[The Weeping Angel]

Seems like Reeves is going to approve the third runway at Heathrow. I've supported that in the past, and probably defensible now. The point isn't to fill it up with new flights necessarily but to make Heathrow into a proper international hub airport with all the advantages that brings. But the benefits will be slow burning, and the political hit very fast indeed. In my more pessimistic moments I think this is a government that may do many good things but won't get many votes.

Get ready for the government to be accused of climate genocide.

[kreuzberger]

Rowing back on 28bn quids' worth of climate-positive policy and expanding an already huge airport is unlikely to win them Hippy-of-the-Year accolades.

LHR is the 4th busiest airport in the universe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... er_traffic), despite the obvious temptation to avoid it whenever possible.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's incredible that Heathrow squeezes that into 2 runways. It's already second in the world for international flights. Amsterdam and Paris are also high and presumably Heathrow could take a fair bit of business off those if the experience were better. I don't know how you'd account for that in terms of carbon. Just like offshoring manufacturing to China is taken into account via consumption based calculations, maybe the emissions of passengers transiting via a hub are allocated to the countries of the passengers. Maybe this is what Reeves has in mind.

What's harder for me to understand is expanding Luton and Gatwick as well. Particularly Gatwick which isn't very convenient for most of the country. Or indeed for London, and a sodding nuisance for everyone else who uses the Brighton Mainline.

[Tubby Isaacs]

And Reeves has duly given a shit answer at Davos to the obvious question about whether there's a conflict with climate policy here. It's possible to argue that this will help growth and increase investment for climate investment, though people will query that. But what you don't do is hand the Guardian an easy "fuck climate, this is business" headline.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't really get this point. If some Trumper was arguing that the latest gun spree wasn't terrorism, I think we'd see that as whitewashing. I think "I'm going to kill as many as I can because I'm a fucking arsehole" is political in some sense, directed at the wider public if not at the state. I'd distinguish that from somebody that's attacking for personal reasons. I'm happy with the definition to look at cases like Southport.

Don't get the glamorizing point really. "I thought I was just a murdering scumbag, but now I know I'm a terorist".

Ken Macdonald KC, the former director of public prosecutions, who set up the Crown Prosecution Service’s counter-terrorism division, warned about possible risks in expanding the current definition of terrorism as “crime that is politically motivated and all the more serious because it is ideological and directed at the state itself”.

He said: “Broadening this out to include anyone who intends their crime to ‘terrorise’, which could include many forms of violent conduct, would obviously risk bestowing some self-sense of perverted glamour on the sort of individuals who, without political or ideological motivation, contemplate such behaviour.

“So any new definition would have to be very carefully drawn to restrict itself to the most egregious cases, closely analogous in preparation and targeting to those presently considered ‘terrorist’. This will not be easy.”

[The Weeping Angel]

And Reeves has duly given a shit answer at Davos to the obvious question about whether there's a conflict with climate policy here. It's possible to argue that this will help growth and increase investment for climate investment, though people will query that. But what you don't do is hand the Guardian an easy "fuck climate, this is business" headline.

Over on the Labour's Future facebook group one of the contributers (Phil Woodford) who likes to attack the government for anti-growth such as national insurance rises and how they need to be more pro-growth has now attacked the third runway on environmental grounds.

[The Weeping Angel]

Cory Doctorow's not happy and claims Starmer's sold us out to Amazon

[The Weeping Angel]

https://bsky.app/profile/jwsidders.bsky ... ee3cxjec24

Dear Labour government,
This is the centre-left’s last chance in the UK. Mess up and you let in the Trumpist right and the illiberal democracy it will create to ensure it never loses again. Please, please understand this and act accordingly.
Yours truly,
A concerned centre-let voter.

No pressure then.

[Crabcakes]

I think not taking the EU offer of a common customs area is a mistake, but as mentioned the “at this present time” is at least a sign things may change.

There are 4-odd years of this parliament left. Take the hit from the whining arseholes now, and let people feel the benefit in their bank balances and wage packets well before the next election.

What I really hope is that they’re not waiting for Trump to fuck up to give cover for closer EU ties - it should be promoted as the obviously better option that the majority are now in favour of, not Plan B because a maniac is in the White House.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... itics-news

[Youngian]

let people feel the benefit in their bank balances and wage packets well before the next election.

A wiser person than me a few years back argued not to go back to Europe in a state of economic despair like the early 70s. A good economic performance will be magnified and arrive as a confident player in this geopolitical project
And it's time to start telling the public that's what the EU is not just a fucking market.
Hope Starmer like Neville Chamberlain is hoping for the best and planning for the worst with Trump but he doesn't want to look like Chamberlain for all the wrong reasons.

[Bones McCoy]

I like Doctorow's work and I'm disappointed with areas of Starmer's lack of ambition.

Amazon's Monopoly and Monopsomy are a concern.
They fit in well with Doctorow's latest Chokepoint Capitalism work.

But several things here.

1. Amazon aren't the only monopolists, and none have been effectively dealt with.
Our anti-monopoly protections, like so many commerce laws, are designed for an age where people bought "stuff".
This stuff came from relatively few-step supply chains, close to the manufacturer.

2. Amazon do have some technological lead, which sets them apart from Twitter or Facebook.
AWS is a market leader in cloud and virtualisation, it works and scales well.
It also eliminates a lot of guff associated with hosting computers in your own business.
Having made a career in computer hosting and datacentre architecture, I realise that whole business model is dead.
There was a time when there was no alternative to sticking your business computers into a converted office.
Now, the same can be accomplished with a few clicks and a (relatively affordable) direct debit.

3. Operation Gazelle isn't even the worst of it.
Leaks from Bezos discussing his nuclear bunker security with consultants are utterly horrifying.
His solution to "who guards the guards" was allegedly lethal powered shock collars.
M.A.C.

4. But the "stopping the monopolies" game is over and done.
Twenty years ago this might have been viable.
Alone, without the support of our European trade block, we have little weight.


Much as I dislike the personnel changes discussed, I don't think this is viable battle.

I would prefer to see our energies going into Leveson N - where N finishes the job with the print press, then moves to address digital media.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It may or may not be a good appointment, but it's not "control over the British economy". Somebody working for Amazon doesn't mean they're forever answerable to Jeff Bezos. That's a stupid point. The issue with Amazon isn't that it's a monopoly because it isn't, it's that its treatment of staff is bad, and that's nothing to do with the CMA Chairman. As with any sorts of regulation, virtually nobody has any idea what they're talking about. See for instance every time Big Bang is mentioned- it's like Mrs Thatcher took some sort of brilliant system and fucked it up. In fact, the Office of Fair Trading had in 1978 called time on the earlier bizarre system of jobbers and brokers, which was carved up between some not always industrious public schoolboys.

As for this customs union thing, see where it goes. Sounds promising, but has the commissioner really agreed it with the nation state ministers (which include some Putin boneheads)? We've heard a lot about that young persons freedom of movement thing, but is that even an EU competency?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Encouraging thread here about resettling Syrians. No more than should be done of course, but they are getting on with what Sunak-Bozo-Truss weren't doing.

https://bsky.app/profile/maybulman.bsky ... gau3mdqc2v

May Bulman
‪@maybulman.bsky.social‬

Follow
Some rare good news re UK immigration policy that I thought worth sharing

100s of refugee families who were accepted for UK resettlement but had been waiting years for relocation have finally arrived in Britain in the last yr, as the new govt has been quietly prioritising their cases

Short thread

[Abernathy]

Davos, and I admit to being a little bit puzzled about Nick Thomas-Symonds’ somewhat negative attitude to the prospect of the UK becoming part of a brand-new pan-European customs union. Okay, so he’s not ruling it out off the bat, but you’d think it’s something that we should at the very least be considering.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025 ... toms-union

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I would like to see us embrace that with open arms...

[Abernathy]

Moi aussi.

[Youngian]

Call it a NATO of trade to help out the hard of thinking. The government could also commission an enquiry to audit trade policy since leaving the EU. As it knows the answers already.

[Tubby Isaacs]

it's much wider than the EU customs union plus Turkey. It's got Morocco, Moldova plus Norway etc. So I assume it's not particularly deep. I wonder if some of the excited coverage reflects that.

[Crabcakes]

I’m wondering if the wording was carefully chosen to guage reaction? So far, all seems positive and Farage etc. seem more focused on being hurt at Trump snubbing them (nothing proves who’s really on his speed dial than Boris getting an inauguration invite and none of the fawning mob getting a sniff).

I really, really hope they do it and do it ASAP. There’s no downside other than the inevitable bitching from people who would be bitching regardless, and U.K. businesses need this.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour seems to be negotiating with Lib Dem Roz Savage who's put forward a private members bill on nature/development. People whose judgement I trust on this stuff reckon it's a nimby charter, but it would sound very bad for Labour to be against it. Savage is MP for South Cotswolds, so it wouldn't exactly be out of character for her party or lots of her electorate to be putting forward a nimby charter. It wished to presume in favour of small energy projects and against big ones, which sounds like a recipe for not installing enough solar and wind. "Community energy" is Lib Dem-Green Party bollocks if ever I've heard it. Ed Davey was a fairly good energy secretary, he must know this stuff is bollocks.

Hope Labour can either negotiate this stuff out of it or kill it when politically more convenient.