The House of Commons now supports a ceasefire.

However MPs arrived at this, whatever the scenes that unfolded, we must not forget the source of the suffering and anguish that has driven this fractious debate.

A thread on today's ceasefire debate.

1/6 Whether in Israel or Gaza, the ultimate truth is that it is fellow human beings who have been killed in the most awful of ways these past few months.

That must end, and all remaining hostages must be released.

2/6

1. As someone with Grenadian heritage - I want to mark the 50th anniversary of the independence of Grenada.

A thread on the questions that remain unanswered. 2. To mark 50 years, I asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office a series of written parliamentary questions, one of which reads:

Whether his Department holds information on the location of the remains of Maurice Bishop, the former prime minister of Grenada.

1. Instead of backing down, it is time for Labour to face down the Tories and win the case for public investment in the climate transition - of £28bn and beyond.

Thread. 2. The Conservative's failure on public investment and planning is writ large across our country.

Just look to the steelworkers and community of Port Talbot. They face the collapse of their livelihood due to the govt's failure to plan for or invest in the future of UK steel.

Holocaust Memorial Day is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

But whilst we remember we should also reflect.

A thread. 1/8 My own reflection often centres on the time I was fortunate enough to be taken to Auschwitz by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

There is no substitute for the humbling effect of seeing a camp that has become synonymous with mass murder and humanity’s capacity for darkness.

2/8

If the UK and US dismiss the ICJ ruling, this is those such double standards would play out across much of the world, according to the Chatham House Thinktank:

1. “The west cares about democracy, but not when it wants to install leaders it likes in other countries… 2. “It respects sovereignty except when it does not, as in Iraq. It argues for self-determination in Taiwan, not in Catalonia. It supports human rights, but not in countries from which it needs oil. It defends human rights except when it gets too difficult, as in Afghanist

Whilst schools across the UK are doing a great job, the reality is they can never be a substitute for a genuine system of social security.

I visited West Earlham Infant and Nursery School and was humbled to see what systems have been put in place to nurture pupils.

THREAD. 1/6





This is the same school featured in The Guardian last month.

Children here have such dire malnutrition they are developing bowed legs - a sign of rickets and vitamin D deficiency.

2/6

.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/d…

Britain is built on forgetting our history.

Here's why it explains the present-day crisis of our democracy.

A thread.

1/10 🧵 We know those who control the past control the present.

The stories we tell ourselves about our past will determine the parameters of what today is considered politically possible and what’s ruled out.

It’s clearly powerful.

2/10

TODAY, MPs have an unmissable chance to fix our broken energy pricing system.

We can tackle fuel poverty and the climate crisis at the same time if MPs back my National Energy Guarantee amendment to the Energy Bill.

Here's what it is, and why it's a game-changer.

Thread. The Energy Bill might have been an opportunity to reset our energy pricing system.

But it’s looking as though that opportunity will be missed.

That’s why I am tabling New Clause 36, to introduce a National Energy Guarantee.

THREAD.

Labour’s National Policy Forum has formally recognised that our electoral system is a driver of “the distrust and alienation we see in politics”.

This is significant. Here’s why, and where the movement for PR and voting equality could go next.

labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/news/fptp-flaw… Firstly, let’s recognise this shift is due to determined party members, who have twice in a row won votes in support of PR at conference.

Now, our party has formally acknowledged that our electoral system – First Past the Post - is flawed and deeply damaging to our politics.

1/5 The attack on the freedom of workers in the Anti-Strikes Bill is part of a longer-term project.

That project aims to take political and economic power away from the many so that it is held only by the few.

This is why the Government is really attacking trade unions. 2/5 This legislation puts beyond a shadow of a doubt whose side this Government is really on.

It's not the side of the public. Because this Government is taking away the public's democratic rights. #RightToStrike

Thread..
1. Britain’s colonial legislative history is not deeply buried. It lies just beneath the surface. Successive governments have made that clear with 70 years of racialised immigration legislation. This week’s #Windrush u-turn is just the tip of that iceberg.

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1618731433782136834

2. Tory Home Sec 1962 Immigration Bill “We must recognise that, although the scheme purports to relate solely to employment & to be non-discriminatory,its aim is primarily social & its restrictive effect intended to & would, in fact, operate on coloured people almost exclusively”

1/8 Discussion of the monarchy, our politics, our constitution, is something to be vigorously aired. Not shut down or temporarily suppressed.

Read more in my article here:

theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 2/8 In this period of transition there are pillars of our so-called democracy which have been deemed outside the realm of public discussion.

The Head of State has changed, yet we are told any conversation about constitutional monarchy must wait until later.

The obsession with GDP helps evade questions of distribution while promoting infinite expansion on a finite planet.

Only in the warped reality of our current growth obsessed economic model is expansion without end seen as a virtue. In biology, it's called a cancer. To successfully face the key challenges of this century – inequality, democratic erosion, and ecological breakdown – we need to centre new tools that measure public and planetary wellbeing, democratic health, and the ecological cost of economic activity.

Today, provisions in the Health and Care Act 2022 come into effect which sees decision-making about local health services handed over to democratically unaccountable third parties, including private companies.

thread. I've written about problems with the Integrated Care System model being rolled out. Simply put the issue is this:

The ICS model "will not guarantee my constituents' right to access the healthcare they need, when they need it.” @thepublicmatters

independent.co.uk/voices/health-…

This is a call to action to everyone campaigning for action on the climate crisis and a just transition:

Join a @RMTunion picket line tomorrow if you can. This is our fight and your solidarity is needed. #RailStrikes This Govt’s attack on rail workers should be seen as part of a wider plan to suck money from the railways (euphemistically termed ‘modernisation’).

As well as attacking pay and conditions, it's part of a retreat from even the limited commitments made to net zero and at #COP26.

Sorry to @NorwichRMT that I can't join you on the picket line today. A number of factors (including no trains!) prevents me from being there. I did join the closest @RMTunion picket line to me to support striking workers, alongside @CWUnews members who were there in solidarity. No rail workers wanted to strike; wanted disruption for the public they serve every day; wanted to lose pay.

@RMTunion members simply wanted a wage packet they can lived on and decent working conditions.

rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-state…

THREAD
1. Jo Biden & other western leaders are telling us we must prepare for ‘sacrifices’ in the fight against autocracy. It’s been a recurring theme throughout the conflict. I’d like to unpack this a little
on.ft.com/37XLSUB 2. Putin’s kleptocratic government (it’s almost a textbook definition as opposed to being an autocracy) is both aggressive and dangerous. Standing up to it in the name of ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ is a very worthy ambition.

After today's #SpringStatement and the breathtaking failure to deal with the living standards crisis, many of my constituents and millions around our country will be not merely be forced to make a choice between eating and heating. They're going to be priced out of doing either. THREAD
But this isn’t a crisis that started with today’s #springstatement Nor did it start with the invasion of Ukraine or the 2008 banking crash or the decade of austerity that followed. Instead, it started in 1979.

In a healthy democracy Boris Johnson would by now be a former PM. The fact he's still in post - having lied to Parliament and the public last year - tells us we have a problem that goes beyond his personal qualities as a political leader, to the heart of our failing democracy. We now know Boris Johnson and the No 10 operation either didn’t understand the lockdown rules they made, or they didn’t believe those rules applied to them.

Either of these possibilities means this PM should resign and his government fall. But they haven’t.

THREAD

It’s time to challenge the Tory’s false narrative that the NHS is on its knees because of the behaviour of individuals and supposedly unforseen 'emergencies'. They’re shifting the blame away from their own role in creating a public health crisis.

theguardian.com/world/2021/dec… The NHS is there to provide universal healthcare, and the virus is with us for the foreseeable future.

The total NHS waiting list is now 5.9m & growing. This is symptomatic of the Tory's failure to build a resilient NHS that's adapted to our new reality.
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

The Government's announcement on social care is going to hit young people and lower earning householders the hardest.

Worryingly, it has also now established three new principles. (thread)

inews.co.uk/news/politics/… First, there will be no free or universal care system for the elderly and disabled. The user will pay and their assets will be liquidated in the process.