MP Adnan Hussain quits Your Party over ‘persistent infighting’
The leftwing Your Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has had a major split after another independent MP involved, Adnan Hussain, quit because of “persistent infighting and a struggle for power” in the organisation.The departure of the Blackburn MP, who is the secretary of the limited company behind Your Party, is another blow after renewed disagreements between Sultana and Corbyn, this time over the handover of membership levies.Hussain was one of four independent MPs who, along with Corbyn, signed a Your Party statement on Thursday night accusing Sultana of unnecessary delay in passing on £850,000 in donations, a move that infuriated Sultana.On Friday afternoon, Hussain said via X he had spent recent months reflecting on his role in an organisation he had believed would be based on “a commitment to equality, justice and anti-racism”.He said: “Regrettably, the reality I encountered has been far from this vision.
The culture surrounding the party has become dominated by persistent infighting, factional competition and a struggle for power, position and influence rather than a shared commitment to the common good.“Instead of openness, cooperation and outward focus, the environment has too often felt toxic, exclusionary and deeply disheartening.”Hussain condemned what he said felt like “veiled prejudice” in the way he and other Muslim independent MPs had been treated within the party, talking about “generalised accusations and offensive slurs”.He also said he had not been prepared for the “very serious and damaging internal disputes” within Your Party over how it should be structured and organised.While some observers had wondered whether Hussain and other independent MPs with sometimes socially conservative views were a perfect fit for an organisation set up by Corbyn and Sultana, the letter is a scathing indictment of the chaos that has plagued Your Party, much of it based on disagreements between its two principal figures.
In the most recent spat, allies of Sultana accused other MPs in Your Party of trying to undermine her with the statement on Thursday night, saying the timing, just before Sultana appeared on BBC One’s Question Time, seemed intended to hamper her chances of winning a possible leadership contest against Corbyn.In response, Your Party sources said Sultana, a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, was creating unnecessary barriers in arguing that there were legal reasons why she could not immediately transfer all the money from a company of which she is now the sole director.It is understood there are nonetheless some worries within the party about the timing and tone of the statement.The slightly convoluted row, one of several to erupt between Sultana and Corbyn’s camps in the organisation’s short history, originates from when a membership portal was launched, at which point Your Party had no formal structure or bank account.The mass of membership levies and donations was thus directed to a newly formed company called MOU Operations Ltd, which now has Sultana as its sole director, with the idea that it would be passed on when Your Party was ready.
Your Party officials say they urgently need the £850,000 to run a conference at the end of this month and pay staff who have been acting as volunteers.An ally of Sultana said the timing of Thursday’s statement was “damaging and irrational”.“They know they are demanding something she can’t legally deliver.She couldn’t be doing anything differently.It is very frustrating to find us in this position,” the ally said.
A Your Party source disputed Sultana’s arguments of a need for a delay in transferring the money, saying it was “desperately needed” to run the conference.“The legal advice is that she absolutely can do it and she should do it, but she keeps shifting the goalposts,” they said.The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.Secure Messaging in the Guardian appThe Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.
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AI slop tops Billboard and Spotify charts as synthetic music spreads
Three songs generated by artificial intelligence topped music charts this week, reaching the highest spots on Spotify and Billboard charts.Walk My Walk and Livin’ on Borrowed Time by the outfit Breaking Rust topped Spotify’s “Viral 50” songs in the US, which documents the “most viral tracks right now” on a daily basis, according to the streaming service. A Dutch song, We Say No, No, No to an Asylum Center, an anti-migrant anthem by JW “Broken Veteran” that protests against the creation of new asylum centers, took the top position in Spotify’s global version of the viral chart around the same time. Breaking Rust also appeared in the top five on the global chart.“You can kick rocks if you don’t like how I talk,” reads a lyric from Walk My Walk, a seeming double entendre challenging those opposed to AI-generated music
UK firms can win a significant chunk of the AI chip market | John Browne
The UK is in a uniquely promising position, far too little understood, to play a lucrative role in the coming era of artificial intelligence – but only if it also grabs the opportunity to start making millions of computer chips.AI requires vast numbers of chips and we could supply up to 5% of world demand if we get our national act together.Our legacy in chip design is world-class, starting with the first general-purpose electronic computer, the first electronic memory and the first parallel computer. Today we have Cambridge-based Arm, a quiet titan designing more than 90% of the chips powering phones and tablets globally.With such a pedigree, it is not idle daydreaming for British companies to win a significant chunk of the AI chip market; 5% is a conservative, achievable ambition
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
The EU has opened an investigation into Google Search over concerns the US tech company has been “demoting” commercial content from news media sites.The bloc’s executive arm announced the move after monitoring found that certain content created with advertisers and sponsors was being given such a low priority by Google that it was in effect no longer visible in search results.European Commission officials said this potentially unfair “loss of visibility and of revenue” to media owners could be a result of an anti-spam policy Google operates.Under the rules of the Digital Market Act (DMA), which governs competition in the tech sectors, Google must apply “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers’ websites on Google Search”.Commission officials said the investigation was not into the overall indexing of newspapers or their reporting on Google Search, just into commercial content provided by third parties
Anthropic announces $50bn plan for datacenter construction in US
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50bn investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new datacenters in Texas and New York.“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before,” Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in a press release.Building the massive information warehouses takes an average of two years in the US and requires copious amounts of energy to fuel the facilities. The company, maker of the AI chatbot Claude, popular with businesses adopting AI, said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier”. Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs
Waymo announces that its robotaxis will drive freeways for the first time
Alphabet’s Waymo said on Wednesday that it would begin offering robotaxi rides that use freeways across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a first for the Google subsidiary as it steps up expansion amid global and domestic competition in the self-driving industry.Freeway rides will initially be available to early-access users, Waymo said. “When a freeway route is meaningfully faster, they can be matched with a freeway trip, providing quicker, smoother, and more efficient rides,” it said.Waymo, which already operates in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, is also extending operations to San Jose, including Mineta San Jose international airport, the second airport in its service area after Phoenix Sky Harbor.The move comes as Tesla expands its robotaxi service with safety monitors and drivers, and Zoox – backed by Amazon – offers free robotaxi rides on and around the Las Vegas Strip
A tax roadmap for electric cars | Letters
Rachel Reeves’s proposal to introduce a pay-per-mile tax levy on electric vehicles is idiotic, especially suggesting that hybrid vehicles will have a reduced rate and still pay the usual road tax (Rachel Reeves considering pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles in budget, 6 November). Furthermore, requiring drivers to predict their yearly mileage in advance and then pay or reclaim the difference for actual mileage depending on whether they have underestimated or overestimated it is too cumbersome. If the DVLA is to oversee the collection/repayment system, it will undoubtedly need to recruit more staff or outsource the arrangement, with all the attendant pitfalls that would entail.The fairest way for the taxation of all motorists is to abolish the road tax and introduce a road toll system, as used on the Dartford crossing and the M6 toll road. Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) would need to be an essential feature
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