Labour inherited a dire situation that needed desperate change – but powerful lobbies make any tax reform near-impossible
That was a state-of-the-nation image, those thousands of farmers in Whitehall protesting about inheritance tax (IHT). Their little inheritors on toy tractors could hardly have offered a better portrait of a Britain where even modest reforms of wildly irrational tax reliefs are near-impossible. The country loves Old MacDonald and detests IHT.
This is a symbol of the great malaise those same contrary voters feel about the profound unfairness in this most unequal of countries. Few think it’s OK for the top 1% to own almost a quarter of all wealth, or the top 0.1% to take about 60 times more income than their population share, while we are living through the greatest decline in living standards since records began.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/22/2024 - 03:00
11/22/2024 - 02:34
Petrostate’s rebuke comes as Saudi Arabia and allies try to derail transition promise made at climate talks last year
Cop29 climate summit – live updates
The world must stand behind a historic resolution made last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the United Arab Emirates has said, in a powerful intervention into a damaging row over climate action.
The petrostate’s stance will be seen as as a sharp rebuke to its neighbour and close ally Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to unpick the global commitment at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan this week.
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11/22/2024 - 02:20
Text ‘decides’ on $250bn for developing countries by 2035 – but faces criticism from African Group of Negotiators
A new text of the Cop29 deal has yet to emerge, but civil society activists have not given up hope, reports Damian Carrington, Guardian environment editor.
Hilda Nakabuye, 27, from Fridays for Future campaign group in Uganda, said:
We are holding on to hope. As a mother I am here to represent my people, my community, but also future generations that we hold close and dear to our hearts and why we are all in this fight. The ones least responsible for climate change undergo its worst effects.
We know what power we hold: the power to act. We are in an emergency. This COP is all about the money, but communities on the ground are not seeing the money. When the climate hits we need to respond like any other emergency, because it is an emergency. We all know deep down there is more than enough money to fill the loss and damage fund with trillions, so why are we still pleading for the bare minimum?
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11/22/2024 - 01:57
In today’s newsletter: After two weeks of fraught negotiations, the draft text still contains an ‘X’ in place of a number. Is consensus on a trillion-dollar funding target for developing nations possible?
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Good morning. For a clear symbol of how much work lies ahead at what is supposed to be the last session of the Cop29 climate summit today, you only have to look at the figure included in the draft text on new climate finance for developing countries: “[X] trillion dollars”.
That placeholder on the most important single detail under consideration – included in two rival versions of the text – was supposed to leave space for negotiation. But it also suggests how much still has to be decided if any kind of positive momentum is to be rescued from two very difficult weeks in Azerbaijan.
Israel | The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war. It is the first time that leaders of a democracy and western-aligned state have been charged by the court.
Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the use of an experimental ballistic missile by Russia amounted to “a clear and severe escalation” in the war and called for worldwide condemnation of the move. Vladimir Putin said that the missile lauch “was a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”.
US politics | Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman, withdrew from consideration to serve as Donald Trump’s attorney general on Thursday amid intense scrutiny of allegations of sexual misconduct. Later, Trump nominated former Florida state attorney general Pam Bondi in Gaetz’s place.
Farming | New inheritance tax rules for farmers could be changed to make it easier for those 80 and over to hand down their farm without it incurring the tax, in what would be a partial climbdown by the government after a bruising row with farmers and a huge protest march in Westminster on Tuesday.
Art | A banana bought for 35 cents and taped to a gallery wall with duct tape by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has sold for $5.2m, making it surely the most expensive piece of edible fruit on the planet. One of three editions of the 2019 work was bought by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun at Sotheby’s New York for four times the initial estimate.
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11/22/2024 - 01:08
Who better to ask than corvids
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11/22/2024 - 00:45
Reforms include public registers to track how developers are meeting their commitments and avoiding damaging endangered ecosystems
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The New South Wales parliament has passed the “biggest reforms to the biodiversity offsets scheme since its inception” after inquiries triggered by a 2021 Guardian Australia investigation.
The legislation, promised by the Minns government before the 2023 election, introduces changes aimed at reversing the decline of the state’s biodiversity and improving the integrity of the offsets scheme.
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11/21/2024 - 17:46
The return of Trump demands extreme watchfulness. But effective vigilance also requires energy and strength, mental and emotional recharge and balance
A long walk in the mountains last weekend brought sudden perspective to just how heavily the shoutiness and anger was weighing.
Suddenly there was only birdsong, the rustling tree canopies, the gentle burbling of the Snowy River and the wind whispering through the trunks of ancient ghost gums. This was anything but a quiet quietness. But it was the sound of a serenity that only nature can gift – a noise of extreme unplugged-ness if you like.
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11/21/2024 - 15:09
This blog is now closed
Heatwave conditions are building over parts of Victoria and New South Wales today.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, much of Victoria will experience heatwave conditions, with maximum temperatures in the mid to high 30s.
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11/21/2024 - 14:04
Rich country budgets are stretched amid inflation, Covid and Ukraine war, Mary Robinson tells Cop29
Poor countries may have to compromise on demands for cash to tackle global heating, a former UN climate envoy has said, as UN talks entered their final hours in deadlock.
In comments that are likely to disappoint poorer countries at the Cop29 summit, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and twice a UN climate envoy, said rich country budgets were stretched amid inflation, Covid and conflicts including Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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11/21/2024 - 14:00
Researchers identify collision hotspots around world but reveal almost all these lack preventive measures
Collisions between whales and ships can prove fatal for the marine mammals, but researchers say expanding mitigation measures to just 2.6% of the ocean’s surface would reduce the chance of such strikes in all risk hotspots.
While experts say many whale-ship collisions go unobserved and unreported, making it difficult to put a figure on the scale of the problem, some estimates suggest tens of thousands of the animals are killed each year.
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