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2PAGE WILLIAMSON: ‘HANDFUL OF MALCONTENTS’ SABOTAGING LABOUR

11PAGEENERGY: What’s the state of play for power?

8PAGE HUGHES: DEFRA’S NEW TORY CRONY BOSS

by Lamiat SabinParliamentary Reporter

A CANDIDATE in next week’s local elections will remain on the ballot paper despite being suspended by the Conservatives over his off ensive tweets, includ-ing anti-semitic, homophobic and misogynistic slurs.

George Stoakley — who has now switched his Twitter account to private — is standing in the Fen Ditton and Fulbourn ward of Cambridge in the May 3 election.

In July 2013, he made a ref-erence to Anne Frank’s family hiding from the nazis by writing that he was “sweating like a Jew in an attic.”

In another of the tweets from 2013 and 2014 that were unearthed by a prospective voter, he insulted a girl who became a mother at the age of 12, brand-ing her a “dirty little slag” who

should have her baby taken away.On the subject of Aids, he

wrote: “Some people call it Aids, I just call it weaponised semen.”

Another tweet reads: “I wouldn’t mind having Jeremy Kyle’s job, shouting at chavs all day doesn’t sound too bad.”

He also posted that a girl was “a faggot” for fi lming the X Fac-tor fi nal on her phone.

The 23-year-old – whose Twit-ter and Facebook profi le pictures show him posing with a baby – describes himself in his biography as a “libertarian Conservative.”

Also among the Tweets – all reportedly now deleted – he called for hand guns to be legal-ised.

Last October, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, Mr Stoak-ley retweeted a post written by a user named Dan that condemned Sheffi eld Hallam MP Jared O’Mara, who was suspended by Labour, just months after being

elected, over sexist comments he made online at the age of 22.

The retweeted post reads: “I’m 22. Wouldn’t dream of making posts like that. You’re defending him because he’s Labour. Stop.”

Mr Stoakley, a logistics co-ordinator at a Cambridgeshire homeware fi rm, is still listed by South Cambridgeshire District Council as one of the three Tory candidates standing in the ward.

A Conservative Party spokes-man told the Star that he has now been suspended, but the Electoral Commission confi rmed he cannot be deselected and his name will appear on the ballot paper as the statement of persons nominated is already published.

Cambridge Labour MP Daniel Zeichner said: “I would always, of course, urge people to vote Labour.

“The reported views [of Mr Stoakley] do not refl ect the val-ues of decent people in Cam-bridgeshire, and I hope people

will vote accordingly.”A Cambridge Unite Against

Fascism spokesperson said: “It appears from his other comments that Mr Stoakley’s privileged posi-tion has allowed him to take on a whole raft of prejudices against those less fortunate than he.

“We expect the Conservative Party to deal with this vile big-otry with the same persistence with which they have pursued the small number of cases of much less severe anti-semitism on the left.”

Mr Stoakley’s Facebook profi le is largely private, but the Star has seen – despite his anti-Jewish and homophobic views – that he “likes” groups Christians United for Israel and LGBT+ Conservatives.

He has also liked far-right pages such as those of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, the English Dem-ocrats and the British Democrats.

[email protected]

6PAGE

US: TEACHERS WALK OUT AGAINST CUTS

BIGOTRY IS NO BARRIER FOR TORY CANDIDATECouncil wannabe kept on ballot despite vile tweets

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■ LABOUR PARTY

Williamson: Malcontents are trying to do in Corbynby Ceren Sagir

LABOUR MP Chris Williamson accused a “handful of malcon-tents” among his party colleagues yesterday of trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Speaking to the Star, the Derby North MP defended Unite general secretary Len McClus-key’s warnings of “Corbyn-hater MPs” in the party.

Mr McCluskey said on Wednesday that some were “working overtime trying to present the Labour Party as a morass of misogyny, anti-semitism and bullying.”

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer responded yesterday that it was “obvious” the party has an issue with anti-semitism and those who deny it are “part of the problem.”

Mr Williamson told the Star that the Unite leader “abso-lutely backed” warnings that such an issue existed, but he was trying to make a point about the scale of the problem.

“He was not denying it existed,” said Mr Williamson. “He was saying that it was unac-ceptable and that cases should be dealt with speedily.

“There is a handful of mal-contents who have sought to undermine the Labour leader and his policies, which have the support of the party and the backing of the public.

“The important thing is to not confl ate the disgusting abuse online, which we often see, with … Labour Party members.”

Mr Williamson said if there was evidence of abuse and rac-ism, then action would be taken.

“They have sought to infl ate that abuse which has be done by members, but there is no evidence of that.

“The Labour Party has a record of standing up to rac-ism, as has the Labour leader.”

Mr Williamson also recalled that both he and Mr McCluskey fought anti-semitism in the 1970s before MPs such as Wes Streeting were born and that they “won’t be taking lectures” from him.

David Rosenberg of the Jew-ish Socialists’ Group also pointed out that Mr McCluskey had not denied that there was a problem, but it was “a small number of members expressing entirely unacceptable anti-semitic views.”

Mr McCluskey made his comments in an article for the New Statesman magazine, say-ing that certain MPs are “pol-luting” the leader’s eff orts to tackle the problem.

He wrote: “I look with dis-gust at the behaviour of the Corbyn-hater MPs who join forces with the most reaction-ary elements of the media establishment and I understand why there is a growing demand for mandatory reselection.”

[email protected]

■ POLICING

Violent crime rates shoot up to highest since 2010by Lamiat SabinParliamentary Reporter

RATES of knife and gun crime rose sharply last year in England and Wales, according to new offi cial statistics revealed yes-terday amid mounting concern over spiralling levels of violence.

Labour said that the Tory government haas cultivated the right conditions for these crimes to thrive, which has included cutting police offi cer numbers by 21,000 nationally.

Police forces logged 39,598 “high-harm” off ences involv-ing a knife or sharp instrument in 2017, marking a 22 per cent increase compared with the previous year and the high-est number since comparable records started in 2010.

Recorded robbery off ences increased by 33 per cent accord-ing to the Offi ce of National Sta-

tistics, and off ences involving fi rearms were up by 11 per cent.

The number of homicides rose by 9 per cent to a total of 653, when cases linked to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and last year’s terror attacks were excluded.

The ONS report also revealed a 25 per cent rise in the number of recorded sexual off ences, with 145,397 registered last year, the highest number since national crime recording stand-ards were introduced in 2002.

These off ences tend to be dis-proportionately concentrated in metropolitan areas such as London, the ONS said, but it added that the majority of

police forces saw an increase in these types of violent crime.

Labour’s shadow policing minister Louise Haigh said: “The Home Secretary has comprehen-sively failed to protect the public.

“Whether it’s Windrush citi-zens or victims of violent crime, the Home Secretary has repeat-edly refused to acknowledge the evidence staring her in the face.

“The Tories have axed 21,000 police offi cers and neighbour-hood policing, which helps to prevent crime, has been undermined. Our communi-ties are now exposed and we have a government unwilling or unable to put it right.”

[email protected]

by Lamiat Sabin

NHS patients are at high risk from raw sewage, leaking roofs, pests and ageing fi re safety infrastructure thanks to years of Tory funding cuts running up huge NHS maintenance bills.

New fi gures obtained by the Labour Party and published today show that 95 per cent of NHS trusts contacted pest con-trol services between 2015 and last year, with over 12,000 such calls recorded during that time.

Birmingham and Solihull Trust alone called pest control services 777 times.

Seventy per cent of the trusts called about rodent infesta-tions, 73 per cent about ants and 66 per cent about wasps.

Also, 71 per cent of the trusts had leaking or broken roofs, with at least 3,500 separate incidents reported between 2015 and 2017.

Some trusts reported hun-dreds of incidents related to damaged roofs, with the Aired-ale trust recording 314.

The Mid-Cheshire trust said that an X-ray department’s leak-ing roof had caused a “delay in possible cancer diagnosis.”

■ LANCASHIRE

STAFF at three Lan-cashire hospitals are voting on strike action over plans to transfer their jobs to a subsidiary company set up by their NHS trust employers.

In common with other NHS trusts, Wrighting-ton, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust is setting up a subsidi-ary company to employ support workers in areas such as maintenance, catering and portering.

Unite warned trans-ferred staff will be vulnerable to cuts to their pay and terms and conditions.

The union launched a ballot yesterday that closes on Wednesday May 9.

Strikes could begin by the end of May, and Unite says all three hospitals could close as a result.

Unite regional offi cer Keith Hutson said: “Our members are making it clear they are not on board with this out-sourcing plan. They want to remain part of the NHS trust, not a private company.

“We urge the trust to get around the negotiat-ing table and resolve this dispute.”

Staff at three NHS trust sites to walk out

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TWO-THIRDS

OFF

Broken or leaking sewage pipes also caused problems for 60 per cent of the trusts, with at least 678 separate incidents.

Taunton and Somerset reported one incident where raw sewage meant that the trust was “unable to escalate unwell patients’ care to recovery area.”

Labour obtained the informa-tion about the high-risk mainte-nance backlog through a free-dom of information request, which received responses from 143 of England’s 229 acute, com-munity and mental health trusts.

Shadow health minister Jus-

tin Madders blamed the NHS funding crisis for the deterio-rating condition of the health service’s buildings.

The government has used £3.8 billion from NHS capital budgets over the past four years to plug holes in revenue budgets, he said.

Forty-two of the trusts gave details of outstanding repairs, reporting £13 million worth of outstanding fi re maintenance and £4.4m in roof repairs.

Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust alone reported an over £4m maintenance backlog, while Western Sussex Hospi-

tals Trust reported over £3.3m in outstanding fi re and roof maintenance work.

Mr Madders said: “The gov-ernment urgently needs to take action to tackle these danger-ous conditions.

“There is now an urgent need for greater NHS funding — ministers must take action to make our NHS safe.”

GMB national secretary Rehana Azam said: “The best 70th birthday present our health service could have is proper funding.”

[email protected]

■ NHS ENGLAND

TORY CUTS CAUSE

SEWAGE AND RAT

HOSPITAL HORRORAUSTERITY: Funding crisis has caused huge maintenance backlog

■ ANTI-SEMITISM ROW

Jewish activists back Marc Wadsworth over Smeeth by Ceren Sagir

JEWISH Labour activists have united in support of anti-racist campaigner Marc Wadsworth facing anti-semitism accusations.

Mr Wadsworth was brought before a panel of Labour’s national constitutional com-mittee on Wednesday for the supposed off ence.

He faces allegations of hate crimes against Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP, for calling out the disruptive activities of some Labour MPs opposed to the Corbyn leadership.

Jewish Voice for Labour (JvL) voiced its belief that Mr Wadsworth must be cleared of any charges of anti-semitism

and that his suspension should be lifted immediately.

A spokesperson said: “His treatment has been a trav-esty of the transparent, fair and equitable procedures one would expect from a labour movement organisation.

“We trust that the rejection of the totally ill-founded charges against Marc Wadsworth will herald the end of this sorry chapter in the party’s history.”

The incident occurred at a press conference in 2016 for the launch of a major report into anti-semitism in the Labour party.

Mr Wadsworth, in his capac-ity as a journalist, black activist and Labour Party campaigner, attended the press conference and brought a press release about

Labour MPs opposed to Mr Cor-byn’s leadership.

A Daily Telegraph reporter demanded that Mr Wadsworth denounce the press release he had been distributing.

Mr Wadsworth replied he had seen the reporter handing a copy of the press release to an MP, apparently working together.

At that, Ms Smeeth walked out of the room “in tears” fol-lowed by the Telegraph reporter.

Ms Smeeth claimed the accusa-tion reinforced anti-semitic stere-otypes about Jews and the media.

Labour MP Chris Williamson attended the hearing as a char-acter witness for Mr Wadsworth.

A decision was expected last night.

[email protected]

■ WINDRUSH

Rudd faces resignation demandAMBER RUDD faced repeated calls to resign yesterday amid accusations that her depart-ment is “out of control” over its use of removal targets for illegal immigrants.

The Home Secretary said she had never agreed to removal targets being set, adding that those used by her department “were not published targets against which performance was assessed.”

She also said Home Offi ce staff should not follow the approach of going after “low-hanging fruit,” amid concerns that people were detained if they were seen as easy targets.

Leading the latest calls for Ms Rudd to resign, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: “Isn’t it time that the Home Secretary considered her honour and resigned?”

■ US DIPLOMATIC VISIT

Protesters set for TrumpCAMPAIGNERS vowed yester-day to give Donald Trump the welcome he deserves after the US president confi rmed that he will visit Britain in July – on Friday 13th.

While here, Mr Trump will hold talks with Prime Minister Theresa May, the US ambassa-dor to Britain confi rmed.

However, it is understood that the long-expected trip will

be a “working visit” rather than a full-blown state occasion.

Mr Trump’s arrival is likely to attract major protests. Even sup-porters have urged him to stay away from London in an eff ort to avoid mass demonstrations.

Stand Up to Trump campaign group spokesperson Maz Sal-eem vowed: “We will put on a massive united show of oppo-sition to him arriving in July.


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■ HEALTH SERVICE

Leonard pushes for health secretary to quit over NHS crisisby Conrad Landinat Holyrood

HEALTH secretary Shona Robi-son faced renewed calls to quit yesterday after the revelation that her health service failed to dispatch an ambulance to a terminal brain cancer patient.

Scottish Labour leader Rich-ard Leonard said that more than 16,000 emergency ambulances had taken longer than an hour to arrive on the scene last year.

He raised the case of Marga-ret Goodman, a woman from Clackmannanshire receiving palliative care for brain cancer.

“She told me that, just before midnight on Saturday April 9, her husband Gavin found her curled up in excruciating pain,” Mr Leonard told Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s Questions yes-terday.

Ms Goodman’s palliative care nurses phoned three times for

an ambulance over two hours before “Gavin got in his car and drove Margaret to Forth Valley hospital in Larbert himself,” Mr Leonard said.

“She had to wait at a packed A&E late on a Saturday night, so she wasn’t treated with mor-phine until three o’clock in the morning.

“The debate about our NHS is not just about statistics in the end. It is about real lives and real people like Margaret.”

Ms Sturgeon told MSPs: “If [Ms Goodman] received care that was not of the standard she expected and from what Richard Leonard has outlined today it certainly appears that that is the case, then of course she deserves an apology and I off er that to her.”

Ms Robison has been under fi re for her handling of a fi nan-cial crisis at NHS Tayside, the health board which covers her constituency.

Ramping up the pressure yes-terday, Mr Leonard said: “The question for Nicola Sturgeon is simple.

“How much more failure must people endure before she realises that we need a change in our NHS, starting with a change of health secretary?”

Scottish Lib Dem leader Wil-lie Rennie reiterated the call, pointing to the case of a preg-nant woman forced to endure a long ambulance journey owing to a maternity unit closure in the highlands.

He said “change is needed at the top” and “the health secre-tary has to go.”

The First Minister retorted: “The opposition might want to continue to play politics with this.

“We will continue to focus on the hard work of supporting our national health service and delivering for patients.”

[email protected]

■ TRANSPORT

Grayling guilty of ‘catalogue of failures’ over franchisesby Sam Tobin

TRANSPORT Secretary Chris Grayling must resign in the wake of a damning report slamming his department that is published today, rail unions are demand-ing.

The Commons public accounts committee found that a “cata-logue of failures” by the Depart-ment for Transport (DfT), Net-work Rail and franchise opera-tor Govia Thameslink had caused “misery” for passengers on the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) franchise.

The committee also strongly criticised the DfT for a “too ambi-tious” upgrade plan for TSGN and refusing to “engage construc-tively with rail unions,” saying: “The [DfT] failed to see, or chose not to see, the perfect storm of an ambitious upgrade programme coupled with plans to increase driver-controlled operation of trains.”

The infl uential parliamentary committee concluded that the DfT’s shambolic management of the TSGN and East Coast fran-

chises — and “the small pool of potential bidders” to take over the failing franchises — show up “the broken model franchising.”

Future franchise awards must be passenger-focused “rather than relying on good relation-ships between individuals” and the DfT ought to engage better with rail unions, the PAC recom-mended.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said Mr Grayling “has no option but to resign” following the damning indictment of his department, branding him “a

specialist in failure of the high-est order.”

He added that the committee’s call for a review before any more lucrative private rail contracts are doled out “makes it impossible to see how the East Coast contract can be handed back to Virgin.” Mr Cash called for both East Coast and TSGN to be renationalised.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said “It’s time for a fully staff ed and fully funded railway system that works for everyone in Britain.”

[email protected]

■ CWU CONFERENCE

Postal staff vote for part time bonus at ChristmasPOSTIES voted overwhelm-ingly yesterday in favour of ensuring that part-time Royal Mail employees working full-time over Christmas are enti-tled to a seasonal bonus.

The motion called on the union executive to “seek an agreement with Royal Mail that secures the payment of the Christmas bonus, in full, for all staff who receive the bonus regardless of con-tracted hours.”

Glasgow’s Stuart Davidson said that “many part-time staff work over their contracted hours throughout the year” but that, because of child-care and other issues, many were “unable to increase their hours during the qualifying Christmas period to achieve the full Christmas bonus.”

John Carson, also from Glasgow, said the motion was “about unfairness, the idea that you can work all year and yet at Christmas, through your own personal circum-stances, you’ve been unable to take advantage of the extra hours at Christmas.”

He said that resulted in “a double whammy [as] you’re then not getting the full sup-plement at the end of that.”


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■ PRISONS

GUARDS FACED WITH 30,000

ASSAULTS IN JUST ONE YEARby Peter Lazenby

THE true scale of the crisis in prisons in England and Wales was exposed yesterday in a gov-ernment survey that revealed an unparalleled catalogue of murders, assaults and self-harm.

Shocking fi gures from the government’s own safety in cus-tody bulletin reveal that there were almost 30,000 assaults – 81 a day – last year, up 13 per cent from 2016.

Of these, 21,270 were prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and 8,429 were on staff . There were also 44,160 incidents of self-harm and fi ve murders.

The fi ndings are a huge embarrassment to Justice Secre-tary David Gauke, who only days ago publicly declared the success of a staff recruitment campaign and promised a rosy future for the service.

Mr Gauke’s statement not only

misled the public but disguised “the destruction to the service caused by austerity measures,” the Prison Offi cers’ Association (POA) said.

The service has a staff short-age of 3,789 prison offi cers and 7,698 support workers.

In an open letter to Mr Gauke, POA general secretary Steve Gil-lan said: “There can be no hiding place for the minister or those failing in the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prison Service.

“David Gauke needs to be hon-est amd stop putting out press releases hiding behind a recruit-ment drive days before these dreadful statistics come out.

“It appears no-one wants to take responsibility for failure at the highest level.”

Shadow justice secretary Rich-ard Burgon argued that there are still nearly 4,000 fewer front-line offi cers than in 2010, despite the government’s belated recruit-ment drive.

He said: “Cuts have conse-quences and their damaging impact is clear for all to see in our prisons.

“The Conservatives’ reckless decision to slash prison budg-ets and axe thousands of prison offi cers has left our prisons more violent than ever.

“It is completely scandalous that there are now 81 attacks every single day in our prisons, including a record number of assaults on our dedicated prison staff .”

Howard League for Penal Reform head Frances Crook added: “The growing number of assaults and incidents of self-injury is a symptom of a prison system in crisis.

“Ultimately, positive steps to reduce the prison population would save lives, protect staff and stop others being swept into deeper currents of crime, violence and despair.”

[email protected]

‘RECKLESS’: Tory cuts to prison staff numbers behind service meltdown, says shadow minister

■ TRANSPORT

THREE vessels used for ferry services to Ork-ney and Shetland will be brought into public ownership – but trans-port union RMT wants the whole operation to be state-run.

SNP transport min-ister Humza Yousaf granted outsourcing giant Serco an 18-month extension on its contract to run Northlink Fer-ries.

He said this would “allow further progress to be made with the ongoing review of procurement policy for future ferry operating contracts.”

Scottish Tory trans-port spokesman Jamie Greene said his party feared ministers would switch the contract to the publicly owned Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferry company.

“This must not simply be a precursor to bring-ing CalMac in to run the service through the back door,” he told the Scotsman.

■ WAGE ROW

Uni cash reserves triple as staff costs dip to lowest levelby Peter Lazenby

UNIVERSITY cash reserves have tripled to £44.27 billion in seven years while staff wages have plummeted, fi gures revealed yesterday.

The proportion of expendi-ture on staff has dropped to its lowest-ever level of 52.9 per cent – down 6.5 per cent since 2009-10, according to Higher Educa-tion Statistics Agency stats.

However, spending on projects, including new build-ings, has increased by 34.9 per cent and income from sources including student fees is up by 2.7 per cent and £915 million.

The University College Union (UCU) said university staff pay has fallen by around 20 per cent since 2009.

At the same time, the union argues, university leaders’ pay and perks have soared, with 17 college principals paid more than £200,000 in 2016/17, while

a third enjoyed a pay rise of 10 per cent or more.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “With capi-tal expenditure shooting up and staff costs down to a new low, it is clear that universities are prioritising investment in buildings over their staff .

“This makes a mockery of claims that staff are a top prior-ity and also suggests they ignore what students say they want.

“While universities’ income rises and they hoard huge reserves, it seems the only peo-ple to benefi t are vice-chancel-lors whose pay and perks have long been a source of embar-rassment for higher education.

“The time has come to address the fall in staff pay and we hope the universities will respond positively at next month’s pay talks.”

She said college principals appeared “greedy and hope-lessly out of touch.”

[email protected]

EXCURSION: An engineer tends to a wheel gear on Roy “Corky” Brown, a Stanier Black Five steam locomotive. The train pulled into Yeovil as part of the Great Britain XI steam train tour.

RMT calls for state-run Northlink ferry service

■ SCOTLAND

Unions in shock withdrawal from council partnership TRADE UNIONS sensationally withdrew from a partnership working committee at a major Scottish council yesterday, the Star can exclusively reveal.

Shop stewards at West Dunbar-tonshire warned that a botched assault on facility time had “dam-aged industrial relations.”

Last week the SNP council was forced to back down on its plans to cut the number of council-funded posts for union conveners.

In a memo to council bosses on Thursday, conveners from Unison, Unite, the GMB and EIS acknowledged that “common sense prevailed” at “the elev-enth hour,” but said they were “aggrieved” at the handling of the dispute.

They said the council’s actions had damaged its partnership agreement with unions.

While reps would now resume attending joint consultative

forum meetings for collective bargaining, they will boycott the council’s employee liaison group.

“We have been subject to lies, contradictions, slurs and our views ignored by both the administration and senior man-agers,” the conveners wrote.

Workers at neighbouring East Dunbartonshire council have voted to strike over cuts to annual leave and redundancy benefi ts.


@m_star_online6Morning Star Friday April 27 2018 world

n KOREA

Kim to make history with walk south to meet MoonKIM JONG UN is set to become the first North Korean leader to enter South Korea in more than 60 years today as he walks across the border for a historic summit.

He will cross the military demarcation line to meet his counterpart South Korean Pres-ident Moon Jae In where they are expected to discuss recent indications that Pyonyang may be willing to give up its nuclear weapons.

Mr Kim announced last week that he would suspend nuclear tests with an apparent thawing of relationships between the

two countries. The pair will also discuss signing a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean war as they plan a peace process dialogue.

The meeting is believed to open the door for talks between Mr Kim and US President Don-ald Trump who have been locked in an escalating war of words and threats of nuclear strikes.

South Korean spokesman Im Jong Seok welcomed the talks.

“The difficult part is at what level the two leaders will be able to reach an agreement regard-ing willingness to denuclearise,” he said.

n CHINA

US accused of ‘systematic racial discrimination’by Our Foreign Desk

THE US has been accused of human rights abuses, serious infringements of its citizens’ rights and “systematic racial discrimination” in a damning report released by China.

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2017, which uses official US government sta-tistics and other publicly avail-able sources, highlighted the poor US human rights record at home and abroad.

The report claims that the situation in the US worsened in 2017, with results showing that Washington is in no posi-tion to play the role of a global “human rights judge.”

Its release followed the US State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued last week. It branded the governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea “morally reprehensible,” saying that they represented a threat to global stability.

However Beijing warned that such “biased reports” were a failed attempt to interfere with the country’s internal affairs and China’s development. For-eign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that it is the Chi-nese who have the best say on domestic human rights.

China’s scathing report slammed the US for its mili-tary interventions in Syria which have led to the bomb-

ings of civilian infrastructure, including at least 12 schools, 15 mosques, 15 bridges and a refu-gee camp.

It said the US had attacked Syrian government forces at least four times in recent months, violating the UN char-ter in a war of aggression.

And it hit out at the growing disparity between rich and poor in the US where a record 40 mil-lion people are living in poverty.

The report criticised the US legal system, using data from the US sentencing commission which showed that black men receive 19.1 per cent longer sen-tences than white men commit-ting similar offences.

Beijing said that discrimi-nation in the US also affects

women, children and disabled people.

It warned that, despite a prom-ise by former US president Barack Obama, the notorious Guantan-amo Bay remains open, with people held for decades without charge and subjected to torture.

A flawed US democracy allows a super-rich minority to use their wealth to buy their way to power, exemplified by the elec-tion of billionaire businessman Donald Trump as US president.

“US money politics keeps fer-menting and the rich guide the direction of politics. The weak face increasingly harsh restric-tions on voting and scandals involving politicians are fre-quent,” the report concludes.

[email protected]

n UKRAINE

Neonazis ‘wreak havoc’ on Kiev Romaby Our Foreign Desk

HUMAN rights groups are demanding an “urgent investi-gation” after Ukrainian far-right nationalists torched a Roma camp, throwing stones at women and children as they fled.

Members of the neonazi C14 group “wreaked havoc” in the capital Kiev’s Goloseevsky dis-trict, setting fire to 15 tents and forcing the Roma to leave.

They boasted about their actions on social media, claim-ing to have “disposed of the lit-

ter” and “safely burnt” the tents, describing their attacks as “con-vincing and legal arguments.”

Footage posted online showed the neonazis chasing a group of Roma, using gas can-isters on women and children.

Amnesty International’s Ukrainian office director Oksana Pokalchuk said that a number of people were injured in the attack and she accused the fascist group of using “bladed weapons and possibly even firearms.”

A statement by the NGO claimed that police who arrived

on the scene told the Roma that the camp was burning and advised them to leave Kiev as soon as possible.

Ukrainian authorities have been accused of turning a blind eye to rising neonazi attacks in the country. The C14 group are closely associated with the far-right Svoboda party and two of its members are suspected of involvement in the 2015 mur-der of journalist Oles Buzina.

Ms Pokalchuk said that, by continuing to ignore the actions of fascists, Ukrainian authorities give them a “feeling of impunity.”

“It is important to under-stand that anyone could become a target of such attacks — Roma, women, anti-corrup-tion activists, Jews, the LGBT [community], as well as journal-ists, artists, students or writ-ers,” she said.

A group of 57 US Congress members have asked Secre-tary of State John Sullivan to put pressure on Ukraine over “state-sponsored Holocaust denial” and “glorification of nazi collaborators, including Stepan Bandera.”

[email protected]

HIGH HOPES: Members of a South Korean women’s peace group hold a rally against war and in support of reunification

n UNITED STATES

Teachers strike in Arizona and Colorado over school austerityTEACHERS walked out across the US yesterday in growing protests over low pay, cuts and privatisation.

Strike action in Arizona and Colorado followed last week’s walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky.

A human shield was formed in Puerto Rico’s Capitol building where the governor Ricardo Rossello plans to shut 283 public schools and hand many over to private companies.

American Federation of Teachers national president Randi Weingarten joined the protests, saying they were there to protect public edu-cation.

Teachers have the back-ing of parents, students and the community according to the union, which says a new poll shows 78 per cent of US citizens support increasing their pay.

Ms Weingarten said her members were “tired of the budget cuts to schools, tired of low pay and tied of being ignored or disparaged.

“They are willing, like never before, to act collec-tively to fight for their kids, their schools, themselves and their communities.”

She called for support and solidarity “to protect the promise of public edu-cation.”

Left events for the upcoming week: Red List tomorrow

JUBILANT: Protesters hold an Armenian flag in the capital Yerevan


Morning Star Friday

April 27 2018world

n ARMENIA

Pashinian wants ‘capitulation’ from ruling partyby Steve Sweeney

ARMENIAN opposition leader Nikol Pashinian called for the “complete capitulation” of the country’s ruling party ahead of a scheduled vote to choose a new prime minister.

He issued the demand amid continuing anti-government

protests, which have put grow-ing pressure on the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) to hand over power to Mr Pashinian.

Parliamentary speaker Ara Babloian announced yesterday that a special parliamentary ses-sion would be held on Tuesday to elect a new prime minister fol-lowing the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan earlier this week.

Protests grew as people were angry at what they saw as a power grab by Mr Sargsyan, who was president from 2008 until a few weeks ago and who reneged on a promise not to extend his rule by taking on the newly powerful role.

Mr Pashinian has been seen as the leader of the protest movement, which draws sup-

port from broad layers of Arme-nian society, including mem-bers of the clergy and armed forces, with its demands for political reform.

With the ruling HHK holding 58 seats in the 110-seat parlia-ment, the Civil Contract party leader has held a series of meet-ings with Armenian opposition groups to try to secure support

for his bid to become prime minister.

Former coalition partner the Armenian Revolutionary Federation said parliament should elect a prime minister who “enjoys the people’s con-fidence.”

Speaking at a rally in Yer-evan on Wednesday night, Mr Pashinian said: “The Arme-

n TURKEY

ERDOGAN’S JUDGES

JAIL 13 JOURNOS

FROM TOP PAPERCRACKDOWN: Cumhuriyet workers banged up for up to eight years

n BRAZIL

Imprisoned Lula lays out manifestoBRAZIL’S Workers Party con-firmed Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva as its presidential candi-date yesterday as it launched its programme for government for October’s elections.

The party’s seven-point plan was presented in front of the Curitiba Police Headquarters, where Lula has been held since he started a 12-year prison sen-tence on trumped-up corrup-tion charges earlier this month.

Documents detailing Lula’s

governmental plan will be subject to a series of public consultations with the Brazil-ian people.

Topics include inequality reduction, economic and envi-ronmental policies and the provi-sion of public services in meas-ures to improve citizens’ lives.

Economist and Perseu Abramo Foundation president Marcio Pochmann said the Workers Party plan, which has been developed over 18

months, would block “the dis-mantling of the nation and sale of national assets.”

He said that programme would be “implemented demo-cratically” from January 2019 and tackle high levels of poverty and growing unemployment.

Despite his imprisonment Lula remains ahead in polls for the presidential elections, but the right-wing coup admin-istration is likely to challenge his candidacy.

nian people have a candidate for prime minister and the National Assembly factions must reckon with this politi-cal reality and nominate that candidate by consensus.”

New President Armen Sarg-syan recognised the events as turning a “new page” in the country’s history.

“From now on, we live in a new Armenia where a civi-lised movement became an all-Armenian movement that we can be proud of,” he said.

[email protected]

by Steve Sweeney

TURKEY sentenced 13 journal-ists from the opposition Cum-huriyet newspaper to lengthy jail sentences yesterday as press freedom came under further attack.

In a “sham trial,” the notori-ous Silivri court found the staff from the country’s oldest news-paper guilty of helping multiple terrorist organisations.

The journalists, along with cartoonist Musa Kart, received jail sentences of between two and eight years. All defendants were released following the ver-dict, with the sentences to be confirmed by the upper court.

Editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years, remained defiant.

“No penalty can stop us from doing journalism. If needed, we will go to prison again, but we will continue to do journal-ism,” he said.

The Cumhuriyet trial has

caused international outrage with the journalists accused of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Rev-olutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nemesis, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who he accused of plotting the failed July 2016 coup attempt.

Former editor-in-chief Can Dundar was arrested in Novem-ber 2015 after Cumhuriyet pub-lished video footage showing Turkish intelligence service MIT shipping a vanload of weapons across the border to Syria, which he claimed were bound for Islamist militants.

He was sentenced to more than five years in prison and is living in exile in Germany.

Investigative journalist Ahmet Shik, was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison.

“On behalf of those who have been standing against unlawfulness and violation of rights for their entire lives, let’s respond to this gang and others alike by repeating what we’ve

been saying from the very first day. It’s you who should surren-der,” he charged.

Press freedom is severely restricted in Turkey, which has jailed more journalists than any other country — a third of the world’s total.

More than 150,000 public-sector workers have been sacked under a state of emer-gency which has been in place for nearly two years while opposition MPs from the Peo-ple’s Democratic Party (HDP) have been jailed and stripped of their parliamentary status.

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) said the sen-tences were part of a “clear intimidation” strategy which will have a “chilling effect on press freedom in the wake of new elections.”

“We stand by our colleagues at Cumhuriyet who are ready to continue their profession with the support of the public opinion and despite the crack down,” it said in a statement.

[email protected]


@m_star_online8Morning Star Friday April 27 2018 features

ONE HUNDRED years after the first women in Britain achieved the right to vote,

it was in incredible privilege to attend the unveiling of the statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett on Parliament Square.

Prime Minister Theresa May and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan spoke at the event. The leader of the Labour Party, Jer-emy Corbyn had a front-row seat.

It was writer and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez who, having run a successful cam-paign to ensure that women were represented on ban-knotes, noted and immediately acted upon the woeful absence of a woman statue among the 11 men commemorated as she ran through the square on Interna-tional Women’s Day 2015.

Khan, elected as mayor of London two months later, described his decision to sup-port Criado-Perez’s campaign as a no-brainer.

Women’s representation matters. It matters that our contributions to society are noted, recorded and known. It matters that girls know that women play a role in shaping the world. It matters that we continue to name, fight and resist male supremacy and the subjugation of women. It mat-ters that Criado-Perez and oth-ers working on the campaign made sure that the first statue of a woman on Parliament Square was also the first statue produced by a woman, sculptor Gillian Wearing. It matters that a woman is celebrated because she was a significant political figure fighting for women’s

rights, that she is not naked and sexualised, that she was not a royal.

The statue holds a placard inscribed with words from a speech she gave after the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davidson: “Courage calls to courage everywhere.”

And, as Criado-Perez says: “She’s directly facing Parlia-ment with her placard, so the MPs can see her every day and think: ‘I should probably go and sort that problem out’.”

With this reference to their everyday decisions and actions, Criado-Perez challenges politi-cians to make sure that women are not simply remembered on all too rare occasions of celebration.

May opened her speech with a reference to the Supreme Court, the final court of appeal in Britain for civil cases, directly behind the statue and facing Parliament. The same court I attended earlier this year with nia, the organisa-tion I work for, with South-all Black Sisters, Rape Crisis and the End Violence Against Women Coalition supporting two of the women assaulted by serial predatory rapist John

MANY Jeremy Corbyn supporters will welcome Unite gen-eral secretary Len McCluskey’s denunciation of Labour MPs who can’t reconcile themselves to the members’ over-whelming support of their party leader.

McCluskey was spot on in nailing those “working over-time trying to present the Labour Party as a morass of misogyny, anti-semitism and bullying,” which is not the party that most members recognise.

Shadow exiting the European Union secretary Keir Starmer ought to have thought twice before wading into the row.

His expressed disagreement with the Unite leader, implying that McCluskey was denying that anti-semitism exists in the Labour Party and was therefore “part of the problem.”

Neither McCluskey nor any serious Corbyn supporter has ever claimed that Labour is immune to anti-semitism.

Anti-semitism exists throughout society and in all politi-cal parties, as the Tory Party suspension of council candi-date George Stoakley indicates, but it has become a weapon brandished maliciously to undermine the Labour leader.

What McCluskey and Corbyn’s supporters dispute is the vile allegation from the Corbyn-hating faction in the Parliamentary Labour Party that this form of racism is rampant in Labour and that the blame lies with the leader for presiding over a permissive climate that makes it pos-sible and allows it to flourish unpunished.

As a lawyer, Starmer ought to be able to distinguish between these two positions.

McCluskey’s observation, that seeing the likes of Chris Leslie, Neil Coyle, John Woodcock, Wes Streeting and Ian Austin basking in the applause of Tory MPs for attacking Corbyn makes him understand calls for mandatory rese-lection, is portrayed as a form of bullying of independent-minded MPs representing their electorate.

They clearly believe that, once selected as a candidate by Labour and elected by voters in their constituency, they are there until voted out, irrespective of what they do or say.

Being an MP is not a job for life. Every Labour MP, includ-ing Corbyn, answers to those they represent.

Whatever MPs’ individual talents and gifts, they are returned to Parliament because of the party they represent.

Any MP who imagines their personal support trumps party affiliation can easily put this to the test. Stand as an independent and see what the voters decide.

There is nothing bullying about pointing out that con-stituency Labour parties are entitled to evaluate the con-duct of those they chose as their parliamentary champions and to work out whether a change is required.

Politics is not a spectator sport that takes place in West-minster, TV and radio studios and central London media conferences where the consensus holds that Corbyn’s elec-tion as party leader unjustifiably upset the cosy set-up where only minor political differences divided all major parties.

Yet a modest and well-conducted picket of Marc Wadsworth supporters outside his appeal against a bizarre anti-semitism charge was also portrayed as bullying, neces-sitating a solidarity detail of dozens of Labour MPs forming a phalanx around Ruth Smeeth MP as she marched on Wednesday to give evidence against Wadsworth.

Others might be more perturbed to see this impressive mobilisation of white MPs ganging up against a lifelong equality campaigner, former Anti-Racist Alliance national secretary and National Union of Journalists black members committee chair when he worked successfully with all sections of society, including Jews, to tackle longstanding societal problems.

Corbyn and Labour general secretary Jennie Formby are determined to rid the party of any anti-semitism.

Is is too much to expect Labour MPs to work with them to do so rather than collaborate with the class enemy in smearing their leader as tolerating this scourge?

MPs prepared to smear their own leader must be held to account

Star comment

The story behind the new man at Defra

IN MARCH, in a nakedly political appointment, Environment Secretary Michael Gove made Ben Goldsmith a non-execu-tive director of the Depart-

ment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Ben is brother of Conserva-tive MP and failed Tory mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith and a big Tory donor.

Announcing the job, Defra said: “Ben Goldsmith has made donations to the Conservative Party and the Green Party on an irregular basis since 2004.”

In fact, Goldsmith gave the Tories £91,000 between 2005 and 2017, including a £2,000 donation to Michael Gove’s

own constituency party, Surrey Heath. He also gave the Green Party £50,000 between 2004 and 2009.

Goldsmith is very rich, thanks to family money from his father, investor James Goldsmith.

He runs “green investment” advisers Menhaden Capital LLP, which manages investments for linked firm Menhaden Capital. Some of this firm’s big investments — large stakes in Volkswagen and Airbus — don’t look that green.

As well as using his wealth to fund the Tories, he also runs the Conservative Envi-ronmental Network, an “independent forum for the advancement of the doctrine

A crony, politically

partisan appointment

Solomon Hughes

Warm words in front o

TORY DONOR: Ben Goldsmith

LANDMARK: Caroline Criado-Perez, Sadiq Khan and Theresa May at the statue’s unveiling

With May and Khan unveiling a new statue of M

this week, KAREN INGALA SMITH argues th

Labour still need to up their game when it com


Morning Star Friday

April 27 2018features

of Conservative environmen-talism.”

Goldsmith’s Conservative Environmental Network does things like publishing a book about “What the Environment means to Conservatives,” edited by Goldsmith, with a chapter by Gove, who also launched the book.

The most recent publication by the Conservative Environ-mental Network is another book on Tory environmental-ism with chapters by 10 Tory MPs that was launched by Com-munities Secretary Sajid Javid.

As he shows on his Twitter account, Goldsmith is not just a Tory but a right-wing, Ayn Ran-dian, intemperate one. Unsur-prisingly Goldsmith is hostile to “Jezza” because “Corbyn rep-resents a nuclear threat to the foundations of our free society” while “hard leftist Momentum” is a “monster.”

But he also denounced Lon-don Mayor Sadiq Khan as a “loonie leftie,” accusing Khan of “links with extremists.”

Goldsmith claimed: “Labour’s loony election mani-festo was just a pack of lies.”

For good measure, his battle against the “reds” includes the Green Party, who are “water-

melons, green on the outside, red on the inside.”

Universities are also hotbeds of trouble because “left-wing university educators” have “cre-ated a Frankenstein generation of fanatical students.”

Goldsmith’s Twitter account shows he has inherited from his Uncle Teddy Goldsmith a very anti-immigration “green” politics.

He repeatedly bemoans “mass immigration,” which he thinks threatens the envi-ronment because “Britain con-cretes over an area the size of London each decade, princi-pally to absorb an unsustain-able level of immigration.”

According to Goldsmith, “all political parties are united calling for millions of homog-enous, cheap new homes to be built across our remaining green places, just to satisfy a mad policy of mass immigra-tion that only big business and the hard left want.”

For Goldsmith, immigra-tion is a conspiracy between the left and big business. As he explains, “Mass immigra-tion: a plot between big busi-ness looking for cheap labour and a Labour Gov’t deliberately importing new Labour voters.”

Goldsmith also blames migrants for the growth of the far right in Europe because “it

was always blindingly obvious that inviting a wave of mass immigration into Europe would unleash popular support for the scary far right.”

So, for example in Germany, Goldsmith says: “The return of the far right to German poli-tics is wholly down to Angela Merkel’s imposition of mass immigration on an unwilling population.”

Combining his partisan Tory stand and his anti-migrant poli-cies, Goldsmith thinks May’s “hostile environment” policies are good.

In 2015 he said: “Labour’s policy of mass non-EU immi-gration has dramatically trans-

formed Britain. Thankfully someone (Theresa May) finally is getting a grip.”

Goldsmith’s job as a Defra board director is to “provide stra-tegic, corporate leadership to the department and has particular responsibility for monitoring performance and delivery.”

Defra admits Gove himself made the appointment but claims that “a fair and open competition for the posts was conducted, with the recruit-ment and selection process overseen by Sir Ian Cheshire, the government’s lead non-executive.”

Cheshire’s corporate jobs include being chairman of

Menhaden Capital Plc, the investment company that has Goldsmith on its investment committee. So not only does Goldsmith fund Gove’s party, he also works closely with Cheshire.

Goldsmith’s appointment looks like a crony, politically partisan appointment. It is reminiscent of the short-lived and scandalous appointment of Toby Young to a post at the office for students.

The Conservatives lost their majority in Parliament in the last election, but they seem to be trying to make up for it by appointing their most right-wing supporters to key posi-tions.

Ramsay hoovering up money from our NHS

WE can all see that the NHS is in finan-cial crisis. The Finan-

cial Times recently declared its research showed the health service is “in a state of ‘per-manent winter’ as it deals all year round with capacity

strains that used to be only seasonal.”

But it is springtime for profit-seeking corporations. Thanks to New Labour and Tory privati-sation, a great many operations have been taken out of NHS hospitals and given to private hospital companies like Ram-say Healthcare.

According to Ramsay’s lat-est annual report, released last month, the firm’s UK turnover went up by around 5 per cent to £441 million.

It is a private hospital group but is largely dependent on NHS work. Its annual report says 77.9 per cent of its NHS patient admissions were from

the NHS — that’s up on 77.3 per cent last year.

Ramsay made £14.5m profit last year. And it paid out a stag-gering £30.5m in dividends to shareholders. That’s £30.5m largely squeezed out of the NHS and poured into inves-tors’ pockets.

Their top director also had

a £1m-a-year salary. Ramsay takes money out of the NHS, but there is no real evidence it provides an especially good service.

According to Care Quality Commission inspectors, 10 of the 31 Ramsay hospitals they inspected “require improve-ment.”

Worboys. Women who May had intervened against as home secretary when she backed the Metropolitan Police’s appeal against an earlier ruling which found that it had breached the Human Rights Act by failing to properly investigate reports of rape.

The Prime Minister stood and celebrated the rights of women and our representation in front of the same court in which she fought tooth and nail against women trying to access their rights.

Khan made at least three mentions of “gender equality” in his speech, a reference to his “Behind Every Great City” campaign for women’s equality.

If Khan is the feminist he claims to be, then he should surely know that women are oppressed by our sex, and that gender — the code of behav-iour, rules and stereotypes of femininity and womanhood — is a tool of that oppression.

There can be no gender equal-ity because gender is in and of itself inequality. Using sex and gender as interchangeable terms is an obstruction to women’s equality and is at the root of a current problem for the Labour Party: all-women shortlists.

The policy of all-women shortlists was adopted by Labour to increase the propor-tion of women in Parliament and it has been working.

However, recently Labour announced that all-women

shortlists are — and indeed always had been — open to those who are male but iden-tify as women, whether self-identified or holding a gender recognition certificate.

Many critics of this move recognise the call for political representation of those who say that they are transgender but argue that this representation should not come at the expense of the political representation of another marginalised group: women.

Why should the under-rep-resented group, the sex-class of women, be those making space? What about the men? Why should it not be them?

Khan’s commitment to deal-ing with men’s violence against women is underwhelming at best. Reports of rape in London

have risen 20 per cent in a year.Waiting lists for women try-

ing to access London’s Rape Cri-sis centres are getting longer but funding has not increased since the previous mayor of London Boris Johnson quadru-pled the capital’s Rape Crisis provision.

Women’s representation matters. There are still half as many female MPs as male. Mil-licent Fawcett fought for wom-en’s rights. I am delighted that she has been commemorated on Parliament Square; though that she stands amongst 11 men is a reminder, should we be in danger of forgetting, that the fight for women’s equality is far from won.

Men’s violence against women is both a cause and consequence of sex inequality. We cannot tackle the latter if we do not properly address the former.

Warm words in front of a long overdue statue are not enough, especially if actions behind the scenes belie what is said.

I hope that our MPs fulfil Criado-Perez’s wish that the statue inspires politicians and policy-makers to centre women in their day-to-day business and I’d like to see the work to end men’s violence against women brought to the forefront.

■ Karen Ingala Smith is CEO of domestic and sexual violence char-ity nia.

t of a long overdue statue are not enough

“Women’s

representation

matters. There

are still half as

many female

MPs as male

TALENTED: Sculptor Gillian Wearing

e of Millicent Fawcett earlier

es that both the Tories and

omes to women’s rights


@m_star_online10Morning Star Friday April 27 2018 features

A common theme of policy under Labour, conserva-tive and coalition governments since

the mid-1980s has been the drive to remove large swathes of laws there to guarantee social protection.

Based on a right-wing ideol-ogy that claims regulatory “red tape” hinders business suc-cess, this drive has continued regardless of the evidence that it puts more people in danger and doesn’t even help business.

The “bonfire of red tape” has even endured in the face of evidence showing that an absence of regulatory controls in the financial sector encour-aged new forms of investment and unsustainable financial products that ultimately cre-ated the conditions leading to the 2008 crash.

Even now, after the appall-ing, tragic and unnecessary fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, the same deregulatory claims are being rolled out by govern-ment ministers.

In a previous article for the morning Star (June 2 2017) we highlighted the damaging con-sequences of this agenda for the regulation of workplace health and safety and put forward a range of proposals aimed at enhancing the way in which the workplace is regulated.

These proposals are part of the Institute of Employment Rights manifesto for Labour Law and include imposing the primary statutory duty of care on “persons in control of a business or undertaking,” rather than on an “employer,” significantly increasing num-bers of HSE and local author-ity inspections, placing more emphasis on inspectors using their powers to issue enforce-ment notices and initiate pros-ecutions, and radically enhanc-ing the rights of workers to be represented over health and safety matters.

Drawing on evidence we submitted on behalf of the Institute of Employment Rights to the House of commons regulatory reform committee inquiry into the government deregulation agenda, we argue that five broader features of

deregulatory policy also need to be abandoned because of their damaging consequences for social protection.

The Business Impact Target (BIT). The introduction of the BIT in 2015 outlined the gov-ernment’s formal commitment to reduce regulatory costs for business by £10bn between 2015 and 2020 and obliged govern-ment departments to appraise regulations with regard to their cost to business.

In 2016, the regulations noted to have the greatest cost implication for businesses were the standardisation of tobacco packaging and the prohibition of psychoactive substances, which illustrates how the BIT takes no account of economic externalities such as public health impacts, which will be picked up down the line by the taxpayer, and transfers respon-sibility from government to citizens.

more widely, the BIT creates an institutional bias in favour of businesses, with the national Audit office (nAo) stating: “cost assessments tend to be an overestimate because innova-tion potential is rarely assessed and these are routinely based on exaggerated figures from industry — in the past, trade organisations have systemati-cally inflated cost estimates to combat new regulations.”

Regulatory Impact Assess-ments (IAs). As part of the BIT, regulators are obliged to pub-lish an IA alongside proposed policies or policy amendments, which sets out estimated cost implications for businesses.

Social and environmental impacts are often mentioned but not monetised and there-fore given no weight in the appraisal process and the regu-latory policy committee (RPc) cannot “red rate” a policy on these grounds.

This framework means that public policies predicted to save businesses money — but which also forecast public harms — may legitimately be waved through.

For example, the IA for repeal of 23 local building acts across England in 2012 points to a potential “increase of approximately 3 per cent

(per 1,000 fires) in fires get-ting ‘big’…” but was validated on the basis of estimated cumu-lative cost-savings of nearly £1 million from removing the requirement to install smoke extractors or sprinklers in buildings.

The Regulatory Impact Assessment appraisal proc-ess is therefore unacceptably biased towards business, at the expense of citizen safety and wellbeing.

IAs should be abandoned because they fail to enable ade-quate appraisal of policy and because they fail to adequately take into account wider societal benefits of regulation and asso-ciated long-term cost savings.

The “Growth Duty.” Section 108 of the Deregulation Act 2015 sets out a “Growth Duty” for regulators, as follows:

(1) A person exercising a regulatory function to which this section applies must, in the exercise of the function, have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth.

(2) In performing the duty under subsection (1), the person must, in particular, consider the importance for the pro-motion of economic growth of exercising the regulatory func-tion in a way which ensures that:

(a) regulatory action is taken only when it is needed and

(b) any action taken is pro-portionate.

The purpose of this duty is to introduce a more economically focused calculative rationale into regulatory decisions.

Its logical effect is that front-line inspectors must provide a rationale other than that of legal compliance and this dilutes their proper focus on public safety concerns.

moreover, it is inevitable that, as in the case of IAs dis-cussed above, this narrow pre-scription of “economic growth” fails to adequately take into account wider economic ben-efits of regulation.

The Primary Authority Scheme (PA). PA allows a company and, since April 2014, franchises and businesses in trade associations to enter an agreement with one specific local authority to regulate all

its sites nationally in relation to a particular body of law in return for a payment.

In theory, any of its sites can be visited by staff from the PA authority. In practice, the effect of such an agreement is often to remove effective oversight from the vast majority of them.

In short, PA places regula-tion in a market context. Local

authorities compete with each other to sign up large compa-nies to the scheme, seeking to conclude contracts based upon monetary exchange, and in practice it operates as a bulwark against enforcement.

The PA has mushroomed in recent years. In April 2014, 1,500 businesses had estab-lished PA relationships across 120 local authorities — by march 27 2017, there were 17,358 such relationships across 182 authorities.

moreover, PA now applies across a vast swathe of areas of regulation, including occu-pational health and safety but extending to food safety and a wide range of regulators, from environmental health and trad-ing standards departments to fire and rescue services and port authorities.

The One-in-One Out (OINO) Approach to Regulation. The oIno approach decrees that the value of UK regulatory stock must be considered in the light of the associated net impacts on business rather than the net impacts on society.

The procedure serves as a

brake on operational policy-making on this basis.

As such, the oIno approach contains an inherent structural bias, which prioritises business interests above and sometimes at the expense of, societal inter-ests.

In 2014, then housing min-ister Brandon Lewis mP cited the one-in-one-out rule as justification for his decision not to mandate the fitting of sprinklers in domestic and commercial properties.

Experts now attest that the presence of sprinklers in Gren-fell Tower would undoubtedly have saved lives.

At best, oIno legitimises the safekeeping deficit. At worst, it can lead to catastrophic social harms.

Each of these policies appear appear technical and apolitical, yet their effect is to increase the risks people face in work-places

They are all policies that ensure business is prioritised over the protection of the public. Taken together, their removal would greatly enhance worker and public protection.

Professors PHIL JAMES, STEVE TOMBS, DAVID WALTERS and DAVID WHYTE single out five broader features of present deregulatory policy they argue need to be abandoned because of their damaging consequences for social protection

Restoring the right to a safe workplace

“The BIT takes

no account

of economic

externalities such

as public health

impacts

TRAGEDY BY DESIGN: Grenfell Tower fire


Morning Star Friday

April 27 2018features

In Britain today we all take electricity pretty much for granted. Many places in the world still don’t have the luxury of instant light and heat at

the flick of a switch.a century ago, Lenin said of

his native russia: “Communism is Soviet power plus the elec-trification of the whole coun-try,” showing how important he thought electricity was.

We seem to have two issues around electricity supply in Britain. One is the endless tory free market nonsense that sug-gests, if we all swap our sup-plier every few months, the privtised industry will become more efficient and prices will drop like a stone. Excuse me while i laugh.

the other far more serious issue is the long effects on our environment from the various methods we use to generate our electricity.

those electric car enthusi-asts who talk glibly about emis-sion-free motoring often seem to forget that the power they use to recharge their batteries has to be generated somehow.

i remember being told 50 years ago that nuclear power would provide power so cheaply there would be no need for meters. now after Chernobyl, three Mile island, Fukushima and even the Seascale disaster — another British first — to col-our our opinions, i and many of my generation want nothing to do with nuclear power.

apart from the dangers, nuclear power has another major disadvantage. it isn’t easy to vary the output to match demand quickly — it still con-tributed around 25 per cent to Britain’s power consumption in the 1990s and is down to nearer 20 per cent today.

My very environmentally aware granddaughter Lizzie is far less sceptical about nuclear than i am and believes nuclear power must play a part in our future.

On april 16 this year, the British electricity generating industry started its longest period ever of providing the nation’s entire electricity needs

without burning any coal at all.the new record period would

last for over two full days at 54 hours and 50 minutes.

this follows another record on February 24 when the strong icy winds that brought snowy chaos and 17 deaths to Britain and earned the nickname the Beast from the East saw wind power, both off and onshore, making the largest single con-tribution to generating power, bigger than coal, gas, nuclear and all other sources.

We know that many tory MP’s have demonstrated classic nimbyism — “not in my pretty and middle class backyard thank you very much” — and opposed the development of wind farms in their constitu-encies.

Labour has accused theresa May and her government of try-ing to stifle renewable energy developments. they certainly have tried.

in 2016, the tories reduced the payments for the home-generated electricity schemes that had encouraged so many home owners and housing asso-ciations to fit solar panels.

Labour warns now that the government is holding back

low carbon energy projects by allowing power distribu-tion networks to impose new charges on sustainable energy developers.

two of Britain’s largest power networks have intro-duced charges to renewable energy suppliers just for the estimates for grid connection by solar and wind farm devel-opments.

Previously the estimates were provided free, but new government rules mean that companies are now likely to be charged between £2,500 and £10,000 just for the estimates.

Labour’s shadow business secretary rebecca Long-Bailey MP told us: “recent reforms allowed for these outrageous financial demands to be made, which will have serious reper-cussions right across the renew-able sector and for the future of clean energy.”

it was, of course, Margaret thatcher and her particular nasty gang of tory MPs, lords and supporters and their anti-trades union policies that destroyed the British coal min-ing industry that had supplied most of our powers stations for decades.

Make no mistake, cleaner power stations didn’t even fig-ure in their thinking.

Coal still makes a huge con-tribution to our electricity gen-erating industry and, although it is undoubtedly a dirty fuel, modern technologies have made it much less polluting that it once was.

We should remember that, without coal, we would not be able to live as we do today. “King Coal” was the foundation of the second industrial revolu-tion. We had decimated our for-ests burning wood in the first.

Coal, steel and railways were the holy trinity that bought progress, technology and industry.

they built modern Britain, bringing militant trades union-ism too.

it was in our coal pits that British socialism was con-ceived, born and nurtured, just as in the coal pits around Calais the seeds of the French resistance to Hitler and his nazi occupiers were sown.

no wonder thatcher hated the coal miners of Britain and the international socialist soli-darity they stood for.

Energy from renewable sources has been steadily increasing since 2000 as a result of national and inter-national incentives, including the EU renewable energy direc-tive that requires the EU as a

whole to achieve 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Britain’s lower target is set at 15 per cent and to achieve this it has a varied mix of renewable technologies including biomass which is a key fuel source in both electricity generation and direct heat generation.

Wind, solar photovoltaics, hydro, wave and tidal also con-tribute to electricity generation and active solar, heat pumps and deep geothermal are used in heat generation.

although solar photovoltaics was the leading technology in 2016, producing 30 per cent of total capacity, in electricity generation terms, bioenergy accounted for the largest pro-portion (36 per cent) followed by onshore wind (25 per cent) and offshore wind (20 per cent).

in 2016, the last year for which accurate figures are available, renewable electric-ity represented 25 per cent of total electricity generation. Britain has now exceeded its third interim target.

this was despite the fact that wind speeds in 2016 were lower than in 2015, which had been the highest in 15 years. We had many more wind farms but less wind.

rainfall was also much less in 2016 than in 2015 — a record wet year — leading to a 14 per cent fall in hydro-electric gen-eration.

this highlights the issue that sustainable energy will always be somewhat weather-depend-ent. the other major challenge is to develop efficient storage systems for saving electricity generated when the sun shines or the wind blows rather than when we want to use it. that is a story for another feature,

So what should we do — nuclear, solar, wind, tide or should we stick with fossil fuels, even a cleaner “King Coal” at least for a while?

Whatever way we choose to go the most important thing, as always, is that we consider the wider results for the way we all live rather than just going for the biggest profits for the self-selected few.

Frosty ramblings

Electrifying dilemmasPETER FROST takes stock of the present options in lighting and heating our homes and running our factories

EVERY WHICH WAY: (Right) An aerial view of a solar farm in Hampshire, (top) Little Cheyne Court wind farm among existing electricity pylons on the Romney Marsh in Kent and (below) Drax coal power station near Selby, North Yorkshire


@m_star_online12Morning Star FridayApril 27 2018 info | entertainment

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IT’S a big postbag today, but fortunately for the post person many of you have sent your con-tributions electronically.

We still have contributions coming in from last week’s STUC with a further £505 yesterday. Ted Poole is still being remembered with £100 from Unite branch SW10999 in Swindon where he was an active member.

From a supporter in Glouces-ter comes £25 who recognises that Ted will be “sorely missed.”

Communists in West Yorks obviously read my little epistles as they’ve sent in £80 with a view that I’m doing OK — thanks for the support comrades.

From the other side of the country in Bristol comes £100 in appreciation for a recent article. You can be sure articles of that

standard will continue if the fund hits its target, which your contribution will help ensure.

The importance of Readers and Supporters groups cannot be underestimated as the col-lection of £18 raised at recent Govan meeting attests. I’m also pleased to note £15 from a friend in Hinckley has arrived safely.

We know that readers rise to many challenges while engaged

in class struggle be it in work-places or their communities but some go above and beyond on behalf of the Morning Star.

Paul Ward was a delegate with the North-West TU on a recent trip to Spain.

While there he was chal-lenged to jump into an unheated swimming pool which he duly did and the Star is £40 better off !

TODAY

Showers will become confi ned to northern Scotland, leaving a chilly night with clear spells and patchy frost in the north. Turning wet across England and Wales, with a strength-ening breeze.

NEXT FEW DAYS

Mixed weekend; sun-shine and showers in the north and west. Cloudier in the south and east, with rain and brisk winds Sunday into Monday. Cold in the southeast, cool elsewhere.

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QUIZMASTER with William Sitwell

TODAY’S QUESTIONS

YESTERDAY’S ANSWERS

1. In which European country is United Nations agency the International Labour Organisation (ILO) based? Switzerland (in Geneva). Founded in 1919, the body has 187 member states.

2. In geometry, what is the name of the division of something into two parts? Bisection.

3. In which direction does the river Nile fl ow? North.

1 Hornsignal, Echo and Clock are all symphonies by which composer?

2 What type of insect is a ringlet?

3 Maria Bertram is one of the characters in which Jane Austen novel?

Solution tomorrow…

DAILY SUDOKU (Khaaaan!)

RISE of the Planet of the Apes (6.55pm Film4) is the fi rst, and best, of the new Planotapes crop following the adventures of Caesar the chimp and his band of intelligent primates as humanity destroys itself.

It’s also one of the fi rst of the CGI character movies which used tech so advanced you could, at times, forget that you’re watching a being which only really exists as ones and zeros.

The expressiveness of Cae-sar’s face (as gurned by Andy Serkis) is impressive, and testa-ment to some absolutely crack-ing work by the design teams.

Subsequent fi lms in the series fell hard into the mili-tary ’splody bracket and lost a lot of heart in the process, but this high-spec origin tale is worth a watch.

Unreported World (7.30pm C4) is by far the strongest pro-gramme of the night, looking into child respiratory illness in Mongolia caused by coal pollu-tion.

The show, not entirely inten-tionally, is a solid rebuttal to the triumphalist line that gets pushed about the West taking climate change more seriously than everywhere else.

While many good strides are being made, the fact is that de-industrialisation of Europe made us look a lot better while in fact our consumer culture had merely outsourced dirty jobs elsewhere.

Mongolia is in a lot of trou-ble from problems we no longer deal with. Air pollution is 100 times worse than accepted lim-its and is the biggest killer of under-fi ves.

Allied to rapid population migration into the cities and climate-change related winters which have killed hundreds of thousands of animals, exactly where the carnage will stop is unclear.

Our Wildest Dreams (8pm C4) wins today’s award for family culture shocks, as Mari, Kuri-kindi and their daughter Samai up sticks to live an isolated life in the Ecuadorian rainforest.

While the loss of creature comforts and gaining of clean air are the headline issues, the isolation of living far off the beaten track is what impacts most on former Londoner Mari.

Episodes (10pm) fi nishes off today’s list, as Matt LeBlanc recieves news that his irasci-ble grandfather has passed away — actor Alex Rocco had died in 2015.

TV preview with Ann Douglas

Mongolia’s capital, buried under the weight of world’s worst air pollution

Yesterday’s sudoku

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GRAND RIVER: The Nile in Uganda


Morning Star Friday

April 27 2018culture

Explosive impact An extraordinary documentary on a Kurdish bomb-disposal expert in Iraq makes a devastating impression on MARIA DUARTE

n ROUND-UP

Beast (15)

Directed by Michael Pearce

HHHHH

SUDDENLY, the Channel Islands are the location of choice for film-makers.

Last week occupying Germans made life hell for residents in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this week a serial killer stalks luckless Jersey islanders in Beats, a terrify-ing thriller that grabs you early on and never relaxes its sadistic grip.

Moll, persuasively played by Jessie Buckley, is 27. Still living at home, she’s bullied by her dominating mother (Geraldine James) but too family-centred to leave — until, quitting her increas-ingly irksome birthday party, she unexpectedly meets the nonchalant misfit Pascal.

He’s cleverly portrayed by Johnny Flynn, who man-

ages to create an essentially irritating character you still want to watch.

Finally finding freedom, Moll moves in with Pascal, only to face mounting terror when he is suspected of being a brutal serial killer.

Director Michael Pearce, armed with a throat-con-stricting screenplay and ideal casting, delivers a memora-bly chilling and convincingly characterised thriller that marks an impressive direc-torial debut.

ALAN FRANK

Avengers: Infinity War (12A)

Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

HHHHI

THE NINETEEN films in the Avengers franchise have grossed over $13 billion at the box office globally and that record-break-ing run looks set to continue

with Infinity War.Fast and furious, this visu-

ally arresting, non-stop action-packed epic showdown of all showdowns proves once again that Marvel Studios are mas-ters of the superhero ensemble game.

In this latest, the Avengers — disbanded in Captain America: Civil War — team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and other key superheroes from the Marvel cinematic universe to stop the ultimate villain Thanos (Josh Brolin, phenom-enal) acquiring all six infinity stones which will enable him to destroy half the universe with a click of his finger.

To reveal any more would defy the #Thanos Demands Your Silence warning on the badge we were all given after seeing the film.

Under the skilful direction of Anthony Russo and his brother Joe, Infinity War strikes the right balance between darkness and humour, with its bleakest moments offset by hilariously irreverent and killer one-liners. And it’s not afraid to deliver shocks and surprises, Game of Thrones-style.

It also scores in showing how more than 20 superheroes can seamlessly stand their own ground on screen without seem-ing to be jockeying for position and bring a long-game story arc, spanning numerous Marvel films, to its effortless and logi-cal conclusion.

The only problem is that there is too much to assimilate and process at any given time,

so that by the end you feel exhil-arated yet totally exhausted by this emotional roller-coaster ride and visual assault on the senses.

The final instalment, already in the can, follows next year. In the meantime, the obligatory extra scene at the very end of the final credits will have fans orgasming with excitement.

MARIA DUARTE

Lean on Pete (15)

Directed by Andrew Haigh

HHHHI

BONDING between humans and animals is a classic cin-ema staple ranging from dogs (Lassie et al), horses (Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka), a tiger (The Life of Pi) and, if you count an alien entity, the saccharine-sodden E.T.

Here, writer-director Andrew Haigh throws his hat into the ring with this story of human-equine love. At its centre is 15-year-old Charley — who claims to be 16 when necessary — superbly played by Charlie Plummer.

After tough times, he’s liv-ing with his alcoholic father (Travis Fimmel) in a rundown house in Portland. When he starts working at a rundown racetrack he befriends weary trainer Del (Steve Buscemi, scene-stealing as usual), burned-out jockey Bonnie (Chloe Sevigny) and their eponymous horse Lean on

Pete. Learning the horse is for sale, he steals him and embarks on a character-building road trip to find a long-lost aunt.

Stunning cinematogra-phy (Magnus Jonck) adds vivid depth to the powerful character driven-drama that deservedly won Plummer the best young actor award at the Venice Film Festival.

It’s a film that trium-phantly proves that Haigh — working from his adaptation of the novel by Willy Vlau-tin — can make a convincing mainstream film as well as art-house products.

AF

Mary and the Witch’s Flower (U)

Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi

HHHHI

CElEBRATED Japa-nese animated film producers Studio Ghibli closed in 2015. Thankfully, two of its veterans founded Stu-dio Ponoc and in this, their first produc-tion, stunning ani-mation maintains the eye-popping visual invention

and exciting sto-rytelling that made Ghibli a worldwide success.

Riko Sakaguch and director

Hiromasa Yonebayashi have transformed Mary Stewart’s popular novel The little Broom-stick into a hugely exciting film, whose young English heroine Mary lives with her great-aunt in the country. There she dis-covers a magical flower that endows her with magical pow-ers – but only for one night.

She certainly needs them when, after escaping a young witches and warlocks school, she flies on a convenient broom-stick to a local college to rescue the young Peter who has fallen victim to mad scientist Dr Dee and evil headmistress Madame Mumblechook. There, he’s faced with a deadly experiment.

There’s enough plot to go around, and then some, lash-ings of stunning animation which brings the wild world of witches and warlocks to daz-zling life and perfectly-chosen British players — Ruby Barnhill

as Mary, Kate Winslet as Mad-ame Mumblechook and Jim Broadbent speaking for crazy scientist Dr Dee.A treat for kids and

parents alike. AF

The Deminer (15)

Directed by Hogir Hirori and Shinwar Kamai

HHHHH

KATHRYN BIGElOW’S The Hurt locker about the work of US bomb disposal experts in Iraq pales by comparison with this extraordinary story of real-life “deminer” Colonel Fakhir, who disarmed thousands of mines with just a simple knife and a pair of clippers.

Hogir Hirori and Shinwar Kamai’s powerful, heart-stopping documentary paints a singular picture of this heroic Kurdish father of eight. A local legend in Duhok, he put his life on the line every day to save innocent lives in Iraq.

Using Fakhir’s own videos, it shows him at work defusing mines and booby-trapped houses in Mosul, interwoven with inter-views with his family. A sense of the fearlessness and bravery of this man, who received many

medals from the US army for his incredible work, shines through.

As he poignantly points out in a recording made in September 2014: “If I fail only I die but if I succeed I can save many lives.”

Even when he was seriously injured in an explosion in which he lost his right leg and was told he could no longer do his job , he refused to be beaten.

Putting on a simple plastic prosthetic leg he joined the army again as a volunteer and went back to disarming mines with his clippers.

It’s an agonising watch as, with bated breath, you pray his next job won’t be his last. Witnessing his own son seeing the footage and voicing his thoughts for the cameras is heartbreaking and the film-makers pull no punches in terms of what they show.

Colonel Fakhir was a real-life hero and humanitarian, determined to save as many innocent lives as possible, even if it cost him his own.

Sadly, it did.


@m_star_online14Morning Star FridayApril 27 2018 letters

Nuanced piece on Winnie appreciated

Don’t trust second-

hand testimonies THE STAR’S otherwise exemplary editorial on Israel’s recent bombing of Syria (M Star April 10) refers to President Bashar al-Assad’s “record of recourse to torture and repression.”

Well, our evidence of that comes primarily from a notorious dossier spon-sored by the Qatari govern-ment and a report from Amnesty International based on second-hand tes-timonies which has been widely discredited.

The Syrian government may not conform to the (questionable) Western template of an ideal democracy, but it has undoubtedly endeavoured to take a progressive, inclusive and secular path under extreme duress.

PETER GODFREYIsle of Harris

Younger generations need analogue skillsI am appalled to read that young people today cannot tell the time using an analogue clock.

I started primary school in 1976 and have strong memories of sit-ting on the carpet and the teacher having a large wooden clock on her knees, on which she moved the hands.

At that time digital watches were appearing and we were also taught digital times and how they related to the ana-logue clock.

How times have changed!

LESLIE MUTCHRoss & Cromarty

THANK YOU Peter Frost for your feature (M Star April 24) on Winnie Mandela.

Winnie was someone I always greatly admired and have regretted the the negative press she received since the end of apartheid.

Her treatment from the regime whilst Nelson was in prison was inhu-mane but nothing could break her spirit.

Winnie admitted things “went horribly wrong” but for me this doesn’t take away for me the admiration I have always felt for a very strong woman.

RITA WALKER Liverpool

in brief

■ THE Daily Worker of April 27 1938 reported on the Budget announced

by Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Higher taxes on tea and oil would impact badly on the working class.

The fi rst ever “Thousand Million Pound Budget” was partly achieved by a large sum borrowed from the mar-kets for armaments. Later additions to expenditure were to come in the form of “supplementary estimates” to bridge the immediate gap between estimated expenditure and present revenue how-ever the cost was to come from “working-class housewives.”

Tea was overwhelmingly the drink of ordinary people, so applying a 50 per cent rise in tax to “all teas — Empire and vessels within a radius of 30 miles foreign” was bound to raise signifi cant funds.

Having announced this “enormous new burden,” Sir John Simon outrageously assumed “these burdens will doubtless be

carried with the dogged determination and dauntlessness of the British race.”

Concerning “wealthy tax-dodgers who rob the nation, Sir John did not announce any measures” but claimed he would impose new retrospective rules, thus giving the rich time to hoard their money out of reach.

Tax on petrol was increased by one penny per gallon after seven years of no rises, though the middle and upper class were typically the only people who could aff ord a car.

While sugar was so heavily taxed that many went without, there had been big increases in receipts from beer and tobacco.

80 YEARS AGO TODAY...

GRAHAM STEVENSON explores the Star archives

Budget doubles tax on tea to pay for armaments

You can read editions of the Daily Worker (1930-45) and Morning Star (200 0-today), online at

Ten days’ access costs just £5.99 and a year is £72

mstar.link/DWMSarchive

I WAS delighted to read the article about John (“Johnny”) Heartfi eld in the paper (M Star April 26).

I was lucky enough to work on the catalogue of his fi rst London show writing the historical timeline and captions for the exhibits, as well as acting as his offi cial interpreter.

My father, Hans Hess who came to London in 1937, was also a founding member of the Free German League of Culture, his membership number was 1001 because – as an ad man at the time – he thought a four-digit number made the organi-

sation much more credible.When Heartfi eld came to

London, he moved to Hamp-stead, just round the corner from my dad.

The fi rst thing Johnny did was to go out and buy a Gestetner cyclostyle machine which he buried in the garden, his logic being that, if the nazis invaded, the party could print anti-fascist leafl ets for at least the fi rst couple of days.

Maybe it’s still there in the garden of 47 Downshire Hill, where his Blue Plaque was erected in 2004?

ANITA HALPINLondon E3

Anti-fascist montage artist buried copier to fi ght nazi invasion

■ FEATURES

Ignore the opportunists who vilify Corbyn over anti-semitism

■ RACISM ROW

WILLIE SHIELDS (M Star Let-ters, April 23) is right about Jeremy Corbyn’s critics being enemies of Labour.

Anti-Corbyn Labour MPs’ vociferous rubbishing of the contention that the recent anti-semitism feeding-frenzy is intended to undermine Jeremy as leader is arrant nonsense.

In the Star (April 4), for example, we read of Labour MPs Angela Smith, John Mann and John Woodcock quickly seizing upon a report by right-wing blog Guido Fawkes to tweet that Jeremy was fail-ing his commitment to tackle anti-semitism.

If this and other examples don’t constitute opportunis-tically embracing the manu-factured outrage about anti-semitism to vilify Jeremy, I don’t know what does.

Reputable research shows that anti-semitism is far more common on the political right

than on the left, and that there’s signifi cantly less anti-semitism within Labour than in the general population. But you’ll never hear a whimper about these “inconvenient truths” from such MPs — why

disrupt the feeding-frenzy and let the truth get in the way of the latest PLP-assisted Estab-lishment propaganda assault on Corbyn?

Since becoming leader, Cor-byn has been subjected to the

most vicious character-assas-sination campaign in British political history — including right-wing Labour MPs will-ing to jump on any passing or manufactured bandwagon, no matter how disreputable,

to get rid of him. That the carefully orches-

trated anti-Labour anti-semitism “demonstration” at Westminster was joined by a number of the “usual sus-pects” isn’t the least surpris-ing — as for them, it was yet another gleefully seized-upon opportunity to bash Corbyn, far more than it was a bona fi de demonstration.

If resilience in the face of relentless vituperative yet unjustifi ed attacks is the hallmark of a great leader, then Jeremy promises to be this country’s greatest prime minister.

And once he’s no longer a threat to the Establishment and their largesse, he’ll doubtless quickly become the nation’s favourite uncle, with gushing tributes coming from all political directions.

RICHARD HOUSE Stroud

CORBYN-BASHING: Three billboards attacking anti-semitism in Labour drove around Westminster last week

TO reply to Tim Mickle-burgh (‘stop horse focus’ M Star, April 25), I disagree.

In a submission to the then Royal Commision on Gambling in the 1970s, Phil Bull of Timeform fame, explained in detail how bet-ting on horses off ered the worker a rare opportunity for intellectual analysis and

evaluation of many factors, and allowing them to put this to use for enjoyment, satisfaction, and even fi nan-cial gain. This off ers some means of self-actualisation.

I concede there are argu-ments relating to gambling addiction and animal wel-fare, but these do not neces-sarily, or inevitably, lead to

having to abandon coverage of racing in the Star.

Especially since Far-ringdon gave readers the 40/1 winner of last Sat-urday’s Scottish Grand National as his “nap” and is currently on a level stake profi t for the season.

ROGER BARBERISCheshire

Betting can have many benefi ts ■ HORSE RACING

VISIONARY: An example of Heartfi eld’s work (left) and the plaque (right) outside his Hampstead home


Morning Star Friday

April 27 2018sport

n MEN’S FOOTBALL

Coleman hopes to stay and turn Sunderland aroundby Our Sports Desk

CHRIS COLEMAN wants to lead relegated Sunderland’s fight for promotion from League One after he revealed yesterday that he has still not spoken to owner Ellis Short.

The former Wales boss saw his side slip out of the Cham-pionship 12 months after their exit from the Premier League as a result of last Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat by Burton.

He is keen to remain in the job he started in November last year, but, with Short in the United States and leav-

ing the running of the club to chief executive Martin Bain, he admits the Black Cats are “almost floating aimlessly in the dark.”

Sunderland boss Coleman said: “It hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to go, the way we hoped for it to go, but nev-ertheless we are still here and I’d still like the opportunity to put things right here.

“Again, that won’t be my decision, that will be someone else’s. Whose, I don’t know, but that’s not like me saying: ‘That’s it for me.’

“I think it’s a super football club, I do. It’s a great football

club. It’s in a position where it’s very tough and it’s attached with a lot of negatives because of two back-to-back relegations.

“We have not been able to stop the slide, but it’s still a great football club regardless of what anybody says.

“We’re an easy target now, you can say what you like about us, pick this level, that level, whatever, easy target and no doubt that’s what’s coming and that’s fine.

“But that won’t always be like that, it won’t. For me, for the people here, for the football club, we won’t always be where we are.”

n MEN’S FOOTBALL

Fulham owner Khan makes £500m offer to buy Wembleyby Our Sports Desk

THE Football Association announced yesterday that it has received an offer to buy Wembley.

Fulham owner Shahid Khan, who also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team, has put in a £500 million bid to buy the national stadium.

The FA said in a statement that “we can confirm that the FA has received an offer to buy Wembley Stadium,” but it had nothing further to add.

The offer was reportedly put before the full FA board yester-day and an outline agreement between Khan and FA chief executive Martin Glenn may already be in place.

It is alleged that that the money raised would be ring-fenced for investment in grass-roots programmes.

NFL events and interna-tional executive vice-president Mark Waller said in a state-ment: “We are very happy for Shad Khan and the Jackson-ville Jaguars.

“The potential purchase of Wembley Stadium is a further powerful sign of their commit-ment to Britain and their vision to help us grow the sport.

“Having stadium options in London has always been criti-cal to the NFL and, in tandem with our 10-year partnership with Tottenham Hotspur, this new relationship would allow

for even greater flexibility in scheduling future NFL games in London.”

Khan stressed that Wem-bley would remain “home to the England national teams” and that Fulham would keep playing at Craven Cottage in a message to the club’s fans.

In a statement on Fulham’s website, Khan said: “To be clear, this venture is 100 per cent independent of my invest-ment in and operation of Ful-ham Football Club, Motspur Park and Craven Cottage.

“No less attention will be paid to developing players and fielding a squad that will win with frequency and always make you proud. It will have no impact on Craven Cottage as the home of FFC.

“Wembley Stadium would return to private ownership and the Football Association would be able to focus on its core mission of developing play-ers with the best player devel-opers and facilities anywhere in the game, thanks in part to the vast financial benefit that would result from the transac-tion.

“I trust many, if not most of you, are also supporters of the England national teams, so I hope you welcome the potential of this becoming a reality.

“Always know that Wembley would be home to the Eng-land national teams and that we would strive every day of

the year to be the best possi-ble steward for a venue that is iconic and beloved here and throughout the world.”

Khan has owned Fulham since 2013, the same year the Jaguars started playing annual regular-season NFL games in London.

In a further statement, Khan added: “I’ve enjoyed a reward-ing relationship with The Foot-ball Association for years and my more recent exchanges and time spent with Martin Glenn have served to further strengthen a connection with the FA that made it natural and ultimately possible for both parties to consider this transaction.

“Working with Martin and his team has been a pleasure and clearly productive. Should we be fortunate to close on the purchase, it’s important to stress that the spirit and essence of Wembley would be unchanged. Wembley is a spe-cial place, beloved in London and known throughout the world.

“I understand the responsi-bility and accountability that would be ours to accept and at all times we will be guided so the stadium and Wembley brand are both protected and enhanced.

“We will take excellent care of Wembley Stadium in every respect and at all times be good citizens and neighbours here in London and beyond.”

n MEN’S CRICKET

The International Cricket Council (ICC) said yes-terday that it will “move towards stricter and heavier sanctions” follow-ing the Australia ball-tampering scandal.

The ICC was only able to ban Australia captain Steve Smith for one match and fine him his full match fee for his role in the incident that saw Cam-eron Bancroft attempt to alter the ball with sand-paper in the Cape Town Test against South Africa. Bancroft was fined 75 per cent of his fee.

Cricket Australia then handed Smith and vice-captain David Warner one-year bans, while opener Bancroft was sus-pended for nine months.

On the final day of a week of ICC meetings with chief executives of the member countries in Kolkata, the governing body discussed its Code of Conduct review and confirmed a strong stance aimed to clamp down on future incidents.

The ICC said that the board and chief execu-tives are “united in their commitment to address player behaviour.”

“There was clear direc-tion from both to move towards stricter and heav-ier sanctions for ball tam-pering and other offences which were indicative of a lack of respect, this would include abusive language, send-offs and dissent to an umpire’s decision.”

ICC plan to get tougher on ball-tampering

MEN’S FOOTBALL: Keith Curle will leave Carlisle at the end of the season, the League Two club announced yesterday.

Curle joined the Cumbrians in 2014 and led them to the play-offs last season, but they are unable to finish in the top seven this term with two games remaining.

Friday April 27 2018

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SPORT Friday April 27 2018 INSIDE: Fulham owner makes £500m Wembley bid

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MSTAR 2018-04-27 FRI 1.0

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Farringdon’s Doubles

ADDEYBBSandown 3:35

Houseman’s Choice

TODAY’S TIPS

SPORT ON TV

■ BASKETBALL: NBA play-offs, Washington Wizards v Toronto Rap-tors — BT Sport 1 12am (Sat).

■ FOOTBALL: Championship, Ful-ham v Sunderland — Sky Sports Main Event 7pm; Scottish Premier-ship, Aberdeen v Hearts — BT Sport 2 7.15pm.

■ FORMULA ONE: Azerbaijan Grand Prix, first practice session — Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports F1 9.45am and Channel 4/eir Sport 1 9.55am; Second practice session — Sky Sports F1 1.45pm and Channel 4/eir Sport 1 1.55pm.

■ GOLF: European Tour, China Open — Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Golf 7.30am, 5.30am (Sat); PGA Tour, Zurich Classic of New Orleans — Sky Sports Golf 2.15pm.

■ GRIDIRON: NFL, live draft — Sky Sports Action 11pm and Sky Sports Main Event 12am (Sat).

■ RACING: Live from Sandown Park — ITV4 1.30pm.

■ RUGBY UNION: Super Rugby, Stormers v Rebels — Sky Sports Action 6.05am; Premiership, Leicester Tigers v Newcastle — BT Sport 1 7pm.

■ SNOOKER: The World Champi-onship — BBC Two 10am, 1pm and Eurosport 1 10am, 2.30pm, 6.30pm.

■ TENNIS: ATP Tour, the Barcelona Open — Sky Sports Main Event 11.50am; WTA Tour, Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart — BT Sport 1 12.30pm, 5.30pm.

by Our Sports Desk

JESSE SENE-LEFAO is hoping to give Castleford a timely lift after recovering from the first surgery of his career.

The 28-year-old Samoan international has missed the Tigers’ last six matches after undergoing a clean-out in his left knee but returns for tonight’s Super League derby against Wakefield.

The rugged second rower, who provided the club with a boost this week by signing a new three-year contract, is hop-ing to help them get back to winning ways following their 28-12 defeat at Wigan.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking having surgery for the first time in my life,” said Sene-Lefao.

“But everything is going to plan. It’s been nearly two weeks of running and training with the boys, so I’m feeling really comfortable.

“When you come back, you try to give the team what they’re lacking, but my main focus at the moment is to be fit and confident with my knee, knowing I won’t let anyone down on the day.”

Castleford were within touching distance of top spot after putting together a five-match winning run, but two defeats in their last four matches have seen them drop out of the top four, although they still have two matches in hand.

The Tigers will be aiming to complete the double over their nearest rivals following their 11-6 victory at Belle Vue at Easter, but Trinity coach Chris Chester is also looking for a response following a heavy defeat by Salford.

“It’s been stop-start, but I feel like we’re getting better each and every week,” added Sene-Lefao.

“I know there was a drop on

the weekend against Wigan but we took a lot of lessons from that game.

“Wakefield is always a good battle, especially here at the Jungle. They come here in num-bers with their fans.

“And no matter how good or bad they’re going through the season, they always seem to turn up and play some of their best games here.”

Chester has shuffled his line-up following the 38-4 defeat at Salford but has not included heavyweight forward David Fifita in his 19-man squad.

However, that did not stop the Tongan international play-ing in the game at Belle Vue and Sene-Lefao says he will not be surprised if he faces his old Cronulla teammate and junior rival tonight.

“Fifita has always mysteri-ously come back against Cas,” he said. “He’s done it the last three times, so I’m not going to rule him out.

“They don’t name him and then come game day he’s mys-teriously on the bench or some-where in their 17.

“We’ve learnt that, so we know Fifita might be in the team.

“We grew up in the same neighbourhood, out of Western Sydney, and played local jun-iors against each other. We’ve known each other for a long, long time.”

Elsewhere today, Wigan and Warrington will be looking to maintain the pressure on lead-ers St Helens when they take on Widnes and Huddersfield respectively.

The Wolves are aiming to avenge their surprise 20-6 defeat at the Giants in round two while Wigan will not risk full-back Sam Tomkins on the artificial surface at the Halton Stadium.

■ MEN’S RUGBY LEAGUE

SENE-LEFAO RARING TO TAKE ON WAKEFIELDSUPER LEAGUE: Castleford star returns from injury and is confident Tigers can get back to winning ways

■ FOOTBALL

THE German football federation hired Switzer-land coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg to take over the women’s national team yesterday after the 2019 World Cup qualify-ing programme.

The German federation says Voss-Tecklenburg, a former Germany inter-national, has a contract until the 2021 European Championship.

Interim coach Horst Hrubesch will lead the team in two remaining qualifying games in September.

Both Germany and the unbeaten Swiss lead their qualifying groups for the 2019 tournament in France. Germany could be overtaken by Iceland before they play again on September 1.

DFB appoint Tecklenburg

■ MEN’S FOOTBALL

We have a chance to create history, says Forrestby Our Sports Desk

JAMES FORREST played down the significance yesterday of Celtic potentially clinching the Premiership title against Old Firm rivals Rangers on Sunday.

Defeat to Hibernian last week meant the Hoops can clinch their seventh succes-sive league title if they avoid defeat against their Glasgow rivals at Celtic Park this week-end.

Brendan Rodgers’s side are currently 10 points clear with four games to play and will be expected to secure the title on Sunday after humbling Rangers 4-0 at Hampden just two weeks ago, but Forrest, who has been nominated for the PFA Player of the Year award, is not both-ered who they beat to secure the league.

“We have got a chance to cre-ate history and we have win-ning the league and a cup final to look forward to,” winger For-rest said.

“Since the manager came in, that’s what we have done, just

focused on ourselves and that’s what we will continue to do.”

He added: “Every trophy you win for Celtic, the next one is always the best one because it is ‘now’ and the feel-good moment at the time.

“We are just going to work hard in the days going up to the game and hopefully we can do it on Sunday in front of our own fans.

“Confidence for us is sky-high, we know what is at stake.

“Every Old Firm game is going to be a hard game, so we have to have that respect and go in making sure we are ready to go from the start.”

Sixteen goals in all competi-tions have made this a break-through season for Forrest, although he has scored just once in the Premiership since Christmas.

His future had appeared uncertain before Rodgers’s arrival and he has praised the impact of the former Liverpool boss on his own game.

He said: “I’ve grown in con-fidence from last season and kicked on this year. On a per-

sonal note I think it’s been my best season and I just want to keep contributing to the team and keep going and hopefully score a few more and keep cre-ating for the team.

“He [Rodgers] has been differ-ent class. He gives you so much confidence and he lets the for-ward players go and express themselves, as long as they’re still working hard.

“A lot of the boys have kicked on in the last couple of years and it’s only good for the team.”

CONFIDENT: James Forrest

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