It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
The whips have apparently told him it's a very silly idea, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it. With Parliament in recess for the summer, however, we will have some time to wait.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Whilst we've all been distracted by football, the US-Iran war is escalating:
Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش @citrinowicz
The greatest challenge now is no longer military pressure, it's escalation management. It is becoming increasingly clear that events are beginning to slip beyond anyone's control.
With virtually no trust between Washington and Tehran, mediators who appear increasingly exhausted, and a dialogue conducted primarily through military strikes, the risk of further escalation is now higher than the prospects for de-escalation. That is unlikely to change unless one side makes a meaningful concession, and there is little evidence that Tehran is prepared to do so.
...
Unless something significant changes soon, this conflict is on a trajectory toward a far more dangerous phase, one that may become increasingly difficult for either side to contain.
Recent US strikes seem to have concentrated on bridges linking Bander Abbas to the rest of the country. If the US was preparing for a limited ground operation to take the naval base there, right at the Strait of Hormuz, then it would be a logical first step.
OT after yesterday's fun and games, two movers for Sports Personality of the Year are Jude Bellingham and the new mile record holder, Josh Kerr, both now single figure prices, and for some reason Matt Weston (cast your mind back to the Winter Olympics).
Without knowing who the BBC's sometimes willfully daft panel will nominate, especially from a team event like the World Cup, although I guess it is between Bellingham and Kane, I shan't be getting involved this far out on anyone near the front of the market. Rory McIlroy looks far too short though, now he is no longer a realistic contender in the Open golf where Tommy Fleetwood (33/1) got to within one stroke of the lead yesterday before falling back. https://www.oddschecker.com/awards/sports-personality-of-the-year/bbc-sports-personality-of-the-year/
Which reminds me, the Commonwealth Games starts next week in Glasgow.
The introduction of the very short shortlist in recent years, has made this much more difficult to call.
Josh Kerr is a good shout if he gets nominated, and he really should be nominated for taking out a 27-year-old world record. Another one from athletics is Keely Hodgkinson, who’s getting close to the 800m WR and might have a go in Glasgow. That’s one of the very dodgy records from as long ago as 1983, before they knew how to properly test for drugs! It’s the oldest extant WR in track and field, men or women.
'Prime Minister Netanyahu met with the Ambassador of Argentina to Israel and conveyed a message to President Milei ahead of the World Cup final: "Javier, you are a true friend. We support you and support Argentina tomorrow - good luck!"
'Prime Minister Netanyahu met with the Ambassador of Argentina to Israel and conveyed a message to President Milei ahead of the World Cup final: "Javier, you are a true friend. We support you and support Argentina tomorrow - good luck!"
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
There’s no leader that will be popular in office, given our collective wish for free unicorns immediately, stirred up by poor journalism and shit stirring social media.
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
The whips have apparently told him it's a very silly idea, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it. With Parliament in recess for the summer, however, we will have some time to wait.
My (world-weary) take is that it's Burnham people-pleasing.
Labour MPs are telling him that they're weary of the over-brutal whipping operation of the Starmer years, so he's saying that of course he's going to fix that.
Applying the Chesterton's Fence question is far too conservative a thing for him to do.
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
The whips have apparently told him it's a very silly idea, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it. With Parliament in recess for the summer, however, we will have some time to wait.
The whips agreeing to it would be tantamount to turkeys voting for Christmas. He should listen to voters and backbench MPs, who I would hope would prefer more independence of thought, and the ability to act for constituents, even if it doesn’t suit the blob.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Lots to disagree with here, but I pick out one thing in bold.
Since the internet the equalisation of opportunity to express a view in public has been maximised to a degree unimaginable only decades ago. Enough. Please stop. Have you seen twitter/X recently?
Stodge is confusing (IMHO) freedom of speech with the right to to be heard. There is no such right. Most speech, like most books, most journalism, most MPs utterances etc are not worth paying attention to. Listen for a few hours to phone in radio, and with stellar exceptions you will be treated to the mutual sharing of ignorance and repetition of cliche and platitude.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
First off: I think that @PJH and me are both in Rosindell's patch. Lucky us.
(Update for those who remember the story: as of the middle of last week, Romford Conservatives still aren't allowed to take down the billboards with Rosser's mugshot from their building. Sometimes, Leave doesn't mean Leave.)
'Prime Minister Netanyahu met with the Ambassador of Argentina to Israel and conveyed a message to President Milei ahead of the World Cup final: "Javier, you are a true friend. We support you and support Argentina tomorrow - good luck!"
'Prime Minister Netanyahu met with the Ambassador of Argentina to Israel and conveyed a message to President Milei ahead of the World Cup final: "Javier, you are a true friend. We support you and support Argentina tomorrow - good luck!"
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
The proof of the pudding will be when Labour MPs vote against his policies.
He may have to whip them to vote for reducing the power of whips.
But who whips the whips to vote changes that cause the whips to have less power to whip votes?
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
I wonder how many PBers you deliver to without you and them realising?
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
Good luck. What Burnham can't abolish is that the general public want two things: strong government with party unity that can get stuff done, and it wants MPs to be independent minded. Quite frequently these are incompatible. Bad management of this trashed Starmer's government. (IHT, WFA, benefits etc).
What Burnham is hoping for is MPs who can act and speak exotically but who all vote the same way on all matters that are (Burnham's own word) "non negotiable". This will prove to be everything he wants. There is a chance that Burnham has a particular golden gift: both very nice and absolutely ruthless. Starmer was neither. Having one is useful. having both is magic.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
I wonder how many PBers you deliver to without you and them realising?
Don’t think he does London next to the HS2 dig, so that several million less.
I heard for the first time this morning that Burnham is talking about loosening the grip of the whips, reducing their powers. Apologies if this aspect of his vision has already been discussed but just to say that, as I have advocated for this for years, I am pleased at least to see it is something being discussed seriously rather than just remaining a fringe idea.
The proof of the pudding will be when Labour MPs vote against his policies.
He may have to whip them to vote for reducing the power of whips.
But who whips the whips to vote changes that cause the whips to have less power to whip votes?
You’re whipping up an argument with that question.
The loony, far and extreme right keep on having moments where 'you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh'. Is Burnham a lucky general or have they all lost sight of reality?
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
The loony, far and extreme right keep on having moments where 'you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh'. Is Burnham a lucky general or have they all lost sight of reality?
William Atkinson is a faintly silly failed Tory candidate attempting to make a name for himself as a political journalist. I think 'bless' is the most appropriate response.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
First off: I think that @PJH and me are both in Rosindell's patch. Lucky us.
(Update for those who remember the story: as of the middle of last week, Romford Conservatives still aren't allowed to take down the billboards with Rosser's mugshot from their building. Sometimes, Leave doesn't mean Leave.)
Indeed we are! Though I don't think we have anyone regular in Clacton or even near it.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I stand here: the mockery of the process is resigning and standing again. This should be unlawful and is a plain and clear abuse of process. The 33 others have just joined in the already mocked process. Good luck.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Lucy Powell: we've had an economic model that puts "private interests above every day interests"
What on earth does this even mean?
I have 'every day interests' You have 'your interests' Those capitalists have 'private interests'
The fact the capitalism pays for everything is clearly lost in the grey matter of Lucy Powell....
Capitalism isn't the problem, it's the grifting and fraud that goes with it, eh Mortimer?
Capitalism is not any sort of problem.
The only system that has ever effectively lifted people out of poverty at scale.
Simples.
Capitalism is a social construct. It always exists within a framework created by governments. Those frameworks contain or hold back some of the problems with capitalism.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
Yes it depends on what support he actually has on the ground.
I’d vote for the bin in the absense of a Conservative candidate, but will any of the Tories in Clacton actually campaign for him, or will that be considered verboten by the local party?
Unless of course one of the local independents is actually good, and has a campaign infrastructure behind them. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about them all!
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I stand here: the mockery of the process is resigning and standing again. This should be unlawful and is a plain and clear abuse of process. The 33 others have just joined in the already mocked process. Good luck.
- You mock me, sir? - Mock you, sir? - Mock me not, sir. No man mocks me, sir. - The wise man mocks the man. The mocked man mocks the mocker.
Mockery should be free. Mocking the mocker should be free. Squared.
Whilst we've all been distracted by football, the US-Iran war is escalating:
Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش @citrinowicz
The greatest challenge now is no longer military pressure, it's escalation management. It is becoming increasingly clear that events are beginning to slip beyond anyone's control.
With virtually no trust between Washington and Tehran, mediators who appear increasingly exhausted, and a dialogue conducted primarily through military strikes, the risk of further escalation is now higher than the prospects for de-escalation. That is unlikely to change unless one side makes a meaningful concession, and there is little evidence that Tehran is prepared to do so.
...
Unless something significant changes soon, this conflict is on a trajectory toward a far more dangerous phase, one that may become increasingly difficult for either side to contain.
Lucy Powell: we've had an economic model that puts "private interests above every day interests"
What on earth does this even mean?
I have 'every day interests' You have 'your interests' Those capitalists have 'private interests'
The fact the capitalism pays for everything is clearly lost in the grey matter of Lucy Powell....
Capitalism isn't the problem, it's the grifting and fraud that goes with it, eh Mortimer?
Capitalism is not any sort of problem.
The only system that has ever effectively lifted people out of poverty at scale.
Simples.
Capitalism is a social construct. It always exists within a framework created by governments. Those frameworks contain or hold back some of the problems with capitalism.
All social system proposed and implemented have flaws. Which is why a mixture of them, which tries to alleviate the faults of each, has created the most success, so far.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I stand here: the mockery of the process is resigning and standing again. This should be unlawful and is a plain and clear abuse of process. The 33 others have just joined in the already mocked process. Good luck.
- You mock me, sir? - Mock you, sir? - Mock me not, sir. No man mocks me, sir. - The wise man mocks the man. The mocked man mocks the mocker.
Mockery should be free. Mocking the mocker should be free. Squared.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
OK, no need to learn the dynamics of how anything actually happened if it doesn't chime with your 'lived experience' then.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
Yes it depends on what support he actually has on the ground.
I’d vote for the bin in the absense of a Conservative candidate, but will any of the Tories in Clacton actually campaign for him, or will that be considered verboten by the local party?
Unless of course one of the local independents is actually good, and has a campaign infrastructure behind them. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about them all!
Do we know whether any of the independents are actually secret Libs, Labs or Cons, like independent councillors in certain parts of the country?
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
Yes it depends on what support he actually has on the ground.
I’d vote for the bin in the absense of a Conservative candidate, but will any of the Tories in Clacton actually campaign for him, or will that be considered verboten by the local party?
Unless of course one of the local independents is actually good, and has a campaign infrastructure behind them. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about them all!
Do we know whether any of the independents are actually secret Libs, Labs or Cons, like independent councillors in certain parts of the country?
Good point, and if there wasn’t an F1 race about to start I might have done some googling this afternoon.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
OK, no need to learn the dynamics of how anything actually happened if it doesn't chime with your 'lived experience' then.
*head in hands*
moonrabbit doesn't do fact facts, she does the made up ones in her head
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
The Lancet is a private business, not the State.
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
"Burnham’s best hope of success is a snap election Calling an early national vote would not be without risk, but Labour’s new leader would do well to learn from Gordon Brown’s mistake James Frayne"
I’m in France again at the moment, and just had lunch in Toulouse. For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, France seems in the grip of a period of Anglophilia. Not just the friendly vibes in the playoff last night, or Macron’s award of the Legion D’Honneur to Starmer, but I’m sensing it in everyday interactions, at restaurants and shops, and very notably on social media. That’s certainly not been the case forever. The AUKUS deal was not that long ago (although they did tend to blame Australia more for that).
There’s a generally mild Francophilia in the other direction, but not so marked or recent. So what’s going on? Why the noticeable entente cordiale?
My theory is it’s the conjunction of a few political trends. Both countries find themselves dealing with a disengaged and at times actively hostile USA, and unlike in the past the UK doesn’t now look like a back door route to American influence. Both now have centre-ish governments, but the RN opposition for all its Jean D’Arc imagery is at worst ambivalent about Anglo Saxon culture. Melenchon’s wing has always been Anglophobic but it’s not an huge bloc. And perhaps too the unifying idea of the Middle Powers forging a new way with the semi-fluent French speaker Mark Carney providing a link point.
We both share the problems of a stagnating economy and rising public debt, but under the surface we do have some quite different challenges. The French public realm, infrastructure and built environment remain way better than ours. No contest. Regional inequality is visibly much less marked than ours. Compare Toulouse with its similar sized peers in Britain. But they have more social tension, a bigger public debt (though lower interest costs) and a bigger pension timebomb.
Anyway, very interesting to note the love-in, and long may it continue.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
OK, no need to learn the dynamics of how anything actually happened if it doesn't chime with your 'lived experience' then.
*head in hands*
moonrabbit doesn't do fact facts, she does the made up ones in her head
She does facts when we agree with her, made up facts when we disagree - like all of us.
However, her argument in this case is that the public perception of cause and effect regarding the market turbulence and the minibudget is wrong. So clearly telling us your public perception doesn't counter that.
Might be somewhat tangential to the Free Speech discussion, but where do we stand, in that connection, on the 34 people who have put their names forward as potential MP for Clacton. One respects their right to do so, of course, but is it making a mockery of the electoral process? (Or just even more that one candidate, on NF, was already making it?) Should candidates be required to lodge their deposit in cash when submitting nomination papers?
I thought you had to make your deposit at nomination stage anyway?
Yes, so with 34 people nominated Tendring council has £17k in the bank towards the costs of the election, with probably only Farage and Binface getting their £500 back.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
Yes it depends on what support he actually has on the ground.
I’d vote for the bin in the absense of a Conservative candidate, but will any of the Tories in Clacton actually campaign for him, or will that be considered verboten by the local party?
Unless of course one of the local independents is actually good, and has a campaign infrastructure behind them. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about them all!
Do we know whether any of the independents are actually secret Libs, Labs or Cons, like independent councillors in certain parts of the country?
Good point, and if there wasn’t an F1 race about to start I might have done some googling this afternoon.
One of the independents, Pamela Walford, previously stood for Reform in 2024.
Abi Hookway looks like the sort of person who could easily have stood for the Conservatives.
Marc Wilkinson’s launch video on YouTube has 12 likes after 5 days, so I don’t think he’s caught the electorate’s attention…
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
The Lancet is a private business, not the State.
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
It most certainly would, if it were done selectively to aid an approved narrative and world view. For example, what about Russian and Indian anti-fracking propaganda. Should that be banned? What about Soros funding 'Best for Britain'? *Listens to the rolling of tumbleweed*
What would be acceptable would be if we had strong laws labelling *all* overseas-funded media. By countries we perceive us our enemies *and* countries not yet on the list but who may well went to influence UK public opinion in ways not in the interests of our people. The only way to do this is in a non-subjective way, where systems are put in place to aid people in making their own judgments on what is true, not to present them with an approved truth and supress all others.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
When the shit hit the fan, he buggered off to America instead of facing the music and defending his budget. She asked him not to go, and he went.
Kwarteng was a massive disaster in that role. Hunt would have been a massively better (first) choice in that instance. Unfortunately I think Truss chose Kwarteng for personal reasons.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
When the shit hit the fan, he buggered off to America instead of facing the music and defending his budget. She asked him not to go, and he went.
Kwarteng was a massive disaster in that role. Hunt would have been a massively better (first) choice in that instance. Unfortunately I think Truss chose Kwarteng for personal reasons.
She told him to go to America for the IMF meeting.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
Graphically illustrated in the U.S. by the Citizens United case, and everything that has flowed from it.
Their courts have basically said that free speech requires that there must be no limits on the rights of the wealthy to have a greater say.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
The Lancet is a private business, not the State.
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
It most certainly would, if it were done selectively to aid an approved narrative and world view. For example, what about Russian and Indian anti-fracking propaganda. Should that be banned? What about Soros funding 'Best for Britain'? *Listens to the rolling of tumbleweed*
What would be acceptable would be if we had strong laws labelling *all* overseas-funded media. By countries we perceive us our enemies *and* countries not yet on the list but who may well went to influence UK public opinion in ways not in the interests of our people. The only way to do this is in a non-subjective way, where systems are put in place to aid people in making their own judgments on what is true, not to present them with an approved truth and supress all others.
I don't know that labelling is always enough, but, sure, if all those overseas social media accounts could be labelled as such, that would be progress.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Not quite @BlancheLivermore ... because some of us don't live in the UK at all.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
When the shit hit the fan, he buggered off to America instead of facing the music and defending his budget. She asked him not to go, and he went.
Kwarteng was a massive disaster in that role. Hunt would have been a massively better (first) choice in that instance. Unfortunately I think Truss chose Kwarteng for personal reasons.
She told him to go to America for the IMF meeting.
In the long-term plan, yes. But she is on record saying she asked him to stay when the market turbulence occurred, and he still went. She may be lying of course. Recollections may vary. It was a bizarre decision to go given the circumstances.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
You need to distinguish between genuine mistakes and deliberate, malign misinformation.
An example of the former would be the police initially saying there was nothing to suggest a political motive in the murder of Ann Widdicombe.
An example of the latter would be practically every word that comes out of Trump's mouth.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
The real inflection point is when China joined the WTO, becoming more capitalist and joining in world trade. Also India and Africa relying on trade rather than aid, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Not sure why Hamilton hit a penalty for that - even Russell says it was a racing incident. And Leclerc gets away with something similar but worse, and not at the start of the race.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Not quite @BlancheLivermore ... because some of us don't live in the UK at all.
Two of us live not only in the same constituency but on the same road.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
In past decades, yes, though centuries ago we were in recorded history and total population was a fraction of what it is now, so even if 99.999% of people were in poverty it would still be a lower absolute figure.
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
The Lancet is a private business, not the State.
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
It depends what you are doing.
If you are preventing those who say things you dislike from speaking then that is absolutely akin to Stalinist Russia. Or Putin's Russia where people who say the truth about the war are prosecuted.
If you are countering with the truth in a debate of free ideas then that is liberal and free speech.
Free speech does not mandate the truth is believed, but it gives it a better chance than any other system whereby a lie can become mandated as the official Truth.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
When the shit hit the fan, he buggered off to America instead of facing the music and defending his budget. She asked him not to go, and he went.
Kwarteng was a massive disaster in that role. Hunt would have been a massively better (first) choice in that instance. Unfortunately I think Truss chose Kwarteng for personal reasons.
She told him to go to America for the IMF meeting.
In the long-term plan, yes. But she is on record saying she asked him to stay when the market turbulence occurred, and he still went. She may be lying of course. Recollections may vary. It was a bizarre decision to go given the circumstances.
When your sublime lute playing frees Truss from Hades don't look back. I think Krazy Kwasi is the viper in this analogy.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
The London Borough of Camden is well over represented
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Worth noting that in many of the worlds poorest countries with the highest poverty rates the economic system is pretty pure capitalism.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Worth noting that in many of the worlds poorest countries with the highest poverty rates the economic system is pretty pure capitalism.
Not that I can think of. Corrupt nations without the rule of law are not capitalist.
Comments
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
https://x.com/petermallouk/status/2077741036525306296
Even The Spectator.
“being cursed with vision, hearing and sanity meant enduring an event that made Truss’s premiership look like a model of tact and foresight.”
Attendance at the Far Right CPAC was described as the equivalent of “the attendance at a paedophile’s funeral”.
https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mqyp36d2ek2j
https://x.com/IsraeliPM_heb/status/2078535354865312164?s=20
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
Labour MPs are telling him that they're weary of the over-brutal whipping operation of the Starmer years, so he's saying that of course he's going to fix that.
Applying the Chesterton's Fence question is far too conservative a thing for him to do.
Since the internet the equalisation of opportunity to express a view in public has been maximised to a degree unimaginable only decades ago. Enough. Please stop. Have you seen twitter/X recently?
Stodge is confusing (IMHO) freedom of speech with the right to to be heard. There is no such right. Most speech, like most books, most journalism, most MPs utterances etc are not worth paying attention to. Listen for a few hours to phone in radio, and with stellar exceptions you will be treated to the mutual sharing of ignorance and repetition of cliche and platitude.
(Update for those who remember the story: as of the middle of last week, Romford Conservatives still aren't allowed to take down the billboards with Rosser's mugshot from their building. Sometimes, Leave doesn't mean Leave.)
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/2078778686988272045
#SmokingAccidents
What Burnham is hoping for is MPs who can act and speak exotically but who all vote the same way on all matters that are (Burnham's own word) "non negotiable". This will prove to be everything he wants. There is a chance that Burnham has a particular golden gift: both very nice and absolutely ruthless. Starmer was neither. Having one is useful. having both is magic.
I assume in some countries that is enough to get by on as a minimum wage, but you'd probably need at least double that in the UK just for the basics.
Well, Ok, I think he might come second, but I think there’s a good chance he won’t. I saw someone wearing a Binface T-shirt last night at the Royal Albert Hall, but do many Clacton voters go to the Proms? There are lots of candidates splitting the comedy vote. There are some serious candidates who might actually campaign.
One question is whether any of the local Con/Lab/LDs are willing to “lend” their past canvassing returns to a candidate. A bit of canvassing and GOTV campaign could make a big difference.
Lots of dead poor people is a common result.
Then again, if you just want to reduce poverty…
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
I’d vote for the bin in the absense of a Conservative candidate, but will any of the Tories in Clacton actually campaign for him, or will that be considered verboten by the local party?
Unless of course one of the local independents is actually good, and has a campaign infrastructure behind them. Hopefully we’ll soon find out more about them all!
- You mock me, sir?
- Mock you, sir?
- Mock me not, sir. No man mocks me, sir.
- The wise man mocks the man. The mocked man mocks the mocker.
Mockery should be free. Mocking the mocker should be free. Squared.
Hopefully it escalates to regime change. In either regime.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
*head in hands*
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
Calling an early national vote would not be without risk, but Labour’s new leader would do well to learn from Gordon Brown’s mistake
James Frayne"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/19/burnhams-best-hope-of-success-is-a-snap-election/
There’s a generally mild Francophilia in the other direction, but not so marked or recent. So what’s going on? Why the noticeable entente cordiale?
My theory is it’s the conjunction of a few political trends. Both countries find themselves dealing with a disengaged and at times actively hostile USA, and unlike in the past the UK doesn’t now look like a back door route to American influence. Both now have centre-ish governments, but the RN opposition for all its Jean D’Arc imagery is at worst ambivalent about Anglo Saxon culture. Melenchon’s wing has always been Anglophobic but it’s not an huge bloc. And perhaps too the unifying idea of the Middle Powers forging a new way with the semi-fluent French speaker Mark Carney providing a link point.
We both share the problems of a stagnating economy and rising public debt, but under the surface we do have some quite different challenges. The French public realm, infrastructure and built environment remain way better than ours. No contest. Regional inequality is visibly much less marked than ours. Compare Toulouse with its similar sized peers in Britain. But they have more social tension, a bigger public debt (though lower interest costs) and a bigger pension timebomb.
Anyway, very interesting to note the love-in, and long may it continue.
However, her argument in this case is that the public perception of cause and effect regarding the market turbulence and the minibudget is wrong. So clearly telling us your public perception doesn't counter that.
Abi Hookway looks like the sort of person who could easily have stood for the Conservatives.
Marc Wilkinson’s launch video on YouTube has 12 likes after 5 days, so I don’t think he’s caught the electorate’s attention…
Projected seats (change from April 2026 MRP):
Reform UK 293 (-31)
Labour 110 (+9)
Conservative 96 (+15)
Liberal Democrats 66 (+4)
SNP 37 (+11)
Green 10 (-12)
Others 10 (-)
Plaid Cymru 9 (+4)
Vote share:
Reform UK 27%
Labour 21%
Conservative 21%
Liberal Democrats 12%
Green 10%
Others 4%
SNP 3%
Plaid Cymru 1%
More in Common MRP, fieldwork 5-28 June 2026, n=14,358."
https://x.com/poll_checker/status/2078817340943143053
Map on this page:
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/research/the-final-mrp-of-keir-starmers-premiership/
If George Russell got dropped in a barrel of boobs he’d come up sucking his thumb.
What would be acceptable would be if we had strong laws labelling *all* overseas-funded media. By countries we perceive us our enemies *and* countries not yet on the list but who may well went to influence UK public opinion in ways not in the interests of our people. The only way to do this is in a non-subjective way, where systems are put in place to aid people in making their own judgments on what is true, not to present them with an approved truth and supress all others.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg5gg6n9x3o
Kwarteng was a massive disaster in that role. Hunt would have been a massively better (first) choice in that instance. Unfortunately I think Truss chose Kwarteng for personal reasons.
Their courts have basically said that free speech requires that there must be no limits on the rights of the wealthy to have a greater say.
An example of the former would be the police initially saying there was nothing to suggest a political motive in the murder of Ann Widdicombe.
An example of the latter would be practically every word that comes out of Trump's mouth.
And Leclerc gets away with something similar but worse, and not at the start of the race.
Tribal and thick
Risen without trace
But she could be from any party
If you are preventing those who say things you dislike from speaking then that is absolutely akin to Stalinist Russia. Or Putin's Russia where people who say the truth about the war are prosecuted.
If you are countering with the truth in a debate of free ideas then that is liberal and free speech.
Free speech does not mandate the truth is believed, but it gives it a better chance than any other system whereby a lie can become mandated as the official Truth.
And individuals and businesses park their vehicles on the zigs-zags at Zebra Crossings !!!
(Amongst other things.)
https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/18/argentina-complain-fifa-claim-spain-unfair-world-cup-final-advantage-29167684/?_gl=1*1386bs*_ga*VDBOMVZINm84MUJ0TWJxQ1NyMXJSbjh2eUkyM25GdVBfXzMwMEdRV2VoZFlwOGxrVjgxYzNMcGctY0dibGhiUw..*_ga_MYFQ9GLWWV*MTc4NDQ2OTEzMy4xNS4xLjE3ODQ0NjkxMzYuMC4wLjA.
See USA say 1870-1920 for one example.