Not sure it's a new topic, but the suppression of protest is really grim reading. Will there no longer be people standing on crates giving out in Hyde Park? What about the lad with the speakers outside Westminster? I imagine he's champing at the bit to have a go at the new PM.
One article I saw said a protester with a blank sign was told by the police he could be arrested depending on what he eventually put on the sign. In England. FFS. Don't they still live in the past glorifying the last time they stood up to tyranny and repression? How is this even slightly o.k.? Will the Monster Raving Loony party be banned now?
That protestor was a barrister I believe as well so was very precise in his conversation with the police.
Will there be any political consequences for Britain having a new monarch?
Probably not much as the monarch has little real political power.
The rest just seems like theatre and the Brits do it quite well.
A constitutional monarch has absolutely no political power and all actions are at the behest of the PM and parliament.
They just turn up on time in the right fancy dress and perform as required. They do not even write their own speeches.
So no change of any political consequence, except a single word change in their national anthem.
Back to the Politics of Everyday: remember how it was worry that Truss might use the Queen's Death to sneak in some abominable legislation?
Well. About that.
The UK government could scrap its entire anti-obesity strategy after ministers ordered an official review of measures designed to deter people from eating junk food, the Guardian can reveal.
The review could pave the way for Liz Truss to lift the ban on sugary products being displayed at checkouts as well as “buy one get one free” multi-buy deals in shops. The restrictions on advertising certain products on TV before the 9pm watershed could also be ditched.
The review – which was ordered by the Treasury – is seen as part of the prime minister’s drive to cut burdens on business and help consumers through the cost of living crisis.
Maybe it's my bristling, resting repulsion for all things Tory that make me blinkered from understanding how this might "help consumers through the cost of living crisis". Help people snack on more chocolate? That most obvious of food items suffering from "shrinkflation"?
I do love this suggestion that somehow the public's best interests are also served by businesses' burdens being relieved by pesky legislation preventing them hawking junk food to the lower-income bracket. I've lived long enough to know that cost saving by businesses is rarely passed onwards to the customer.
No legislation will be 'sneaked in' as parliament isn't sitting.
You are confusing it with the idea of 'bad news being buried' which probably is happening.
I remember someone on this forum saying that they would try this because of the gravity of the situation. I don't mean this in an "I told you so way" or anything but exploitation has been one of the watchwords of the Tory party. I'm just surprised that it's something this banal.
Maybe they think fat people get less cold or something? Who knows.
Well when you have a PM with no policy and Thérèse Coffey as your health secretary it will be easy for big business to roll over the government on things like this.
My 2c:
I'm overweight now and currently dieting to try to lose weight.
Chocolate is a painkiller and supermarket strategists are very sneaky to put cheap chocolate next to the tills. But the whole of modern society is built around excess consumption.
This was seen in the lockdowns where there was no serious effort to promote change to healthy lifestyles even though the common combination of high cholesterol and inflammation was classified as an 'underlying condition'. There would not have been such a large 'vulnerable' population otherwise, so it was a junk-food crisis in one sense.
Imo calorie counts on menus are a bit shambolic since if you want a caloric deficit it will most likely be gained through the types of foods you eat, which in turn affect how hungry you get. You control your appetite with certain healthy foods that regulate glucose and avoid others.
In restaurants they give you plentiful bread, chips and rice because these are cheap to produce.
Every layer of the food industry puts profit first. It will never be properly regulated, and even if this particular regulation goes through you would still have to pass through multiple supermarket aisles of garbage to get to fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts, dairy (aka real food).
Sellout celebrities market junk like Pepsi (promoted by professional athletes!) and worthless protein powders (not a good substitute for eggs, lean meat, vegetables, cheese.)
I remember David Cameron toying with the idea of banning chocolate at tills. That must have been around ten years ago. So I would say the political strategy is to hem and haw about one slight change while allowing the overall commercial strategy pursued by the upper management of supermarkets and every other big player in the food industry to continue unabated.
@pixelburp
Such as scrapping of banker bonus caps?
un-paywalled. Nice quote about it being a Brexit benefit.
This week we've had Labour's code of conduct for their MP's (drop all politics, wear black), Lindsay Hoyle claiming it's the most important event the world will ever see! & now they are planning on playing God Save the King at conference. Labour are absolutely loving the Queens death.
They lost a council by-election seat in Bolton (Rumworth) last week, must be a huge issue with the candidate they put up, their vote share was down 35%, and Tories up 44%! I know council elections often give weird results but that is just deranged.
Had a councillor switch from Labour to Tory a few weeks ago too so something is obviously up locally.
Yeah clearly a local issue with that size swing to Tories, (it'd would have made more sense if it was a swing to independent with some particular local interest like an A&E closing or the like) would love to know the ins and outs of it.
I see Nadine Dorries has closed her twitter account....I am guessing she doesn't want any of her bigotted tweets derailing her getting into the lords.
Shame she won't see the supportive twitter #
#GoNads any more then.
Is it genuinely supportive ?
I only ask because I love stuff like that. Especially since I discovered #susanalbumparty
No, I don't think so :pac:
I'd say it's more likely she has realised, or has been told, the damage her Twitter nonsense is doing to her current career.
Damage? She's become an unelected peer without showing any capacity for hard work, skill or discretion.
I totally missed the news she got or is getting a peerage.
Good grief.
Reminds me of a comment I once read on Reddit alleging that in the US army, it's often better to promote the worst soldier in a unit so they get out of the way.
This is clearly a reward for blind loyalty and nothing else.
That is called 'getting kicked upstairs' and the promotion is usually to a nothing position. Like the Major promoted to looking after the Officer's Mess Accounts.
See also 'The Peter Principle'
UK Treasury refuses to publish UK Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast alongside a budget coming out this week from Liz's "Friend with benefits" Kwasi Kwarteng:
Treasury office says "Nothing to see here, we'll publish the 2 forecasts we do here. We're doing a great job and not to worry, just trust us."
UK higher rate of tax is gone
Lower rate to go from 20% to (drumroll please)... 19%
They are really splashing the cash with this budget fiscal event in an attempt to get out of the recession they now find themselves in
No disguise with this budget.
**** the poor and middle classes & give massive tax breaks to the rich and Tory donors.
They don’t care for the consequences as they will be out of power in 2 years blaming Labour for the state of the economy.
Tax cuts and rocketing borrowing. This sound very much like Jack Lynch's 1977 giveaway...
It's not a budget though, that's why they can avoid budgetary oversight and not publish financial estimates from the treasury.
They're essentially handing Labour a "There is no money left" note. Borrowing to fund sound investment is fine but doing it to fund handouts to Tory donors is grotesque.
The part of me that's somewhat susceptible to conspiracy nonsense thinks that Johnson might not be too unhappy at having gone. Truss can be the fall person who eats the responsibility for the coming cost of living catastrophe and recession while Johnson rides in in 2022 pretending to be the Tory party's saviour. Can't see it working, though. We're into nearly 15 years of disastrous Tory government where they just get nastier and nastier by pandering to the worst people in this country.
On the bright side, there seems to be majority for ditching the antiquated and anti-democratic FPTP voting system:
Professor John Curtice led the survey for the National Centre for Social Research. The majority of British people want to see the first-past-the-post electoral system scrapped for the first time since records began.
Some 51 per cent of people are in favour of switching to a form of proportional representation (PR), while 44 per cent want the status quo, the annual British Social Attitudes survey has revealed.
The figures are a near-reversal of public opinion just five years ago, when 49 per cent wanted to keep the way governments in Westminster are elected, and 43 per cent wanted electoral reform.
At the time of the alternative vote referendum in 2011, just 27 per cent wanted to see governments elected by PR, while 66 per cent backed first-past-the-post.
