Huge anti-austerity march to take place though central London
Urging people to attend the event, the Islington North MP posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: 'We have a government in office that is now cutting benefits to the most vulnerable people in our society' and 'taking away the winter fuel payment for people who desperately need it.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Musk may indeed have won Trump the election. But his Wisconsin cheesehead humiliation proved he'd lost the juice
At Waterloo, Napoleon rode to his defeat wearing the fetching forest green uniform of a light cavalry colonel and his signature bicorne chapeau. In Wisconsin, Elon Musk rocked up in a novelty cheesehead hat. Dramatic? Okay, maybe a tad. The tech mogul's disorderly rout in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election this April, after splashing nearly $20 million on the race, was not Musk's final defeat. Even now, amid the glowing ruins of his thermonuclear exchange of views with his erstwhile bestie Donald Trump, it would be unwise to count him out. Nevertheless, the Wisconsin debacle marked a turning point in Musk's relationship with his presidential patron. And it's crucial to understanding just how their alliance unraveled so quickly and so explosively. Cast your mind back to the unfathomably distant past of March 19, 2020. While the world plunged headlong into disaster, Musk — having previously tweeted that "the coronavirus panic is dumb", while falsely claiming that "kids are essentially immune" — predicted that there would be "close to zero new cases in the U.S. by the end of April". Today we know that COVID-19 ended up killing an estimated 1.2m people in the U.S. and 7.1m people across the world (maybe far more). Around the same time, Musk reportedly made a private $1m bet with the philosopher Sam Harris that U.S. COVID-19 cases would never top 35,000. According to Harris, Musk never paid out, and the disagreement ended their friendship. "It was not long before he began maligning me on Twitter for a variety of imaginary offenses," Harris later wrote. In this we see the seeds of Musk's next five years. His attitude to COVID-19 exemplified his willingness to tweet from the hip and spread misinformation even with millions of lives at stake. His increasingly strident opposition to lockdowns and vaccine mandates, calling the former "fascist", presaged his embrace of movement conservatism and his descent into COVID conspiracism and antivaxism. And his alleged ghosting of Harris suggested a thin-skinned reluctance to ever admitting that he's wrong. Even so, in those days Musk was popular and admired across the political spectrum. He was the genius rocket-builder who put a sports car in orbit and made electric vehicles mainstream. He'd served as inspiration for the Marvel movies' take on Tony Stark, and graced the cover of TIME as its 2021 Person of the Year. Some tech journalists and electric vehicle experts had a less flattering view. They'd witnessed Musk's willingness to attack his critics and pursue petty grievances; to bend the truth, pick pointless fights, and (allegedly) break the law. But these incidents don't seem to have penetrated into wider public view. That remained the basic picture even as Musk's politics changed drastically. Piqued by his daughter Vivian Wilson's coming out as transgender, and seemingly aided by the brain-pickling effect of his favourite social network, he shifted rightward — from self-proclaimed "socialist" and centrist to redpilled crusader — and ultimately underwent a full-fat far-right radicalization. As recently as December 2022, Musk's net approval rating among American voters was narrowly positive, with many simply not knowing enough about him to have an opinion. By mid-2024, when Musk's political shift finally brought him into alliance with Trump, his popularity was dropping slowly. Still, it stayed close to neutral through the election in November and for weeks afterwards as citizens waited to see what Trump 2.0 would bring. All of which is to say that Musk might be right when he claims that he won Trump the election. While it's impossible to know what happened in the alternate universe (or, perhaps, the parallel simulation) where the tycoon did not intervene, there's every reason to think he made a big difference. Obviously his money helped; with a total contribution of $291m, he was both the biggest individual donor of the 2024 election cycle and the biggest of any election since at least 2010. Yet money isn't everything. Musk's endorsement gave permission to other tech barons to swallow their doubts or fears about Trump. Technocratic businessfolk who fancied themselves as hard-headed intellectuals, focused on excellence and competence above ordinary partisan politics — not a natural fit with Trump's governing style, to put it generously — now had one of their own tribe to help them imagine that Trump would build, build, build rather than burn, burn, burn. It's also possible that Musk had a hand in Trump's significant gains among young men, among whom he was especially popular. His reputation as a forward-thinking intellectual and an entrepreneurial mastermind — backed up by being the literal richest person on Earth — seemed to mitigate the fear that Trump really might be an atavistic troglodyte who's bad for business as well as merely bad at it. The strongest alliances, of course, are founded on mutual advantage. And at first it did seem like Trump had plenty to offer Musk in return: favorable regulatory treatment for his businesses, billions of dollars in government contracts, and even an influential position in government — along with, allegedly, access to millions of Americans' sensitive data. We don't yet know exactly why their relationship soured so quickly. Although both men have offered their own explanations, they are also historically unreliable narrators. Still, early reporting suggests that Musk was progressively disgruntled by a series of decisions made by Trump that were not in his favor. Chief among them: refusing to install his pal Jared Isaacman as head of NASA, which regularly awards lucrative contracts to Musk's company SpaceX. According to The New York Times, Trump objected to Isaacson's past donations to Democrats. However, it's hard to imagine that disqualifying him if Trump was really, truly committed. So why might Trump have been having second thoughts about his obligations to Musk? That brings us back to Wisconsin. Beginning in January, Musk's polling began to plummet, and by the eve of the judicial election it had hit -14 percent. It turns out that while voters broadly supported the idea of DOGE, many disagreed that indiscriminately bulldozing research and aid programs practically overnight — possibly causing hundreds of thousands of extra deaths around the world — is the best way to do it. Musk and Trump had worked so well together because they share many traits. Both have a deep-seated instinct to pick fights, and an uncanny knack for exploiting such conflicts to grow their personal brand. Both have an affinity for "big, beautiful" projects with implausibly ambitious goals. Both peddle falsehoods fluently and incessantly. Now those same qualities were coming back to bite them. Worse, accepting the DOGE job — let alone treating it as a license to abolish government agencies by fiat rather than a mere advisory role — was always inherently dangerous. Throughout human history, leaders have protected themselves from the consequences of their actions by scapegoating then sacrificing their subordinates. Opponents too may feel safer criticising the grand vizier than the sultan. Strangely, the smartest and wisest man on the planet seems not to have anticipated this risk. So whereas in 2024 Musk's strengths helped mitigate Trump's weaknesses, in 2025 Trump may have come to feel that Musk was dragging him down. If so, that feeling seems to have been mutual. "DOGE has just becoming the whipping boy for everything," Musk told The Washington Post last week. 'So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it." That's without even mentioning the impact on Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle maker. Rather than delivering new riches, working with Trump has earned him the hatred of car customers across the world, prompting mass protests and a steep drop in sales. You can imagine him feeling like he'd got the raw end of the deal. Musk, a business veteran but a political neophyte, has repeatedly claimed that his views and policies are overwhelmingly popular, often suggesting that appearance to the contrary is actually a mirage confected by the woke-industrial complex. Assuming he really believes this, Wisconsin must have been an awful shock. Just as hardship or tragedy can expose the cracks in a marriage, electoral failure widens the contradictions of an awkward political partnership. Suddenly all those little frustrations and ideological mismatches, which have always been there but were overlooked as long as the wins kept coming, become potential dealbreakers. So if Musk or Trump didn't have concerns before, that probably began to change at around 9:16pm local time on April 1, when the Associated Press called Wisconsin for the liberal-leaning Judge Susan Crawford. Now here we are. One can't help suspect that this partnership could still be intact if either man had properly factored into their calculations that Elon Musk might act like Elon Musk and Donald Trump might act like Donald Trump. But perhaps that's just proof that you and I lack the intellectual competence, the raw reasoning capability, to comprehend the complex five-dimensional chess moves that Musk has been executing all along. Masterful gambit, sir! What's next?
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
ITV Deal or No Deal star dealt huge blow minutes into charity special
Alex Brooker is facing off the Banker in tonight's Soccer Aid special A Deal or No Deal contestant has been dealt a huge blow, losing the £100K jackpot just minutes into the ITV show. Saturday Night's (7th June) Soccer Aid episode saw The Last Leg co-host Alex Brooker facing off the Banker, supported by a star-studded panel. In a bid to win up to £100,000 for UNICEF, Alex gunned for the cash prize assisted by celebrities, including former England player Jill Scott and Irish actor Emmett J. Scanlan. However, Alex was left devastated when he selected his brother Tom's box, hoping to strike blue. Initially optimistic about his choice, Alex told host Stephen Mulhern "I think my brother Tom, number eight, has got 50p in there [the box.]" Tom was equally confident, agreeing with his sibling that the box likely contained 50p. But the duo were dealt a huge blow as Tom opened his box to find £100,000 inside. The Soccer Aid team was visibly upset, and they were not alone. Viewers have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to echo their frustration at the huge loss. One penned: "Oh no! The £100K is gone," while a second voiced out: "£100K gone. I'm furious and raging." Other ITV fans were quick to question the star's process. "Why hasn't he got a system? Lucky numbers & bad numbers. Looks like he's just choosing randomly with no strategy," quipped one. This is a breaking showbiz story and is being constantly updated. Please refresh the page regularly to get the latest news, pictures and videos. You can also get email updates on the day's biggest stories straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletters.
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Trump says relationship with Musk is ‘over,' warns against funding democrats
US President Donald Trump on Saturday admitted that his relationship with Elon Musk, once a key ally and donor, is likely over. 'I would assume so, yeah,' he said in a telephonic interview with NBC News. Trump also warned of 'serious consequences' if the tech mogul provides financial support to Democratic candidates challenging Republicans who back the administration's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. 'If he does, he'll have to pay the consequences,' Trump added, though he declined to specify what those consequences might rift between the two prominent figures erupted publicly earlier this week, with Musk criticizing the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on X (formerly Twitter), calling it a 'disgusting abomination' and warning that Trump's tariff policies could trigger a even posted, then deleted, a post on X supporting Trump's impeachment, as well as a reference to Trump's past ties to Jeffrey Epstein, an allegation Trump dismissed as 'old news.' Trump responded harshly, accusing Musk of being 'disrespectful to the office of the President' and expressing disappointment in the billionaire, who has openly attacked the president's signature tax and GOP-Led spending bill, labelling it bloated and unfair to clean energy industriesMusk, a major donor during Trump's 2024 campaign, was appointed head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he led deep cuts to federal said he is confident the bill will pass before the July 4th deadline. 'The Republican Party has never been more united,' he claimed, adding that Musk's criticisms have only galvanized support for the also floated the idea of terminating Musk's federal contracts, particularly those involving SpaceX, but said he hadn't given it further thought. Allies like Steve Bannon have urged investigations into Musk's business dealings, but Trump said it's not something he's considering now.'I think it's a shame he's so depressed and heartbroken,' Trump said. 'But in a way, Elon helped highlight how good this bill really is.'Tune InMust Watch
