But if labour can afford to live, how will we minimise their ability to focus what little energy we leave them with at the end of their shift on improving their situation?

Paying a living wage is a slippery slope that ends in things like healthcare, education and opportunities being available to all, and that’d make them more than just our bought and paid for production labour, that’d make them our rivals.

I don’t think people are “refusing”, it’s not like it’s mandatory or anything. Nobody’s trying to force you to drive a car.

I know I’ll never be able to afford a car, they’re incredibly expensive to buy and operate, and most of my travel is already covered by our excellent Trams, Buses and Trains, which can get me basically anywhere comfortably and quickly.

For the times I need something special I can ask someone for a lift, but that happens only a handful of times a year. A car would be a big, expensive, risky piece of equipment to just leave sat around for someone to steal…

The evidence suggests that in about three weeks, we’re going to give a landslide to the party promising the most radical green policies in this country’s history.

The article doesn’t mention which party the evidence points to or which party is promising the most radical green policies in the country’s history, and neither did you, I’d like to know.

Could you elaborate on this please? I assume the Green Party are the group that support the most radical environmental reforms, but it would be nice to have some more context and information, thank you :-)

it can be revealed

Gasp, they’ve got the scoop of the century!

You make a good point, throughout history there have been many times where change began or could only be achieved through direct protest action, not by elections and votes alone.

So long as it’s harmless and raises awareness for how evil and hated by the people of the nation certain groups or individuals are, throwing milkshake, rotten tomatoes and the like, are an excellent idea.

the fact that this just helps Farage and garners more sympathy for him and his party.

How does this garner sympathy for a fascist pig? Is it some secret cheat code that makes people forget all the evil someone’s done, and make us feel sorry for them instead?

It was milkshake not poison, why should anyone sympathise with him who wouldn’t already have done so, because of this?

An election to change governments away from one that I feel has been greatly damaging to the nation and my life should be a happy occasion.

Yet, I look at the alternative in our two party system, the new government, Labour, that will undoubtedly get voted in (unless they somehow catastrophically implode within the next few weeks, getting caught sacrificing goats during an orgy at Stonehenge or something)… is basically just a slightly different shade of Tory.

That’s not to say everyone in the party is, or that they’re identical, but enough are, especially the ones in power, and while small things will change for the better, Labour, like the Tories, are too far gone to actually fix any of the underlying issues we face.

Are they going to reverse privatisation of the failing NHS, failing water suppliers, failing rail infrastructure, etc etc? Of course not. Are they going to stand up for unions, workers rights, and our rights to protest? Of course not.

Are they going to begin the long slow process of rejoining the EU, which was such a huge benefit to the UK and yet was taken away through brainwashing, misinformation, and good ol’ right wing racism, a process that I will only see come to fruition within my lifetime if started right now? Of course not. They can’t anger the right wing portion of their following that they’ve been slowly building since dropping the guise of being an even slightly to the left of centre political party.

They’re certainly not going to go against big what big business and the rich want, because those are the groups keeping the ruling class of the nation - including the government - in power, and in the lap of luxury, both now and when they leave office and move on to a private paycheque full-time.

Notice how both parties harp on about “the economy”, (as well as the media that tells us all what to think - owned by the rich), and do everything they can to make it happy and healthy, but do nothing at all to address the growing - now utterly gigantic - distribution of wealth gap between the rich and the majority of us, which stretches much further than simply poor wages - it affects what we have access to, what job and education opportunities we have, how healthy we are, who we’re able to meet and spend time with…it affects everything, and it’s all being ignored in favour of helping “the economy”.

They tell us that a strong economy will bring us all prosperity, that somehow the billions in profits made by the rich will drip down into our teacups for us to lick up, but the reality is that the businesses they serve just find more ways and excuses to raise prices, reduce service quality, cut wages, and get more payouts.

The current government is the worst of the lot, to be sure, and I’m glad they’re going soon. But I’m sad, because I know we won’t get any real change in this election. Just a chance of colour scheme, and a shuffling around of minor priorities and allocations for services, which will make some people happy, as it will appear as if the new government are truly changing things…

But it’s akin to rearranging the furniture in a house that’s on fire. It might feel fresh and better for a few people for a short time, but the whole thing is still burning down in the background.

Probably because the heat from the fire will keep “the economy” nice and warm.

:-(

Damn, imagine scrolling and randomly spotting a lovely painting of a random road in your own city! Just normal boring everyday places, like a car park, haha. Amazing.

These are great, though it still annoys me that the Palace Hotel clocktower signage has been swapped out to say Principal in the past few years :-(

Thank you for sharing these, I’m glad there are artists capturing the normal sights of places instead of focusing on the most impressive and amazing parts of the world, you know?

Love from Manchester ❤️

“the answer to child poverty, ultimately, is not simply about handouts, it is about a social security safety net, that also acts as a springboard that helps people into work and with good work that makes the cost of living affordable for everyone.”

Holy crap, a politician that actually gets it, for once? Someone that actually understands that a strong foundation of social services will uplift the nation, making them healthier, happier, better educated, safer, etc, and thus more productive, more successful, more able to give back to the state to help support those very services and uplift the quality of the entire nation?

…Does he know that his party is basically at best a Centrist/Center-Right ‘Tory Lite’ these days? He won’t see a strong government run social system under either of the main parties, alas :-(

Labours would be slightly less ineffectual than the Tories, but they’re still just slightly shuffling things around to look like they’re doing something, whilst lining their pockets and focusing only on helping the economy (aka the rich). As opposed to focusing on helping their actual citizens, which in turn will help the economy.

Still, it’s amazing to see someone actually understand the situation for once and admit it publicly. It almost gives me hope!

Being sacked isn’t ruining someone’s life. There are other companies, other jobs. It’s hardly the end of the world.

What you’re saying is “I want him to know it’s okay to keep doing this to other people with no consequences”.

No no like, that classic golden oldies singer, Britney Spears!

NIt’s election season on the internet

Is it? Or is it just election season in a couple of specific countries, and not elsewhere…

Just sayin :P

Yeah, it does a fab job of giving me playlists in each of the moods/genres/decades I tend to listen to most, giving me a mix of tracks I know and stuff I can discover. I’ve found sooo much new music I love that way!

The AI voiced DJ is fun too, it’s surprising how psychologically satisfying it is to have a personal lil DJ, even when it’s basically just generating those same playlists under the hood, with a few tweaks.

I’m glad there are offline/open source solutions people are posting of course, I don’t want Spotify to ever be the only choice or some kinda monopoly. But yeah, if you’re happy using a service like that and spending a reasonable amount on a subscription, it’s fantastic :-)

That looks pretty useless unless you live in whatever country there based in though, which certainly isn’t the UK.

I use Flowx, it’s customisability and access to so many excellent weather predictive models please me greatly.

This is an April Fools, right?

No way a fancy top end smartphone in 2024 doesn’t have this extremely basic feature from over a decade ago that everything has…

DokuWiki is fantastic!

Privatisation leads to worse products and services in general - the focus shifts from serving the people to doing anything to make more profits, but especially when it’s something like healthcare.

You’d have to be out of your mind to privatise things essential to life, like healthcare, water, etc.

My rule is: Only allow whatever you don’t mind losing to privatise.

Indeed, religious extremism, at least that which outwardly affects others (if you want to be extreme in your beliefs and live in a cave away from humanity to achieve enlightenment that’s cool go for it), is a threat to everybody.

Nobody’s ever tried to violently force Islam on me, or anybody I know, though.

Now, Catholic Priests and Teachers at our religious UK state schools on the other hand? Ooh, the stories we could tell…

I wonder how many reckon the extreme side of Christianity (which we see currently devouring the rights of the peoples of the USA) is a threat to our way of life too…

As a British voter, Christiofascism worries me far more than Islam does right now.