Sort of tangential, but Democritus was right about atoms, but obviously he worked it out in a very different way to how modern scientists did — though we don't know his exact reasoning.
Even more tangential: Aristotle (and others) were wrong about the four elements making all matter, but they do correspond to the four basic states of matter, which is kind of fun: earth=solid, water=liquid, air=gas, fire=plasma.
People (in this very thread, so not strawmen!) mischaracterising using any private companies in delivery as taking the NHS out of public hands was exactly the argument that he was responding to.
He is indeed part of the same phenomenon as known misogynistic rapist and people trafficker, Andrew Tate.
Funny how Farage is suddenly okay with people trafficking, though.
I'm canvassing for Labour all morning, voting in the afternoon, seeing Arcade Fire in the evening. So, it's going to be a good day!
Private healthcare doesn't come into it. It's about people who don't regularly interact with the health service, which is most of us, having stronger opinions about how healthcare is delivered than whether it is.
Nah. This is like the Lib Dems becoming the Official Opposition. Would be great. Not gonna happen.
Average life expectancy for a 61 year-old man is 85, in which case we won't rejoin till 2048 at the earliest.
That's also not a fair characterisation of Streeting's argument. It's not that they want people to suffer, just that they're not exposed to the consequences of the policies they're advocating.
Always good when left wing people repeat Tory talking points.
It's actually a good idea for him to stay on for a bit. But first, he has to hold on to his seat...
It's not in the manifesto, which unfortunately means it certainly won't happen, moral or not.
Wanting the NHS to refuse to use private companies, even if that might mean better outcomes, which is the actual policy and the goal, is a privileged position.
Streeting is not proposing the NHS 'no longer be in public hands', so whether views on that are middle class, leftwing or whatever, are not relevant.
They delivered the minimum wage in '97, which is what I was asked about, alongside countless other policies which made the country better.
They might not want those things, but the 'Captains of industry' who donated to Labour in 1997 helped deliver those things. And that's just reality, political or not.
If you select only the messages designed to appeal to the right (to whom they have to appeal if they want to win!), sure. But they've also had plenty of leftwing messaging, comparing their plans to Attlee, most obviously. As to Streeting's comments in particular, it's the 'middle class' bit that's important: he's criticising privileged people prioritising grandstanding over getting things done.
More to the point, the policies are much more important than the odd bit of rhetoric.
Labour's two biggest policy promises are the most ambitious green policies in this country's history, and the biggest expansion of workers' rights in half a century, so I don't see how the suggestion they're not interested in appealling to the left can be true.
People always say this stuff. Then Labour win and we get things like the NHS or the minimum wage. Next election, they go right back to saying nothing will change. I'm much more interested by the people trying to get things done than the kneejerk cynicism that nothing will happen anyway.
Oh, I never read the comments.
Cheers for the better link!
There are lots of different tactical voting sites and sometimes they disagree on the most effective anti-Tory vote.
Fortunately, someone has built a tool to help you aggregate the different recommendations and make the best possible choice on Thursday!
Of course, spoiler alert, the best anti-Tory vote in most seats in the country is still Labour.
[Video] Angela Rayner and Gordon Brown discussing how to end child poverty
Sorry for the Twitter link, but I've not seen the video elsewhere.
EDIT: Twitter link now replaced, courtesy of [email protected].
Just thought this was really great! It starts off with Rayner talking about how much Brown's policies (like Sure Start and the child tax credit) helped her and her kids, then they move on to talking about how the next Labour government hopes to do the same. Then it finishes with the amazing detail that Rachel Reeves had a Gordon Brown poster on her bedroom wall as a teenager.
The Labour leader on how he is determined to make a material difference to people’s lives if his party wins the general election
Just reading this interview with Keir Starmer and it's funny how he's absolutely got the number of the people in this thread:
“It reached a point where Labour has, in the past, appeared as if it knew better than working people, and almost in a sort of condescending manner was telling people what they should think and what they should do,” he said.
(My emphasis.)
More than three-quarters of the shadow cabinet attended state schools – in stark contrast to Sunak’s government
TL;DR: arguably.
Keir Starmer: 'There will be no return to austerity under my government' | Big Issue
We asked Labour leader Keir Starmer some key questions about what he will do if he is the next UK prime minister.
Starmer responds to questions from the Big Issue journalists and from vendors. Nothing particularly groundbreaking here but it all sounds good.
Neither Left nor Right can accept that Starmer’s impressive focus and strategic sense is responsible for transforming Labour’s prospects…
A slightly too wordy and too long article that I nonetheless basically agree with. Key paragraphs:
>Starmer’s strategic sense has been impressive, from opening his leadership consensually with qualified support for, and constructive criticism of, lockdown, to encouraging Boris Johnson to get his denials of Partygate on the record and leaving them there, to, most of all, his relentless focus on the voters he actually needs to win, rather than the ones who make the most noise.
>This, of course, is the source of the biggest criticisms of Starmer from the left: that he won the leadership by relentlessly focusing on the voters he needed to win within the Labour Party, and then pivoted towards the national electorate rather than sticking with a prospectus whose chief appeal was to people who had already been shown to be a minority of a minority. I am not wholly unsympathetic to this view: his ten pledges were mostly bad, and he shouldn’t have made them; but dropping bad policies is better than sticking to them, and winning is better than losing.
>After all, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t keep any of his promises, which may be why a recent election leaflet endorsing his bid to be the independent MP for Islington North gives so much prominence to his role in saving the Number 4 bus route.
The political betting scandal is turning stupid
Gambling using inside information to cheat the bookmakers is already illegal, and is rightly being investigated. There are no grounds for a wider moral panic about politicians making normal bets.
Refreshing sanity from Conservative Home, of all places!
There's no equivalence between what Kevin Craig did (placed a bet on himself to lose) and what Craig Williams is accused of (using inside information to place a bet), and no need for a new law, given that what Williams is accused of is already illegal.
No way is Britain’s general election a done deal. Polls disguise huge uncertainty
The Tories want people to assume the outcome is decided but the only way to remove this government is to vote them out, says Labour’s national campaign coordinator
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has promised the party will scrap no-fault evictions immediately if they win the general election.
‘Tory big beasts’ like Liz Truss and Jeremy Hunt could be for chop as well as once-safe seats like Maidenhead, formerly held by Theresa May
This is according to research by Get Voting. Seems worth sharing just to potentially have Liz Truss lose her seat!
Labour may currently have a commanding lead, but a second lacklustre half to the campaign could lead some voters to stay at home, writes political scientist Robert Ford
This is what's keeping me up at night, and also exactly why I think all the predictions of four or five hundred seats for Labour are overblown.
Is Keir Starmer really a ‘political robot’? If he is, he’s one that’s been programmed to win
In office, something very different will be required, but steady caution has brought Labour to the brink of power, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland
>The left is only able to demand that an apparently imminent Labour government be bolder in office because Starmer has got the party to the brink of victory – and has done it by doing the very things they opposed.
Never have I 'this'ed so hard.
Labour Party Manifesto 2024
Labour Party Manifesto 2024: At this election we can change Britain. We can stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country.
Labour Party Manifesto 2024
Labour Party Manifesto 2024: At this election we can change Britain. We can stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country.
The 2024 Labour Manifesto is now online!
I am genuinely excited by loads of it, especially the green policies and the expansion of workers' rights, but probably the most important part of it is the stuff aimed at economic growth.
What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Inspired to volunteer? Some more sensible, moderate emotion?
What is going on with Hegel?
I've read a fair bit of philosophy and Hegel is the first time I've felt like the stereotype of philosophers, where they're being deliberately obscure to hide the fact that their arguments don't actually follow, might actually apply.
Now, most likely, I'm just being stupid, so I was wondering if anyone here actually got anything much out of Hegel and, if so, what?
I'm most of the way through the Phenomenology of Spirit, if that's any help.
Hartlepool is on track to lurch back to Labour in the election. Reform UK is in second spot
... But great news for Britain!
>Hartlepool is on track to lurch back to Labour in the election. Reform UK is in second spot
Came across this via LabourList, so giving them a shout, too.
Rishi Sunak says he went without 'lots of things' including Sky TV as a child
HOW IS HE SO BAD AT THIS?
He should've said, 'Look, I was very fortunate growing up, there's no point denying that. What I want is for every child to have the opportunities I had, that's why our policy is to blah, blah first-time buyers blah tax, etc., unlike Labour who want blah VAT on private schools, blah'.
Instead, he gets immediately rattled and starts gibbering at the first follow-up question. He is just the worst.
By the way, this is the interview he thought was so important he had to run away from Normandy to do it. Apparently, it wasn't important enough for him to do any prep.
Former Scottish Greens co-leader Robin Harper joins Labour
Conservative manifesto expected to announce cut in national insurance and measures to help people buy homes
Harper said the vote was:
>a now-or-never opportunity to remove the Tories from power. Only Labour is able to do this across the UK and only Labour has a plan to halt environmental destruction.
I couldn't have put it better.
The US atmospheric chemist on why she doesn’t share the pessimism of most climate scientists, fixing the ozone layer, and why Jacques Cousteau is her hero
Sharing this here as I feel it's relevant to the GE campaign.
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. Environmentalism is just about to win the argument in Britain, as long as we vote for it on the 4th of July. Don't give in to cynicism and despair!
How the Tories managed to turn a row about tax plans into a row about their own integrity
On the TV debate and its aftermath, and how the Tories managed to turn a row about £2,000 into a row about their own integrity
I was pretty furious about Sunak lying, and I still am, but it's interesting and a little bit reassuring to hear a perspective suggesting it will only hurt his campaign.