kickingk74.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

This looks like an brilliant idea! Household items/equipment to loan from the local library. #Beeston #Broxtowe #WasteLess www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Appeal Court very slightly reduces sentences on some of the 16 peaceful climate protesters, jailed for total of 41 years. This isn’t justice. People desperate for climate action to save lives treated like organised criminals, while big oil & gas get away with ecocide @defendourjuries.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 16 comments

Good article. While it looks like govt is flip flopping left & right, pleasing no-one, Dunt detects a pattern of principles & restraint. Unfortunately these are not vote winners - the country voted for & needs change! In such circs govt needs strong comms & a narrative but its comms are terrible!

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Save this for whenever you see a poll and pass it on www.britishpollingcouncil.org/opinion-poll...

submitted 4 days ago • 4 comments

Widespread media coverage about a recent study suggested over half of Gen Z want the UK to be run by a dictator. But our research suggests it's more like only 6% who hold this view in reality. @bobbyduffy.bsky.social & @pmorini.bsky.social explain why this matters for @uk.theconversation.com ⬇️ 🧵

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

The mad merry-go-round of spending on stop-gap accommodation for homeless. Up 80% in a year. Huge waste of money that isn’t fixing the problem. New report out from LSE and @crisis-uk.bsky.social reported in @financialtimes.com w @amyborrett.ft.com @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social on.ft.com/43d3q9U

submitted 13 days ago • 6 comments

Important thread on investigations into various sanctions against Russia. Basically, they are a charade. A few have symbolic value I guess (but who for?). Depressing.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

April is looking v scary with the energy price cap increasing by 6.4%, and a huge suite of other bills about to increase too: water council tax, social rents. Private rents are also still soaring (up ~9% on last year). All the while benefits are only increasing by 1.7% and LHA stays frozen Dire

submitted 13 days ago • 4 comments

I should be doing something else but I'm fascinated that the Social Market Foundation just cannot leave low birthrates alone. Have read this short but interesting publication this morning and am struck by 3 things www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/u...

submitted 18 days ago • 3 comments

Music should be for everyone but is it becoming a luxury only the rich can afford? Shocking stat: 25% of Youth Music-funded projects are at risk due to funding cuts. That’s one in four spaces where young people could have discovered their creative voice or music-loving social circle is under threat

submitted 21 days ago • 5 comments

BBC just released damning research on AI assistants' news accuracy. Results: 51% of AI responses had significant issues. 19% introduced errors when citing BBC. 13% misquoted or made up BBC content entirely. 🤐🤐 www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/... via @ezraeeman.bsky.social

submitted 27 days ago • 59 comments

Wait, what? You're desperately worried about integration and then the first policy you come out with is to make citizenship, which has long been seen as a key element of integration, more difficult? Even leaving aside the administrative nightmare you'd probably create, that's odd - to say the least.

submitted 32 days ago • 51 comments

It's instructive of the state of public services that since 1999 the local government workforce has fallen by 27 per cent from 2.7 million to 2 million. The central government workforce has increased by 72 per cent from 2.3 million to 4 million.

submitted 35 days ago • 4 comments

WTH!! 840k adults in UK are threat to children nationwide: both online & offline, which makes up 1.6% of adult population!? That's 1 in 62 people that you pass in the street??! And 800k are regularly viewing child porn?! Shameful figures. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d90qe4nylo

submitted 35 days ago • 3 comments

This is infuriating. If the government want an easy win for growth and to support pubs, they should change the licensing laws to make noise complaints much harder. www.the-londoner.co.uk/noise-compla...

submitted 37 days ago • 31 comments

James Meadway writes “So to summarise, a bunch of Oxford and Cambridge graduates who live in London are very very keen on seeing lots of investment taking place in Oxford Cambridge and London. But don’t worry, this time it’s going to be very different to all the other times this has happened.”

submitted 39 days ago • 2 comments

The Times reports that one of the key "safeguards" in Assisted Dying Bill may be dropped. We are an ageing society that on current trajectory will not be able to afford to care for older ppl & those with complex needs. Expect the Bill's scope to widen & safeguards to weaken, if not now then later.

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

Don't let shame or overwhelm stop you from taking a few basic steps to protect yourself and your community. Maybe you've used your cats name for your password on everything for years. All your shit is on social media. You get stressed out about tech stuff. It's all good. You're not alone. 🧵

submitted 45 days ago • 27 comments

Sky News is reporting that #WHSmith is to sell off its high street stores. This would be a radical shake-up of the high street - not least it would impact the Post Office network, which shut stores set up kiosks inside WHSmith stores, much to the ire of customers news.sky.com/story/wh-smi...

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

It really baffles me why some think it's okay to be shitty to a generation of young people who gave up THE MOST to protect their elders, have had THE CRUELLEST possible transition to adulthood, are getting THE LEAST amount of state help, and are facing THE WORST future prospects.

submitted 51 days ago • 89 comments

Late night share of a new personal blog: The Cake Equation. On the illusory centre ground of British politics, or how politics has become dominated by promises to mix low taxes, high public spending and low immigration acjsissons.medium.com/the-cake-equ...

submitted 52 days ago • 3 comments

This is a massive problem for politicians & policy makers. However effective your policy interventions, however hard you work to make things better, key parts of the electorate will not recognise or reward you. PM Starmer needs to take notice. It's all about the narrative not the objective reality.

submitted 54 days ago • 2 comments

What worries me is not government use of AI per se but the slightly credulous way that the government talk about it, which makes me suspect they will be taken for rubes by the tech companies selling their services. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

submitted 56 days ago • 85 comments

So many of their problems in government, and so many of their problems in opposition have the same root: by the end most ministers just weren’t across the detail and many of them have no experience of anything resembling functional policymaking.

submitted 57 days ago • 20 comments

Keir Starmer needs to realise the right wing press, TV news channels and the nutters across the Atlantic are insatiable. Do what you believe is right and let the voters decide in 2029.

submitted 59 days ago • 2 comments

It is completely unacceptable for a senior official in the incoming Trump administration to threaten to overthrow the result of our democratic elections. The place to resolve disagreements with our government is in our country, in our Parliament.

submitted 60 days ago • 58 comments

The damning statistics that reveal the true cost of Brexit, five years on www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

submitted 64 days ago • 135 comments

Same applies to physical music. If you own it, noone can remove it from a streaming channel on a whim. And the artist tends to get more £ than from streams.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

What exactly is a social care commission going to tell us that we don't know? What is the magical cross-party solve that multiple com'ns & reviews, incl a Royal Com'n, have failed to find? The issue is funding. Its a political choice. MAKE THE CHOICE you're elected to make & get on with it

submitted 66 days ago • 43 comments

I fear there is something in this. If there were votes in prevention/early intervention govts wld have been doing it. However strong the VFM/evidential benefits, simplism & short termism rules. That said, we have a govt with a big majority that cld afford to take a risk on doing the right thing.

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments

“It’s absolutely horrifying seeing so many names and faces who have lost their lives needlessly. Every one of these deaths could have been prevented." Heartbreaking, harrowing, and something to reflect on going into 2025 www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

submitted 68 days ago • 4 comments

20 years ago, asylum-seekers crossed the channel hidden in lorries. Some danger but much much less than on boats. Politicians wanted to stop this. So they used public funds to detect smugglees: CO2 & heat detectors, dogs. Fewer come by lorry now. Instead they come by boat. Is that better?

submitted 67 days ago • 1 comment

I don’t agree with this at all. In most traditional societies, families and communities look after those among them in need. You can ask the government to write cheques to take people out of poverty but you can’t replace the love and care that families and communities offer.

submitted 76 days ago • 5 comments

The most important statistic you’ll see today

submitted 80 days ago • 1 comment

If you receive the state pension, you're on welfare. It is a discretionary payment which may be increased/reduced/removed at any moment. There is no pension pot. You are not receiving "your" money back.

submitted 82 days ago • 17 comments

How many voters got turned away or dissuaded from voting at #GE2024 - and take a guess at which party probably benefited. doi.org/10.1093/pa/g...

submitted 85 days ago • 7 comments

An idea to bring this to life- no civil servant (who is not from the outside) should be able to become a grade six or seven without at least one two year tour of duty in a local authority or local public service on an outcome based project. Plus lots more exchange between levels.

submitted 86 days ago • 17 comments

80% of innovations come from the frontline. And this basically means that the centralised UK state is upside down. How can we get citizens, administrators and representatives to modernise the state in the face of overwhelming complexity? This week's Substack. open.substack.com/pub/anthonyp...

submitted 86 days ago • 2 comments

Looks like they are going to do it! Reform makes sense on paper/long term. Two-tier local gov is inefficient & confusing. BUT there will be short term costs: strong resistance, distraction from the missions (& local priorities) & £££. It's a brave move, in the Yes Minister sense.

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

They walk among us… When we try to tell people that there are actual genuine cases like this they think we are joking. Imagine how more severe this issue is when it’s a music venue not church bells. 'I want the church bell silenced – in Helpringham' www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 93 days ago • 10 comments

Home Office doubles time given to refugees to find accommodation

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments

What I think is bleakly funny about the UK’s assisted dying is that hardly anyone in Parliament (I think Richard Burgon is the sole exception) has gone “uh, is this a road we should go down on before fixing social care?”, because everyone knows that ain’t gonna happen.

submitted 95 days ago • 9 comments