They have at one stroke increased bureaucracy, added more regulation, including for small businesses, industry, sports clubs and local hostelries. This equates to more costs, and no doubt many going out of business, increasing unemployment.
There is the ‘Renter’s Rights Bill’ which the previous government attempted to water down but never became law prior to the GE, which discriminates against landlords by assuming all landlords are bad. Labour will push it through resulting in privately owned housing will go on the market which will reduce the availability of housing for rent in the private sector.
What on earth Starmer was thinking when he decided to hand the Environment portfolio to Ed Miliband is a mystery but as columnists Guy Adams said, ‘One day Starmer will wonder aloud why he ever gave this one-man wrecking ball the job.’ Already his interventions in the North Sea and Cumbria have reduced investment in this vital sector. This one-man wrecking ball will result in the lights going out and inflated energy prices.
Great British Energy will end up delivering a Great British disaster. It sounds impressive but has clearly not been thought it through. Labour says they will achieve Net Zero by 2030, a target which most in the industry say is unachievable and absurd. There are no plans to push ahead with nuclear or uphold current UK oil and gas supplies which will be turned off, and most of our coal fired power stations have already been demolished. So, thousands will be put out of work and out of necessity we will be importing energy from Russia. What a fiasco.
Starmer is now cosying up to his European mates hoping to ease the UK back into the EU. What does he not understand about Brexit – the people voted to leave and thank goodness for that. His desire to re-connect with the EU will see access to British fishing waters opened to foreign vessels, and as German Chancellor Olaf Sholz has already said, they want ‘greater access to Britain for young Europeans - open borders.’. It is clear Starmer will also be prepared to sacrifice the sovereignty of Gibraltar to ease his way back into the EU.
The Church of England has decided that a person’s sex is assigned at birth rather than being a biological fact. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has backed a document which is being circulated to teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’. As Lucy Marsh, of the Family Education Trust, said, ‘It is extremely concerning that the Church of England does not recognise that biological sex is immutable. Sex is not ‘assigned at birth’, it is determined at conception and recorded at birth. These are biological, unchangeable facts.
What is going on with the C of E? It is noticeable that since Justin Welby became Archbishop the decline in members has escalated. Last year when asked about the ‘alarming drop’ in attendance at C of E services during his ten years in office – by one third, the Archbishop said, “The decline is something that in the end, even if I am not responsible for personally, I count as a failure”. Is this yet another case where a lack of vison, inspiration, charisma and that vital leadership skill so lacking in so many sectors raises its head? Is it time for the Archbishop to be turned out to grass, with actual sheep as opposed to the C of E ‘flock’.
Agriculture remains the most dangerous of professions. More people die or are seriously injured on farms than any other profession, including the construction industry. However, despite the NFU, press and Health and Safety Executive, warning farmers of the risks they face daily, fatalities continue to rise year by year.
Figures report ‘Fatal injuries in agriculture, forestry, and fishing in Great Britain 2022/23, show 27 people were killed as a result of farming and other agricultural-related activities during the year. Farming has the worst rate (per 100,000 workers) of all the main industry sectors – around 21 times as high as the all-industry rate, older workers (45+) accounting for 80%, the youngest was a farmer’s 3-year-old child.
As we enter the harvesting period of what has been a terrible year, when farmers scurry about hoping the get crops in while a window in the weather allows, the danger of accidents increases 100%. Keep safe.