Best Of

Andy Burnham promises to keep the state pension triple lock if he becomes PM

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2066132953785118852?s=46&t=Gsn9rlDEZH5vXP97Cgifnw

Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?

From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.

FPT…

I hadn't noticed this detail.

few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation
https://x.com/ergo_praxis/status/2066049704811491467

I sympathise with the judge who has a problem. he has to act according to law, whatever his personal views. The defendants clearly don't think the law should apply to them.

There is a middle position: The government is wrong to extend terrorism to obviously non terrorist acts; and the defendants are wrong to try to get off a criminal charge by running a defence about motivation which in law isn't one.

The judge was right to stop them trying to do so, and is bound by law in the sentencing process to take motive into account. Motivation goes to mitigation/aggravation of an offence, not guilt.

Extending our traditional freedoms to protest to mean including breaking the law in serious ways a is a dangerous step, with fascistic overtones.

Finally, if the judge has got it wrong they can appeal.

I’m not disagreeing with everything you say there, but I wish to dispute the notion that protest that involves breaking the law has fascistic overtones. This country has a long tradition of protest that involves breaking the law, as do other Anglophone nations like the US.

The Suffragettes get mentioned often, but better examples include the Tolpuddle martyrs, the early years of trade unionism, some of the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland, helping slaves to escape, etc.

Make platforms that promote violent content pay towards riot costs, Streeting says

Exclusive: Former minister calls for urgent action against companies such as X that allow incitement to violence

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/14/make-platforms-that-promote-violent-content-pay-towards-riot-costs-streeting-says

Simpler.

Make using algorithms (aside from time order) make the site/app a publisher.

So they have the same legal liabilities as newspapers, magazines and books.

If you simply publish comments to stories in time order, and delete ones for illegality for offence your are not a publisher

Due Care!

They claim they are like the Post office merely distributing not publishing, but the post office not only has rules about what you can and cannot post but must also do what it reasonably can to spot things like explosives or batteries in the post.

Are the doing enough to intercept the things being posted. You’d think that between Algorithms and AI they could do a better job, unless of course they just prefer not to.

Set up a standard they have to meet and then fine them if they don’t. You can start by going beyond age verification to identification. You can post under any name you like but both the poster and the provider need to be able to verify your true identity so that if you deliberately post something illegal or derogatory you can be found.

They would f course fight that tooth and nail because that really would undermine their business model.

Peter.