If this is the One Big Idea then we’re even more fucked than I thought we were. Rail fares are extortionate - travel costs need to be massively reduced, not simply frozen at already too-high amounts

The argument in favour of AI is that it cuts employee costs for businesses that simply can’t afford those staffing levels. But a successful businesses not having enough money to pay the required number of staff is a *decision*. And a side effect of endlessly moving money up, away from most workers.

🚨The questions themselves are clearly designed to get a certain response. In numerous cases you have the option of either saying "Don't know/prefer not to say", or accept the premise that migrants should be penalised and treated as if they are second class. 4/

🚨The supporting consultation document is riddled with errors, misinformation, and flat out lies, all wrapped up in some truly heinous and biased rhetoric. That seems to clearly be to generate a particular response from people who are not deeply aware of the issues in the existing system. 3/

I am currently, because I know how to enjoy a Saturday morning, writing some guidance for people on filling this consultation in. As I do several things are highly apparent. Before I go through them though I don't want this to put people off of filling it in. It is important to do so nonetheless. 1/

This is the 2nd time a major government report from Deloitte has been found to contain errors likely generated by AI. First in Australia and now, as The Independent has confirmed, in a major healthcare policy paper for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli #AI #deloitte

DOGE did not fail in any way to accomplish its goals. Its goals were never efficiency or saving money. Its goals were to destroy as much of government as possible forever, and to steal data for the Space Nazi. DOGE is fading away like bank robbery gangs fade away after the robberies are done.

Anyone trying to shut down criticism of Labour by saying "Reform would be worse" is, at this point, merely helping Labour smooth Reform's path. Anyone who actually wants to stop Reform will recognise that the path to that goes through stopping this iteration of the Labour Party

On the one hand, dozens of people testify he was very racist. On the other hand, 90% of lobby hacks enjoy going for beers with him, so it’s impossible to say whether it’s bad or not www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A good approach: give them Scarleteen (STILL the best, most inclusive, shame-free sex ed on the internet: www.scarleteen.com ) and have talks with them about how they're gonna see porn on the internet that's unrealistic and not-healthy, so it's better to get your info from trusted sources.

339 dead? A ceasefire? That figure should be zero shouldn’t it?

The perfect tool for the management classes. “This replaces junior people for whose work I have nothing but contempt. Hurrah. I no longer have to pay them. (Short pause) Oh noe! Nothing is working now and all on fire!”

There's a lot of panic about social media and the Bad Things it exposes kids to and a lot of laws proposing to let parents control when (or if) their kids can use social media. Friends, your kids are going to use social media no matter what. All you can control is whether they ask you for help.

The actual real explanation always turns out to be way more dumb and insulting than you imagined it was.

AI seems to be an expensive way to do someone else’s job as well as you reckon they probably do it, whatever, but no use for anything you do yourself, where you can professionally tell it’s hopeless. Good luck with the bubble, lads. (Clipped from The Wrap, about Disney giving up on its AI R&D.)

"My NHS colleagues & I weren’t willing to let the bodies pile high in their thousands. Boris no longer mentions them at all." My piece on the responses to the UK Covid-UK Inquiry report that try to airbrush the dead away. Sincere thanks, @theobserveruk.bsky.social. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

@zackpolanski.bsky.social on taxing the rich: "This is about inequality. For decades now poor people have got poorer and rich people have got richer... the money [raised] is important but the real point is about tackling inequality.. we need to get those assets flowing around the economy"

Israel steals 1.8 million sqm of West Bank land for ‘archaeology’...

Boris Johnson didn't apologise to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, even when she told him in person the lasting impact his comments about her had on her detention in Iran, her husband tells the BBC

Reminder: the 2024 Labour Party manifesto pledged to reduce child poverty. Removing the two child limit is the most cost effective way to fulfil a promise to give children a good start in life.

Curse of Private Equity. Four of UK's biggest dental firms have raked in £1.2bn gross profit over the past two years, Market controlled by My Dentist, PortmanDentex, Rodericks Dental, and Bupa Dental Services. Prices 3.5 times more than NHS dentist. No govt curbs profiteering.

Israel cannot break ceasefires, they can only “test“ them by killing dozens of people

it's annoying how the left will say something, liberals will call us alarmists or student politicos, and the six months they say the exact same shit we did.

As always with those on the full dose of antitrans brain-addling, a reminder that when they say "gender ideology", they mean the existence of trans people, something increasingly well-documented across time & cultures, & celebrated with honours by the UK government.

If Wales is to be understood as a nation by people in England – and indeed respected as a nation – the school history books there must reflect the reality of these Isles from a shared perspective ✍️Stephen Price

The "welfare bill" is not a lever, it's an indicator. We have to work on what it indicates. #BBCLauraK

Obviously ‘the powers that be’ don’t see the overtime bill as an issue!!

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

"Tackling child poverty is in the DNA of the Labour Party" Govt minister Heidi Alexander said this on #trevorphillips & repeated it on #bbclaurak A reminder that last year Starmer suspended several Labour MPs from the Parliamentary Labour Party for voting to scrap the two child benefit cap.

The conundrum - as Ukraine and Gaza amply demonstrate - is that both Russia and the US-led West pose grave threats to international security. There are no easy answers to this, but we can at least give credit to people willing to acknowledge and grapple in good faith with the actual problem.

A major healthcare policy paper commissioned by @govnl.bsky.social government from Deloitte at a cost of $1.6 million, cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months. #nlpoli #AI theindependent.ca/news/lji/maj...

"I see Benny and Bjorn have just purchased three classic paintings." "Really? Which?" *checks catalogue* "Monet ... Monet ... Monet ..."

The Equality and Human Rights Commission are a bunch of ghouls not fit for purpose. Trans rights ARE human rights you absolute scumbags. youtu.be/l3rrLbv2x1k?...

Testing? This is a regular thing now, there is no ceasefire

Welcome to the 1990s with Diana Wynne Jones! For the first episode of S3, Iona Datt Sharma @singlecrow.bsky.social joins us to talk about The Lives of Christopher Chant, and also Rudyard Kipling, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and the magical civil service.

I don’t think Danny Kruger is being taken seriously enough - this is far more extreme than anything the Conservatives were allowed to get away with. He is effectively saying that being anti-racist and being trans are contrary to British national identity and his party is leading the polls.

It is good to see that that some people a) actually have values/principles and b) do not abandon those when entering Parliament

The “Pathways” trial is, IMO on more than one level, a thoroughly unethical piece of “research” to be carrying out on children, especially children who are part of a marginalised minority.

How is owning the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, iPaper and Metro then adding the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph not anti competitive? Never mind acquiring new titles - they should be made to shed some of the ones they already have! Diverse media my wrong end! #wato #bbcpm

Not gonna engage with the puberty blocker trial story cause as someone who had the experience of going through the medical gatekeeping before getting them was pretty traumatic and my experience is luxurious compared to whats happening in the uk now and its just too upsetting honestly

There are a lot of revealing bits of info in this interview (some I'm not entirely sure the author appreciates) but the fact she goes to *Jeremy Hunt* for support says so much about her and the political project she's on.

I appreciate the piece from @owenjones.bsky.social but it once again repeats that trans men will be forced into the women's when that isn't what the guidance says. The guidance says trans men aren't allowed to use the women's, either.

Can you imagine how Reform UK would react if a Welsh leader of any other party had been sentenced for 10 years for taking bribes? Nathan Gill once said he "would never apologise for being patriotic". Tbf he never said to which country...

It took a two year campaign of digital deep mining, bullshit and screeching to convince the public Old Jezza had a racism issue. This government is straight out wearing black in front of a billowing sixty-foot Union flag like Norsefire, promising to fuck up the migrants. These things are different.

I again point out: the big sales pitch to National Front voters is one of the central planks of the government’s policy platform, and e.g. the mural stuff was a Facebook comment that had to be hacked out of the arse end of digital history by dedicated wingnut cranks, and this distinction matters.

Let's be real the fact that you see a Labour home secretary say shit like this is itself the natural consequence of a Labour party that decided it only cares about not looking "woke" or left-wing. The end result is that it not only becomes a right-wing party but a parody of one.

The way supposed allies react with shock when I tell them blockers suck give teenagers hormones and don't require parental consent 👍

Ummm 😟

Creasy might be positioning herself by speaking out on the migrant stuff, but she’s always been very gung ho about militarism and how the left needed to “get over” its dislike of it, I remember her lecturing me about that years ago, when she was a local Walthamstow councillor & then my MP.

Digital ID is a tool which features heavily in Shabana Mahmood's new immigration crackdown. It's worth looking into these plans, because Starmer is really keen to have similar data on all of us. Of course, the government would never, ever sell or abuse such data... www.gov.uk/government/p...