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The last few years have seen a sustained effort on the part of the UK government to clamp down on protest labelled ‘disruptive’ and ‘illegal’. After the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, we are now presented with John Woodcock’s ominously titled report Protecting our Democracy from Coercion. It targets not just certain activist groups but our understanding of democracy itself. Emphasising the ‘rule of law’, the report imagines a democracy reduced to a fixed set of rules and institutions insulated from popular control and contestation.

[…] [John Woodcock's] 291-page report focuses particularly on non-violent activists on the left, such as climate and pro-Palestine groups, who employ strategies of disruption and lawbreaking. The threat of these, Woodcock claims, lies in the economic damage they may cause, in the draining of police resources, and in their potential ‘to undermine faith in our parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.’ Although recent changes in policy would suggest otherwise, he insists that these dangers have so far been overlooked and little understood. The recommendations of Woodcock’s report range from establishing channels for businesses to claim compensation from protest organisers, charging them for the cost of policing, and calling on governments and elected representatives not to engage with or consult any activists employing strategies of lawbreaking.

[…] Championing ‘the rule of law’, he writes ‘that if a movement advocates systematic law-breaking as the means for political change, then that organisation crosses a line for what is and is not acceptable.’ This disregards the fact that protests that involve lawbreaking and civil disobedience have a historical legacy of democratisation that extends from the suffragettes to the US civil rights movement — and are recognised as democratic practices by liberal democratic theorists such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.

Woodcock, in contrast, insists that all this is obsolete because ‘the UK’s liberal democracy’ guarantees citizens’ right to vote. This reduces the people to an audience allowed to express their consent or disapproval every few years on the invitation of the government. It also disguises the reality of a corporate lobby drowning out electoral voice. The ‘independent advisor’ Woodcock is himself a case in point: it is difficult to believe that his activity as a paid lobbyist for arms manufacturers and fossil fuel companies did not affect his report’s recommendations to constrain climate and pro-Palestine activist groups in particular. Making acts of popular protest more and more difficult ultimately also makes it easier for corporate power to shape government policy in its interest.

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Britons will be urged to stockpile tinned food, batteries and bottled water under a new campaign launched by the UK government to encourage the public to prepare for emergencies.

Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, will on Wednesday unveil a new website designed to help households mitigate potential harm from an array of risks, ranging from flooding and power outages to biosecurity crises such as another pandemic.
[…]
The “Prepare” website launched on Wednesday calls on households to stock up on bottled water. It suggests a minimum supply of about three litres of drinking water per person per day, but recommends 10 litres per person per day — to aid basic cooking and hygiene needs — as a more comfortable level of supplies.

It also urges people to buy and store non-perishable food that “doesn’t need cooking, such as ready-to-eat tinned meat, fruit or vegetables”, as well as a tin opener, plus baby supplies and pet food where relevant.

Battery or wind-up torches and radios, a first aid kit, and wet wipes are among other emergency supplies detailed on the government checklist.

Speaking at the London Defence Conference, Dowden will say “resilience begins at home” and cite polling by the conference showing that only 15 per cent of people have an emergency supply kit in their homes, while more than 40 per cent of people do not have three days’ supplies of non-perishable food and water.

Government officials said the advice would bring Britain in line with nations such as Finland and Japan, which are regarded as leaders in citizen resilience.

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Wes Streeting has defended his party’s policy not to scrap the cap on child benefit for just two children in each household.
[…]
Labour had been in favour of scrapping the child benefit cap but reversed on the proposal late last summer because shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said it was unaffordable, provoking huge anger and debate in the party.
[…]
[Ms Braverman wrote in The Daily Telegraph]: "The truth is that Conservatives should do more to support families and children on lower incomes... A crucial reform that Frank [Field] advocated was to scrap the two-child benefits limit, restricting child tax credits and universal credit to the first two children in a family. If they have a third or fourth child, a low-income family will lose about £3,200 per year.

"Over 400,000 families are affected and all the evidence suggests that it is not having the effect of increasing employment or alleviating poverty. Instead, it’s aggravating child poverty."

Mr Streeting told The Independent that poverty in the UK is forcing women to choose to have abortions because they cannot aford to keep the child.

But when The Independent asked him about Labour’s U-turn on scrapping the two child benefit cap, he insisisted that dealing with child poverty was “more than just about handouts”.
[…]
[He said]: "I also know that that the answer to child poverty, ultimately, is not simply about handouts, it is about a social security safety net, that also acts as a springboard that helps people into work and with good work that makes the cost of living affordable for everyone.

"That means that if you aren't doing the right thing, and earning a living and playing by the rules, that you don't just have enough to make ends meet, but you have enough to do the things that make life worth living. And we’re some way from that from that now."