I was frustrated listening to Home Office minister Diane Johnson MP talking on Radio 4 this morning.
Her line was twofold. Labour was going to be tough on rioters, and Ofcom was sending a letter to social media companies to remind them of their responsibilities.
I have three reactions.
First, of course Labour is going to talk tough about crime. What else can or should it do? But it is hardly sufficient to do so.
Second, the proposed response to social media companies is not good enough. They have a duty of care as publishers, that they deny. If I try to exercise that duty of care here by reading all comments they can use AI to identify all comments on their sites creating risk. I am quite sure it is not beyond their wit to do so. And that should be enforced by law, personally impinging on the executives of those companies. Elon Musk should not have the right to promote the possibility of civil war in the UK, as he appears to have done. Legislation is required, very urgently.
Third, there was no attempt to discuss the causes of this situation. And that is not good enough.
Labour really does need to up its act, and very soon. The claim that they are only just in office will not wear for long.
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https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/rachel-reeves-targets-canada-style-pension-model-in-uk/ar-AA1onQvY?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=c91062d97edf49af94d3569895a8f2b0&ei=8
Very off topic, but is this a good move?
No
They partake in destructive private equity operations
Thanks, that’s concerning then.
Apologies for continuing off topic, but what should either we/the government be doing with regard to pension saving? I note in another thread that (I think John Warren) mentioned that there are more DC pensions that are investing in shares, but that this isn’t productive use. But what alternative do we have?
I cannot give what looks like investment advice
I have made my suggestions in the Taxing Wealth Report 2024
Including the 31% stake in Thames Water which Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (one of the Maple 8) has just written off.
There is a hilarious interview of Murdo Fraser MSP on BBC Radio Scotland GMS. The first mistake the interviewer makes is to take Fraser seriously; especially as a representative of new Conservative thinking. Fraser confesses he represents a Party with a membership of 7,000. Few of them, I hazard will be under 80 years old.
In spite of the fact that the Scottish Conservatives have not had the support of a majority of Scottish voters for 70 years, Fraser has spent his career claiming that Scottish Conservatives alone represent the majority of Scots, and has supported, with little protest, the last fourteen years of catastrophic Conservative mis-government; the disaster that brought us to where we are now. This, right now is the legacy of conservatism. It is madness to take them seriously.
This foolish man, whose poor judgement and weak understanding is a by-word in Scotland for Conservative ineptitude; is now representing himself as a thinker, and representative of change. He wants those who will not vote Conservative to lend him their vote, to promote the same old ill-considered, failed waffle; which he made the mistake of summarising. Nothing has changed. He has learned precisely nothing from endless defeat.
He has never been elected directly by voters as a constituency MSP, save on the Party list; which is also telling. His political career has been entirely the product of Party patronage.
Mr Fraser has been successful at only one thing – failure.
He was unsuccessful in Scottish Parliamentary elections in 1999, 2003 and 2007. He was unsuccessful in HoC elections in 1997 and 2001.
Only becoming an MSP in 2001 after a resignation (he was next on the party list) and was then unsuccessful in constituency votes in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2016 and 2021 but got into parliament on the list vote instead.
The guy’s got some brass neck. He’s made a good living from constantly being rejected.
The (Scottish in name only) Conservative Party have nothing to offer Scotland. Their one and only policy is to hand governance back to Westminster so they can maintain a firm grip on our numerous assets.
Best we keep a grip on Murdo Fraser.
@ John S Warren
You must be mistaken, John.
Nothing about Murdo Fraser could possibly be hilarious.
Already they seem to be acting as a caretaker government even though the outer ring is doing some PR friendly things, the hard core is ‘caretaker’ through and through.
Reeves abroad begging for inward investment from U.S. asset strippers?
Looking into turning LA pension funds into cannibalistic capitalist operations?
Jesus!
What did Colonel Smithers say? ‘Emigrate’, was it?
How bad do things have to be before Stymied has some form of epiphany?
Elon Musk has outed himself out for the totalitarian that he is. If the civil war is inevitable then surely he knows it’s leader and what the leader is already thinking. It is inevitable of course. It is very possible that the leader posts on twitter. The owner of twitter should then do the right thing. Ban the leader and you stop the civil war. Or has Musk not thought through the meaning of what he said?
There are social causes to the riot. About 7/10 arrested have prior convictions related to violence and hooliganism. Austerity and cuts to the justice system have not served the community. The political insistence for the need for austerity to fix Britain has failed. More austerity won’t fix Britain.
“More austerity won’t fix Britain.” – “More austerity won’t fix Britain.” – “More austerity won’t fix Britain.”
“What was that you said?” says your local Labour MP. – “What was that you said?” says your local Labour MP. – – – and on and on the clowns pretend they were worth voting for!
The climate cannot wait for another change of government. Cuts to carbon dioxide emissions are beyond urgent. Also, the proposals below would reduce flagrant and unnecessary inequality.
Guardian photos ‘at the same spot in the Swiss Alps almost exactly 15 years apart’ showed the Rhone glacier – almost gone. Other recent reports include: * A wildfire in California that has burned 627 square miles. * The erosion the Scottish coast by 7 metres a year * The emission of more than four tonnes of carbon dioxide from Utah’s great Salt Lake has rung ‘alarm bells. * Japan has experienced significant heat recently with temperatures soaring into the high 30Cs * Gardeners and pest controllers say wasps, important predators and pollinators, appear to be in sharp decline … Meanwhile, in Sudan and Gaza …
To cut emissions immediately:
Flying must be reduced now and continually from now on. It is foolish to wait for international agreements.
Road speeds could and should be restricted – overnight to start with.
Electricity, gas and water should have no standing charges but low unit costs for basic needs, followed by rising tariffs.
Taxes of ‘floor-space per person’ of dwellings on the same sort of pattern as above, would soon bring under-used space into use and generate enough cash to give everyone a home.
The problem with your approach on taxing floor space is that the affluent will be able to pay. All you do is dispossess those on lower earnings. Better to change rules on use of property for second homes and holiday lets.
@ Joe Burlington
“…Electricity, gas and water should have no standing charges but low unit costs for basic needs, followed by rising tariffs.”
I totally agree with this. To discount for scale of consumption is unmitigated madness. The madness of privatisation. I would allow discounts for direct debit/standing order payment because it keeps admin costs down but otherwise…..nah. No discounts for greater consumption. And standing charges were outlawed once, but they didn’t take long to creep back in the interests of the well-off consumers. I’d call it private sector regressive taxation. Abuse of an effective monopoly (oligopoly) status.
I agree
So people can’t get a GP appointment, or they have no access to social housing, or they’re on zero hours contracts and have no job security. They blame all of this on immigration because of the dog-whistle antics of Farage and his ilk, without ever questioning the why. Why can’t I get a GP appointment? Why can’t I get affordable accommodation? Why don’t I have job security? The presence – or absence – of immigration has no part in the underlying cause.
Why can’t I get a GP appointment? Answer: years of underinvestment and and austerity; scaling back the service to a bear minimum for no other reason than political ideology and government pandering to their donors.
Why can’t I get affordable housing? Answer: neoliberal ideology leaving it to the private sector to provide, when the private sector has no intention of providing as there’s no profit to be made in it. So failure of government to step up and fund/build the necessary housing.
Why don’t I have job security? Answer: neoliberal ideology leaving it to the private sector to determine what employment it offers and under what terms. Government ideologically driven to stand back and watch people suffer
So, nothing to do with immigration; everything to do with political choice.
Someone needs to ram this home to the rioters – they’re protesting at the wrong door. Try No. 10… (but peacefully please)
“Ofcom was sending a letter to social media companies to remind them of their responsibilities.”
Musk gets it, reads it (maybe) & weeps with laughter, ditto the others.
Regulators, nutless, gutless, brainless, by (neolibtard) design.
Might “our” Labour Government’s words, direct and indirect, actions and restraints of action, be, and continue to be, influenced by big donors and those who effectively control main stream media outlets?
Yes
I wonder how many of the rioters are simply people who are aggressive by nature and use an issue as an excuse to go out and attack others including the police. At another time they would find another group to attack – LGBT+, climate activists or whoever. There is a low level of aggression in society where people resort to violence as a matter of course.
There’s more to it than that, Peter Wills.
A guru once told me that what you think you are angry about is never what you are really angry about. Those of us who have had someone to listen to our woes – a trusted friend, some kind of priest or maybe a professional counsellor can sometimes help us identify a trauma – maybe in childhood. Once examined, the power of it usually drops away.
To illustrate the point, my father died before I was six, my mother had a hard time and was sometimes harsh. She once said, ‘Don’t pretend you love me if you won’t wash the dishes.’ I discovered later in life that washing dishes was only one of the things that could be a big deal for me.
And there was money for me to go to a minor public school where there were small classes and a well-stocked library with daily newspapers. We had opportunities for games, drama, singing, woodwork, metalwork … but getting the stick at thirteen traumatised me.
The state can well afford to provide much better education for everyone. A good prison system can provide counselling and support – when there can be no running away – and go on to provide work training or whatever – see ‘Britain’s jails are in terrible crisis, but prison can work’ [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/08/labour-prisons-wandsworth-austerity]
@ Joe Burlington
‘……The state can well afford to provide much better education for everyone……Absolutely so.
“…. A good prison system can provide counselling and support … and go on to provide work training or whatever ….”
Yes it could. And it should. Prison should be about rehabilitation, but in the climate of recent years it has been necessary to make prisons dysfunctional to prevent queues developing to get in.
The social media companies are only too quick to delete our posts, threaten us for going against their community standards or even send us to Facebook jail for daring to mention that there is a genocide going on in Gaza and that Israel is doing it. So their AI algorithms are perfectly capable of calling out this incitement to racial hatred, which is illegal.
The social media companies are only too quick to delete our posts, threaten us for going against their community standards or even send us to Facebook jail for daring to mention that there is a genocide going on in Gaza and that Israel is doing it.
So their AI algorithms are perfectly capable of calling out this incitement to racial hatred, which is illegal.
I was very glad to see the back of Richard Drax, brexiteer MP, who has been replaced by one of Labour’s new MPs, Lloyd Hatton
Here is my letter to him sent today – much good it will do anyone. Now, I wonder where I got all that from?
Hello Lloyd,
I am very unhappy with the state of our democracy.
We now have two main political parties occupying right of centre positions. Labour is just light Tory.
We have to get some form of Proportional Representation if democracy is to survive.
The main cause of unrest and unhappiness is the enormous divide between rich and poor and the fact that the rich (and super-rich) are controlling government for their own ends.
The need for countless foodbanks is a disgusting shame on our country. Government should be for ALL the people.
If the divide is not corrected, there WILL be trouble.
Rachel Reeves is a died-in-the-wool, Bank of England trained, neo-liberal, market-forces economist. This bigoted capitalist ideology has failed and is failing. She MUST tax unearned income in the same way as earned income. She MUST invest in HMRC , boost its employees and gather uncollected tax. Taxation MUST be increased on the super-wealthy. She can easily reduce the interest paid to banks on their “loans” to BoE. Europe does it – so can we. Billions is to be had. But she also ought to force the BoE to reduce base interest rates. (Don’t tell me that BoE is independent, it is not true. Treasury does have the power.)
Her reversal of Keynes statement “We CAN afford what we can do” into “We can’t do what we can’t afford” says it all. She is not running household accounts. The government CAN invest in anything for which we have the resources to enact and boost the economy, wages and thus boost happiness too.
Paying for necessary state services both garners tax pay-back, boosts manufacture and purchasing, improves health of workers and education-fodder, which garners more tax payback and boosts the internal economy. It really is not just “Private” enterprise that is valuable in our economy! Both Private and state enterprise is necessary in a balanced economy.
Investing (Reeves will call it borrowing!) in, state services, renewable energy, insulation and necessary infrastructure is something which would grow the economy and produce returns.
The current disgraceful civil disturbance is not specifically aimed at economics, but the very obvious unfairness and unhappiness is very much fuel for anger and revolt; all this talk about Law and Order and punishment, may be necessary but is also the usual Government attempted diversion and DOES NOT address the CAUSES.
Do you know what UK’s happiness index is? What do you want to do about it? This is a bloody awful country, for many, in which to live.
I believe that it is a racing certainty that you will not be re-elected in 5 years time unless there are major U-turns, and they seem unlikely. No doubt, should you voice any of these criticisms, you will lose the whip. Why am I bothering to write?
Yours sincerely,
Norman Willcox.
C.Phys MinstP, C.Eng. MIET
Good luck
Perhaps everyone should send your letter to their new MP Norman!
Also, send it to your local newspaper as an ‘open letter’ so it gets wider publicy.