[Boiler]

What the fuck...?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Means nothing. He'll know stuff about what happened when he was there. Would be odd if they didn't consult him. The Independent is a shitty clickbait outfit.

In other news.

Ministers are considering handing over billions of pounds raised by business rates to regional mayors as part of one of the biggest shake-ups of the English tax system in recent years.

Steve Reed, the local government secretary, said the government was working on plans to devolve the tax, which has been the subject of recent protests by pubs and other hospitality businesses.

We keep hearing that "the Treasury" doesn't allow this sort of thing. I'm never convinced that "The Treasury" means anything much beyond "the Chancellor of the Exchequer", but I guess we'll see. Rachel Reeves seemed to change the fiscal rules without too much of a backlash.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The word 'advising' is doing a lot of heavy lifting...

[Tubby Isaacs]

More heavy lifting than Geoff Capes.

This is good news, though strictly speaking it's a Private Members Bill, it's something that the Government pledged to make space for.

The assisted dying bill is set to return to the Commons after the Labour MP Lauren Edwards agreed to use her private member’s bill to put the issue before MPs again.

Edwards said she wanted to give the legislation another chance because it had been blocked by the House of Lords after being passed by MPs. The return of the bill would give supporters a chance to use the Parliament Act to potentially bypass the Lords if it was blocked for a second time.

It was filibustered by a small group of peers last time. Surely they can't do that again. The Lords is a revising and delaying chamber. One year's delay is surely quite enough.

[Crabcakes]

Predictably, this has sent Bluesky into meltdown.

Well, good - he was a terrible advisor, and this is a terrible decision.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What decision has actually been made? He’s not formally employed. There are two people doing his old job on an acting basis. What does it mean to say he’s advising?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Rupert Lowe has gone too far for the Daily Mail. Obviously, Farage is their man but it's interesting that they get Lowe's potential (I say "potential" simply because he's not yet that well known) to the wider electorate. They'll be alert to the potential danger to Farage of looking too much like Lowe. Farage isn't known for his subtle positioning skills. I'm sure he and The Mail would be happy for Lowe to disappear.

I've always been a sceptic of the idea that everyone saying they're voting Reform are absolutely insatiable on immigration. Of course, as things stand Labour have lost votes to the Lib Dems and Greens, but I think they'll have a case in a few years time that they can make to these working class social conservatives. "You wanted immigration reduced, and we've listened. The Tories never did. And we know that unlike Farage-Lowe you don't think it's OK to set fire to cars and attack the police"

[Crabcakes]

That said, the Mail do like the tactic of saying one person is too extreme to make someone pretty much as awful seem positively centrist in comparison. If, god forbid, Farage got in they’d no doubt be pushing him to “bring Rupert and some of his bold ideas into the fold”.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, it could work like Nixon-Wallace in 1968. But I don't know if Farage is skillful enough to do that. There could be an opportunity for a (more politically skilled) Labour leader to tie Farage and Badenoch to Lowe. For instance, the view that you have to be white to be British isn't a popular one, even among Reform voters. "Do you think Ian Wright's British? Rupert Lowe and his cronies don't" isn't a particularly had position to sell.

I agree, if Farage were in power, the Mail would want Lowe brought in.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't get this. Court of Appeal says the Government haven't misused their power. You don't have to agree with it, but what's she saying exactly? And she says herself that it's criminal damage, not "dissent".

[Crabcakes]

Meanwhile, the social media ban for under 16s and legislation for limits up to 18 is a horrible, lazy policy. It’s isolating for many communities and groups of young people, it completely ignores other groups who are radicalised by bullshit, it cuts off kids from genuinely useful learning resources (who’s fucking bright idea was it to lump in YouTube? Are kids accessing GCSE revision aids a big worry now?), and it’s an absolute foot-shooting spree in terms of giving the vote to a group of people who you’ve gone on to patronise and restrict. And the up to 18 restriction? Well the answer there is simple - what sort of a moronic government will happily recruit you to the armed forces at 16 to go off and potentially die for them or witness all types of horror, but not let you look at Instagram past 8.30 until you’re 18 in case you stay up a bit late?

It’s like having a load of companies openly spraying raw sewage onto a beach, them all laughably denying responsibility for it, and the govt. deciding the best course of action is to ban swimming for children with the argument they need to be controlled until they’re old enough to choose to wade through shit for themselves.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I have no idea if this stuff will work in the way intended. But-

what sort of a moronic government will happily recruit you to the armed forces at 16 to go off and potentially die for them or witness all types of horror,

The minimum age for deployment to the frontline is 18.

it completely ignores other groups who are radicalised by bullshit,

All sorts of laws work in this way. What's the difference? The rationale with doing this is that you protect the agevgroup who collectively are the most vulnerable, and don't have to bother about tricky arguments about free speech and civil liberties.

it’s an absolute foot-shooting spree in terms of giving the vote to a group of people who you’ve gone on to patronise and restrict

I take your point about the age 18 restrictions, but I don't think the age 16 restrictions will be too much of an electoral problem. When you turned 18, did you think that the drinking age should be lowered to 17? I didn't. Are the Greens on Lib Dems going to run as libertarians on this? I doubt it.

I also agree with you about YouTube.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Meanwhile, the social media ban for under 16s and legislation for limits up to 18 is a horrible, lazy policy. It’s isolating for many communities and groups of young people, it completely ignores other groups who are radicalised by bullshit, it cuts off kids from genuinely useful learning resources (who’s fucking bright idea was it to lump in YouTube? Are kids accessing GCSE revision aids a big worry now?), and it’s an absolute foot-shooting spree in terms of giving the vote to a group of people who you’ve gone on to patronise and restrict. And the up to 18 restriction? Well the answer there is simple - what sort of a moronic government will happily recruit you to the armed forces at 16 to go off and potentially die for them or witness all types of horror, but not let you look at Instagram past 8.30 until you’re 18 in case you stay up a bit late?

It’s like having a load of companies openly spraying raw sewage onto a beach, them all laughably denying responsibility for it, and the govt. deciding the best course of action is to ban swimming for children with the argument they need to be controlled until they’re old enough to choose to wade through shit for themselves.

So what's your answer?

[Oboogie]

I don't get this. Court of Appeal says the Government haven't misused their power. You don't have to agree with it, but what's she saying exactly? And she says herself that it's criminal damage, not "dissent".

The Terrorism Act makes it clear that criminal damage, if committed in the name of a political cause, is terrorism. Palestine Action's only defence would be to claim their motivation wasn't political and they were just dicking about. Sadly for them, both they and their supporters have repeatedly said the motivation was political and therefore, by their own admission, it was terrorism.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I was surprised they won the case in the lower court.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ly-russell

Keir Starmer promised me he would end the harm caused by social media. But this ban betrays that promise
Ian Russell

Hard to tell from this what the promise actually was. Sounds like a vague promise to protect harms to children (the writer's daughter committed suicide after accessing suicide material online). So unless this is all a deliberate charade (why would it be, this far from the election?) it seems to be a genuine attempt to solve the problem, albeit not in the way the writer supports.

Increasingly I have low tolerance for the politics that accuses people of "betrayal" all the time. We had it with the Hillsborough bill too, even though South Yorkshire Police would have been unaffected by the proposed exemption for the security services.

I'd be very surprised if "Big Tech" was sat there now thinking they'd got away with one as they read this policy. Yet that's the framing all the time- weaky Starmer fails to take them on. Yet, whether this works or not, isn't he doing exactly that with this policy?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Doubtless a column will be a long in minute telling us that the only reason the government hasn't done exactly what the writer wanted was "lobbying". I get increasingly fed up with this sort of writing too. It's a contributor to the rise of the likes of Polanski. Everything will work once we put the right sort of people in. Because no interest group ever has a point about anything, or something. And deeply unrepresentative members of political parties know everything there is to know.

[Oboogie]

I was surprised they won the case in the lower court.

Me too.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Well, Big Tech do indeed seem to be very unhappy. Which doesn't suggest to me that Starmer has failed to take them on. But I'm sure it can be added to not taking the Government (uniquely in politics) off X and not exercising a break in the Palantir NHS contract, as evidence that he's the Cowardly Lion. Never mind whether the Palantir contract might save a lot of lives and NHS time. It's all about perceived political courage. Bring on Andy, Zack, whoever, and we can moan about them too when they have to make trade offs. Why not Farage, indeed?

[Crabcakes]

So what's your answer?

To begin, stronger education for children in how to recognise misinformation and analyse what they see and hear, the dangers of social media (rather than just “no!”), greater investment in youth services, Leveson 2 (and further) and a properly funded and independent press regulator with real power that also covers output on social media platforms, remove all government services from
X to set an example of not engaging with poorly regulated services.

That would be a start, but it is a long, complex and difficult issue to deal with. Which is why I’m sure a simplistic blanket ban on a population with limited voice and influence seems an appealing solution.