Retired teacher, likes reading, walking, supporting community activities and talking politics.
Joined May 2012
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Janet Mobbs retweeted
What did we do in 2026 to tackle climate change?
A 10 week ban on disposable BBQs followed by more fossil fuel drilling.
@andyburnham
Doing politics differently. 🤦♂️
Janet Mobbs retweeted
AstraZeneca CEO eyes record £28m pay package bonanza, up from £17.7m.
Previously, AstraZeneca CEO threatened to deny drugs to the NHS unless it paid more. Govt capitulated.
Blackmail works, delivers high rewards for shareholders and execs.
thisismoney.co.uk/money/mark…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
It's amazing how the debate on benefits is free of facts like this. The media are gaslighting us and much as politicians are.
#BrokenMedia
The budget has left the wealthy relatively unscathed.
Neoliberals are targeting deep social security cuts. Will increase poverty & misery.
This graph shows total UK welfare spending as a percentage of GDP, 2013/14 to 2030/31 (spending and forecast)
lordslibrary.parliament.uk/w…
Nothing changes except the comms
Because the advice given to Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer was so great. I'm sure everyone will love continuity Starmer-McSweeney politics.
Ben Nunn just incorporated his own private PR firm and consultancy called Arlington Road. I'm sure this new stint in Number 10 will be great for his client book when he rotates out of power again.
He does have a history of passing through the revolving door, working as "senior counsel" for PR and lobbying firm Lexington between 2021 and 2023, which he sandwiched between advising Starmer and then Reeves.
Nunn's company is likely named after the Arlington Group, the brains-trust (used advisedly) that met to incubate Starmer's leadership challenge between 2018 and 2019.
The meetings were hosted by Jenny Chapman at her home on Arlington Road in Camden. It was at a meeting in July 2019 that McSweeney presented his (in)famous polling that set out how Starmer could procure votes from Labour members by pretending to be left-wing.
At the time, McSweeney and fellow attendee at Arlington Group meetings, Steve Reed, were unlawfully failing to declare the donations paying for the polling. McSweeney was invited to join the team to help plot Starmer's eventual tilt at the leadership, while he was simultaneously secretly using Labour Together to undermine Labour's electoral prospects.
Imagine naming your PR company after this origin story? Imagine thinking the guy whose career progression is [private healthcare/Starmer/lobbying firm/Rachel Reeves/Treasury in a two-year government] has anything useful to add to a nominally progressive government?
Janet Mobbs retweeted
In 2024-25 584,000 people paid Capital Gains Tax (CGT), less than 1% of adults.
CGT rates are 18% to 24%. Wages taxed at 20% to 45%.
Budget hands another tax perk to the rich. Up to £10m lifetime gains for founders of companies to be taxed at 10%.
leftfootforward.org/2026/10/…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
👏 @AndreaEganGS is right here, not just about the conversion to renewables, but how we’ve let good jobs in the public sector be slashed, never to return, with far less response. 1/5 theguardian.com/politics/202…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
The budget has left the wealthy relatively unscathed.
Neoliberals are targeting deep social security cuts. Will increase poverty & misery.
This graph shows total UK welfare spending as a percentage of GDP, 2013/14 to 2030/31 (spending and forecast)
lordslibrary.parliament.uk/w…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
If you grew up in Britain in the 70s or 80s, you'll remember the sadistic teacher who took pleasure in disciplining children with a ruler, a cane or whatever else came to hand. The sort who confused cruelty with authority and punishment with discipline.
Well, here we have that very same sadist, only this time wearing a police uniform and apparently using handcuffs as a weapon against a child.
I don't give a damn what that child is alleged to have done. And I couldn't care less that the far right have jumped on this footage. I'm not going to excuse apparent police brutality simply because condemning it puts me on the same side of an argument as someone whose politics I disagree with.
The footage shows what it appears to show; the officer responsible should be sacked, along with any colleague who witnessed unlawful violence and deliberately stood by.
A police uniform is not a licence to brutalise children. We entrust officers with extraordinary powers because they're supposed to exercise restraint, not indulge in punishment.
Anyone who cannot understand that has no business wearing the uniform.
Oh, and for the old toe rags like me who grew up getting the occasional clip round the ear from the local bobby... let's not pretend that's remotely comparable to being struck in the throat with steel handcuffs. There's a world of difference between a clip round the ear and a police officer using a weapon against a child.
Do you think a police officer should be able to do this to a child?
Janet Mobbs retweeted
Ahead of what will clearly be a coordinated assault on Zack Polanski - some basic facts.
1 - Yes, Polanski's own net approval ratings have dipped sharply in recent months. This is primarily the result of more people becoming aware of him and forming an opinion. His actual approval ratings have been remarkably steady and, at 19%, he remains considerably more popular than his party.
2 - By comparison Adrian Ramsay's approval rating when he was co-leader in June 2025 was 5%. 81% had either never heard of them or had never bothered to form an opinion. His fellow co-leader Carla Denyer was only marginally better on 9%.
3 - Reportedly 18,000 members have left in recent months. But this is in the context of an unprecedented surge in membership which took the party from 70k to close to quarter of a million members after Polanski became leader.
4 - The party now has more than 1300 local councillors, compared to less than 900 when Polanski became leader.
5 - Yes, the Greens have dipped in the polls recently. But even now they are at the same level they were when he became leader. And they are primarily victims of their own success having obliged the Labour Party to ditch Starmer - a level of influence the Greens could previously only dream of.
6 - The Zionism is racism motion is held up as having done huge damage to the party. An Opinium poll showed 56% of Green Party members supported it - and just 13% opposed it. A clear majority among all voters under 34 who expressed an opinion supported it.
By any logical criteria, if your aim is for the Greens to become Britain's first genuinely radical, mass political party, capable of holding the balance of power in parliament, it makes no sense whatsoever to get rid of Polanski.
It makes sense only if that is precisely what you don't want to happen.
thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
Andreas Malm has been banned from entering the UK.
The Swedish climate scholar was due to speak in London next week at the launch event for Tribune’s latest issue.
The Home Office said that Malm’s presence in the UK was considered not to be ‘conducive to the public good’.
It’s the latest example of the Labour government banning leftist and pro-Palestine figures from entering the country.
You can read Malm’s essay for our upcoming issue on ‘ultra-fossil imperialism’ by subscribing through this link for just £20 for a year's print and digital: tribunemag.co.uk/subscribe/?…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
Mr Burnham, Silencing dissent did not use to be a British value. And certainly not a Labour value!
I know something about being banned. In 2024, the German state banned me from political activity on its soil, even by video link. My crime was helping organise a congress in Berlin congress, along with German Jews, about the genocide in Gaza. So I write as someone who has seen at first hand how quickly a liberal democracy sheds its liberalism once the subject turns to Palestine.
Now the UK government has banned Andreas Malm, a respected Swedish academic and author, from entering Britain to speak at the launch of Tribune. For generations, Tribune has given a voice to democrats, socialists and anyone who refuses to accept injustice as the natural order. Keeping one of Europe's important thinkers away from its platform is an act of political censorship, plain and simple.
Andy Burnham's admirers like to think of him as the cuddly antidote to Keir Starmer's stone cold managerialism. This decision shows otherwise. When it comes to silencing those who stand up against the genocide of Palestinians, the new Prime Minister is just as authoritarian and just as callous as the man he replaced. Only the smile is different.
Lift the ban. Let Andreas Malm speak. And let Tribune hold its launch without the state deciding who may address it.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2026…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
May those who live, work or holiday on top of this have nightmares about what lies beneath them. May they imagine the cries of the dying and may it keep them awake at night.
Janet Mobbs retweeted
Savers' interest income (other than ISA and tax-free allowance) to be taxed from April 2027 at marginal rates of 24%, 44% and 49%.
Wealthy appeased:
Dividends will be taxed at rates 10.75% to 39.35%.
Capital gains at 18% to 24%.
Cash savers penalised.
leftfootforward.org/2026/10/…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
🚨 The full Covid PPE 'VIP lane' list is FINALLY out after a 5-year legal battle.
£1 BILLION in taxpayer cash was completely WASTED on useless PPE.
VIP lane firms were 10x more likely to win contracts.
The unmasked referrers:
Matt Hancock: 27 companies
Dominic Raab: Referred a toy maker with 1 employee
Michael Gove: Referred a donor who got a £164M contract
Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York): Referred a dissolved pharma firm
4 New former Ministers Exposed: Raab, Buckland, Hart, and Robert Jenrick of ReformUk
The well-connected got rich. The public paid the price and we are still paying it till today. Credit @PeterKGeoghegan
Janet Mobbs retweeted
Remember in Schindler's List when the Nazi commander uses a sniper rifle to shoot prisoners in the Concentration Camp.
This is a video of Israel using machine guns from a tank to shoot prisoners in a Concentration Camp.
Janet Mobbs retweeted
And yet the budget did absolutely nothing to address this.
The Iran war has given BP its highest profits in 18 years.
It has cost US households $2,000, and UK households £2,400.
Fossil capitalism is based on a systematic transfer of wealth from workers to fossil capitalists.
theguardian.com/business/202…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
🟥 UPDATE NUMBER 2 | 31 OCTOBER 2026
🔳 Sources: Journalists on the ground
🟥 Gaza
🔳 During the past 48 hours:
▪️ 6 martyrs (4 newly killed and 2 who succumbed to earlier injuries).
▪️ 26 injured.
🔳 Since the ceasefire (11 October 2025):
▪️ 1,580 martyrs.
▪️ 5,711 injured.
▪️ 845 bodies recovered.
🔳 Cumulative figures since 7 October 2023:
▪️ 74,594 martyrs.
▪️ 175,834 injured.
▪️ 18 previously unrecorded martyrs were added to the cumulative toll following official verification.
▪️ Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City: An israeli drone strike reportedly killed one Palestinian and wounded several others near the Western Mosque. A father and several of his children were among those seriously injured.
▪️ Al-Balakhia, north of Al-Shati refugee camp: Several Palestinians were wounded, some seriously, following an israeli airstrike. Reports from the two neighbouring areas have not been combined into a single casualty figure to avoid double-counting.
▪️ Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza: Palestinian schoolteacher Diya Abdel Mohsen Abu al-Rous was killed in israeli shelling while reportedly travelling to school.
▪️ Al-Maghazi refugee camp: Five Palestinians were reportedly wounded by israeli drone fire east of the camp. A quadcopter also dropped an explosive device near Abu Namous roundabout.
▪️ Deir al-Balah: israeli tanks opened fire while drones dropped explosive devices east of the city. Military vehicles stationed inside the Yellow Line also launched smoke grenades. Further south, israeli vehicles reportedly advanced beyond the Yellow Line, forcing several Palestinian families to flee their homes.
▪️ Khan Younis: Intensive israeli reconnaissance drone activity was reported across the city.
▪️ Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis: Four-month-old Habiba Zannoun and seven-month-old Aysel Abu Suhaiban died from severe burns after a fire engulfed their displacement tent in Ard al-Nakhil camp. Two more Palestinian infants lost their lives in the dangerous conditions displaced families are being forced to endure.
▪️ Tal al-Hawa, Gaza City: Palestinians held the funeral procession of Arafat Al-Ar’eer, who succumbed to injuries sustained in an earlier israeli airstrike.
Janet Mobbs retweeted
The UK charities sending nearly £2 million to illegal settlements.
Six British charities appear to funnel donations to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank👇
declassifieduk.org/the-uk-ch…
Janet Mobbs retweeted
In this week's ending 40 years of neoliberalism update, Burnham has:
- Gone easy on the banks making massive profits
- Left the big fossil fuel companies making ultra massive profits alone
- Is thinking about cutting money for warms homes to use it buy weapons
- Stuck to the Reeves' fiscal rules
- Not a penny more for public services in the Budget despite growing inflation
- Made a bottle of gherkins a couple of pence cheaper
