Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Gups]

One of the maddest small scale ones I've heard is about having bike sheds in your front garden.

You don't need permission for a bike shed

[Josquius]

One of the maddest small scale ones I've heard is about having bike sheds in your front garden.

You don't need permission for a bike shed

That's recent if so.

https://www.eta.co.uk/2024/02/22/changes-to-planning-permission-for-bike-sheds/

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, I had a friend who lost his grandfather during covid and he and his family couldn't visit him in his final days. The pain of that is not something most people will forget.

If that's contrasted with your leaders not following those rules themselves, that's going to be hard to move past.

Yeah I know lots of people slightly struggled to understand why/how Partygate had such a bit impact - but that's it. I can't think of any other political scandal ever that people will have personally felt in the same way.

Although I suppose key to that is that, in general, the vast majority of people in Britain supported the lockdowns and took the rules or trying to follow (or enforce) them really seriously. I guess it'd be very different if there was a widespread disobedience or resistance to lockdowns, say as in the US - or if it was just kind of ignored.

[Gups]

One of the maddest small scale ones I've heard is about having bike sheds in your front garden.

You don't need permission for a bike shed

That's recent if so.

https://www.eta.co.uk/2024/02/22/changes-to-planning-permission-for-bike-sheds/

No it's not. The article is wrong.

[Josquius]

One of the maddest small scale ones I've heard is about having bike sheds in your front garden.

You don't need permission for a bike shed

That's recent if so.

https://www.eta.co.uk/2024/02/22/changes-to-planning-permission-for-bike-sheds/

No it's not. The article is wrong.

I dunno. I've seen it cropping up a fair bit. Actual case mentioned here of local council making someone remove one

https://road.cc/content/news/government-allow-bike-sheds-front-gardens-307087

[Tamas]

Look at one of the 3 highlighted comments below the article. I am starting to think the country is full of Josqs ready to vote Green to punish Labour for having a good chance of forming a government.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/30/greens-keep-it-short-and-sweet-to-avoid-the-dont-want-to-knows

[Sheilbh]

100% bet that guy would also describe himself as someone who mainly votes on policy

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally extraordinary parachuting of figures on the Labour right, NEC (and NCC) members and former Starmer aides into safe seats. Most controversially Luke Akehurst who sits on the NEC and is very much on the right of the party and, I think, a councillor in Hackney who will become MP for North Durham.

Also pretty striking is Shama Tatler who sits on the committee that decides on disciplinary matters, such as the one that led to Faiza Shaheen being deselected, who has now been selected to replace Faiza Shaheen in that constituency. Another NEC member Gurinder Singh Josan was part of the panel that sacked Shaheen and the panel that has been picking candidates today - he has now got a seat in Smethwick.

The leadership team's have imposed candidates across the country in the last four years but the last few days are extraordinary. It's machine politics. Particularly interesting is Stratford and Bow where Starmer had backed a local Camden councillor, Abdul Hai, who helped Starmer get picked as a candidate in 2015. However it looks like his key aide Morgan McSweeney swung behind Uma Kumaran who was a former Starmer aide that McSweeney apparently promised a seat. In the end McSweeney's candidate got selected. No doubt Starmer will try to find another seat for Hai.

[Tamas]

The Rest is Politics people also believe forced labour is a great idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkctACbLtOM

[Tonitrus]

Is requiring children to go to school and do homework "forced labor"?

I know, a bit of a strawman...but if the idea of public education is to bring up productive, functioning adults...why does that concept of a social requirement being seen as a public good end when the age clock turns hits 18?

[Tamas]

Is requiring children to go to school and do homework "forced labor"?

No but National Service is. I love it that they keep calling the proposed alternative to military services is "volunteering". At best you can call it community service. Might as well do it together with those ordered to do that by the court, since essentially it's the same thing.

[Tonitrus]

Agree...calling it volunteering is silly/disingenuous.

I would not agree in equating as community services ordered by a court (resulting from the commission of crime).

[Sheilbh]

The Rest is Politics people also believe forced labour is a great idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkctACbLtOM

Enough already - I recant!

Is requiring children to go to school and do homework "forced labor"?

I think requiring kids to stay in school to 18 is a bigger shift (and one I'm not entirely convinced by), as is Sunak's proposals that everyone does maths to 18, probably as some part of a bac style qualification (I'm more convinced by this).

It is really interesting the split on this though as even on the left there's a split. It is basically broadly on a communitarian/libertarian axis - I think Languish very much skews libertarian on that front

I would not agree in equating as community services ordered by a court (resulting from the commission of crime).

Also they'd be finding their own placements.

I don't have an issue with calling it volunteering - though I'd go for the Gordon Brown name: National Civic Service.

[Tonitrus]

But more on the topic (the very idea of "National Service)...I think it is a bit of a mistake to try and combine the military aspect of that idea with a non-military one.

Certainly, conscription as was practiced by Western countries usually came about due to being seen as a vital necessity for national defense (and its rollback due to that necessity being seen as longer essential)...and should probably only be used if those skills/service are seen as a national necessity.

If the idea of a "peace time" national service is the goal...if anything, it should be entirely public/social works-oriented.  (with perhaps the military-oriented track being the alternate option for those who might want to consider that as a career anyway)

[Tonitrus]

I think requiring kids to stay in school to 18 is a bigger shift (and one I'm not entirely convinced by), as is Sunak's proposals that everyone does maths to 18, probably as some part of a bac style qualification (I'm more convinced by this).

I suspect the 18 vs 16 in this case is Anglo/American confusion. 

Our public schools run to age 18 in most cases...my understanding in the UK it can end at 16?