UK Politics

Government funding of £60m has been announced as part of a package of measures to boost the creative industries.

The money, announced today (17 January) by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has been earmarked for grassroots music venues, creative businesses involved with music and film exports, as well as start-up video game studios.

The government says the money will “facilitate investment and innovation in communities, in turn supporting businesses and employment”.

The announcement coincides with Nandy meeting with more than 250 creative businesses and cultural leaders at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead today.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the summit is the first step towards delivering the Creative Industry Sector Plan, as part of the UK’s modern Industrial Strategy.

At the summit Nandy will also announce the priority regions for Creative Industries: the North East; Greater Manchester; Liverpool City Region; West Yorkshire; West Midlands; Greater London; West of England; South Wales; the Glasgow, Edinburgh-Dundee corridor; and Belfast.

Alongside this, the government will provide additional funding, to be agreed as part of the Spending Review, to six Mayoral Combined Authorities: the North East; Greater Manchester; Liverpool City Region; West Yorkshire; West Midlands; and the West of England.

The funding will aim to maximise the strengths of the areas to deliver growth.

A proposed law requiring all new homes to have solar panels suggested by Cheltenham's MP has been rejected.

The New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill, brought by Liberal Democrat Max Wilkinson, was debated in parliament on Friday during its second reading.

The so-called "Sunshine Bill" could help the country tackle the "twin crises" of the cost of living crisis and climate change, Mr Wilkinson said.

But while minister for housing and planning Matthew Pennycook said the government was "extremely sympathetic", it was rejected by officials.

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Similar changes have been signalled by the government which could become part of new building regulations to be amended later this year.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticised after publishing a statement on Wednesday night which welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza but recalled the "massacre of Jewish people" while saying that Palestinians "lost their lives".

The contrasting language used to describe Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict has been a constant source of scrutiny with activists arguing that the deaths of Palestinians are downplayed by media outlets and government.

Points of contention have been not mentioning the perpetrators of Palestinian deaths, which is invariably Israel, and also using the passive voice when talking about those killed.

Middle East Eye has contacted Downing Street to ask how the prime minister believed the Palestinians he referred to had died. At the the time of publication, Downing Street had not responded.

The UK economy grew by 0.1% in November, reversing a 0.1% drop in the previous month, and easing some of the pressure on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

The rise in activity was weaker than forecast, with Reeves acknowledging it would take time to revive the UK economy.

City economists had forecast that GDP would rise by 0.2% in November, with some warning that November’s growth was weak, making an interest rate cut by the Bank of England next month more likely.

UK government borrowing costs dipped after the data was released, which will increase the chances that Reeves does not breach her fiscal rules. On Wednesday, bond yields dropped at the fastest rate since 2023 after UK inflation eased, in another fillip for the chancellor.

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Simon Pittaway, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said the GDP data was disappointing, raising fears of stagnation, despite a welcome return to growth. “In recent years the UK has been a growth rollercoaster, with a recession in late 2023 followed by a bounce back in early 2024. But its longer-term record is one of economic stagnation, and that is where Britain risks returning to.

“The paltry GDP growth late last year reinforces the need for the government’s economic plans to start bearing fruit.”

The ONS’s director of economic statistics, Liz McKeown, said: “The economy continues to be broadly flat, having grown slightly in November following two small falls in the previous months.”

Borrowing costs for the UK government have plunged, as an unexpected drop in inflation at home and in core inflation in the US raised bets that central banks will cut interest rates in the months ahead.

The yield - or interest rate - charged on key UK government debt dropped below 4.8%, retreating after last week's surge, when it had hit the highest level in 16 years.

The moves followed new figures showing inflation cooled to 2.5% in December, from 2.6% in the prior month.

It has eased pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves whose Budget policies have been criticised for contributing to the market turmoil.

UK bond yields soared to their highest levels since 2008 last week, as concerns over the UK's economic outlook and rising borrowing costs spiked.

The yield on 10-year gilts, as bonds issued by the UK government are known, had been approaching 4.9%, reflecting investor unease.

But government data on Wednesday, which showed inflation dropping for the first time in three months, appeared to help calm the market somewhat.

The Met Police appear set to reverse a controversial move to block a protest outside the BBC over reporting on Gaza this Saturday. 

The demonstration, organised by the PalestineSolidarity Campaign, Stop the War and other anti-war groups, had been challenged by Jewish figures including the Chief Rabbi for taking place near to the Central Synagogue London on the Jewish day of rest, Shabbat. It is a four minute walk from the BBC’s HQ, New Broadcasting House in Westminster, though not directly on the planned march route.

Frantic cross-Atlantic discussions have taken place over the past week between right-wing Tory and Reform politicians and Donald Trump’s team to try to ensure that Sir Keir Starmer did not complete a deal with the Chagos Islands before the US president-elect’s inauguration on Monday.

With Mr Trump seeking to block or even veto the deal to hand over the British Indian Ocean colony to Mauritius, the hope had been that Sir Keir would be prevented from landing an agreement before the new president is sworn into office.

The revelation came as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch branded the agreement “a dumb deal” at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, asking: “Why does the prime minister think the British people should pay for something they already own?”

Sir Keir said: “We inherited the situation where the long-term operation of a vital military base was under threat because of legal challenges.”

He pointed out that negotiations began under the last Tory government, adding that his deal had provided for “effective continued operation of the base”.

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Foreign secretary David Lammy had agreed a deal with Mauritius, but following a change of government there, the new Mauritian prime minister Navin Ramgoolam rejected it as “not good enough” and demanded more concessions from the UK.

The British organisers of the efforts to prevent a handover to Mauritius broke cover on Wednesday with the publication of an open letter signed by 23 leading figures on the right, including Nigel Farage (along with a number of other Reform MPs), former Tory PM Liz Truss, former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman, and former Reform leader Ben Habib.

It is understood that the letter was also backed by Ms Badenoch, though she did not sign it.

Conservative Post editor Claire Bullivant, one of the letter’s organisers and signatories, told The Independent that the campaign had wider significance beyond the row over the Chagos Islands.

She said: “This has laid the groundwork for potential cooperation between Reform and the Conservative Party.”

Another source involved in organising the letter and talks across the Atlantic said that Brexiteer Martin Howe KC, another signatory, had been giving more advice to the Trump administration on the issue in the last few weeks alongside wider talks on preventing the deal.

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On the topic of Mr Trump, the signatories warned: “President Trump has reportedly expressed strong opposition to this agreement, citing concerns about its implications for US security and the potential benefit it would grant to China, which has expanded its influence in the region. It is unthinkable to alienate our closest ally by finalising this deal without their support.”

British arm of Heartland, which has taken fossil and Republican funding, to be led by ex-Ukip head Lois Perry

LONDON: BBC Middle East online editor Raffi Berg is reportedly considering legal action against British journalist Owen Jones, following accusations in an investigative article that claimed Berg exhibited bias in favor of Israel. The allegations have allegedly triggered a wave of online abuse and threats directed at the editor.

The 9,000-word article, titled “The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza,” was published earlier in December by Drop Site, an investigative news platform. In the article, Jones cited interviews with 13 current and former BBC staffers, who alleged that Berg “sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine.”

One former journalist was quoted as saying: “This guy’s (Berg’s) entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel.”

Link to petition

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074

Tulip Siddiq has resigned as a Treasury minister after accepting the government was being harmed by the furore over her close ties to her aunt, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh now accused of corruption.

Siddiq, who was the City and anti-corruption minister, stepped aside after an investigation by Laurie Magnus, the adviser on ministerial standards, into her use of properties given to herself and family by allies of the regime of Sheikh Hasina.

She was not deemed by Magnus to have broken any rules over her use of the homes and he found no evidence to suggest that any of Siddiq’s assets were derived from anything other than legitimate means.

The inquiry also looked into her presence at the signing of a 2013 nuclear deal between her aunt and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The adviser accepted her explanation that she had been there only socially and as a tourist.

However, Magnus also said a lack of records and lapse of time has meant that he had “not been able to obtain comprehensive comfort in relation to all the UK property-related matters referred to in the media”.

The watchdog added that Siddiq could have been more alive to the reputational risks arising from her family’s ties to Bangladesh and suggested the prime minister would want to consider her responsibilities.

https://archive.is/bEhhT

Huge apologies, it's the Star. But who doesn't love a bit of salad tossing in the morning?

Newham

According to the wikipedia article, she was born in the UK before birthright citizenship (EDIT : Laws changed), and lived in Nigeria until she was 16.

When and how did she get British citizenship?

EDIT : Turns out that the conservatives tried to prevent people like her from being citizens the year after she was born. 👍

"It's simple, we ask a GPT to generate a report on the budget where everything looks rosy"

Even before what Keir Starmer described as “far-right riots” in England last summer, alarm bells were ringing amid fears older people were even more susceptible to misinformation and radicalisation than younger “digital natives”.

Suspects were generally older than those charged in the 2011 unrest, according to a Guardian analysis of hundreds of defendants that found that as many as 35% were in their 40s or older.

However, after Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Meta would replace factcheckers with a crowdsourced system and recommend more political content, there is now new concern about the potential radicalisation risks on Facebook, the social media platform of choice for many older people.

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“It’s clearly a retrograde step that comes with all sorts of risks,” said Dr Sara Wilford of De Montfort University, a lead researcher on a pioneering Europe-wide project called Smidge (Social Media Narratives: Addressing Extremism in Middle Age).

“X might be the model for the crowdsourced ‘community notes’ approach that Meta seems to be embracing, instead of professional moderators, but it just won’t work in the same way with Facebook, which very much operates in little silos or closed groups. I’m concerned that, for middle-aged Facebook users who risk being exposed to extremist content, it will be even harder to discern the truth.”

The anti-extremism campaign group Hope not Hate also told the Guardian it feared Zuckerberg’s announcement was a prelude to far-right figures and groups, such as Tommy Robinson and Britain First, being allowed back on to Facebook.

Britain First proved particularly adept at using the platform before it was banned, amassing 2m likes – at that stage surpassing Labour (1m) and the Conservatives (650,000).

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When it came to the riots, Hope not Hate said Facebook was used in a particular way by the far right, in contrast to other platforms. “Telegram was for whipping up the most extreme hate, or sometimes plotting and planning, while X was used to to disseminate that message,” said Joe Mulhall, the anti-racism campaign group’s director of research.

“Facebook was then often where you would see a group creating hyperlocal targeted content, with a page popping up around a specific event. We’ve also seen over the last three to four years that anti-migrant protest Facebook groups were really fundamental in organising the targeting of asylum centres.”

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Brexit, Trump’s 2016 win and the Covid pandemic acted as catalysts for engagement with more extreme forms of rightwing politics via Facebook, according to Dr Natalie-Anne Hall, a lecturer at Cardiff University and author of Brexit, Facebook, and Transnational Right-Wing Populism.

“Facebook is a key site for algorithmically driven encounters with these harmful ideas within people’s everyday practices of social media use. Meta should be doing more, not less, to combat this harm,” she said.

“Zuckerberg’s comments and Meta’s new position on this issue will only serve to embolden the misplaced sense of victimhood among those with antiprogressive views that research has shown feeds into radicalisation.”

Should we try to bolster our friendship with Europe?

The author claims that the UK government "must unambiguously launch talks on a big, expansive trade deal with the EU coupled with a deal on European defence".

Do you agree?

Do you think the press is too critical of Keir Starmer?

Only last week, Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP for Hove and Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement—who played a key role in the removal of Jeremy Corbyn—voiced his opinions on the Asian-Muslim grooming gangs debate. Tony Blair’s former Defence Minister and Chair of JML (an organisation with close ties to the Israeli regime) appeared on GB News last Sunday to weigh in on Jess Phillips. Specifically, he addressed Elon Musk’s accusation that Phillips is a “rape genocide apologist” for refusing to reopen an inquiry into Muslim grooming gangs.

Caplin now finds himself embroiled in a scandal of his own. The 66-year-old was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of child sex offences after a sting operation conducted by the vigilante group Stop Stings. Renowned for exposing alleged predators, the group live-streamed their citizen’s arrest of the former Jewish MP on Facebook. The broadcast, spanning over 30 minutes, attracted more than 36,000 views and 3,000 comments.

In a statement, Sussex Police confirmed: “We are aware of footage circulating on social media showing a man in Brighton being detained on suspicion of engaging in online sexual communications with a child. Officers can confirm that a local 66-year-old man was arrested on Saturday, January 11, and currently remains in custody. This is an ongoing and active investigation.”