Just when you thought Keir Starmer’s week couldn’t get worse after Peter Mandelson was arrested for allegedly being a flight risk, we have the result from Gorton and Denton.
The Greens achieved a stunning victory, but their real fight has just begun, openDemocracy reporter Ethan Shone writes in this week’s edition, predicting that the establishment will now be out for blood. Meanwhile, Danny Sriskandarajah from the New Economics Foundation argues that the 25‑point swing away from Labour shows voters want bold, people‑centred solutions rather than the privatisation, liberalisation and financialisation that lies at the heart of our broken economic system.
For a vivid illustration of what a broken system looks like, read openDemocracy tech reporter (and newest team member) Jade-Ruyu Yan on the government’s decision to appoint the Ex-Amazon UK boss to the UK’s competition watchdog. As one expert told Jade-Ruyu, “Why would [a former Amazon executive] want to join the Competition and Markets Authority? … Why? Just keep asking why.”
You may be wondering why the cover image for this week’s newsletter features Vladimir Putin and Evo Morales: That’s because the lead story for this edition is an in-depth investigation by Diana Cariboni, our Americas Editor. Working with an international consortium of journalists, Diana accessed a previously undisclosed tranche of documents to piece together how Russian political operatives formerly associated with the Wagner group sought to influence Bolivia’s elections last year.
Finally, scroll down to listen to our podcast on how the far-right is radicalising Gen-Z.
A truly heartfelt thank you to everyone who answered our call to support Sian Norris’s continuing investigations into the state of prisons in the UK. We cannot do this with you.
As Bolivia’s Left Fractured, the Kremlin sent Ex-Wagner Agents • Diana Cariboni
On an unusually warm day in July 2024, a team of seven Russian “specialists” landed in La Paz, Bolivia, with the aim of “stabilising” the government of President Luis Arce, an ally of Russia, ahead of a national election scheduled for the following year.
The stakes were high: 2024 had been a hard year for Bolivians, marked by economic difficulties, a severe fuel shortage, extensive wildfires, and more than 500 protests and anti-governmental demonstrations. Inflation was at its highest since 2008, and Arce’s Movement for Socialism party (MAS) was riven by an internecine battle for control between the president and his ally-turned-rival and predecessor, former President Evo Morales. The MAS regime, in the meantime, was one of the few remaining Kremlin allies in the region, and resource-rich Bolivia has 21% of the world’s deposits of lithium, a vital mineral for next-generation technologies...
The Greens’ real fight has begun – and the establishment will be out for blood • Ethan Shone
“First they ignore you,” warned trade union organiser Nicholas Klein over a century ago at a conference of garment workers in Baltimore, Maryland. “Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. Then they build monuments to you.”
Having been largely ignored for most of the last decade, with the election of ‘eco-populist’ Zack Polanski last year the Green Party advanced to the ‘ridicule’ phase of Klein’s formulation; until recently most of the attacks against him were flippant, focusing on an article published over a decade ago while he was working as a therapist, in which it was reported that he offered a service to enlarge women’s breasts using hypnotherapy.
But in recent weeks, the media’s attacks on Polanski began to shift in tenor and tone. It is hardly surprising; the party poses an increasingly credible threat to a settlement carefully built by the UK’s 1% – and protected by the likes of Labour, the Conservatives and now Reform – in which ordinary families struggle to get by as the profits from their labour flow ever upwards into the coffers of the wealthy...
Nothing to see here: Ex-Amazon UK boss to lead competition watchdog • Jade-Ruyu Yan
On Tuesday, former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr arrived at the UK Parliament in a suit and tie, ready to defend himself against MPs’ concerns over his ability to lead the UK’s competition watchdog.
Over the course of nearly two hours, the Business and Trade Committee landed a series of blows. The committee’s chair, Labour MP Liam Byrne, felt Gurr’s past as a Big Tech executive could present a “conflict of interest” at the Competition and Markets Authority, which is supposed to promote competitive markets and protect consumers. He noted that in the year that Gurr had already been the CMA’s interim head, the watchdog had not blocked any mergers – a first since 2017. Liberal Democrat MP Joshua Reynolds suggested Gurr’s former Amazon colleagues could be “jumping for joy” at his appointment...
Why the Green Party Just Broke Labour's "Filthy Rich" Orthodoxy • Danny Sriskandarajah
There will be lots of lessons drawn from the Greens' historic win in the Gorton & Denton by‑election. Here's mine.
It used to be said that voters were primarily concerned with "the economy, stupid": Grow the economy and people will elect you, fail and they will punish you. However, these days, growing numbers of voters want solutions to how our economy works.
Gorton and Denton is one of England’s most deprived constituencies, with 45% of children living below the breadline. In this context, it is no surprise the Greens' focus on tackling poverty, inequality, and cost‑of‑living pressures clearly resonated more than the mainstream offer...
Netanyahu has lulled Israelis into a false sense of security • Paul Rogers
For Binyamin Netanyahu, the future looks surprisingly bright – certainly much more than six months ago. As Israel faces a general election later this year, polling suggests his party is gaining strength, and there is now an increased chance that he will be able to form a viable coalition with extreme right-wing parties. In the process, the prime minister may be able to further delay his court appearances on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, all of which he denies.
At the root of Netanyahu’s much-improved prospects is his government’s ability to convince the majority of Israeli Jews that they are once again secure, after the trauma of the Hamas attacks of October 2023. Doing so has involved the Israeli Defence Forces killing more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with another 10,000 missing under the rubble. Israel last month accepted this death toll as “broadly accurate”, having previously dismissed it as “Hamas propaganda”.
Netanyahu’s ministers have reduced Gazans to the status of “human animals” over the past two years, and polling suggests that most Israeli Jews have now come to believe that the answer to their Gaza problem is removing the entire population, and many would even accept their being killed. The IDF is continuing military operations across the enclave, where hundreds of Palestinians have died since the ‘ceasefire’ started in October last year...
