 | |
Type of site | News & Media Outlet |
|---|---|
| Owner | Greencastle Capital Limited |
| Editor | Jack Peat |
| Launched | 2013 |
| Current status | Active |
The London Economic (TLE) is a digital newspaper based in the capital of the UK. It rose to prominence during the 2017 United Kingdom general election when it ran the most-shared political story on social media for that election cycle. [1]
The London Economic emerged from a political blog sharing platform created by Jack Peat in 2013.[ citation needed ] It was developed through to 2014 into an alternative news website in an attempt to redress the "political power of the mainstream media", according to editor-in-chief Jack Peat. [2]
Its scepticism of the mainstream media has given it an alternative media tag, one shared by political blogs such as The Canary , music bands such as Captain SKA and websites such as Novara Media . [2] [3]
In June 2017, Peat joined Matt Turner of Evolve Politics , Stephen Glover of the Daily Mail , Aaron Bastani of Novara Media, Michael Heaver of Westmonster , Eve Pollard and David Yelland to discuss whether Britain's newspapers have lost their influence on British politics. [4]
In April 2020, The London Economic was taken over by the venture capital firm, Greencastle Capital Limited, [5] who now hold a controlling 51% stake in the outlet. [6]
Following their takeover, The London Economic encountered criticism after it emerged that Greencastle Capital Limited's owner, David Sefton, has significant links to the fossil fuel industry. [7]
The London Economic was generally supportive of Jeremy Corbyn,[ citation needed ] but has run editorials from anti-Corbyn politicians such as David Blunkett and London Conservative Party councillors.[ citation needed ]
The website took a pro-Remain standpoint on the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[ citation needed ]
The London Economic has published a number of stories which have been notable enough to be picked up by mainstream media outlets.[ citation needed ]
Following the Conservative–DUP agreement The London Economic published capped expenditure proposals outlined by Health secretary Jeremy Hunt which were claimed to ration NHS services, lengthen waiting times and lead to a "postcode lottery for your healthcare". [8]
According to the article leaked by Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth to The London Economic NHS managers were instructed to "think the unthinkable" to find savings which could lead to "staff cuts, units shut and treatments rationed or restricted".[ citation needed ]
Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam appeared on The London Economic's podcast Unbreak The Planet to discuss the Insulate Britain protests, saying he would "block an ambulance" in order to get the campaign group’s message across. [9]
Explaining his motives, he described climate change as "the biggest crime in human history imposed by the rich against the global poor." [10]
Describing its audience, The London Economic said it appealed in particular to "young professionals predominantly based in London".[ citation needed ]
Sir Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Exeter from 1997 to 2024. Before entering politics he worked as a BBC Radio reporter.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. An independent, Corbyn was a member of the Labour Party from 1965 until his expulsion in 2024, and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus. He served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. Corbyn identifies ideologically as a socialist on the political left.
Ivan Lewis is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury South from 1997 to 2019, initially as a member of the Labour Party then as an independent from 2017.
Ian Christopher Austin, Baron Austin of Dudley is a British politician who sits as a life peer in the House of Lords. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dudley North from the 2005 general election until the 2019 general election when he stood down. Formerly a member of the Labour Party, he resigned from the party on 22 February 2019 to sit as an independent, and was ennobled in the 2019 Dissolution Honours. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government from 2009 to 2010.
The British left can refer to multiple concepts. It is sometimes used as shorthand for groups aligned with the Labour Party. It can also refer to other individuals, groups and political parties that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United Kingdom. There are various sub-groups, split between reformist and revolutionary viewpoints. Progressives and social democrats believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists, among others on the far left, on the other hand argue for abolition of the capitalist system.
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The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It is one of two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party. The party has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in July 2024. Since the 2024 general election, the Labour Party has been the governing party of the United Kingdom and the largest political party in the House of Commons, followed by the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. As of 2024, there have been seven Labour prime ministers and fourteen Labour ministries. The party traditionally holds the annual Labour Party Conference during party conference season, at which debates and voting take place, and senior Labour figures promote party policy.
The i Paper, known as i until December 2024, is a British national newspaper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at "readers and lapsed readers" of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent.
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth is a British former Labour and Co-op politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester South from 2011 to 2024. He had served as Shadow Paymaster General from September 2023. Having lost his seat at the 2024 general election, he was appointed chief executive of the Labour Together thinktank.
Alex Nunns is a British author, editor and political activist.
Amol Rajan is an Indian–British journalist, broadcaster and writer working in the United Kingdom. Formerly the media editor of BBC News, he has been a presenter on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 since 2021 and University Challenge on BBC Two since 2023. Before joining the BBC, Rajan was the editor of the newspaper The Independent from 2013 to 2016.
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament election.
Jeremy Corbyn, the Member of Parliament for Islington North, stood as a candidate in the 2015 British Labour Party leadership election, in a successful campaign that made him the leader of the Labour Party.
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James Gerald Hylton Schneider is an English political organiser and writer currently serving as Communications Director for Progressive International. He co-founded the left-wing grassroots movement Momentum. In October 2016, he was appointed public relations advisor to then leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as Director of Strategic Communications.
Antisemitism within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) dates back to its establishment. One early example was comments about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War. In the 2000s, controversies arose over comments by Labour politicians regarding an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.
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