I’m staggered to see some people actually accepting that this really happened on Lemmy. Usually it’s a bit of a forbidden topic.

There’s a strong tankie presence on this platform and on this community.

The idea that China, and oftentimes even Russia, do anything wrong is often met with scepticism and aggression.

I’m surprised anybody thought it could be.

Guys, it is literally just a small form factor PC (with a couple of console QoL additions like waking from controller support and HDMI CEC). It’s an open platform.

If Valve sold it at a loss, offices and governments would buy them up and reimage them with Windows.

Sony and MS can only get away with making a loss because the closed platform guarantees they make money back on game sales.

Part of the reason the PS3 got more locked down after release is that governments, researchers, and companies openly talked about buying them and running custom software on it, because the hardware was so subsidised.

That said, this is a low end device for 2026, make no mistakes of that. If Valve want to, they can sell this for $500. Perhaps even lower if they’re fine with razor thin margins.

Remember that this thing’s price needs to be justifiable not only now, but also in 2 years or so when vastly more powerful consoles come out.

A really nice move.

This legislation also looks at limiting ticket fees retailers can charge.

I’m sure people will complain because it won’t be 100% effective and that therefore makes this useless, but that’s daft, using that logic we shouldn’t bother with any laws, as they can all be broken. We shouldn’t just do nothing because a solution isn’t flawless.

In the background, the CMA is also currently investigating Ticketmaster for their surge pricing shenanigans. Fingers crossed they rule in a way that puts people first (and if they don’t, politicians update the law with surge pricing algorithms in mind).

Good moves are being made here.

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.