Privatisation of UK industries is driving cost of living crisis, says Greens leader

The privatisation of the UK’s key industries is driving the cost of living crisis, damaging critical public services and making life harder for millions of people, the leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski, has said.Speaking after the Guardian revealed the British public have been paying a “privatisation premium” of £250 per household per year since 2010, he described the mass privatisation of UK industry as a “failed experiment”.“This report shows that privatisation has been one of the key drivers of the cost-of-living crisis and growing inequality … the Conservatives were the architects of this failed experiment, but the Labour government has done virtually nothing to change course.”In his successful campaign to become Labour leader in 2020, Keir Starmer vowed to support “common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water” but has backtracked since coming into power, ruling out nationalisation of the big six energy companies, water or mail.Labour has made some moves towards nationalisation, bringing some train operators back into public ownership, establishing the publicly owned GB Energy and completing the re-nationalisation of the national energy system operator

Starmer to recognise Palestinian state ‘after Trump state visit’

Keir Starmer will reportedly recognise a Palestinian state over the weekend after Donald Trump concludes his state visit to the UK.The prime minister has previously said he plans to recognise Palestinian statehood before the UN general assembly in New York this month if Israel does not meet a series of conditions to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.High-level meetings at the UN summit involving world leaders begin on 23 September. According to the Times, Starmer has held off on formally announcing the UK will recognise a Palestinian state until after Trump leaves for fear it could dominate a Thursday news conference the two men plan to hold at Chequers.The prime minister has found himself at odds with the US administration over the move, which is opposed to giving official recognition to the state

Donald Trump joins royals for state banquet at Windsor as thousands protest against US president’s visit – as it happened

The pomp and pageantry have been laid on thick for Donald Trump’s historic and unprecedented second state visit, with the US president visibly delighted by a day of processions, flypasts and gifts.He was notably kept away from public crowds and mostly contained within the walls of Windsor Castle, as members of the Stop Trump Coalition gathered in London to protest against his visit. The Metropolitan police estimated 5,000 people attended the anti-Trump rally in Parliament Square, denouncing the US president as a “fascist”. There were other protests all across the country.Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who is now an independent MP, also congratulated the four activists arrested by police after pictures of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were projected on to the walls of Windsor Castle last night

Nick Clegg: US-UK tech deal is ‘sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley’

A multibillion-dollar transatlantic tech agreement announced to coincide with Donald Trump’s state visit represents “sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley”, Nick Clegg, Meta’s former president of global affairs, has said.The former deputy prime minister said the deals, heralded with great fanfare by the government as it tries to foster growth in the UK, were “mutton dressed as lamb” and would make the country ever more reliant on US tech firms.The announcements have included some of the biggest companies in the tech world, such as chipmaker Nvidia and the ChatGPT developer OpenAI. One announcement featured a Microsoft investment that was said to be worth $30bn (£22bn).However, speaking at a Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, Clegg said the relationship between the UK and the US tech sector was “all one-way traffic” and that the announcements suited the companies

A wake-up call for all of us to resist the far right | Letters

Peter Kyle, the business and trade secretary, has said that he was not disturbed by the Tommy Robinson march on Saturday (Trump has fanned the flames of divisive politics around the world, says Sadiq Khan, 16 September). Well I certainly was. The levels of threatening hate and violence should be a wake-up call, not just for government ministers but for all of us. Stand Up to Racism has done its best to mobilise people to tackle this threat, but it’s clear that we have to find a new way forward to reinforce this work. I am urging people in all civil society organisations to start talking about the situation and in each sector to start talking to each other

‘Privatisation premium’: billions from UK energy bills paid to shareholders

A quarter of the average UK energy bill was funding corporate profits last year, according to analysis that reveals the hidden cost of privatising some of the UK’s key industries.The study – part of a wider Who Owns Britain project by the Common Wealth thinktank – found that a sum equal to 24.2% of the average energy bill went to the pre-tax profits of the major electricity generators, networks and household suppliers in 2024.In addition, the analysis reveals the scale of wealth extracted from bill payers since the privatisation of Britain’s energy system. It found that shareholders of Britain’s privatised energy companies have taken at least £70