Google providing US Department of Homeland Security with tech platform for virtual border wall

Kevin Reed

According to documents published recently by the Intercept, Google is now working with the Trump administration on a high-tech surveillance project being developed at the US-Mexico border.

The documents—related to a federal contract with the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—show that Google is providing cloud services as part of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for a virtual southern border wall. The Intercept report describes the virtual wall as a combination of “surveillance towers and drones, blanketing an area with sensors to detect unauthorized entry into the country.”

A section of border fence, photographed by the Tohono O'odham Nation. Credit: wikimedia.org

CBP is developing its Autonomous Surveillance Towers program with automated surveillance operations “24 hours per day, 365 days per year” that can “identify items of interest, such as people or vehicles.” The system is based on a series of high resolution and infrared cameras that the US government claims are a “true force multiplier for CBP, enabling Border Patrol agents to remain focused on their interdiction mission rather than operating surveillance systems.”

The Intercept reports that Google is quietly providing the cloud AI services through a third-party contracting firm called Thundercat Technology. This relationship is confirmed from a redacted contracting document that had been obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by a research firm called Tech Inquiry that was founded by former Google research scientist Jack Paulson.

The Virginia-based Thundercat Technology is a shell company that specializes in reselling the information technology services of other companies in US government contracts. According to the website of Thundercat Technologies, the firm “is unique in that we work with many different agencies across the DoD, Civilian, and Intelligence communities.” Among its many US government customers are the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Information Systems Agency.

The DHS services contract—signed on Aug. 27—shows that Thundercat Technologies is providing “Cloud support services for INVNT team” of CBP. Very little public information is available about INVNT, which stands for “Innovation Team,” a special department within CBP devoted to the implementation of “disruptive” and “cutting edge” commercial high-tech solutions.

Although the specifics of Google services on the virtual wall project are not known, the Intercept has also published a 10-page statement of work document entitled “Google Cloud for INVNT” from a previous agreement that goes back to April 2016. This document shows that Google’s AI platform and Internet of Things (IoT) cloud technology has been integrated with advanced camera imaging hardware.

The document says, “Google Cloud Platform (GCP) will be utilized for doing innovation projects for C1’s INVNT team like next generation IoT, NLP (Natural Language Processing), Language Translation and Andril [sic] image camera and any other future looking project for CBP. The GCP has unique product features which will help to execute on the mission needs.”

As pointed out by the Intercept, the reference to Anduril (misspelled as Andril in the Google Cloud document) is highly significant. The report says that Anduril Industries “operates sentry towers along the U.S.-Mexico border that are used by CBP for surveillance and apprehension of people entering the country, streamlining the process of putting migrants in DHS custody.”

Additionally, Anduril is a startup defense technology contractor founded by 28-year-old Palmer Luckey, an extreme right-wing supporter of President Trump and open advocate of collaboration between big tech and the US military. The Intercept says the company’s virtual wall system “works by rapidly identifying anyone approaching or attempting to cross the border (or any other perimeter), relaying their exact location to border authorities on the ground, offering a relatively cheap, technocratic, and less politically fraught means of thwarting would-be migrants.”

Anduril also sells to the US government “intelligent air support” with its Ghost 4 autonomous small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS). The Anduril website says Ghost 4 is “modular, man-portable, waterproof, and combines long endurance, high payload capacity and a near-silent acoustic signature for a wide variety of mission capabilities.” It also “is designed and manufactured in the US to meet the needs of our military users,” and “provides real-time surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance capabilities, creating a clearer common operating picture which enables service men and women make more informed decisions.”

The Ghost 4’s UAS drones operate in conjunction with the Anduril “Sentry Towers” which, according to the Intercept, “bundle cameras, radar antennae, lasers, and other sophisticated sensors atop an 80-foot pole. Surveillance imagery from both the camera-toting drones and sensor towers is ingested into ‘Lattice,’ Anduril’s artificial intelligence software platform, where the system automatically flags suspicious objects in the vicinity, like cars or people.”

It is clear that the Thundercat Technology contract enables Anduril to plug its surveillance image data gathering systems into the AI and deep learning systems of Google Cloud services. Among the capabilities of Google’s Natural Language tool, for example, is “to reveal the structure and meaning of text … [and] extract information about people, places, and events.” According to company marketing materials, this technology can be paired with Google’s speech-to-text transcription software “to extract insights from audio conversations.”

Through its contract with DHS, Google is working directly with those in the tech industry who, like Anduril, are open advocates for the use of advanced systems for war and the anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump administration. The Intercept report says CEO Palmer Luckey has personally donated “at least $1.7 million to Republican candidates this cycle. On Sunday, he hosted President Donald Trump at his home in Orange County, Calif., for a high-dollar fundraiser.”

Anduril also counts among its investors Peter Thiel, a right-wing venture capitalist who functions as a tech advisor to Donald Trump and who is also an investor in the IT firm Palantir, a top provider of IT and big data mining solutions for US intelligence agencies.

Palmer Luckey has been vocally hostile to the opposition among Google employees to the collaboration between the tech giant and the US military. When Google employees forced company management to abort a contract with the US Defense Department’s Project Maven in 2018, Luckey accused the company of “abandoning the Pentagon.” He went on to say that Google permitted “a fringe inside of their own company” to allow foreign adversaries to adopt superior AI military capabilities to the US.

Exposing the extreme nationalist views prevalent among this layer of American tech executives, in 2019 Luckey said the following about the employees who signed the petition objecting to the Project Maven contract: “You have Chinese nationals working in the Google London office signing this letter, of course they don’t mind if the United States has good military technology. Of course, they don’t mind if China has better technology. They’re Chinese. They’re not going to have any loyalty.”

The revelation that Google is developing AI for a CBP border surveillance system—and working with companies like Anduril—makes clear that the fight to stop advanced technologies from being deployed for repressive and military warfare purposes requires a political struggle against the entire capitalist system and for socialism.

Macron administration wages far-right campaign against “Islamo-leftism”

Will Morrow

In the wake of the October 15 terrorist attack that killed French school teacher Samuel Paty, the Macron administration is seeking to brand opposition to its racist police-state attacks on Muslims as “Islamo-leftism” and essentially criminal.

In an interview with Europe1 last Thursday, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer declared that broad sections of the “left” were accomplices for terrorism. “The intellectual complicity of terrorism is what I would like to underscore,” he said. “What is called ‘Islamo-leftism’ is ravaging the universities [and] is ravaging organizations like UNEF and CEDA.” He added that in Unsubmissive France, the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “you have people who are quite simply of this current of thought and openly state it.

French President Emmanuel Macron leaves after paying his respects by the coffin of slain teacher Samuel Paty in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university, Oct. 21, 2020 in Paris (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool)

“In this affair there is not simply a lone killer,” Blanquer continued. “It is a killer who has been conditioned by those who are in some sense the intellectual authors of this murder.…” He referred to the more than 50 Muslim organizations that the Macron government is in the process of dissolving, noting that here “you have people who do not commit a crime but who encourage this intellectual radicalism, and they are in fact intellectual accomplices of the crime.

“If you have the fish poisoned by the head, as one says, these are ideas … [like] communalism, which come from elsewhere, from models of society that are not our own.” Blanquer added that “our society has been far too permeable to these currents of thought.”

This was only the latest in a wave of similar statements over the past week. Two days earlier, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who controls the police and security services, told BFM-TV that he had “always been shocked to walk into a supermarket and see an aisle with the cuisine from some community and some other on the other side,” referring to halal, kosher and other foods that satisfy religious requirements. He said, “That is how communalism begins.”

In the same interview, Darmanin targeted Edwy Plenel, the editor of Médiapart and former member of the predecessor of the Pabloite New Anti-Capitalist Party. He denounced the left as “responsible for this atmosphere, this temperature that permits individuals to pass to the act [of terrorism] by excusing everything.”

Manuel Valls, an interior minister of François Hollande’s Socialist Party (PS) government, attacked “a section of the left, Islamo-leftism, which has demonstrated very great complicity with regards to political Islam.” He named Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who joined a November 2019 protest against attacks on Muslims, as “very complicit. He has a great responsibility for everything that has happened, in the entire relationship of the left in the fight against Islamism.”

In an October 17 interview with Le Parisien, former PS Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve denounced “Islamo-leftism, that looks lovingly upon certain communalist organizations that have defiance, not to say a form of hatred, towards the Republic.”

The Macron administration and the PS from which it emerged are working to promote and rehabilitate far-right and fascistic politics in France. Denunciations of the “permeability of France” to foreign ideas, attacks on Muslim and Jewish cuisines, the assertion that the “left” is complicit in the promotion of terrorism and subverts “the Republic” all have the character of a far-right promotion of police-state measures.

The charge of “Islamo-leftism” is now being used to slander anyone who defends the democratic rights of Muslims and immigrants and opposes French imperialism as criminals and accomplices of terrorism. The term was previously confined largely to the extreme right but was adopted more broadly within the political establishment in the past two decades to legitimize attacks on Muslims. This period saw the banning of Islamic headscarves in public schools in 2004 and the burqa in public places in 2010.

The real “accomplices” of terrorism are not Muslims and those who defend them but the French ruling class and its political representatives. France, historically a colonial oppressor of much of Africa and the Middle East, has joined imperialist wars from the Sahel to Libya, to Afghanistan and Syria, to install puppet governments and control the region’s geo-strategic positions and profits. The greatest refugee crisis since World War II has emerged, and hundreds of thousands have been killed, including countless defenseless civilians.

Not only have these acts of neocolonial aggression affected domestic political life within all the imperialist countries.

As part of its regime-change wars in Syria and Libya, France helped fund and arm right-wing Islamist forces and groups linked to Al Qaeda and used them as proxy forces. In successive terrorist attacks in Europe, including the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, the attackers had been known to and followed by the intelligence agencies before the attack. In every instance, the terrorist attacks have been used by the ruling elite to shift politics to the right, divide workers along ethnic lines, and justify sweeping inroads into democratic rights.

The present campaign is no different. Its real target is not sections of the political establishment such as Mélenchon, but millions of workers and youth opposed to the policies of the French ruling class. Macron’s “anti-separatism” law, which is due to come before parliament next month, grants sweeping powers to the state, including the dissolution of any organization not in line with supposedly “Republican values,” as defined by the interior ministry.

Macron, who declared that Nazi-collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain was a “great soldier,” has worked to build up a police state, assaulting strikes and “yellow vest” protests with police violence since 2018. This is now being accelerated by the pandemic, as France reported more than 50,000 cases on Sunday, with warnings by health officials that the country faces a second wave deadlier than the first. Fully aware of rising popular anger at its murderous policies in the pandemic, the ruling class is seeking to prepare a neofascistic, authoritarian regime to try to suppress popular opposition.

As COVID-19 surges in Europe, governments protect profits over lives

Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier

After over 9 million cases and 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 this year, Europe stands on the brink of catastrophe. The resurgence of the virus had made clear that European governments’ ending of lockdowns this spring was disastrously premature. It led to a global resurgence of the disease, especially in Europe, that now threatens to completely overwhelm Europe’s medical system.

Each day, Europe now records over 200,000 new cases and 2,000 deaths from COVID-19, figures that are doubling approximately every 10 days. If this trend is not stopped, it is a matter of weeks before hospitals in the worst-hit countries are overrun and masses of people are cut off from treatment. Half of France’s assisted-breathing hospital beds and over a quarter of Spain’s are already occupied by severe COVID-19 cases. Countries like Britain, Italy and Poland who record around 20,000 daily cases—or Germany and Belgium, with around 14,000—are at most a few weeks behind.

Europe is teetering on the brink of loss of life on a scale it has not seen since the world wars of the 20th century. Several millions of lives are at stake. In March, German intelligence prepared a report stating that over a million people would die in Germany if the virus spread through the population. Last night, in a national televised address, French President Emmanuel Macron estimated 400,000 people could die in France unless emergency measures were taken.

Faced with mounting public anger and growing calls from medical authorities for shelter-at-home orders to avert catastrophe, European governments are suddenly announcing they are considering or re-imposing lockdowns. After Ireland and Wales both announced lockdowns last week, Macron announced last night a four-week, renewable lockdown in France.

These official announcements are not, however, shelter-at-home orders allowing youth and all non-essential workers to stay home and avoid infection. As they impose new lockdowns, European governments have the same goal that led them to prematurely lift the previous lockdowns: keeping youths at school and workers at work producing profits for the financial aristocracy.

Workers must be warned: the lockdowns proposed by European governments will not halt the pandemic or avert a disastrous loss of life. Imposing a genuine shelter-at-home policy to protect the population from the global pandemic requires an independent, international mobilization of the working class against the European governments.

Germany and France both adopted partial lockdowns yesterday, closing cultural institutions and restaurants for a month. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “decision paper” states that “schools and kindergartens remain open” and aims “to ensure that industry, trade and small and medium-sized enterprises can work safely as much as possible.” Macron said, “Schools will stay open, work will continue, retirement homes will be open for visiting.” And so the virus will continue to spread.

In countries across Europe where stricter confinement measures have been adopted, non-essential industry and schools remain open. The Irish government announced a “six-week coronavirus lock-down,” limiting citizens’ movements to a five-kilometer radius of their homes. However—unlike the March lockdown—schools, construction sites and industry remain open, including meat-processing plants that are hot spots for new outbreaks.

While claiming to pursue lockdowns, European governments are thus essentially continuing their murderous strategy of “herd immunity,” letting the virus keep spreading through the population.

Control of health policy cannot be left in the hands of the capitalist class. The force that can be mobilized to impose a rational, scientifically based policy is the European working class, fighting on an international and socialist perspective independent from the trade union bureaucracies to expropriate the ill-gotten wealth of the financial aristocracy.

It was the working class that imposed the first lockdowns this spring. A wave of wildcat strikes that began in Italian auto, steel and engineering plants in early March spread across Spain, France and Britain—cutting supply chains and bringing industry across Europe to a halt. As COVID-19 ripped through the population, European governments, shocked by the movement from below, suddenly changed course and implemented lockdowns.

It is critical to draw political lessons from this experience. While the working class demonstrated its ability to impose a scientifically grounded policy, it was a spontaneous movement. Once strikes were ended and the initial lockdowns adopted, state power and control of the banks and industrial life remained in the hands of the financial aristocracy and the various union bureaucracies. Europe’s population is now paying a bitter price for this.

Governments did not aim to save lives, but to save the wealth of the super-rich. Britain adopted a £645 billion bank bailout, the euro zone a €1.25 trillion bank bailout and a €750 billion European Union corporate bailout. Apart from a tiny fraction spent on unemployment insurance and small business loans, these sums went to bailing out the bank accounts and stock portfolios of the super-rich and retooling big European corporations to compete with America and China.

A column in Le Monde stated that the growing global struggle between the major capitalist powers over markets precluded a lasting shelter-at-home policy and required mass deaths. “New strategies for onshoring plants, diversifying supply chains, and controlling key technologies, which Europe and the United States were already studying, are now an absolute priority,” it wrote, adding, “This is why the Trump administration is making the terrible choice of the ‘business first’ option, sacrificing part of its population to not leave Chinese power an open field.”

The European bourgeoisie also pursued this policy. With the collaboration of the trade unions and pseudoleft parties such as Podemos in Spain and the Left Party in Germany, who signed their support for the EU bailouts, governments launched a back-to-work drive. No lie—that children do not spread the virus, or that there is no money to help workers and small businesses weather a longer lockdown—was too outrageous as they bludgeoned workers back to work to produce profits on the massive sums of public money given to the super-rich.

Halting the pandemic and imposing a scientific, shelter-at-home policy has proven impossible in the framework of European capitalism. It requires a conscious political mobilization of the working class across Europe against capitalism, on a socialist program. It entails a struggle to crush the power of the financial aristocracy, impound public funds illegitimately given to the super-rich in trade union-backed bailouts and provide the necessary resources to massively improve health care and support workers and small businesses as they weather the pandemic.

Amid tense India-China border stand-off, US and India boost military-security partnership

Deepal Jayasekera & Keith Jones

Amid the ongoing tense border stand-off between tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops, India and the United States held the third edition of their 2+2 dialogue, a summit between their foreign and defence ministers, on Tuesday in New Delhi. The main aim of the meeting, which was attended by US Secretaries of State and Defence Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper and their Indian counterparts, respectively Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh, was to boost their countries’ military-strategic partnership—which is aimed above all at China.

Kashmiri Bakarwal nomads walk as an Indian army convoy moves on the Srinagar-Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, north-east of Srinagar, India in June. (Image credit: AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has exploited the border dispute, which erupted last May, to further integrate New Delhi into Washington’s military-strategic offensive against Beijing. The Trump administration has been more than willing to reciprocate, since in response to the further decline in the world position of US imperialism triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is dramatically intensifying its campaign of diplomatic, economic and strategic pressure on China and accelerating its plans for war with its nuclear-armed rival.

This is a bipartisan policy of American imperialism that will continue irrespective of the outcome of next week’s presidential election.

The conflict between India and China over their disputed Himalayan border continues to percolate. Both sides have mobilised upwards of 50,000 troops, and forward deployed warplanes, missile and anti-missile batteries near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the undefined boundary which separates the world’s two most populous countries. The border conflict is currently focused in the east, where Indian-controlled Ladakh adjoins Chinese-held Aksai Chin.

From its outset, Washington has provocatively intruded in the current dispute, denouncing Chinese “aggression” and egging India on in adopting a hard-line stance. In so doing, it has greatly heightened the risk that the conflict—which has already resulted in dozens of fatalities—could spiral into all-out war. Washington’ stance is in striking contrast with the public pose of neutrality it adopted in 2017, when Indian and Chinese troops confronted each other for 73 days on the Doklam Plateau, territory claimed by both China and Bhutan, a Himalayan state New Delhi has long treated like a protectorate.

Underscoring the change in the US stance, American officials have repeatedly linked Chinese “aggression” against India to its actions in the South China Sea, where the US has incited territorial disputes between China and its neighbours and mounted a series of naval and military provocations against Beijing.

The visit by Pompeo and Esper succeeded in further integrating India into Washington’s war plans against China. Washington and New Delhi signed the long-negotiated Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) on October 27. It will allow sharing of high-end military technology and classified satellite and other data between the two countries. Finalization of the BECA will open the door to India acquiring armed US-made Predator drones and the sharing between Washington and New Delhi of geospatial information necessary for accurate missile and drone targeting.

The two sides also reportedly discussed a wide range of weapons deals and arms development projects, including the production of small drones that would be used in drone swarm attacks. Press reports suggested that India made an urgent request for extreme-winter fighting gear so it can sustain its deployment of troops in inhospitable Himalayan terrain, including on remote mountain ridges on its border with China that were captured during a provocative operation involving thousands of troops in late August.

Following the talks, Pompeo said that the United States and India were “taking steps for cooperation against all manners of threats” from “the Chinese Communist Party … Our leaders and our citizens see with increasing clarity the CCP is no friend to democracy, the rule of law, transparency, the freedom of navigation [which is] the foundation of a free and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

Pompeo went on to declare that “The United States will stand with the people of India as they face threats to their sovereignty and their liberty,” and, in a further barb aimed at Beijing, noted that he had visited the National War Memorial, where he had honoured the 20 Indian soldiers “killed by the PLA (the Chinese People’s Liberation Army) in the Galwan Valley” on the evening of June 15.

Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said that the 2+2 discussions had a “political military” content. Explaining that India’s growing partnership with US imperialism has a global reach, he added: “Our national security convergences have obviously grown in a more multipolar world. We meet today to not only advance our own interests but to ensure that our bilateral cooperation makes a positive contribution in the world arena.”

The central importance the US attaches to the Indian Ocean in its strategic offensive against China is a key factor behind Washington’s push for an ever closer military-strategic partnership with India. Sea routes vital for China’s export trade and its imports of oil and other raw materials pass through the Indian Ocean.

In recent weeks, India has taken an important initial step toward mounting joint Indian Ocean naval patrols with the US, a longstanding Washington ambition, by organizing two impromptu exercises with US aircraft carrier battle groups passing through the Indian Ocean.

Signalling India’s further integration into the US-led security alliance against China in the Asia-Pacific, New Delhi last week invited Australia to participate in the annual Malabar naval exercise, to be held next month.

This will be the first joint military exercise bringing India together with the US and its two main Asia-Pacific treaty allies, Japan and Australia. It is widely viewed as opening the door for the US-led Quad—a security dialogue bringing together the same four powers—becoming a NATO-style military alliance. India had previously been reluctant to invite Australia to join the Malabar exercise for fear of antagonizing China.

Referring to the wider reach of India-US military cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Esper said: “Our focus now must be on institutionalising and regularising our cooperation to meet the challenges of the day and uphold the principles of a free and open Indo-Pacific well into the future.” As part of these growing military ties, Washington is pushing New Delhi to purchase more weaponry from US firms instead of Russia. India has purchased $21 billion of US-made military equipment since 2007.

Confronting a mounting socioeconomic crisis that has been greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing social opposition, the Modi government is doubling down on “pro-market,” neo-liberal “reform” and on the pursuit of ever-closer relations with US imperialism—that is on the strategic orientation pursued by the Indian bourgeoisie and every one of its governments since 1991.

Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have initiated a “quantum jump” in pro-investor reforms, including the gutting of labour laws, a fire sale of public assets, and measures to boost agribusiness at the expense of small famers. At the same time, in pursuit of the Indian bourgeoisie’s predatory great-power ambitions and so as to strengthen its hand against a rebellious working class at home, the Modi government is cementing India’s role as a junior partner of US imperialism and anti-China frontline state.

Washington has pledged to assist India in pressing American and western-based companies to make India an alternate production-chain hub to China. Significantly, both New Delhi and Washington see armaments production as a key element in this plan. Washington is eager to exploit Indian cheap labour, but also to use expanded investments as a further mechanism to harness India to its predatory strategic agenda.

The BECA is the last of four “foundational” agreements Washington has pressed India to sign so as to create the framework for close Indo-US military cooperation and joint action. The first foundational agreement, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), was signed in 2002. It ensured security standards for the safeguarding of critical information shared by the US with India. In 2016, the US designated India as a “Major Defence Partner,” allowing India to purchase technologically-advanced US weapon systems limited to Washington’s closest NATO and non-NATO treaty allies like Australia.

In 2016, Washington and New Delhi signed a second foundational agreement, the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), that grants Pentagon warplanes and warships access to Indian bases and vice versa. And in 2018, they signed a third foundational agreement, the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) that provides for interoperability between the two militaries and the sale of high end technology from the US to India.

In a major shift in January 2015, eight months after Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP came to power, India adopted the US line on the South China Sea dispute and has parroted it ever since. The Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the Pompeo-Esper visit predictably raised this issue.

In a clear strategic favour to India, the Joint Statement also included warnings against Pakistan, India’s historic rival and on whom New Delhi places all blame for the mass disaffection of the Muslim population in Indian-held Kashmir and the continuing Islamist separatist insurgency there. The statement denounced “the use of terrorist proxies and strongly condemned cross-border terrorism in all its forms.” It urged Pakistan to take “immediate, sustained and irreversible action” to ensure that “no territory under its control is used for terrorist attacks,” and to “expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators and planners of all such attacks, including 26/11 Mumbai, Uri, and Pathankot.”

The entire Indian ruling elite is backing New Delhi’s growing military-strategic partnership with the US and aggressive stance against China. The main opposition Congress Party has repeatedly attacked Modi from the right, alleging his government has not done enough to counter “Chinese aggression.” While claiming to oppose the India-US alliance, the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, is deepening its alliance with the Congress, which it trumpets as a “democratic, secular” alternative to the BJP. It was the Congress-led UPA government, which held office for a decade prior to Modi’s election in May 2014, that first forged a “global strategic partnership” with the US under George W. Bush.

The Pompeo-Esper visit to India is part of a broader US drive to integrate the countries of South Asia into its war drive against China and make the Indian Ocean and, in particular, various Indian Ocean chokepoints, a key arena in any economic blockade or war with China.

Pompeo flew to Sri Lanka from India on Tuesday evening and engaged in talks with Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena on Wednesday. From there he flew to the Maldives, a tiny, thousand-island-chain state that, like Sri Lanka, lies close to the main Indian Ocean sea lanes. In September, Washington announced a defence agreement with the Maldives. India, which in the past had sought to deter the US from gaining a strategic foothold in what it considers its backyard, immediately voiced its strong support for the pact, few details of which have been publicly disclosed.

Significant fall on Wall Street amid rising COVID-19 infections

Nick Beams

The sell-off on Wall Street that began on Monday extended to a third day yesterday as major indexes fell by more than 3 percent. This puts the market on course for its worst downturn since the plunge in mid-March that was only halted after a massive intervention by the Fed when all financial markets had frozen.

The Dow fell by 942 points, or 3.4 percent, after dropping by more than 600 points over the two previous days. The S&P 500 dropped by 3.5 percent and is now down by more than 7 percent since its record high in early September. The largest fall was in the tech-heavy NASDAQ index which lost 3.7 percent, after rising on Tuesday as other indexes fell.

Stock trader works at the New York Stock Exchange [Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan]

The market sell-off has not been confined to Wall Street. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index closed down 3 percent. It has lost 6 percent since the end of last week and is now at its lowest level since May. German and Italian markets each fell by more than 4 percent and London’s FTSE index dropped by 2.8 percent.

The main factor driving the sell-off has been the resurgence of COVID-19 infections across Europe and the US. The US reported 73,200 new cases on Tuesday, the second daily increase in a row, with the total death toll now heading towards the quarter of a million mark.

The UK reported more than 300 deaths for the second day in a row this week, while both Italy and Portugal have reported a record number of new cases. Germany and France have announced new restrictions because of the rise in infections.

In the US, the market sell-off has been further fueled by the lack of a new stimulus package and potential election turmoil as President Trump advances his plan to dispute any Biden victory through the courts and the mobilisation of fascist militias on the ground. This is a vastly expanded replay of what took place in the 2000 election when the Supreme Court halted vote counting and handed the presidency to George Bush.

The key question arising from the share fall so far this week is whether it will go further and extend into other areas of the financial system as took place in mid-March when all markets in the US and around the world essentially froze. There are signs at least of further falls as the sell-off continued into the close of trading.

Last March the multi-trillion dollar intervention by the Fed made it the effective backstop for all markets. It stepped up its purchases of Treasury bonds, initiated the buying of corporate debt, directly and indirectly, as well as intervening in the markets for commercial paper, student loan debt and local government debt.

This led to a rapid rise in the stock market, at one stage returning to the record levels it has reached before the pandemic struck. As a result, financial oligarchs, such as the Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, were enriched to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while broad sections of the working class confronted the worst conditions seen in the post-war period.

There are indications that this week’s market fall could be the start of more widespread financial turbulence.

As a report on Bloomberg noted: “For credit markets, the sudden sell-off might not be the worst of it. Moody’s Investor Services released a report on Wednesday that revealed the amount of debt from US companies considered potential ‘fallen angels’ jumped to an all-time high of $254 billion in the third quarter, from $217 billion at the end of June.”

A company becomes a “fallen angel” when its bonds move from being rated as “investment grade” to “junk” status.

Bonds at risk are those with a Baa3 rating, one level above junk, and which either are considered to have a negative outlook or are under review. Potential “fallen angels,” the article said, include such well-known corporations as Delta Airlines, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott International, and Nordstrom.

So far Moody’s and other rating agencies, it said, had been “patient” before making across-the-board downgrades, but should current trends persist “they might not to be able to hold off much longer.”

Other areas of concern include the stability of commercial mortgage-backed securities. An analysis by the Wells Fargo bank last month showed that the value of properties that have experienced trouble because of the contraction of the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic have fallen by 27 percent.

One example of the extent of the write-downs is the case of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Houston. It was valued at $25.9 million in September, down 46 percent from when it was included in a CMBS [commercial mortgage-backed security] deal in 2014. The hotel has not made payments on its mortgage since March.

If the commercial property sector plunges, then the $1.4 trillion CMBS market will be severely hit and will impact on the major banks.

As a Financial Times report in September noted: “US banks are increasingly worried about being repaid on loans secured against commercial property, as offices, malls and hotels continue to stand empty.” An FT analysis found that “criticised real estate loans” had risen by 144 percent to $26 billion in the second quarter.

The commercial property sector, and the financial system rising above it, is not only being impacted by the immediate effects of the pandemic but by its longer-term consequences. Under conditions where large sections of staff employed in office blocks are now working from home, many corporations are drawing the conclusion that they no longer need the office space they previously required.

In every area of social and economic life, the pandemic has acted as a trigger event and so it is the case in the stock market. Over the past four decades, it has become increasingly divorced from the underlying real economy with parasitism and speculation becoming the dominant form of profit accumulation.

One measure of this process was provided in a recent report by the Financial Times. It found that so-called value investing, in which a company’s share price is measured against the underlying value of its assets—a measure in some way relating the stock price to the real economy—had experienced “its worst run in the last two centuries.”

The ongoing turbulence in the financial markets, including the freeze in March and now the threat of another such event sparked by the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, is rooted in the speculation and parasitism that has created a mountain of fictitious capital.

Heinrich Boll Foundation Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadlines:

• 1st March 2021
• 1st September 2021

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Universities, Universities of Applied Sciences, or Universities of the Arts in Germany

Accepted Subject Areas: Any subject area is applicable

About Scholarship: The Heinrich Böll Foundation grants scholarships to approximately 1,000 undergraduates, graduates, and doctoral students of all subjects and nationalities per year, who are pursuing their degree at universities, universities of applied sciences (‘Fachhochschulen’), or universities of the arts (‘Kunsthochschulen’) in Germany.

The special focus regions for international students are Central and Eastern Europe; EU neighborhood countries and the CIS; the Middle East and North Africa; transition and newly industrialized countries; and conflict regions worldwide.

Selection Criteria: Scholarship recipients are expected to have excellent academic records, to be socially and politically engaged, and to have an active interest in the basic values of the foundation: ecology and sustainability, democracy and human rights, self determination and justice.

Eligibility: The following general requirements apply to international student applicants (except EU citizens) who wish to study in Germany:

• You must be enrolled at a state-recognized university or college (e.g. Fachhochschule) in Germany at the time the scholarship payments begin.
• You should provide proof that you have already graduated with an initial professional qualification. This programme mainly supports students aiming for a Masters degree.
• You need a good knowledge of German, and require you provide proof of your proficiency. Please note that the selection workshop (interviews, group discussions) will normally be in German. Exceptions (interview in English) are, however, possible.
• Unfortunately, the current guidelines specify that the foundation cannot support foreign scholarship holders for stays abroad in third countries for more than four weeks.
• You should definitely apply for a scholarship before the start of your studies, in order to ensure long-term support and cooperation.
• The Heinrich Böll Foundation cannot award you a scholarship, if you are studying for a one-year Masters degree and were not previously supported by the foundation.
• Applications are possible before you begin your study programme or within the first three semesters.
• Applicants must provide proof that they have been accepted as a doctoral student by an institution of higher education in Germany or an EU country (for doctoral scholarship).

Number of Scholarships: Approximately 1000

Duration of Scholarship: Scholarship will be offered for the duration of the undergraduate, Masters or Doctoral programme

How to Apply: The application form will be completed online; additional application documents will be submitted as PDF.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details 

UK GREAT Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: The deadline to apply for a GREAT Scholarship varies according to each institution. For details on individual institutions’ deadlines, please see the institution page.

About the Award: GREAT Scholarships offers numerous scholarships from UK universities, across a variety of subjects for students from the countries below. Each scholarship is worth a minimum of £10,000 towards tuition fees for a one-year postgraduate course. 

Each scholarship is jointly funded by the UK government’s GREAT Britain Campaign and the British Council with participating UK higher education institutions. 

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility:

1. GREAT Scholarships – Bangladesh: Find out about GREAT Scholarships in Bangladesh. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
2. GREAT Scholarships – China: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from China. There are 31 postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
3. GREAT Scholarships – Egypt: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Egypt. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
4. GREAT Scholarships – Ghana: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Ghana. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
5. GREAT Scholarships – India: Find out GREAT Scholarships for students from India. There are 31 postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
6. GREAT Scholarships – Indonesia: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Indonesia. There are 12 postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
7. GREAT Scholarships – Kenya: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Kenya. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
8. GREAT Scholarships – Malaysia: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Malaysia. There are nine postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
9. GREAT Scholarships – Mexico: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Mexico. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
10. GREAT Scholarships – Nepal: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Nepal. There are eight postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
11. GREAT Scholarships – Pakistan: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Pakistan. There are 11 postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.
12. GREAT Scholarships – Sri Lanka: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Sri Lanka. There are eight postgraduate scholarships for the 2021-22 academic year.
13. GREAT Scholarships – Thailand: Find out about GREAT Scholarships for students from Thailand. There are nine postgraduate scholarships available for the 2021-22 academic year.

Eligible Countries: China, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Thailand

To be Taken at (Country): UK

Number of Awards: Numerous

Value of Award: Each scholarship is worth a minimum of £10,000 towards tuition fees for a one-year postgraduate course. 

How to Apply: Filter by your country to find a GREAT Scholarship at a UK university.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

ABInBev Africa Graduate Development & Leadership programme 2020

Application Deadline: Ongoing

About the Award: At ABInBev we believe in investing in our future leaders today.  The Talent Acceleration Programme is an intensive 36 month programme which attracts the brightest most driven graduates and nurtures their talent by providing relevant experiences  right from the start.

If you want to accelerate your career, build your skills through cross functional development and build your profile to be a future leader the Talent Acceleration Programme is for you!

Type: Job

Eligibility:

• Recent University graduate; or
• No more than 3 years TOTAL of full-time formal working experience by the programme start date. (Internship, vac work, short duration contracts and  does not apply
• Minimum GPA (Gross Point Average) of 60% and above at university
• By programme start completed bachelors’ degree (from a recognised tertiary institution) achieved within requisite  timeframe
• Legal work authorization (full citizenship) in the country for which application is being submitted
• Geographical mobility – you should be willing to relocate throughout your career (a valid passport is required)
• Fully proficient in English
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (especially Excel) and ability to quickly adapt to new systems

Selection Criteria: You’ll need to be ambitious, curious, bold and resilient, ready to take on tough challenges and be determined to deliver results.  We’re looking for a global mindset and a desire to connect with people at all levels.  We prize a sense of ownership and a desire to make an impact.

Eligible Countries: Young Africans

To be Taken at (Country): Johannesburg, South Africa

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The programme offers the following:

Frequent evaluation

• 6 Month cycles
• Rotation of work experience and teams
• Individual and team evaluations

Future forward development

• Cross functional experiences
• On the job learning
• Coaching and mentoring
• Leadership development
• Accelerated growth and graduation (Global Management Trainees will be chosen from the TAP Programme)
• Accelerated career growth (top performers’ programme will be shorter in duration)

How to Apply: I’m interested

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Important Notes: The advert has minimum requirements listed. Appointments will be made in line with AB InBev employment equity plan (where applicable) and talent requirements.   Assessments and background checks form part of the recruitment process.  Management reserves the right to use additional/ relevant information as criteria for short-listing

Switzerland’s Failing Democracy

Charles Stevenson

Last September, the Bundesplatz in Bern, over which sit the Swiss federal executive and legislative bodies, played host to the largest acts of peaceful civil disobedience in the country’s history. Several hundred environmental activists were arrested after calling on the government to take the necessary action for Switzerland to fulfill its pledges in respect to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate.

While Switzerland was the first to submit a pledge in the lead-up to the convention, these initial targets are insufficient for the framework’s aims. Moreover, these first timid steps have still not been passed into law. What happened to Switzerland’s desire to lead the way on climate?

The answer lies in the much-vaunted Swiss system of governance. First, the country’s history of strong federalism insures that power is not concentrated at the national level, but rather shared with the cantons and communes, making it difficult to enact the kind of sweeping measures for which the current situation calls.

Second, the executive branch at each of these levels comprises a council reflecting the party composition of the legislature. In addition, the Swiss model includes a form of direct democracy in which any law passed by the legislature must be ratified in a nationwide referendum if 50,000 citizens sign a petition in opposition to it.

Switzerland also boasts a wealth of political parties – twelve are represented in the federal parliament, and the federal executive council is made up of members of four of the largest. This collegial system means that laws are written on the basis of a consensus from the breadth of the parties’ positions.

As a result, Switzerland’s legislation is always a compromise thrashed out between the left and the right, as opposed to the elective dictatorship that characterizes two-party systems like those of the UK or the US.

On September 27th, for example, the Swiss population voted on the introduction of paid paternity leave, but the pressure of pro-business lobbies within parliament meant that the final bill was cut down to just two weeks. The legislation was passed by a wide margin in the subsequent referendum, but it still leaves Switzerland lagging behind most other rich countries in terms of parental leave.

The Swiss also pride themselves on their lack of a political ruling class. In theory, all legislatures, including at the national level, comprise non-professionals who make a living as farmers, teachers and lawyers.

In practice, the demands on their time mean this is rarely the case for today’s parliamentarians, but it does result in a surreal arrangement in which many of the federal legislature’s bourgeois majority also sit on the boards of everything from banks to insurance companies.

The clear conflicts-of-interest this situation creates are thrown into sharp relief by a popular initiative, due to be voted on by the public in November, “for responsible multinationals”.

The text aims to enshrine in the Swiss constitution the basic principle that corporations headquartered in Switzerland must respect human rights and the environment, but neither chamber of the federal legislature was able to scrape together the votes to support the bill.

That the Swiss government is so beholden to corporate power goes a long way towards explaining why it has so far failed to come to terms with the climate and ecological emergency. At a time when 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions, governments must take the measures needed to safeguard their citizens through this century by confronting the entrenched power of fossil capital.

Given that Switzerland’s elected representatives have proven unequal to the task, new forms of democracy are required to avoid environmental breakdown.

One initiative that has been gaining traction in several countries is the idea of a citizens’ assembly. These are groups drawn by sortition – in the same way as a jury – so as to form a random subset reflecting the population they are meant to represent.

Members are brought together to debate an issue with the support of experts, who are present to answer any technical questions. Not only do participants take the proceedings seriously, they tend to reach consensus when other forms of deliberation stall.

Nowhere has this approach been more successful than in Ireland during the referendum on repealing the eighth constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. In 2016, few questions were as divisive in the Catholic-majority republic, yet the televised debates of the country’s citizens’ assembly allowed voters to see their fellow citizens, as opposed to career politicians, discussing many of the concerns they share.

Despite the bitter campaign, the amendment was passed by an overwhelming 67%, reflecting a country united, against all expectations.

In France, the citizens’ convention on climate, convened this spring, put forward 149 proposals. Many, such as the criminalization of ecocide – the deliberate destruction of the environment – are some of the most radical passed by a national government.

Switzerland’s collegial political system, rooted in multi-partisanship and compromise, may explain much of its longstanding stability, but if it hopes to respect its Paris Agreement pledges, it needs to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Achieving this aim requires breaking out of the jaded debates currently playing out in the political arena. Transitioning energy and transport sectors away from fossil fuels and implementing sweeping nature conservation programs calls for the creative thinking that concerned citizens, not vested interests, can produce.

To transform society to the degree demanded by the crises at hand, Switzerland must first revitalize its unresponsive democracy. A binding citizens’ assembly on the climate and ecological emergency is an excellent place to start.

UK’s Chaos Unbound

Kenneth Surin

Each week, it looks as if a new rock bottom has been reached in the UK where the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and negotiations with the EU on a Brexit deal are concerned. The following week then reveals that further depths have now been plumbed, and the story is then repeated in each of the following weeks.

The negotiations with the EU point increasingly towards a No Deal Brexit, which will be catastrophic economically, piling yet more misery on top of the economic chaos caused by the Conservatives’ arbitrary and not-thought-through Covid-19 lockdowns and their accompanying band-aid job support schemes.

As he sinks in the opinion polls, it becomes clearer by the day that Boris “BoJo” Johnson has no idea of what constitutes an adequate response to the pandemic. His proposed solutions are always ad hoc, the latest “solution” usually countermanding the one proffered a couple of days before.

BoJo’s government got the UK into this mess by overlooking warnings early in the year as the pandemic moved steadily across Europe; not really bothering to develop an adequate testing system; closing the UK’s borders much too late; not having a functioning quarantine system; insisting on the shambolic centralization of responses to the pandemic when local conditions required otherwise; failing to provide adequate PPE for staff in hospitals and care homes; not having enough staff to run the emergency Nightingale hospitals; returning elderly Covid-19 patients from hospitals to care homes without adequate testing; and awarding billions to Tory pals and donors in no-bid contracts.

BoJo has finally apologized for failings in England’s £12bn/$15.5bn test-and-trace system as contact-tracing numbers fell to a new low and waiting times for test results climbed to almost double the targeted deadlines.

The ever facile and disingenuous BoJo, having done everything to help his cronies cripple this system, said: “I share people’s frustrations and I understand totally why we do need to see faster turnaround times and we need to improve it”.

James Naismith, professor of structural biology at Oxford University, said of the figures:

“[They] show a system struggling to make any difference to the epidemic … The current system indicates that around two-thirds of infected people do not have contacts traced at all. Of the contacts provided, around 60% of the contacts are reached.

Of those that are reached, over 70% of them are in the same house as the positive case, so were unlikely to have needed the tracing system. Only half of all contacts that are actually traced are reached within 24 hours”.

None of his ministers seem to operate from the same script, so BoJo, a congenital bluffer with a fondness for phrases of cod Latin rather than being an adroit thinker, is tormented during press briefings by requests from journalists to reconcile his seat of the pants decision-making with the equally spur of the moment stances of his ministerial colleagues—the latter being just as incompetent as he is, if not more so.

Even the Tories are at odds with each other over BoJo’s highly confusing 3-tier lockdown system, designed to establish how “at risk” an area happens to be. The measures have been introduced to prevent the UK from undergoing another across-the-nation lockdown which would cause a complete closure of businesses and schools.

Tier 3 (Very high alert level): Household mixing will be banned; all pubs and bars will be closed

Tier 2 (High alert level): Covers most areas under current restrictions; people will not be able to mix with other households indoors

Tier 1 (Medium alert level): Covers most of England; it will feature current rules such as the rule of 6 (individuals) for meetings and 10pm closing time for pubs

There are suspicions that the system is being gamed to suit Tory strongholds— these areas seem to predominate among tiers 1 and 2, while many Labour areas have seen BoJo impose a tier 3 status on them without bothering to consult local leaders.

BoJo has said the criterion for assigning a tier to a particular area is provided by its R or Basic Reproduction Number. This is the expected number of cases directly generated by 1 case in a population where all individuals are susceptible to infection. For example, if a disease has an R number of 18, a person who has the disease will transmit it to an average of 18 other people.

Epidemiologists have long pointed out that using the R number can’t work without an adequate testing system. Even if it works, using the R number on its own won’t do the job of assigning a tier accurately.

Other factors are just as important, such as the capacity of local hospitals to deal with Covid cases regardless of the R number.

As is the case in the US, cities and large towns in the UK with their university, and other, hospitals, tend to be better resourced when it comes to medical care. Small towns in rural areas, with a single general hospital (say), are likely to struggle with even a small rise in the number of Covid cases requiring hospitalization.

BoJo also has no criteria for determining when an area is in a position to be moved down a tier, which is hardly surprising, given that his own medical and scientific advisers expressed no enthusiasm for BoJo’s “tracks of my tiers” system (tributes to Smokey Robinson and the brilliant cartoonist Martin Rowson for this).

The government’s chaotic lockdown regulations, riddled with loopholes, has led to a sharp drop in the number of those adhering to the rules.

The latest Opinium poll showed the proportion of 18-34-year-olds who admitted breaking the rules has increased from 10% to 17% in the last two weeks. The proportion of 35-44-year-olds increased even more sharply – from 10% to 18% over the same period.

BoJo got into an almighty tussle with Andy Burnham, the elected Labour mayor of Manchester.

Burnham is an ambitious and pugilistic Blairite who was an MP before becoming Manchester’s mayor in 2017. Prior to that he had been a member of the cabinet of Gordon Brown (Blair’s successor) until 2010. He ran unsuccessfully against Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership in 2015. His tin-eared motto in his campaign against Corbyn: ““the entrepreneur will be as much our hero as the nurse”. Adopting a motto like this in a supposedly socialist party would sink any person’s chances of becoming its leader.

Burnham, now probably sensing an opportunity created by the milque-toast disposition of the (equally) Blairite Labour leader Keir Starmer in his dealings with the Tories, did the right thing by insisting on financial relief for the job losses ensuing from the pandemic’s second wave.

After well-publicized toing’s-and-froing’s with BoJo, Burnham ended-up receiving a paltry £65mn/$84mn so that less well-off Mancunians could continue to buy food and pay rent.

By comparison, last month BoJo was telling Brits he was going to spend £100bn/$130bn on the “Operation Moonshot” mass testing project, a sum conjured-up in a go-for-broke con to find a supposedly adequate test-and-trace system after failed attempts galore. Sentient Brits know that most of this money will find its way into the pockets of Tory cronies.

In comparison, the £65mn sought by Burnham for the inhabitants of Manchester amounts to a measly £0.065bn. But then simple arithmetic has never been BoJo’s strong point, and moreover, neoliberal governments such as the Tories operate these days in the realm of Enron-style postmodern accounting.

Cynics in the media suggest that Burnham should turn Manchester into a three-week old corporate outfit, with £300/$391 max in capital, and, pretending to be a Tory, make a pitch for a £100mn/$130.6mn no-bid contract to manufacture PPE (despite having no experience whatsoever in this business).

If others, i.e. totally unqualified Tory supporters, have succeeded fabulously with similar pitches, then why not the hypothetical “entrepreneur” Andy Burnham?

In a more serious vein, Burnham has at last found a cause that puts him on the side of the proverbial angels, and he’s become a key spokesperson not just for his metropolis, but the entire North of England.

This supposedly regional politician, at least for now, has achieved some kind of national prominence. Watch out Keir Starmer, and perhaps Boris Johnson. Someone could be finding a way to be the new sheriff in Westminster.

322 Tory MPs voted against a measure to extend free meals for the UK’s poorest children over the half-term and winter school holidays. Their votes killed the bill.

Millions face incapacitating financial hardship as a result of the pandemic, but the Tories decided to end a lifeline for the most vulnerable families.

It is estimated that 1.4 million children will go hungry this Christmas.

The Manchester United and England soccer star Marcus Rashford, a food poverty activist, has raised £20mn/$26.2mn to fund free school meals, and, backed by more than 2,000 pediatricians, pleaded with Tory MPs to extend the free meals programme to cover the winter period.

The Scrooge-like Tory parliamentary vote (one Tory MP, Ben Bradley, tweeted that free meals in his constituency ended-up in crack houses and brothels), left a poor taste in the mouths of party members, and some Tory local councils, including the one in BoJo’s own constituency, saved face by saying they would take over the funding of school meals for the Christmas period.

Hundreds of cafes, shops, and pubs heeded Rashford’s call to feed poor children.

Labour has just announced it will force another vote on free school meals if the government does not change course before the Christmas break.

Meanwhile the Tories continue to squander vast sums elsewhere.

BoJo still plans to spend £120mn/$155mn on the so-called “Festival of Brexit” in the new year. Historically, this could be the first time a UK government spends millions celebrating a palpable economic disaster for the country.

Earlier this month Downing Street confirmed that plans for a Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge across the Irish Sea are underway, BoJo saying the bridge would “only cost about £15bn/$20bn”. The sea beneath the potential route was used as a huge munitions dump during WW2, and experts have warned against constructing a bridge there.

In July, the government bought a stake worth £400mn/$522mn in the failed satellite firm OneWeb as part of a post-Brexit space strategy. Questions have been raised in parliament about awarding this deal to a bankrupt US company.

In something like a closing finger-flip at Marcus Rashford and his supporters, it was revealed that booze in the parliamentary bars is subsidized to the tune of £4.4mn/$6mn a year.

So cheers everyone, and even if you are destitute, have a jolly good time during the festive (sic) season!