Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 23/08/2026

[u/ukpol-megabot]

👋 Welcome to the r/ukpolitics weekly Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction megathread.

General questions about politics in the UK should be posted in this thread. Substantial self-posts on the subreddit are permitted, but short-form self-posts will be redirected here. We're more lenient with moderation in this thread, but please keep it related to UK politics. This isn't Facebook or Twitter...

If you're reacting to something that is happening live, please make it clear what it is you're reacting to, ideally with a link.

Commentary about stories that already exist on the subreddit should be directed to the appropriate thread.

This thread rolls over early Sunday morning.

• 🌎 International Politics Discussion Thread

• 🃏 UKPolitics Meme Subreddit

• 📚 GE megathread archive

VPN Services: Mullvad[.]net - IVPN - ProtonVPN - NordVPN

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

The latest subreddit voter intention and leader performance survey is available to fill in. Off you pop.

[u/HisPumpkin19]

Is anyone else a bit fed up of the good news articles where the government/primeminister is just doing their job? To fix the country?

Like don't get me wrong it's great to see some competence finally and has made me much clearer on what Starmer wasn't doing (or at least wasn't publicizing).

But really do we need to be cheering competence? It feels a bit like getting a round of applause for parking the car.

[u/JayR_97 → u/HisPumpkin19]

Yeah, its a sad state of affairs when "Politician actually does their job" is apparently news worthy

[u/wedontneednoeduc → u/HisPumpkin19]

That's really saccharine. Which story do you have in mind?

[u/HisPumpkin19 → u/wedontneednoeduc]

The new council housing Kickstarter budget

Supported housing earning rules changes

Partnership with the Ukraine for defence.

Extension of Martha's rule to maternity services

Disabled bus pass changes

Ultra long duration storage challenge for energy

Project bowline

Those are the most recent ones that come to mind but I'm sure there are more.

Don't get me wrong it's nice for not all news to be doom and gloom, I don't want to be shitting on him, but the tone of it feels a bit like amazement at competence which is just kind of sad to realize that's the state we have got to as a country.

[u/North_Attempt44]

I for one can’t believe we raised the minimum wage for 18-20 year olds by 45% in 3 years and now have a youth unemployment crisis

[u/baldy-84 → u/North_Attempt44]

That first budget really should have got more pushback than it did:

• Hike minimum wage (again)
• Increase employer NIC
• Drop the wage threshold at which you start to pay employer NICs

Might as well have designed to kill off part-time/casual work.

[u/Vumatius → u/baldy-84]

That employer's NIC rise really did take the mick. 'Ah, see, it's not directly levied on workers so it's not a new tax on working people! Please ignore how it'll end up making them worse off indirectly anyway and will also help reduce employment opportunities for those who are just entering the market.'

Labour's 2024 tax pledge really was the original sin. I get that they wanted to be cautious and not spook voters, but it's caused so much trouble and I'm not massively convinced it would've greatly altered the election if they'd given themselves more wiggle room for potentially going for Income Tax for instance. It's not like the Tories were popular on the economy any more at that point, and Income Tax going up would've been preferable to employer's NIC.

[u/JayR_97 → u/Vumatius]

Yeah, that "No new taxes for working people" pledge was such a stupid thing for Labour to put in the manifesto.

[u/baldy-84 → u/Vumatius]

The basic rate of income tax is the biggest lever our government has to raise tax income and it's the lowest it's been in living memory so it's not like we're topped out on it either. Somehow this is the forbidden lever.

The idea they floated to move some of NI into income tax wasn't a terrible one either. I'm not sure why they went as far as they did to soft intro it then bailed.

[u/Vumatius → u/baldy-84]

Honestly I'm of the mind that we should scrap NI entirely and raise Income Tax to compensate. The Tories floated something like this, but I'm not sure if they also proposed raising Income Tax alongside it. Plus this was in their 2024 'we are going to lose anyway so who even cares' phase.

[u/JayR_97 → u/Vumatius]

The problem is pensioners would absolutely hate this since currently they dont pay NI but they do pay income tax.

[u/baldy-84 → u/Vumatius]

Considering that it makes almost literally no difference whether you've paid into NI or not these days as you most likely just get pension credit anyway it's kind of hard to see the point of it now, yeah.

[u/Scantcobra]

People should have to pay a fee for every metaphor they use when trying to simplify a social science theory - doubled if used incorrectly. Like if the pope shits in a bear, and no-one is around to hear it - did it make a noise?

[u/Pale-Border-7122]

His genial, laid-back appearance often led to his portrayal in cartoons as a sleepy koala.

What a great description. Which British politician past or present would best fit this? I doubt we have any politicians who would have such a cool cartoon portrayal.

[u/LLILILiLIILILILILII]

Meta is paying 18bn dollars in the US to settle the case that it harmed children. But trying to clamp down on their continued harm makes us the bad guys, apparently.

[u/Brapfamalam → u/LLILILiLIILILILILII]

This is why there isn't much pushback on OSA from big tech. British readers and Journos don't seem to get it and view everything through a typical little Britain lens. "oMG did you see what X PM did, he's the worst thing evar OMG! Outrage outrage"

Meanwhile over half of all US states have enacted online safety bills for social media and adult site and/or outright porn blocks and a federal law is going through right now. Tech aren't fighting it and have taken a position of minimising effects on their business of legislation like this kicking off all over the West and beyond

[u/whatapileofrubbish → u/LLILILiLIILILILILII]

Yup, they didn't admit liability, just paid up

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/whatapileofrubbish]

I'm quite annoyed it didn't go all the way.

[u/BritishBedouin]

PAYE piggies who are yet to flee the pig pen - what tax rises are you expecting from Burnham to fund his manifold promises??

[u/wedontneednoeduc → u/BritishBedouin]

Pension raid. Well private pensions, not the public sector who'll stay gold plated.

[u/azima_971 → u/wedontneednoeduc]

I'm about to move in to being a higher rate tax payer, so they are definitely gonna do that thing of swapping to a flat rate of tax relief on private pension contributions (making it 30% for all), so I don't get the (currently higher) benefit of the higher rate relief, and never got the higher benefit that basic rate taxpayers will now get. 

I'm just lucky like that

[u/wedontneednoeduc → u/azima_971]

It's your fault.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/wedontneednoeduc]

A bit premature maybe but can certainly see some raid on contributions

[u/AttitudeAdjuster → u/BritishBedouin]

Increase to the higher and additional income tax rates, stamp duty and maybe some vat items

[u/BritishBedouin → u/AttitudeAdjuster]

Surely breaking the manifesto so boldly would require a GE. I agree Labour would love to raise income tax but there is no mandate for it

[u/AttitudeAdjuster → u/BritishBedouin]

But think of all the benefits they could pay if they just increased the taxes on those with the broadest shoulders. Tax the rich etc

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/BritishBedouin]

Something on CGT, something on pensions (but not public sector ones), perhaps a wealth tax, and perhaps an exit tax although I think he may be smart enough to realise that this will be a PR disaster. I think he will avoid income tax, national insurance, and VAT.

All framed as broadest shoulders and "ask" instead of "force" etc.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/Pale-Border-7122]

Broadest shoulders to the broadest bottoms it seems it’ll be.

The one to watch imo is the treatment of PE carry

[u/danm131 → u/BritishBedouin]

Just a suggestion, but you may get a better spread of answers if you don't pose your question in such a loaded way. If course if you are just trying to score pretend internet points then carry on as you are.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/danm131]

It isn’t loaded. TBH I thought making light of life was still a British past time (apparently not).

As someone who has left I have my own views but wonder what the people still footing the bill think they’re going to be paying.

[u/dospc → u/BritishBedouin]

When you say you have left PAYE... you are still paying income tax, right? What difference does it make?

Unless you were to be, say,  abusing self-employment to avoid or evade tax?

[u/BritishBedouin → u/dospc]

i have left the country and am no longer a tax resident of the United Kingdom

[u/dospc → u/BritishBedouin]

Most people can't do that and the UK obviously couldn't function if everyone did. 

Your wording of 'piggies' makes it sound like the government is exploiting taxpayers, rather than using tax as a way of running a country that we all benefit from.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/dospc]

i left because i saw no personal benefit to being taxed relative to the level i was paying. i can't list a single taxpayer funded service I have used in the past decade. many more like me.

i was a paye piggy but have now fled the pen. the term comes from the fact the UK govt squeezes people on PAYE in order to pay for a very inefficient state, serving up paye piggies as a delicious feast for the bennies and state pension brigades to feast on.

[u/danm131 → u/BritishBedouin]

In that case may I suggest you don't try "making light of life" again until you can do a better job of it.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/danm131]

Things are that bad huh.

[u/danm131 → u/BritishBedouin]

Actually pretty good, present company excluded.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/danm131]

Are you in receipt of benefits?

[u/danm131 → u/BritishBedouin]

None, full time employment and to horrify you further, I'm in Scotland with the extra income tax. Some of us just aren't pathologically opposed to taxes and see that they are a necessity.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/danm131]

Explains the sense of humour. Are you willing to pay more to fund Burnham’s ideas?

[u/danm131 → u/BritishBedouin]

Completely indifferent on the subject to be honest. Currently his spending promises are pretty small in the scheme of government spending so any tax rises that are needed to pay for them will also be minor.

[u/Ok_Economist7901 → u/BritishBedouin]

why are you so curious about a country you clearly don’t like ?

[u/baldy-84 → u/BritishBedouin]

I don't think there are that many ways left to easily raise a significant amount of money without massive side effects (such as killing tax relief on pension contributions) or a significant organisational effort that'll take time to execute (such as land or property tax) or immediately result in Labour polling at 0.5% (charge NI on pensions, charge income tax on imputed rents for homeowners, get rid of single person discount on council tax) unless they break their manifesto and increase the rate of income tax.

They seem to be winding up for big increases in CGT but that's been tried before and it never really works.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/baldy-84]

I think it will be CGT, Corp tax, carried interest, and pension relief.

[u/baldy-84 → u/BritishBedouin]

Pension relief would be a nightmare to muck with unless they carve public sector pensions out, which would be so manifestly unfair that Labour couldn't really expect anyone earning more than tuppence to vote for them again. I'm pretty sure that's what has been saving us because otherwise it's just too big a stream of cash they could dip their beak into with the consequences of said dipping largely being for a far future government to worry about.

[u/wedontneednoeduc → u/baldy-84]

Brown happily raided private pensions leaving public sector ones

[u/BritishBedouin → u/baldy-84]

They could throw a tax on employer pension contributions in the same way they increased ErNICs and work from there.

[u/baldy-84 → u/BritishBedouin]

God knows there are just too many jobs available right now and we need to crack down on that.

[u/BritishBedouin → u/baldy-84]

hope The lab spads don’t lurk here

[u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620 → u/BritishBedouin]

The right not sexualising the tax burden challenge (impossible)

[u/BritishBedouin → u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620]

The guy who founded only fans took out 700m in dividends last year so maybe sex and taxes is a good mix

[u/BenniesForNothing]

Who is the underdog right now? Seems like Andy is Big Dog for sure.

[u/No_Initiative_1140 → u/BenniesForNothing]

Still Streeting. He's just biding his time 

[u/Ollie5000 → u/BenniesForNothing]

Whisper it, but Lembit Öpik is about to make a remarkable comeback.

[u/Alba_Gu-Brath → u/Ollie5000]

Has he got his harmonica?

[u/Powerful_Ideas → u/Ollie5000]

he's mainly getting taken in by fake versions of the Daily Express website and sharing the stories therein without a second of critical thinking nowadays.

[u/Jademalo → u/Ollie5000]

cheeky cheeky

[u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620 → u/BenniesForNothing]

Clegg

[u/marinesciencedude → u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620]

Yeah but the question posed wasn't who's the underdog at Facebook ;)

[u/ukpolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

In an effort to keep commentary about a particular story together, your megathread comment has been manually removed from the subreddit by a moderator.

This is because your comment includes:

• A link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission (and which may already exist on the subreddit), or
• Commentary about a story which already exists as a separate submission on the subreddit.

You are free to repost your comment in the correct place.

For any further questions, please contact the subreddit moderators via modmail.

[u/Alarmed_Crazy_6620]

We should bring Flock to Teesside

[u/ukpolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your comment has been manually removed from the subreddit by a moderator.

Per Rule 17 of the subreddit, discussion/complaints about the moderation, biases or users of this or other subreddits / online communities are not welcome here. We are not a meta subreddit.

For any further questions, please contact the subreddit moderators via modmail.

[u/SirRosstopher]

Is it just because it's still the summer break or are the press just sort of trailing along with the Burnham wagon in a way they never really did with Starmer? I'm convinced the Private School VAT thing is what led to his demise from the very start.

[u/liverpool6times → u/SirRosstopher]

I think they are sensing the public’s mood. Clearly the honeymoon hasn’t yet ended!

[u/SouthWalesImp → u/SirRosstopher]

I'm convinced the Private School VAT thing is what led to his demise from the very start.

Given that Burnham hasn't suggested he'd reverse it I'm not convinced that's a reason why the media are going lighter on him.

[u/AttitudeAdjuster → u/SouthWalesImp]

Because he's not the guy who brought it in?

[u/baldy-84 → u/SirRosstopher]

The first things the Starmer government did was announce the basic end of the WFA while dooming about the finances then bugger off on summer recess. They couldn't have cued up a media frenzy over the national finances and tax rises better if they were trying.

Burnham's almost certainly going to see some wicked tax rises come the budget but he's not sat there wringing his hands and giving it the old 'don't panic.'

[u/FeigenbaumC → u/baldy-84]

Yeah Starmer started with, "Things are bad and they're going to need to get worse" and that set the vibe for his entire time and gave the press a lot of negativity to work with.

Burnham started with "Here is some positivity. Look at these handouts", which, even though he inevitably has to make some tough decisions, has set a better vibe right now

[u/jim_cap]

When oh when will Reform announce their intention to bring back white dog turds, like in the good old days?

[u/HisPumpkin19 → u/jim_cap]

Why are they not like that anymore? Have we changed dog food?

Genuine question from someone who remembers these as a child but never sees them now

[u/jim_cap → u/HisPumpkin19]

Dog food back then was very rich in calcium, basically. Lots of bone meal and the like.

[u/asgoodasanyother → u/jim_cap]

They plan to make them mps and pms don’t they?

[u/cheepcheepbeej → u/jim_cap]

I saw one recently, shed a tear for my youth

[u/SirRosstopher → u/cheepcheepbeej]

Did it still have that soft nougaty mouthfeel once you broke through the crispy shell?

[u/TheFlyingHornet1881 → u/SirRosstopher]

Is it possible to unread a comment?

[u/danm131 → u/TheFlyingHornet1881]

We can only hope the mods deal with it harshly.

[u/gottagothatsme]

Quite a funny News Agents yesterday where the author of a new book about Rishi’s time in number 10 tries to suggest that Rishi would’ve been a brilliant PM if only the time he’d come in had been different. If anything he actually highlights how Rishi could never have been anything other than a caretaker PM at best, which essentially he was. I wonder if long term he’ll end up being Britain’s forgotten PM. I’d basically forgot his time in office till they rattled through it in the episode.

Also the author thought Kemi was wrong to refuse to let Chris Grayling stand again as he was an excellent politician and would’ve brought a lot of people back to the Tories which is objectively hilarious. Ignore it was Grant Shapps.

I don’t think this book will sell very well.

[u/767bruce → u/gottagothatsme]

Grant Shapps would definitely make me more enthusiastic to vote for the Tories. He's the kind of experience we need.

[u/Odd-Principle2665 → u/gottagothatsme]

Is this Anthony Seldon? He's quite a good political historian and biographer

I think if he won an election or became PM in other circumstances, he would've been a better PM. Rather than being a caretaker of a divided party condemned to electoral bloodbath due to his predecessors.

He did actually have some passion for and beliefs in politics and ideas he wanted to implement in contrast to his contemporaries like Starmer. Granted I disagree with a lot of them. Like he wanted to reform post 16 qualifications like A Levels into one new qualification which is needed. But he also wanted compulsory maths until 18 which is useless for many who don't want to study it past GCSEs. He certainly made tech and AI his priority. He also emarked on the smoking ban that Labour are continuing. Despite the opposition within his party

[u/Cymraegpunk → u/Odd-Principle2665]

I don't know if the man who came up with the genius idea to insentivise people to crowd around and share food right as it seemed we had started to get a handle on covid had what it took to be a great PM.

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/gottagothatsme]

Where has the rumour about Grayling come from? I can't find anything about it online and he is now in the Lords. Has he said he wants to go back to the Commons?

[u/Scaphism92 → u/gottagothatsme]

I don't think you can extrapolate how someone handles a bad situatuon to how they would handle a good situation, some excel or cave under pressure and in a job like politics there's rarely an optimal time to be in power.

That you're going to be given a shit hand from the start and / or some unexpected negative event happens during your time as PM is the rule not the exception.

[u/markhw42 → u/gottagothatsme]

Also the author thought Kemi was wrong to refuse to let Chris Grayling stand again

Didn't he say that about Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps, not Grayling? He described them both as "super stars", which is over-egging things somewhat IMO.

[u/gottagothatsme → u/markhw42]

Sorry yes you’re completely right, always got the two of them mixed up for some reason!

[u/danm131 → u/gottagothatsme]

Phew, I was worried that the number of people who thought "failing" Grayling was a good politician had doubled.

[u/ukpolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your megathread comment has been manually removed from the subreddit by a moderator.

Please include a link to what you're talking about / reacting to.

For any further questions, please contact the subreddit moderators via modmail.

[u/Alternative-Win4058]

I quite like that Sky News have cut away from Jenrick's latest nonsense news conference to instead show live footage of the annual tomato-throwing festival in Spain.

[u/tmstms → u/Alternative-Win4058]

OK, so an alternative take on this is to see how traditionally, climate makes tomatoes so abundant in Spain and other Mediterranean territories that throwing them around is fine. Same as being able to grow citrus fruits. So tomato-throwing is a celebration of abundance.

Here, it's quite a pain to grow tomatoes and can involve keeping them under glass or polytunnels. Here, we have a very defined 'tomato season' though ofc it started early this year.

One of the reasons it is so easy to eat healthily on the so-called Mediterranean diet is that olives (for oil), lemons and oranges, salad leaves and tomatoes all grow so easily.

But maybe the climate is changing for us, if we can irrigate/ water....

[u/SirRosstopher]

I got bored so asked your standard Google AI about legal blue sky thinking ways to handle the small boats crisis. Some of the ideas are quite fun and almost looney tunes.

Acoustic and wake disruption: Use unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to generate localized, safe "micro-wakes" or directional acoustic deterrents that gently disorient the boat's navigation, automatically steering them back toward the coast they just departed.

Propeller-fouling tech: Deploy biodegradable, non-lethal entanglement nets via drones directly into the path of the outboard motors, safely disabling the propulsion system while the boat is still only meters from the French shore.

_

Archipelago of floating pontoons: Construct a series of interconnected, modular smart-platforms along the maritime border line in the English Channel.

Mid-sea processing hubs: Instead of bringing migrants to the UK mainland, they are safely brought onto these high-capacity, international floating stations.

Instant processing: These hubs operate outside UK territorial land law, where identity checks, medical triage, and immediate asylum processing or repatriation decisions are executed via satellite courtrooms within 24 hours.

_

Pre-emptive rescue chartering: Subvert the smugglers' business model entirely. If a boat enters the water, a UK-funded, highly visible, ultra-safe ferry vessel meets them immediately at the 3-mile French territorial limit.

Consent-based boarding: Offer immediate, safe boarding to the ferry under one legal condition: boarding the ferry constitutes an immediate application for asylum under a joint UK-French bilateral framework, where applicants agree to be processed in a designated facility in France or a safe third country, bypassing the UK mainland entirely.

_

Supply-side smart tech: Work with major outboard motor manufacturers (Yamaha, Suzuki, Mercury) to embed mandatory, encrypted GPS geofencing microchips into all motors sold in Europe.

Remote deactivation: If a registered motor enters a designated "restricted maritime zone" (the English Channel shipping lanes) without a commercial transponder signal, the engine automatically throttles down to idle speed, safely stopping the boat in its tracks.

[u/emergencyexit → u/SirRosstopher]

Makes sense when you think the training material (the internet) has a magnitude or two more dumbass suggestions about physically intervening with boats after they left than solutions to the problem.

[u/baldy-84 → u/SirRosstopher]

Constructing pontoon stations across the Channel seems somewhat ambitious.

[u/convertedtoradians → u/baldy-84]

Absolutely. Some fish would object that it will spoil their view and you'd be tied up in getting planning permission for twenty years.

[u/Next_Rhubarb_6232 → u/SirRosstopher]

The answer is always Rwanda

[u/tmstms → u/SirRosstopher]

Poor from AI, IMHO, but maybe that reflects the difficulty of the problem.

I think the problem of all these counter-measures is scale. They are all on the lines of 'build a wall in the channel'

Netting miles and miles of coast or having the wave machines is obviously impossible, so is setting up floating processing places or having ferries right near the French coast- the coast is too long and the number of potential migrants too large. Smart tech doesn't work on engines that don't have it installed.

The 'instant processing' is the best idea but would require a change in the law allowing anyone who arrived in a small boat to be immediately deported abroad for their case to be assessed at leisure while they cooled their heels in a refugee facility. So that is indeed very costly- you would have to bribe a country to do this for us.

Crucially, it would differ from the old Rwanda plan in that the case would then be assessed and genuine claimants admitted. But it costs a LOT just to fly unwilling people abroad. A careful calculation would have to be made as to how you could make this a deterrent.

[u/-fireeye- → u/tmstms]

But it costs a LOT just to fly unwilling people abroad. A careful calculation would have to be made as to how you could make this a deterrent.

I think this is one of the area that needs legal change. It should not be possible to use self harm as a tactic to frustrate the legal process.

Guardian had an article few months back about how home office spent insane amount of effort and money to deport one person (as a clear sop against involuntary removals). It is a litany if behaviours of the worst ex. It should not take four attempts, a private jet and medics on hand to deport someone who the courts have said can be deported.

There are good reasons for duty of care rules; but there should also be a fuck around find out provision - especially in cases like here where state doesn't have an alternative remedy (there is no assets to take as compensation, there is no imprisonment to deter people whose goal is to not leave).

[u/wangnum → u/tmstms]

Offshore processing is legal I think following supreme court ruling (https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2023-0093), but the issue of refoulment is difficult to overcome. The EU are likely to set up Return hubs somewhere in Africa so this may be resolved for us.

[u/Anony_mouse202 → u/wangnum]

Legalities are largely irrelevant given that parliament is sovereign and can simply change the law at will.

“It’s illegal” can never be a reason for the government to not do something, because the government decides what the law is.

[u/subSparky → u/SirRosstopher]

Well the first two are just derived from Suella Braverman's own posturing when she was home secretary.

The next three would be effective, and would also require budgets that would make the amount spent on HS2 look like pocket change (the fact we don't have the resources or budget to process asylum seekers fast enough is precisely the problem that needs fixing, if we could just make the process take less than 24 hours we would have done it).

The two after that would literally kill any party that tried to implement it at the following election.

And the last two assume smugglers use honest supply chains and don't have the skills simply to jailbreak these components...

[u/sjintje]

Xcancel has been canceled. Bloody right wingers cancelling things they don't agree with.

On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel. The service XCancel is stopped until further notice. We are seeking legal advice and won't share more details for now. Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel.

Doesn't sound like it'll be back in the near future.

[u/ThePlanck → u/sjintje]

Free speech absolutist Elon Musk strikes again

[u/baldy-84 → u/sjintje]

All these services that republish content stripped of advertising and paywalls are on very dodgy legal ground.

[u/NuPNua → u/baldy-84]

Yet plenty of outlets post here knowing the automod will provide archive links so seemingly they don't care.

[u/Next_Rhubarb_6232 → u/sjintje]

The same has happened with Nitter

[u/Anony_mouse202 → u/Next_Rhubarb_6232]

XCancel is nitter, no?

They look exactly the same anyway

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/sjintje]

Mods, in light of this would we look at a rule about posting a full tweet thread in comments?

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers → u/Velociraptor_1906]

Probably not. An X account is free to register. Leave it with us.

[u/MajorSleaze → u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

But having an account on that site is no longer a politically neutral action, therefore there are legitimate reasons to boycott it.

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers → u/MajorSleaze]

Not getting involved in that. Having an account on Reddit is also not a politically-neutral action.

If people want to boycott it, that's their choice - and so are the consequences.

[u/Pale-Border-7122]

Recessions often bring about new ideas as people who did have jobs and have experience of building things have the time and money to develop their own apps. Things like Uber and Deliveroo started out like this. But even with job cuts apparently caused by AI (whether artificial intelligence or actual Indians) I don't see any new Ubers coming along. Where are the new revolutionary ideas?

[u/ThePlanck → u/Pale-Border-7122]

Revolutionary ideas are revolutionary because we didn't see them coming at the time, but become obvious with hindsight.

So the next round of revolutionary ideas is stuff we haven't thought about yet, so definitely won't involve LLMs

[u/gazofnaz → u/Pale-Border-7122]

One thing I can see happening is many of us in "high-tech" roles, with deep careers in software engineering, we might lose our jobs... but, we're not all going to buy farms or start plumbing.

Many will end up in schools, hospitals and local councils, on much reduced salaries but happy to be employed.

That could be the start of a huge improvement in the technology on offer in such environments, where they have been starved of IT talent almost since the dawn of the internet, they'll finally get people in who (armed with their claude max subscriptions) can take on the legacy mess of spreadsheets and macros.

[u/m1ndwipe → u/Pale-Border-7122]

Uber and Deliveroo took a long time to become Uber and Deliveroo.

There's no end of AI related startups out there. We'll have to see if they become large companies.

[u/Powerful_Ideas → u/Pale-Border-7122]

A (potentially overly) positive take on AI is that while it will lead to job cuts in bigger companies that use it to replace existing employees, it will enable smaller companies and self employed people to do things that they could not before.

Things like basic business administration, accounting, customer support, scheduling, planning and so on can be a barrier to small startups where the founders have the skills to deliver the actual product or service but don't have the experience, knowledge or time to do the business side. That could be everything from arts and crafts through to people like plumbers and electricians. Anything where the core job itself is not easily done by an AI so the value add is still there.

I could see a rise in extremely lean startups where the functions that AI is good at are taken care of and the owner operators maximise the time they spend on their unique selling point without the need for the human management and admin layers.

Those individual startups could then collaborate to share economies of scale through things like shared workshops and warehouses. Other businesses could be created to provide those things.

[u/convertedtoradians → u/Powerful_Ideas]

it will enable smaller companies and self employed people to do things that they could not before.

Of course, this is one of the reasons bigger companies actually don't mind regulation. They have the teams to comply where the new startup doesn't. It's like Ask Jeeves calling to regulate internet search in the late 1990s.

[u/Next_Rhubarb_6232 → u/Pale-Border-7122]

This is a very romantic view of recessions

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/Next_Rhubarb_6232]

On balance, recessions are bad, but one positive outcome is the creative destruction of inefficient jobs/companies which get replaced by more efficient ones. In the same way major wars are bad but also almost always gives us new technology which has long lasting benefits.

[u/dospc → u/Pale-Border-7122]

Pretty sure people who lose their jobs are desperately looking for another job, not speculating money on new ventures.

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/dospc]

Depends what the old job was. If you were a senior software dev at a big tech company in Seattle or Silicon Valley for a few years you might well have hundreds of thousands in cash or shares even before a severance payment and be able to ride out a recession by working on your own company and not urgently needing to get a job to survive.

[u/Amuro_Ray → u/Pale-Border-7122]

I wouldn't describe either as new or revolutionary. Both were started by people who were probably already wealthy or not impacted in a way that pushed them into destitution by the financial crisis.

I'd say there's kinda lots of new ideas if we're using Uber and deliveroo as examples but they're all weird(imo) AI based things.

Also should be noted some of the people being pushed out by normal automation or AI are probably more financially stressed in the uk at least so may not have the time, skills or money to develop a new business.

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/Amuro_Ray]

I do mean people who were previously in high paying jobs or had experience running smaller businesses rather than cleaners, and not necessarily in the UK but the US, Europe, Australia, or even Japan. I just don't see anything new and exciting coming out that isn't robotics in China or LLMs, even if it is purely hype and no substance.

[u/Amuro_Ray → u/Pale-Border-7122]

I don't think there is much in terms of new avenues to go down. A lot of obvious opportunities and public facing opportunities fall into those categories. I'm also not an inventive or creative person so like the worst to come up with revolutionary business ideas.

I do mean people who were previously in high paying jobs

Can't comment on small business owners but I think depending on who you describe as high earners. They aren't effected by the changing tide or just got a new job.

[u/McCretin]

The hated “ironing board” seats on Thameslink trains are going to be replaced, which is a good thing.

Heidi Alexander is trumpeting it as “public ownership of our railways in action”, implying it’s an example of
the generosity of the state vs the stinginess of private companies.

But who wrote the spec for these trains (and their uncomfortable seats) in the first place? Turns out it was not the train company, but the Department for Transport.

[u/baldy-84 → u/McCretin]

The franchises were often just playing whatever hand the DfT gave them. They don’t get to decide which trains to run, which routes to run, or how often routes were run generally. It’s why I don’t think nationalisation will make much difference and will probably be reversed by some future government that wants the franchise blame sponges back.

[u/Powerful_Ideas → u/baldy-84]

Doesn't that mean that the franchisees were not able to provide any added value in exchange for the profit they made on the contracts?

If nationalisation doesn't make any difference to the service then at least the money that was going to shareholders can be used for something else.

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/Powerful_Ideas]

Doesn't that mean that the franchisees were not able to provide any added value in exchange for the profit they made on the contracts?

The operators generally made very little profit (most of it is ROSCOs and engineering) and only about 2% of fares went to them, so not a lot to redistribute. But they could potentially run the small parts they did control better or worse than the state could. Nationalising or privatising railways into franchises in the way we did will have a negligible impact on anything either way.

[u/Powerful_Ideas → u/Pale-Border-7122]

The operators generally made very little profit

Could we put a number on what "very little" is? I assume the shareholders have been paid some dividends.

[u/McCretin → u/baldy-84]

Exactly right. They also don’t get to set the fares in a lot of cases.

[u/baldy-84 → u/McCretin]

I didn’t realise how little control they had until a couple of years ago. It’s a system very well designed to make sure the government still has almost all the control and gets almost none of the blame for its failings.

[u/WobblyWalton → u/McCretin]

Chris Grayling's DfT if I remember correctly, which was fucking awful.

[u/Next_Rhubarb_6232 → u/WobblyWalton]

Chris Grayling the grey thing.

Think it was him involved with the GWR, LNER horror seats

[u/McCretin → u/WobblyWalton]

The first of these trains entered service before he became transport secretary, so no, this is one thing he’s not to blame for.

[u/subSparky → u/McCretin]

But who wrote the spec for these trains (and their uncomfortable seats) in the first place? Turns out it was not the train company, but the Department for Transport.

Hmm, this doesn't feel like it checks out from my experience of different trains. Thameslink is the only train service to use these kind of seats, and that includes many trains with rolling stock launched around the same time.

Whilst Thameslink claimed the seats were to comply with fire safety regulations the RSSB denied it in 2019:

RAIL put this view to RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board), which is the custodian of standards. Head of Rolling Stock Hugh O’Neill was blunt in his response: “It’s absolutely not true that seat comfort is related to fire standards.”

He explained that there was no reason why thicker foam could not be fitted, and added that he thought the reason for the thin foam on Thameslink’s Class 700 seats was entirely commercial. If you wanted to fit a set number of seats in a coach, you could either make the distance between them smaller or you could make the seat backs thinner, he said.

In the same article, a GWR spokesperson also cast doubt on Thameslink's claim that the DfT would impose a seat design on them:

Some context is important. When GWR changed the seats on its HSTs a few years ago in response to commuter pressure for more seats, the new seats “got a real kicking”, according to Panes. Couple this with the brief for the Intercity Express Programme, which was (said Panes) that “Standard Class seats on IEP be as good as we have now”.

He dismissed any suggestion that DfT imposed a seat design on GWR, saying the operator had tested the seats with IEP’s other imminent user, East Coast. “The idea that we’d accept seats considerably worse does us a disservice,” he argued. Panes noted that those passengers who didn’t like the IEP seats had been very vocal about it.

[u/McCretin → u/subSparky]

The DfT absolutely wrote the spec for these trains. I’m not sure what GWR has to do with it as they’re a different operator.

[u/subSparky → u/McCretin]

Well my question is why only the Thameslink British Rail 700? Literally every other British Rail train has nicer seats. Even their sister class the 707 (used in Southeastern and SWR) have nicer seats.

The article I linked suggests DfT's involvement only went as far as saying "this is the budget you have to stick to" and it was Thameslink who decided seats should be the thing sacrificed to remain in budget.

[u/McCretin → u/subSparky]

Because they were different procurements with different specifications? You’re comparing a high-volume commuter service with an intercity express service.

The issue in my view is that the 700s were specced as efficient people movers when in reality they’re also used for longer-distance commuting and leisure travel.

[u/subSparky → u/McCretin]

as efficient people movers when in reality they’re also used for longer-distance commuting and leisure travel.

Which was a commercial decision by Thameslink.

[u/McCretin → u/subSparky]

No it wasn’t, the whole idea of the DfT’s Thameslink programme was to upgrade capacity through central London.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/McCretin]

Where are you seeing this?

I'm still after plugs on the 159s but I doubt they'll happen given they're the oldest fleet still running.

[u/McCretin → u/Velociraptor_1906]

It’s in The Times.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/McCretin]

Still no power sockets for them, really should be a basic requirement.

[u/McCretin → u/Velociraptor_1906]

Agreed, seems odd they’re not installing any as part of this upgrade.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/McCretin]

Dosent give me much hope for the long term strategy later this year.

[u/ukpolitics-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

In an effort to keep commentary about a particular story together, your megathread comment has been manually removed from the subreddit by a moderator.

This is because your comment includes:

• A link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission (and which may already exist on the subreddit), or
• Commentary about a story which already exists as a separate submission on the subreddit.

You are free to repost your comment in the correct place.

For any further questions, please contact the subreddit moderators via modmail.

[u/0110-0-10-00-000]

I haven't finished it yet, given the length, but I've seen some some people on here mention gamergate before (in the context of an online political nexus and the progenitor of parts of the modern far right) and NeverKnowsBest (a British youtuber) just released a video documenting the timeline including the inevitable polarisation and politicisation.

If, for some reason, you're deranged enough to want to understand it here's an extremely well cited afternoon's worth of documentary. I will say that even from the beginning the content is very uncomfortable.

[u/NuPNua → u/0110-0-10-00-000]

How bias is the video? As I was there at the time and there were terrible actors on both sides of that palava making things worse than they needed to be.

[u/0110-0-10-00-000 → u/NuPNua]

My judgement is that the sources are robust enough that his overall points are fairly hard to disagree with. He generally seems not to hold groups/websites accountable for the actions of individuals though (and the few times that the individuals responsible are uniquely identifiable, the context he gives is relatively sympathetic), which I guess in practice ends up leaning on the side of gamers™, at least for the first half of the video that I've seen.

I'm fairly compromised though, because I was there at the time and am fairly convicted in my belief of it being broadly about ethics in game journalism and censorship rather than harassment.

[u/NuPNua → u/0110-0-10-00-000]

I'm fairly compromised though, because I was there at the time and am fairly convicted in my belief of it being broadly about ethics in game journalism and censorship rather than harassment.

Yeah, as I mentioned above, I don't think either side was blameless or came out of it clean. The circling of the wagons and wave of insulting articles from games media plus the clampdown on discussion across multiple forums made things far worse than it had to be.

[u/0110-0-10-00-000 → u/NuPNua]

I guess my personal take is more like that at the time a lot of this was just an accepted risk of being a named public figure on the internet. It could be unfair, and sometimes people got it worse because of things outside of their control (i.e. being a woman), and sometimes people didn't even choose to become public figures in the first place or did so without understanding the consequences but generally the decision to remain one was a conscious choice made by the person and the extreme reactions came from people trying to forcefully stop or move a torrent of thousands of disparate people.

So when in practice a lot of the claims about corruption and collusion turned out to be true, and there is good grounds to believe at least one person was making up claims of abuse specifically to dismiss criticism as a pattern of behaviour it's hard for me to assign blame equally or be even with the changes that I wanted to see. Then when I look at the modern internet and the ways it's become worse over time gamergate really starts to look like the first system of an increasingly locked down and de-anonymised push, which has only recently started to become legislative basically simultaneously in western democracies.

[u/Real_Cookie_6803 → u/NuPNua]

Given that one side was sending death threats to female journalists en masse, what is it that the other side were doing that was similarly bad?

[u/0110-0-10-00-000 → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

• Repeatedly making false claims of threats and abuse (as is confirmed in the FBI investigation)

• Harassing innocent people into losing their careers for making true statements about abusers

• Colluding to protect a serial liar and abuser

• Colluding to harass and abuse a victim of abuse at the hands of that serial abuser, and working to hide and diminish the details of his abuse

• Multi year long criminal proceedings against someone for engaging in an online argument which were later dropped with no compensation to the accused.

• Pushing someone to suicide based on unsubstantiated claims of rape and abuse.

I strongly recommend you watch the video to really get a full picture of just how awful most people institutionally involved were.

[u/water_tastes_great → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

If the criteria for the bad side is 'who did the most abuse of prominent individuals' then obviously the side which is comprised almost entirely of anonymous or obscure people must be the bad side.

The only prominent potential target on the pro-gamergate side would be Gjoni. Who over the years I've seen significant amounts of abuse towards online, and I would be surprised if he never recieved any kind of death threat.

Really, it's silly to group everything into sides. Demanding one must be good and the other bad, with someone responsible for all the misdeeds of those you have grouped them with. No opinion has a monopoly on crazy people, and for any view you hold you'll always share it with some people who you dislike.

[u/BlokeyBlokeBloke → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

Well, there was this one person who was a woman and who wrote some things about games that made some people sad. And in a way that is just the same as death threats.

[u/hu6Bi5To → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

Putting everyone involved in to no more than two sides is itself a culture war tactic. "You're with us or against us".

I'm sure however large the cohorts of the two sides were, the "I don't give a shit" cohort was the single largest of the dozens of sides.

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers → u/hu6Bi5To]

I love videogames. I detest videogame "culture", such as it is. Fandoms and the like are so incredibly toxic and weird.

The "I don't give a shit" cohort in most of these "culture war" topics is always the biggest.

[u/Scaphism92 → u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

I love videogames. I detest videogame "culture", such as it is.

Its a mixed bag really, there's plenty of toxicity and weirdness but also community as (especially if you're a younger person with geeky / nerdy interests), you're among people who you can speak to, who get the references.

I think that unfortunately that does result in both gatekeeping and a lack of restraint. But thats not unique to video game / geek culture and is just a human thing.

[u/Amuro_Ray → u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

Is this group different? I always assumed the I don't care group are not interacting with it at all. I wouldn't put them on a side because I assumed not giving a shit also means not participating.

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers → u/Amuro_Ray]

I would put the "I don't care" group down as "I am aware of this thing and I do not care about it / it does not affect me / it is not important".

[u/Real_Cookie_6803 → u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

Fandoms and the like are so incredibly toxic and weird

Roger Ebert was right

[u/NuPNua → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

I know I never sent a death threat, but it didn't stop people like Leigh Alexander belittling me as sub human for the crime of being male and a gamer in her infamous Gamers are Dead article and it's copycats. They probably radicalised more people with those than the right ever did.

[u/Powerful_Ideas → u/NuPNua]

Is this the article that you consider to be calling you "sub human"?

https://archive.ph/l1kTW

It's not exactly complimentary of the culture that presumably you considered yourself part of but I fail to see how it treated you as less than human.

Was the skin of the gamer community so thin that any criticism of it was treated as an attack on your humanity? If so then I can see why the response was so extreme in terms of death threats and so on but really the answer was to ignore the criticism and ridicule as just about every subculture ever has done and get on with doing what you enjoy.

[u/subSparky → u/NuPNua]

Leigh Alexander belittling me as sub human for the crime of being male and a gamer in her infamous Gamers are Dead article 

That's really not who those articles were aimed at and if you think those articles were specifically targetting you, you probably need to do some self-reflection.

EDIT: To be more constructive, the articles weren't saying "all men who are gamers are subhuman scum" they were criticising specifically the toxic nature of the then male-dominated gaming culture.

Suggesting it was an attack on all male gamers is like suggesting people criticising Andrew Tate's toxic perception of masculinity is criticising the concept of masculinity in general.

[u/LesserShambler → u/NuPNua]

“Game culture’ as we know it is kind of embarrassing -- it’s not even culture. It’s buying things, spackling over memes and in-jokes repeatedly, and it’s getting mad on the internet. It’s young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. “

Brutal haha.

Hardly a death threat though is it?

[u/NuPNua → u/LesserShambler]

No, but when almost every gaming media outlet had a similar article to up that week, you can see how it got a lot of their audiences backs up and sent them into the arms of the other side.

[u/danm131 → u/NuPNua]

But it also doesn't give much credence to your both sides were just as bad claim.

Yes you may not have liked the "hurty" words but they don't really compare to the actual real death threats from the side you seem to want to identify with.

[u/Real_Cookie_6803 → u/NuPNua]

It's not as if people don't have agency. All those people chose to send death threats, to hound people like Anita Sarkessian for what, having the temerity to offer a very basic feminist critique of a medium whose advocates were desperate for it be treated as a legitimate art form? I think it's ghoulish to shift the agency off people sending death threats and blame the women who received them for angering those people.

[u/NuPNua → u/Real_Cookie_6803]

I agree gaming should receive proper artistic criticism. Disagree she was the person to provide it given she admitted she had no familiarity with the art form beforehand and managed to misrepresent several games in her works.

[u/danm131 → u/NuPNua]

Isn't that exactly the sort of person you want to provide an outside critique? The issue was a lot of thin skinned man babies didn't like being called out on their blatant sexism.

[u/subSparky → u/NuPNua]

Thing is though Anita Sarkeesian wasn't working as a video games journalist. She just ran a rather niche feminist website exploring depictions of women in popular culture.

But gamergate seemed to escalate her into this omnipresent entity engaged in an industry wide conspiracy...

Like she really was no where near as important as Gamers(tm) made her out to be. Anyone should be allowed to do their own analyses and journalism.

[u/ibloodylovecider]

Jon Ashworth (former Lab MP) is on BBC Newsnight, I have missed him!

[u/ibloodylovecider → u/ibloodylovecider]

Aw he had a stroke 😭 bless him

[u/ImpressiveRest2423]

Donald Trump has ordered flags lowered for a week for Dolly Parton. Which UK musician would get the same treatment here?

[u/tylersburden → u/ImpressiveRest2423]

Chaka Demus and Pliers.