Stop Funding Hate’s boycott tactics are failing, with its two-month campaign against IKEA over adverts on Talk getting absolutely nowhere. More than ten posts urging followers to pressure the Swedish retail giant have been met with silence from IKEA. These tactics don’t work so well anymore…
A petition launched more than 20 days ago to get the adverts pulled has only just scraped past the halfway mark of its 5,000-signature target. Obviously needed the instructions included in the box…
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has warned her Peckham constituents that Shabana Mahmood’s plan to extend the wait for settlement from five to fifteen years risks undermining ‘cohesion’. She’s not a Fahn…
Her September update to constituents reads:
“The political debate around immigration has become increasingly depressing and toxic […] we need a more compassionate immigration system. The asylum process is broken and needs reform. Ultimately, I want to see a system based on control and compassion, with a much stronger focus on integration.
[…] If we continually prolong the time people have to wait for settlement, we can also prolong the process of building cohesion.
We need to raise the level of the debate, challenge divisive political rhetoric and make the case for communities like the one we have in Peckham.
That means talking about immigration with care, control and compassion.”
After the Telegraph spotted it, her ‘allies’ said her team had ‘poorly paraphrased’ what she’d said at a town hall meeting, and the post will be rewritten with ‘clearer language’. As Guido has previously written in Whispers, Fanbulleh is rumoured in Labour circles to refuse to do anything that might put her in a position where she has to comment on these reforms…
Labour has confirmed every farm and food firm in Britain will have to follow EU rules under the SPS deal, even if they never sell a single product in the EU. Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Mike Wood asked whether farms and food manufacturers that “do not trade with the EU and only trade within Britain” would be bound. Defra minister Stephen Morgan replied:
“The SPS agreement with the EU means that Great Britain will apply certain rules in line with the EU. These arrangements will apply domestically, whether or not a business trades directly with the EU.”
He then admitted “the precise scope of the agreement remains subject to ongoing negotiations with the EU”. Sign first, ask questions later – the Labour way…Defra’s list of rules in scope runs from food safety and labelling to, marketing standards, pesticides, and biocides. EU rules in this sector have generally been highly restrictive…Alignment is dynamic, so Britain takes on every existing EU regulation plus any future changes Brussels makes to them. Britain’s first place position on gene editing is also at risk, since Labour has not made a carve out one of its red lines. British rule-taking will occur regardless of what stage it is in Burnham’s 10 to 15 year rejoin path…
National Trading Standards Chairman Lord Bichard has warned that the illicit tobacco trade is far more sinister than simply burning a hole in the Treasury’s coffers. It’s fuelling organised crime, money laundering and even child exploitation…
Speaking last week at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee – which is examining Burnham’s plan to revive British high streets – Lord Bichard said:
“A lot of people think that what’s happening is quite low level crime but it isn’t. it’s increasingly linked to organized crime. it’s increasingly linked to child exploitation, money laundering, immigration, I could go on. I think one of the things that we want to do and I think government could do more to help us is to bring home to people that when they buy illicit tobacco what they’re actually doing is funding child abuse.”
Think tank the Centre for Social Justice’s Josh Nicholson added that HMRC should reassess its flawed methods for guessing the scale of the illicit tobacco trade. He also called for tobacco and vape shop licensing, tougher penalties for landlords and stronger closure orders. That Labour high streets commitment looking shakier than ever…
Guido hears the redundancy round at Telegraph towers is set to be announced as soon as Wednesday. Staff are bracing for up to 100 roles to be cut as new owner Axel Springer looks to trim the salary bill. The mood is predictably dour. Boston Consulting Group is said to be helping with the plan. The Axe Swingers….
Labour has ruled out giving Chagossians the same right to decide their future as Falkland Islanders. Tory MP Sir John Hayes asked whether the Government’s policy on self-determination “applies equally to the Chagossian people as it does to the Falkland Islanders.”
FCDO minister Uma Kumaran replied:
“The British Indian Ocean Territory is not comparable to inhabited Overseas Territories such as the Falkland Islands. It has no permanent population and has never been self-governing.”
Has anyone checked with Misley Mandarin, who has been there for going on a year?
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”