. It is a product, and a betrayal. Pride’s Corporate Collapse: Who Killed the Rainbow? Something is falling, and you can measure it precisely. Among Britain’s ten […] - [Makerfield By-Election: Andy Burnham Labour’s Pantomime Horse](https://heartlandstribune.com/makerfield-by-election-labours-pantomime-horse/): Makerfield: The Seat Manufactured for a Leadership Run Makerfield is not being asked to choose a Member of Parliament. It is being asked to sign the boarding pass for a Labour succession. And what it is offered is not a new politics, but the same play with the same pantomime horse running the stage. “…to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” — George Orwell, Politics and the English Language There is something deeply revealing about the Makerfield by-election, and it has nothing to do with who wins it. This is not an ordinary contest. No member has died. No […] - [Palantir UK: Capture of the British State – Contract by Contract](https://heartlandstribune.com/palantir-uk/): Palantir: How a US Spy‑Tech Firm Took Control of Your NHS, Firearms & Defence Records Palantir holds your NHS records, your defence secrets, and now your firearms data. Its CEO says the product is used to kill people. Its technology is alleged to have helped power the war machine in Gaza. And a British Prime Minister visited its Washington headquarters, accompanied by a lobbyist whose firm was on the company’s payroll, with no minutes taken and no record kept. Ask yourself why. There are moments in public life when the accumulation of facts becomes impossible to explain away as coincidence. This […] - [BETRAYAL BY MOTION: PARLIAMENT MOVES TO KILL WOMEN'S RIGHTS CODE](https://heartlandstribune.com/betrayal-by-motion-parliament-moves-to-kill-womens-rights-code/):   “No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party who ignores her sex.” – Susan B. Anthony, suffragette, 1920 MPs from five parties have signed a motion to kill the EHRC’s Code of Practice on single-sex services before it can come into force. Labour supplies the largest bloc. They call it inclusion. It is ideological capture. And the working-class women they claim to represent will remember who stood where. THE MOTION THAT REVEALS EVERYTHING On 1 June 2026, a formal parliamentary motion was tabled by Nadia Whittome MP to disapprove the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s […] - [The Mandelson Files: When Transparency Comes With a Locked Drawer](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-mandelson-files/): The Mandelson Files: The Evidence of Our Eyes and Ears Was Missing The second tranche of the Mandelson files tells us very little. That, precisely, is the scandal. The missing evidence speaks louder than anything released. “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four There is a passage in Nineteen Eighty-Four, worn smooth by repetition but no less true for it, in which Orwell describes the Party’s most complete and final power: not merely the power to tell you what to think, but the […] - [Mandelson Files: The Tangled Web](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-files-the-tangled-web/): THE TANGLED WEB… The Second Tranche, the Family Compact at the Heart of Government, and the Network Nobody Is Investigating The second tranche of documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to the United States arrives in Parliament this week. It is, according to the government, among the largest publications ever laid before the House. Whether it answers the questions that matter is an entirely different proposition. THE DRIP AND THE DELAY Sir Walter Scott wrote it in 1808, and British politics has been illustrating it ever since: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise […] - [The BBC, the General Strike and the Birth of Establishment Broadcasting](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-bbc-the-general-strike-and-the-birth-of-establishment-broadcasting/): The BBC’s Original Sin: How Reith Sold Out the Workers in 1926 Guest article: By Daniel Lewis The BBC did not lose its impartiality. It was born with a government hand on its shoulder. In May 1926, as millions of workers stood with the miners against wage cuts and longer hours, Britain’s young broadcaster faced its first great political test. It failed it. Not by accident. Not through confusion. But because John Reith and the BBC chose order over truth, government over labour, and establishment stability over working-class struggle. One minute before midnight on 3 May 1926, the largest strike in […] - [Trans Rights: The Conjuring Trick at the Toilet Door](https://heartlandstribune.com/trans-rights-the-conjuring-trick-at-the-toilet-door/): EHRC Code: Why the Toilet Debate Is a Distraction The campaign to reduce the Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC Code to a debate about lavatories is not confusion. It is strategy. Behind the toilet door lies the systematic dismantling of women’s rights, funded, organised and prosecuted against women who should have been defended years ago. A conjuring trick requires misdirection. The audience must watch one hand while the other does the work. Keep that principle in mind as you scroll through the endless, repetitive, deliberately narrowed argument about public lavatories, and the entire campaign snaps suddenly into focus. The toilet […] - [For Richer, For Poorer: Nicola Sturgeon’s Estranged Husband Peter Murrell Guilty of Embezzling £400,000 From the SNP](https://heartlandstribune.com/for-richer-for-poorer-nicola-sturgeons-estranged-husband-peter-murrell/): For Richer, For Poorer: The Modern Marriage of Power and Hubris The SNP’s former chief executive has admitted stealing over £400,000 from the party he ran for two decades. The political questions that follow are as devastating as the criminal verdict. Is there any sight more pathetic than the sudden deflation of political hubris? For over a decade, the Scottish National Party presented itself to the world not merely as a political machine, but as a moral crusade. They were the disciplined, progressive vanguard, held up in studied contrast to the chaotic sleaze of Westminster. That illusion did not just shatter […] - [Labour's Digital ID: Your Papers, Please](https://heartlandstribune.com/labours-digital-id-your-papers-please/): Labour’s Digital ID Bill, Abolished Juries and Banned Protests: How Britain Is Sleepwalking Into An Authoritarian State There is a pattern here, if you have the stomach to look at it straight. In the past twelve months, this government has moved to abolish the right of most defendants to trial by their peers, replacing centuries of jury justice with single judges sitting alone. It has tightened restrictions on protest, expanded digital surveillance powers, and now announced, through the Digital Access to Services Bill in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026, that every person in Britain will be enrolled in a […] - [Women’s Rights: EHRC Code Laid Before Parliament, and Reality Finally Enters the Room](https://heartlandstribune.com/womens-rights-ehrc-code/): The EHRC Code Ends Eight Months of Confusion: But Will Labour Act? After eight months of delay, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory Code of Practice has been formally laid before Parliament. For every NHS trust, council, charity and quango that has spent years hiding behind confusion, the hiding is over. The code of practice is not a pamphlet. It is not a recommendation. It is not a consultation exercise or a diversity working group’s output. Laid before Parliament on 21 May 2026, it is statutory guidance, approved by the Secretary of State, carrying the weight of the Equality Act […] - [Five Arrested as Police Probe Alleged Electoral Fraud in Tameside](https://heartlandstribune.com/five-arrested-as-police-probe-alleged-electoral-fraud-in-tameside/): Five people arrested, one candidate who claims she did not know she was standing, and a ward Labour cannot afford to lose. In Tameside, democracy is not merely under question. It is under investigation. There is a version of local democracy in which people put their names forward, make their case honestly, and let the voters decide. It is an imperfect system. It has always been open to manipulation, to tribal loyalty, to the quiet corruptions of patronage. But it rests, at its foundation, on one irreducible principle: the people on the ballot paper actually want to be there. That principle […] - [BREXIT: THE FORTUNE TELLER'S TALE](https://heartlandstribune.com/brexit-the-fortune-tellers-tale/): The Brexit Myth: We would have been 4% richer if we stayed in the EU The Remainer machine still spits out the same little card every time you put a coin in: “Britain would have been 4% richer if we had stayed in the EU.” Very neat. Very tidy. Very comforting. Very Wrong… A headline that arrives with the regularity of a TV licence reminder. Plug a coin into the machine, pull the lever, and out it comes: the United Kingdom would be four per cent richer had we stayed in the European Union. It is the great comfort blanket of […] - [Karl Turner Just Put Something Rotten on the Record](https://heartlandstribune.com/karl-turner-just-put-something-rotten-on-the-record/): At PMQs today, Labour MP Karl Turner stood up and did something Westminster hates. He named the machine… Karl Turner, the Member for Kingston upon Hull East, rose and accused the Prime Minister’s own operation of using mental health as a political weapon. He said that after opposing the Government’s plan to introduce single‑judge trials in England and Wales – a fundamental assault on the principle of trial by jury – he received what he called “Hostile briefings and smears” about his mental health. The source? “The lads in Number 10 Downing Street.” The Chief Whip, he added, is shaking his […] - [City of London Corporation: The Oldest Racket in the World](https://heartlandstribune.com/city-of-london-corporation-the-oldest-racket-in-the-world/): ECONOMY | DEMOCRACY | POWER The Oldest Racket in the World How the City of London Corporation operates in plain view, captures our democracy, and answers to no one but itself Every November, the Lord Mayor of the City of London processes through the streets in a gilded coach, surrounded by a cavalcade of pikemen, soldiers, musicians, and the sort of elaborate pageantry that the British establishment deploys whenever it wishes to render power invisible beneath spectacle. Tourists photograph it. Newspapers cover it. Politicians attend. And almost nobody stops to ask the question that ought to be screaming from every editorial […] - [The Glass Ceiling Labour Built: 12 Men in a Row](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-glass-ceiling-labour-built-12-men-in-a-row/): Labour’s Diversity Paradox: Tory Women, Labour Men Let me be clear. I have no time for tokenism, and I have no time for old boys’ clubs dressed up as meritocracy either. Martin Luther King Jr had it right: judge people by the content of their character, not by the accident of their sex, creed or colour. The best person for the job should get the job. Full stop. But Labour cannot hide behind merit when women make up around half its parliamentary party and the leadership is still being settled in the same private rooms, by the same networks, with the […] - [The Little Referendum: Makerfield Andy Burnham’s £5m Gamble](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-little-referendum-makerfield-andy-burnhams-5m-gamble/): Five million in public money, a sprung trap, and a party that forgot how to grow its own leaders. Labour holds 404 seats in the House of Commons. And yet, when the crisis comes, the party’s great hope is a man who has not sat in the Commons since 2017 and currently manages the buses in Greater Manchester, being parachuted through a cleared seat in a constituency where Reform won every ward last week, to fight an election where his position on the defining question of the decade is public record and will be weaponised against him from the first day […] - [The Burnham Gambit: Labour Civil War](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-burnham-gambit-labour-civil-war/): A Coronation or a Cliff Edge? The King of the North is coming home. Or so the story goes. It is a story constructed almost entirely from conditional clauses, each one balancing on the last like a conjuror’s act that requires everyone in the audience to look away at precisely the right moment. Andy Burnham will contest the Labour leadership, if the National Executive Committee can be persuaded to grant him permission this time, having blocked him from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election in January by eight votes to one, with the Prime Minister himself among those who voted […] - [Streeting Resigns: Rayner Returns, and Starmer is Running Out of Road](https://heartlandstribune.com/streeting-resigns/): The Starting Gun Has Been Fired Keir Starmer is a man whose authority is dissolving in real time. The local elections did not merely wound his government; they exposed its hollowness. And now, with the choreography that only Westminster can produce, the horses are being walked toward the stalls. By Thursday morning, more than 90 Labour MPs had publicly called on Starmer to resign or set out a departure timetable. Four ministers and four ministerial aides have quit. The party is not cracking. It is coming apart. It comes as Wes Streeting handed in his resignation today. A masterpiece of the […] - [Who Pays The Piper: The Farage Scandal Is a Symptom, Not the Disease](https://heartlandstribune.com/who-pays-the-piper-the-farage-scandal-is-a-symptom-not-the-disease/): The Farage Scandal Is a Symptom, Not the Disease Every political party in Westminster has a donor. The only question is what they have been promised. The parliamentary standards watchdog has launched a formal investigation into Nigel Farage over a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire who holds a twelve per cent stake in the stablecoin issuer Tether. Farage received the money shortly before announcing his candidacy for the Clacton seat in the 2024 general election, and has claimed it was a personal gift to cover his security costs, falling outside the rules requiring new MPs to […] - [The King's Speech Won't Save Starmer: Wes Streeting Won't Save Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-kings-speech-wont-save-starmer-wes-streeting-wont-save-labour/): Labour’s Crisis Is Not Personality: It’s Palantir, Bilderberg, and the Erased Working Class. Parliament opens on a government that has already lost the country. The proposed cure is worse than the disease. This morning, King Charles III will be seated on a gilded throne in the House of Lords and will read, word for word, a speech written entirely by a government that is in open revolt against itself. The ceremony will proceed with all its constitutional gravity intact. Outside, the country will watch, and most of it will not be fooled. As Parliament opens, at least eighty-six Labour MPs have […] - [The Captain and the Iceberg: Starmer's Titanic Delusion](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-captain-and-the-iceberg-starmers-titanic-delusion/): After catastrophic local election losses, the Prime Minister offered Britain more of the same. The working class heard him clearly. Is there any sight more pitiable than a Prime Minister clinging to the wreckage of a failed ideology while the icy waters of public contempt rise to meet him? On Monday morning, Keir Starmer took to the lectern at Coin Street Community Centre, not as a leader on course, but as a man desperately trying to convince the passengers that the gaping hole in the hull is superficial, a chip on the paint. The setting was carefully chosen. Community. Roots. Solidarity. […] - [Labour: A Party in Its Death Throes Is Never a Pretty Sight](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-a-party-in-its-death-throes-is-never-a-pretty-sight/): LABOUR IN ITS DEATH THROES The election verdict is in. The cabinet has cloth ears. And a party that was built to serve the working class is now fighting to save its ministers’ cars. “Working people sent us a message, and we have to change. We have to do it quickly.” That is what Labour MPs are now saying, three days after the results came in. Labour lost 1,496 councillors and 28 councils in a single night. Reform UK gained 1,451 seats and took control of ten councils. Swathes of the country that once ran Labour red turned turquoise. The message […] - [The Labour Party Mutiny Begins](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-labour-party-mutiny-begins/): One backbencher, eighty-one names, and the question that may already have its answer On a Saturday afternoon in May, with Wales already lost and Scotland unmoved, a former junior minister with no cabinet rank, no shadow frontbench standing, and no obvious machine behind her walked up to a BBC microphone and said the thing no one at the cabinet table had the courage to say. Catherine West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, told the nation she would begin a Labour leadership election on Monday morning unless the cabinet, by then, had done the job themselves. She was not bluffing. West’s […] - [Things Can Only Get... Very Much Worse for Labour](https://heartlandstribune.com/things-can-only-get-very-much-worse-for-labour/): Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and the ghost of New Labour: this is not a comeback. It is a séance After catastrophic losses in the May local elections, Keir Starmer reached for the past. He found Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. They ran in 1997 to the sound of D:Ream telling a battered country that things could only get better. Nearly thirty years on, with the wreckage of the May local elections still smoking, Keir Starmer has answered that anthem with something so bleak it might have been scripted by Samuel Beckett: things can only get very much worse, and our plan […] - [STARMER ARSON TRIAL: Week Two Round-up The Defence Speaks, The Handler Stays Silent](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial/): STARMER ARSON TRIAL, COURT 2, OLD BAILEY Week Two: The Defence Speaks, The Handler Stays Silent Legal Proceedings, Forensic Analysis, and the Unanswered Geopolitical Question Week ending Friday 8 May 2026 | Old Bailey, Court 2 | Before Mr Justice Garnham He did not know the name of his own Prime Minister. He knew Boris Johnson, he said. Keir Starmer meant nothing to him. This was the detail that hung in the air of Court 2 at the Old Bailey this week, simultaneously the most improbable and the most revealing thing uttered in these proceedings so far. A 22-year-old Ukrainian man, […] - [Starmer Refuses to Go. The Country Has Already Left.](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-refuses-to-go-the-country-has-already-left/): The country has spoken. It spoke in Wigan, where Labour lost every single one of the twenty seats it was defending, handing them to Reform in a former mining community the party had held for more than half a century. It spoke in Salford, where Labour clung to just three of sixteen seats, and Rebecca Long-Bailey, the MP who still represents those streets, called the results “soul-destroying.” It spoke in Hartlepool, in Tameside, in Redditch, in Tamworth, across the Red Wall and beyond it, in a drumbeat of rejection so consistent and so categorical that only a man of extraordinary insulation […] - [POLLING DAY: NOW IS THE TIME OF MONSTERS](https://heartlandstribune.com/polling-day-now-is-the-time-of-monsters/): Britain Goes to the Polls, and the Old World Has No Answer Left Today, voters across Scotland, Wales, and England cast their ballots in what may be the most structurally significant set of elections since the devolution era began. The results will not merely measure the popularity of parties. They will measure the patience of a people who have been promised change for a decade and handed disappointment each time. This is our assessment, made honestly, before a single vote is counted. The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born:now is the time of monsters.–Antonio Gramsci, […] - [Zack Polanski Toolmaker's Apprentice](https://heartlandstribune.com/zack-polanski-toolmakers-apprentice/): How Zack Polanski Fabricated a Career, a Biography, and a Political Identity From a false Red Cross spokesman claim to fabricated hypnotherapy qualifications, from a borrowed socialist vocabulary to a party that has traded its ecological soul for the culture war: the story of a man who has never allowed the truth of his record to interrupt the performance of his ambition. And the system that keeps producing him. THE TOOLMAKER’S APPRENTICE: HOW POLITICIANS MANUFACTURE THEIR ORIGIN STORIES Modern British politics runs on backstory. Not policy. Not record. Not the hard, testable evidence of what a person has done with power […] - [Starmer Commits UK to €90bn Ukraine Loan – No Vote, No Debate, No Mandate](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-commits-uk-to-e90bn-ukraine-loan/): The Entry Fee for a War Without End “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” — General Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket (1935) A Stage Managed in Yerevan There is a particular kind of political theatre that the British governing class has perfected over a century. It involves distance, both literal and emotional. The further from home a Prime Minister […] - [Fitting the Narrative: Ishmail Hussein, the Inconvenient Victim](https://heartlandstribune.com/fitting-the-narrative-ishmail-hussein-the-inconvenient-victim/): The Managed Emergency: How Britain Erased a Muslim Victim to Justify New Powers On 29 April 2026, a mentally ill man attacked three people of different faiths and backgrounds. By the time Keir Starmer had finished speaking, only two of those victims officially existed, and the rights of hundreds of thousands of British citizens were already in the crosshairs. Before the politicians arrived at the scene, before the cameras caught Starmer walking the streets of Golders Green to be met with heckles, before the terror threat level was raised to “severe” with an efficiency that suggested the paperwork had been prepared […] - [STARMER ARSON TRIAL, DAY THREE: Sister-in-Law’s Terror and the Mystery of “El Money”](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial-day-three/): OLD BAILEY TRIAL REPORT | DAY THREE | 1 MAY 2026 The trial at the Old Bailey moved from procedure to human reality on Thursday, as the Prime Minister’s sister-in-law described being woken by the sound of her home on fire, her daughter sleeping directly above the flames. Three men in the dock deny all charges. The man who allegedly paid for the operation remains unnamed, officially out of scope, and entirely at large. Judith Alexander Tells Court: Daughter Slept Above Flames in Starmer Arson Trial There is a moment in every serious criminal trial when the proceedings cease to be […] - [STARMER ARSON TRIAL, DAY TWO: DNA on Trainers, Dawn Arrest and “El Money”](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial-day-two/): “My Grandmother Lives There”: Lavrynovych’s Defence of Fear in Starmer Arson Trial Officers found him in bed. His trainers tested positive for accelerant. Yet Roman Lavrynovych told police he was only ever a man checking for cameras at night, paid for nothing, threatened by a voice he never saw, terrified for a grandmother he could not protect. Old Bailey, London | 30 April 2026 IMPORTANT: All three defendants deny every charge against them. The defence case has not yet been presented to the jury. Nothing reported here constitutes any indication of guilt or innocence. Roman Lavrynovych, Petro Pochynok, and Stanislav Carpiuc […] - [Labour Together Scandal: John McDonnell Reveals APCO Withheld Evidence From Starmer’s Standards Adviser](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-together-scandal/): Caught on Tape: The APCO Cover-Up That Is Now a Potential Criminal Matter Tapes. A whistleblower. A Serious Fraud Office referral. Evidence withheld from the Standards Adviser. And John McDonnell standing in the House of Commons today, refusing to let the powerful bury what they did. The Labour Together scandal has crossed a threshold: this is no longer merely a political embarrassment. It is a potential obstruction of justice. They said there was nothing to hide. They said it was an administrative error. They said the journalists were looked into only as a precaution, a response to a suspected hack, nothing […] - [STARMER ARSON TRIAL, DAY ONE AFTERNOON: The Deleted Messages, Filmed Attack and "El Money"](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial-day-one-afternoon/): If the morning session at the Old Bailey established the bones of the prosecution’s case against three men accused of targeting properties linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the afternoon put flesh on them. What emerged was not merely an alleged picture of arson for hire, but something more methodical: operational security instructions, a filmed attack, a return to the scene to document the damage, and a defendant allegedly pressing his paymaster for money to fund his father’s medical treatment while the fires were still warm. All three defendants deny every charge put to them. The defence has not yet […] - [STARMER ARSON TRIAL: DAY ONE Prosecution Opens Case Against Three Men Accused of Targeting Properties Linked to the Prime Minister](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmer-arson-trial-day-one/): Court 2, Old Bailey: Morning Session Three men are on trial at the Old Bailey, accused of a coordinated campaign of arson attacks against properties connected to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Roman Lavrynovych, 22, a Ukrainian national from Sydenham; Petro Pochynok, 35, also Ukrainian, of Holloway Road in Islington; and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, a Romanian national from Chadwell Heath in east London, all appeared before Mr Justice Garnham on Monday. All three have pleaded not guilty to every charge put before them. What the prosecution says Opening the case, leading counsel for the Crown, Duncan Atkinson KC, told the jury […] - [How Starmer's Three-Line Cover-Up Has Tainted British Democracy](https://heartlandstribune.com/how-starmers-three-line-cover-up-has-tainted-british-democracy/): The Whip As Keir Starmer orders Labour MPs into the division lobby to bury a parliamentary inquiry into whether he misled the Commons, another layer is added to the most sordid political scandal in a generation. This is not politics as usual. This is a democracy being eaten from within. There is a particular kind of political cowardice that disguises itself as party loyalty. Today, Labour MPs filed into the division lobby under a three-line whip, ordered by their own Prime Minister to vote against a parliamentary investigation into whether he lied to them. They did not do it for the […] - [The Silence at the Old Bailey: Why is the Starmer Arson Trial Being Buried?](https://heartlandstribune.com/the-silence-at-the-old-bailey/): THE LOUDEST SILENCE IN BRITAIN Three men are in the dock at the Old Bailey. The trial opened this morning. Most of Britain’s press cannot find the space to tell you. When three men are accused of a coordinated campaign to torch properties linked to the sitting Prime Minister, and the nation’s editors collectively determine there are more pressing matters, you are not living in a free press. You are living in a managed one. There is a question that every journalist in Britain should be asking today, and almost none of them are. It is not a complicated question. It […] - [Damage Control: Darren Jones Sent to Defend the Indefensible](https://heartlandstribune.com/damage-control/): You Don’t Send Out the Defenders Unless There’s Something to Defend They’re out in force today. The damage control unit. The message discipline brigade. The men sent out to tell you there’s nothing to see while the building smoulders behind them. Enter Darren Jones, Chief Secretary, loyal operator, dispatched to the Sunday studios to smooth over what Downing Street hopes will quietly fade into the background. But this one isn’t fading. Because this isn’t about “wording.” It’s not about “process.” It’s about whether the Prime Minister misled Parliament. And that question refuses to sit down and behave. On LBC, Lewis Goodall […] - [Tom Watson is advising Morgan McSweeney to hire lawyers before facing Parliament](https://heartlandstribune.com/tom-watson-is-advising-morgan-mcsweeney-to-hire-lawyers/): Tom Watson is advising Morgan McSweeney to hire lawyers before facing Parliament. And the connections go deep. Watson sits on Palantir’s advisory board. Palantir holds a £240 million government contract arranged through Peter Mandelson. McSweeney pushed through Mandelson’s appointment. Closing Ranks: How the Blairite Network Is Managing the Mandelson Scandal  If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. This was the logic that New Labour applied to CCTV cameras on every street corner, to the accumulation of your data by state and corporate bodies alike, to the surveillance architecture it built and bequeathed to every government that followed. […] - [Starved, Left to Rot: The Scandal Rocking Ukraine’s Army](https://heartlandstribune.com/starved-left-to-rot-the-scandal-rocking-ukraines-army/): Billions in Aid, Soldiers Starving: The Ukrainian Army Scandal Ukraine’s frontline soldiers are starved and forced to drink rainwater, according to reports. They drank rainwater to survive. For eight months, Ukrainian soldiers from the 14th Separate Mechanised Brigade were left to rot on the front line near Kupiansk, starved of food, water, and medical supplies. It took a wife posting photos online, not a general’s report, not a government audit, to force a scandal. A commander has finally been replaced and an investigation opened. But the images of emaciated infantrymen raise a damning question for every government that has poured billions […] - [Palantir: The Ambassador's Commission](https://heartlandstribune.com/palantir-the-ambassadors-commission/): Palantir, Starmer, Mandelson and the £570m Scandal How Peter Mandelson arranged Keir Starmer’s secret visit to a CIA-seeded surveillance firm, how that firm then collected £570 million in public contracts without competitive tender, and how the party that built the NHS is quietly presiding over its surrender to Silicon Valley. The Labour Party built the National Health Service. It did so against fierce resistance from the medical establishment, from the press, and from a Tory Party that voted against its creation at every turn. That founding act is, by common agreement, the greatest achievement of any British government in the twentieth […] - [Happy Saint George's Day](https://heartlandstribune.com/happy-saint-georges-day/): THE FLAG AND THE PEOPLE: RECLAIMING ENGLAND FOR THOSE WHO BUILT IT Saint George’s Day. And right on cue, the same performance begins. The right wraps itself in the Cross of St George as if they own it. The liberals flinch and reach for their explainers about Roman soldiers from Cappadocia. And the modern left, paralysed between the two, stands on the pavement and says nothing, hoping nobody notices it has forgotten where it came from. Stand on the Liverpool waterfront and look out past the Liver Birds toward the Mersey. Seven miles of working waterfront, once the artery of a […] - [THREE MEN TO FACE OLD BAILEY JURY OVER FIRES AT STARMER LINKED PROPERTIES](https://heartlandstribune.com/three-men-to-face-old-bailey-jury-over-fires-at-starmer-linked-properties/): Britain’s most politically charged criminal trial of the year opens at the Old Bailey on Monday 27 April, as three men face a jury over a series of arson attacks targeting properties connected to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The defendants are Roman Lavrynovych, 21, a Ukrainian national from Sydenham, south-east London; Petro Pochynok, 34, also Ukrainian, of Holloway Road, Islington; and Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, a Romanian national of Ukrainian origin, from Chadwell Heath in east London. All three have been held on remand at HMP Belmarsh since their arrests. All three have pleaded not guilty. Lavrynovych faces three separate counts of […] - [Zahra Sultan Read The Riot Act: Starmer's a Barefaced Liar](https://heartlandstribune.com/zahra-sultan-read-the-riot-act/): SHE SAID WHAT MILLIONS WERE THINKING: STARMER IS GASLIGHTING THE NATION. There is a rule in the House of Commons, old and unwritten but rigorously enforced, that says you may not accuse a fellow member of lying. You may imply it, suggest it, demonstrate it with evidence, and let it hang in the air like smoke. But the word itself: that is forbidden. To speak the plain truth plainly is, in that building, a breach of order. Zarah Sultana broke that rule today. And the establishment moved against her with a speed it never shows when the lies themselves are being […] - [Olly Robbins Appointed Two Weeks After Starmer, Announced Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington](https://heartlandstribune.com/olly-robbins/): He Announced the Man Before Vetting Him. He Told Parliament Due Process Was Followed. Both Cannot Be True. Sir Keir Starmer wants you to believe he is furious. He was not informed. The system failed him. He is the victim in all of this. The system that failed him, however, is the one he runs. And the man he sacked to prove his innocence started his job a fortnight after Starmer had already committed the appointment to the public record. Sir Keir Starmer announced former Lord Peter Mandelson as Britain’s next ambassador to the United States on 20 December 2024. Sir […] - [Mandelson: The Trilateral Commission’s Ambassador](https://heartlandstribune.com/mandelson-the-trilateral-commissions-ambassador/): Mandelson, the Trilateral Commission, and the Security Veto That Was Overruled in 48 Hours Keir Starmer faces parliament today claiming he knew nothing. The 48-hour overrule of his own security services says otherwise. This is not a story about poor judgment. It is a story about whose interests this government actually serves. The vetting decision arrived on 28 January 2025. It said no. Within 48 hours, the Foreign Office had overruled it. That single fact is the axis around which everything else in this story rotates. Not Mandelson’s ten appearances in Epstein’s contact book. Not the handwritten birthday message in which […] - [When Posh Boys Are in Trouble, They Sack the Servants](https://heartlandstribune.com/when-posh-boys-are-in-trouble-they-sack-the-servants/): Olly Robbins Top Foreign Office civil servant, is out as Starmer government again reels from the Mandelson scandal. Olly Robbins is out. Keir Starmer is still in. That tells you everything you need to know about how power works in this country. Dennis Skinner said it better than anyone alive or dead could say it now. “When posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants.” He was not speaking in abstract. He was describing a system so ingrained in British public life that its practitioners no longer even notice they are doing it. Watch them not noticing now. Sir Olly […] - [Starmer's Vetting Lie: The Day Due Process Became Due Deception](https://heartlandstribune.com/starmers-vetting-lie/): “Full Due Process Was Followed”: Starmer’s Despatch Box Lie Unravelled There is a question Keir Starmer must now answer, and he cannot answer it without incriminating himself. On 10 September 2025, the Prime Minister stood at the despatch box and told the House of Commons: “Full due process was followed during this appointment, as it is with all ambassadors.” He said it without hesitation. He has repeated variations of that statement multiple times since. His independent adviser, when the Mandelson Files were eventually dragged from Downing Street’s grip, concurred that the process had been followed. The problem, Starmer said, was that […] - [One Year Since The Supreme Court Ruled Women Are Female: Why Is Britain Still Not Complying?](https://heartlandstribune.com/one-year-since-the-supreme-court-ruled-women-are-female/): One Year Since Supreme Court Ruling: Women Are Still Waiting For The Law To Be Enforced The Supreme Court ruled. The law is clear. So why have the Government, the unions, and our institutions spent twelve months finding reasons not to obey it? On the first anniversary of the For Women Scotland Supreme Court ruling, the highest judgment in the land remains unenforced. The government delays. The unions have defected. The institutions carry on as before. This is not a culture war. It is a question of who the law is for. There is a particular kind of cruelty in winning. […] - [Your Party Is Dead, Long Live Your Party: The Second Chance](https://heartlandstribune.com/your-party-is-dead-long-live-your-party/): Why Your Party’s Dual Membership Ban Could Save the Left Labour Heartlands warned from the beginning that Your Party would be captured if it could not find its own identity. Everything we feared came to pass. And now, in the wreckage of Sunday’s CEC vote and Scotland’s resignations, something unexpected has appeared in the dust: the possibility of the party we always believed this could be. Labour Heartlands has been covering Your Party since before it had a name. We were there for the Quiet Revolution, when 800,000 people crashed a website to join a movement that did not yet have […] ## Pages - [Corrections and Clarifications](https://heartlandstribune.com/corrections-and-clarifications/): At The Heartlands Tribune, formerly Labour Heartlands, we hold the concerns of our readers in high regard. 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Ownership & Transparency The Heartlands Tribune is 100% independently owned by its founder, Paul Knaggs. All initial seeding money, start-up development, and digital infrastructure, including the building of this website and our connected social media platforms, were conducted and carried out in full by Paul Knaggs. The Heartlands Tribune has no other interested parties, corporate backers, or hidden stakeholders acting in […] - [Ethics Policy](https://heartlandstribune.com/ethics-policy/): The chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of … any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. 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Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news, things which on their own merits would get the big headlines, being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened, but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy […] - [cookies info](https://heartlandstribune.com/cookies-info/): LABOUR HEARTLANDS COOKIES POLICY Cookie Policy Labour Heartlands operates a strict privacy policy. We are committed to being transparent about the technologies we use, and we’ve outlined below how we use cookies when you visit our site heartlandstribune.com. Insofar as the information collected using cookies constitutes personal data, the provisions of the Privacy Policy shall apply and supplement this Cookie Policy. What is a cookie? 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We invite you to also read the detailed version available […] - [The Heartlands Tribune Video's](https://heartlandstribune.com/labour-heartlands-videos/) - [About Us](https://heartlandstribune.com/about-us/): The Heartlands Tribune Welcome to The Heartlands Tribune, a news outlet unbound by the traditional constraints of political party narratives or the mainstream media. Our mission is clear: We are dedicated to challenging the pervasive system of neoliberalism, which has found favour with all major UK political parties. Unfortunately, even the Labour Party has succumbed to this system, forsaking the very individuals they were initially created to advocate for. It is within this context of abandonment that we aim to be a voice for those who have been left behind. Our commitment to confronting this status quo is unwavering. We are […] - [Thank you. You have helped keep Labour Heartlands independent.](https://heartlandstribune.com/thank-you-for-your-support/): Personal Thank You. Dear reader, Thank you for your donation. I do not take it lightly. Every contribution to Labour Heartlands is a vote of confidence in independent, working-class journalism at a time when too much of the media is owned, managed or frightened into silence. Your support helps keep the site running, pays for the tools and services needed to publish, and gives us the breathing space to keep writing without corporate sponsors, party machines or establishment gatekeepers leaning over our shoulder. That matters. Labour Heartlands exists because ordinary people deserve more than press releases dressed up as news. We […] - [Spotlight News](https://heartlandstribune.com/spotlight-news/) - [Homepage - Fitness](https://heartlandstribune.com/homepage-fitness/) - [Contact: Pitch Your Article, Be A Guest Author](https://heartlandstribune.com/contact/): The Heartlands Tribune is a political blog bringing you News, views and opinions from the Left. 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