Why would the government bail them out?

The government doesn’t bail out retailers. Does Woolworths, Netto, and Wilko not ring a bell?

E: you’re American, so they probably genuinely don’t ring a bell.

The activists brought it up in their defence, though?

Indeed. Unfortunately in the age of abundant air travel and being able to do basically everything online, including remaining in contact with people, it’s not hard to just move out of the UK if you’re super wealthy.

We absolutely can and should tax assets that can’t be moved out of the UK, though, like land. A multi-millionaire can move all kinds of things out of the country, but they cannot take their land with them. Land value would of course go down or stagnate, but I don’t personally see that as a bad thing.

That said, even if you took all billionaire wealth in the UK (while somehow simultaneously preventing a crash in the value of those assets), it’d last months. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution. State spending is £1.2 trillion, a small amount of billionaires aren’t going to plug the gap for long.

There’s no simple solution to the financial situation this country is in.

E: I guess people don’t want solutions, they just want someone who agrees with them.

No? And there’s not one English water firm, there’s a whole bunch of them.

We know policies from their manifesto, and we can look at our dropping fossil fuel usage.

What exactly is this government doing to assist fossil fuels? I can’t think of a single thing.

Hasn’t really went well for them, considering:

• the big expansion in renewable energy projects
• their calls to legalise fracking being denied
• the government upholding their commitment to ban new north sea drilling
• the coal plant in Cumbria being scrapped
• the windfall tax on energy companies going ahead as planned

Womp womp

I’m so happy with the Northumberland line (although I wish it extended further north). So yes, absolutely.

We need proper infrastructure. Rail, bike lanes, road improvements, energy grid improvements, more reservoirs. Everything that has been left to crumble.

It’s ruinously expensive, and they government will (and is!) taking flak for spending, but it’s even more expensive in the long run to do nothing.

Flood protections in this country simply aren’t prepared for the regular extreme weather events we’re now experiencing.

Police complaints being increasingly investigated has been increasingly happening over the years, stemming from the cuts the Tories made.

There isn’t the resources or the expertise in place to properly investigate the complaints or do a thorough job, and the backlog just keeps increasing. In the meantime, officers that are potentially dodgy are still on the job, and public confidence in the police suffers.

Slashing public services and throwing the money to pensioners for votes has been utterly disastrous for us as a country.

Tez Burns and Peter Lay were found guilty of criminal damage and Charles Laurie was found guilty of possession of a hammer with intent to damage property, at their trial in August 2025. Along with 5 others on trial that day they were also acquitted of public nuisance.

Feels like a somewhat misleading title given multiple were found guilty of criminal damage. They received a suspended sentence, which was always likely to be the result (or a large fine). Them being imprisoned wasn’t going to happen.

I imagine most of them won’t have even been trialed yet.

I also imagine it depends on whether they plead guilty to supporting a proscribed group or not, etc.

I imagine it’s not seen as a magic silver bullet that will fix our whole economy, but rather as a bit of help for one specific industry.

E: yes, confirmed:

Ministers are pushing ahead with plans to allow premises that sell alcohol to extend their opening hours in order to boost “the British night out” and help the hospitality sector.

The headline is just misleading.

Prison industrial complex… in the UK? Where we don’t utilise prison Labour, and prison spaces are highly unprofitable?

We aren’t.

We are banning free refills only for high-sugar drinks.

E: why are objective factual statements being suppressed?

I think this when I see the cost of pints, and yet practically every pub I go to is so rammed it’s frequently difficult to find a seat unless you go early. Same with restaurants.

Apparently a lot of people can afford it

One of the few sensible comments I’ve seen in this community.

The left is obsessed with splintering over the slightest little thing. Time and time again it feels like they’d rather be confined to the political wilderness but pat themselves on the back for feeling ideologically pure than accepting compromises but having a real shot at being in a position where they can make positive change.

Bluntly, there has been a lot from the Green party over the years that I really don’t like. From being extremely into NIMBYism (even to the extent where they end up being against green energy developments), some policies (which have now been dropped) that went against gender equality, and some IMO insane and isolationist anti-NATO nonsense at a time when the world is becoming more hostile and militaristic (some of that has been dropped).

But I’d vote for them in a heartbeat if the alternative is the Tory-Reform uniparty. It angers me somewhat that Corbyn and Sultana, alongside the Muslim independents they’ve allied with, are trying to make a new party that only further splits the vote and hands more power to their adversaries who’ve openly become a UK MAGA party. They could’ve joined the Greens and strengthened the left vote, but they instead chose to weaken it.

Fortunate that the government actually seems to care about climate pledges, energy independence, and reforming planning permission in a way that allows for easier building of climate infrastructure.

Conservatives and Reform are absolutely nuts on this issue (and many others tbh).

clamping down on protest

What clamping down on protest? Charging violent thugs in the race riots last year? I wouldn’t count that. Protesting is different to rioting. Charging people for supporting a proscribed group? That’s fair enough. I’ve been to a number of pro Palestine protests, and nothing bad has happened. To the contrary, the government has been cutting ties with Israel and shifting towards Palestine.

population tracking via government issued ID cards

How? I don’t think a right to work check counts as tracking.

implemented draconian internet crackdown laws

Fair enough, the OSA is a bit crap. Unfortunately it has broad support, both from politicians and the public.

and won’t shut up about immigration

Like it or not, that’s what the electorate wants. And he’s here to govern the country, not just Labour supporters.

What happened to all of the good policies

Those have been getting implemented, but you don’t hear it in many headlines.

You will never have a government you agree with on every issue.

Even the government themselves will have to do things they don’t want to do, either for parliamentary, media, or electorate support, or things like fiscal reality. Unfortunate, but that’s the real world.

Politician massages the ego of the world’s most powerful toddler world leader, because it’s a proven effective strategy. More at 11.

Anybody who has a memory beyond that of a goldfish would know that Starmer has been ramping up on domestic and European defence spending in light of Russia’s continued aggression, that our 6th Gen GCAP jet is progressing well (which doesn’t have US involvement), we’ve been signing defensive pacts with various European countries as well as a few in South America, plus Australia, and we declined to join the US and Israel on their strikes on Iran.

The headline is clearly trying to bait readers into thinking we’re taking a subservient position to the US and letting them handle everything. Objective reality is that Starmer has been shifting away from the US for defence, while occasionally giving diplomatic lip service.

I appreciate it’d look ‘based’ if Starmer called Trump a moron on Twitter, but it would do nothing other than damage us economically and diplomatically. I’m glad pragmatism is winning over populism in this case, tbh.

They’re also very happy to just straight up lie or spread conspiracy theories, which I find frustrating.

Even if they cracked a good story, I’d have no idea whether it’s true or not, because they’ve shown themselves to basically be The Express but for Corbyn’s most faithful following.