More than 100 business leaders including Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales sign open letter backing Britain’s center-left opposition

-More than 100 business figures on Tuesday voiced their support for the U.K.’s center-left opposition Labour Party, as the country heads for a general election.

-Individuals including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, former vice-chairman of JP Morgan Cazenove Charles Harman, and WPP’s former U.K. President Karen Blackett signed an open letter calling for a “change” in government.

-The U.K. economy has suffered from a decade of stagnation in the absence of both political stability and of a consistent long-term economic strategy under the Conservatives, the letter says.

LONDON — More than 100 business leaders on Tuesday voiced their support for the U.K.’s center-left opposition Labour Party, nearly five weeks before the country heads to the polls.

The group, which includes Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and former vice-chairman of JP Morgan Cazenove Charles Harman, said in an open letter to The Times newspaper: “We, as leaders and investors in British business, believe it is time for a change.”

The writers of the letter claim that the U.K. economy has suffered from a decade of stagnation amid a lack of both political stability and a long-term, consistent economic strategy. The country has been “denied the skills and infrastructure it needs to flourish,” the letter says.

The Labour Party has “shown it has changed and wants to work with business to achieve the UK’s full economic potential,” they said.

Signatories also include WPP

’s former U.K. President Karen Blackett, JD Sports and British Retail Consortium Chair Andrew Higginson, and the former CEOs of Tesco Bank and Heathrow Airport. Few current FTSE 250 chief executives appear on the list.

The right-wing Conservative Party has been in power since 2010, initially as part of a coalition with the smaller, centrist Liberal Democrat Party. The U.K. has had five prime ministers during that period.

The last U.K. general election was held in 2019 and resulted in a decisive victory for the Conservatives under former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in 2022 following a series of controversies.

Political polls for the last two years have pointed to a likely Labour victory, despite the major turnover in the national vote that will be required.

Incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week called a surprise election for July 4. In his speech and in comments to media, Sunak said his government had overseen a fall in inflation and a return to economic growth.

The U.K. economy expanded by 0.6% in the first quarter, after falling into a shallow recession last year.

Labour has placed a major focus on committing to fiscal discipline in the party’s campaign messaging. In a release Tuesday, Labour said its pledges include establishing a new publicly owned energy company and bringing train operators under public ownership.

Labour’s shadow finance minister and former banker Rachel Reeves, has meanwhile made a long-running effort to woo business and finance executives.

In a speech on Tuesday, Reeves said the Labour Party would cap corporation tax at its current level, work with the private sector to drive U.K. investment and publish a business tax roadmap within six months of taking power, the BBC reported.

Delivering his own speech on the campaign trail, Sunak said that Labour would not bring financial security to people, according to the BBC.

CNBC has contacted the Conservative Party for comment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/28/uk-election-wikipedias-jimmy-wales-and-business-leaders-back-labour.html

VA forgets to show up for Memorial Day service

As many as 100 showed up at Cheyenne National Cemetery on Monday morning for an advertised Memorial Day service in honor of fallen heroes and loved ones. But the VA never showed up to host the service.

read moar:

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/05/27/families-stood-up-at-cheyenne-national-cemetery-on-memorial-day/

Pete Buttigieg can't explain why only 8 EV charging stations have been built with $7.5 BILLION in taxpayer funding

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1795313576590364786

The school killed by contaminated blood: Of 122 boys infected only 30 are still alive

School children were used as “objects for research” with risks of contracting hepatitis and HIV were ignored, the final report of the Infected Blood Inquiry has found.

Of the pupils that attended the Lord Mayor Treloar College in the 1970s and 1980s, “very few escaped being infected” and of the 122 pupils with haemophilia that attended the school between 1970 and 1987, only 30 are still alive.

Students at the boarding school in Hampshire were given treatment at an on-site NHS centre. However many pupils with the condition had been treated with plasma blood products which were infected with hepatitis and HIV.

Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff concluded in his 2,527-page report released on Monday that children at Treloar’s were treated with multiple commercial concentrates that were known to carry higher risks of infection.

In addition, he said that staff favoured the “advancement of research” above the best interests of the children.

Sir Brian said: “The pupils were often regarded as objects for research, rather than first and foremost as children whose treatment should be firmly focused on their individual best interests alone. This was unethical and wrong.”

His report found there is “no doubt” that the healthcare professionals at Treloar’s were aware of the risks of virus transmission through blood and blood products.

He wrote: “Not only was it a prerequisite for research, a fundamental aspect of Treloar’s, but knowledge of the risks is displayed in what the clinicians there wrote at the time.

“Practice at Treloar’s shows that the clinical staff were well aware that their heavy use of commercial concentrate risked causing Aids,” he continued.

Despite knowledge of the dangers, clinicians proceeded with higher-risk treatments in attempts to further their research, the report concluded.

Sir Brian wrote: “It is difficult to avoid a conclusion that the advancement of research was favoured above the immediate best interest of the patient.”

Richard Warwick, 58, was infected with HIV and hepatitis C while he was a pupil at Treloar’s college, told The Guardian the pupils were seen as “expendable”.

He said: “We were given injections of different types of factor VIII [the infected blood product] – it was all prepared in syringes for us. They were chopping and changing different manufacturer in batches in what today would be called infectivity trials. We were eight- or nine-year-old kids.

“I hate the term guinea pig, but that’s what we were. We were ‘cheaper than chimps’ as was stated in a letter at the time.”

Haemophilia is an inherited disorder where the blood does not clot properly. Most people with the condition have a shortage of the protein that enables human blood to clot, known as Factor VIII.

In the 1970s, a new treatment was developed – factor concentrate – to replace the missing clotting agent, which was made from donated human blood plasma.

The Lord Mayor Treloar College, which has since been rebranded as Treloar’s, was established in 1908 as a school that gave disabled children a better chance to receive an education alongside any medical treatment they might need.

It was originally a boys’ school but then merged with a girls’ school in 1978 to become co-educational.

From 1956, boys with haemophilia began attending the school. After it was discovered pupils had been given infected blood plasma, the NHS clinic at the school closed.

Treloar School and College said in a statement: “The inquiry’s report shows the full extent of this horrifying national scandal. We are devastated that some of our former pupils were so tragically affected and hope that the findings provide some solace for them and their families.

“The report lays bare the systemic failure at the heart of the scandal.”

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/school-killed-contaminated-blood-122-104446741.html

>>20929036

Britain’s ‘day of shame’ as full scale of infected blood scandal revealed

Rishi Sunak said it was “a day of shame for the British state” on Monday as victims of the infected blood scandal were finally given an apology.

The Prime Minister said the worst treatment scandal in NHS history had resulted from a “moral failure at the heart of our national life” in which doctors, civil servants and ministers had put reputations above patient safety.

Thousands of people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C by contaminated blood products used in the NHS between the 1970s and 1990s.

A plan for compensation will be announced on Tuesday and is expected to top £10 billion.

The final report of a five-year inquiry into the scandal, which has so far claimed more than 3,000 lives, concluded that the health service and governments took part in a “chilling” cover-up, as they “closed ranks” to hide the truth, even destroying documents to keep patients in the dark.

Sir Brian Langstaff, the inquiry chairman, said the “horrifying” scandal could and should have been avoided, but a “catalogue of failures” led to “calamity”.

read moar:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/20/infected-blood-scandal-inquiry-live-latest/

NHS and government led ‘chilling’ cover-up of infected blood scandal, inquiry finds

The NHS and the Government took part in a “chilling” cover-up of the infected blood scandal that has claimed more than 3,000 lives, a public inquiry has concluded.

Sir Brian Langstaff, who chaired the five-year inquiry into the NHS’s worst treatment disaster, said doctors, civil servants and ministers had “closed ranks” to hide the truth for decades.

He said the “horrifying” scandal could and should have been avoided, but a “catalogue of failures” led to “calamity”.

Between 1970 and 1998 more than 3,000 patients “died or suffered miserably” as a result of being given contaminated blood products that infected them with HIV and Hepatitis.

The tragedy happened because medics and successive governments “did not put patient safety first”. When the scandal was exposed, “the response of those in authority served to compound people’s suffering”, Sir Brian said.

He added: “I have to report that it could largely, though not entirely, have been avoided. And I have to report that it should have been.”

He recommended that a compensation scheme be set up immediately for victims and bereaved families, which Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, is expected formally to accept on Tuesday.

“Now is the time for national recognition of this disaster and for proper compensation to all those who have been wronged,” he said.

In a 2,527 report published on Monday, Sir Brian also warned that a substantial number of people remain unaware that they were given transfusions or other products of infected blood, and are therefore undiagnosed.

They include around 900 people infected with Hepatitis C and around 200 people who were infected with HIV - the virus that causes Aids - as children.

Among those who are singled out for criticism are Kenneth Clarke (now Lord Clarke) who, as health minister in 1983, wrongly claimed there was no proof that Aids could not be spread through blood products, even though there was already evidence of a link.

The inquiry’s remit did not include making any recommendations for prosecutions, but the report is likely to be studied closely by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service for any evidence of criminal liability.

One of the most shocking episodes in the scandal happened at Lord Mayor Treloar School for children with disabilities in Alton, Hampshire, where many of the pupils were haemophiliacs.

Children there were “betrayed” when they were used as “objects” of experimental trials, and were not always told they were part of a trial, then suffered a “nightmare of tragic proportion” after being given disease ridden drugs.

Young boys at the school were told in batches of five if they had or had not tested positive for HIV in front of each other before being immediately sent back to class.

In other cases doctors made the “unconscionable” decision not to tell pupils and parents they had tested positive for the disease at all.

Sir Brian said of the overall scandal: “It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this report that these events could have happened in the UK…that a level of suffering which it is difficult to comprehend, still less understand, has been caused to so many”.

He said victims of the scandal “have been forced into a decades-long battle for the truth.

“Successive governments claimed that patients had received the best medical treatment available at the time, and that blood screening had been introduced at the earliest opportunity. Both claims were untrue.”

Sir Brian’s recommendations include that the statutory duty of candour that currently applies to doctors should be extended to NHS managers, executives and board members and that the “culture of defensiveness” in the NHS must end.

He also said the Government should pay for a public memorial to the victims and for a second memorial at Treloar’s School.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nhs-government-led-chilling-cover-113005325.html

Good Morning Britain wasn't expecting this poll response

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1795281354961354828

LIVE: Donald Trump’s New York Trial Closing Arguments: May 28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG026s2rmBs

Terrence Howard: Black Holes don't exist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfCdtVSPfxk

Elon Musk’s xAI Reaches $24 Billion In Value Following Major Round Of Fundraising

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI announced this week that it raised $6 billion in its latest round of fundraising as the new company looks to gain ground on OpenAI.

The company, which was created in July 2023, announced in a blog post: “Our Series B funding round of $6 billion with participation from key investors including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, amongst others.”

In less than a year, the company already rolled out its own AI chatbot, Grok, to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Grok, which is only available on Musk’s social media platform X, has already seen the release of two more sophisticated models — Grok 1.5 and later Grok 1.5V with image understanding, the company said.

“The funds from the round will be used to take xAI’s first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies,” the company said. “xAI is primarily focused on the development of advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and maximally beneficial for all of humanity. The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that with the latest infusion of cash into the company, it is now worth $24 billion, making it the second most valuable AI company in the world behind OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 and is worth an estimated $80 billion.

The $6 billion haul was double the number that Musk’s team was aiming for in its latest round of fundraising.

Musk has personally invested $750 million in the company while X has contributed $250 million, the report said. Musk previously said that outsiders investors would own 25% of the company.

One advantage that xAI has over its competitors is access to Musk’s other companies that it can use to collect data, including X, Tesla, and SpaceX.

“The two sources of unlimited data are synthetic data and real world video,” Musk said last month. “Tesla has a pretty big advantage in real-world video.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musks-xai-reaches-24-billion-in-value-following-major-round-of-fundraising

Globalist poster boy and former Rothschild banker, French President Emmanuel Macron loves to play emperor ‘but his empire looks like it’s falling apart’

Before he engaged in the state visit to Germany – the first by a French President since the year 2000, Macron visited some of his troubled territories in the Indic Ocean and South Pacific.

We feel like calling them colonies, but France calls them ‘departments’, parts of a Republic that is ‘indivisible’. Yeah, right.

It probably takes another post-colonial nation like Britain to understand how ‘Macron indulges a fantasy that its remote colonies are really just part of France itself’.

The first Macron visit was to racked-with-riots Mayotte, now flooded with African refugees hated by the locals.

The Spectator reported:

“Few French people could find Mayotte on a map and its economic contribution to the country is negative. Other than conceit, it’s incomprehensible why France insists on keeping its tricolor flying here. Like much of la France d’outre mer, it’s a bottomless pit into which the French pour subsidies for benefits that seem minimal.”

After the usual colonial promises, Macron took the presidential plane to New Caledonia, where eight people, including two gendarmes, have been killed in ethnic riots this month – and where there’s a growing independence movement.

“With the territory said by some to be on the verge of civil war, the French have been forced to deploy soldiers to defend the port, airport and government buildings. Businesses have been destroyed by arson. Macron arrived on Thursday morning and declared he was there to open a dialogue.”

Macron condemned the ‘absolutely unprecedented insurrection movement’ and said that the authorities ‘have to hold on. There is no appeasement as long as there is this violence’.

Australia and New Zealand are evacuating their nationals.

“A tour d’horizon of France’s global colonies (although we must not call them that) shows the indivisible republic melting down across the globe. French Polynesia, another French Pacific territory within the republic, is in continuous political turmoil with demands for independence. In the Caribbean, Guadaloupe and Martinique are regularly seized by riots.”

In South America, French Guiana is a centre for drug smuggling and environmental disasters due to illegal mining.

“Macron and his predecessors have presided not only over the troubled French de jure empire but also over the collapse of its de facto empire in Africa, where France’s failed military intervention has seen former French colonies turn their back on the motherland. La Franceafrique has become a crucible for militant Islamism, from Mali to Niger to the Côte d’Ivoire.

[…] Haiti, now under the control of gangsters, is yet another failed former French colony, with a legacy of brutal slavery, re-imposed by Napoleon III after the failed revolution of Toussaint Louverture.”

The end of what’s left of the French empire is happening before our eyes, so the Republic must redefine itself as an European nation.

And for that, the ties with its former foe and now rival-ally Germany have to be restored.

Macron’s three-day trip meant to showcase (and try to mend) the strong ties between the European Union’s traditional powerhouses.

This is particularly urgent since we are mere days away from an all-important European Parliament elections – one in which rightwing parties in both countries are set for big gains.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/macrons-empire-has-fallen-macron-tries-contain-chaos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=macrons-empire-has-fallen-macron-tries-contain-chaos