Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

This Policy Exchange report by Simpson and Kaufmann polled people on whether they agreed with Cardiff University's decision to de-platform Germaine Greer. The problem is that she wasn't de-platformed. pic.twitter.com/rBBMZWZaMw

— alexandre afonso (@alexandreafonso) February 18, 2021

talking of free speech

Someone did a study of 10,000 university speaking events and the only one that resulted in an actual cancellation was a guy recruiting for a pyramid scheme.

"I believe I can quadruple your investment in just four weeks, debate me you cowards"

Odd how Starmer talks about a moral crusade when he accepted £50k for his leadership campaign from the co-founder of Bet365, a company Starmer's *own PPS*, Carolyn Harris described as "morally abhorrent". https://t.co/A7sBaG54MR

— Mr Demos of Pnyx (@gem_ste) February 19, 2021

guy who tried to hide his donors until everyone had voted in a leadership election which he had funded a very expensive and dishonest campaign with donations from dodgy as fuck property developers and bet365 has the fucking gall to talk about a "moral crusade". Wilson might have been a bit of a slippery character, but he was a political giant and a saint next to this pathetic loser.

The idea of Harold Wilson leading a moral crusade would have provoked plenty of guffaws from friends and enemies alike tbh. What did Anthony Crosland say after Gaitskell died when Wilson and George Brown were the main candidates to replace him, "What a choice, a crook and a drunk"?

yeah I think I've read most of the same Wilson book as you and remember that passage, lol George Brown was a very thirsty lad!

Dunno, but you can guess what I'm still waiting for...xpost obv

I mean what passed for a "crook" of an MP in the 60's would be in the top 5% of clean as a whistle pols in Westminster today.

Wasn’t it Wilson who pivoted British exports to focus on arms sales and PMCs?

the saviour of the UK military arms of death industry on a moral crusade!

Any politician using "moral crusade" is usually a total dickhead, but I do retain some fondness for Harold ov Hudds.

On a crooked note, its pretty wild that the Nasa Mars mission cost 1/10th as much as the UK Track & Trace scheme.

of course that dreadful stat can be explained by the cost of launching space projects getting much cheaper rather than the utter profligacy of crony capitalism reaching a new nadir!

No cases of the rona discovered on Mars yet tbf

If only Captain Tom had gone to Mars and not Barbados ;_;

there is no fucking cheap pooy on Mars though!

if there is any Bowie virus discovered there then it might be time to say thanks for the memories Mars but unfortunately now can you please fuck off!

getting my intern to mock up a blueskin captain tom sitting* on the pink sands, little hydrogen atom on his forehead, making that "tangle of their lives" speech

*stands at his zimmer on the pink sands

Would be great if we somehow found some form of life on Mars and TB blanketed it all in one go, testament to the human spirit

A rare piece of good news:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/19/uber-drivers-workers-uk-supreme-court-rules-rights

Look forward to the inevitable rise of brand new ride service Unter

This is good stuff srsly, not dismissing it

Could not give any less of a shit about Prince Harry of course, but am enjoying seeing how they've annoyed Nicholas Witchell so much they've given him a nervous twitch.

"their honorary duties will be returned to the queen and redistributed amongst the remaining working members of the royal family"

lol join a union lads

the remaining working members of the royal family

Meaning the ones who haven't been excommunicated I suppose

getting my intern to mock up a blueskin captain tom zombie phil sitting* on the pink sands, little hydrogen atom on his forehead, making that "tangle of their lives" speech

*stands at his zimmer propped up in his handy lidless coffin on the pink sands

From the quote pulled this is more good news.

“It became the bane of my life the last couple of years. It wasn’t really making any money.”

Boo fucking hoohttps://t.co/4PcQ1NPxoV

— Robyn Vinter (@RobynVinter) February 19, 2021

*looks around at 120,000 dead, massive unemployment, surging eviction and unemployment rates, brexit-fuelled economic collapse, ever-increasing income inequality*

will no-one think of the landlords

I often do think of landlords when I'm applying some flea killing formula to the back of my dog's neck

is there any other sector of the economy where investors seem so convinced that the value of their assets, and the income they derive from them, is somehow divinely ordained and must therefore be protected at all costs

Oh look Hatt Mancock's been found to have acted unlawfully around the handing out of public contracts to his school chums, and there will be not even the vaguest suggestion of repercussions for him.

Hard to deny the Beeb and Nicholas Witchell are much more than a division of Buckingham Palace’s PR department. The barely contained rage here... pic.twitter.com/TfdaxlEHa1

— Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) February 19, 2021

Could not give any less of a shit about Prince Harry of course, but am enjoying seeing how they've annoyed Nicholas Witchell so much they've given him a nervous twitch.

― Bastard Lakes (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 19 February 2021 13:07 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol, loving it!

I’ve always wondered what Witchell did that got him stuck with the Royal desk for 20+ years. He used to be the BBC’s frontline news presenter.

Though going by his recent form, he probably saw it as a promotion.

I guess it's quite a cushy number cosying up to the royals. Going on a few foreign trips to report on them, think I could hold my nose nad od that.

*and do*

I'd rather starve to death, living in a tent!

tir nad od

Prince Charles on Nicholas Witchell: "I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is." Pot/kettle obv but imagine continuing with the gig after that.

Was gonna mention..

Along with:

Harry:"You can't say that..!"
Charles:"Yes I can.."

A rare piece of good news:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/19/uber-drivers-workers-uk-supreme-court-rules-rights

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Friday, 19 February 2021 12:32 bookmarkflaglink

This *is* good, and is an example of legislation very gradually catching up globally, and differently for each market, with the numerous ways platform/gig economy models get their profit margin. as mentioned upthread i think, people who did one of the original surveys of the viability of the gig economy in 2015 updated the data a couple of years ago and found that there hadn't been anything like the uptake their data (at that time heavily weighted to Uber) had predicted. As well as being over reliant on Uber, their original predictions hadn't factored in the extent to which post GFC poverty was driving people taking up two jobs.

ofc we could set yet another 'stimulus' to the in-work poverty on which the likes of uber rely from covid. but legislation *is* catching up in a number of large markets, suggesting that one of the main innovations was simply that the business model enabled by internationally hosted platforms and local resources hadn't yet been regulated for. any company trying to do this again, would have to factor into their business model the likelihood that they would fall under labour regulation, so i'm pretty optimistic.

More importantly these business models are just *fucked* and rely heavily on future monopolies, to fulfil which aim they'll run at a massive loss funded by VC. FT piece here, paywalled, apologies, but really the headline says it all: Uber and Lyft’s valuations expose the gig economy to scrutiny: The platform business model faces challenges. Either customers or investors will pay.

it is immensely annoying for anyone that runs or is part of a moderately and sustainably profitable business is automatically more successful by tens of millions of pounds than the likes of Uber, but that models such as uberisation and platform based labour arbitration are held up as 'the future.' Consistent venturing of investment into unsustainable business models will do a great deal of damage to workforces as well as the intrinsic damage of having businesses that require people to work this way, so legislation is doubly welcome, even from a business point of view - ie people who are often hostile to supportive labour regulation.

weird how one form of entitled tossing it off is a life of public service and another form is history's greatest outrage

I'd rather starve to death, living in a tent!

― calzino, Friday, February 19, 2021 11:23 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao

According to a source, the departure of Oliver Lewis - or “Sonic” - from Downing St was because “Carrie wants [Henry] Newman running the Union” - ie the unit charged with keeping Scotland in the UK, which was Lewis’s job. This shows not that Carrie Symonds is necessarily... https://t.co/PN4FdTosdo

— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 19, 2021

the puppet on a string PM!

Taking back control! (pt. 94)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43729508?fbclid=IwAR2t4k7eco46lM9lNGBPxSYMHnSgEHMqHkETfs0Ty_XsVLYI0ZlfyxwvZRc

at least you can eat your fish & chips by the sea in Southend

Shocked Hull didn't make the charts but there are a lot of plus points to living somewhere cheap

course not, why would they, and why would you

Sir Keir Starmer says he will not be calling for Matt Hancock to resign over the unlawful publishing of covid contracts saying "calling for people to resign is not what the public really want to see" #ridge

— Rob Powell (@robpowellnews) February 21, 2021

I hate him so much.

nobody wants to see government ministers held to account for criminal corruption

it's weird i thought Kieth was big on prosecuting people