#thanks brexit for ruining things with the eu

[autisticwriterblog]

I'm starting a PotF vinyl collection now, I guess. 🤣

My Jealous Gods vinyl is just gorgeous, and I thought, why not buy the rest?

Thank fuck for 15% discount codes, lol.

[encounterthepast]

If you enjoy this please follow @RussInCheshire on twitter for his regular threads on UK politics.

As it’s the weekend, let’s start #TheWeekInTory with a frivolous and jolly story about our own govt deliberately starving hundreds of thousands of children...

1. In May, Boris Johnson promised “nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

2. He then denied school meals to the 600,000 poorest children

3. So Marcus Rashford ran a campaign to get the govt to feed children, which - just think about that: he had to *campaign* for it

4. Then Boris Johnson congratulated Rashford on his campaign to overturn the cruel policies of, erm, Boris Johnson

5. And then 3 days later, Boris Johnson refused to feed those kids during school holidays

6. So this week Labour organised a parliamentary vote about it

7. And 322 Tories voted against feeding hungry children

8. Vicky Ford, the Children’s Minister (who you’ll be surprised to hear neither looks nor sounds like a ludicrous Dickensian villain) went ahead and voted against feeding children

9. Tory MP Jo Gideon voted against feeding children. Jo Gideon, in case you didn't think things could get any more unbelievable, is also the chair of "Feeding Britain", a charity that campaigns to end food poverty and hunger in the UK.

10. Tory MP Paul Scully waved away the grumbling parents of kids with grumbling tummies, and said “children have been going hungry under Labour for years”, seemingly forgetting Tories have been in power for a decade

11. Tory MP Ben Bradley, who once had to apologise for suggesting sterilising the poor, said feeding children will simply “increase their dependency”. On food. Yeah, wean the little bastards off it. It’ll do them good in the end, which will be around 3 agonising weeks.

12. At this point, pause to consider that MPs get their food and drink subsidised. A £31 meal in a parliamentary restaurant costs MPs £3.45. In 2018 this subsidy cost the taxpayer £4.4m. I can’t find any record of Tories like Ben Bradley voting against this.

13. Pressing on: Ben Bradley also said “Some parents prioritise other things ahead of their kids. Small minority, yes... but some do”. Yes, and a small minority of Tory MPs have been arrested for rape. Should we send them all to prison?

14. Also, Mark Francois voted (by proxy) to keep kids hungry. Not related to the previous item. Why would you think that?

15. Tory MP Nicky Morgan said the govt voted to starve 600,000 children cos a Labour MP called a Tory MP scum. And that’s not a scummy thing to do at all.

16. Tory MP David Simmonds said Marcus Rashford’s experience of poverty in secondary school “took place entirely under a Labour government”. Rashford was 11 when Tories came into power, making David Simmonds are rare example of an ad hominem attack on yourself

17. Simmonds then said Labour’s parliamentary vote was “all about currying favour with wealth and power and celebrity status”. He might be right – the govt managed to unify Gary Linaker and Nigel Farage in condemnation of their denial of food to kids

18. Brandan Clark-Smith (who voted to starve kids) demanded “more action to tackle the real causes of child poverty”

19. So at once, the govt cut minimum wage for furloughed people. They now get 2/3 of the money the govt says is the absolute minimum it is possible to survive on

20. And then it was revealed that low-paid workers who have to isolate due to Covid can claim £500. Yay!

21. But if they’re told to isolate by the govt’s contact tracing app, they can’t claim anything. Un-yay.

22. Long story short: the govt cannot spend £120m feeding children. But it can spend £522 on the Eat Out Scheme, which its own report said contributed “negligible amounts” to the hospitality economy, and Boris Johnson admitted drove up infection rates – especially in the North

23. Those infection rates caused the govt to move Manchester into Tier 3

24. So the Mayor of Manchester asked for a £90m support package (1/6th of the money the govt spent causing the problem in the first place)

25. The govt said no, £60m

26. The Mayor said, how about £65m?

27. The govt said no, £60m

28. The Mayor said ok, fine, we’ll take the £60m

29. And then govt offered Manchester £22m, and then went to the press and said the Mayor was "being unreasonable"

30. The negotiations were led by Robert Jenrick, who recently set up a fund for the poorest 101 towns, then awarded his town £25m even though it is the 270th poorest, and therefore not even eligible

31. £25m is £237 per person

32. Manchester gets £7.85 per person

33. Robert Jenrick gave Manchester (2.8 million people) £22m

34. Robert Jenrick gave Richard Desmond (1 person) £45m

35. The talks broke down when the govt wouldn’t spend an extra £5m

36. The govt plans to spend £7m vitally rebranding "Highways England" to "National Highways"

37. Manchester Young Conservatives tweeted “Boris has lied about helping us in the North. It’s time for him to go". Don't look - they deleted it. Suspect somebody had a word.

38. Meanwhile the govt said Manchester will get the £60m after all, and chaos continue to reign supreme

39. But that £60m is brief reprieve for the Tories of Manchester, as a govt report said Tory seats in the North of England (the so-called "Red Wall" seats) can expect to lose at least 4000 jobs *each* as a result of Brexit, even if we do get a deal. More if we don't.

40. The govt rushed to begin its first airport Coronavirus testing, a mere 211 days after mandatory airport testing was begun in South Korea

41. South Korea has had 8 deaths per million

42. The UK has had 665 deaths per million

43. More airport news, as the govt finally accepted Brexit will cause “up to 8-hour delays at passport checks” and asked the EU to allow UK citizens to queue at EU-only lanes. Like we did when we were in the EU. But we aren’t now. So tough.

44. A senior diplomat said, “Having grown up in Brussels, Boris Johnson values the ability to travel freely to the continent”. You’d think Boris Johnson would foresee this problem when he led the campaign to stop that freedom.

45. The independent reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said the UK “will be increasingly unable to cope” after Brexit, as we lose access to EU data-sharing agreements

46. And a No-Deal end to UK/EU scientific collaboration will leave London with a £3bn annual deficit

47. In the space of 38 days, the govt announced the £100bn "Operation Moonshot" to solve Covid; then cancelled it; and then re-launched it again after it was found they’d accidentally continued to pay over 200 private consultants up to £7000 a day to work on it.

48. So this week, Boris Johnson said Moonshot would continue, but it’s goals “would take time”, which is the literal opposite of what he said it would do when it first announced it, and makes the entire thing absolutely pointless

49. And now it’s been admitted that Operation Moonshot would be quietly folded into the existing £12bn Test and Trace programme, and the £100bn has vanished. Apart from the bits the Serco consultants took for doing… nothing.

50. But Boris Johnson said the Test and Trace programme was “helping a bit”, and “a bit” is the least you’d expect if you’d spent £12bn

51. And then the £12bn Test and Trace programme fell to its lowest success rate so far, identifying only 60% of at-risk people

52. Local councils, with no additional funding, are tracing 98% of cases

53. A quick sweep though other epic successes you may have missed (or deliberately blocked out): Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch declared that it should be illegal to teach about inequality

54. The Cabinet Secretary said the report into “vicious and orchestrated” bullying by Home Secretary and Dementor Priti Patel “may never see the light of day”, cos if you have a report that vindicates you, you definitely sit on it as long as possible

55. And the appeals court unanimously overturned Priti Patel’s policy of removing people from the UK without giving them access to legal process or justice because – and I’m paraphrasing the judges here – what the fuck, Patel? What the actual fuck?

56. Undeterred, she announced plans to make rough-sleeping “grounds for removal of permission to be in the UK” and "denial of legal aid". So if you’re too poor to have a home, you must pay for a lawyer or she’ll shove you in the sea

57. After an unnamed Tory MP said it “looks bad to be handing top jobs to your friend and old boss”, Charles Moore, Boris Johnson’s friend and old boss, withdrew as next BBC chair.

58. The new favourite is Richard Sharp, the - yep - friend and old boss of Rishi Sunak

59. You’ll be amazed to hear this: Richard Sharp is a major donor to the Tory party. These little coincidences keep on happening

60. The govt decided to prevent EU citizens from having physical proof of their right to live in their own home

61. Grant Shapps threatened to “seize control of Transport for London” to save it from financial ruin at the hands of Sadiq Khan, who – the bastard - achieved a mere 71% reduction in the debts caused by his noble predecessor, Boris Johnson

62. Matt Hancock, facts at his fingertips, told MPs from Yorkshire their constituents could go on holiday abroad

63. But not in the UK

64. And then that they CAN go on holiday in the UK

65. But can't leave Yorkshire

66. He then said “I'll get back to you” about the details

67. A cross-party report found “the UK’s foreign policy is adrift”, that it lacks “clarity, confidence and vision” and that Britain is “absent from the world stage”. All of which is very soothing, as we move into the govt's proclaimed goal of a post-Brexit Global Britain.

68. And we can all relax: the govt is finally supporting culture in the UK, specifically the Nevill Holt Opera, which performs private operas, and is owned by Boris Johnson’s friend (and - jaw on floor! - Tory donor) David Ross, who is worth £700m so really needs the money.

69. The Nevill Holt Opera only functions in the summer, so thank god it has been prioritised with £85,000 to “maintain operations” in October.

And now, in honour of the opera, the fat lady can sing, cos I’m off to drink myself into oblivion. Join me.

We live in interesting times.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, March 7, 2021

Job Market Picks Up Strength (NYT) Driven by unexpectedly large job gains at the nation’s restaurants and bars, the labor market picked up strength in February, raising hopes that the economic recovery was taking hold more firmly. All told, employers added 379,000 jobs, the government reported Friday, the strongest showing since October. The increase, as vaccination efforts ramped up and restrictions on businesses eased, followed a deep loss in December and a modest rise in January. But the February pace was still far short of the gains recorded from late spring to early fall as the pandemic’s sudden stranglehold loosened. There are roughly 9.5 million fewer jobs than a year ago, and a year’s worth of lost opportunities—as many as two million jobs that would most likely have been created if previous hiring trends had continued. Congress is considering a $1.9 trillion package of pandemic relief intended to carry struggling households and businesses through the coming months.

Can Biden Keep Coal Country From Becoming a ‘Ghost Town’? (NYT) From a porch in Martin County, Ky., in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty. Decades later, President Barack Obama dedicated millions of dollars to work force development projects in Appalachia. President Donald J. Trump even pledged the impossible: a revival of the region’s faltering coal industry. President Biden is talking big, too, assuring residents that his climate plan will also create well-paying jobs there. But after generations of promises, communities once reliant on coal mining are understandably skeptical. Administration after administration has tried to bring the region sustained prosperity, yet many communities remain on the brink. In eastern Kentucky, the poverty rate in several counties exceeds 30 percent. Unemployment is among the highest in the nation. And an outward migration over several decades has cut the populations of some counties nearly in half, leaving local governments strapped for tax revenue and struggling to fund essential services. “Fifty years from now, this could be a ghost town,” said former Gov. Paul E. Patton, an eastern Kentucky native. “That’s my prediction.”

Hyperinflation Pushes Venezuela to Print 1,000,000-Bolivar Bills (Bloomberg) Venezuela said it will introduce new large-denomination bolivar notes as hyperinflation renders most bills worthless, forcing citizens to turn to the U.S. dollar for everyday transactions. The country’s central bank posted a statement on its website Friday saying it would begin circulating the new 200,000, 500,000 and 1,000,000 bills to “fulfill the current economy’s requirements” without providing further details. The 1,000,000 note—the largest in the nation’s history—is worth only $0.53 cents. As Venezuela’s economy shrank for a seventh straight year in 2020, the government turned a blind eye to a growing number of dollar transactions, kick-started by rolling power outages that prevented credit and debit card purchases and fostered the use of cash. About 66% of transactions across the country are estimated to be made in foreign currency, according to Ecoanalitica. While the dollar has gained ground, Venezuelans continue to rely on bolivar bills for public transportation and to purchase subsidized fuel. The Caracas subway recently issued an electronic payment system after it routinely stopped charging passengers due to cash shortages.

Protesters and Police Clash in Paraguay Amid Anger Over Pandemic Response (Reuters) Protesters clashed with the police in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, late on Friday as anger over the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis boiled onto the streets and forced the resignation of the country’s top health official. Security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators who had gathered around the Congress building, while protesters broke down security barriers, burned road barricades and threw stones at the police. The protests broke out amid growing outrage as coronavirus infections hit record levels and hospitals verged on collapse throughout Paraguay.

UK COVID-19 lockdown provides boom towns for rats (Deutsche Welle) Rats, and other members of the rodent family, have a lousy reputation. They crop up regularly in our everyday language to describe bleak situations and sentiments (Rats!, caught in a rat race, someone with rat-like features—you get the drift). They seem to be omnipresent in the best of times, but now, they’re having a, er, field day. In London and other major cities across the UK, rat sightings have soared during the pandemic. The British Pest Control Association (BPCA), which represents 700 vermin catchers across the country, said its members reported a 51% hike in rodent activity during the first lockdown last spring, and a 78% increase in November after the next lockdown. Typically, rats avoid humans and make drains and sewers their homes. However, as a result of shuttered businesses and deserted high streets, the creatures are out in full force and making restaurants, pubs and empty buildings their new habitat as they look for other sources to satisfy their dietary needs. “It seems their lifestyle patterns are changing. Rats, in particular, are also becoming more visible in areas of population. With less footfall across cities and towns, there is less associated food waste being left in bins and on the floor. Also, bin areas behind restaurants and pubs are empty and free of food waste making it unavailable for the local rat population,” Natalie Bungay, technical officer with the BPCA, told DW via email. As a result, rats are also moving further afield to find other food sources. “Rats seem to be moving from cities closer to residential areas, where we’re still filling our bins with food waste,” says Bungay.

Brexit Antagonism Escalates as EU, U.K. Go Another Round (Bloomberg) When the U.K. and European Union shook hands on a trade deal late last year, few expected the new relationship to be plain sailing. And as with many divorces, antagonism between the sides has refused to fade. Among the most sensitive issues is Northern Ireland, and tensions ramped up considerably this week when the U.K. announced it will ignore some crucial obligations under the Brexit deal and the EU responded with a dramatic threat of legal action. With Prime Minister Boris Johnson already under pressure from members of his own party to rip up the Northern Ireland deal, the risk is a further escalation that erodes relations. That could have spillovers far beyond politics, and the ongoing saga is a frustration for business. The U.K.’s huge finance industry, for example, is seeing the potential for beneficial trade agreements being slowly whittled away by endless political spats.

Pope, top Iraq Shiite cleric hold historic, symbolic meeting (AP) Pope Francis and Iraq’s top Shiite cleric delivered a powerful message of peaceful coexistence Saturday, urging Muslims in the war-weary Arab nation to embrace Iraq’s long-beleaguered Christian minority during an historic meeting in the holy city of Najaf. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said religious authorities have a role in protecting Iraq’s Christians, and that Christians should live in peace and enjoy the same rights as other Iraqis. The Vatican said Francis thanked al-Sistani for having “raised his voice in defense of the weakest and most persecuted” during some of the most violent times in Iraq’s recent history. Al-Sistani, 90, is one of the most senior clerics in Shiite Islam and his rare but powerful political interventions have helped shape present-day Iraq. He is a deeply revered figure in Shiite-majority Iraq and his opinions on religious and other matters are sought by Shiites worldwide. The historic meeting in al-Sistani’s humble home was months in the making, with every detail painstakingly discussed and negotiated between the ayatollah’s office and the Vatican. The “very positive” meeting lasted a total of 40 minutes, said a religious official in Najaf.

A decade after Fukushima nuclear disaster, contaminated water symbolizes Japan’s struggles (Washington Post) Beside the ruins of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, more than 1,000 huge metal tanks loom in silent testament to one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, the meltdown of three nuclear reactors 10 years ago this month. The tanks contain nearly 1.25 million tons of cooling water from the 2011 disaster and groundwater seepage over the years—equivalent to around 500 Olympic-size swimming pools—most of it still dangerously radioactive. Running out of space to build more tanks, the government wants to gradually release the water into the sea—after it has been decontaminated and diluted—over the next three decades or more. Even though a formal decision has yet to be announced, the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) have insisted that an ocean release is their preferred solution and that it is perfectly safe. The only thing holding them back appears to be the Olympics and the bad publicity it could generate before the Games begin in July, experts say. The idea of releasing the water has infuriated Fukushima’s fishing community, only now getting back on its feet after taking a battering in the wake of the 2011 disaster and the subsequent ocean contamination. Also angry is South Korea, even though it is more than 600 miles away on the other side of Japan.

Hong Kong reforms prevent ‘dictatorship of the majority’, pro-Beijing lawmaker says (Reuters) China’s proposal for Hong Kong electoral reforms could prevent a “dictatorship of the majority”, pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmaker Martin Liao told Reuters on Saturday. The Chinese parliament is discussing plans to overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral system to ensure Beijing loyalists are in charge. Hong Kong representatives, in Beijing for an annual session, say the change is necessary and desirable. “Many people in Hong Kong are politically immature,” Liao, who sits on both Hong Kong’s and China’s legislature, said in a telephone interview. “They think ‘one man one vote’ is the best thing, and they take advice from countries that don’t even have ‘one man one vote’,” Liao said, referring to how neither the U.S. President nor the British Prime Minister is elected by a popular vote. The proposed changes, which include expanding the city’s Election Committee from 1,200 to 1,500 people and expanding the city’s Legislative Council from 70 to 90 seats, will make Hong Kong’s electoral system more “representative”, and less prone to “dictatorship of the majority”, Liao added. Critics say that Beijing would be able to stack the two bodies with even more pro-establishment members, to gain the numerical superiority needed to influence important decisions such as the election of the city’s Chief Executive, leaving Hong Kong voters with less direct say in who they want to lead them.

Myanmar forces fire tear gas, stun grenades on protest as U.N. envoy calls for action (Reuters) Myanmar security forces used tear gas and stun grenades to break up a protest in Yangon on Saturday, just hours after a United Nations special envoy called on the Security Council to take action against the ruling junta for the killings of protesters. The Southeast Asian country has been plunged in turmoil since the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, with daily protests and strikes that have choked business and paralysed administration. More than 50 protesters have been killed since the coup, according to the United Nations—at least 38 on Wednesday alone. The army says it has been restrained in stopping the protests, but has said it will not allow them to threaten stability.

Lebanon on edge as protests persist, caretaker PM pleads for new government (Reuters) Demonstrators blocked various roadways across Lebanon for the fifth day in a row on Saturday, and a heavy army presence filled parts of the capital as anger simmered over the country’s economic downturn. Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab threatened in a speech earlier in the day to stop performing his duties to pressure politicians to form a new government. Groups of protesters have been burning tyres daily to block roads since the Lebanese currency tumbled to a new low on Tuesday, enraging a population long horrified by the country’s financial meltdown. Lebanon’s financial crisis, which erupted in 2019, has wiped out jobs, raised warnings of growing hunger and locked people out of their bank deposits. A new cabinet could implement reforms needed to trigger billions of dollars of international aid.

Electricity, time, and Bitcoin (The Baffler) In early 2018, millions of digital clocks across Europe began falling behind time. Few took notice at first as slight disruptions in the power supply caused bedside alarms and oven timers running on the frequency of electric current to begin lagging. Three minutes were lost in January, three more in February. In March, the Brussels-based European Network of Transmission System Operators of Electricity issued an apology. Whoever was causing the unprecedented power shortages “must cease”—but, until they did, the thirty-six nations plugged into Europe’s common electric grid were tasked with ratcheting up their voltage frequencies to speed the continent’s clocks back up. European authorities soon traced the power fluctuations to North Kosovo, a region commonly described as one of Europe’s last ganglands. Since 2015, its major city, Mitrovica, has been under the control of Srpska Lista, a mafia masquerading as a political party. Around the time Srpska came to power, North Kosovo’s electricity consumption surged. Officials at the Kosovo Electricity Supply Company in Prishtina, Kosovo’s capital city, told me that the region now requires 20 percent more power than it did five years ago. Eventually, it became clear why: across the region, from the shabby apartment blocks of Mitrovica to the cellars of mountain villages, Bitcoin and Ethereum rigs were humming away, fueling a shadow economy of cryptocurrency manufacturing.

[oc-character-development]

Well I suppose I’ve got limited time on this blog:

Wow thanks Tumblr Article 13 first on trending after it’s passed. Really good going there!

There goes my blog based on my OC’s and other fandom stuff.

There goes the entirety of my dreams of gaming on YouTube. There goes watching Markiplier, Monster Factory (the McElroys) and the Game Grumps. Jacksepticeye’s channel is also going to suffer because of the content of his channel.

There goes the majority of my coping Mechanisms for after having an a autistic meltdown or panic attack due to anxiety. There goes the videos I watch to stop me from having suicidal thoughts every night.

There goes all the fanfic I was writing or going to write (writing is one of my special interests and writing fanfic in particular is my favourite thing to do) because the EU have f***ed people in the EU over.

And this still has effected Britain even though we won’t be in the EU for much longer (Brexit is another price of crap entirely).

So thanks to all those old arseholes in charge of the EU voting for probably ruining my fucking life and putting even more of a dent in my (and probably a lot more people’s) mental health!

[lodelcar]

LIFE IS FAR AWAY FROM FAIR

Brussels - Manneken Pis museum

[1]Perception rules the present world

For centuries, authorities have been struggling to put their opponents in a bad light. The function of "agent provocateur" was refined in the early 19th century by Eugène François Vidocq, a French criminal turned criminalist. His role was to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely involved in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation or entice legal action against the target or a group they belong to.[2] The book Merchants of Doubt, a ten-year-old bestseller by two American historians, described how some top scientists have for years sowed doubts about the damaging effects of tobacco and acid rain and about global warming. They worked closely with a number of large companies. They created uncertainty, while there was scientific consensus. In this way they managed to block political regulation.[3]

But thanks to the dominating internet and social media, the phenomenon of fake news has become a general trend. The current internet has become the perfect way to harm people, institutions and countries by releasing internet trolls that act as agents provocateurs and undermine their reputation with impunity.

Newspapers have to make tremendous efforts to distinguish truth from fiction. What calls itself a quality newspaper, such as the Guardian, De Standaard, the Frankfurter Algemeine, have specialized fact finders to distinguish the reality from fiction. And they too are sometimes tempted to use titles that do not cover loads, in order to be able to sell more newspapers. The framing technique consists of choosing words and images in such a way that implicitly highlights a number of aspects of what is described. These highlighted aspects help to propagate a certain reading of the described or an opinion about it. Framing is used consciously (and unconsciously) in politics, journalism and advertising.[4]

In many areas there are forces at work to undermine or question opinions that are accepted by a larger population. The Economist recently wrote a long article about scientific research into inequality. "Inequality illusions," it said on the cover. By framing, certain interest groups try to create doubt.[5]

But in addition to truth and fiction, there is also perception. Social media influencers earn a nice living with it: what is trendy these days, what should I do to not stand out or to stand out? Everyone agrees that the British economy will end up in heavy weather because of the Brexit and certainly if it ends in a hard Brexit. But the energy and optimism displayed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may well have the effect of getting the perception of his countrymen and of continental Europeans as if he and his country emerged as big winners. Even if a few years later three-quarters of his bridges are not built, that is a concern for later: he has the perception, and that counts nowadays. [6]

The same thing happens with China, led by a Party that has been masters of controlling perception for many years. The coronavirus has put the party's credibility to the test: first the pot was kept covered, then they were congratulated by the WHO for their efficient approach, now it is claimed that they hermetically seal off the rest of the city where everything started, of the country because the situation there would be much worse than generally accepted. So what is going to happen: in the future, China will try to take such an important position in the WHO that it can control the 'objective' standards imposed by the World Health Organization. Because the perception must prevail.[7]

Is Europe a follower?

In the entire technological and digital development story there is a perception that Europe only plays a second-rate role. This has to do with the lack of rules in the US, the will of Russia to technologically harm the Western world, and the will of China to establish its global influence through technology. This allows greater commercial successes on the American side and unbridled state intervention and financial resources on the Russian and Chinese side.

But does Europe just watch and let it go? Certainly not. The GDPR is a first set of measures that were taken to curb the excrescences of the American techno superpowers. And the rest of the world follows with timidity and graduality, but it follows. And then there are of course IT people who say that this attitude is detrimental to innovation prematurely, but scientists simply cannot be accused of much moral awareness. If they can only earn money, they will be satisfied for a long time.

A second step will be to guide the European countries in setting up a 5G network. Europe is not lagging behind. More than half of the 5G patents are in European hands. The continent has suppliers who can meet our needs. When we talk about 5G, we are not talking about sending text messages. It's about managing hospitals, energy networks, cities, you name it. The heart of the network is crucial. That is why it is important to protect it.

A third step is the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), which the new European Commission is currently working on and on which the new Commissioner Thierry Breton will very soon be publishing a white paper.[8]

Europe's influence on the world is not enforced by its military apparatus. For that, it has depended too much on the NATO alliance in the past, the strength of which was largely guaranteed by the efforts of the US and the UK.

The European model stands for a model of more social justice, of rule of law and of respect for the diversity of its residents. It is a vulnerable model that is also under pressure internally. Right and left hardliners preach the elimination of all aspects of that model. Social equality requires a lot of resources and therefore high taxes. The rule of law requires an independent judiciary that cannot be muzzled by leading parties. Respect for the diversity of its residents requires freedom of religion, freedom of speech, gender equality and respect for human rights. In many countries these concepts are questioned by political opponents who wish to abolish them.

To this must now also be added dealing with environmental constraints and climate change. Because here too, the new European commission, led by Ursula Von der Leyen, intends to play a pioneering role. The Commission presented to the European Parliament in Strasbourg its financing plan for the "Green deal", which aims to bring the Union to carbon neutrality in 2050. A fair transition mechanism must accompany the adaptation of the most economically European regions dependent on fossil fuels. It is made up of three components, including in particular a Just Transition Mechanism,[9] and mobilising investment of €1 trillion over 10 years.[10]

Which is the role of the regions in all this?

We have taken the theme of perception as the subject of our article because we want to show that the regional approach is not all that can be achieved either. Here we grind against the limits of utility. A supranational authority is urgently needed here to radiate sufficient authority in the world.

Countries with authoritarian rule such as Hungary and Poland (and in a close past Italy) are still opposed to strong regional and local governments. They still state the sovereign state as the most responsible body. And we understand why: he allows to control and dominate, often from an ideology. While lower levels are confronted too much with the well-being of their citizens, they do not look for ideological but practical solutions.

Nevertheless, we notice that the new European Commission is focusing more on supranational obligations and that this is at the expense of regional resources. The new budget proposal from the von der Leyen Commission naturally shows a general decline compared to the Juncker budget, for the simple reason that no more contributions from the UK can be expected. In addition, we mainly see an increase in supranational initiatives such as Digital Europe, European Space Plan as well the Green Deal.

In addition, we see a significant growth of the Erasmus budget, which should allow young people from all EU, Turkey and neighboring countries to obtain education within a European framework, across the entire continent. That will certainly benefit the European spirit in the long run. Supranational budgets that are being strengthened are also the budget instrument for convergence and competitiveness for the euro area (BICC) and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (CRI) budget.

The latter at the expense of the traditional cohesion fund budgets in favor of local and regional development, which fall from € 367 billion to € 323 billion.[11] During his speech on the EAR-AER New Year’s reception, former President of Romania, Traian Băşescu, now a Member of the European Parliament, gave some reflections on the plans of the new European Commission led by Ursula Von der Leyen. On the one hand, he was skeptical about Europe's ambitious climate plans, warning of an economic massacre in countries with old industries and warning that European economies could not limit themselves to the service sector alone. On the other hand, he had reservations about the announced reduction in cohesion funds. He warned that the rural areas in his country in particular had not yet had the opportunity and the time to adapt to European reality and that they would be the first victims of this cutback. He saw cohesion funds much more needed than the climate efforts that the Commission advocated.[12]

Do we have to complain about this decision to reduce the cohesion funds? Since 1992 the European Union works with the subsidiarity principle. The EU focused on local initiatives in its Barroso Commission and in Juncker Commission with the Cohesion Funds as crucial incentive. I am convinced that regions must be given sufficient resources and powers by national governments, but that they themselves must also be responsible for all their creativity in finding solutions to revitalize their region without waiting for third-party initiatives.

It will mainly be in ecological and energy investments that the regions and cities will have to play their role. In previous articles[13] I stated that cities and even municipalities have started to play a pioneering role in establishing wind turbines on the mainland in the form of cooperatives, both in Belgium and in France. In other countries such as Romania, they have made efforts to better insulate public buildings. Local initiatives are especially desirable and even necessary in green energy. They can function stand-alone and are therefore no longer so dependent on energy multinationals. Hopefully, innovative regions - bearing in mind the new green deal - can come up with proposals that can turn the energy world upside down.

It is clear that the European Commission is making choices that are supranational and should strengthen Europe as a continent, in a new context in which the Anglo-Saxon countries are withdrawing into splendid isolation, in which Russia is doing everything it can to keep the Eastern Partnership countries away from an affiliation with Europe and where China presents itself as an alternative to the world with a very colonialist behavior and a disregard for the rights of local populations. The fact that the EU Commission therefore greatly increases the budgets for security and defense and for migration and border management is perhaps surprising to many, but understandable.

Bring the soul back into the economy

We accept most of the ambitious plans of the new European Commission. But we also argue that it should also ensure that it does not further coordinate European economic development with the American and - what is to be feared - with the deregulating British. Many become European economists who argue that the economy should be geared back to ordinary people and not let them dominate by mathematical models. Kate Raworth does not necessarily view economic growth as a positive fact. Growth is needed, but too much growth has negative consequences, she says in the book "Donut economy". The Frenchman Serge Latouche goes one step further and argues for a cultural revolution that answers how we should live. He strives for “décroissance”, in which we reject our consumer addiction and place more value on non-material achievements. Some economists excuse themselves, such as Michael Jensen. He was at the basis of the practice of paying CEOs in stock options, which is now generally implemented, but came back to that later in part. The Brussels professor Johan Lambrechts argues for a return to the soul of the economy, which is multidisciplinary, critical, practice-oriented and pragmatic.[14]

Voting against self-interest

We are nine months before the most important elections on our planet: the US presidential election. More and more votes are being raised that President Trump is going to win it without a problem. Because democratic politicians are focused on his personality and fail to come up with alternatives in terms of style, content and behavior.

The American Nobel Prize winner in Economics Paul Krugman says it plainly: "You see all too often that people are voting against their own economic interests. They are being lured with ideological issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage to go against their own economic interests. (…) If you tell people that the government needs to allocate more money for people in need, quite a few Americans think that more money will be distributed to people with a dark skin .... People who are even lower on the social ladder than they are. That is the motivation and frustration of so many people who sail against their own interests"[15]

Unfortunately, this reproach comes back regularly, also in Europe. Voters let themselves be carried away by emotional themes that are often disproportionately inflated. The extremist parties that are working with it have an economic program that is phasing out social security or proposing a priceless social security. In the first case this only benefits the multinationals and the super-rich, on the other hand to the gauche-caviar party bobos who have contempt for the people they represent.

The role of quality newspapers that still control politicians' sayings in a democracy and who call them to account in the event of errors cannot be underlined enough. Numerous today are the interventions that they have to do to reprove politicians who hear in a pub the figures they use.[16] In most cases, the harm has usually been done already and the lies have penetrated to those that make them angry and eagerly follow them in their hustle and bustle.

Louis Delcart, European Academy of the Regions, www.ear-aer.eu

[1] I should have known, I’d leave alone/Just goes to show, that the blood you bleed/Is just the blood you owe

We were a pair, but I saw you there/Too much to bear, you were my life/But life is far away from fair

Billie Eilish – No time to die

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur retrieved on 15-2-2020

[3] Ruud Goossens, Een wereld zonder miljardairs zou een betere wereld zijn (A world without billionaires would be a better world), Interview met Gabriel Zucman, De Standaard Weekblad , 29 februari 2020         

[4] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing retrieved on 15-2-2020

[5] Erik M.Conway & Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt, Bloombury Press, 2010

[6] Bart Beirlant, De kater na de Brexit, (The hangover after the Brexit) in: De Standaard - 15 februari 2020

[7] Luuk van Middelaar en Frans-Paul van der Putten, De draak versus de vleermuis (The dragon versus the bath), in: De Standaard - 15 februari 2020

[8] Annelien De Greef, ‘We hebben nog geen enkele strijd verloren’(We haven't lost a single battle yet), INTERVIEW Thierry Breton European Commissioner for the Internal Market, in: De Standaard - 15 februari 2020

[9] Maria Udrescu, Pacte vert européen: la Belgique devrait obtenir 68 millions d'euros du fonds de transition juste,(European Green Deal: Belgium should get 68 million euros from the Just Transition Mechanism) in : La Libre Belgique, 15-1-2020

[10] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/eu-to-unveil-trillion-euro-green-deal-financial-plan/ retrieved on 17-02-52020

[11] Tweed #EUCO - retrieved 15-02-2020

[12] http://ear-aer.eu/2020/01/20/ear-aer-celebrates-start-of-2020-in-style/  - retrieved on 15-02-2020

[13] Louis Delcart, THE IMPACT OF THE REGIONAL APPROACH ON THE WELFARE AND THE WELL BEING OF CITIZENS, in https://lodelcar.tumblr.com/ 22-12-2019

[14]  Ruben Mooijman: ‘Breng de ziel terug in de economie’(Bring the soul back into the economy), in De Standaard - 1 Februari 2020

[15] Bjorn Soenens - Interview met econoom Paul Krugman: "Neem ontslag, president Trump, u heeft problemen die groter zijn dan de economie" (Interview with economist Paul Krugman: "Get out of office, President Trump, you have problems bigger than the economy") – in: VRT,  26-11-2019 retrieved on 30-11-2019

[16] André Decoster & Willem Sas, Waar blijft het echte cijferwerk, N-VA? (Where is the real numeral work, N-VA?) in De Standaard, 14-01-2020. A Professor of Public Finance (KULeuven) & lecturer in Public Economics at the University of Stirling have calculated the program points of a right-wing party and blame the author for the numerical work being based on false premisses. But as right-wing parties are always against something, and never say what they stand for, the news has already been picked up by the tabloid press.

[warninggraphiccontent]

25 October 2019

Have I got even more newsletters for you

A big thank you to the ever-excellent Giuseppe this week for a shout-out to Warning: Graphic Content in his 'in other news' newsletter. (And welcome to new readers from there as a result!)

It reminded me I never updated a previous list of the data-related newsletters I've signed up to, so in lieu in having time to pontificate on anything else this week, here is that list in full:

Giuseppe’s in other news

Sophie’s Fair Warning

The ODI’s The Week in Data

Azeem’s Exponential View

Elliot’s AI.Westminster

The Public Digital newsletter

Stefan's Strategic Reading

The Resolution Foundation's Top of the Charts

The Data Visualisation Society's Nightingale

The FFT Education Datalab's newsletter

For jobs, it has to be Jukesie

On Twitter, try David's feed of UK Gov Digital Blogs

Newsletters from:

Full Fact

Doteveryone

The ONS

Data & Society

The Alan Turing Institute

Centre for Public Impact

and The Institute for Government, of course.

I'm sure I've still forgotten loads, so please do get in touch with any other suggestions. And do forward Warning: Graphic Content on to anyone you think might enjoy it (email signup here, Twitter here, Tumblr here).

Finally, we've got a great line-up for our seventh Data Bites event on Wednesday, 6 November - join us! Previous ones available here.

Have a great weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

That was the week that was, part 94

The state of play, pre-Letwin (me for IfG)

Letwin amendment, etc (me for IfG)

Commons defeats and elections (me for IfG - some more here)

Withdrawal Agreement Bill Second Reading, Programme Motion (Ketaki for IfG)

Time taken on previous treaty-related legislation (Joe for IfG)

Government formation timelines (Aron for IfG)

Select committees (Marcus for IfG)

Boris Johnson’s bittersweet Brexit victory* (FT)

EU withdrawal deal: How did your MP vote on the Letwin amendment? (The Guardian)

British lawmakers switching sides (Reuters)

How members of parliament voted to delay Boris Johnson's Brexit deal* (Bloomberg)

Reading Boris Johnson’s mind: unique analysis reveals what the PM really thinks* (The Times)

How much of Johnson's 'great new deal' is actually new? (The Guardian)

Revealed: The digital divide between our politicians (Sky News)

Politics everywhere else

Canada Votes 2019 (CBC News)

Canadian Federal Election Cartogram 2019 (Wikipedia)

Canada Election Results: Trudeau Wins Re-Election—With a Minority* (Bloomberg)

Justin Trudeau is in trouble. Voters get to say how much* (Bloomberg)

Así se han movido las encuestas electorales tras lo sucedido en Cataluña (El Pais)

Why Aren’t More Democrats Endorsing Warren? (FiveThirtyEight, via Marcus)

The Historically Large Democratic Field Is Starting to Shrink* (New York Times)

UK

How old are our prisons? (Russell Webster, via Graham)

So what’s new in #socialcare? (Graham for IfG)

The State of the State 2019-20 (Deloitte/Reform)

A Tale of Two Countries (Dan Olner)

Public bill procedure (UK Parliament)

How Britain became socially liberal in just 30 years (King's Policy Institute)

At your service: Investigating how UK businesses and institutions help corrupt individuals and regimes launder their money and reputations (Transparency International UK)

Sport

Rugby World Cup - Saturday quarter finals, Wales v France (me)

How Widespread Is Your College Football Fan Base? (FiveThirtyEight)

Everything else

Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 2019

Higher taxes and refinery outages have pushed up gasoline prices in California* (Wall Street Journal)

ECB vows to hold rates at historic low until inflation picks up* (FT)

The Kim Foxx Effect: How Prosecutions Have Changed in Cook County (The Pudding)

Alcohol firms promote moderate drinking, but it would ruin them* (The Economist)

Data Comics

Unified Terminology (Critical Reflections on Visualization Authoring Systems)

Meta data

ONS

Achieving a lifelong ambition: A message from the new National Statistician (ONS)

How exactly does the Census work?* (New Statesman)

Understanding highest educational qualification: The case for using Administrative Data (ONS)

Google

Google claims 'quantum supremacy' for computer (BBC News)

Google gets green light to access five years of NHS patient data (New Scientist)

Google has used contract swaps to get bulk access terms to NHS patient data (TechCrunch)

UK

GDS to reveal new “consider cloud first” policy in early 2020 (NS Tech)

Inside the messy collapse of the UK's unworkable porn block* (Wired)

Artificially enhanced? How policymakers are navigating the legal, ethical and technical challenges of AI (Civil Service World)

Ministerial correspondence... (IfG)

Everything else

Opinion: How Artists And Fans Stopped Facial Recognition From Invading Music Festivals (BuzzFeed)

Maybe It’s Not YouTube’s Algorithm That Radicalizes People* (Wired)

The What of Explainable AI (Element AI)

Public sector: the paper form consigned to history* (FT)

Just enough Internet: Why public service Internet should be a model of restraint (Doteveryone)

Audrey Tang for The New York Times: A Strong Democracy Is a Digital Democracy (The GovLab)

Policymakers need access to the metadata of trade agreements to facilitate international trade (ODI)

Events

Data Bites #7: Getting things done with data in government (Institute for Government)

Video: Power of Data 2019 (Swirrl)

EVENTS: #NationalDataStrategy team is testing having conversations about data & the 2030 we might want to be in with non data specialists (DCMS)

Jobs

JOB: Chief Technology Officer (NHSX)

JOB: Director of Regulatory Strategy (Domestic) (ICO)

JOB: Head of data and insight (Heritage Lottery Fund)

JOBS: Tech insights and agile working in the DaTA Unit (Competition and Markets Authority)

JOBS: Journalists (Full Fact)

And finally...

Maps

Map-based distraction nonsense (Alasdair Rae)

Map shows the first word of each European anthem (via Simon Kuestenmacher - though see the comments)

Food

Inexplicably redacted watermelons (Adiel Kaplan)

Time for some chocolate (Erik Brynjolfsson, via Tim)

Everything else

Now for the really important issue - When do the @RoyalMintUK have to start striking the October 31st special Brexit 50p in order to get 10 million promised in circulation by exit day? (Faisal Islam)

Wagileaks: an investigation* (Tortoise)

"Correlation is not causation" (Ameet Kini, via Aron)

John Bercow (Robert Colvile)

When was greatness thrust upon William Shakespeare?* (The Economist)

[labourpress]

Jeremy Corbyn speech at TUC Congress

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the TUC Congress in Brighton, said:

Congress, thank you for that welcome and thank you for everything you do as a movement, for our people and our country, to secure better pay and conditions for working people, to give them a voice in the workplace and a say in our politics.

Trade unions are far and away the biggest voluntary and democratic organisations in the country. They are the roots and the lifeblood of our party. You are abused by the powerful and your rights are attacked -including by this government - but the trade union movement represents the best of Britain and is a vital engine of progress in our democracy.

And of course Trade Unionism has always had international solidarity at its heart. And it’s great to see Huber Ballesteros who was unjustly imprisoned for his trade union activity in Columbia and freed by international solidarity action, with us here today.

But despite all of your tireless efforts, modern Britain is marked by growing insecurity at work which undermines and holds back both low waged workers and the better paid.

In fact insecurity now goes right to the very top of public life - just ask Theresa May.

But Congress, this escalating insecurity is not only bad for individual workers and their families as it weakens bargaining strength and holds down pay, just as it fuels stress and powerlessness it is also bad for our economy and for our whole society.

This epidemic of low pay, which is closely tied up with insecurity at work ruins people’s lives, leaving workers and their families locked in poverty. It damages the economy as people have less to spend. It costs us all because it means more paid in tax credits and housing benefit from the public purse and it means less tax being paid to fund public services.

So I want to pay tribute to those unions which are working so hard to organise insecure workers and have taken on the exploiters - as Unite has done at SportsDirect and the Bakers’ Union has done so impressively last week at McDonald’s.

McDonald’s boss is paid 1,300 times more than the lowest paid of his staff, symbolic of the deep inequality and injustice that scars our society.

That’s why it’s crucial for our movement to organise the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers.

The TUC needs to represent all workers. And the least secure have to be our priority because they need our solidarity most. Their needs for representation are the greatest.

Last week I raised some of these cases at Prime Minister’s Questions and Theresa May, Theresa May could not bring herself to utter one word of condemnation of McDonald’s or SportsDirect. This from the Prime Minister who tried to rebrand the Conservatives as the ‘workers’ party’. No, I didn’t buy it either.

It’s essential we work together as a movement; trade unions and the Labour Party, as part of local communities, to stamp out low pay and insecurity.

And I know it’s not easy I was once a trade union worker representing low paid garment workers, mostly women; victims of some appalling practices by unscrupulous employers.

Exploitation and discrimination at work cuts across all sectors and pay grades and that’s why Unison’s victory against Tribunal fees in the High Court was such an outstanding gain won on behalf of all workers. Rights mean almost nothing if you can’t afford to get access to them.

And when the workers who provide the public services we all rely on are having to use foodbanks, you know that something is deeply wrong.

Seven years of Tory pay cuts have not only caused real hardship, they have damaged our public services by hitting recruitment, retention and morale.

The Government's position seems to change by the hour. At the weekend, we were led to believe the pay cap was a thing of the past. Yesterday, the Prime Minister's spokesman said it would 'continue as planned'.

Today, as inflation rises to nearly 3 per cent, they try to divide people on the cheap. The POA is right: a pay cut is a pay cut and we must be united in breaking the pay cap for all workers.

So let me be absolutely clear today. The Labour Party totally rejects the Tories' attempt at divide and rule, to play one sector off against another. A Labour government will end the public sector pay cap and give all workers the pay rise they deserve and so desperately need.

And, Congress, in the case of the Birmingham bins workers, which I know you have discussed today, we, collectively, as the labour and trade union movement, have a duty as a labour movement to find a resolution to this dispute as soon as possible.

Congress, we often talk about workers’ rights but we’re not just talking about rights at work, we’re talking about people’s lives, about the chance to live a decent life, about work-life balance; the security of your home, living standards, your family life and your mental health too.

A Manchester University study recently found that poor-quality jobs are actually worse for mental health than unemployment.

Most people spend most of their lives as workers, selling their time, labour and skills. Workers’ rights are human rights, they give protections to every single person in employment and indirectly to many more children and carers, as well as those who need care.

They are fundamental to any society that claims to be advanced or democratic and yet these rights; your rights as workers, hard won over generations, are currently being sacrificed by this Conservative government on the altar of a failing and ever more ruthless form of capitalism.

Increasingly flexible employment is sold to us as a benefit. They call it the gig economy - and who doesn’t like going to a gig?

And of course it is a benefit to unscrupulous employers but it is the source of continuous worry and insecurity for millions of people and is in part responsible for the worsening mental health of a country that has lost over 6,000 mental health nurses in recent years.

And when employees want genuine flexible work, TUC researchers found that shamefully, those parents and carers, often women, requesting flexible working, all too often found themselves punished instead with fewer hours, fewer opportunities to progress and even losing their jobs.

So the next Labour government will take action right across the board to help protect people in the workplace. And although we would like to see another general election as soon as possible; that delivers more Labour gains and this time a Labour government,  in the meantime we will challenge the government in parliament, and outside, every step of the way. To defend working people and stand by you, the trade unions, battling for people’s rights day in and day out.

Rights are won by all of us together, but they have to be constantly defended and enforced. And that’s why we are opposing the Tories’ dangerous EU Withdrawal Bill. Not out of any attempt to frustrate the vote to leave but because of the extraordinary unaccountable powers it would hand to Tory government ministers to impose decisions, scrap protections and rip up workers’ rights without parliament having any say.

That is a threat to every worker in this country: you simply cannot trust the Tories with your rights at work, and that’s why Labour voted against the Bill last night.

There is no doubt that the British workplace is already one of the most unequal in the world. We have a huge and damaging imbalance of power between employers and employees which has led to the proliferation of low wage jobs, race-to-the-bottom agency working, zero-hours contracts and employers avoiding paying sick pay, holiday pay and even the minimum wage through bogus self-employment.

That has been effectively targeted by unions such as the GMB, fighting for Uber drivers denied their basic rights at work.

Such practices are rife throughout the ‘gig economy’ which presents itself as modern and dynamic but all too often uses technology as a cover to deny both employees and customers basic protections.

Technological innovation is crucial for our economic success. But technological advance cannot represent real progress if it means we are dragged back to 19th century employment practices or is used to impose deregulation that leaves people without dignity or security.

Technological advance is driving change in the economy and the workplace at unprecedented speeds but what is not inevitable is who benefits from it.

We need a government and economic and industrial policies that are not stuck in a 1980s time warp of neoliberal dogma but are driven by the need to channel and shape technological change, to benefit the many not the few.

That will not happen if we leave it to the market or corporate boardrooms.

The Bank of England estimates that 15 million jobs could be at risk of automation over the next decade and as is so often the way those who are most at risk are those who are paid the least.

The deregulated gig economy is ripe for automation. It is no basis for economic advance and rising living standards. No, that demands high investment in the cutting edge jobs of the future.

When you add the Conservatives’ continuing determination to hack away at the state cutting investment, squeezing public services, and removing your rights. It’s not hard to see the dangers of our present course.

We already know that the Tory way of running the economy has dramatically widened regional inequalities, sharply increased the wealth gap, with tax breaks for the few and public services cuts for the many.

And the Tory approach to Brexit is to use the process of leaving to go much further, much faster in that direction and deliver a deregulated, free market tax haven, off the shores of Europe, underpinned with a race to the bottom trade deal with Donald Trump, a Shangri La for bosses and bankers. But nothing of the kind for everybody else.

Because that is the real divide over Brexit, a Tory Brexit to drive down standards or a Labour Brexit that puts jobs first.  

Labour respects the referendum result. But we want a jobs-first Brexit, which guarantees full access to the European single market as part of a new trade agreement and relationship with the EU which maintains and develops workers’ rights, and consumer and environmental protections and uses powers returned from Brussels to support a new industrial strategy, with investment in good jobs in every region and nation of Britain, where work pays, where employees have security and decent conditions and prosperity is shared by the true wealth creators: the workforce.

When we leave the EU the current free movement rules will end. Labour wants to see fair rules and management of migration, fair rules that put jobs, living standards and the economy first, not fake immigration targets, as the Tories do, that will never be met.

And we will continue to assert that the rights of EU nationals must be guaranteed.

We must never let ourselves be duped and divided. It isn’t migrants who drive down wages and conditions but unscrupulous employers, supported by a government that slashes rights and protections at work whenever it gets the chance.

It is our movement that has been the bedrock of resisting racism and fascism in the workplace and on the streets and we must continue to oppose the division of the far right.

So if we want to tackle low pay and insecure work we need a Labour government strengthening workers’ rights, enforced by strong trade unions, taking action to prevent employers undercutting pay and conditions, not closed borders, xenophobic intimidation and scapegoating.

That’s why our General Election manifesto set out a 20 point plan for security and equality at work, including: equal rights for all from day one in a job, banning zero hours contracts, guaranteeing unions a right to access workplaces, raising the minimum wage to a real living wage, ending the public sector pay cap, setting maximum pay ratios of 20 to 1 in the public sector and beyond, banning unpaid internships, doubling paternity pay, reinstating protection against harassment at work and supporting the Dying to Work campaign to protect workers with terminal illnesses.

But ultimately protections at work depend on those who work themselves.

Winning a Labour government, even one with a programme to transform the country, which is now our goal, is simply not enough.

That is why the most important thing any worker can do is to join a trade union.

And I want young people especially to hear this message.

Many young people have recently got involved in politics for the first time. Tens of thousands of young people have joined the Labour Party in recent months.

And at the recent General Election we saw the long running decline in young people voting reversed, with young people voting in higher numbers than they have for a generation.

Politics is about power and democratic politics is about putting power in the hands of the many not just the few.

That principle applies in the workplace too. if you want a job that pays a decent wage, gives you the chance to get on in life, live independently and enjoy your work, then join a trade union. Do it today.

Trade unions are often demonised in the right-wing press. I know it’s a shock that billionaire tax dodging press barons don’t like trade unions. And they don’t like us because our movement, through which the values of solidarity, community and social justice run like a thread from top to bottom, our movement challenges unaccountable power of both government and bosses.

But of course the power of the billionaires, who control great chunks of the media, isn’t what it was. They tried to dictate the election result in June with a blizzard of propaganda and millions of voters simply ignored them.

Trade unions don’t just defend their members, they defend the institutions that benefit all employees, our NHS, our schools, our social care, and they defend our rights.

We don’t know when the next election will come. We are not in control of that but you are in control of whether you join a trade union, organise in your workplace or in your community and start changing people’s lives for the better right now.

We don’t know how long it will take but this weak and chaotic government will be prised out of Downing Street. And we know that the advances we made in the general election in June are a powerful springboard to win the radical Labour government we want to see so that together we can change our country so it truly works for the many not the few.

Ends

[phantasyprone]

Helloo! I'm asking about the election. I'm not British so I'm a bit confused. What is 'labour' is it good or bad people? And is teresa may "a bad guy" of sorts? And most importantly who won? Thanks for answering I am really interested in the situation but I don't understand politics :(

Hey! OK, so it’s all a bit confusing but I’ll try to explain as best I can. 

So about Teresa May: She is a Conservative/aka Tory. She is right wing. She wants the UK to fully leave the EU (calling that hard Brexit). She doesn’t want to pour more money into national services. The Tories have been privatising the NHS (national health service) and cutting funds to mental health and disability services to name a few.

About Jeremy Corbyn: He is the leader of the Labour party. He has been a campaigner for various morally great things all the time he’s been in parliament. Labour supports the working classes. He wants to re-nationalise the National Health Service, stop cuts for disability allowances. Make university tuition fees free. He’s one of the first labour leaders in a long time who is properly Left wing. 

Normally, 18-25 year olds tend not to vote as much, but if they do, they vote for Labour. Working class communities also used to vote for labour, but the tories have been promising them empty things recently so they’ve been moving more to the right. In general, this election, a vote for labour was a vote for the welfare state, and a vote for a more socialist society. A vote for the tories was a vote for an isolated Britain (*cough racist and xenophobic cough*), a vote for capitalism, and a vote for inequality.

So for some background knowledge: This election was about Britain leaving the EU as much as it was about the political parties. Last year, 51% of people in a referendum voted to leave the EU. Since then, a lot of people have changed their minds as the realities of that have been awful. Northern Ireland is in political stale-mate because they’re the only country to have a border with an EU country (Ireland) and don’t know what the fuck to do. Scotland is also in a political mess after the Leave vote won. Some Scottish people want to have a referendum to gain independence from Britain and therefore return into the EU. Other Scottish people want to remain in Britain and stay out of the EU. So basically, this election was fucked up from the start because everyone was voting according to how pissed off they were about Brexit.

Why did we even have this election?: Teresa May called this early election because after the EU referendum the last Prime Minister stepped down and put her in charge so she was never voted in. The Brexit negotiations with the EU were going to start in 10 days from now, so May wanted to have a larger majority in parliament so that we could have a hard Brexit (i.e. she wanted more Tories in government so that the UK could fully leave the EU, rather than half-leave the EU like Labour wants).

So what has happened?: 18-25 year olds came out in their droves and voted for labour. People who were pissed off that we are leaving the EU voted labour. The Scottish people who didn’t want their economy to crash even more by voting for independence voted for the Tories. 

Rather than winning more Tory seats in government, the Tories LOST seats. In UK elections, one party must get above a certain number of seats to have a majority which means that they can put through decisions. This has not happened. The Tories are the largest party (so they kinda won), but they didn’t get enough seats for a majority. Labour are now stronger and the whole point of the snap election (to make Brexit more firm and easier to decide upon) is now in ruins. May now has to form an alliance with the DUP (a Northern Irish party) and persuade them to vote in accordance with the Tories. This will probably happen.

So currently, it’s a Hung Parliament. This means that the largest party doesn’t have enough seats to put through any decisions and for them to go through because they don’t have enough Members of Parliament to vote in favour of anything. 

What will happen?: It looks like May will form an alliance with the DUP to give them a majority so they can actually pass laws and stuff. But they’ve only just got majority and have less power than before. People are calling for May to resign. People are talking about yet another election. Everything is a mess and now we don’t know how we can negotiate us leaving the EU because the political situation is now chaotic. 

What do I think?: I want another referendum on Britain leaving the EU. This election result is as much about that as anything. This election was done because May wanted the UK to fully leave the EU, but people voted according to them rather not wanting to leave the EU. For me, the tides have changed and more people want to stay in the EU than leave it. This whole election was really about that and now nothing will be properly decided about Brexit, no laws can be passed easily.

The good thing about this is that I hate the Tories, as do almost all young people who can vote. A hung parliament means that the Tories won’t really be able to do much over the next 5 years. Britain is basically in a political standstill.

I hope that was clear enough to understand and helped you work out what’s going on? It’s very complicated, more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea :)

[sleepthemoon]

Did a little, though I do see you said you agree. Now you've framed it with this, I can see it as a mental exercise, the likes of which I do myself. I just overlook that stuff on here and concentrate on the sentiment of people's political stances. We need people with radical ideas like this for balance as a method of questioning the status quo and their intentions aren't harmful so I let it go past me. You are quite right with the flaws you've thrown up and I thank you for expressing them because I don't think I've ever previously pinned down why I feel the need to let these ideas to past me.

Health care in the UK is on its knees and people against free care use it as an argument against such a system, which I find incredibly offensive because we hold our NHS so dear and are desperate to save it. The police services are also failing but no one uses that as an argument to give up on 'free' law enforcement. It's not the fault of the system so much as the conservative party, Thatcherite economic policies, the consequent financial crash, continued support of that model from the conservative party. [Basically I'm alluding to the tax breaks on the rich that haven't been reversed despite them being part of an economic plan (trickle-down economics) that lead to a double-dip recession that wouldn't necessarily solve the problem but wouldn't be unhelpful.] People say it doesn't provide as good healthcare, but we do receive world-class care and even if we didn't, it still wouldn't be an argument against it because nothing is stopping those who can afford it from having health insurance and using private hospitals. Absolutely nothing is preventing those who can afford it accessing that 'superior' healthcare that is waved in our faces as an argument against free healthcare. What free healthcare provides is a lifeline for those who cannot afford it - which is most of us. Healthcare, free at the point of delivery, based on need, not ability to pay. That said, things like medication and glasses are not paid for but subsidised, depending on household income. Most of my life, my family has not had to pay. You technically didn't ask for all this, but there is a lot of ignorance that is often used to undermine it which really. pisses. me. off. So it doesn't take much for me to go off on one :p

Oh! It was also one of the major reasons people voted for Brexit: there were false promises made that the money saved from not paying into the EU would go into the NHS. It was a huge point of contention once it was revealed this was bullshit because many people voted specifically for that. Which is one of the many reasons the whole "The UK voted against economic sense, ruining their own futures just because they're really fucking racist" angle also annoys me. That is so far form the whole truth.

I'm so sorry for the data-dump

hot take: hrt, gender therapy and trans surgeries should be free

[janiedean]

Corbyn's a lifelong eurosceptic, he's voted against every single EU policy in parliament. He only 'voted remain' b/c he was pressurised to (there's lots of speculation he secretly voted leave, but ofc we'll never know). Euroscepticism is a very British socialist phenomena - naturally the UK is a v eurosceptic country due to ww2 - it's true of Tony Benn & Clement Attlee. Corbyn's pledged to end FOM, he's been critical of FOM long before brexit. I'm voting Lib Dems as they're pro-EU.

Anon vote whoever the hell you like as long as it's not may I mean I think I made it clear that if I can pick a left wing choice without wasting my vote I would, I honestly just would rather avoid having thatcher 2.0 furtherly ruining things for everyone thanks

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/with-brexit-its-the-geography-stupid/

With Brexit, It's the Geography, Stupid

One of the major irritations of public discourse after the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote has been the complete poverty of analysis on the reasons behind different demographics’ voting preferences. Endless time, energy, and media attention has been afforded to squabbling over the spending of each campaign for and against continued European Union membership — and now more on the role social media played in influencing the vote — mirroring the arguments in the United States that those who voted to Leave were, like Trump voters, unduly influenced by shady political actors, with little transparency behind political ads and social media tactics.

It’s a handy distraction from the root causes in the UK: widening inequality, but also an increasingly entrenched economic system that is geographically specific, meaning your place of birth and rearing has far more influence over how limited your life is than anything within your control: work, education and life choices.

Across Britain, territorial injustice is growing: for decades, London has boomed in comparison to the rest of the country, with more and more wealth being sucked towards the southeast and other regions being starved of resources, jobs and infrastructure as a result. A lack of secure and well-remunerated work doesn’t just determine whether you can get by each month without relying on social security to make ends meet, but also all aspects of your health, and the health of your children. A recent report by researchers at Cambridge University examined the disproportionate effect of central government cuts on local authorities and services: inner city areas with high rates of poverty, and former industrial areas were hardest hit. Mia Gray, one of the authors of the Cambridge report said: “Ever since vast sums of public money were used to bail out the banks a decade ago, the British people have been told that there is no other choice but austerity imposed at a fierce and relentless rate. We are now seeing austerity policies turn into a downward spiral of disinvestment in certain people and places. This could affect the life chances of entire generations born in the wrong part of the country.”

Life expectancy is perhaps the starkest example. In many other rich countries, life expectancy continues to grow. In the United Kingdom it is not only stalling, but in certain regions falling. The gap between the north and south of England reveals the starkest gap in deaths among young people: in 2015, 29.3 percent more 25-34-year-olds died in the north of England than the south. For those aged 35-44, the number of deaths in the north was 50 percent higher than the south.

In areas left behind economically, such as the ex-mining towns in the Welsh valleys, the post-industrial north of England, and former seaside holiday destinations that have been abandoned as people plump for cheap European breaks, doctors informally describe the myriad tangle of health, social and economic problems besieging people as “Shit Life Syndrome”. The term, brought to public attention by the Financial Times, sounds flippant, but it attempts to tease out the cumulative impact of strict and diminished life chances, poor health worsened by economic circumstances, and the effects of low paid work and unemployment on mental health, and lifestyle issues such as smoking, heavy drinking, and lack of exercise, factors worsened by a lack of agency in the lives of people in the most deprived areas. Similar to “deaths of despair” in the United States, Shit Life Syndrome leads to stark upticks in avoidable deaths due to suicide, accidents, and overdoses: several former classmates who remained in the depressed Welsh city I grew up in have taken their own lives, overdosed, or died as a result of accidents caused by alcohol or drugs. Their lives prior to death were predictably unhappy, but the opportunity to turn things around simply didn’t exist. To move away, you need money and therefore a job. The only vacancies that appear pay minimum wage, and usually you’re turned away without interview.

Simply put, it’s a waste of lives on an industrial scale, but few people notice or care. One of the effects of austerity is the death of public spaces people can gather without being forced to spend money. Youth clubs no longer exist, and public health officials blame their demise on the rise in teenagers becoming involved in gangs and drug dealing in inner cities. Libraries are closing at a rate of knots, despite the government requiring all benefits claims to be submitted via computers. More and more public spaces and playgrounds are being sold off to land-hungry developers, forcing more and more people to shoulder their misery alone, depriving them of spaces and opportunities to meet people and socialise. Shame is key in perpetuating the sense that poverty is deserved, but isolation and loneliness help exacerbate the self-hatred that stops you fighting back against your circumstances.

That isolation traditionally translates to voting patterns: the strongest determinant in electoral turnout across the UK is age, with wealth shortly behind. But the referendum on EU membership shifted the dynamics somewhat: in most of these areas, people lived in “safe seats” — the kind where a stuffed effigy with the right party label would get elected. For decades, the “parachuting” of candidates into these areas, often Labour but sometimes Conservative, with no local connection, has irked voters, but not translated to a full swing to another party, thanks to the first-past-the-post system. The referendum treated votes differently: each vote counted, but was also removed from party politics. Both Labour and the Conservatives campaigned to remain in the EU and failed entirely to explain why membership might be beneficial to those waiting to cast their vote.

For decades, many people across the north of England, south Wales and parts of Scotland have seen more and more wealth drawn as if by magnets towards London. Headlines might claim employment is at a high and the economy is in recovery, but very few people feel that even in the south-east: people in the poorest areas see their high streets boarded up, their friends unemployed, or if they’re lucky, employed on zero-hours contracts with few if any rights. Many older, affluent Conservatives voted to leave the EU for all the reasons trotted out by the most ardent Conservative figureheads, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove, and Boris Johnson. But a huge number of people had simply had enough of an entirely rigged economic system that is happy to see their local area collapse into ruin and year after year have all public services winnowed away. My hometown voted Leave, as did most areas surrounding it in Wales: this wasn’t remotely a surprise given that for decades the areas had seen no improvement, and they were treated purely as electoral fodder to boost the number of MPs in Parliament to reach a working majority.

Asking people to vote for the status quo is always a risky move, never more so than when the status quo has entirely failed people. The obsessive focus on whether hidden funding or Russian troll farms influenced the referendum result shows how little the political and media class still care about the reasons behind the vote. Geography tells you a lot, especially when mapped against austerity. Talking to people tells you even more, listening to the frustration of people who are all too aware their life chances are diminished by virtue of their family and economic background, and the place they were born. Ignoring the level of anger felt at our inequitable economic geography lost Ed Miliband’s Labour party the 2015 general election, and allowed the country to grow ever more polarised. Targeting funding in the poorest areas, rather than forcing them to shoulder the deepest cuts, and implementing local economic plans to kickstart services and keep expenditure within the local community and economy is perhaps the only way to prevent the UK increasingly resembling the polarization of the US.

Source: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/brexit-regional-inequality-leave-vote

[robertawilliams]

After Brexit, Brits may want to drink more English wine

Brits have a reputation for liking a tipple. Last year, drinkers in the UK brought nearly £14 billion ($18.2 billion) worth of wine, or roughly 26 bottles per person, according to the IWSR. Almost all of it—99%—came from abroad, making the UK the largest per-capita importer of wine in the world.

For those who like to kick back with a Côtes du Rhône, party with Prosecco, or chill with Champagne, there could be trouble looming. More than half of the wine Britain imports comes from the European Union, and Brexit threatens to squeeze the supply.

Already, the price of a typical bottle in UK wine shops has reached a record high. The average bottle of wine now sells for £5.56, a 3% increase from the end of 2016, thanks to the Brexit-induced plummet in the pound making imports more expensive, according to the UK’s Wine and Spirit Trade Association.

The UK Trade Policy Observatory recently ran some numbers to see how much worse Brexit might make it for the UK’s wine drinkers, who comprise 71% of the adult population (pdf). Short answer: much worse.

Kym Anderson of the University of Adelaide and Glyn Wittwer of Victoria University used their model of global wine markets (pdf) to estimate the effect Brexit will have by 2025. They modeled three scenarios: no Brexit, with 2.6% economic growth per year and pound’s level unchanged from 2014; a “large Brexit,” with 0.9% GDP growth and 20% fall in the pound; and a “small Brexit,” with 1.7% GDP growth and a 10% fall in the pound. Under both Brexit scenarios, it’s assumed no free-trade deal with the EU will be in place by 2025—although some Brexit boosters think a deal can be in place by the time the UK quits the bloc in 2019, the last trade deal agreed by the EU, with Canada, took around 10 years to negotiate.

According to Anderson and Wittwer, the most severe Brexit scenario would push consumer prices for wine up by a staggering 22% by 2025, and the volume consumed would drop by 28% as a result. Under their less severe scenario, prices would be 11% higher and consumption would fall by 17%. The pound has already lost 14% of its value against the euro since the Brexit vote in June last year, so it’s not that hard to imagine the shocks envisioned by these scenarios.

Trade is only part of the problem

According to Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, the UK is already losing its reputation as a key player in the wine world, and Brexit will accelerate this decline. Anderson and Wittwer’s study is “helpfully terrifying,” he says.

The UK accounts for nearly 15% of the world’s wine imports. The drop in consumption assumed in the most severe Brexit scenario would have a ripple effect, depressing the value of the global wine trade by 3.5%.

When it comes to Brexit, the WSTA is “working very hard to achieve nothing,” Beale says. “We want no change in our ability to trade with the EU.”

The thing is, a free-trade agreement with the EU after the UK exits the bloc won’t necessarily make Brexit more manageable for the wine industry. The average tariff on non-EU wine imports is only around 13 pence per liter. Imposing a similar cost on EU wine imports after the UK leaves the EU wouldn’t help, but almost all of the post-Brexit price increase and expected decline in consumption would result of the pound’s decline and a general reduction in incomes (inflation-adjusted wages have already started to decline).

The UK accounts for nearly 15% of the world’s wine imports.According to the researchers’ most severe Brexit scenario, the UK will import $1.75 billion, or 27%, less wine: $1.1 billion of this will be a result of lower incomes, $490 million from the depreciation of the pound, and just $140 million as a consequence of higher import tariffs.

And there there are duties. About half of the cost of a bottle of wine in the UK is down to domestic tax, imposed regardless of where a bottle comes from. The duty on still wine is £2.16 per bottle, before 20% value-added tax is added. The government imposed a 3.9% duty increase in April, and if Brexit puts the budget under pressure, it may feel the need to hike taxes further. In 2015, wine sales raised more than £9 billion for the treasury in various taxes.

Good news for English wine lovers

There is a silver lining in all this for UK winemakers. The industry is small but growing, with more than 500 vineyards and about 130 wineries in England and Wales, many of which specialize in sparkling wine.

Tamara Roberts, CEO of Ridgeview Estate Winery in the southeast of England, says UK supermarkets will only be able to absorb the higher costs of imported wine for so long. This will give locally produced wines an advantage, since retailers won’t be forced to hike prices because of the exchange rate or tariffs. As a result, British wines will seem relatively less expensive, encouraging people to switch over. So little of the wine Brits drink comes from the UK because small-scale production and a focus on sparkling wine make it a pricier alternative to imported bottles.

Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, southern England.

Last year, Brits bought 3.5 million bottles of English sparkling wine, an 8% increase in sales from the year before, although far behind the 85 million bottles of Prosecco sold the same year. Famous French champagne house Taittinger endorsed the wine-growing conditions in the UK by planting its first vines in Kent in May, with the first bottles expected by 2023.

While Brexit has the potential to boost home sales of English wine, it’s already benefiting exports. Roberts said Ridgeview’s export accounts were “buoyant” in the first half of 2017, and forecasters reckon UK wine exports will increase by 5% by 2025 under the most severe Brexit scenario.

Brexit ruins something else

Still, the UK wine industry is not necessarily celebrating Brexit. Many of the bottles, tanks, and workers that are crucial to the trade come from the EU, Roberts said. Higher costs or reduced availability of both machines and manpower could cancel out the beneficial aspects of Brexit for the local wine industry.

Ultimately, British wine drinkers will need to get used to paying more for their tipple of choice, since imported wine will always make up the bulk of what’s on offer in local shops. The only way wine drinkers will avoid this fate is if the UK government negotiates a transitional agreement with the EU (if not a fully fledged free trade deal), imposes few restrictions on the free movement of workers from the bloc, and the economy regains lost momentum, says Beale of the WSTA. In other words, something that resembles the conditions before the Brexit referendum.

Right now, the odds of a so-called “soft Brexit”don’t look good. “Our government has less authority and legitimacy to run negotiations for us,” says Beale. That’s bad news for the both the wine industry and wine drinkers. Time to switch to gin?

Source

https://qz.com/1018397/just-1-of-the-wine-brits-drink-comes-from-the-uk-but-brexit-could-be-the-boost-the-english-wine-industry-need/

[kutee-boutique-fan-blog]

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I am scared for you. Many of you want to vote conservative because you’re afraid of terrorists and think you’re protected if you cut yourself off from the world. This is exactly what we see in America. I want you to be smarter than us, just a little. I see as many of these conservative rants, which I want to assume are just a few, loud people. But these Dr Seuss I Will Drink Wine Here Or There I Will Drink Wine Everywhere Shirt ranters actually exist in reality In 2016 we received the worst president US has ever seen.

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They do waste our money every country so we as the people never win even if we vote it never turns out the way the people want it god bless the uk and every outher country. A lot of people already pay no tax thanks to the Conservatives under Cameron they sorted that out already . What labour are promising isn’t feasible where do you think the billions he’s promised to raise will come from.

Dr Seuss Will Drink Wine Will Drink Wine Everywhere Sweatshirt

Even he doesn’t know . Promises don’t make it real i too remember the 70’s trying to raise my children during constant strikes lack of money for food and bills etc. I voted for brexit out of EU away from their control not staying in to appease them or the remainers most of whom didn’t vote in the first place.

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How can I when neither party has convinced me to do so. I’m on the eve of this election and neither of them deserve the power. Both are lying scum who I wouldn’t trust as far as I can spit. And before anyone jumps on the old nhs or women died so I can vote. Yes they did so I CAN Vote. not so I can be told I have to. Whoever gets in power on the 9th will ruin this nation either way.

Dr Seuss Will Drink Wine Will Drink Wine Everywhere Tanktop

Just don’t make the same mistake we did. I love the UK and hope things turn out just fine for your country and your people. From across the pond. The poor are getting poorer, we have way more kids born into poverty. Please vote, but choose policies not personalities. t is just tragically underfunded. We have one of the best healthcare services in the world. You should be proud of this and of all the staff that work to care for you and yours should you ever need them.

Dr Seuss Will Drink Wine Will Drink Wine Everywhere Longsleeve

I did vote and the nhs was not one of the factors. The nhs is dead and gone. We need a whole new system put in place that stops people abusing it. Allvpeople tax payers and the nhs tourists. I voted. I voted for my kids future. End of simple as I also voted based on how I want this country to be governed not how people have been trying to force me I sat I read all the manifestos. I watched all the debates. I’ve followed the campaigners and made me decision. Only time will tell if it was the Dr Seuss I Will Drink Wine Here Or There I Will Drink Wine Everywhere Shirt one.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Covid-19 ‘not necessarily the big one,’ WHO warns (Washington Post) The coronavirus pandemic might not be the “big one” that experts have long feared, World Health Organization emergencies chief Mike Ryan warned at the global health agency’s last virtual media briefing of the year. Since the first reports of the coronavirus began circulating nearly a year ago, the WHO has repeatedly warned that the world must prepare for even deadlier pandemics in the future. “This pandemic has been very severe,” he said Monday. “It has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.” The coronavirus, he said, should serve as a “wake-up call.” “These threats will continue,” he said. “One thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together.”

American youth too flabby to defend nation, retired generals say (Washington Times) A group of retired military leaders is warning the Pentagon that most of America’s youth is too out of shape to defend the nation. The organization, known as “Mission Readiness” wants the Pentagon to help set up an interagency committee to address what it considers the nation’s military recruiting crisis. They recently sent a letter to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, urging him to work with heads of other relevant federal departments and agencies to take a “holistic approach” to addressing issues ultimately impacting the ability of the military to recruit personnel. According to the Department of Defense, 71 percent of young Americans are unable to serve in uniform, largely due to obesity, drug abuse, a poor education or a crime record. “These factors largely fall outside of the Department of Defense’s purview but have an immense impact on the ability of the military to recruit new service members as well as a significant monetary impact on the Department,” of Defense, retired Air Force Gen. William M. Fraser and retired Coast Guard Adm. James M. Loy wrote in their letter.

Pandemic feeds demand for backyard chickens (AP) The coronavirus pandemic is coming home to roost in America’s backyards. Forced to hunker down at home, more people are setting up coops and raising their own chickens, which provide an earthy hobby, animal companionship and a steady supply of fresh eggs. Amateur chicken-keeping has been growing in popularity in recent years as people seek environmental sustainability in the food they eat. The pandemic is accelerating those trends, some breeders and poultry groups say, prompting more people to make the leap into poultry parenthood. Businesses that sell chicks, coops and other supplies say they have seen a surge in demand since the pandemic took hold in March and health officials ordered residents to stay home.

Another Arrest, and Jail Time, Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match (NYT) In February 2019, Nijeer Parks was accused of shoplifting candy and trying to hit a police officer with a car at a Hampton Inn in Woodbridge, N.J. The police had identified him using facial recognition software, even though he was 30 miles away at the time of the incident. Mr. Parks spent 10 days in jail and paid around $5,000 to defend himself. In November 2019, the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. Mr. Parks, 33, is the third person known to be falsely arrested based on a bad facial recognition match. In all three cases, the people mistakenly identified by the technology have been Black men. Two other Black men—Robert Williams and Michael Oliver, who both live in the Detroit area—were also arrested for crimes they did not commit based on bad facial recognition matches. Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who believes that the police should stop using face recognition technology, said that “Multiple people have now come forward about being wrongfully arrested because of this flawed and privacy-invading surveillance technology.”

Pompeo Weighs Plan to Place Cuba on U.S. Terrorism Sponsor List (NYT) State Department officials have drawn up a proposal to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a final-hour foreign policy move that would complicate plans by the incoming Biden administration to relax increased American pressure on Havana. With three weeks left until Inauguration Day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo must decide whether to sign off on the plan, according to two U.S. officials, a move that would also serve as a thank-you to Cuban-Americans and other anti-communist Latinos in Florida who strongly supported President Trump and his fellow Republicans in the November election. It is unclear whether Mr. Pompeo has decided to move ahead with the designation. But Democrats and foreign policy experts believe that Mr. Trump and his senior officials are eager to find ways of constraining President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s initial months in office and to make it more difficult for Mr. Biden to reverse Trump-era policies abroad. In recent weeks, Trump officials have also sought to increase American pressure and sanctions on China and Iran. A finding that a country has “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” in the State Department’s official description of a state sponsor of terrorism, automatically triggers U.S. sanctions against its government. If added to the list, Cuba would join just three other nations: Iran, North Korea and Syria.

British lawmakers approve post-Brexit trade deal with EU (AP) Britain’s House of Commons voted resoundingly on Wednesday to approve a trade deal with the European Union, paving the way for an orderly break with the bloc that will finally complete the U.K.’s long and divisive Brexit journey. With just a day to spare, lawmakers voted 521-73 in favor of the agreement sealed between the U.K. government and the EU last week. Brexit enthusiasts in Parliament praised it as a reclamation of independence from the bloc. Pro-Europeans lamented its failure to preserve seamless trade with Britain’s biggest economic partner. But the vast majority in the divided Commons agreed that it was better than the alternative of a chaotic rupture with the EU. The deal later received formal royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II. It has been 4 1/2 years since Britain voted 52% to 48% to leave the bloc it had joined in 1973. Brexit started on Jan. 31 of this year, but the real repercussions of that decision have yet to be felt, since the U.K.’s economic relationship with the EU remained unchanged during the 11-month transition period that ends Dec. 31.

As U.K. coronavirus cases hit record high, health-care workers are overwhelmed (Washington Post) Doctors and nurses across Britain are sounding the alarm as confirmed cases of covid-19 reach record highs, with experts urging the government to implement a stricter lockdown to prevent the health system from being overwhelmed. Simon Stevens, chief executive of the National Health Service (NHS) in England, told reporters on Tuesday that hospitals were “back in the eye of the storm” as new cases surged across Europe and Britain. He said more must be done to ease the burden on health-care workers. Some health-care workers are issuing their own public warnings, detailing how hospitals in London and the southeast of England are already setting up tents to increase their capacity. They say ambulances are waiting outside hospitals for hours because there is no space inside. Government figures suggest that the virus is surging in Britain, despite restrictions already in place in most of the country. On Tuesday, 53,135 confirmed cases were reported across Britain, marking the second record day in a row and a number far higher than any single day increase in the first wave.

Germany set for longer lockdown as death figures spike (AP) German officials made clear Wednesday that they won’t be able to relax lockdown restrictions in early January as the country recorded more than 1,000 deaths in one day for the first time. That figure was likely swollen by delayed reporting but underlined the severity of the situation. Germany, the European Union’s most populous country, shut restaurants, bars, sports and leisure facilities on Nov. 2. That partial shutdown halted a fast increase in new infections for a while but failed to bring them down, prompting authorities to impose a fuller lockdown from Dec. 16, shutting nonessential shops and schools. Those measures run through Jan. 10. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the governors of Germany’s 16 states will consult Tuesday on how to proceed.

Quake aftershocks keep people out of homes in Croatia (AP) A series of aftershocks jolted central Croatia Wednesday, a day after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake killed at least seven people, injured dozens and left several towns and villages in ruins. The strongest, 4.7-magnitude tremor was recorded early Wednesday near the heavily damaged town of Petrinja, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Croatian capital, Zagreb. Many people had spent the night in tents, their cars or military barracks. In the hard-hit village of Majske Poljane, where five people died in the earthquake, a little boy could be seen sleeping inside a van, wearing a cap on a chilly December morning.

Schools in India have been closed since March. The costs to children are mounting. (Washington Post) Out in the fields, the adults were chopping towering stalks of sugar cane, but Mamta Jaysinge did what she could. The 12-year-old gathered the woody stems where they fell and tied them into a bundle almost as tall as she was. Then she lifted it onto her head and carried it to a waiting truck. Any other year, Jaysinge would be studying in the modest school near her village in western India. It closed in March. Now she spends her days fetching water, cooking meals and hauling cane. Online learning is out of the question. “We were struggling to eat,” Jaysinge said, “so how would we manage to get a smartphone?” She misses school and hopes to return as soon as it reopens. Until then, she said, “I’m trying to help my parents in whatever way I can.” Jaysinge is one of tens of millions of Indian children who have not seen the inside of a classroom since March, a hiatus that educators say is without precedent in the country’s history. In major metropolises such as Mumbai and Delhi, schools remain shut for the ninth straight month. While some states have reopened high schools, the majority of India’s 320 million students remain at home as part of the effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Students from poor and marginalized communities face enormous hurdles to continuing their education even in normal times. Now many of their families are under severe financial stress as India’s economy contracts.

China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins (AP) Deep in the lush mountain valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harbored bats with the closest known relative of the COVID-19 virus. The area is of intense scientific interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide. Yet for scientists and journalists, it has become a black hole of no information because of political sensitivity and secrecy. A bat research team visiting recently managed to take samples but had them confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. Specialists in coronaviruses have been ordered not to speak to the press. And a team of Associated Press journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to roads and sites in late November. More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting theories that it could have come from outside China. The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by The AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.

US bomber mission over Persian Gulf aimed at cautioning Iran (AP) The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf on Wednesday for the second time this month, a show of force meant to deter Iran from attacking American or allied targets in the Middle East. One senior U.S. military officer said the flight by two Air Force B-52 bombers was in response to signals that Iran may be planning attacks against U.S. allied targets in neighboring Iraq or elsewhere in the region in the coming days, even as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office.

Explosions rock Aden airport, killing at least 22, as new Yemen government arrives (Washington Post) Blasts rocked the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden on Wednesday, killing at least 22 people and injuring 58, shortly after members of a newly created unity government arrived. The death toll is expected to rise, as 36 victims remain in serious condition with wounds requiring major surgeries, said Ali Abdullah Saleh, director of Aden’s health office. He said the injured were taken to several hospitals in the southern coastal city. The assault, for which no group immediately claimed responsibility, threatens to ignite more turmoil in the Middle East nation already reeling from war and hunger. It was launched after the Yemeni government forged a political alliance with southern separatists, ending months of feuding that threatened to plunge the country into more conflicts and chaos.

[cchq2]

Ruth Davidson: ‘Unite and fight’

Ruth Davidson, Scottish Conservative leader, speaking today at Conservative Party Conference in Manchester said:

 (Check against delivery)

 Thank-you conference.

 It’s great to be here in Manchester. Or as I call it, the Southern powerhouse.

 I want to talk to you about the general election. In fact, I want to talk to you about two of them.

 The first one - two years ago.

 And for us in Scotland, the same old story.

 Knocking our pans in.

 Hitting countless doors, delivering thousands of leaflets, too many conversations to count, another pair of boots ruined.

 And at the end of it all?

 We started with one MP. We ended with one MP.

 We’d survived the SNP tsunami, but were no further forward than when we began.

  …we were still outgunned by those sodding pandas.

  But, two years later, we had a second election – this June.

 Back on the stump.

 Back knocking those same doors, delivering more leaflets, having thousands more conversations and – yes – by the end of it, another pair of boots totalled.

 But this time, it was different. This time people were looking for a serious alternative to a nationalism that had let down our schools and was more concerned with division than delivery.

 And we went from one MP to 13. Our best result in decades.

 After years of heroically holding the line on his own, suddenly David Mundell got some company.

 The pandas are going to have to go some, to catch up now...

 It’s been quite a ride, conference.

  And we’re not done yet - far from it.

But, conference, we didn’t turn things around in one seven-week campaign.

 We did it through grafting hard between elections. By organising. By making and remaking the argument.

 And I have watched. With incredulity, the response to the Labour party conference this week.

 Commentators, who should know better, declaring Jeremy Corbyn as a shoo-in to number 10, just because Glastonbury chanted his name to the White Stripes. Folks, he hasnae even won a raffle.

 Well, conference I have been here before and I can tell you how this story ends.

 I have watched as Nicola Sturgeon sold out rock venues. As she released a line of signature clothing. As she sold foam fingers to the faithful so they could point at the sky as she flew in a helicopter she’d slapped her face on, over their heads.

 I’ve read the commentary that said her momentum was irresistible, that everything would be swept before her.

 And all the other parties in Scotland should just pack up, and go home.

 Well, conference, I don’t like anyone telling me where to go.

 Politics is not for faint hearts. It’s not about what’s in fashion or who is the absolute boy.

 It’s about making the case for what you believe in.

 It’s about service and duty and getting the job done. Delivering for others. And giving everyone the chance to get on.

 And, just as the SNP came crashing down to earth. Just as they lost 40 per cent of their seats in June. Just as half a million Scots chose to take their vote away. So too can the Corbyn bubble burst, but only if we work hard to make it so.

 Because, you know what? People tire of being offered free unicorns. Of easy promises that don’t add up.

 They want serious solutions to the issues facing their world.

 They want opportunities to make their own lives better.

 A good school so their children can do anything they set their mind to.

 A strong economy so they’ll always have the security of work.

 Well-funded public services to look after their needs

 And to keep more of their own money because they make better decisions for their family’s future than the state makes for them.

 That’s what we offer. That’s what Theresa May offers.

 A belief in country, duty, service and the power of people.

 And that’s what we fight for.

 Always. We fight.

 ……

 We may have five years, but I tell you – we need to get to work right now.

 Because the in-tray is full.

 Firstly. Brexit.

 It’s time to get the best deal we can.

 And you know what?

 It’s time we in this party made it clear –  that we’re not Leavers or Remainers anymore – we’re just Brits.

 People who were asked to make a decision. Did. And now want to deliver that decision in the best way possible. Who now must unite behind our leader to get the best deal for us and the right deal for Europe as well.

 Next we’ve got to deliver that strong economy and world-class public services.

 Ten years of tough times since the crash – it’s time to show working families right across the UK – from a tenement in Glasgow, to a one-bed in Grantham - that we’ve got their back.

 Yes, we’ve got record employment in the UK today – but we also need to recognise the pressures faced by the job-juggling generation, where two or even three jobs are needed to make ends meet.

 The sheer effort that takes - just to keep going.

 The strain it puts on relationships.

 The stress of not knowing if you’re going to make your rent.

 And what will happen if you can’t.

 These people are looking to us for answers - and for action to make their lives easier.

 It’s our duty to deliver.

 Also, to make our country fairer.

 To make it clear: this party isn’t there for those at the top of the ladder – this party IS a ladder.

 It’s what we’re about: to help people move up and get on.

 To be the party of home-building.

 The party that enshrines excellence in education – no matter the school.

 The party that will take action on the low wage economy and help lift living standards.

  Furher, to be a beacon in the world. To help those that are hurting and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. To go into bat for our friends and allies.

 To be able to say when you go abroad that despite the financial hit of the last few years – that my country, our country, kept its commitments to the world’s poor and will continue to do so.

 And finally, conference, to stay united.

 To stay one United Kingdom.

 By being a nation that realises the ambitions of everyone in this country. That seeks to be a home for all who live here.

 And I mean everyone.

 From the people who voted to leave the UK, to the majority who voted to stay…

 From the people who voted to remain in the EU to the people who voted to leave.

 From the people who can trace their ancestors back through generations, to people who’ve settled here from somewhere else.

 …who pursued that innate Conservative instinct to better themselves and their families and build a new life in a new land.

 We need to stand together, Not defensive in this diversity and our sometime disagreement – but to be confident in our ability to embrace difference and debate.

 And to have the courage to confront not just our strengths but our weaknesses too.

 We are a remarkable Union, conference.

 Because of the leadership of this party - our Union is known the world over as a Union of choice, not of force.

 A Union that, three years ago, put our democratic right to choose whether to leave before its very survival.

 That’s not nothing. In fact, the more time passes, the more remarkable it becomes.

 And let’s say it loud and proud – that this is a Union that that does not hoard power to the centre, but has sought to push it out.

 And again, did so thanks to a Conservative party which – as Edinburgh, as Cardiff, Manchester and Teeside will attest – is now THE party of devolution.

 Not Labour, certainly not the LibDems. Us.

 And a party that now wants to use Brexit to go further – to ensure that the power surge that will hit Britain when we leave the EU is felt in Edinburgh, in Cardiff Bay and in Stormont too.

 I’m proud of that, conference. I’m proud of all we’ve done in the last few years to keep this country together and move forward as one.

 But we should recognise that these huge changes to our nation pose challenges too.

Devolution of power has transformed our nation for the better. It has put power closer to people.

But – at the same time – while we’ve built vigorous new devolved structures, we’ve not done enough to nurture that which binds us. 

As the Prime Minister said in Scotland earlier this year, all too often, Whitehall devolves and forgets. 

And the danger is that we become a country that stays together, but lives apart. 

With the cracks exploited by those who would pull us apart for good. 

So let me make a plea today. 

Yes – let’s absolutely press on with more devolution. But it’s time for a bit more Union too. 

More Union right across Britain.

More Union in all parts of our nation – benefiting us all. 

More Union spread evenly– and not just based in London.

 ***

Now let me make this clear: conference, I love London. 

No plans to move there myself, but great to visit.

And it’s wonderful that our small island nation plays host to the capital of the world. 

But the truth is: for all the devolution of power in the last twenty years, our Union continues to be far too London-centric. 

Compare us to our friends around the world. New York’s global status doesn’t diminish Washington’s political clout, or LA’s creativity, or Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurialism. Instead, America has a cluster of great global cities. 

Or look at Germany – where Berlin’s political heft is balanced by the financial hub of Frankfurt and the industry of Munich. 

We’re the odd one out – in fact, among major global capitals, only Moscow accounts for a greater share of national product than London. 

And this imbalance is getting crazy. 

We live in a country where the property values of London’s top 10 boroughs are worth more than all of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales combined. 

Where you can sell a three bed semi in Ilford, and buy half of Sutherland. 

Where, in a capital city already zooming forward on the jet fuel of high finance, the economy is further boosted by enough civil servants to fill Wembley.

It is time for change – to fulfil the plans we set out at the election this year…

…to give Britain a shake and spread more of our Union outside the capital. 

To see our great metropolitan cities have a larger share in the government of our country. 

To ensure that – if our civil service and cultural bodies are to claim to be UK institutions - they must be present across our whole United Kingdom.

To move more of the infrastructure, the people and the administration of our country out of the capital and into the country.

It is happening to a degree already of course.

More civil service jobs coming to my constituency in central Edinburgh. 

The fantastic new V+A museum rising up in Dundee, ready to show the best of Scottish and British design. 

And here in Manchester, the Northern Powerhouse now showing the way ahead. 

But I want to see more. We need to see more.

The government’s industrial strategy is designed to boost growth in places across all four nations of the United Kingdom. 

And it’s reviewing the various agencies based in London to see which ones could be ready for a move.  

So I want us to seize the opportunity to ensure more of them come to Scotland.  

Conference, here’s the bottom line.

 The success of our Union cannot and should not be measured by the fact the alternative has failed.

 That separation is a busted flush.

 No - our success must be measured by our determination to always improve.

 By going the extra mile. By refusing to accept the status quo as a given. And being restless for change.

 By recognising that thousands of our fellow countrymen and women no longer see this country as theirs.

 By seeking not to shun them, or dismiss their complaints – but to answer them with action.

 And that must be our task as we go forward from conference this week.

 In Government, across the United Kingdom, united behind our Prime Minister, determined to face the challenges of the future.

 To tackle injustice.

 To be the ladder.

 To create real social cohesion.

 And - in opposition in Scotland – we must be ready to change, and to win.

 Because, I don’t know about you, but after ten years of SNP Government, it seems to me like it’s time for a new broom.

 It’s not going to be Scottish Labour, by the way.

 They swap leaders so often that Trump’s communications director feels sorry for them.

 But us? We’re serious.

 …serious about restoring Scotland’s reputation as the education capital of the world.

 ….serious about boosting our productivity – to get Scotland’s economy firing once again.

 And serious about running a government in Scotland that just gets on with the job for once.

 A government you can trust to focus on the tough choices.

 To dump the tedious grievance politics and the petty complaints.

 Instead, to act as a grown-up partner within a reformed United Kingdom – eager not just to better Scotland but – in so doing – to better our wider nation too.  

 As a party that, in Scotland, is re-engaging with our roots.

 A party as Teddy Taylor once put it, isn’t just there for the people in the ‘big hooses’.

 But for those who clean their tenement step as well.

 That’s the party we are building in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.

 A party that speaks to the hopes of our nation as a whole.

 From car production lines in Coventry to contact centre staff in Cardiff.

 From ship workers in Glasgow to software designers in Dundee.

 A party that reaches out to every corner of our country with a level head, but also an open heart.

 And with a clear set of values.

 …That strong families are the foundation of a stable society.

 …A good education is the key to a lifetime of opportunity.

 …That everybody should have a safe and secure home.

 …That there should be a job for everyone who wants to work – and that pay should be fair.

 These are the things I believe in – and I know you believe in them too.

 So it’s time for us - all of us - to unite and fight.

 Unite and fight for the union of our nation

 …For the security people want.

 …For the prosperity families need.

 …For the future our young people deserve.

 Unite and fight for this country we are proud to serve.

    Thank you.

  ENDS

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The Age of ‘Not Helping’

Somewhere, someone first wrote Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. We are pretty sure it wasnt Mark Twain. It may have been Abraham Lincoln. It may have been somebody misremembering a biblical proverb, or the author of a book of rhymes for children. A Minnesota newspaper attributed it to Empeco. Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum may have come up with it. Whoever it was, they had a point.

2016 was an exciting time for the global far right and their stateside cheerleaders. Voters in the UK opted to separate from the European Union, which some feared would perilously weaken the alliance. Marine Le Pen, a French nationalist, was mounting a serious play for her countrys presidency. In Germany, in the Netherlands, in Hungary, and in Austria, far right seemed poised to break into the mainstream.

Fast forward six months into 2017, and that storyline seems to have reached its raveled end. Le Pen was defeated by a 39-year-old ingenue. Germanys Angela Merkels post looks safer for Germany than it did at the turn of the year. And in Great Britain, conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, human cautionary tale, called a snap election in an attempt to strengthen her power as the country heads into Brexit talks. This week, that effort backfired. May is now facing a hung parliament.

Many factors have contributed to this swing to the left. One of those reasons is Donald Trumps unpopularity, and his seeming inability, for even a second, to stop reminding people how much they hate him.

For an average person, the consequences of foolish speech only serve to embarrass the fool, or the fools girlfriend. But for politically active public figures, from celebrities who dabble all the way up to the Oval Office, foolish speech is more damaging. It gives ones opponents ammunition and turns off people who could have become allies.

Public figures have always been tripping over their own proverbial dicks, but, thanks to social media and an ethos that values the act of speaking up over the contents of speech, broadcasting ones foolishness has never been more seductive. Nor has it been easier for other people to notice that idiocy, expand its reach, and demand apologies from the poor fools tasked with PR cleanup.

Lena Dunham started her career as a shining star of young filmmaking talent, but recently has made more headlines for embodying a caricature of culturally walled-off safe space millennial liberalism. The most recent headache shes caused her ideological brethren occurred in December, when she told listeners to her podcast that she hadnt had an abortion, but wished she would have. She then apologized on Instagram by saying that she was merely playing a character. During the presidential campaign, she backed Hillary Clinton and vowed to move to Canada if Trump was elected, and then did not move to Canada. Last week, she posted a photo of herself wearing a body-length blaze orange sleeping bag, which somehow is supposed to fight gun violence, or something. If she didnt already exist, conservatives would invent her.

When Kathy Griffin posted a photo of herself hoisting a fake severed Donald Trump head the other week, all she accomplished was aiding producers at Fox & Friends struggling to find news stories to chase that did not have to do with Trumps ineptitude. She gave a party without ideas a break from weaving their own ropes. Her subsequent apology and press conference about bullying Streisand Effect-ed her into the right wing news cycle and Donald Trump Jrs conspiratory-nuts Twitter timeline. Not helping.

Bill Maher, in his long career, has found himself creating grief for his supposed ideological brethren, recently saying the N-word in conversation with Senator Ben Sasse. Sean Penn annoys the piss out of some on the left. So does Susan Sarandon. Actor Matt McGorrys over-the-top feminist dude wokeness is frequent fodder for ridicule among many all-female text circles. Not Helping.

Steve Harvey is a classic Not Helper. Sarah Palin has a similar opportunism streak, often inserting herself into discussions to add nothing but another thing to make those shes trying to help look bad. Maxine Waters, as beloved as shes become by some, is viewed by others as a corrupt grandstanding opportunist, tossing irresponsible accusations before enough evidence exists to back them up. Speaking of Maxine Waters: Bill OReilly. Not helping. Ann Coulter and Piers Morgan, while quick to speak up, often seem to do so without first considering whether theyre doing good or making a mess for somebody else to clean up.

In other cases, whether or not speaking up is helping or not isnt as clear.

Hillary Clinton stepped back from public life after her electoral defeat last fall. But now shes back, and shes exactly the same as ever. Sure, some superficial elements have changed– her purple pantsuit of defeat hasnt been brought out of retirement yet–her message is the one shes been delivering for her entire career in the public eye. Never let anybody silence your voice, she told graduates of Medgar Evers College in New York City this week.

Clintons months-long return to the limelight hasnt been smooth, nor has it always been welcome. Why cant the Clintons just go away? lamented the New York Post back in April. Weeks later, New York Daily News columnist Gersh Kuntzman urged Hillary Clinton to shut the f— up and go away! Two weeks later, Boston Globe columnist Adriana Cohen asked How can we move on together if Hillary Clinton wont go away? And on Friday, Vanity Fair joined the dogpile, running a story headlined Can Hillary Clinton please go quietly into the night?

If Hillary Clinton delivers a speech alone in a forest and theres no op-ed columnists around to tell her to fuck off, is she still hurting America?

Two weeks ago, Clinton delivered the commencement address at her alma mater Wellesley College. During that speech, she sharply criticized President Trump. The Republican National Committee tried to raise funds off Clintons speech immediately. After months of bumbling, gridlock, and failure, they finally had something pure that would fire up their supporters that didnt involve them highlighting their own inability to govern. On one hand, telling a woman to shut up for no reason sounds pretty sexist. On the other, Hillary Clinton declaring that she will not sit down or shut up was the best thing that happened to Republicans that week.

At the same time Clinton was urging graduates in New York City to keep speaking up, in Washington, DC, former FBI director James Comey was speaking under oath before a Senate committee. The committee was interested in figuring out whether President Donald Trump had attempted to obstruct an FBI investigation into the ties between various agents of the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to influence the American election. Trump, it seemed, couldnt resist speaking up about Michael Flynn, about wanting certain behaviors out of an FBI director. According to Comeys testimony, each time the president spoke up to Comey about FBI business, he just made things worse.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, the man has never, not once in his 70-year-life, shut the fuck up. A recording of him bragging about sexually assaulting women in an apparent attempt to convince Billy Bush that he was a cool and good guy incinerated the career of Bush and nearly tanked his campaign. There was that Obama-was-born-in-Kenya nonsense. Then-candidate Trump congratulated himself after 49 people were murdered in a terrorist attack in Orlando a year ago. He crowed about the UKs decision to pull out of the EU, last August tweeting with characteristic bombast that They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT! After London was attacked by terrorists last weekend, President Mr. Brexit attacked Londons mayor and called for a travel ban on Twitter.

But a person can only talk so much shit before stepping in it, and Not Helper-In-Chief Trumps inability to shut up is a problem for people who get too close to him.

The Presidents twitter habit has cost him credibility, and his aides their dignity as they scramble to control a White House message thats about as streamlined as an untethered firehose on full blast. It may have forever ruined his childrens ability to function as business leaders; its tarnished his daughters image so much that she or somebody close to her has taken to planting positive stories about her in supermarket tabloids owned by Trump family allies.

Every day presents a new opportunity for Donald Trump to shut up. And every day, Donald Trump lets that opportunity pass him buy, reminding people the world over that they do not like him. To paraphrase dead #MAGA-land darling Pepe the Frog, tweeting feels good, man. But its not helping Trumps cause beyond Trumps own desire to express himself. His ego is screwing things up for people who should be his allies. Mr. Brexit indeed.

If Hillary Clinton needs to go quietly into the night to best serve her cause, Donald Trump needs to have his phone chucked into the Lincoln Memorials snail-infested reflecting pool, and be kept at least a golf course-length away from the nearest microphone.

Yesterday, during a press conference alongside Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Trump again displayed his famous restraint, barking out that James Comey had lied during his Senate testimony and that hed testify to that effect under oath.

Somewhere, the author of that quote about proving ones foolishness by speaking up rolled over in his grave.

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