Paul Lewis

Student protests live: chants of ‘from the river to the sea’ at October 7 rally Student protests today: follow the latest news and live updates

They don’t look like Netanyahu supporters!😉 bit.ly/46ECscD it is a slogan and indeed an aspiration shared by many Palestinians and Israelis, including many in its present govt. Both believe they have the right to the same piece of land and will fight and kill for it.

If only those pesky
Suffragettes had confined themselves to one protest…

Home Secretary tells Sky News that “there is a gap in the law” when it comes to frequent, repeated protests on the same issue. Hence she will be giving police greater powers to move them to another location or time.

Greta Thunberg Fridays. Illegal.

This is nuts, I think it could make people actually protest *more* regularly.

This Labour government has the social intelligence of a jellyfish.

Claire’s collapsed owing at least £12m to unsecured creditors The British Red Cross and Landsec are among those the jewellery and accessories chain borrowed money from before going into administration in August

Claire’s main accessory was a dangling £12m debt owed to many small businesses bit.ly/3IW7kfA

Shadow Treasury minister suggests restricting the state pension Richard Fuller told a Tory conference fringe event the pension could be means-tested. There are calls in the party to reconsider the triple lock annual increase

Means test the state pension, says top Tory bit.ly/42qzaay former chairman eyes the Australian system

Reform UK set to raise Kent council tax — despite promising savings Nigel Farage had pledged cost-cutting, but officials now admit services are already ‘down to bare bones’ and a rise by the maximum rate of 5% may be needed

Rhetoric vs arithmetic bit.ly/4mOGVOz Musk style cost cutting failed to find savings so council tax must rise

Only British citizens will be able to claim benefits, says Stride Shadow chancellor says his reforms would save £47bn annually

Only Brits (and a few Europeans) will be able to claim some benefits, promises @MelJStride stripping 470,000 of their universal credit. and everyone, including Brits, with anxiety, depression, and ADHD will lose the right to the disability benefit PIP bit.ly/3KC8Hk3

Water bills: millions of households in England could face even bigger rises CMA poised to give verdict after appeal by five firms for permission to increase bills higher than allowed by Ofwat

Customers could be tapped for even more cash if competition body overrules regulators’ record rises bit.ly/46PdYw4

Entain boss warns Reeves not to raise gambling taxes Stella David said hitting the industry in next month’s budget could make the company reconsider its investment in the UK and close shops

Don’t tax us we’re too rich and too important, part 94 bit.ly/4o3C7pD gambling firm joins the list of the untaxables

The inside story of China spy case collapse: ‘It came from the very top’ Official silence on why charges were dropped against Chris Cash and Christopher Berry has angered Westminster and fuelled suspicions that it was a sop to Beijing

Spy trial abandoned because govt witnesses were banned from calling China an enemy state bit.ly/4qd6zzN the two men were charged under s.1 of the 1911 Act which requires information to be ‘useful to an enemy’.

Police to get broader powers to crack down on repeated protests Officers will be able to tell organisers to move demonstrations if protests have caused

Home Sec repeats her commitment to the “fundamental” right to protest as she announces giving police more powers to restrict it bit.ly/48hsbEA

Adding standing charge and unit prices for a typical 2700kWh electricity in a year the annual bill in North Wales and Merseyside (dearest) would be £1003.76 a year, £143.63 (17%) more than cheapest (London) at £860.13

We already have regional pricing for electricity. The
@ofgem capped unit rate of electricity ranges from 25.33p (Yorkshire) to 27.72p (North Wales and Merseyside). N and S Scotland saw their unit rates rise 4.9% and 5.3% while the rest of GB rose by 2% or less, boosting average to 2.4%

Regional pricing in electricity extends to
@ofgem capped standing charges too. 44.62p/day or £162.86/year (Southern England) to 69.95p/day or £255.32/year (N Wales and Merseyside). More than £90 a year more before you've turned on a light.

Rogue planet ‘blurs line with stars’ as it swells at record pace A free-floating planet up to ten times the mass of Jupiter is growing at unprecedented speed, drawing in gas and dust and behaving like a star

Is it a star? Is it a planet? bit.ly/3VJisiO astronomers are not quite sure - nor is the artist who drew this image!

Apple forced by UK government to allow access to all data stored in icloud by UK citizens bit.ly/3WinH9h

The discrimination against the single and childless at the heart of inheritance tax bit.ly/4mIshsc exposed in my blog - summarised below.

JustGiving pays £25.8m dividend to American owner The charity platform made the payment to the Nasdaq-listed Blackbaud after revenues rose by 9.7 per cent to £64.5m

The very uncharitable profits of JustGiving which takes fees, a cut of gift aid, and then asks donors for a tip! bit.ly/4nzZpDV much better to give directly to the charity, but if you do use JG always set tip to zero. But you can’t stop it snaffling some of the Gift Aid

Cleaner who secretly worked 17-hour days sacked from parliament Mulikat Ogumodede protested that she rested at the weekend and had a good record despite working nights at Westminster and days at Deutsche Bank for 16 years

Cleaner sacked for working too hard bit.ly/3KtP8ui and judge rules dismissal fair

Michelle Mone-linked firm must pay £122m for breaking PPE contract PPE Medpro, run by Baroness Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman, has two weeks to pay compensation for ‘faulty’ gowns

Rip-off firm must repay £122mn over unusable PPE Covid gear but it has gone into administration bit.ly/3IKsuNI lawyers now face the hard task of showing personal liability of Baroness Mone and Doug Barrowman. £8m cost of storing and destroying gear falls on taxpayers

Britons spend £1 billion to switch off wind farms this year Flaws in the net-zero drive mean Britain’s electricity operator has to pay compensation for loss revenue after ordering turbines to be switched off

Wind farms generate no electricity even when the wind is blowing if the grid can’t cope - £1billion spent this year already on gridlocked days bit.ly/46Od8j0 paying wind farms £462k to stop and spending £1.7bn buying electricity elsewhere - see wastedwind.energy

Also NB low users who use less than a quarter of the energy used by 'typical' households will see their bills rise by 4% because of huge rises in standing charges. And these are the ones who will be excluded from the lower standing charge from January under Ofgem's current plans

NB
1. Standing charges and unit rates vary across regions. The figures are GB averages.
2. The 2% rise is increase in the amount paid by a typical household on dual fuel and paying by direct debit over a year ie a rise from £1720 to £1755. The cap changes every three months.

Ignore the nonsense of a 2% rise in domestic energy bills from today.
ELECTRICITY standing charge UP 4.5%, units UP 2.41%
GAS standing charge UP 14.12%, units DOWN 0.63%
%ages differ for people who pay quarterly. Stand Charge now £16.33/month electricity and £10.35/month - more for quarterly

Ofgem won't scrap standing charges for electricity and gas. Instead suppliers will add a tariff with lower standing charges but higher unit rates. Those who would benefit most, including 446,000 largely low income customers, will be excluded. My blog bit.ly/42kdSLC

This winter, households with electricity and gas on prepayment meters who can't afford to top them up will pay on average £6.14 a week to sit in the cold and dark. That is what today's
@ofgem price cap rises in standing charges mean.

Live facial recognition cameras set for use by police nationwide Ministers are consulting on guidance for forces that want to use the technology after successful pilot schemes in London and Cardiff

Live facial recognition to be used by all England and Wales police forces bit.ly/46tLYzb no information here about false positives or convictions just selected statistics about arrests of alleged criminals and nothing of course about future mission creep beyond police

Exclusion zone coming into force around William and Kate’s new home The prince and princess and their children George, Charlotte and Louis are moving to the Grade II-listed Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park.

The modern monarchy bit.ly/46OtcBH Heir to the throne and 2nd, 3rd, and 4th heirs with his wife and their mother moving their third home to 150 Acres in Windsor Great Park behind a 2.3 mile long fence and an Act of Parliament.

The Great Pension Steal will cost 66-year-olds up to £12,849 in lost pension when pension age increases from 6 April and the losses don't stop there bit.ly/42gEQnm Don't blame Labour, the timetable was set by George Osborne in the Pensions Act 2014 which brought forward the change by 8 years