Labour chose to take this particular stance today. There are many other approaches they could have taken, they could have also tried to dodge the matter and kick they can down the road, but instead “trans women are not women” is what they have chosen to actively embrace.

(Further) pandering to the transphobic lobby is not necessary, and what’s been said today is far beyond pandering.

They could have announced they would look to introduce new legislation to address this. They could have said just about anything instead of what’s been said today.

But they didn’t, they are instead parroting the court ruling as if it’s a final settlement on the issue as whole.

There is no weaselling around these words, the only debate is whether it exposes cowardice or bigotry.

Even by the low standards I had for Labour’s approach, this is depressing.

Already happening sadly, and not by accident either. It’s not just about rolling back trans rights, it’s about dragging us back to narrow and restrictive ideas of sex and gender in general.

Getting employers to do so will probably require improved labour laws and investment, which doesn’t look forthcoming yet.

Instead I fear we will end up with some more unbinding guidelines employers will ignore, and then those who still cannot find work will have the rug pulled from them with the cuts.

It will be counterproductive in a lot of cases, if the ultimate goal is to get people back into work.

There’s a lot of areas of the country unfortunately where not being able to drive makes it very hard or near impossible to find work. It could also affect any of the sanctioned person’s dependents in a similar way.

Keir Starmer’s full statement is available on the GOV.UK website here.

I was told the future would be all flying cars and food in pills.

But instead it’s industrial pollution and bloodletting.

The official AI Opportunities Action Plan has been published on gov.uk which may be worth a read.

Encouraging the greater development of the UK’s tech sector generally is a good thing. But having “unleashed AI” as the foundation for that doesn’t sound the best idea.

We desperately need to improve productivity, but I’m not convinced that going all in on AI is a great bet. The tech is still in its infancy and currently very unreliable. Letting it loose in places like the NHS sounds like a recipe for disaster.

By all means open doors for research, but I don’t think this tech is ready for critical implementations yet. We’d get more reliable productivity gains by investing in upskilling workers instead.

Or we could make less rubbish to begin with. We wouldn’t need to burn or bury it then.

The Wisbech incinerator has been dragging in for years. Before Wisbech there was a plan to build a similar plant in nearby King’s Lynn, but that was rejected after immense local pressure.

I can’t see building 40 plus more of them around the country going down well.

But this is flatly untrue. There are laws requiring local authorities to take this into account and they can compel developers to contribute either financially or in-kind.

There have been multiple developments in my own area where the initial proposals included service provisions alongside major housing. But for each one the infrastructure commitments get dropped but the houses go up anyway.

We may well have laws on the books that are supposed to address this, but they do not seem to be working.

What causes the problems with doctor’s surgeries is not new developments but austerity, which is why it’s a problem everywhere.

I agree austerity is also a problem, and it has to be addressed to make provision for community infrastructure.

We must have a carrot and stick approach to this issue. It’s not unreasonable for people to object to their communities being turned into giant dormitories. If they can’t make that heard at local planning committees they will make it heard at the ballot box. Labour’s reforms will do no good if they are all undone in a backlash at the next election.

Whatever the underlying reasons, service infrastructure must be delivered alongside housing commitments. It’s the only way to ensure this shift will be politically sustainable. I am not convinced that only increasing housing supply will itself attract infrastructure development later. It’s not really doing so in my own community.

Several Leave voter’s I know said they voted that way for “change” or to “shake things up”, not out of any particular or more definable political reason. I think it’s part of the broader disillusionment with politics, or politics at usual, that’s become so pervasive.

They don’t evaluate the potential consequences because they don’t trust the establishment explaining them. They’d rather roll the dice on the unknown, because all they think they do know is the current normality hasn’t been working for them.

I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable. “Infrastructure” in terms of discussing housing developments tends to mean roads, doctors surgeries, shops etc. The things that don’t seem to get built (despite promises) when both green and brownfield sites get cleared and blanketed in suburbs.

There are always some who so deeply NIMBYish that they will oppose anything and everything for the sake of it, and there will never be any appeasing them. But the most common real complaint I hear about new housing is the lack of new services to keep up with the increasing population. If Labour could finally make those kinds of infrastructure commitments really stick to new housing projects I think a lot of NIMBYness would subside.

Most people don’t object to having a few more neighbours, but they do object to feeling they have to fight them for a GP appointment.

It’s an interesting poll but I think a lot hinges on how people interpret those ideologies. They may be hone lost popular but there’s probably a lot of differing and conflicting views on what environmentalism and feminism actually are.

There’s a few curious data points there too. Like libertarianism being more popular among Green and Labour votes, and 1 point less among Reform compared to Conservatives.

Power costs vary a lot around the world, depending on where OP lives every little saving can help.

I expect (at least) one party will eventually adopt Rejoin as a distinguishing policy, and maybe sooner rather later.

But the appetite for Rejoin will probably depend on the shape of the UK economy and the political direction of the EU in 10+ years. If the Starmer project really has been delivering tangible growth by then, people may feel Brexit has (inadvertently) “worked” in the end. If the EU achieves greater and greater integration in the UK’s absence it may seem less palatable to enough voters.

Both of those are also going to be influenced by external factors like the direction of a possible Trump second term, the outcome of the war in Ukraine etc.

So I’ve heard they have already switched eBay in Germany to this no-fee system. It proved more profitable for eBay because private sellers who accrue an eBay balance from sales were in turn more likely to spend it on eBay.