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Bushra Shaikh
17, June #TrendShock

Bushra Shaikh: Femi Mohammed is a Muslim grooming...

Femi Mohammed is a Muslim grooming gang survivor. Her horrendous ordeal was intentionally ignored from Rupert Lowe's inquiry because her traffickers were White men and not Pakistani men. There are many more grooming gang survivors like her. Dismissed and ignored. Ben Habib filmed an interview with her twice but refused to publish it after joining Restore. All victims matter. And every rabid groomer should face the full force of the law. There is more to Femi's story- it gets worse. White grooming gangs and traffickers have been protected by both the police and Tory politicians.
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Liz Webster
17, June #BrokenSystem

Liz Webster: OMG This is totally vile...

"😮 OMG This is totally vile. Reform councillors in Makerfield posing with a banner saying they’d “rather vote for Jimmy Savile than Labour”. This is gutter politics and shows the desperation. Makerfield voters deserve better than this toxicity. A strong result for @AndyBurnhamGM on Thursday is the antidote: serious, decent leadership focused on communities, high streets, and a proper British food & farming plan. #AndyForMakerfield #SaveBritishFarming"
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Alex Wickham
17, June #BrokenSystem

Alex Wickham: NEW: How would Andy Burnham...

NEW: How would Andy Burnham govern? Labour’s big fear is he can’t live up to his promise of change and he ends up not much different to Keir Starmer. The levers available to him to go big on policy are limited. Binding himself to the manifesto and fiscal rules means he cannot significantly raise taxes, borrow or spend more. Only more incremental fiscal options are possible unless he changes his mind. He will pursue soft-left social justice policies: social care, a long-term investment plan, more public ‘control’ of industry, council houses, bus fares, some small tax rises on the wealthy. All good stuff for a Labour PM, but so far there’s not really a big idea there that can turn around Labour’s fortunes in three years. And there’s no detail yet. Like Starmer, Burnham has judged he needs to be tough on immigration to stop Labour’s traditional working class vote going to Reform. He wants more detention of asylum seekers, backs Shabana Mahmood’s policies and wants to try welfare cuts again. His language around the Henry Nowak case was fascinating: suggesting banning the kirpan and that Britain does have two-tier policing except in Manchester under its ‘no nonsense’ police chief. Soft-left social justice + tough on immigration… trying to appeal to both right and left to prevent votes bleeding both ways… within the confines of the fiscal rules and manifesto… sounds quite a lot like Starmer. There have been some red flags during his campaign. A lot of Starmer-esque u-turns. The Waspi gaffe. And loose talk, saying repeatedly he’ll “look at” various policies that would cost billions, like a pensioner tax cut, with no plan to pay for them. There are signs of tension among his supporters already. Some backers suggest his team has struggled to agree either on a policy platform or a political strategy for how they should approach the days after Makerfield. We have no idea who his chancellor will be. Or his No10 team. Or his top cabinet posts. His political operation is very limited: Louise Haigh, Ed Miliband, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Josh Simons. That’s a huge amount of uncertainty over someone who wants a coronation within weeks. Burnham will want to focus on domestic policy and not as much on foreign policy as Starmer. But that’s easier said than done. He’d be PM in Trump’s world and the Ukraine war endgame would happen on his watch. Foreign policy may well define a Burnham premiership whether he likes it or not - just like Starmer. No doubt Burnham is a better communicator. He seems at ease with working class voters and says all the right things. Maybe that’s enough reason to change. But with the constraints he faces, can he deliver the radical change he’s promising, or is he setting himself up to let voters down like so many PMs before him?
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Liz Webster
17, June #TrendShock

Liz Webster: Ten years after the Brexit vote...

🚨 Ten years after the Brexit vote, Reuters tells the story of two brothers from a strongly Leave area who were on opposite sides. Both are now disappointed. The brother who voted Leave feels betrayed, the promises of sovereignty, cheaper food, and economic boom never came. The brother who voted Remain is saddened by the lasting division and damage to the country. This is the human cost playing out in families and communities across Britain. Brexit divided us and left many on both sides feeling let down by the outcome.
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