Whose Free Speech? – politicalbetting.com

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Flatlander said:

glw said:

Malmesbury said:

It’s not malevolence. They - the ones I’ve met - aren’t thinking that way.

The way they see it, they have an obligation to protect society etc. Technology must follow the law.

It comes from a generalist manager/lawyer view of the world.

I’ve tried convincing such people that there is no such technical solution. Their response is to say I am ignorant - a solution *must* be found.

Isn't the thing they want now client-side monitoring? So that they don't need to try and subvert the encryption, but they have a "bug" in every app. What they don't seem to grasp is once places like the UK make such laws many other countries will follow, afterall the legality and means will have been established. In many countries it won't be scanning images for child exploitation, it will be scanning for dangerous talk, like "democracy", "civil rights", "trade unions", "abortion" and so on.

How are they going to stop someone using their own XMPP server and an open source client?

Possibly routed via a VPN server, just for added paranoia.


Asking for a friend.

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Chris said:

"... it goes without saying that if a venue discriminates against someone with views wholly opposed to Ms Cherry’s (a transgender writer, say) on the basis that some staff disapproved of their “beliefs” or thought them anti-women or felt “unsafe“, this would also be unlawful ..."

It's not just any old belief, though, is it?

According to the Equality Act, it's a "religious or philosophical belief."

Jim_Miller said:

FPT: On topic, more or less: In the US, enterprises such as Twitter and Facebook are legally neither publishers, nor common carriers. If they were publishers, then they would control the content -- and be responsible for it, legally. If they were common carriers, they would not control or be responsible for it.

Now they partially control it, and are partially responsible for the content. Which is unsatisfactory, for many reasons.

But if there is a practical solution to this problem, that preserves freedom of speech, I haven't found it.

dixiedean said:

Vaguely on topic.
Erdogan is now beholden to the very far Right for his political survival. Both Presidentially, and for a Parliamentary majority.
This is possibly the worst result conceivable. Hey ho. The people know best.

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

glw said:

FPT:

Flatlander said:

glw said:

Malmesbury said:

It’s not malevolence. They - the ones I’ve met - aren’t thinking that way.

The way they see it, they have an obligation to protect society etc. Technology must follow the law.

It comes from a generalist manager/lawyer view of the world.

I’ve tried convincing such people that there is no such technical solution. Their response is to say I am ignorant - a solution *must* be found.

Isn't the thing they want now client-side monitoring? So that they don't need to try and subvert the encryption, but they have a "bug" in every app. What they don't seem to grasp is once places like the UK make such laws many other countries will follow, afterall the legality and means will have been established. In many countries it won't be scanning images for child exploitation, it will be scanning for dangerous talk, like "democracy", "civil rights", "trade unions", "abortion" and so on.

How are they going to stop someone using their own XMPP server and an open source client?

Possibly routed via a VPN server, just for added paranoia.


Asking for a friend.

They won't, they want a dragnet for the 99% of users who have neither the ability of inclination to bypass the government's mass surveillance. They know that the real bad guys, and good guys with reason to be wary, will find ways round these measures.

dixiedean said:

LostPassword said:

“The Court’s supervisory functions oblige it to pay the utmost attention to the principles characterising a “democratic society”. Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of such a society, one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the development of every man. Subject to paragraph 2 of Article 10 (art. 10-2), it is applicable not only to “information” or “ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no “democratic society”.” [Emphasis added]

Does it follow from this that, say, a church hall that made itself available for organisations to hire for public events would be obligated to accept a booking from an organisation that wanted to hold a public meeting to advocate for greater access to abortion? Or that a temperance hall that rented itself out as an event space would be obliged to accept a booking from an alcohol drinks trade body? Trade Union conference centre and a booking for the BNP conference?

Or a Church for a Satanist ritual. Or Muslim prayer?
It's always presented as easy and straightforward. But rights often conflict. That's why "free speech absolutists" find themselves in knots quickly.

FF43 said:

Although I think the Stand did the right thing, I'm not completely convinced the legal case against the Stand is so clear cut. I realise it's presumptuous of a non lawyer like me to challenge you on this.

I don't think the fact the Stand issued an apology is a statement of the law. It could just be that they don't want to go through with the expense and disruption of one or more court cases. I don't think it's a human rights case as there is AFAIK no state actor involved. It's a dispute between a private club and a private individual. The case you referred to was the police shutting down a publication on an interpretation of the criminal law.

There could be a case of discrimination but I don't think this is absolute. In the hypothetical case where Cherry turned out to be a holocaust denier, the Club would have reasonable grounds to cancel the show.

Cutting to the chase, I think Cherry would have to prove the Stand was arbitrary and unreasonable in shutting down the show and therefore had discriminated against her.

I may be completely wrong of course.

Should add there may have been a breach of contract, but that's a different legal point, I think.

Malmesbury said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Brilliant article. I agree with every word of it.

And I just know you were thinking of that magnificent speech from A Man for All Seasons when you wrote your last sentence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rjGTOA2NA

Agree on the article.

The real Thomas Moore was into bending the law when it came to heretics. One, for example, was found not guilty of heresy. "To save the bishop's credit", Moor had him illegally detained and er... influenced to try and get a confession.

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

nico679 said:

Very disappointing results from Turkey .

The opposition needed to win in the first round and have also failed to take the majority in parliament .

I expect Erdogan to offer even more election sweeteners in the next two weeks . He’s also likely to make the case that if he’s not elected President there will be grid lock in parliament .

The spoiler candidate Ogan whose on around 5% could go either way if he decides to throw his weight behind either candidate .

He voted no in the constitutional referendum in 2017 and wants a return to parliament regaining powers which they essentially lost in 2017 but is an ultra - nationalist .

Even if he throws his weight behind the opposition it’s still going to be difficult to see anything other than an Erdogan win.

What you have in Turkey at the moment is a free but not fair election . The media is overwhelmingly pro Erdogan , the vote count does have rigorous safeguards for the timebeing .

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

FrankBooth said:

Hmmm

Following the BBC feed:

22:49 - Head of the Supreme Election Council states 69% of votes have been counted

23:22 - More than 95% of ballot boxes have now been counted.

Have they suddenly got a move on in the last half hour? It could be the BBC reporting tool is not always on time.

Chameleon said:

Coming to the conclusion that the UK is cooked. I'm fortunate to have done well in my early career, but London rents are getting ridiculous, to the point that I know three people paying £42k/yr for a bang average place in Tooting(!).

We then figured out that one of them was paying a marginal tax rate of 67% on every penny over £50k. (13.8% Employers NI on total - then 40% tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad tax, 6% Masters tax, 5% mandatory pension contribution).

Brutally high rents combined with crippling tax rates and public services that effectively just don't exist...

Every party bar Labour have an electoral incentive to not give the Housing theory of everything a look, and Labour are split down the middle in terms of who gets it and who doesn't. Personally I'm going through the steps with work to go fully remote abroad, and Barcelona seems nice, rent half the price, marginal tax rate on the nomad scheme only 1/3rd of what I pay here.

Pagan2 said:

StillWaters said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

LostPassword said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

LostPassword said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

StillWaters said:

williamglenn said:

WillG said:

Cookie said:

Fully agree that this is bad.

StillWaters said:

FPT

I guess you are ok with Zuckerberg, Musk et al deciding who gets to see which tweets or posts and what goes viral and what doesn’t.

In my view that gives way too much power to individuals who will likely have their own interests at heart

Twitter is not *free* speech. It’s speech regulated by Musk. I think the community has a right to stop that.

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

No as only 32 Tory MPs voted for her in the 2022 leadership election, she has no chance of reaching the final 2 to get to the Tory membership therefore if Rishi loses and the race to choose the Tory Leader of the Opposition begins

MoonRabbit said:

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

No as only 32 Tory MPs voted for her in the 2022 leadership election, she has no chance of reaching the final 2 to even to the Tory membership therefore if Rishi loses and the race to choose the Tory Leader of the Opposition begins

I knew you were lurking out there with something crazy like this to post 😆

32 was a bloody good start for “what’s she running for” candidate” You saying her fan club hasn’t “sue-welled” since then?

You saying she won’t go into the leadership election with more credibility than Lady Thatcher when she actually won leadership.

You are going to tell us the smug, full of themself woman child Badenoch knocks Braverman out the top two, when it’s so obvious Braverman is the only one of the candidates with determination and tenacity to deliver, focussed and steadfast enough to actually take a fight back to Labour? 😆

Now, most important question of all, when Braverman says we must limit immigration because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations - do you actually disagree with her?

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

No as only 32 Tory MPs voted for her in the 2022 leadership election, she has no chance of reaching the final 2 to even to the Tory membership therefore if Rishi loses and the race to choose the Tory Leader of the Opposition begins

I knew you were lurking out there with something crazy like this to post 😆

32 was a bloody good start for “what’s she running for” candidate” You saying her fan club hasn’t “sue-welled” since then?

You saying she won’t go into the leadership election with more credibility than Lady Thatcher when she actually won leadership.

You are going to tell us the smug, full of themself woman child Badenoch knocks Braverman out the top two, when it’s so obvious Braverman is the only one of the candidates with determination and tenacity to deliver, focussed and steadfast enough to actually take a fight back to Labour? 😆

Now, most important question of all, when Braverman says we must limit immigration because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations - do you actually disagree with her?

No, the final 3 would be Barclay, Tugendhat and Mordaunt in my view, neither Braverman nor Badenoch make it

kle4 said:

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

She didn't used to score well in ConHome's Cabinet League Table series, being below such titans as Therese Coffey, Mel Stride and Victoria Prentis (no, me neither). But now she is near the top.

Rishi had recovered quite a bit by April, but I expect he'll be plummeting back toward the bottom again.

Farooq said:

StillWaters said:

Malmesbury said:

StillWaters said:

FPT

I guess you are ok with Zuckerberg, Musk et al deciding who gets to see which tweets or posts and what goes viral and what doesn’t.

In my view that gives way too much power to individuals who will likely have their own interests at heart

Twitter is not *free* speech. It’s speech regulated by Musk. I think the community has a right to stop that.

What's your solution?

Protocols vs Apps already exist. People don't want to use them.

That’s why we have politicians…

I would tend to say that they have to choose between being publishers and common carriers. At the moment - like many US tech firms - they are exploiting loopholes in regulation. They are acting as publishers - and monetising - but disclaiming any responsibility for their actions… because…

Why do they have to choose between these two? Can't social media be thought of as a separate category from both?
Certainly it shares some characteristics with each, but there's a sensible position to be held that social media is a new category of media. I don't immediately see a strong reason to dismiss such an argument.

Malmesbury said:

StillWaters said:

FPT

I guess you are ok with Zuckerberg, Musk et al deciding who gets to see which tweets or posts and what goes viral and what doesn’t.

In my view that gives way too much power to individuals who will likely have their own interests at heart

Twitter is not *free* speech. It’s speech regulated by Musk. I think the community has a right to stop that.

What's your solution?

Protocols vs Apps already exist. People don't want to use them.

edmundintokyo said:

StillWaters said:

Farooq said:

StillWaters said:

Malmesbury said:

StillWaters said:

FPT

I guess you are ok with Zuckerberg, Musk et al deciding who gets to see which tweets or posts and what goes viral and what doesn’t.

In my view that gives way too much power to individuals who will likely have their own interests at heart

Twitter is not *free* speech. It’s speech regulated by Musk. I think the community has a right to stop that.

What's your solution?

Protocols vs Apps already exist. People don't want to use them.

That’s why we have politicians…

I would tend to say that they have to choose between being publishers and common carriers. At the moment - like many US tech firms - they are exploiting loopholes in regulation. They are acting as publishers - and monetising - but disclaiming any responsibility for their actions… because…

Why do they have to choose between these two? Can't social media be thought of as a separate category from both?
Certainly it shares some characteristics with each, but there's a sensible position to be held that social media is a new category of media. I don't immediately see a strong reason to dismiss such an argument.

At the moment the CEO of a private company gets to select what you see in your newsfeed. He gets to directly influence the way you see and interact with the world (while Murdoch only had indirect influence through editorials and news selection).

I think that I’d a very dangerous power and one that should be subject to democratic oversight. Regardless of whether it is Musk or Zuckerberg or Gates or Bell pulling the strings

Democratic oversight would make the problem worse, because when the adversary is a rich person you can use a different platform that they don't own, whereas when the adversary is the government they can attack all the platforms you could use.

If you don't like Twitter, use something else.

edmundintokyo said:

StillWaters said:

edmundintokyo said:

StillWaters said:

Farooq said:

StillWaters said:

Malmesbury said:

StillWaters said:

FPT

I guess you are ok with Zuckerberg, Musk et al deciding who gets to see which tweets or posts and what goes viral and what doesn’t.

In my view that gives way too much power to individuals who will likely have their own interests at heart

Twitter is not *free* speech. It’s speech regulated by Musk. I think the community has a right to stop that.

What's your solution?

Protocols vs Apps already exist. People don't want to use them.

That’s why we have politicians…

I would tend to say that they have to choose between being publishers and common carriers. At the moment - like many US tech firms - they are exploiting loopholes in regulation. They are acting as publishers - and monetising - but disclaiming any responsibility for their actions… because…

Why do they have to choose between these two? Can't social media be thought of as a separate category from both?
Certainly it shares some characteristics with each, but there's a sensible position to be held that social media is a new category of media. I don't immediately see a strong reason to dismiss such an argument.

At the moment the CEO of a private company gets to select what you see in your newsfeed. He gets to directly influence the way you see and interact with the world (while Murdoch only had indirect influence through editorials and news selection).

I think that I’d a very dangerous power and one that should be subject to democratic oversight. Regardless of whether it is Musk or Zuckerberg or Gates or Bell pulling the strings

Democratic oversight would make the problem worse, because when the adversary is a rich person you can use a different platform that they don't own, whereas when the adversary is the government they can attack all the platforms you could use.

If you don't like Twitter, use something else.

The problem is that - as others noted - social media is a natural monopoly.

Moreover, most people don't realise they are (or could be) being manipulated.

These platforms are powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands.

It's not a natural monopoly, it's really not. If it was we'd be talking to each other on MySpace. It has network effects, but that's not the same thing, and very common in business.

There are loads of competing social media platforms and there's no sign of one displacing the others. Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same company but they had to do that with an acquisition, precisely because Facebook wasn't sufficiently protected by its network effects.

People who were dissatisfied by Twitter were perfectly capable of leaving it. For instance Infosec Twitter moved en masse to Mastodon. Crypto Twitter stayed, that's because most people in that community aren't dissatisfied. Elon has destroyed my "For You" tab, but I just don't look at that, and he's also made a little mark that allows you to immediately filter out idiots, and somehow got the idiots to pay for the privilege.

Andy_JS said:

darkage said:

Chameleon said:

Coming to the conclusion that the UK is cooked. I'm fortunate to have done well in my early career, but London rents are getting ridiculous, to the point that I know three people paying £42k/yr for a bang average place in Tooting(!).

We then figured out that one of them was paying a marginal tax rate of 67% on every penny over £50k. (13.8% Employers NI on total - then 40% tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad tax, 6% Masters tax, 5% mandatory pension contribution).

Brutally high rents combined with crippling tax rates and public services that effectively just don't exist...

Every party bar Labour have an electoral incentive to not give the Housing theory of everything a look, and Labour are split down the middle in terms of who gets it and who doesn't. Personally I'm going through the steps with work to go fully remote abroad, and Barcelona seems nice, rent half the price, marginal tax rate on the nomad scheme only 1/3rd of what I pay here.

London is a great place to live whilst you are starting out in your career, but difficult to make work over the long term because of the cost of housing.

London is always going to be an expensive place to live because most the world's population would buy a property there if they could afford to. (It was fairly cheap in the 1970s because London wasn't regarded as a particularly attractive place to live at that time).

Andy_JS said:

darkage said:

Chameleon said:

Coming to the conclusion that the UK is cooked. I'm fortunate to have done well in my early career, but London rents are getting ridiculous, to the point that I know three people paying £42k/yr for a bang average place in Tooting(!).

We then figured out that one of them was paying a marginal tax rate of 67% on every penny over £50k. (13.8% Employers NI on total - then 40% tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad tax, 6% Masters tax, 5% mandatory pension contribution).

Brutally high rents combined with crippling tax rates and public services that effectively just don't exist...

Every party bar Labour have an electoral incentive to not give the Housing theory of everything a look, and Labour are split down the middle in terms of who gets it and who doesn't. Personally I'm going through the steps with work to go fully remote abroad, and Barcelona seems nice, rent half the price, marginal tax rate on the nomad scheme only 1/3rd of what I pay here.

London is a great place to live whilst you are starting out in your career, but difficult to make work over the long term because of the cost of housing.

London is always going to be an expensive place to live because most the world's population would buy a property there if they could afford to. (It was fairly cheap in the 1970s because London wasn't regarded as a particularly attractive place to live at that time).

pigeon said:

Andy_JS said:

"Braverman: Britons will forget how to work" - The Times.

I wonder where this has come from?

Oh...

Ministers call for immigration and UK food prices to increase

Immigration and food prices must increase to solve the food crisis, ministers are to say at a summit.

Rishi Sunak will be joined by ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as well as farmers and industry leaders at the meeting at No 10 on Tuesday.

The Guardian understands there is a battle between the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and Defra over immigration.

Fruit and vegetables have been rotting in the fields, and some farmers have gone out of business, as there are not enough people willing to pick them.

Farmers and Defra ministers have been lobbying the Home Office to increase the number of temporary visas for agricultural workers, but a senior Defra source said Braverman was “ideologically opposed” to such a move.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/15/ministers-call-for-immigration-and-uk-food-prices-to-increase

There may be good arguments for even higher prices in the shops and even more immigration - and I suppose we ought to be grateful in a way that politicians seem prepared to tell voters shit they don't want to hear for a change - but nonetheless this positioning is certainly "brave" in the Sir Humphrey sense.

LostPassword said:

“The Court’s supervisory functions oblige it to pay the utmost attention to the principles characterising a “democratic society”. Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of such a society, one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the development of every man. Subject to paragraph 2 of Article 10 (art. 10-2), it is applicable not only to “information” or “ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no “democratic society”.” [Emphasis added]

Does it follow from this that, say, a church hall that made itself available for organisations to hire for public events would be obligated to accept a booking from an organisation that wanted to hold a public meeting to advocate for greater access to abortion?

darkage said:

Farooq said:

It is pretty much a racing certainty that those applauding The Stand for its initial cancellation and deploring its climb-down would be outraged at the same thing happening to someone whose views they agreed with.

That is very far indeed from certain.
What you're doing here is taking a hypothetical hypocrisy, pretending it's nearly universal, and then putting yourself above it. It's the worst kind of straw-man slaying.

I think it is a pretty reasonable assumption to make. It is a bit like football fans complaining about refereeing decisions when they go against their team but welcoming them when they go in their favour.

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

MoonRabbit said:

MarqueeMark said:

dixiedean said:

MoonRabbit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best photo ever.

Rishi’s team have played a blinder with this one. Roadman Rishi. 😆 innit.



https://www.tiktok.com/@dantehutchinson/video/7161844229700914437

Forced smile as his team is relegated.
That's quite the metaphor.

Starmer is an Arsenal fan.

He's getting practice at blowing a big lead and coming second.

Starmer’s certainly taking a right mauling in tomorrows papers with his plan to use EU citizens to rig future UK elections, that perhaps might even be an election to scrap Brexit.

Why is Starmer daft enough to announce a plan like that, he’s not remotely won an election yet. Constitional change is second term stuff if anything, once you’ve earned trust, and every second he is talking about votes for sixteen year old children and EU citizens and not talking about NHS waiting lists, he’s an idiot.

Meanwhile, I think this is a big moment in the race to be Conservative Party leader.

You can try to argue Braverman is not the Conservatives rising star, simply on basis you don’t like her at all, but you will utterly fail in that argument, the reality is: she’s rising if you like it all not, there’s no denying it. Observer had a big splash on her today, risen from family of immigrants to high office etc.

The UK Home Secretary is headline speaker at this Conservative conference, and she is going to say

“…because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations.”

And how many Conservative members and activists are going to disagree with that reasoning to limit immigration? Tory members will say at last, someone who tells it like it is.

You would use words like steadfast, tenacious, and determined to describe Braverman’s style - those are exactly the same words used to list Lady Thatcher’s strengths.




There’s your next leader of the Conservative Party. She’s got it “Suen-up” hasn’t she?

No as only 32 Tory MPs voted for her in the 2022 leadership election, she has no chance of reaching the final 2 to even to the Tory membership therefore if Rishi loses and the race to choose the Tory Leader of the Opposition begins

I knew you were lurking out there with something crazy like this to post 😆

32 was a bloody good start for “what’s she running for” candidate” You saying her fan club hasn’t “sue-welled” since then?

You saying she won’t go into the leadership election with more credibility than Lady Thatcher when she actually won leadership.

You are going to tell us the smug, full of themself woman child Badenoch knocks Braverman out the top two, when it’s so obvious Braverman is the only one of the candidates with determination and tenacity to deliver, focussed and steadfast enough to actually take a fight back to Labour? 😆

Now, most important question of all, when Braverman says we must limit immigration because of the pressure it puts on housing supply, public services and community relations - do you actually disagree with her?

No, the final 3 would be Barclay, Tugendhat and Mordaunt in my view, neither Braverman nor Badenoch make it

darkage said:

Andy_JS said:

darkage said:

Chameleon said:

Coming to the conclusion that the UK is cooked. I'm fortunate to have done well in my early career, but London rents are getting ridiculous, to the point that I know three people paying £42k/yr for a bang average place in Tooting(!).

We then figured out that one of them was paying a marginal tax rate of 67% on every penny over £50k. (13.8% Employers NI on total - then 40% tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad tax, 6% Masters tax, 5% mandatory pension contribution).

Brutally high rents combined with crippling tax rates and public services that effectively just don't exist...

Every party bar Labour have an electoral incentive to not give the Housing theory of everything a look, and Labour are split down the middle in terms of who gets it and who doesn't. Personally I'm going through the steps with work to go fully remote abroad, and Barcelona seems nice, rent half the price, marginal tax rate on the nomad scheme only 1/3rd of what I pay here.

London is a great place to live whilst you are starting out in your career, but difficult to make work over the long term because of the cost of housing.

London is always going to be an expensive place to live because most the world's population would buy a property there if they could afford to. (It was fairly cheap in the 1970s because London wasn't regarded as a particularly attractive place to live at that time).

There is also an element of snobbishness with these complaints though... you can buy a new build flat at Barking Riverside for around £250k.

DavidL said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

Although I think the Stand did the right thing, I'm not completely convinced the legal case against the Stand is so clear cut. I realise it's presumptuous of a non lawyer like me to challenge you on this.

I don't think the fact the Stand issued an apology is a statement of the law. It could just be that they don't want to go through with the expense and disruption of one or more court cases. I don't think it's a human rights case as there is AFAIK no state actor involved. It's a dispute between a private club and a private individual. The case you referred to was the police shutting down a publication on an interpretation of the criminal law.

There could be a case of discrimination but I don't think this is absolute. In the hypothetical case where Cherry turned out to be a holocaust denier, the Club would have reasonable grounds to cancel the show.

Cutting to the chase, I think Cherry would have to prove the Stand was arbitrary and unreasonable in shutting down the show and therefore had discriminated against her.

I may be completely wrong of course.

Should add there may have been a breach of contract, but that's a different legal point, I think.

The Stand comedy clubs are part-owned by SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, and they were trying to virtue signal during the somewhat lively Scottish debate about identity.

The problem was they were trying to virtue signal to a KC, and backed off when faced with having to defend their decision in court. Their own counsel advised them to make the case go away, before it got anywhere near a courtroom.

The advisor of the Stand club was the friend of a friend of mine. The Stand has the right to determine who is given the opportunity to perform at their venue but the problem here was that they had made the offer and then withdrawn it for a reason that was potentially discriminatory based on Cherry's beliefs. That was a risk that they did not need to take. I think that they were well advised myself.

bondegezou said:

Andy_JS said:

Chris said:

"... it goes without saying that if a venue discriminates against someone with views wholly opposed to Ms Cherry’s (a transgender writer, say) on the basis that some staff disapproved of their “beliefs” or thought them anti-women or felt “unsafe“, this would also be unlawful ..."

It's not just any old belief, though, is it?

According to the Equality Act, it's a "religious or philosophical belief."

Is there any such thing as a non-philosophical belief?

I believe it’s going to rain today. I believe that Austria was robbed in the Eurovision final. I believe this explanation of what constitutes a non-philosophical belief, while not being completely sound with respect to legal precedents, will get my point across.

Chris said:

DavidL said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

Although I think the Stand did the right thing, I'm not completely convinced the legal case against the Stand is so clear cut. I realise it's presumptuous of a non lawyer like me to challenge you on this.

I don't think the fact the Stand issued an apology is a statement of the law. It could just be that they don't want to go through with the expense and disruption of one or more court cases. I don't think it's a human rights case as there is AFAIK no state actor involved. It's a dispute between a private club and a private individual. The case you referred to was the police shutting down a publication on an interpretation of the criminal law.

There could be a case of discrimination but I don't think this is absolute. In the hypothetical case where Cherry turned out to be a holocaust denier, the Club would have reasonable grounds to cancel the show.

Cutting to the chase, I think Cherry would have to prove the Stand was arbitrary and unreasonable in shutting down the show and therefore had discriminated against her.

I may be completely wrong of course.

Should add there may have been a breach of contract, but that's a different legal point, I think.

The Stand comedy clubs are part-owned by SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, and they were trying to virtue signal during the somewhat lively Scottish debate about identity.

The problem was they were trying to virtue signal to a KC, and backed off when faced with having to defend their decision in court. Their own counsel advised them to make the case go away, before it got anywhere near a courtroom.

The advisor of the Stand club was the friend of a friend of mine. The Stand has the right to determine who is given the opportunity to perform at their venue but the problem here was that they had made the offer and then withdrawn it for a reason that was potentially discriminatory based on Cherry's beliefs. That was a risk that they did not need to take. I think that they were well advised myself.

Perhaps legal eagles here may find it interesting to debate the legal basis for moderating posts here - for example expressions of belief that are anti-semitic but within the law.

Casino_Royale said:

kyf_100 said:

darkage said:

Andy_JS said:

darkage said:

Chameleon said:

Coming to the conclusion that the UK is cooked. I'm fortunate to have done well in my early career, but London rents are getting ridiculous, to the point that I know three people paying £42k/yr for a bang average place in Tooting(!).

We then figured out that one of them was paying a marginal tax rate of 67% on every penny over £50k. (13.8% Employers NI on total - then 40% tax, 2% NI, 9% Undergrad tax, 6% Masters tax, 5% mandatory pension contribution).

Brutally high rents combined with crippling tax rates and public services that effectively just don't exist...

Every party bar Labour have an electoral incentive to not give the Housing theory of everything a look, and Labour are split down the middle in terms of who gets it and who doesn't. Personally I'm going through the steps with work to go fully remote abroad, and Barcelona seems nice, rent half the price, marginal tax rate on the nomad scheme only 1/3rd of what I pay here.

London is a great place to live whilst you are starting out in your career, but difficult to make work over the long term because of the cost of housing.

London is always going to be an expensive place to live because most the world's population would buy a property there if they could afford to. (It was fairly cheap in the 1970s because London wasn't regarded as a particularly attractive place to live at that time).

There is also an element of snobbishness with these complaints though... you can buy a new build flat at Barking Riverside for around £250k.

Buy? You can lease it for 100 years, with all the attendant uncapped service charges, major works bills, and general lack of consumer protection for leaseholders (see: Grenfell).

There's a reason flat prices have flatlined in the last five years while house prices have rocketed.

It may be irrational (in fact, it almost certainly is) but one thing that's always at the back of my mind when looking at leasehold is what happened to Hong Kong over the New Territories.

Buying a lease, even if long-term, is never the same as outright ownership.