The Online Safety Act may cost Labour the next election How the Online Safety Act overreaches and risks playing into the far right’s hands westenglandbylines.co.uk/business/tec...

Fucking hell they're HANDING Reform the polls and the next election. This is a completely fucking outrageous line from Peter Kyle - it's disgraceful that the technology secretary doesn't have the political acumen to know that opposition to the OSA is completely bipartisan, and everyone is furious.

Labour have lost the next election with the Online Safety Act. It was already in doubt, but if they don't reverse course this act will cost them. It'll go down in history as a genuinely dunderheaded move to give young people better suffrage, then immediately alienate them as a voter base.

I don't think I've ever seen a major politician - certainly not the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - lose his shit like this. Lack of decorum aside - Trump never had any - this is him throwing his toys out of the pram and realising he's completely out of his depth. No control whatsoever. Weak.

It turns out creating a situation where 25% of global petroleum liquids might go offline at any minute has an impact on oil prices, who would have guessed.

Incredibly telling that when Zia Yusuf of Reform was challenged by @lewisgoodall.com on what is essentially a complete lie on 'DEI' (EDI) spending in the public sector, he immediately appealed to conspiracism. Reform will do this for the next 4 years. Lie > get called out > conspiracism.

The inability of Labour to tackle far-right populism was the number one concern pre-election -it's essentially coming to fruition. They need to make peoples' feel like things are getting better right now. Nebulous faith in UK 'growth', which isn't happening, will ruin them at the next election.

Highly likely US Citizens will also get no due process as well. The Trump admin have seen how 'easy' it's been to unconstitutionally and illegally send residents to foreign concentration camps with no trial; they'll look to replicate that. America, you are past DEFCON 1. This is fascism.

This is why you don't vote for dumbfuck Conservative populists, people. We obviously had a taste of this domestically with Truss but this is of course next level. One party led by one idiotic, lying figurehead can cause so much suffering. Honestly, this is the fault of right-wing naivity.

For Americans who didn’t get the joy of living through the Truss/Kwarteng budget, this is the point where the government starts to call the stock market left-wing and/or woke.

Very funny stuff. I don't think Musk will do this though - he's political poison and seemingly *hated* by the majority, but he's also an erratic egomaniac who won't want his ego dented by being told to be quiet. Of course, he'll still need to 'brag' about DOGE as well; so will get headlines.

Your tariff rate is your star sign divided by the number of boys you've kissed, multiplied by one

The media need to drill this into everyone's heads at every opportunity. MAGA will frame the tariffs as like-for-like when they're not. They're based on batshit trade deficit calculations; the US - a (former) global lead - is obviously going to have this deficit. news.sky.com/story/do-tru...

BREAKING NEWS: Susan Crawford WINS the Wisconsin Supreme Court election DEFEATING Elon Musk puppet Brad Schimel! Congratulations Judge Crawford!

It would be extremely insulting and, honestly, pathetic; appeasement of Trump and exactly what the US big tech oligarchy want. They need to be taxed FAR more than they currently are; not less to appease MAGA. We should be united across Europe to blanket retaliatory tariffs. Follow Canada's lead.

Obviously it's great and all to ruthlessly mock the INSANE incompetency of the Trump administration (in the sensible before times everyone involved here would resign), but the subnote to all of this is confirmation that they really do hate Europe. If they're saying all of this behind closed doors.

Patriotic Millionaires UK campaigned last week across the country to advocate for a Wealth Tax, against the backdrop of significant possible welfare cuts in the spring budget | Ben Watters @korrbard.bsky.social @westenglandbylines.co.uk 3/ 🧵

We met the Patriotic Millionaires in Bristol last Friday. #wealthtax #https://westenglandbylines.co.uk/politics/patriotic-millionaires-uk-tax-our-wealth-campaign-visits-bristol/

It won't be, but this should be a lesson to EVERYONE to not believe the right snake-oil salesmen on 'free speech'. How often have we heard the Trump admin and fanboys cry about free speech - yet here we have the White House themselves disappearing people for peaceful protest. Just horrifying.

Yet another example of post-Brexit damage that it's not even possible to hide amongst Covid impact anymore - other EU countries have recovered their exports, we haven't. With the US being an 'unreliable' partner (i.e. insane far right oligarchy), we need closer EU alignment immediately.

Back after a lovely trip to Canada; it's almost impossible to summarize how gigafucked the US is following the last few weeks so guess I just have pick up the posting with current news. The US are 100% going to use these aluminium tariffs to lift sanctions on Russia.

Actually a fucking mental article to post in the current climate - considering that: A) Left-wing political rivals right now are unambiguous far righters or at least right wing moderates who in turn enable the far right; and B) The Right DO NOT meaningfully cooperate with the left either.

It's also important to note that this drivel took place at ARC - a right wing thinktank event (seems to be about 15 a year at this point) heavily associated with the US far-right & MAGA. The Tories are DESPERATE to court the US fascists - that's what this 'we are your only hope' bollocks is.

And of course that same unelected, far right billionaire, is launching into an insane anti-judiciary attack as their smash & grab of the federal purse is starting to falter. Musk has now also started to release personal details of judges' family members as well - encouraging stochastic violence.

If there was an other unelected billionaire standing over the President's shoulder and delivering a presser - especially the conspiracy nuts favourite targets like Soros etc - the far right chuds would storm the Capitol again. Speaks to the insane hypocrisy of the right that they're cool with this

So ridiculously true. It's crazy seeing in real time, over the last 8 or so years, the transition from major liberal institutions (usually in the op-eds or comments) from 'ah well I can see both sides' POV' to 'holy shit guys this is fascism isn't it'. The writing was on the wall 10 years ago.

As I keep saying, the US far-right have essentially captured their entire media space at this point. It's not just that they'll funnel everything towards explicitly right-wing media outlets like Breitbart/Fox News - current traditional media becomes controlled opposition.

US tariffs on Canada & Mexico confirmed then. What we're seeing here is the very start of (at least) 4 years of the absolute wealthiest in the US aggressively dismantling the US economy so that they can buy up the rubble. Ordinary Americans are in for such insane price surges, it's crazy.

Immensely worrying. Traditional media isn't immune to bias as we all very well know, but it is still bound - in the UK at least - by some form of regulation against malpractice and misinformation. Social media is not - and we know much of it is owned by this new wave of tech oligarchs.

It's difficult to ignore the second coming of Trump or the power grab by Elon Musk. This month we have articles by Claire Jones and Ben Watters examining these developments.

Over on the other place Dame Mary Beard @wmarybeard.bsky.social - an expert on Roman history - posted that the Nazi salute has nothing to do with the Romans Arron Banks replied with photos of Roman statues with outstretched arms as "evidence" of the Roman salute

An actually insane position. Brexit has brought nothing but economic harm to the UK and the more it perpetuates because of some fantasy thinking that somehow that harm will go away, the worse we'll all be for it. Labour don't need to refight bad faith Brexit arguments; just re-align.

Have we ever considered… That maybe fact checkers feel left leaning …because the left aligns itself more with fact?

Just a monumental failure of political strategy by the Democrats: - Work with Republicans (under advice from Trump) to ban TikTok unconstitutionally - Take all the heat with young people for the decision - Tiktok banned - Trump swoops in now to save TikTok - Likely ends with a MAGA oligarch owner

Reading the UK government's "AI" proposals you are left with the impression that they've had precisely one (1) Powerpoint presentation on this, which led to a brainstorming session after a dangerously long lunch, which they then let "AI" transcribe for them.

Here's Andrew Neil in the Mail advocating for more and more 'insurgency' in our media - i.e. completely unvetted foreign voices like Musk disrupting and spreading misinformation. It's a crazy lean into the disillusionment in Western politics that's spurred this surge of far right populism.

Check out my latest musings for the fantastic @westenglandbylines.co.uk! (Spoiler: Betteridge's law does apply, you absolutely cannot handle Musk by ignoring him).

There's obviously loads of ways to analyse this because it's absolutely mental; but it just goes to show the hypocrisy of the right wing 'free speech' warriors that in one hand they'll claim anyone has the right to say anything, and then in the other hand they'll be calling the solicitors for libel.

This is the most dangerous change of the lot. We've seen how Twitter 'discusses' immigration & gender - i.e. a swirling maelstrom of hate and misinformation. Right-wing media capture is so advanced at this point, it's frightening.

Yeah, I mean it's over. Facebook capitulating to US fascism by claiming that fact checking is 'biased'. These platforms are *so* dangerous when unmoderated. The ability to spread unchecked misinformation goes to the highest bidder, which is always the right-wing. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is the sort of insane misinformation that encourages stochastic terror against MPs. Seeing the sort of far-right rhetoric and accounts swirling Musk right now, they're almost certainly going to try to leverage this misinfo into further race riots - much like in 2024. Urgent action is needed.

hmmmmmmmmff 🍷

Ahahahahaha I can only assume the massive donation was already off the table, as that's the only way I could imagine Farage would stand up to Musk like this. It's funny; I wouldn't have thought the love-in would split over Tommy Robinson of all people. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The money (and influence) potentially being donated to Reform is way, WAY more damaging than a couple of weeks of Farage whinging on social media that he didn't get it. You have to stamp this out; appeasement with the far right is impossible. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is.

🔴The Reform UK MPs Already Being Bankrolled by Elon Musk Nigel Farage is already benefiting financially thanks to the billionaire owner of X bylinetimes.com/2024/12/18/t...

We'll be seeing this a lot over the next few years, but an example of the staggering media capture that the right-wing have in the UK. In no way has Starmer's early actions even come close to early actions of the last decade of Tory rule - it's milquetoast but nowhere near previous Tory clownshows.

So yeah the Tories definitely aren't going anywhere near the centre-right any time soon. Aligning yourself with Musk brainrot is so beyond the pale. Also to praise Milei as well, who's swapped out 'awful inflation' with 'awful actual poverty' in Argentina by slashing public services.

Fun little surprise to see as we changeover at Bristol Temple Meads today.

Called this the other day; not surprising it's already happened. Musk's pretend Government agency won't have any real power - but what he will do is use his platform to harass and dox public sector employees into quitting. Disgusting and trashy.

Just absolutely deranged and tantamount to a deliberate crashing of the US economy. This will drive so so so many people into more poverty. The pretext of it being for the war on drugs is mad as well, under no circumstances would this stop that.