Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
I see #ElonMusk is saying that if X (formally Twitter) goes to the wall, it will be the 'advertisers [that] bankrupted the company'... once again he seems unable to see that is a symptom not the cause of X's problems; which of course lies with him.
I guess we'll be seeing another flow of folk into the #fediverse if the advertisers 'strike' continues (s many think it will).
Its an extraordinary example of billionaire hubris!
For supporters of a #hydrogen#transport economy, its all looking a bit like the Betamax/VHS choice in the 1980s (for this of you old enough to recall the river video system);
when a Bank of England director tells you its 'possible' interest rates will be reduced over the summer....
Of course its possible they'll be reduced, but my guess is they'll just want to keep them high a little longer... just to make sure those pesky workers & their demands for a return to pst standards of living have been firmly dampened down.
Perhaps, by some strange co-incidence they'll fall the month before an Autumn election?
Looks like the #AntiMonarchist demonstrators were subject to a classic bait & switch operation today - they were reassured through detailed meetings with the #Police, led to believe there was a way that they could exercise their right to protest, only then to be arrested when they did... so much for #democracy - another step down a road we're constantly told is merely scaremongering.... its almost entrapment
As #Trump wins (by a large margin) the Republican caucus in #Iowa, the prospect of a second Trump term edges closer....
What seemed unthinkable not so many months ago, now starts to look possible.
Whatever, #Americans might think (rightly or wrongly) about #Biden's record in Govt., the notion that Trump might be an 'improvement' to someone on the other side of the Atlantic looks delusional...
I'm just perplexed about how he gains any support at all, but clearly he's appealing to something?
On a low turnout (37.2%), Labour secured a 20% swing in tis favour to win the #Rutherglen#byelection beating the SNP by 58% to 27% of the vote... while the #Tories crashed to 3.9%.
And, now the reading of the runes can get under way....
I sometimes thought my father thought he could't die while he still had books on his pending pile (a stab at immortality I seem to be replicating)... so, it was strangely touching to see Tom Gauld has had similar thoughts.
If you were hoping that somehow #renewableenergy would exclude #nuclear power (most obviously due to its financial costs & the historic problem of its waste products)... the fact that the rising price of #uranium would suggest demand (by Governments' #energy programmes) is rising will be disappointing news.
Whether its a victory for sectoral lobbying or a lack of confidence in developments around energy storage from renewables, its not good news for anyone wanting the end of nuclear power.
At the risk of reigniting a debate that has been had in my timeline in the past... here's a report of a University of Valencia that looked at over 20 paper examine the differential effects of reading digitally & on paper.
The research confirms my experience (my own & in the reading of my erstwhile students) that reading digitally is less likely to lead to long-term educational (knowledge) benefits...
Hmmm.... so #KeirStarmer's 'plan' for the #NHScrisis is to start off by 'encouraging' staff to work overtime to help start to clear the backlog, while they wait for investment to kick-in.
He claims the staff are 'up for this because they know that bringing down the waiting list will reduce the pressure on them in the long run'.... OK... but presumably only for the short time before his long(er) term plan comes not focus...
Getting already burnt out staff to work (even) harder is a big risk!
Having just seen another casual allusion to 'this overcrowded isle', I think people who believe the UK to be over-crowded either don't understand the shape of population distribution or think the whole country looks like the suburbs of #London.
There may be an issue about the carrying capacity of this island, but on a purely spatial level its not overcrowded, the population is just clustered in a few places.
A less clustered population might also help re-balance regional #inequality?
Hurrah... good sense breaks out in the #NorthWest as the 'Waitrose of the North', Booths begins to get rid of self-service check-outs.
Given the price premium at Booths, we (the customers) want the social interaction with staff at the checkouts, not be told to 'scan & bag'!
More importantly, not only do checkouts provide regular local employment, they are also for many semi-isolated shoppers a key bit of rare social interaction... so a welcome reverse!
A small but significant global movement is seeking to make #publictransport free to use as a central plank to #green urbanism.
as the Guardian point out:
'Flourishing & accessible public transport systems are an essential feature of sustainable 21st-century living. They are a means of social inclusion & wellbeing, helping to generate a sense of place and collective belonging'!
Being free from fares can be a big part of this... but in the UK we're wedded to an altogether different model!
For this of us accused of buying too many #books - Umberto Eco was on our side:
'It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones'
Across the political Right, the narrative is that disability benefits (primarily Personal Independence Payments; PIPs) are too easy to get & are often paid to the 'undeserving'... however, in reality nearly half of applicants are rejected, rising to over two thirds for endometriosis (a gendered dimension I'll leave you to ponder), but with high rates of rejections over-turned on appeal (often with the same evidence).
As Prof. John Curtice observes (after his latest polling), showing around 80% of likely labour voters are pro-EU:
'Labour does have to realise it will find itself back in office off the back of an electorate that is three-to-one in favour of joining the EU'.
Whether or not this means #Labour may be thinking about how to re-engage with the #EU, rejoining, of course, is not something we can just wish to happen, the EU would need to agree & that willingness is hardly a foregone conclusion!
When I was assembling my last book (Corporations: A research agenda), I became quite interested in Mondragon in Spain as an alternative way of organising businesses (and featured them in the book).
Somehow I missed this recent profile on the Spanish Cooperative conglomerate. It make for an interesting read when we are told there is no other way of running firms in capitalism.... because clearly there is!
The IPPR thinks it will take two terms to reverse the damage wrought on the #publicservies by the #Tories.... sadly I think they are under-estimating the damage the Tory strategy has caused the underlying social structures that support the #publicsector.
Don't get me wrong the work needs to start & will certainly take a decade, but the reversal will take decades to finally rid us of the legacy of a toxic decade of #austerity...
The more immediate Q. is: is #KeirStarmer the man to do it????
So while you & I might think its necessary to speed up the Green Transition & enhance/accelerate measures to reduce emissions, Shell's shareholders disagree.
The firm has just sought & obtained agreement from investors to slow down its measures to mitigate its environmental impact & reduce progress towards its own (already weak) climate targets.
More reason(s) the fossil fuels sector cannot really be central to climate response(s).
What is extraordinary about #SuellaBraverman is that she has managed to make #PrittiPatel look better than we had thought at the time (although, of course, still a nightmare).... indeed, this seems to be the job of the current crop of ministers; to make us reassess those who went before, encouraging us to think the earlier ministers weren't as bad, because now the real nutters are on the public stage!
Here's a handy guide to check yourself against; which way do you display/store/shelve your #Books?
I have so many that I fit a number of different categories depending on which part of he house you're in.... I doubt I'm alone in my pluralist shelving habits
Interestingly, Friedrich Merz, head of the German Christian Democrats, believes that:
'The continental Europeans were not entirely blameless when it came to Brexit... We lost patience with the special role that Britain always played in European politics. We didn’t do enough to help them come to a different referendum result'!
Bittersweet for Remainers, but an indication that their/our own campaigning failings were compounded by complacency(?) in the EU about the referendum.
