punkacademic

This. It goes to the whole range of issues of course.

Reminiscent of the oft-repeated Brecht quote - Labour would 'dissolve the people and elect another'.

Unfortunately the billionaire funded online radicalisation of white people in the UK is growing and instead of getting to the root cause that endangers us all we’re being told they have legitimate concerns and government trying to give them what they want with every policy announcement

When it comes to intimidating racist protests including outside our homes or place of worship, Black and Asian people are supposed to just accept it and the government saying “we hear you” and “it is right to protest this” and “I love flags me”. No thought of “cumulative impact” for us!

Remember when the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy was treated as ridiculous hyperbole

Syed once wrote a whole book where it was clear he didn't understand correlation v causation, was clear he didn't care to, got called out for it, got very upset and...

Big backer of Tony Blair, who in turn is a big backer of digital ID in the UK.

None of this is 'in secret', they are all quite public about what they want.

A trite thought, but on all the AI magic bullshit flying round...

...it's Sunday. I sat down and read a few pages of Marc Bloch, just because. I reckon it was a more worthwhile use of my time.

Basically just read books. You will know things and critique things. Don't outsource your mind.

What an incredible finish from St Helens.

ICE Warden Put Transgender Detainees into Forced Labor Program: Complaint A federal complaint accuses the warden of creating an ad hoc work program used to demean trans detainees.

ICE is doing forced labor and sexual assault of transgender people in their detention centers, reads a new complaint.

Anyway TL;DR the whole point rhetorical or real is to give the government another tool to mark people out as 'different' and if you're cool with that then I'd suggest you think again.

Anyone who has ever said 'but they can't do that! to a victim of oppression in the UK has almost certainly never tried asserting or defending their supposed 'rights' under the law.

/13

Saying 'but Europeans have them!' ignores the contexts in which they operate. I wouldn't want them in any circumstances, but it's worth bearing in mind that in many European countries they exist within the context of constitutional settlements that are, ahem, less 'malleable' than the UK

/12

Giving Starmer's government more power and being blasé about it because it doesn't affect you and contrarian because This Sounds Clever ('you have a phone in your pocket!') isn't the act of a 'liberal', and I'm no liberal, or centrist.

/11

In one sense, Trump and Starmer are very alike and perhaps this is their much-vaunted connection. It's trite and prosaic really. They are charlatans who will say and do whatever they think they need to to gain power and status.

/10

So essentially in power they are more of a centrist party than a liberal one.

Starmer for his part doesn't seem to have any principles beyond a vacuous centrism which in practice amounts to a technocratic authoritarianism powered by venture capital and private equity.

/9

The LD digression is just to illustrate there isn't a solidly liberal party political formation in the UK. They'd probably vote against ID cards out of office but if they were the price of coalition swallow them, going on prior behaviour.

/8

Even in opposition, lest we forget, when the rubber met the road recently on the criminalisation of non-violent direct action, LS spoke against it & then voted for it, justifying themselves on the specious grounds that they 'had' to vote for it because the government put other groups on the list /7

Security Sensitive Evidence in Courts votes for Edward Davey Analysis and data on voting in the UK’s Parliaments

Davey for instance has consistently voted against ID cards. But that was in opposition.

In office he and the vast majority of his fellow LD MPs voted for secret courts which saw senior LD figures resign on the floor of conference.

votes.theyworkforyou.com/person/10155...

/6

The thing is, even that should give you pause though, since a Bad Person (as you see it) could be in charge at any point.

The LDs will, presumably, oppose ID cards on principle. However, their commitment to civil liberties tends to be better in opposition than government (see secret courts)

/5

Liberals are suspicious, or again should be, of the state and what it can do given more power.

Centrists often see themselves as technocrats and thus have an uncritical view of much of the state, preferring to think that when it does bad things it's because a Bad Person is in charge.

/4

This is one of the divides, or should be, between liberalism and centrism. Centrism often masquerades as liberalism to lend itself intellectual respectability, but it's a hard ideology now that masquerades as a pragmatic approach.

Liberals absolutely SHOULD oppose ID cards.

/3

The ID card complacency is basically just another way of saying you have some sort of privilege - you're not global majority, you're not disabled, you're not gender diverse.

Basically you're not someone the government is currently hunting, or, in the case of some, you don't *think* you are.

/2

People saying 'ID cards won't change anything'

They absolutely will.

They will be something you will be asked to produce to access services, tied to a database, at a time when the UK government is selling the country out to US techbros who are obsessed with eugenics and who hate trans folk.

/1

Sure, let’s collate every member of the public’s personal and private information into one giant database right before handing whole swathes of the state over to multinational corporations using an emergent technology with numerous security issues

A short thread on digital ID (cards) just to bear in mind. There are a few myths that I keep hearing about this idea that need clarifying/debunking. 1/10

This. It is the 'bureaucratic' middle-managerial, HR department elimination of trans folk. It is horrific and so very British.

Thing is, I don't think it is 'unthinking'.

This is who Robinson is, it's what he believes, and he ventriloquizes an imagined 'people' to validate it.

He was a thoroughly horrible piece of work when I worked in Parliament 20 years ago, so to me at least it is no surprise.

Thing is, I don't think it is 'unthinking'.

This is who Robinson is, it's what he believes, and he ventriloquizes an imagined 'people' to validate it.

He was a thoroughly horrible piece of work when I worked in Parliament 20 years ago, so to me at least it is no surprise.

Glad someone of stature has called it out. Moyes could do worse than go all-in on the ref now. It is a ridiculous state of affairs to the point where the PL is starting to look like a scripted drama rather than a sport.

Right. My students working two part time jobs and/or having an hour and a half commute to uni because they have to live at home due to the cost of student accommodation lack drive and vigour. Sure thing, Peter. The UK Govt still haven't a clue about the realities of universities today.