Ed Miliband says Labour will ‘win fight' against UK net zero critics
Ed Miliband has said the government will 'win this fight' against critics of Britain's net zero plan, in part by creating more offshore wind jobs in the country's former industrial heartlands.
The energy secretary appeared to take aim at his political opponents in the Conservative and Reform UK parties as he launched a £1bn investment scheme to bolster job opportunities in the offshore wind supply chain.
He told an energy industry conference on Tuesday that the investment would usher in a 'green industrial revolution' for workers in manufacturing heartlands such as Teesside, Scotland, South Wales and East Anglia.
Britain's former industrial towns have shown growing support for the Reform party, which has promised to scrap Britain's net zero agenda if it comes to power in the next election in 2029.
The Conservative party's leader, Kemi Badenoch, has also vowed to drop her party's commitment to reaching net zero by 2050 after describing the legally binding climate target as 'impossible'.
Miliband told journalists at Tuesday's event: 'We're going to win this fight, and we're going to win this fight partly because of all the jobs that these companies are creating with us.'
He added: 'The forces that want to take us backwards, the forces that oppose net zero, will have to reckon not just with the government. They will have to reckon with all these companies that are creating jobs.'
The government's £1bn investment in the supply chain companies that support the offshore wind industry includes £300m funding from Great British Energy and match funding of £300m from the offshore wind industry. This will come alongside a £400m investment from the crown estate.
The government expects the funding to support thousands of long-term additional jobs, including the electricians manufacturing the turbines and blades used by offshore windfarm developers to the engineers responsible for the construction and maintenance of windfarms.
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A report by the industry trade group RenewableUK has found that 55,000 people now work in the UK wind industry, including 40,000 in offshore wind – an increase of almost a quarter in the last two years.
The report found that between 74,000 and 95,000 people will be needed to meet the government's plan to quadruple Britain's offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade, which would take the total UK wind workforce to over 112,000 by 2030.
The highest numbers of new jobs are expected to be created in the east of England and in Yorkshire and the Humber, where the Reform party saw growing support in the recent council elections. New offshore wind jobs are also expected in Scotland, which will hold its local elections next year.
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Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
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Health secretary Neil Gray accused of 'arrogance and entitlement' after he was chauffeur-driven to a pub
Scotland's Health Secretary has been accused of 'arrogance and entitlement' after defending his decision to take a taxpayer-funded limousine to the pub. Neil Gray has refused to apologise and insisted he would not resign for taking a chauffeur-driven ride in the ministerial car to the Brig O'Don watering hole in Aberdeen before being taken on to watch his favourite team play a league match at Pittodrie. It follows calls for him to quit for the latest controversy, after previously coming under fire for using the ministerial car to travel to a series of Aberdeen fixtures. Scottish Government rules state limos cannot be used when the 'principal purpose' of a trip' is not connected to the performance of ministerial duties'. But when challenged on the issue yesterday, Mr Gray told the broadcaster LBC: 'I was on my way between ministerial engagements, I went from a dinner at a restaurant. 'It is all within the rules. I've said quite a bit on this in the past and I've got nothing further to add.' He said he would not be resigning and that he 'absolutely' has the backing of the First Minister and is focused on 'reform and renewal' of the NHS. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'This response smacks of arrogance and entitlement from Neil Gray. 'His refusal to apologise sums up why many Scots are disillusioned with politics and their trust in SNP politicians is broken. He is acting like there is nothing to see here when he has disgracefully misled Parliament. 'Neil Gray's position is health secretary is untenable. How can patients and staff ever trust him again on the NHS after his fabricated account of his use of the ministerial limo?' The journeys were initially logged in the official ministerial register as trips to and from a 'personal address, Aberdeen', and were only amended after an investigation showed no evidence of an address could be found. The Scottish Government insisted there had been an 'administration error' and officials admitted that Mr Gray has no home address in Aberdeen. But the revelation led to claims he had misled parliament for a second time over his ministerial car journeys. Mr Gray previously issued a humiliating apology in the Scottish Parliament last November following revelations that he was chauffuered to and from nine football matches involving Aberdeen FC or Scotland in the period between 2022 and 2024. He apologised to MSPs for giving 'the impression of acting more as a fan and less as a minister' but reassured them that officials had made a record of business meetings at the games. In January, he was forced to apologise again - and admit he had misled parliament - after it was revealed there was no such written record of discussions he was involved in when he attended the 2023 Scottish League Cup Final between Aberdeen and Rangers. On May 15, 2024, Mr Gray was invited by Aberdeen FC Community Trust to take part in a number of Mental Health Awareness Week events and after his meetings, the official Government record showed he was taken to a 'personal address' in Aberdeen. Yet when this claim was investigated, there was no evidence of Mr Gray having a second home in the region. When questioned over the irregularity, SNP spin doctors admitted to The Mail that the Health Secretary was not in fact returning to a home address in Aberdeen, as he did not have one - but was instead attending what they said was a 'personal engagement' at a 'restaurant'. A source confirmed that Mr Gray went to the Brig O'Don, which describes itself as a 'pub restaurant', and is located less than two miles from Pittodrie stadium. The insider confirmed Mr Gray picked up his own bill at the pub.
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
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No jail sentence is long enough for the cowards who covered up for the Pakistani rape gangs
Thank heavens for Louise Casey. A report this week by the Baroness of Awkward Truths, which found that public bodies covered up horrific evidence about Pakistani-origin rape gangs 'for fear of appearing racist', has forced another humiliating reversal on Sir Keir Starmer. The smell of burning rubber is never far from our handbrake-turn Prime Minister, who has now accepted Casey's recommendation for a national inquiry. He had insisted that wanting such an investigation into those heinous crimes, the worst scandal in British history no less, was evidence you were marginally to the Right of Genghis Khan, or possibly even Tony Blair. Some 364 MPs shamefully voted against a statutory inquiry, including Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips who couldn't do enough for the traumatised victims until she stabbed them in the front. Baroness Casey's findings brought back an emotional encounter I had as I was leaving an event earlier this year. 'Forgive me for asking, Miss Pearson, but what happened to the British men?' The silver-haired American in sports jacket and tie in front of me had a concerned look on his face. I had just appeared on a panel discussing the Pakistani rape gangs chaired by Mark Steyn, who had campaigned relentlessly for their victims when he was a presenter on GB News. Survivors Sammy Woodhouse and Samantha Smith, my fellow panellists, had told the international audience about the ordeal they, and thousands of other British girls, had lived through. Not just being raped and tortured as children, but later stigmatised as prostitutes, criminals and liars in their twenties when they finally plucked up courage to speak out. Sammy recalled that police in Rotherham colluded openly with her abuser, Arshid Hussain, buying his drugs and tipping him off when he was about to have his collar felt. When officers found Sammy in bed with 'Ash', a 24-year-old British Pakistani, they arrested her for possessing an offensive weapon (which was his). The serial rapist with a rumoured string of more than 50 under-age girls in his highly-profitable harem was not held by police. Sammy was 14 at the time and pregnant. Still a child, then, although childhood and the bubbly, bright little girl who dreamed of being a professional dancer were long gone. After those two brave, articulate women up on stage finished telling their stories of almost surreal depravity, Steyn's audience – Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Americans, Brits – sat in horrified silence. Not quite silence; a lot of people were crying. A question hung in the incredulous air. How could the UK have allowed such monstrosities to happen to its kids and then allow it to be covered up for years until victims-turned-campaigners, like the two Samanthas, fought tooth and nail to bring it to public attention? Clearly, that's what was bothering the American. He was desperate to understand why British men had not protected their girls. 'See, where I come from, if they'd done that we'd have picked up our guns and…' I nodded. (To be fair, in the UK, when the Pakistani groomers briefly targeted Sikh girls, outraged Sikh men picked up baseball bats and taught them a lesson.) What to say? How do you account for a warped ideology that has taken hold in your country, a fatal blend of cultural incompatibility on the one hand and institutional cowardice and fear of 'Islamophobia' on the other? 'Many of the girls were in care or they came from troubled homes, so often they didn't have fathers to help them,' I began falteringly. 'Sammy's dad did try to rescue his daughter from a house where she was trafficked and police threatened to arrest him, not the groomers.' 'What the hell?!,' exclaimed the American. 'Exactly. What the hell. It's really to do with political correctness,' I went on. 'The Labour Party, which ran most of the towns where the grooming gangs operated, became dependent on Muslim votes and they were very reluctant to have the Pakistani community criticised. So the white, working-class girls (' who must have been asking for it') were not believed even though what was happening to them was evil. And anyone who dared to speak up for them was damned as 'racist', which was hugely damaging obviously, so mainly people stayed silent. Essentially, white kids were sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism. It was Votes for Girls, that was the deal.' (Revealingly, in an interview for this week's Planet Normal, Sammy Woodhouse told me that her abuser, 'Ash', was fully aware of the protected status he enjoyed as a British Pakistani Muslim, and happily exploited it. 'I'll just play the race card,' he used to say.) One thing I didn't mention to that American guy was the complicit role played by the media, notably the BBC, and others in the metropolitan bubble. 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(A quick look at the police mugshots for most grooming-gang trials quickly told you that white men, although heavily represented among paedophiles, were not the major villains in the trafficking of pre-teen and teenage girls.) How marvellous to see our Islamist-friendly Home Office thoroughly debunked in this new report from Baroness Casey. 'This audit found it hard to understand how the Home Office [2020] paper reached that conclusion, which does not seem to be evidenced in research or data.' Oops. Astoundingly, in our interview, Sammy Woodhouse recalled that 'in council safeguarding meetings, when I was a child who was being raped by a 24-year-old Pakistani man, there was an anti-racism co-ordinator'. That tells you everything you need to know about the priority of Labour authorities – and it sure as hell wasn't protecting innocent little girls. 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North Wales Chronicle
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