Westministenders: Where's my milk and cheese?

[RedToothBrush]

The 'smooth' exit from transition now leads to a million and one little things that you can't get hold of or took completely for granted.

Why is sainsbury in NI selling spa milk? Why can't you get hold of your favourite food stuff?

Its a slow strangulation of the country.

In which you get to learn all about the merits of the EU and what a donkey Johnson really is.

I think it cost me about £150 last time per passport.

This is huge!

Finally online media and information sources begin to be recognised as subject to the same responsibilities as offline. Hopefully the era of magic box is coming to an end, although it will be missed in some ways.

2021 says to 2020 "hold my beer"...

I was also hoping that someone in our military would stay alert in the East. Of course there is room for opportunists, both those considered justified and those not. This was interesting www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-storming-capitol-hill-will-not-end-american-exceptionalism

And this has just shown up as the main headline on that same website (didn’t refresh it). www.middleeasteye.net/news/hezbollah-nasrallah-trump-nuclear-codes-crazy-fool

Trump hasn’t just destabilised America.

Trump now banned from Twitter permanently ( and Facebook). Yay!

@Sostenueto

Trump now banned from Twitter permanently ( and Facebook). Yay!

Hmm yes and no.

There is a problem with the power of the social media giants and how its unaccountable and how censorship is not in anyway consistent.

They never banned Trump before because they didn't want him to inhibit their poeer whilst he was in office.

Now hes going they are sucking up to the democrats for the same reason.

Its effectly lobbying for favour and to maintain no regulation or oversight rather than having any credibility.

There are lots of people who are banned from twitter for ridiculous reasons who have a reason for making a point and are effectively disenfranchised with out recourse or a transparency of an independent appeals process.

The power of the social media giants does need looking at because they are actively encouraging and enabling propaganda and misinformation to dominate over fact. Their echo chambers are fuelling division and radicalisation of all types and political persuasions rather than encouraging and challenging people to properly hear counter arguments and become accurately informed.

None of this is good and the banning of trump now is a bit fucking late in many respects. Weve ended up in this dangerous predicament because trump used these very things to his advantage.

Banning trump doesn't stop these underlying flaws. It just means the democrats will leave twitter alone. At least for a while.

There are quite a bit of discussion in France along those lines red.

Mainly how is that ok for a private company to decide what is ok or not and to then limit freedom of speech.

We need rules. Quickly

Are they limiting free speech, or as they say, deselecting that which is inciting insurrection and violence? It would be good to see professional standards of journalism return.

Although I agree with Red, it’s more to do with power and money than anything. More charitably, what is now allowed in the changing times.

Well put that way........

Surely they have an easy argument to use re the censorship/free speech issue, which is their terms of use, precisely because they are private companies?
But DT has been flouting those terms for years, retweeting racist posts and posts that can be seen as incitement to hatred.

I agree that they are partly noting which side their bread is buttered now. But I saw a reference somewhere to Twitter staff demanding action be taken after FB had banned him and putting pressure on management. Don't know whether that's true: if so it suggests another (not incompatible) dimension to the ban.

I think that is exactly the discussion TonMoulin was talking about, that these things are too important to be left to private companies, especially the bigger they get. That image of lower staff putting pressure on remote management reminds me of old conflicts between professional people who know something, and the remote and largely irrelevant money bags, who don’t. It’s time to get rid of this insane idea that money is automatically better suited to all public-decision making than people who have the knowledge and training. Put like that I really don’t know how it got going on the first place!

It is also a good time to become more aware of values in different cultures perhaps, and what should count as free speech. Red alluded to the issues women have faced. European women will not now or ever throw ourselves under these patriarchal yokes that have become the norm in the Middle East (which weren’t always so there either, as can still be seen in pockets).

Further erosion of democracy and parliamentary sovereignty....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-committee-jacob-rees-mogg-eu-trade-deal-b1784512.html

@mrslaughan - Further erosion of democracy and parliamentary sovereignty....

That is shocking.

That is the standard we expect from Rees-Mogg and Johnson, from the party that liked to think it was the party of law and order. Just imagine if a Labour Government had done the same.

pmk.

That is shocking.
The paths of Brexit and Trump are now diverging, in that one is “done” and ended, and the other is done and “ended”. The difference is that the two populist revolutions are now firmly on their own trajectories, Trump’s destabilised and hopefully diverted by his own traitorous madness, but our own still chugging along because its devastating effects have not yet become apparent to enough people, because people are not politically aware and because of the diversion afforded by the virus. I’m more worried about the UK than the USA at this point, and not just because I live here.

I agree that they are partly noting which side their bread is buttered now.

I watched the bans spread yesterday and it seemed that it was a combination of Trump's imminent loss of the bully pulpit, and safety in numbers. Even a platform as large as Twitter could not easily survive a standalone decision to ban the president. Wednesday gave everyone the easily defensible motive they needed, and then the floodgates opened - in the space of 24 hours, the tables were turned and allowing insurrectionist speech became the exception not the norm.

in that one is “done” and ended, and the other is done and “ended”

This is very clever and true

Some thoughts on trump/twitter (not my thoughts, but I have synthesised them here):

• In the abstract, much better "private capital" can deplatform than government can force it to be a propaganda conduit.
• Practically, he has a 24/7 live-streaming in-house studio that he can use to communicate with his citizens.

I see that deliveries of the Moderna vaccine to the EU will commence next week, but that UK won't receive deliveries until April. The Times today is very vague about the reason for the timing ("How the EU got ahead is unclear", "EU jumps queue"), but I assume that it may be because UK declined to participate in the EU procurement scheme - does anyone know if that is correct?

The Brexit blog is as ever a good, thoughtful summary of where we are.

As to the Successes of Brexit, like the tampon tax, it can be seen that it's not clear cut. Other claims are outright lies.

For the Moderna vaccine - I expect the Brexiters will go very quiet on this. Although the Express will try the EU bullying us story, no doubt.

Tbh - this actually upset me the most.... I think because they disbanding of a select commis the sort of thing we have come to expect..... but this has such huge ramifications for the environment abs planet and further generations....plus I keep bees , and just live them

twitter.com/peterstefanovi2/status/1347844717845868546?s=21

mrslaughan - this is one of the reasons why they were so desperate to get out of the EU. No doubt Johnson will try to parade his climate credentials at the summit in the summer though.

At the moment, I feel they are evil, but how do we protest effectively?