I’m more of a gummy bear kind of person myself. Haribo’s are an endangered species
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Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley has died:
TBH, I assumed that he must have died years ago, but I was at a talk that he gave in the late 1990s (just after he had stood down as an MP) which I found quite interesting. Particularly, it was his views on means-testing benefits and government programmes, which he strongly opposed.
His argument was partly that means testing is degrading and stigmatising to the recipients, but mainly he claimed that universal benefits tended to have far stronger support because everyone was treated fairly. I can remember him saying that if someone wealthy says that they don’t think that they should be receiving a particular benefit, what they were essentially saying is that they don’t think anyone else should receive it either.
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I’m not sure whether this belongs more here or the Russia-Ukraine war thread, but the two Ukrainians that carried out arson against the property of Keir Starmer have been convicted. A third man has been found not guilty.
There is an interesting article in the FT about how this is tied in with Russian hacktivist groups linking up with far-right groups in spreading disinformation and committing acts of violence. It may be of interest to @Magnus :
A Russian online sabotage network was behind a series of arson attacks on Sir Keir Starmer’s family home and other targets linked to the UK prime minister, an FT investigation has found.
Roman Lavrynovych, a 22-year-old Ukrainian construction worker based in London, was on Monday convicted of the arsons, which Starmer last year called “an attack on democracy”, after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.
Prosecutors in the case did not disclose information about the identity of Lavrynovych’s handler, other than to reveal that they used the Telegram handle “El Money” and communicated in Russian and Ukrainian.
An FT investigation based on Telegram archives, cryptocurrency wallets, court evidence and interviews with western officials has established that El Money was located in Russia and was closely aligned with NoName057(16), a pro-Kremlin hacktivist group that the US has called a Russian “state-sanctioned project”.
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Doesn’t that just mean cutting taxes?
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There is a more accessible version of the FT story here:
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It’s a normal GRU operation, except that the PM is the target.
They do this all the time, in Germany, Belgium, Baltic states, Poland and of course, in Ukraine. And usually, Ukrainian refugees is what they use.
Typical Modus Operandi:
https://x.com/InsiderGeo/status/2066525435609948175
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Lol, Kvist is on point
https://x.com/kvistp/status/2066500725782331429
Ehem, related news from today
https://x.com/polidemitolog/status/2066533688255332595
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So I saw the Express headline stating just that, but the Independent are reporting it as increasing the taxes for firms hiring foreign workers.
So I’m thinking what are the largest employers of foreign workers in the UK at the moment?
Bit of a sticky wicket but here goes…
Why have a ban? Is this not actually infringing on the rights of parents? This is a strange dynamic and smacks a bit of appeasement to secure voting at the next election.
p.s. Happy to be completely wrong and ultimately do not care one way or the other
Amazon no?
It smacks of political expediency to me. This is being rushed through for no good reason and will surely be picked apart before being enacted. I’m already smelling another Starmer u-turn. (If he’s even around long enough.)
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This kind of ban is virtue signalling at its worst.
Kids are too smart these days, they’ll find a way around any ban.
Government attempting to relieve parents of their parental responsibilities, again.
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Maybe. I had the NHS or the care sector in my mind to be honest.
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Australia have recently banned social media for kids.
Personally, I’m extremely worried about exposing my youngest to it.
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We gave our oldest a phone at 12 and will do the same with the younger one. We have no way of knowing if that was the right choice or not - time will tell.
Same here but no social media account. Contact with friends only so far.
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We never said but we as parents don’t have anything beyond whatsap and though we haven’t said no specifically, they are (on the surface) not interested in going down that path…
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Social media, broadly defined, is controlled by people with unlimited resources and is explicitly designed to be addictive.
It is not benign. They do not have anyone’s interests in mind, other than their own, and we won’t know the full impacts for years.
If that is not a case for heavy regulation, especially for children, I don’t know what is.
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Ps. I don’t know if this is the best way forward, but I would rather they tried this than did nothing.
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Would be interesting how they would do it with the NHS.
Basically tax that then goes back to the gov 