It always seemed weird to me that most companies just discontinued their traditional sugary variety and went diet only, instead of having a diet version and the sugary version just at a higher price.
The death of original Irn Bru is a bit of a tragedy, and I'm not even sure what the point of low sugar Lucozade is supposed to be.
That'd be a turn up for the books; usually it's the student who gets shafted by the Tories, not the other way around.
This feels like something you should go tell Google about rather than the rest of us. They're the ones who have embedded LLM-generated answers to random search queries.
I am completely satisfied with the idea that all doctors should be career doctors who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of medicine.
I am not entirely as satisfied with the idea that all politicians should be career politicians who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of politics.
Parliament would be a much richer and more effective place if it were populated by people from a range of backgrounds and specialisms. I don't think it's a good thing that a sizeable fraction of them all studied the same politics degree at the same two universities.
Old article, recently reposted on The Other Place, but a good long read.
I'm no fan of Wes Streeting, but the Canary is trash and is doing its usual of selectively quoting.
We will go further than New Labour ever did. I want the NHS to form partnerships with the private sector that goes beyond just hospitals. Here’s one example. High street opticians have the staff and equipment to provide basic tests. Meanwhile 220,000 patients have been waiting more than 18 weeks for eye care. Specsavers have welcomed Labour’s plan to use high street opticians to cut waiting lists, saying they stand ready to help.
Personally I'm not enormously bothered about high street opticians taking NHS appointments (within their competency). This is essentially the same model that GPs and dentists already follow (and always have done).
There's plenty to be guarded about, but let's not catastrophise based on half-quoted electioneering material.
Realistically, they could just move their servers abroad to a country with less problematic copyright rules and wind up their US operations. It would make no difference to the end user, unless ISPs are also ordered to block access. And even then it'd only be a VPN away.
The risk of total data loss is not zero, but it's also not the likely outcome.
Oh yeah, I'll just tell my wife that we're never having sex again because we've now got enough kids. I'm sure this will be a healthy and emotionally viable way of strengthening our relationship over the next 30 years or so until the menopause.
That'd be the same Green Party who oppose nuclear energy, whose local politicians oppose solar farms due to NIMBY issues, who opposed HS2...
They talk a good talk, and they've got the branding down, but their actual track record on genuine environmental policies is pretty blotchy.
As a trade union official myself, I'd just like to say that that is some seriously good shit. It's practically a wishlist of all the things I feel would make my job of representing people in distress easier.
I know Unite are critical, but other unions are less so. I'd suggest that Unite's criticisms are more about the strength of the pledges (i.e. how committed Labour are to implementing this stuff quickly) rather than the content of what's being promised. While they could always go further, this is nonetheless a really solid set of reforms.
If anyone is wondering, these aren't (really) new pledges, they're just a voter-friendly glossy repackaging of material that they've already published in greater detail elsewhere. So for anyone saying "this is all so vague, what does it all mean?", you can dive into the full detail at the links below.
The website for all their policies is here:
https://labour.org.uk/missions/
The high-level mini-manifesto is here:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lets-Get-Britains-Future-Back.pdf
There are specific policy packs on each of their areas too.
The economy:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Mission-Economy.pdf
Energy:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Make-Britain-a-Clean-Energy-Superpower.pdf
NHS and related:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mission-Public-Services.pdf
Crime:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Mission-Safety.pdf
Education and related:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Mission-breaking-down-barriers.pdf
I think everything in these new "pledges" was already in the policy documents above with the possible exception of the "Border Security Command" thing, which is compatible with what they already announced but with a different name and a slightly different spin. That was announced properly last week, and the press release for it with a bit more detail is here:
https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/labours-immigration-and-border-policy-stop-small-boats/
Why not both?