Alex retweeted
India did pro-capitalist reforms and immediately became richer than sub-Saharan Africa, which they were poorer than until the early 2000s.
It's insane how good capitalism is.
India saw about 496 million people lifted out of poverty between 2011 and 2023 in one of the world’s fastest declines in this metric, the World Bank said, although the gains remain uneven. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Commonwealth voting rights should have ended a long time ago. It is an absurdly illogical historical hangover that cheapens citizenship and democratic legitimacy. It is only reasonable and fair to limit voting rights to citizens of that country.
In a Critic exclusive, @DavidGHFrost explains why he is proposing to end Commonwealth voting rights
thecritic.co.uk/why-im-propo…
Alex retweeted
Growth matters, material wealth matters, GDP matters. Not just for material prosperity, but also for everything else. Push back on degrowthers when they want to deny this.
Alex retweeted
It is difficult to overstate how damning the South African experience is.
It is not an entirely unique experience, insofar as some form of decolonization has taken place across much of the world since WWII, with mixed results. It is also true that, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, most post-colonial states have not fared particularly well.
No other post-colonial state, however, inherited the political institutions, economy, and infrastructure of a highly developed country while also retaining much of the human capital that had built them. (Most white South Africans, after all, did not leave.)
The fact that South Africa is arguably the most striking example in the world today of a country undergoing a process of de-development makes the ANC’s failures all the more damning and inexcusable.
Hitchens' views on drugs are terrible. It is moral grandstanding that he works back from a forgone conclusion. You can believe that people are ultimately responsible for their decisions and that people have willpower and agency to overcome them. Without denying that dependency does exist, and it can be quite hard for some to overcome. This headline is also quite egotistical and crass.
Alex retweeted
We cannot allow digital ID to be introduced through the backdoor in the name of protecting children.
Contact your MP NOW and help spread the word!
#StopTheBan
🚨24 HOURS LEFT to stop "passports for the Internet."
Tomorrow, MPs will debate forcing online identity checks on everyone, just to use social media.
Don't let digital ID in through the backdoor. Use our speedy tool to email your MP now⤵️
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campa…
Alex retweeted
Can’t even get the most minor and even slightly sensible reform over the line. Death wish progressives for the win.
BREAKING: Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to announce legal migration plans tomorrow, in a major government U-turn.
Sky's @JonCraig has the details.
trib.al/Rx0iR33
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
Alex retweeted
The British anti-porn laws are now so broad that millions of people will break them without realising. This means that a phone or laptop searched for any reason may end up with people being put on the sex offenders register for possessing ethical and consensual content
Just reperations with extra steps and a weird fixation in general. For a country already massively in debt, funding other countries services seems quite insane.
🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham is “open” to payouts in health and education for Commonwealth countries to make up for Britain’s role in the slave trade
[@Telegraph]
Alex retweeted
Porn culture is rotten, and excessive porn use is a problem. But—I'm sorry—2 years' imprisonment for choking porn, defined as "applying pressure to another person’s neck," is ridiculous.
It's not "libertarian" or "pro-porn" to call out the UK's obvious authoritarian excesses.
Alex retweeted
This is the best, clearest explanation I've read of what is happening in Poland today.
My people came from Belarus, on the Polish border. I visited in 2016. I have never felt so strongly connected to a country or its people. Warsaw was like home. Godspeed to President Nawrocki.
Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński is explaining what is happening right now at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, calling it nothing less than a COUP D’ÉTAT!
“In Poland, we have a liberal-left government led by Donald Tusk, who is the Prime Minister. What is happening right now with the Constitutional Tribunal is that they want to take it over and fill it with their own people.
Why? Because they want to get rid of the Polish currency, bring us into the eurozone, and eliminate our secure borders. They are being pushed by the Germans, who want to spread the burden of illegal migration and send migrants to Poland.
First of all, the Polish złoty is our constitutionally protected currency. They have to change the Constitution to replace it, and without the Constitutional Tribunal, they cannot do that.
So, number one, they want to get rid of our currency and force us to adopt the euro and join the eurozone. Then they want to take our gold reserves, the largest in the European Union, to Frankfurt, to the European Central Bank, which is a German-based institution.
They also want to open our borders. And they want to make sure that when they lose the next elections, which are coming next year, the Constitutional Tribunal will be unable to do anything to stop their actions or reverse what they have done.
There are many more reasons, but I want you to understand one thing: they are under German influence. They are globalists, and we are fighting not just for Poland, but for Europe.
Be like Poland. Be strong. Our nation is strong, and we are going to win this fight!”
Alex retweeted
Reduction of cigarette smoking in the US was achieved over time, with education, allowing adults to make their own choices with more information.
All achieved without authoritarian police state spying on searching demonizing and imprisoning cigarette smokers.
Alcohol consumption too has been declining. All without imprisoning and demonizing beer drinkers.
The Cobra Effect and the End of the Age of Cigarettes
In colonial India, the British offered rewards for dead cobras to reduce deaths. So enterprising Indians bred cobras to make money. So the colonial government canceled the program. So breeders released the now-worthless cobras and bites increased.
medium.com/@tchad49/cobra-ef…
Socialist slop. The government should not be nationalising failing businesses. It should be promoting free enterprise and creating the conditions for them to thrive.
If what’s happening to Poundland was happening to Waitrose, Fraser and the Tory Party would be in Parliament Square with pitchforks.
They just don’t get it.
12,000 jobs are at stake. 600 stores.
I have received hundreds of messages from angry and scared workers.
And *there is an offer* on the table. Poundland doesn’t have to go under.
The Government should be doing everything it can to keep Poundland alive.
Alex retweeted
Excellent article by @TomTugendhat. Slowly the outrage of the slavery reparations shakedown is being exposed. Argument by argument the case is being won.
Alex retweeted
Excellent 🧵
Alex retweeted
TL;DR: it makes everything worse. You get poorer, the state gets bigger, and those contributing least are rewarded with more for doing even less.
Details of what’s coming in Burnham’s 10-year plan in our read this weekend
:: Current draft is dozens of pages and due to be published in mid-December
:: Promises grouped into three: “Growing up”, “getting on” and “growing old”
:: Childhood, life opportunities, AI, pensions, care services all addressed
:: Clearest answer yet on what “public control” of utilities means is in there
:: Each policy area will have layered promises for now, soon, long term
:: Eg energy. 2026 VAT off, 2027 gas standing charges go, 2028 electricity…
:: A big chunk is on “out of control” arms-length bodies and regulators
:: Will be relentlessly domestic in focus - attempts to keep out foreign policy stuff
:: A tiny number of trusted civil servants are working on the plan, secrecy tight
:: Doc will tell Treasury what’s not a priority ie can be cut in spending review
Of course 6 weeks of drafting to come so things may change, that’s current status
Full unpacking here, with lots of tidbits on the current Whitehall spending rows:
thetimes.com/article/d341fdf…
Alex retweeted
Quick thread on AI and productivity:
Lots of people say this chart shows AI is now showing up in the productivity data.
But I made this chart to argue the opposite: a trend that pre-dates AI and only shows up in the US doesn’t look like AI.
Here’s how I’m thinking about the data and underlying dynamics:
Alex retweeted
Sorry, I can't stop sharing these. StarTrek.com has just posted their Patrick Stewart Memorial video to YouTube. It's short but touching.
youtube.com/watch?v=1tkWJZe8…
There is no way to enforce this without implementing ID checks on every user. It should be the parent's responsibility, not the state
What should the minimum age for social media be?
Parliament wants young people online to be protected more effectively, from tackling addictive design to greater transparency around algorithms and more ➡️ link.europa.eu/7x684R
16%13
16%16
9%18
59%No minimum age
18,910 votes • 23 minutes Alex retweeted
Everyone secretly knows this is true. Importantly, highways signs often DON'T make places safer. A lack of signs and narrow streets with street trees and blind corners can be much more effective than a blizzard of stripes and signs at slowing down cars and making places feel safe and be humane places in which to live.
I posted a picture of my parent's village where the residents have managed to keep it free of road markings. I use it as a visual example of how overladen we are with bureaucracy that makes people's lives worse, in the name of making it better. It's very hard to argue against any regulation supposedly based on safety or performance that are used as a universal trump card to create an arms race of rules and our built environment is now full of them. ht @Alright_dot for the render with signage. Original on the right.
