politics: Last News

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Chumbawamba tell New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister to stop using ‘Tubthumping’ at rallies
Chumbawamba have told New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister to stop using their track ‘Tubthumping’ at rallies.Last weekend (March 17), New Zealand’s deputy prime minister Winston Peters –who leads the right-wing New Zealand First party which is part of the country’s coalition government – walked on stage to the British group’s 1997 hit song before giving his controversial “state of the nation” address.Per BBC, Peters reportedly discussed plans to remove gender and sexuality lessons from the school curriculum and said that NZ First and their supporters have a “real chance to take back our country”. He also used ‘Tubthumping’s song’s lyrics at the end of the address, telling the audience “we got knocked down, but we got up again.”“Chumbawamba wrote the song Tubthumping as a song of hope and positivity, so it seems entirely odd that the ‘I get knocked down…’ refrain is being used by New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters as he barks his divisive, small-minded, bigoted policies during his recent speeches,” said the band’s former lead guitarist Boff Whalley in a statement sent to BBC News.He continued: “Chumbawamba would like to make it clear that we did not give permission for Peters to use the song and would ask him to stop using it to try to shore up his misguided political views.“Chumbawamba does not share any of Peters’ ideas on race relations and would like to remind him that the song was written for and about ordinary people and their resilience.
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Rishi Sunak’s GB News interview under investigation for breaching impartiality rules
The People’s Forum on the channel on February 12, answering questions from a live audience, with many complaining that no alternative point of view was offered during the broadcast.In a statement, Ofcom said: “We have received around 500 complaints about the programme which aired on GB News.“We are investigating under Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code which provide additional due impartiality requirements for programmes dealing with matters of major political controversy and major matters relating to current public policy.“Specifically, Rules 5.11 and 5.12 require that an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in such programmes, or in clearly linked and timely programmes.”The presenter Stephen Dixon said during the show that the questions were being posed by undecided voters, and that they had not been seen in advance, either by GB News or by Sunak.An official spokesperson for Sunak said that the prime minister has no regrets about his appearance on the show and that “this is a matter for Ofcom”.Ofcom, which sets the rules by which broadcasters must abide, does not insist that equal time is given to opposing political views, but does say that audiences must be exposed to alternative ways of thinking.GB News has been found to have fallen foul of Ofcom rules in the past, including when Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was interviewed by fellow Conservative MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies about his Autumn Statement.The channel’s policy of allowing active political figures to host shows, including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lee Anderson, is also contentious.
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The Pentagon denies Fox News’ theory that Taylor Swift is a political “asset”
Taylor Swift is a political “asset” for the government.The conspiracy theory about the pop star arose earlier this week, when news anchor Jesse Watters threw the singer’s mainstream prominence into question and went on a rant about whether she could be part of a psychological operation manufactured by the CIA.“Taylor Swift is the biggest star in the world… but have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this,” he said at the start of the five-minute-long segment.He then went on to insinuate that the singer was in cahoots with the government – a scheme which allegedly began when “The Pentagon psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online.”Here, he played a brief clip from 2019, which he described as a Pentagon employee pitching NATO on Swift as a potential asset due to her role as a powerful influencer.This was soon disproved by Mediaite, who highlighted that the woman in the video doesn’t work for the Pentagon – she is a research engineer in applied physics at Johns Hopkins University who was giving a presentation at NATO’s International Conference on Cyber Conflict, or CYCON.Is Taylor Swift a Pentagon PsyOp asset? pic.twitter.com/yHp8WywKh8— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) January 10, 2024Now, a spokesperson for The Pentagon has put the bizarre speculation to rest by quoting one of Swift’s most famous songs.Making reference to her iconic ‘1989’, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said (via Politico): “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”“But that does highlight that we still need Congress to approve our supplemental budget request as Swift-ly as possible so we can be out of the woods with potential fiscal concerns,” they added.In his
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