Sep 28, 2022 04:41 AM
(This post was last modified: Sep 28, 2022 07:36 AM by C C.)
UK's Labour Party pledges new public energy company
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/british...ny/2696233
INTRO: Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of Britain’s center-left, main opposition Labour Party, gave a keynote speech on Tuesday at the party's annual conference, in which he pledged to create a new publicly owned renewable energy company. Great British Energy would “cut bills, create jobs, and deliver energy independence,” he said, pointing to France’s EDF as an example. Starmer criticized Britain’s lack of a publicly-owned energy company, saying that Brits were in effect funding other countries... (MORE - details)
Italy's Meloni tells Ukraine it can count on her
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ita...022-09-28/
RELEASE: Nationalist leader Giorgia Meloni, set to become Italy's next prime minister, has pledged her full support for Kyiv after receiving congratulations from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for her election victory.
In a Tweet late on Tuesday, a day after Meloni and her right-wing allies won a commanding parliamentary majority, Zelenskiy said he was looking forward to "fruitful cooperation with the new government".
Meloni replied swiftly. "Dear (Zelenskiy), you know that you can count on our loyal support for the cause of freedom of Ukrainian people. Stay strong and keep your faith steadfast!" she wrote in English on Twitter.
Meloni has been one of the few Italian political leaders to wholeheartedly endorse outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi's decision to ship weapons to Ukraine, even though she was in opposition to his government.
By contrast, Meloni's two political allies, the League and Forza Italia, which were both in Draghi's coalition, have been much more ambivalent, reflecting their historically close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Underscoring the depth of those ties, Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi said last week that Putin had been "pushed" into invading Ukraine and had wanted to put "decent people" in charge of Kyiv.
Italians have dealt another blow to the establishment
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/26...blishment/
EXCERPTS: Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good.
Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of.
And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the media breathlessly call the ‘most right-wing government since Mussolini’.
[...] Ahead of the elections, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen issued a veiled threat, reminding Italy that the EU had the ‘tools’ to deal with wayward member states. ... Meloni is not the populist saviour Italy has been longing for. She isn’t spoiling to pick a huge fight with the Eurozone...
[...] Meloni has benefitted from the collapse of other parties rather than galvanising people across Italian society. But her triumph certainly shows that populist voters, desperate to land a blow against Brussels and its quislings in Rome, haven’t gone anywhere.
Meanwhile, the response from Brussels shows that the EU, having beaten the populist government of 2018 into submission, is becoming even more intolerant of dissent. Giorgia Meloni poses no threat to Italian democracy, but the EU certainly does.
So long as Brussels denies sovereignty to the people of Europe, the people of Europe will continue to defy it. The populist revolt isn’t dead yet. And that’s a good thing, too... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/british...ny/2696233
INTRO: Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of Britain’s center-left, main opposition Labour Party, gave a keynote speech on Tuesday at the party's annual conference, in which he pledged to create a new publicly owned renewable energy company. Great British Energy would “cut bills, create jobs, and deliver energy independence,” he said, pointing to France’s EDF as an example. Starmer criticized Britain’s lack of a publicly-owned energy company, saying that Brits were in effect funding other countries... (MORE - details)
Italy's Meloni tells Ukraine it can count on her
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ita...022-09-28/
RELEASE: Nationalist leader Giorgia Meloni, set to become Italy's next prime minister, has pledged her full support for Kyiv after receiving congratulations from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for her election victory.
In a Tweet late on Tuesday, a day after Meloni and her right-wing allies won a commanding parliamentary majority, Zelenskiy said he was looking forward to "fruitful cooperation with the new government".
Meloni replied swiftly. "Dear (Zelenskiy), you know that you can count on our loyal support for the cause of freedom of Ukrainian people. Stay strong and keep your faith steadfast!" she wrote in English on Twitter.
Meloni has been one of the few Italian political leaders to wholeheartedly endorse outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi's decision to ship weapons to Ukraine, even though she was in opposition to his government.
By contrast, Meloni's two political allies, the League and Forza Italia, which were both in Draghi's coalition, have been much more ambivalent, reflecting their historically close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Underscoring the depth of those ties, Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi said last week that Putin had been "pushed" into invading Ukraine and had wanted to put "decent people" in charge of Kyiv.
Italians have dealt another blow to the establishment
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/26...blishment/
EXCERPTS: Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good.
Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of.
And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the media breathlessly call the ‘most right-wing government since Mussolini’.
[...] Ahead of the elections, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen issued a veiled threat, reminding Italy that the EU had the ‘tools’ to deal with wayward member states. ... Meloni is not the populist saviour Italy has been longing for. She isn’t spoiling to pick a huge fight with the Eurozone...
[...] Meloni has benefitted from the collapse of other parties rather than galvanising people across Italian society. But her triumph certainly shows that populist voters, desperate to land a blow against Brussels and its quislings in Rome, haven’t gone anywhere.
Meanwhile, the response from Brussels shows that the EU, having beaten the populist government of 2018 into submission, is becoming even more intolerant of dissent. Giorgia Meloni poses no threat to Italian democracy, but the EU certainly does.
So long as Brussels denies sovereignty to the people of Europe, the people of Europe will continue to defy it. The populist revolt isn’t dead yet. And that’s a good thing, too... (MORE - missing details)