I feel like I’m living on a completely different planet right now.

I’m really surprised to see that this tobacco ban has so many supporters on all sides of the political spectrum. I am also surprised to see so many people on Lemmy supporting this…

I’m all for making corpos squirm, especially ones which create products that are designed to be addictive (e.g. big tobacco). But let’s not go around pretending that these businesses are the only victims of substance bans. For one, substance bans are always disproportionately applied to vulnerable minority groups.

Furthermore, folks who are motivated enough to acquire these substances despite bans will be more vulnerable to exploitation and adverse health effects than they already are. Big tobacco already does a great job of harming and exploiting folks. But at least we can regulate and monitor them. The customer can know with greater certainty exactly what each cigarette contains, you don’t get that privilege when acquiring substances illegally. You can also be fairly confident as to the affordability of legal substances versus getting fleeced for your entire income by a dealer who knows personally just how addicted you are.

If nothing else, this is going to end up as a massive waste of time. It is a fools errand to ban substances, and history has shown this time and time again. I do not see any evidence that we have learned from history, of what we will be doing differently to make this work when it has failed in the past. This ban will not last more than a few years at most.

I doubt that the UK could lead anything on this front. Drugs which are already banned in the UK are still consumed in the UK and beyond. I do not think it’s possible to stop humanity from consuming drugs (incl. tobacco and alcohol). It’s something we have done for thousands of years for a wide variety of reasons.

Banning alcohol didn’t work in the long-term during the Prohibition era in America. People will always find a way to access these things, they will just be less safe whilst doing so and their money will not be taxed.

New Zealand tried a similar tobacco ban in 2022, and it got repealed about a year later in order to fund tax cuts (if I am remembering correctly). I forsee this going the same way if it actually passes.

I get the network effect of having all the other kids with phones.

I don’t think the network effect is the only factor to consider here. Kids are at real risk of social ostracization and bullying by their peers if they do not have a smartphone. And that’s dangeous in of itself.

I’m not sure if the dangers of being ostricised and bullied are more significant than the dangers presented by owning a smartphone. Either way, I don’t think it’s a simple decision for a parent to make.

That this prejudice will follow these children into adulthood is perhaps the bleakest part.

This is the thing that horrifies me the most about this story. Adults, schools, and parents are setting an abominable example to these children.

I can only imagine the confusion and shame a child must experience when being told to hide their insulin pumps, their wheelchairs, their hearing aids, etc. And I’m frightened to think of the pupils who feel empowered to “other” their classmates because they are being “othered” by the adults. It’s a clear example of how we teach children bigotry.

An experience from my childhood which still sticks with me to this day is from when attending an ultra-orthodox church. I was maybe 5 years old and tried to follow my dad into a restricted area and being stopped by the priest, being told “sorry, only boys are allowed back here”.

As a child I was taught that adults are always right, and to listen to them. This may very well be my earliest memory of being taught sexism, which only got reinforced throughout my life due to trusting the adults at this church and through trusting very religious right-wing father. Even as a kid I recognised that was I was witnessing was unfair, but I did not have the power, the understanding, nor the will to challenge this unfairness because the adults must know what they’re doing… right?

I think it’s better to vote for a party which has no chance of winning than to spoil your vote. At the very least it communicates what kinds of policies you would like to see and what policies would win your vote in the future.

I constantly think about the 2015 general election and how UKIP got almost 4 million votes (the third highest number of votes amongst all the parties). I feel that this caused a shift within the Conservative party towards populist, Eurosceptic, and anti-environmental ideals because they realised by doing so they could win back those 4 million voters.

I would personally never spoil my ballot for this reason. I don’t think it’s especially valuable to communicate that you’re not happy with anything without communicating what would make you happy.

I’m currently in a circular debate with myself as to whether to vote Labour or Green. The classic eternal debate of “splitting the left vote” which we must deal with since we use an archaeic First-Past-The-Post system which should not exist in any modern democracy. I don’t even especially like the Greens but a vote for them may communicate that one of my biggest values is preserving the environment and tackling climate change. Perhaps this could encourage Labour to establish policies to address these things in order to win back Green votes.

My first thought was “wow those comments must be shockingly bad if even Reform UK is suspending/investigating them”.

They absolutely are awful and embarrassing comments. But they’re also comments I would fully expect a Reform UK candidate/supporter to make. Therefore I’m pretty surprised Reform UK is investigating them in the first place. Perhaps it’s because they said the quiet bit out loud?

They’re a right-wing populist and Eurosceptic party after all, so of course they’re gonna attract racists and transphobes.

Two spring to mind. I could rant forever about them but I’ll try to keep it short.

First was an apprenticeship at a furniture logistics company. I was essentially an extremely overworked and underpaid spreadsheet monkey (I got paid £4 an hour). I received no training and gained no valuable experience or qualifications. In hindsight it’s clear to me the company just wanted cheap labour from vulnerable teenagers.

After this I took a job handing out leaflets for a store which buys/sells goods. The job was in fact not to hand out leaflets like I thought but to harass people I saw walking towards CEX (to try and convince them to sell their games/consoles to us instead of CEX). Obviously this was seedy as hell and embarrassing. I’d get told off at the end of the day every day for not bringing in multiple PS4s or whatever.

Of the £21.5m in cash received by Labour in 2023, just £5.9m came from the trade union movement, compared with £14.5m from companies and individuals – a huge increase on the previous year, and indeed more than in the three previous years of Keir Starmer’s leadership combined.

As trade union contributions have dipped slightly, from around £6.9m in 2020 and 2021 to £5.3m in 2022, donations from businesses and individuals have soared: they totalled £2.3m in 2020 and rose to £3m in 2021 and £7.6m in 2022 before nearly doubling last year.

Around £10m of this total comes from just four sources: Gary Lubner (£4.6m), David Sainsbury (£3.1m), Fran Perrin (£1m) and Ecotricity (£1m). This means that just two individuals gave the Labour Party more money last year than all the trade unions combined.

Very concerning… but also not surprising.

It would be better if Labour only took money from the unions and from co-ops, but that would be a really quick way to go bankrupt, unless lots of other unions decide to affiliate.

Yeah. This is a huge problem, because whilst lobbying exists not everyone in this country has equal power during elections. People with money have more influence, with the bourgeoisie having the most power as they can throw millions into policies which serve their own interests (versus the middle class where individuals may have hundreds or thousands of pounds to throw around).

I don’t really know what the solution to this would be in the short term. Whilst we live in a capitalist system, political parties need money in order to exist. As it stands, it seems the best place that money can come from is from unions rather than individuals.

I think a party funded in part by the unions is better than one funded entirely by middle-class people.

I can understand this perspective. Your distrust of the middle-class isn’t completely unfounded, I don’t think, as it’s easier for middle/upper-class folks to be manipulated into believing that policies designed to benefit billionaires/corporations are also of benefit to them. That said, all of us vulnerable to similar manipulation. The amount of underprivileged folk voting for right-wing parties always shocks me.

It’s worth noting that no single middle-class person has the money or power to influence any party’s policies on their own,funding comes from a large amount of different people with different perspectives, people who I would argue are more likely to work in the interests of the underprivileged versus a single average billionaire/corporation who may have more money and power than all unions combined.

For that reason, personally, I think I would find it easier to trust a party funded entirely by the middle-class versus one which receives any funding from billionaires/corporations. But I suppose that ultimately comes down to how many middle/upper-class folks have been manipulated into working in the best interests of billionaires/corporations. My trust will be badly placed if the majority of middle-class folks are not working in the best interests of the lower-class.

Everything else is just another bourgeois party because it draws its money and its activists from people who have money and time to spare, i.e., middle-class people.

Middle-class people are not the bourgeoisie. The division of the working class into upper/middle/lower classes by the ruling class (i.e. the actual bourgeoisie) is one of the many tools they use to distract us and to divide us.

There is one Labour party and that is the party that is actually funded by the labour movement.

I may be misunderstanding, but doesn’t Labour get it’s funding from a few different sources, not just the labour movement? Lobbying by the ruling class controls a lot of the policies that Labour chooses to adopt. For just one of many examples, see: How big business took over the Labour Party

“Since becoming leader in 2020, Starmer’s Labour has struggled for money. Membership – and the revenue it provides – has dropped by 170,000 in the past three years, while trade union contributions have fallen by more than a million since 2018.”

“But the party’s latest accounts, which came out this week, show that the shortfall has now been more than bridged by large donations from rich people and companies. In 2018, the party took £700,000 in donations above the £7,500 reporting threshold (or £1,500 for local parties and the like). So far this year, it’s already taken £12m.”

I loathe that the left always have to debate between “splitting the vote” and actually voting for what we believe in.

First-past-the-post is destroying our country. It has no place in a modern democracy. Most major democracies have ditched the system (the US and the UK being in the minority of democracies which continue to use it).

I’m not sure how we can achieve electorial reform when the current system benefits the two most powerful parties in this country (i.e. it benefits both the Tories and Labour).

It is for Rochdale, isn’t it? Galloway’s campaign was centered around support for Gaza, and since he won it would seem that’s what Rochdale wants.

This is not a new issue following Brexit. This has been an issue for a long time and was an issue whilst we were still part of the EU judging by this 2005 article.

I had a look into this to see if there is a difference between the welfare standards of broiler chickens between the UK and the EU. Take my findings here with a grain of salt since I’m no expert at skimming through legal documents, but it seems that the welfare standards for broiler chickens are broadly the same between the UK and the EU at the moment.

Both the UK and the EU advise to not have a stocking density over 33kg/m², and both have additional welfare requirements/checks if stocking density exceeds this. Both have similar recommendations for the amount of ammonia, CO2, temperature and humidity levels which is acceptable. In both the UK and the EU the concentration of ammonia should not exceed 20 parts per million.

Sources:

• UK: Code of practice for the welfare of meat chickens and meat breeding chickens
• EU: COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2007/43/EC

And yet just two days ago Sunak was saying that there are no Islamophobia issues in the Tory party. How curious! /s

Real talk, when Tories talk about the “British way of life” they are only referring to Christian values which have been normalised in our society. Any other values which aren’t derived from Christianity (e.g. rights for minority groups such as women, LGBT+ folk, etc) are threatened moreso by Christianity over any other religion (See: America).

We should embrace the fact we are a very multicultural society. With such a blend of perspectives it seems we have great potential to pick and choose the best values from a wide variety of cultures in order to create a way of life for British people which is beneficial for everyone.

Or we could slide back into Christofascism I suppose!

Oh yeah. I was being very sincere with my suggestions but on a more lighthearted note I do really relate to this experience.

I say “just confront them directly” but I have honestly never once confronted someone in this situation! I usually just end up seething away in a corner and thinking about the much more preferrable solutions of [insert stupid solution here which would make the situation 10x worse] and then moan and groan about how annoying the person was to my fiancee when I get home. Truely the quintessential British experience.

He keeps listening to 5 seconds of an annoying song, then switching to another song. It sort of sounds like kids TV music.

It sounds like he’s browsing TikTok?

Possibly the only thing more annoying than being forced to listen to someone’s music on a train is listening to random 5 second clips of songs which change constantly on a train.

People don’t like being embarrassed in public so a confrontation where you talk to him directly about how his actions are inconsiderate to everyone else on the train should be enough to get him to stop, in theory. Hushed, indirect whisperings are easy to ignore.

You can also report antisocial behaviour to 61016. I don’t know if this actually does anything. Being unnecessarily noisy in public spaces is absolutely antisocial behaviour which is reportable.

There’s a difference between disinformation and “rigging an election”.

Ah yes you’re right. Perhaps I misinterpreted the original article. Since the focus was on deepfakes my assumption was that by “rigged” they were referring to “influencing an election by spreading disinformation”.

It will be very funny and cringe if the Tories blame their election loss on AI and not the… gestures broadly to everything.

The election may be rigged? More like it’s an absolute certainty that it will be rigged.

It’s ridiculous that James Cleverley is implying that “hostile countries” will be the only ones who may try to influence an election using AI.

During the AI Safety Summit which occured in the UK last November, a Frontier AI: capabilities and risks discussion paper was produced. This paper references How AI will transform the 2024 elections by Darrell M. West, which has the following quote:

AI likely will democratize disinformation by bringing sophisticated tools to the average person interested in promoting their preferred candidates as well. People no longer must be coding experts or video wizards to generate text, images, video, or programs. They don’t necessarily have to work for a troll farm to create havoc with the opposition. They can simply use advanced technologies to spread the messages they want. In that sense, anyone can become a political content creator and seek to sway voters or the media.

There will be plenty of people living within the UK who will be making efforts to rig the election in their favour. The tools to produce convincing disinformation is in the hands of everyone.

I don’t really have any anecdotes of meeting famous people IRL. But I do find it curious how this question seems to be a common one for ice-breakers.

I notice on Come Dine With Me (the TV show) that the contestants ask each other this question in basically every series.

Why is this? Is it like the same excitement I get from finding a shiny Pokemon or spotting a rare bird out on a walk? Is it because people can provide insights as to what these people are actually like everyday? Or something else?

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