@alanrenwick.bsky.social, gave oral evidence with @profsob.bsky.social and @tobysjames.bsky.social to the Modernising Elections inquiry yesterday.
Alan said that the government's plans 'could go further' and there is a case for further investigation of the electoral system.
Read (and watch) more 👇
Explainer. What is the role of referendums in UK politics? The Constitution Unit. Referendums have repeatedly been used in the UK to resolve important constitutional questions. There is no general requirement for their use (as in some other countries). Referendums can allow fundamental constitutional questions to be decided by voters, and give legitimacy to major decisions. But they can also carry the risk of increased polarisation, or fail to inform voters adequately about the options.
What is the role of referendums in UK politics?
As part of a new set of explainers published this week, we explore past referendums in the UK, when they are required, and the arguments for and against them.
Read our brand new explainer 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo....
Hmm. Up front concessions / 'entry fee' before starting talks?
Let me remind the capitulationists:
1--you don't make concessions to an unreliable counterparty.
2--I am the wallet inspector; please make donation via DM
3--I would enjoy playing poker with you.
www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
Well, at least the BBC is covering this.
Country flags where age verification is required: Australia, Brazil, Greece & smaller flags where it is being planned.
16 crossed out
🚨Age verification seems to be unstoppable. 🚨
Following the Australian precedence, Greece & Brazil now also passed laws that will require age checks for social media.🇦🇺🇬🇷 🇧🇷
What’s sold as “online safety” means #surveillance. We must fight - or the free web dies!
👉 More: tuta.com/blog/age-ver...
So much of Silicon Valley has reached the conclusion that there is money to be made from American authoritarianism, writes Dave Karpf. With its ‘manifesto,’ Palantir wants to remind you that it reached that conclusion first, he says.
mob boss gonna mob boss
The newsworthy component here may be the apparent graft and sycophancy. But it’s shocking every day anew how much of a narcissist and how childlike the president is. The whole post is about how smart he is and how great it is to flatter him.
Same guy is trying to negotiate himself out of a war!
Illustrating once again the extent to which the Venezuela raid emboldened Trump to engage in further military adventurism.
#NZPol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
The Lib Dem group in the House of Lords is now on Bluesky! Please give @libdempeers.bsky.social a follow, and I've updated my starter pack of Lib Dems on here too: go.bsky.app/CUxDzcc
Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):
NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2
Researchers warn of severe long-term damage to the brain after Covid following new study
January study of essential workers (with blood samples before & after COVID infection) found those with long-term neurological symptoms had higher phosphorylated tau—a protein linked to early brain degeneration
No, as the parties had formally merged in December 2003. I'd consider it more administrative housekeeping.
The oldest known image of Keith Richards, published around 1140 AD ...
Larry Ellison’s TikTok forcing “AI Remixing” onto their entire user base without their knowledge or consent is a really great microcosm of what US tech overlordship looks like — and why the backlash against this technology is only growing.
Probably not before 3:30, after Oral Questions: Education. That will be followed by urgent questions and/ministerial statements if there are any -- that's when he'd deliver his statement. commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/104...
the thing about our current moment is that yes, the anti-AI and anti-big tech people are getting very reactive nowadays - but have you seen what they’re *reacting* to?
I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.
In most European countries you are not even really allowed to record traffic around you (though it is somewhat accepted in reality).
Having your licence plate filmed and registered by other drivers is one thing - but having your face registered by just anyone?
Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...
The author of this article refused to sign an NDA, giving up severance and healthcare benefits to tell this story.
If you didn't read it already, read it.
Because he refused, we may be able to stop the Kennedy Center from being sold for parts and turned into a gaudy MAGA fundraising warehouse.
⚡️ At least 1 killed, child injured in Kyiv shooting as gunman remains inside supermarket.
"A special operation to apprehend the man who opened fire and is currently inside the supermarket is ongoing," Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Trump is acting here as a private citizen while exploiting the office to unofficially coerce govt institutions into giving him and his family obscene amounts of American taxpayer cash.
'Official acts' immunity will therefore not protect him for this brazen corruption.
They should all be jailed.
There were reports that the Palestine Football Association Canadian visas were denied ahead of FIFA Congress on April 30 in Vancouver, BC.
It's more complicated than that. No question on the importance of them being there.
Looked into it with Aloysius Wong for CBC News.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
