uk politics
Government Defends Hereditary Peers Even as Aristocrats Evade Vetting and Titles Go Entirely to Men
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Britain’s hereditary peers are avoiding crucial background checks, as the Government is refusing to let the House of Lords appointments commission conduct usual vetting processes before they join the second chamber.
Ninety one hereditary peers - all men - remain in the House of Lords, following a ‘fudge’ deal to push through piecemeal Lords reform in the late ‘90s. Each time one of them dies, they are replaced by another ‘elected’ by hereditary peers in the House who belong to the same political grouping.
For example, a Conservative hereditary peer who dies is replaced by another Conservative aristocrat, from a small list of those eligible to stand under a Register of Hereditary Peers. The list is almost entirely composed of men, as hereditary titles go first to the eldest surviving son, or other close male relative.
Lord Grocott, a Labour peer pushing for hereditary peerages to be scrapped, told the chamber on Wednesday: “The Lords commission does vet candidates for life peerages, but does not vet candidates in hereditary peer by-elections…[It] should be a level playing field [and] hereditary peers candidates should be treated exactly the same way as life peers.”
Following the death of Conservative Lord Brougham and Vaux, another male aristocrat was elected to the House of Lords last month. Just 38% of peers voted.
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But the Cabinet Office minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, rejected any reform in her answer, saying: “The hereditary arrangements involve a by-election election process, which of course was established as part of the deal on House of Lords reform in the 90s.
“I think it would clash with the by-election process to introduce a vetting system for hereditaries. But in any event, I see that as part of the House of Lords reform and I think we made it clear that there are no plans for piecemeal reform.”
There are now over 800 peers, with more than one in ten coming from a tiny clique of hereditary male aristocrats by default.
The Conservatives now have around 100 more peers than Labour, after packing the chamber with party appointees since 2010.
But Baroness Neville-Rolfe downplayed the figures, saying: “Although the Conservatives now have a lot more peers than Labour, we still, we still do not win all votes. And we still only have 34% [of peers]. That's partly because of the number of crossbench peers.”
And the unelected politician also rejected calls - including from hereditary Tory peer Lord Cormack - to put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a firmer legal footing.
“I think we should be wary of giving even greater powers to unelected bodies, however great and however good, who are not necessary, who are not necessarily democratically elected…The government hasn't got any plans to change the status of the House of Lords Appointments Commission,” she said.
Labour’s frontbencher Barness Smith noted: “When she talks about piecemeal reform and not wanting piecemeal reform, what she's really saying is she will do absolutely nothing…After 13 years of a Labour Government, we had 24 more peers than the Conservative Party. After 13 years of Conservative Government, the Conservative Party has 100 more Conservative peers than Labour.”
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And she backed calls for HOLAC to vet hereditary peers, saying: “Wouldn't it be just a minor tweak suggested to hold like they also look at the suitability of candidates in this House, to ensure they are willing to come here and play a full role in the work like everybody here does?”
Even hereditary peer Lord Cromwell said: “We have nothing to fear from a vetting process. I think it's entirely appropriate that we all go through it.”
But minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe defended the handful of Conservative hereditary peers likely to try and block the move, saying: “Hereditaries are subject to quite a good deal of questioning during the by-election process, which is laid down by the standing orders of the House.
“We have no plans to change the vetting of hereditary peers, and of course they do play a very important role on the front benches. And right across bringing different aspects to our public, you know, public work and the public interest.”
The current hereditary by-election process currently comprises writing a one or two paragraph statement about why they should be ‘elected’ to join the House.
Labour’s Baroness Symons branded hereditary peerages “sexually discriminatory”, as titles still go first to a son. “If there is no son, they go to a collateral branch [e.g. cousins or more distant male relatives]. That is sexually discriminatory and I can’t see how she can argue [for] that,” she told the House.
Tory frontbencher Neville-Rolfe again rebuffed the calls for reform, only adding: “There will no doubt be reform in the future. And the nature of hereditary peers may or may not be considered.”
Following the by-election last month, Willie Sullivan, Director of National Campaigns at the Electoral Reform Society, said: "The House of Lords is a system from another time and demands reform. True democracy relies on everyone's voices being heard and without better efforts to reach equal gender representation in our parliaments we will not be able to achieve that. It is the 21st century, we do not need another male aristocrat given a job for life in the Lords."
He added: "We must do better and create a gender balanced, elected upper chamber to drag the Lords into the modern world."
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Pressure for a Windfall Tax on Banks Grows As ‘Big Four’ Net Huge Profits
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Labour MP Richard Burgon will demand a new windfall tax on bank profits, mirroring the recent tax imposed on energy companies, in a parliamentary debate today (December 8).
The Labour MP is expected to argue that an extra levy on excess profits could generate billions of pounds for public services and provide relief to those struggling in the current economic climate.
Burgon’s speech is set to highlight the disproportionate profits banks have been accruing amid the cost of living crisis, noting: “Just like the oil and gas companies, the banks have used this crisis to line their pockets."
The MP underscores the disconnect between struggling families grappling with mortgages and rents, and the banks that are profiting from higher interest rates. Burgon plans to note that increased rates have not benefited savers, but have instead been “hoarded by the banks creating a windfall of many billions.”
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The proposal comes against the backdrop of soaring bank profits in the first nine months of 2023, with the 'big four' - Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, and NatWest - amassing £41 billion in pre-tax profits. This figure nearly doubles the £23 billion earned in the same period last year, according to analysis by Unite the Union.
The Government has cut taxes on banks, with Conservative cuts to Bank Surcharge and Bank Levy totalling £22bn over the next six years, according to recent Liberal Democrat analysis of the OBR’s Autumn Statement data.
Jeremy Hunt cut the Bank Surcharge from 8% to 3% in April this year, even as he increased taxes on millions of families by extending the freeze in the Income Tax personal allowance and higher-rate threshold.
The Conservatives cut the Bank Levy every year from 2016 to 2021. The two bank taxes are forecast to raise a combined £2.4 billion next year, down from £4.7 billion in 2016-17 – a 60% real-terms cut, the Lib Dems argue.
Burgon hopes to issue a fierce rebuke of the government's fiscal approach in light of the vast profits, challenging the notion that austerity and cuts are the only viable solutions.
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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s recent Autumn Statement set out unspecified cuts of 16% to unprotected Government departments within the next few years - which is paying for the pre-election National Insurance tax cuts.
“Are we going to allow this government to claim that more austerity and cuts are inevitable and that public investment is unaffordable?” the Leeds North MP is likely to ask, calling for a tax system that demands more from the wealthiest.
The proposed windfall tax, according to Burgon, could raise between £4 billion and £16 billion this year from the profits of the big four banks alone. Labour has not formally backed a windfall tax on banks but it is a key call of Socialist Campaign Group MPs, the parliamentary party’s left flank.
Burgon plans to cite Spain's progressive government, which introduced a 4.8% Windfall Levy on certain bank incomes and commissions, as a potential model. And the Leeds MP will reference a past precedent set by Margaret Thatcher, who introduced a 2.5% tax on banks’ non-interest-bearing deposits.
Amid controversy over Labour leader Keir Starmer’s apparent praise for the late Conservative PM, he is expected to say: “Thatcher said that the banks had ‘made their large profits as a result of our policy of high-interest rates rather than because of increased efficiency or better service to the customer.’ Such a tax in the UK, according to Positive Money calculations, could raise up to £11bn today.”
Burgon's call for a fairer tax system is supported by public opinion, he will argue. A recent poll commissioned for the TUC found that three-quarters of the public, including 76% of Conservative 2019 voters, support a windfall tax on banks’ excess profits.
The Labour MP’s call for a windfall tax on banks is a challenge not only to the Government but to the Labour leadership to be bolder on tax.
Analysis by Positive Money has shown that higher interest rates mean that the Bank of England is expected to pay an estimated £75bn of interest on banks’ risk free reserves over 2023 and 2024, with a total of around £150bn due to be paid out between 2022 and 2028.
Calls for a windfall tax on banks have been echoed by other Labour MPs, including Angela Eagle, John McDonnell, and Clive Lewis. Polling commissioned by Positive Money found the majority of the public supports a windfall tax on banks.
The debate is expected to end by 7:30pm.
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Stark Realities: ‘There’s a Big Delivery Challenge that’s Not Addressed by Coming to Dubai and Setting New Targets’
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As head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), Chris Stark is responsible for advising the Government on emission targets and reporting to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
CCC’s most recent report on the progress towards the UK reaching NetZero highlighted the Government’s of a lack of urgency in reducing emissions and classified confidence in it meeting its 2030 reduction in GHG targets as “low”.
Last month, Stark accused the Government of sending the wrong message to consumers and the world by backing off on its commitment to net zero following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement that he was delaying the ban of sales of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035 and 20% of households would be exempt from a new gas boiler ban.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is an annual event where global leaders, climate change experts, charities and representatives from local communities meet to discuss and agree on solutions to tackle climate change. However, COPs in the past have been criticised for allowing fossil fuel lobbyists to join the talks. Last year Global Witness reported that there were twice as many fossil fuel lobbyists as delegates from the official UN constituency for indigenous peoples attending COP27.
Rishi Sunak attended this year’s conference, COP28, held in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, for just half a day, reportedly spending more time in his private jet travelling to and from the event than he did in discussions. Labour leader Keir Starmer was in Dubai for three days.
Byline Times spoke to Stark on day six of the conference.
What do you hope COP28 will achieve?
Well, we have a COP every year. And here we are in Dubai. You can get overoptimistic about COPs but I'm a realist. Every COP is about moving on a little bit.
I think we've already achieved a lot of the things I hoped for in this COP. Notably the Loss and Damage Fund, which has now got money in it, acknowledging the fact that there has been loss and damage in parts of the world that haven’t caused the problem of climate change. That's a big win.
I think it’s easy to forget how much progress has been made in loss and damage in the last couple of years. This was a thing that was difficult to discuss at all before Glasgow and COP26. And we are now at the point where not only have we acknowledged the problem, we’ve actually got money going into a fund, including from Scotland and the UK.
I think that these are important moments. But of course, the sums involved don't even touch the side and we probably do need to get into a bigger discussion about what we're doing with climate finance and how we wrap together some of the various streams. Not just with separate pots for loss and damage, for adaptation and for reducing emissions, but actually dealing with the issue of climate change in the round. And not just through token sums, but actually driving real flows of finance which involves private finance as much as much as it does publicly funded finance.
Future COPs are going to have to really wrestle with the quantum of that, which is nowhere near the sums that we've talked about so far.
The next thing for me is whether we get landed now some global agreements on growing renewables, improving energy efficiency and this crucial language around fossil fuel phase out or phase down. Whether we see that in a final text after this COP. I think that's a really, really important thing.
But I think the main thing with the COP is that there people here meeting and doing important things. And this in another COP that has proved that it’s worth having.
Are you saying COP28 is already a success?
No, I don't think you can say it's a success until you know where you are at the end of it. This COP continues the tradition that we that we established in Glasgow in COP26, which is that you have national negotiations going on. It is very, very important to do that.
But alongside it, these ambition statements that come from outside of the national pledges are increasing about cementing the idea that we can be ambitious. You can think about the national targets, the national pledges, as raising the minimum, raising the floor. We need alongside that things that are about pushing out the maximum, pushing out the ceiling, doing more in certain areas.
This cop has been pretty good at landing some of those things so far. I think we need to see more on that. And this is going to be a COP that deals with fossil fuels in some shape or form. The acid test to whether it's been a success is going to be at the end and what we say about the fossil fuel phase out.
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In recent months the UK’s Conservative Government has rowed back on many of its green commitments with PM Rishi Sunak accused of abandoning the fight against climate change. How confident are you that a Labour government would do any better?
I'm very fortunate to not have to guess what's going to happen in politics. We [CCC] are here to provide advice to the Government, whatever colour that Government is. I would say the same thing to a Labour government as I say to the present Conservative government: “You've got a lot to do.”
There's a big, big delivery challenge here and it's not going to be addressed by coming to Dubai and setting new targets or putting new numbers into play.
You've actually got to start delivering stuff. So I think that regardless of what happens at the next election, the story of UK leadership on climate is going to be much more about whether we actually deliver against these big targets than it is about setting new pledges. And that's not something that Government typically has been that good at, of any colour, in the last 15 to 20 years, except in a couple of areas.
So what I would like to see from any future government is that we have a few more things to celebrate when it comes to actual delivery on the ground, things changing. Because for me, that’s the best story that we can bring to a COP. That UK leadership means actually delivering what you pledge. It’s about much more than just having the ambition in the first place.
That is the best message for places like China, India, Indonesia - those places that have weak targets but look like they're over-delivering. We need to be the country that shows you have high ambition and that you deliver against it. And that's not really about party politics.
QQQQ How do you think Scotland’s new First Minister, Humza Yousaf, is shaping up with regards to tackling climate change?
The last First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and was very, very keen on talking about climate change and raising the ambition for Scotland to tackle it.
I have to say I'm quite happy with the new First Minister and the things that he said on climate. I met him yesterday at the COP. He's been here for a few days in Dubai and I think that's a very good sign. But the most important thing about what Scotland is doing is that we are way off track for the targets that were set in law in Scotland.
And that means that we have to be critical of what's happening in terms of Scottish Government policies. In particular, the pledge to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030 is a really big target for Scotland and we are not seeing the kind of policy program from the Scottish Government that will allow me to be confident that's going to be met.
The test of whether the new First Minister is serious on climate isn't that he's willing to put a couple of million quid into the Loss and Damage Fund, good as that is, it’s the story of delivery at home. That's the story of real Scottish leadership. Are we actually going to hit these targets and through what means are we going to see the policies put in place that drive the action that we need in Scotland to drive emissions down?
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We are already seeing the effects of climate change worldwide. Climate scientists are warning that, on our current track, global average temperatures by the end of the century could rise to almost double the amount that nations sign up to in the Paris Agreement. What plans are being discussed at COP to protect people, the environment and infrastructure from the predicted increases in floods, heat waves and severe weather events at home and abroad?
I think every COP we hear a louder and louder voice around the issue of how we deal with climate change itself. And that is often set against the desire to be more ambitious in future emissions reductions to keep the temperature down. But actually, I think you can bring these two things together.
In our own work in the Climate Change Committee in the UK, what we've been talking about recently is achieving net zero in a warming climate. And that means bringing together the issues of mitigation and adaptation. The COP process isn't very good at handling that. But this is the COP where we do the global stocktake. What does that tell us? It tells us that we're way off track for where we need to be in 2030. Instead of reducing emissions by 40% plus by 2030, we might reduce that by 2%.
So we are going to have to grapple with higher temperatures in the future. Those higher temperatures actually make it harder to get to net zero. Bringing these two things together isn't some sort of nice thing to have, you absolutely must do the two things together or you won't be successful in either mitigation or adaptation.
So again, I think it is a story here about the UK doing this well. If we are one of the countries in the world that brings those two themes together and shows you how you can put successful strategies in place, that buys us this kind of precious climate leadership that you sometimes hear our UK leaders talk about.
A new report launched at COP28 by Earth Insight highlights the increasing threats from fossil fuel expansion on protected areas around the world including the Amazon, Congo Basin and national parks such as Murchison Falls and Virunga in East Africa. How concerned are you about these threats?
It's really important that we don't forget that nature.
We're in the COP, we're here to talk about climate change. What do we know about the impact of fossil fuels on climate change? Well, we know that we don't need any more fossil fuels. The available [oil and gas] reserves that we have at the moment are in places where you wouldn't want them if you cared about things like nature. The last thing we need is to open up even more of those places.
We do need to protect nature alongside the challenge of reducing emissions and phasing out fossil fuels. This, so far in various COPs, hasn't been an easy discussion. I think the additional way in which this impacts important areas of natural beauty and nature globally is that you've also got this new dynamic of offsetting, which is in itself an extension of the oil and gas regime.
So we need to see more and more of the language that you might see discussed in the other COP that we have around nature brought into the climate COP now so that we can build in that kind of protection into the things that are agreed at this COP and the next one and the one after it.
Government has ‘No Vision’ for Preparing UK for Extreme Weather, New Report Finds
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The Government is unprepared to tackle extreme weather events from floods to droughts and storms to heatwaves, a new report by the National Audit Office reveals.
No one in Whitehall has collected the information across government to tackle these weather crises and the Cabinet Office will not have an overall plan to do so until 2030, it has found.
The lack of a risk strategy to tackle weather crises means ministers are not properly informed about how to tackle problems.
Labour's Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee, said the Government "currently has no well-defined vision for what a resilient, well-adapted UK looks like" and "without this, it cannot make informed decisions about short and long-term priorities, investment and funding allocations or evaluate how public funds are being spent”.
The report examines eight different recent severe weather events on the national risk register covering floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves which caused major disruption in the UK.
The report states that the combination of the London floods in 2021, Storm Arwen in 2021, and Storm Eunice in 2022 has cost the insurance industry an estimated £931 million in claims from flood and storm damage. Storm damage from Storm Eunice meant that 1.4 million properties lost power.
The 2022 heatwave in the summer, when temperatures topped 40°C led to 4,500 people dying because of the heat.
The report also cites a crisis caused by the heat at two top hospitals. Then, a heatwave caused “failures at two data centres used to host the 371 legacy IT systems of London’s largest NHS hospital trust", with the two data centres supporting clinical services, patient records and administration.
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"The cooling failures took down most of the clinical IT systems at Guy’s, St Thomas’ and Eveline London hospitals, and community services," the report states. "The trust declared a critical site incident and moved to a paper-based operating model and requested wider system support (a Level 3 critical incident, the highest level). Complete restoration of IT systems took several weeks.”
The NAO also found that there are about 3.4 million properties at risk of flooding from surface water but the public is not aware about the scale of this – and the Government has not done enough to warn them.
On tackling drought, the report cites the drought declared in August 2022. It states: “By September 2022, 11 out of 14 Environment Agency areas in England were in drought. In early 2023, two areas remained in drought.”
The report states that the economic cost of the drought amounted to £165 million in lost revenues and cost £96 million in lost profits. It affected agricultural production, stressed wildlife, caused water shortages, and caused damage to roads and the rail networks as the ground shrunk. The Government is committed to reducing the amount of water used by people but, because of leaks, there has been no reduction.
One area that has improved is the Met Office forecasting of severe weather – with warnings being prompt and accurate.
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The NAO recommends that the Government speeds up plans to coordinate action on severe weather from 2030 to 2028, and appoints a chief risk advisor. The report contrasts the lack of coordination in the UK with action taken in Australia and New Zealand, where a single agency is in charge of combatting the problems arising from severe weather.
Greenpeace UK’s climate campaigner Georgia Whitaker, said: “Like a boiling frog, the UK Government is seemingly oblivious to rising temperatures and the extreme weather that comes with it. This year, was the hottest on record and we’ve been battered by storm after storm in recent months, which has caused devastating floods right across the country. The climate crisis is happening right now and this damning report makes it very clear that the Government is unprepared to deal with its impacts."
A Cabinet Office spokesperson told Byline Times: “The best way to protect people, businesses and communities from extreme weather events is by having systems in place that are both robust and flexible. This is core to the UK's resilience strategy, which has been proven to allow us to effectively coordinate the Government and wider resilience community’s response to a diverse set of risks – having successfully dealt with a series of severe weather events this autumn.
“We are making excellent progress on building flexible and agile capabilities, systems and strategies which ensure the UK is prepared for emerging threats. This includes constantly improving our systems, for example vastly increasing the number of datasets being fed into the National Situation Centre, and launching a new 24/7 Emergency Alerts system in April, which is able to deliver warnings and information to the public.”
‘News Corp Was Out to Get Me’: Chris Huhne Condemns Murdoch Empire after Settlement for Phone-Hacking and Intrusion
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The former Liberal Democrat Cabinet minister Chris Huhne today accepted a six-figure sum from the publisher of The Sun and News of the World in settlement of a phone-hacking and intrusion claim – and promptly demanded a new police investigation into the Murdoch company.
In a statement outside court, Huhne accused named executives, including current News UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks, of targeting him with the aim of destroying a vocal critic of the media multinational owned by Rupert Murdoch.
"News Corp was out to get me," he said. "My case is unprecedented because the unlawful information-gathering was directed not by journalists but by News Corp executives. The Metropolitan Police should reopen its investigation."
He had wanted the case to go to trial but late in the day the Murdoch company offered a settlement sufficiently large that he could not refuse it without assuming unacceptable financial risks.
Although the company had earlier drafted a defence challenging some of his allegations, Huhne asked today: "Why would they now pay up if they could prove I was wrong?"
His case is significant in several respects besides the questions it raises about the role of managers.
It is the first of three brought by senior Lib Dem politicians (Sir Vince Cable and Sir Norman Lamb will follow) alleging hacking and other illegal information gathering that was driven by political rather than journalistic motives.
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It takes this intrusive activity into the highest reaches of government. Huhne presented evidence (some of it challenged in the News defence) of an intensive campaign against him that continued when he was a Cabinet minister in the Cameron Coalition Government, and sitting on ministerial committees such as the National Security Committee.
He presented evidence that these activities continued at least until 2011 – five years after the company publicly claimed it had been halted.
It is the latest case to include extensive allegations of illegal activities by The Sun newspaper. Hacking by the now defunct News of the World has long been beyond any possibility of denial, but the Murdoch organisation has yet to admit the involvement of The Sun – despite having already paid large sums to settle a number of claims against it.
As Huhne said in his statement, News has now paid to settle a claim that alleges the involvement in, or at least the knowledge of, illegal activities by senior executives.
"The key News corporation executives were... a director in charge of political and external affairs, and long-standing Murdoch lieutenant Rebekah Brooks. Both were overseen by family member James Murdoch," he said.
A new police investigation should focus on directors and managers, he added.
Brooks was among Murdoch executives tried in 2014 for offences related to illegal news gathering and a subsequent cover-up. She was acquitted, while Andy Coulson – former Sun editor and director of communications for Prime Minister Cameron – was jailed.
Huhne’s own political career ended in 2013 when he was jailed for perverting the course of justice in relation to a motoring offence.
According to the campaigning group Hacked Off, today’s settlement brings the total spent by the Murdoch organisation on settling hacking-related claims and associated legal costs to £1.2 billion over about a dozen years. All of Huhne’s legal costs are being met by The Sun’s holding company, News Group Newspapers.
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His claim against the papers was built largely on information that the company had been legally obliged to disclose, and it painted a picture of multi-faceted surveillance and intrusion by Murdoch employees on a nightmarish scale.
Among the allegations were that:
In two periods of a few days, each in 2009 and 2010, private investigators were paid a total of more than £10,000 to follow him.
Between 2006 and 2011, 222 calls were made from the Murdoch headquarters at Wapping to Huhne’s mobile phone which bore the hallmarks of voicemail interception.
Some 20 private investigators and investigation companies were commissioned for tasks including the illegal accessing of Huhne’s medical records, credit standing, utility bills, bank details and telephone records including his list of ‘friends and family’ numbers.
Messages allegedly accessed included both highly private matters – Huhne’s marriage was breaking up and he was forming a new relationship – and highly sensitive political communications with political figures not only in the Lib Dems but with others such as Labour Home Secretaries Charles Clarke and Alan Johnson.
Huhne said today that the "issues in this case are much wider than previous phone-hacking cases".
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"News Corporation ordered unlawful information gathering in the UK that demonstrated exactly the same contempt for the democratic process shown by Fox when it knowingly lied about Trump winning the presidential election," he added.
"Searching for political kompromat, spying on government ministers for political gain and knowingly telling repeated lies to maintain sales and ratings should all be utterly unacceptable in any responsible media company, yet are the stock in trade of the two Murdoch companies [News and Fox].
"The US, UK and Australian political systems have allowed the Murdochs to become far too powerful. I confidently predict there will be little or no reporting of this settlement in The Times, Sunday Times, Sun, Sun on Sunday, TalkTV, Times Radio, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, Marketwatch, Australian, Sky News Australia, News.com.au, Fox News or Fox TV stations because they are all owned by the Murdochs."
A News UK spokeswoman told The Times that Huhne's allegations were denied.
She said: "It is strongly denied that there was any corporate motive or direction to obtain information unlawfully. Huhne was a senior politician and stories published were legitimate and in the public interest."
‘Emmnon’ Revealed: New Anti-Immigration Pressure Group Emerges at 55 Tufton Street
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A new entity has established itself at 55 Tufton St – home to many of the free-market, pro-Brexit, climate denial-linked think tanks comprising the right-wing lobbying scene – with the aim of “moving the Overton window” and operating as a “focal point” for anti-immigration sentiment in Britain.
End Mass Migration (EMM) was incorporated on 17 October and has links to other groups operating out of the same address – the New Culture Forum and Migration Watch, as well as Reform UK.
It describes itself as “a campaign organisation that has been set up by a group of immigration experts from academia, think tanks, politics and the media” to challenge “the myth that mass immigration is beneficial to the UK when it is actually causing enormous economic, social, cultural and political damage to our country”.
The organisation, which accepts donations on its website, blames migration for putting pressure on public services and the economy and plans on demanding a referendum on “limiting the number of immigrants who can come to the UK every year” – as well as claiming that the “political establishment, mainstream media [and] academia” are ignoring the public.
It sets out five key aims as a call to action: “a massive reduction in immigration"; "a referendum on legally limiting the number of immigrants who can come to the UK every year", the UK's "withdrawal from the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Refugee Convention and the UN Migration Compact"; “establishing an open and honest conversation about immigration"; and “exposing the pro-mass immigration lobby”.
This “lobby”, the group claims, “have no interest in the wellbeing of you and your family, your locality, or the country as a whole” – claiming some are motivated by narrow economic interests, while others “are just twisted ideologues who despise our country and Western civilisation generally”.
The “facts” page of the organisation's website argues that “we are not, and never have been, a nation of immigrants” and that “you are told diversity makes us strong. The opposite is true”. It also claims “mass immigration has a negative impact on every aspect of life in the UK" and that "it is destroying your future”.
EXCLUSIVE
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As ITV pays £1.5 million to platform the politician on ‘I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!’, a Byline Times investigation reveals how he charged £75 to use what appears to be a serious racial slur in a personalised video message
Dan Evans and Tom Latchem
The project was launched at an 'Immigration Conference' event run by the New Culture Forum, at which its only director – Neil Philip Anderson – gave a speech entitled “Five Years Left to Save Britain: A Call to Action”.
During the event, Anderson described how “we have to move the Overton window to make immigration and diversity a topic that we refuse to be coerced by” and that the right “need to create a separate ecosystem, or counterculture, through which our ideas can be promulgated”.
Formally introducing End Mass Migration, he described it as the means by which this new anti-immigration ecosystem could flourish, by creating “a grass-roots presence throughout the country by setting up local chapters and coordinating and messaging our activities centrally". He added: “End Mass Migration wants to become that focal point. It needs to become that focal point."
Anderson explained how the current lack of public trust in Parliament and politicians could be seen as “an opportunity” to apply pressure on parliamentarians, suggesting people might want to instead reject both Labour and the Conservatives at the ballot box, “lending their votes to a smaller party that opposes mass immigration”. End Mass Migration did not respond to a request for comment asking which "smaller party" it was referring to.
Anderson revealed “we have grand plans for this campaign” and that it will "evolve over the coming weeks, months, and years”.
EMM also has links to other groups taking a hardline stance on immigration.
Anderson, for example, previously stood as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Brexit Party (now Reform UK) in Ilford North in 2019, where he secured just 1.9% of the vote. Reform UK campaigns on a platform of “net zero immigration” and has recently faced scrutiny for allegedly offering money to Conservative MPs on the right of the party to defect ahead of the next general election. Leader Richard Tice has denied the claims while admitting he has engaged in “numerous discussions with Tory MPs”.
Many 'Red Wall' Conservatives now reportedly risk losing their seats to Reform, with senior Conservatives calling it a “battle for the soul of the party”. One former minister claimed, after two disastrous Tory by-election losses, that “it shows that the failure to deliver on migration means they [Reform UK] alone could hand Labour the Red Wall”.
Anderson was also previously a director at the Migration Watch UK think tank, founded in 2001 by Lord Green of Deddington. It has historically led Tufton Street’s call for lower net migration and previously been criticised for presenting misleading figures to stoke anti-asylum seeker sentiment.
EMM’s website also states that ‘End Mass Migration’ is the trading name of Emmnon Ltd’, which has its own Companies House listing and was established in February. Both companies feature Anderson as a director, but Emmnon also previously featured among its controlling directors Peter Robin Whittle.
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Whittle is the former 2016 UKIP London Mayoral candidate and Deputy Leader of the party, under Paul Nuttall. He is also the founder and director of the New Culture Forum (which hosted EMM’s launch).
The New Culture Forum states that its aims at “challenging the orthodoxies dominant in our institutions, public life and wider culture” to combat what it perceives as a “left-wing bias” and “woke ideology” in the media and academia. It has previously been described as part of the "infrastructure" of the broader conservative movement.
After initially being approached by Byline Times for comment for this newspaper's first report on Emmnon, the company suddenly changed its registered offices to 71-75 Shelton Street in London's Covent Garden – an address which houses organisations providing for-hire director and company addresses. The newly registered iteration of the company has, however, renewed its open affiliation with the Tufton Street address. EMM did not respond to a request for comment on the change of address.
It appears that End Mass Migration will operate as a pressure group. On the website, it encourages individuals to “form a local chapter of EMM and arrange regular meetings” and to “provide information to EMM about how immigration impacts your locality in areas such as schooling, healthcare, housing, the use of hotels to accommodate migrants, local government policy favouring immigrants etc.”.
“We are not trying to replicate the work of others, most notably Migration Watch UK," Anderson said at the group's launch event. "We are not a think tank, nor a political party, and neither do we advocate a political party… but we are determined to ensure that immigration policy works for the people of this country.”
Anderson added: “We don’t know where this is going to go, but there’s nothing out there doing this; there’s nothing offering this course of action.
“If we can emulate UKIP’s achievements, I’d be quite glad about that. If we can pull the conversation that way. If we can, even if it does take a decade or 20 years to force this onto the agenda of the political parties… we need action on the streets, we need grassroots local action.”
Responding to the emergence of EMM, Naomi Smith, chief executive of Best for Britain, said: “This is a new outfit in bed with the same old people. The people who championed a hard Brexit, leaving our economy in tatters, and household costs hiked, who were poster boys for the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng budget, from which ordinary Brits will be paying the price for years to come, and who choose to ignore every leading scientists when it comes to saving the planet.
"Given their heritage, it is clear that these are not serious people but their funding makes them dangerous."
End Mass Migration did not specify to Byline Times whether it was going to primarily target Labour or the Conservatives.
This article was published in partnership with Good Law Project. Read its version of this story here. Additional reporting by Josiah Mortimer
Avoidable Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities: The Statistics that Shame Our Civilised Society
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My 34-year-old sister is currently more likely to die an avoidable death than at any other stage in her life, according to a shocking new report.
In the latest NHS-funded annual review of deaths among people with learning disabilities, a bleak line graph shows an “odds ratio of avoidable death for age group”, which peaks between the ages of 25 and 49.
Right now, I hasten to add, Raana – who has the learning disability fragile X syndrome – is in good health and is well cared for by her supported living staff in Hampshire.
But the report lays bare how part of our population is less likely to receive good quality health and social care. This makes people like Raana less likely to survive health problems that, for most of us, are preventable and treatable.
Researchers at King’s College London, the University of Central Lancashire and Kingston University London reviewed the deaths of 3,648 people with a learning disability. Overall, almost half died an avoidable death – compared to two in 10 in the general population. The median age of death in was 63 years – around 20 years less than usual.
These terrible facts shame our modern, civilised society, one that on Human Rights Day this Sunday will mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Day. The day partly reflects equality 'for all'.
In contrast, the new report highlights a deep inequality. It reflects how learning disabled people from ethnic minority backgrounds are likely to die earlier, as well as those in deprived areas. It also warns of “excess deaths” caused by heatwaves related to climate change.
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Ramandeep Kaur
The findings are shocking enough, but equally unsettling is the fact that evidence of such premature deaths – and the actions needed to prevent them – are well-established, and have been so for years.
This is the sixth annual report of its kind (the deaths review programme began in 2017), and it is also a quarter of a century since Sheila Hollins, now a crossbench peer, led a report into the increased risk of early death among people with learning disabilities.
In the 25 years since, those original findings have been amplified by a multitude of similarly focused reports and inquiries exposing the significant health inequalities faced by this group of people.
This includes 2013’s Department of Health-funded Confidential Inquiry into the deaths of people with learning disabilities, two reports by Mencap in 2004 and 2007, a Disability Rights Commission study in 2006, and a Department of Health inquiry in 2009.
Just a month ago, an investigation by the watchdog Health Services Safety Investigations Body showed that hospitals put patients with learning disabilities at risk because their need are not met. It found the health and care system “is not always designed to effectively care for people with a learning disability”.
Of course, the investigations and research have laudable aims – to raise awareness, learn from and prevent avoidable deaths, improve care and reduce health inequality. But data alone does not dent entrenched structural inequalities – we need more effort, not just more evidence.
Successive governments – particularly the current one – instead seem content with facilitating and encouraging yet more data alone, while generally turning a blind eye to the recommendations suggested alongside it.
The actions raised by researchers involved in this latest report and previous ones include issues like prioritising people with a learning disability for vaccinations and boosters, a special focus on the health of people from ethnic minority backgrounds, and steps to make medical communication and appointments more accessible.
Yes, there are welcome developments from some with the power to act, mostly in response to campaigners. There is a greater push within some NHS regions for learning disabled people to take up annual health checks or the launch of accessible vaccination clinics, with reasonable adjustments as standard. And there is the roll-out of e-learning for health and care staff through the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in learning disability and autism.
But none of this is widespread or proportionate to need.
The hearings in the COVID Inquiry are another reminder that the Government had no plan for disabled people – especially disabled people from black, Asian or ethnic minority backgrounds – despite their higher risk of death in the pandemic.
Alongside the lack of specific action on the health of learning disabled people, the Government is also failing to tackle the wider determinants of wellbeing.
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For example, it dropped long-awaited plans to reform the Mental Health Act, excluding it from the recent King’s Speech. These reforms would have meant fewer people with learning disabilities being detained in secure units (a group that is detained, despite not having mental health issues).
And it gave lip-service to Baroness Hollins’ long-awaited report calling for an end to the long-term segregation of learning disabled people in secure units. More than 2,000 people are still locked away in these inappropriate, restrictive and traumatising places.
More generally, the public sector cuts, lack of funding for social care, and the Government's move to block family members of overseas care workers from coming to the UK, threaten the already fragile support that exists. This further undermines the safety net that keeps people from a healthcare crisis.
No wonder then at the anger, sadness, disappointment and fear expressed by the Kingston University-based Staying Alive and Well Group, an advisory group of 10 people with a learning disability which informed the Learning from Lives and Deaths report.
In a statement and accessible video released as part of the report, the group renamed the study “Spot the Difference” because “we are saying the same things year after year after year… we sometimes feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall, like nothing has changed”.
It is devastating that the words of this expert group of people with learning disabilities are as accurate and relevant today as they would have been when research in this area began – 25 years ago: “Everyone should be treated equally. Everyone has the right to live and be cared for. People with a learning disability can live well with the right support, but our lives are not valued enough.”
Saba Salman is the editor of 'Made Possible: Stories of Success by People with Learning Disabilities – In their Own Words’. She is the chair of the charity Sibs, which supports the siblings of disabled children and adults
Outcry as Government Proposes Letting Brits ‘Vouch’ for Overseas Voters’ Identities – While Denying Same Chance for In-Person Voters Who Lack ID
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The Government has been accused of “corrupting democracy” as it pushes through legislation that will allow Brits living overseas to have their identity confirmed by an existing UK voter – while rejecting calls for the same rules to apply to in-person voters who lack photo ID.
A little-known piece of legislation – the Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 – is currently sitting in Parliament after being drawn up by ministers, and does not require a parliamentary vote to pass.
It will allow overseas voters to have their identity vouched for by a currently-registered voter, when they sign up to vote abroad. Voters living here can already register this way, though the process is rarely used, and there are fears that relaxed rules for overseas voters could open the UK up to foreign interference and a flood of opaque donations.
Ministers have just raised the spending limit by 80% for general elections for political parties – again without a parliamentary vote – while separate legislation has scrapped the previous 15-year limit that people could live abroad and continue to be able to vote.
In theory, someone could have lived abroad for 50 years, with little evidence of where they used to vote – and a friend living in the UK could vouch that they were telling the truth about their eligibility to cast their ballot in a key swing seat.
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Liberal Democrat peer Lord Chris Rennard is sounding the alarm about the plans, arguing that the so-called ‘attestation’ rules letting overseas citizens register to vote without firm documentation showing they used to live in the UK will enable Brits overseas to donate unlimited sums to political causes.
It comes after the Government controversially rejected calls from the Electoral Commission watchdog and democracy campaigners to let voters bring alternative forms of voter identification following May’s elections or to allow others to ‘attest’ to the identity of those who lack ID.
At least 14,000 voters were turned away from polling stations and denied a vote in England in May. There are fears as many as 100,000 people could be turned away in next year’s general election.
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“There is a clear pattern of this Government bending election rules in their favour," Lord Rennard told Byline Times. "Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted that the strict voter ID rules were a form of 'gerrymandering'.
“One way of helping to ensure that legitimate voters can participate in elections would be to allow 'attestation' at the polling stations. This work, for example, in Canada where voters with the requisite ID can 'vouch' for someone on the electoral roll but who is without the necessary photo ID. The Government has recently rejected this sensible proposal in order to limit participation.
“Such a process as attestation can be used to get on the electoral register and this may be crucial for registering more of the UK citizens who have been living overseas for more than 15 years.”
He believes the Government's motive for the change in overseas voter registration may be “principally linked to allowing unlimited donations from these people”.
“It seems wrong that a form of attestation may be used to register people to vote when there is no evidence of a previous address in the UK, whilst not allowing a similar process for people who are on the electoral registers but do not have the specific forms of Photo ID to vote at a polling station," he added.
“The Government is not bothered about the right to vote – it is concerned about raising big donations from people without stringent checks on the original sources of funding. This corrupts democracy."
A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission confirmed that so-called attestation rules would apply to oversees voters registering, but not those who lack ID and try to vote in person.
They said: “When applying to register, overseas voters will be able to supply an attestation of registration status from a qualifying voter, or an attestation of relevant address connection. We will be publishing our guidance with further detail in the coming weeks.
“Attestations are already an option for verifying a UK-based person’s identity in the process of registering to vote. It is not currently used in the voting process, but we recommended that the same principle could be extended to polling stations to vouch for those without ID. This would help to improve accessibility and support those people who do not have an accepted form of ID.”
Campaign group British in Europe has broadly welcomed the changes in a briefing.
There will be a limit of two people that a UK registered voter can ‘vouch’ for among overseas voters.
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In practice, the short election timetable makes it hard for overseas voters to participate in UK votes, as the window for sending postal votes out and back from overseas is generally too tight. But voters including those overseas are now able to register for a postal vote online under a new government portal, making the overall process smoother.
Meanwhile, Labour peer Lord Khan of Burnley has filed an objection to the draft law saying it could “dangerously weaken the restrictions on overseas political donations and allow foreign money to enter our democracy”.
The new statutory instrument, or 'Henry VIII' order, will be debated on Wednesday in the House of Commons. The draft legislation can be read here.
The voter ID rules currently exclude several forms of ID used by young people, including Young Persons’ Railcards and some forms of student ID.
Labour refused to say whether it would repeal the ID requirements if in government, when asked by Byline Times earlier this year. The Lib Dems back repeal of the ID rules. The full list of acceptable IDs is published here.
Byline Times has extensively covered the voter ID roll-out and will be monitoring further developments.
ShoutOut UK and the Greater London Authority have launched a new WhatsApp chat bot to give advice on getting ID and registering to vote. Add +44 7908 820136 to use it.
The Department for Levelling Up was contacted for comment.
Update: This article was amended after publication to make it clear that the new online portal is for registering for a postal vote, not voting online.
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The British Public Have Made Their Minds Up About Rishi Sunak and it Doesn’t Look Good
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The British public appear to have made their minds up about the Prime Minister, and their view is unlikely to go down well inside Downing Street.
In recent months Rishi Sunak’s Government have launched a series of ‘relaunches’ or ‘resets’ designed to deal with polls showing they remain in excess of twenty points behind the opposition Labour Party.
Last week the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a series of tax cuts designed to transform public opinion about Sunak’s Government. This was followed this week by the Prime Minister engaging in an extended public spat with the Greek Prime Minister over the fate of the Elgin Marbles.
However, new polling commissioned by Byline Times this week suggests that these various attempts to change the narrative about Sunak and his Government are not working.
Asked by pollsters We Think whether they viewed Sunak as more of a weak or more of a strong leader, almost three quarters (73%) said they saw him as more weak, compared to just 27% who saw him as more strong.
Even among current Conservative voters, four out of ten (39%) say they view him as a more weak than strong leader.
By contrast Keir Starmer is seen in a significantly less negative light than the Prime Minister. Asked whether they saw him as more weak, or strong, 55% of all voters said they saw him as being more weak, compared to 45% who saw him as more strong.
Labour voters were also less likely to see their leader as weak than Conservative voters, with just 26% labelling Starmer as more weak than strong.
Voters were also asked to pick from a list of critical and complimentary adjectives to describe the Prime Minister and his main opponent.
Among all voters the most popular words used to describe Sunak were ‘Untrustworthy’, ‘Weak’ and ‘Entitled’.
By contrast the most popular words used to describe his Labour opponent Keir Starmer were ‘Boring’, ‘Responsible’ and ‘Thoughtful’.
Recent figures showing record immigration numbers also appear to have damaged perceptions of Sunak's Government.
84% said the Government's immigration policy had been a failure, compared to just 16% who said it had been successful. Overall voters are now more likely to trust Labour on the issue than the Conservatives by 41% to 27%.
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Sunak's row with the Greek Prime Minister also does not appear to have gone down well with British voters.
Asked whether Sunak did the right or wrong thing by cancelling his meeting with the Greek PM, following his intervention over the Elgin Marbles, 43% said it was the wrong thing to do, compared to just 15% who agreed with Downing Street.
Sunak used Prime Minister’s Questions this week to accuse Starmer of “siding with an EU country” over the issue, despite Starmer ruling out changing the law to allow the marbles’ return.
However, our poll found that voters are more likely than not to say that the Marbles should be returned to Greece, by 44% to 20%.
The UK Should Reverse Brexit, say voters 
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen caused controversy this week after suggesting that the UK would likely end up reversing Brexit and returning to the EU.
Her comments were rejected by both Downing Street and the Labour Party. However, our poll suggests that most voters agree with her.
Asked whether the UK should one day rejoin the EU, 61% of voters said that we should, compared to just 39% who said that we shouldn’t.
However, voters aree split down the middle on whether such a reunification will ever actually happen, with 50% saying it will, compared to 50% saying it won't.
Younger voters are more confident of Brexit being one day reversed, with 59% of those under the age of 40 saying it will be, compared to just 44% of those over 40.
The findings come as Byline Times publishes its three year investigation revealing the scale of Brexit regret among ordinary Brits.
The investigation can be read in the current edition of our monthly newspaper available to subscribers and in shops and supermarkets across the country.
‘The BBC’s Evisceration of Newsnight is a Craven Admission of Defeat’
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It’s fair to say that if any BBC programme deserves the title ‘flagship’, it’s Newsnight.
It feels like it’s always been there and has always been excellent. So, it’s no surprise that the BBC’s announcement of deep cuts and a radical restructuring that will change the scope and very nature of the programme has been greeted with dismay by many people who have worked on it, and many more who appreciate its storytelling and extremely high journalistic standards.
A highlight of recent years was Emily Maitlis’ interview with Prince Andrew, with the former Newsnight presenter taking to X (formerly Twitter) to lament the decision to reduce the editorial team by more than half and turn the programme into a talk show.
“Could the Prince Andrew interview have happened in this iteration of BBC Newsnight?” she asked. “Of course not. Aside from the painstaking prep and lengthy research that demanded from the team, [Prince Andrew] came to a flagship brand the BBC was proud of. It doesn’t feel that way tonight.
"Of course, there will still be interviews and debates and the theme music will carry on. But once the bosses send out a signal they don’t really *care* about a flagship investigative news programme – the guests and the audience start to wonder why they should."
The decision to eviscerate Newsnight has to be seen in the context of the relentless campaign against the very idea of public service broadcasting that has been waged by the Conservatives from the minute they came to office in 2010.
The biggest weapon has been funding and the BBC has been strangled by round after round of inadequate licence fee rises or freezes in an age of broadcast inflation.
This has been accompanied by viscous and constant political pressure. Faced with a Government that hates the BBC, wants it dead, and until it is dead wants it to be compliant, the corporation's leaders have chosen a policy of appeasement.
Former BBC reporter and producer Patrick Howse explores the damage done to the broadcaster in its attempts to appease enemies that want it destroyed
Patrick Howse
The disasters of Brexit and the institutional dishonesty and incompetence of the Conservative Governments went unchallenged by most of the BBC’s output – because its leaders were scared stiff of those governments.
Furthermore, increasingly and importantly, many of them – such as Sir Robbie Gibb, Richard Sharp, and Tim Davie – were Conservatives themselves.
Newsnight was one of the few programmes to buck this trend and actually try to hold the Government to account and call out lies.
Maitlis did so with Dominic Cummings over his Barnard Castle ‘eye test’; and Lewis Goodall, the programme’s policy editor, did some excellent analysis. Both left the programme, with many people seeing the grey influence of Gibb behind that outcome.
I think Newsnight’s fearlessness and willingness to call out lies created some powerful enemies in the BBC’s hierarchy – and they have finally succeeded in effectively killing it.
The programme is to be shortened and is to become solely a format for live discussion. It will lose its team of dedicated reporters and the producers who work with them on the films that have always been such a vital part of the programme.
Meirion Jones, a former Newsnight journalist who was instrumental in breaking the Jimmy Savile abuse story – the row over which led to his departure from the BBC – believes what he calls “the sausage factory” of neutered and homogenised BBC output has won.
“Everything coming out of the BBC will be one amorphous blob,” he told me. “We need programmes like Newsnight which have a little independence and a shorter editorial chain. We need expert reporters and producers who can take advantage of that freedom to make interesting, revelatory, surprising TV and really hold power to account whether that's exposing a multinational or putting a prince on the spot. Unfortunately, that seems to be the last thing BBC bosses want.”
Filmed reports – or packages to use the jargon – are a foundational part of Newsnight’s journalism. News reports in the BBC’s TV news bulletins would normally be under two minutes long, stretching to perhaps five minutes for a lead on the 10 o’clock news. Newsnight’s films might be 10 minutes long or even more. The programme’s pool of dedicated reporters – who all really know what they are doing – are complimented by talented and creative producers and video journalists who make engaging and informative television.
But more importantly, these packages get at the truth. They are examinations of complex issues by impartial, intelligent and well-informed journalists – not just a formulaic bad-tempered run through polarised arguments. In other words: they inform, educate and entertain Newsnight’s audience. It’s no wonder the BBC’s timid and servile leadership has decided to get rid of them.
What we will get instead is more of the same old 'he says this, but she says that' discourse that has done so much damage, not only to the BBC’s reputation, but also to Britain’s democracy.
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Instead of any attempt to get at the truth, we will have more Tufton Street think tankers spouting the views of their shadowy financial sponsors ‘balanced’ with honest people who know what they are talking about.
It is just the latest – and perhaps terminal – stage of the BBC’s adoption of a philosophy based on the idea that ‘the truth must lie somewhere in between’ two opposing views. This philosophy is quick, easy and, above all else, cheap to implement. It also avoids the need to take any courageous editorial decisions (a big plus for BBC managers), because all it needs is guests to represent ‘both sides of the argument’.
Stand by for flat-earthers up against professors of astrophysics, or influencers arguing with immunologists about virus spread, or newspaper columnists telling peer-reviewed research scientists there’s no such thing as climate change.
However robust and challenging these discussions might be, there will be no well-made, intelligent films crafted by impartial producers, video journalists and reporters to actually examine the issues and get to the truth.
There will just be noise, clipped up and shared on social media, where it will wash around for months, reinforcing increasingly polarised positions and allowing people with delusional and sometimes sinister views to feel validated.
The whole philosophy of this false balance, of ‘hearing both sides of the argument’, is built on sand. Sometimes there aren’t two sides – sometimes there’s just honest, well-informed people who are expected to argue their case against dishonest scoundrels who lie for a living. The truth does not lie ‘somewhere in between’ these two positions: the truth is not the midpoint between facts and lies.
So, the Newsnight decision makes perfect sense – if you want to save money, you want to keep the Government sweet, and you don’t care much about the BBC’s reputation for telling its audiences the truth. Viewed from every other angle, it can only be seen as a craven capitulation and an admission of defeat.