The welfare cuts rebellion
Plus, in the age of Trump, does the UK still matter on the world stage? Labour peer and former EU chief diplomat Catherine Ashton joins Kiran to discuss the conflict in the Middle East and how much influence Britain really has.
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Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Steve Coogan says working class are being 'ethnically cleansed' as redevelopment of northern cities does not benefit blue-collar workers
Steve Coogan has suggested that working class people are being 'ethnically cleansed' amid the redevelopment of northern cities. The Alan Partridge actor, 59, argued that investment in sophisticated skyscrapers did not benefit blue-collar workers. After backing the Greens at the last election, Mr Coogan appeared on BBC Breakfast on Friday to endorse the co-operative movement, which encourages businesses to share its profits among its employees. He said: 'The problem with all these cities like Liverpool and Manchester is they've got all these big shiny buildings, but all the people who are disenfranchised have been ethnically cleansed from the area. They don't actually benefit. 'What the co-operative movement does is tries to keep that money in the area and empower people and try to mitigate and push back against the effects of big business.' Mr Coogan also hit out at Nigel Farage 's Reform party for peddling 'racist rhetoric'. 'If the Government want to stop Reform making all these gains, instead of dealing with the symptoms of the problem by leaning into the racist rhetoric of Reform, they can deal with that by helping working people and the best way of doing that is to support the Co-operative movement,' he added. The comedian, who backed Labour under Jeremy Corbyn in both 2017 and 2019, criticised the political fabric of the UK, accusing governments of prioritising the wealthiest members of society. He claimed the co-operative movement aims to shift the focus towards working people and would soften the blow of Labour's recent welfare cuts which, after a chaotic backbench rebellion, saw the health element of Universal Credit halved. Last minute concessions, however, meant that radical changes to personal independence payment (Pip) would be delayed until November 2026. Mr Coogan also argued that a key reason post-industrial areas are 'dying' is the dominance of large supermarket chains. He claimed the co-operative movement would ensure less money left the local economy, with profits reinvested into key projects in the area. The movement is believed to date back to the 18th century but rose to prominence after the successful co-op at the Rochdale Pioneers' Shop in 1844. Mr Coogan pointed out that the idea was birthed in the UK but he suggested that it has been making bigger gains in other parts of the world. Earlier this year, the comedian starred in a two-part drama, written by James Graham, about Margaret Thatcher's 1989 interview with Brian Walden. The star, who plays the former Labour MP turned London Weekend Television host, said that he had 'huge antipathy' for the former PM describing himself as 'very anti-Thatcher'. He told the Radio Times: 'The one thing that I was worried about in this drama was being too compassionate because of her legacy.' The actor even took exception to a scene written by Sherwood writer Mr Graham, 42, for being 'too kind' to the Iron Lady and said that she would now be diagnosed with a 'disorder'. Mr Coogan added: 'In fact, in the edit we cut something because I thought it was a bit too kind and we wanted to remind people that there was this damage... 'She had vision and zeal, but she lacked empathy. Now, she'd probably be diagnosed with some sort of disorder.'
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
The destruction of Iran's nuclear programmes opens the door to a better future for citizens like me
The dismantling of the Ayatollah's dangerous nuclear sites is a defining moment for millions of us ordinary Iranians who have dared to dream that one day the country's repressive theocratic regime may fall. For the first time, I have hope in my heart. Twenty-eight years ago, I fled Iran to save my life and find freedom in the UK. I was arrested twice in Iran due to my outspoken opposition to the regime. Following my second arrest, I learned that it was planning to eliminate me. I had no choice but to leave. You can never truly escape a regime of this nature, though. Iran's tentacles now threaten us here, with its active promotion of extremism, and MI5 have revealed that they have foiled more than 20 terror plots from Iran's brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since 2022. It has heavily invested in British charities, mosques and communities in order to destroy the very foundations of what we stand for and destroy us from within. Alert to the emerging threat, two and a half years ago, I made the difficult decision to sacrifice the very freedom I once sought for myself. I have lived on the streets ever since, away from my wife, the Conservative councillor Mattie Heaven, my home, and my family, risking my life every day that I am in the peace camp opposite the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Repeatedly subject to verbal and physical attacks by agents of the IRGC freely acting on British soil, I treat every day as my last. I've been threatened with beheading, with a large knife later discovered on one of the assailants by the police. A fatwa has even been issued against me. The destruction of Iran's nuclear programmes opens the door to a better future for the citizens of Iran. This historic people have suffered for 47 long years. The butchers of Tehran have perpetrated grisly human rights abuses, with public hangings a daily horror and women beaten for the 'crime' of not wearing a hijab 'correctly.' Is it any surprise that 80 per cent of the Iranian public oppose the Iranian regime? Shaken to its core, the regime has again turned to what it knows best. More than 700 people have been arrested over the last two weeks on spurious claims that they aided Israel, including rabbis and other senior Jewish leaders. Executions are also on the rise again. It is nothing more than a desperate attempt to silence critics and forestall an uprising against the teetering regime. The internet was taken down for days on end. Human rights groups are sounding the alarm over unfair trials and forced confessions. Journalists and their families have been threatened, including those from the BBC. Internet access continues to be restricted. We can ill afford not to prepare for the regime's impending collapse. The arduous work must be completed now to ensure Iran's next chapter is not written in blood or chaos, but in law, democracy, and the will of the people. Iran's once great civil society has been mercilessly eroded by the regime and needs the support of the international community and the Iranian diaspora to usher in a new Iran. It is why the Iranian Front for the Revival of Law and National Sovereignty, which I recently launched in the European Parliament with cross-party support, is working flat out to produce the necessary legal framework to stabilise the country, protect citizens and pave the way for a freely elected Constituent Assembly. It is inspiring that representatives of Iran's richly diverse ethnic, religious and political groups are engaging with the initiative, as well as many of those who were forced into exile. There can be no going back to the status quo, which has crushed the Iranian people and caused untold suffering throughout the region, including the deaths of British soldiers and British citizens wasting away in Iran's grim jails. The UK Government must embrace this historic moment and join our groundbreaking efforts. After all, the advancement of democracy and equality in an unstable world is good for the people of Britain. It will also eradicate Iran's deep role in people smuggling and drug trafficking, which are destabilising British society. The challenges of regime change are significant, but they are incomparable to the vast opportunities it would bring not only for the people of Iran but for the security, stability, and prosperity of the entire world. A free, democratic Iran would be a turning point for the region and a beacon of hope for global peace. The Iranian people have shown remarkable resilience and it is our duty to prepare the ground for a better future – one of democracy, equality and freedom.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Releasing lynx into the wild would be disastrous for Britain's farmers
You'd be forgiven for thinking it was an imaginative, if not bloodthirsty, way to get rid of farmers protesting against the new inheritance tax rules. In June, the Lynx UK Trust , an organisation that campaigns to reintroduce wild Lynx to areas of rural Britain formally applied to reintroduce the cats to the Kielder forest in Northumberland. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) promptly refused, on the grounds that Lynx are classified as dangerous wild animals. But then the head of the government's wildlife regulator stepped in. Tony Juniper, chair of Natural England said he personally was 'enthusiastic' about reintroducing wild lynx to Britain – and would be 'absolutely delighted' if it could be achieved during his two-year term. In rural East Yorkshire, where I work, this was met with a degree of eye-rolling. People in agriculture have been aware of the proposals for a while, but until now, no one took them seriously. That has shifted a notch to: 'they couldn't… could they?' I do not work in agriculture, but my dad's family were tenant farmers, smallholders and contractors. My brother works on an arable farm on the Yorkshire Wolds, and I meet a lot of people in the industry. Politically, I always find myself caught in the middle ground. I think farmers moan too much and are too resistant to change, and I think too much farm and conservation policy is made by experts who give a good impression of not really knowing what they're doing. In this case, you have to say the reintroduction of the lynx to the wild in Britain would cause many problems for farmers – although it's not all about farms and the cats themselves. The most obvious issue – so obvious that it is acknowledged by lynx advocates – is the risk to livestock. There is no question that on large, upland farms, lambs would be killed. The Lynx to Scotland campaign group proposes financial compensation schemes to cover this, but you wonder about the limitations – surely once the predators know where the easy meals are, they will be back – repeatedly? And how do you prove a missing lamb was taken? This would not affect only sheep. In Europe, the lynx's preferred prey is deer, and there are about 30,000 farmed deer on 400 farms in the UK. You'd worry for outdoor-reared pigs as well. I know a man from a farm in Poland, where wolf numbers have grown in recent years, who tells stories about his family at home bringing in stock from the fields at night to protect them, so it's feasible that on some deer, pig and sheep farms we would see some form of evening round-up, or shelters being built. There is then the question of game on country estates. Few people, or indeed animals, will shed tears over barons and bankers being deprived of the chance to bag pheasant, but the awkward fact is that hunting tends to go hand in hand with a strong degree of nature conservation. Of course, landowners aren't going to give that up because a lynx snarfs a snipe here and there, but what they will do is get their gamekeepers to shoot them. The less obvious risk concerns not commercially bred animals, but domestic pets. A lynx's hunting range can be up to about 170 square miles, and they can travel up to around 12 miles a night. That would surely allow for them to enter rural housing developments, estates and villages in search of food, in the way foxes and deer do fairly routinely now. Given cats' noisy predilection for fighting, it seems a very real possibility that, in winter, they would end up attacking domestic pets. At this point, especially if it happens in a quiet news period, it would all become a very different kind of problem. Where that could affect farmers is in local pressure to fence-in land abutting housing. Given the increasing public complaints about the noise, smell and mud that are inextricably linked with agriculture, it would hardly be a surprise, should the circumstances arise. Admittedly, this is highly speculative and slightly paranoid, but it is worth pointing out that some rewilding schemes do have unintended consequences. Nature is full of unforeseen knock-on effects: this year, my neighbour got a rather murderous house cat, and the hay and barley fields next door are visibly less eaten-off by rabbits, because the cat has either eaten them or scared them off. Similarly, it appears to me and several local birdwatchers I know that the reintroduction of birds of prey, combined with the policy of cutting hedges less frequently, has visibly reduced the number of small birds. This is because, unable to get deep into the hedge any more, they nest on the outer edges where the nests make easy targets for sparrowhawks. It's for reasons like this that I find the idea of rewilding dubious in its insistence that nature somehow finds its own healthy balance; such balance as it finds is a lot healthier for the predator than for the prey. I can see that it can work in vast spaces – to be fair the reintroduction of lynx in areas of Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland seems to have worked without too much carnage. However, in most of the UK, the space is far from vast, and benefits from some sort of management. Finally, if the UK government's wildlife body does approve the reintroduction of the lynx, it may have another, more vague effect on farmers because of its symbolism. There has been no coherent agricultural policy from the current or the previous government, and there is a sense in the industry that these days MPs would rather just get the food from overseas, and pack in with food production altogether to save the greenhouse gas emissions. That may or may not be true – but releasing a livestock predator back into the wild would be interpreted by many as a certain signal of intent.
