UK
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The Priory Group: ‘morally bankrupt’ company makes millions for owners while young people die in its care
Last month, Priory Healthcare was fined £300,000 after 14 year-old Amy El-Keria died in one of its hospitals. Priory’s prosecution for health and safety violations was the first of its kind and the result of years of campaigning by Amy’s family. Continue reading
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Universal Credit : The state and the BBC secretly collude in propaganda campaign
By TruePublica Editor: There is an extraordinary story published in The Guardian that, in my opinion, was not prominently positioned – with its opening explainer stating: “A leaked memo shows that the Department for Work and Pensions is about to embark on a PR campaign to defend its worst ever policy.” Continue reading
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Conservative Party implodes over Brexit crisis as May agrees to stand down next month By Robert Stevens
UK Prime Minister Theresa May is set to stand down as Tory party leader and prime minister after her European Union Withdrawal Agreement Bill goes before Parliament in the first week of June. Since May reached a deal with the EU in November, she has been unable to secure agreement from a deeply divided parliament. Continue reading
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NHS: Staffing challenges now “bigger threat to the future of the NHS than funding cuts”
Two interesting facts not published that emerged from this report. One is that doctors are now so overworked that approximately 80 per cent are at threat of ‘burnout.’ The term “burnout” was coined in the 1970s by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. He used it to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals… Continue reading
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The latest multi-billion pound move in NHS privatisation – is the endgame in sight?
“No privatisation of the NHS on my watch,” said Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health, shortly after taking up his post. But this week the Health Services Journal (HSJ) revealed that “Providers offered control of NHSE budgets worth billions” (paywall). The article is explicit that the private healthcare sector is central among those now… Continue reading
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NHS : FoI requests show planned shutdown of services
By TruePublica: The NHS is no longer facing a crisis – it’s worse than that. The reality is that an inward collapse, an implosion, is now the most likely scenario in the face of a government unwilling to take action, whilst its privatisation plans and disastrous handling of Brexit continues. Continue reading
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UK: Government of Denial: Crisis? What Crisis?
Looking at the Conservative party as it is right now, it would be easy to believe they are of a different species, who speak a different language, who came from a different world – a different dimension even. Every day a new statistic of our failing nation feels more like the opening of festering wounds,… Continue reading
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Open Rights Group: Let’s meet up in London next week
Join us in London on Tuesday 21 May for a special election week event spotlighting the nexus between data and democracy. Continue reading
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UK Tory government maintains benefit sanctions as misery and deaths continue By Paul Bond
Last week, an inquest in North Wales recorded a verdict of suicide in the case of an 81-year-old woman left virtually penniless after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) froze her pension payments. Continue reading
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Government forced to delete millions of illegal citizen biometric voiceprints
Last year, TruePublica published an article about how the British government were now going ‘full Orwellian‘ in their attempt to build a national biometric database. The opening line to the article was – “We said that the government would eventually take the biometric data of every single citizen living in Britain and use it for… Continue reading
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NHS privatisation – the endgame now in sight
By Jessica Ormerod and Deborah Harrington: “No privatisation of the NHS on my watch,” said Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health, shortly after taking up his post. But this week the Health Services Journal (HSJ) revealed that “Providers offered control of NHSE budgets worth billions” (paywall). The article is explicit that the private healthcare… Continue reading
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Misled again by the arbiters of anti-semitism By Jonathan Cook
British comedian David Schneider has become one of the more influential public figures on social media seeking to arbitrate what constitutes anti-semitism. Compared to TV show host Rachel Riley, or even Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, Schneider is an exemplar of moderation and rationality. But, to be honest, the bar has been set pretty low in… Continue reading
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Government Now Implicitly Accepts Liability for 72 Deaths in Grenfell Tower, West London By Hans Stehling
After two years of denial, evasion and procrastination, this government has finally accepted ultimate responsibility for the atrocity of multiple deaths in Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, West London on 14th June 2017. Continue reading
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UK Constitution Committee: Brexit Trade Deals “keeping public in the dark” and “fundamentally undemocratic”
This is the sixth report in a series from the UK Parliament’s Constitution Committee does not reflect this view in the slightest – which has additionally slammed the government’s secretive trade deal negotiations as nothing more than “anti-democratic.” The language used by expert witnesses in these reports speak for themselves; “seriously inadequate, undemocratic, not fit… Continue reading
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Summer of Discontent? Your Legal Protest Rights
By Ian Browne– advice and information officer at Liberty: Unless you’ve stayed away from all forms of news and social media recently, you’re probably aware that hundreds of people have taken to the streets for multiple simultaneous climate change protests. Continue reading
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The UK is ‘getting worse’ on torture and ill-treatment both at home and abroad
This week, the UK is facing UN scrutiny for its record on torture and ill-treatment at home and abroad. The UN Committee against Torture, the expert body that monitors implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, will meet in Geneva to examine the UK’s record. Continue reading
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BAT shifts nearly $1bn out of developing countries into one UK office
Tax Justice Network: For every dollar British American Tobacco (BAT) paid in tax in the countries it operates in, the giant multinational shifted more than half a dollar that would have been taxed locally to a UK subsidiary where BAT paid almost no tax.[1] New analysis by the Tax Justice Network estimates Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya,… Continue reading
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Pompeo lays down the law during UK visit By Robert Stevens
Preceding the state visit of President Donald Trump to the UK next month, Pompeo’s remit was to demand that Theresa May’s government toe the line in backing the global geo-strategic imperatives of US imperialism… or else. Continue reading
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Fracking industry and resigning tsar Natascha Engel hit full media spin cycle on quake rules By Melissa Jones
As an exercise in coordinated media spin, it was a tour de force. UK shale gas commissioner Natascha Engel’s resignation last weekend just seven months into a two-year taxpayer-funded appointment had astute industry PR gloves all over it. Continue reading
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Britain: National Union of Journalists World Press Freedom Day event ignores Julian Assange By Paul Mitchell
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) held a meeting last Friday at the Free Word centre in London to mark World Press Freedom Day.The event was billed as “an opportunity to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom, assess the state of press freedom throughout the world and pay tribute to journalists who have lost… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 