Move slow and mend things!
Public Key
npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Profile Code
nprofile1qqsfshpkuqt6zwmhywrst6yhhm6j9cp6yzvwmag98yhrh2uwk58wlrsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyqqp30x6a
Show more details
Published at
2026-07-19T10:52:54+02:00 Event JSON
{
"id": "feed13141c73487cb11ed2b7d0de4acdfaaa44d93a4b731446f527e7e0113e1f" ,
"pubkey": "985c36e017a13b77238705e897bef522e03a2098edf505392e3bab8eb50eef8e" ,
"created_at": 1784451174 ,
"kind": 0 ,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"politics"
],
[
"t",
"maker"
],
[
"t",
"creative"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.social/users/KimSJ",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mastodon.social/users/KimSJ",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "{\"name\":\"Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷\",\"about\":\"Move slow and mend things!\\n\\nBorn at 314ppm CO2. Escapee from Twitter. 🫤 Tofu-loving woke ex EU citizen. Retired hi-tech entrepreneur, once focused on future cities/buildings, climate \u0026 UBI, now keen on saving the planet and democracy. I dream of the day when I can return my focus to my first loves.\\n\\nIf you don’t like #politics, you probably shouldn’t follow me. 😁 Though I do also have a #creative side, and I'm a #maker too.\\n\\nhe/him Still masking\",\"website\":\"https://mastodon.social/@KimSJ\",\"picture\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/110/470/228/980/613/623/original/f982c2dfaf927292.jpeg\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \"}" ,
"sig": "60c4cf27c3335a523aa02b83d72e0066c06e6e0ba4a44a2394e333ea69c915776358ac9764c2ce2a03701c76639199cfdd77c568d2f930fada16c555abee746d"
}
Last Notes npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 We still mask in close-contact public situations. Are we being ridiculously paranoid? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Potentially two good additions to the team (not least because Brown’s grip on the way money works is streets ahead of Reeves’ understanding), but as a way to address Starmer’s problems it’s a total #MissingThePoint. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 As an I T professional with fifty years experience, I came here to say exactly that. It’s bizarre that faced with concrete evidence that the system has exactly “lost, stolen or tampered with” this woman’s digital status, they still say “there are no wider issues around the system”. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 RE: https://mastodon.scot/@ShredderLivesOn/116406877410807470 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The idea of a totally standard layout for disabled toilets is a brilliant idea. It’s the sort of project that BRE should take on. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Yes, steel can be produced in electric furnaces. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I have a nightmare that this is all a cunning plan, and Magyar will prove to be the same wolf in new sheep clothing. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Was Iran even invited to the talks? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’ve been saying this for years. Helium is a finite resource with no known alternatives. It’s important for MRIs, for scientific research, for various industrial processes, and maybe for quantum computing in the future. It’s completely bonkers that we waste it on party balloons. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The leaking of Claude’s code feels like a “he’s not wearing any clothes” moment in the LLM story. But will the message reach top management who are all betting their careers on the new “miracle cloth” that only clever people can see? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Cool! You’d find my name in the hidden part of the ROM, if you looked. 😇 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’m definitely installing this next time I sit down at my desktop. 👍 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Today’s Western societies are incomprehensible to me — and I was brought up in the 1960s and 70s. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 We already have a formula for allocating public money to political parties (Short Money). Something based on votes received would seem to be a good start, though it does make it harder for small parties to gain traction. Membership could also be a useful metric. Maybe an asymptotic formula could help, perhaps with a minimum for any party with more than a certain membership? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 In our work on experimental (heavily automated/green) social housing in Derby, we realised that buildings of multiple occupancy (i.e. blocks of flats) should have a mix of unit types, to encourage occupancy of every sort from young singles to families to retired couples. That way a real community forms much more easily. Old folk happily do child minding, young folk help with shopping, etc. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 RE: https://mas.to/@therightarticle/116300144161152058 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 RE: https://mstdn.ca/@JonChevreau/116278308030245167 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Personally I would love to see Israel returned to its pre-1967 borders, with its security guaranteed by international forces, and severe economic sanctions applied if it ever tried expansionism again. #NotGoingToHappen npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 True, of course, though I wonder what the negative effects of not having the hospital available for maybe a decade would be. No employment for doctors and nurses, worse health outcomes locally, etc. 🤷♂️ npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Julian Huppert (ex MP for Cambridge) used to point out that demolishing and rebuilding hospitals would massively increase GDP whilst improving absolutely nothing for anybody. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 ‘Trump post’ is not an adequate Alt text. Do better! 😉 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 RE: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116200110686604617 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 And the CBI is consistently wrong. Despite the obvious damage it would do to their members’ interests, the CBI refused to oppose Brexit. I think we should ignore everything they say. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Meanwhile, this is the official (🤦♂️) UK position… 🤬 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I suspect that the real reasons governments continue to support nuclear power are nothing to do with energy security or the green agenda, and everything to do with being ‘one of the boys’ who know about nuclear weapons. If only we could have an honest debate about whether that’s important in the modern world. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 But Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (degree in Politics from Exeter, and clearly an expert on cyber-security) assures us there is no possible problem with giving all the UK’s MoD data to Palantir… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 On a scale of things that matter, these don’t even merit a rating. #FirstWorldProblems npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I find myself wondering to what extent these AI spamming accounts are deliberately set up by bad actors intent on destroying the FOSS movement. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 To be fair, I have long argued against a total ban on ZH contracts; there are some people — artists or authors, for example — for whom they work really well. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 “People always love themselves best. But in a world so interconnected that harm to one is harm to all, the best way of loving one’s self is to love everyone else, too.” npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the real Kompromat on Trump is evidence that he murdered a child. If true, that explains everything. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The Epstein files have the potential to make the Panama papers look like a storm in a teacup. No wonder the elite are trying so hard to hide them! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The big downside of more frequent elections is that it would tend to push the Government into permanent ‘electioneering mode’. Maybe the answer is to make it easier for voters in a constituency to cause a by-election? 🤷♂️ npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I like this distinction, but any rule to force a by-election might have the undesirable side-effect of discouraging defections even when the party moves significantly away from the views of an individual MP. It’s hard to act on one’s principles when a) one will probably lose one’s job, and b) one will therefore lose all opportunity to fight for those principles. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The trouble with promoting #GoVegan as a solution is that at the moment to most people it feels too extreme. Practically, it’s also more extreme than it needs to be. Hill farmed sheep, for example, mostly use land and resources which would not be switched to other production. #GoFlexitarian may be a better message for now. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Anger-term indeed! 🤣🤣🤣 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Perhaps because the resistance is smart enough to realise that escalation by shooting ICE agents is exactly what MAGA want? The more that peaceful innocent protesters and bystanders get murdered, the more the opposition grows. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Exactly mirrored in my college in the 70s. The Left played silly buggers in the undergraduate council all year, totally ineffectually, but for the one meeting when it mattered (when funds were being allocated to the various clubs and societies), the distinctly more practical Boat Club folk turned up en-mass and voted themselves most of the money. Pretty much what happens in national politics these days! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 More evidence for my thesis that the destruction of the political training ground that was Union politics has seriously damaged the Labour movement. A side-effect that would have delighted Margaret Thatcher, I suspect. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 50-60 years ago, the UK’s Automobile Association used to offer annotated strip maps for significant journeys around Europe. A really useful service when undertaking long expeditions in foreign countries, and always part of my family’s holiday planning. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 So, to ‘save money’, the NHS is going to leave expensive human resources underutilised, whilst allowing patients’ conditions to progress, potentially leading to more expensive interventions later. Sounds mad, until you remember that some of the delays will result in real savings, as patients conveniently die in the meantime. /s npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 This is very welcome news. The destruction of Trades Union was one of the worst long-term effects of Thatcher’s rampage through the UK. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’m reminded of the research that the Post Office did which found that the single biggest factor affecting people’s attitude to the PO was whether they liked their postie. The de-localisation of policing flies in the face of such research. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 A genuinely ’productive’ NHS would be doing *fewer* procedures, as it prevents more people from falling ill in the first place. What a dumb metric that is! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve just subscribed my son. 👍 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Interesting. I wonder to what extent that applies to other arts? Must music be experienced at a live concert? Is poetry only effective when read aloud, etc? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Is it fair to say that just one mistake is all that is needed to trigger the chain reaction which will render near-earth orbits unusable for decades or more, and also make launches to higher orbits highly risky? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 As often, I’m reminded of this cartoon… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 It saddens me that politicians are now far more likely to try to mask the symptoms (in this case a massive rise in mental health problems) than to address the causes (in this case the totally shit lives any of us who aren’t billionaires are forced to live). npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 A worrying aspect is the extent to which this is driving young girls to seek relationships with older men, which carries risks of different kinds of abuse. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I can’t remember the title, but I remember reading a sci-fi story a long time ago about a society that mandated one day a week of community contribution. In the story they were digging up old roads to recover the metals buried beneath their surface. It always struck me that this would be a great way to build community spirit, as well as addressing environmental issues. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Part of the problem is that when it comes to advancement those politicians who are completely focused on developing their own careers always have an advantage over those who are ‘distracted’ by trying to do their job as good MPs. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Looked at objectively, Mahmood’s position is dangerously close to the ‘Rivers of blood’ speech. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 This was posted in response to Mamdani’s win, but the same could be said to Labour in the UK… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The language modern politicians use is more often dictated by its attractiveness not to voters but to sponsors. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 …which of course meant choosing the safest (and cheapest for them) options for energy supply. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The UK’s absurd competition rules do give us the worst of both worlds. Around twenty years ago I was involved with the team trying to give Northstowe (then in the early planning stages) a world-class infrastructure. For example, combined heat and power for a ‘utilities island’ with district heating. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 A possible answer to that question is that government ownership might ossify a particular solution, preventing innovative alternatives from emerging. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Rather than taking the post down, maybe edit it? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 In a more rational world, all employees would be paid genuine living wages, and otherwise-unviable businesses deemed valuable to society would get government subsidies. #dreaming npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Techbros continue to suggest technological solutions to climate change, while study after study concludes that they won’t really solve the problems. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 This makes some sense (and maybe explains why politicians bang on so much about improving ‘efficiency’ in sectors like NHS where that makes little sense). npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 So, given Netanyahu’s ceasefire violations, presumably the UK and US will immediately stop sales of arms to Israel. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 There is a theory in Operational Research that the closer to 100% efficiency you run a system, the more dramatic the consequences when something goes wrong. It’s most obvious on motorways, but it applies to everything. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Another aspect of that is that reforms done properly always significantly increase costs in the short term (because you should never abandon the old system before the new one is fully debugged and bedded in). Often there is simply not the slack in the system to allow any reform, even when there isn’t a crisis. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 What new fresh hell is this? No, YouTube, I will not turn off my VPN just so you can track me better! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 This ☝️ npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Chris and I are old enough to remember when there were currency restrictions on taking money abroad from the UK. I remember my grandparents smuggling extra for their long holidays in Europe. 😳 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 TC, the Gov’t must (one fervently hopes) be listening to *somebody*, but it certainly wasn’t the huge body of experts who were screaming “we agree with the objective, but THIS WON’T WORK, and it will cause loads of highly undesirable side-effects, including increasing risks to vulnerable children”. So who were they listening to? Or are they so far up their own political arses that they just don’t care, as long as they get the political win of “we did something”? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Two letters about the proscription of Palestine Action and its consequences sent to our MP yesterday/this morning, one of which suggested he resign from this Government on a matter of principle. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 In my experience, Vulture Capitalists are mostly evil. From day one they are focused on ‘exit routes’, usually looking to get out within three to five years, leading to a seriously distorted business model. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The media always asks climate sceptics the wrong question. The better question is “do you understand the science behind climate change predictions?” That forces them to admit their ignorance, rather than allowing them to profess their belief in fantasy. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 If Rachel Reeves was really serious about rejigging the stock market as a vehicle for capital investment, she’d put a tiny tax on every transaction. Get rid of automated micro-trades and the Stock Exchange would be a far more useful institution. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’ve just asked a German about their rules… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Is it certain that 16-18 age group will fall to the the left? There seems to be a scary pro-Andrew Tate faction in that demographic. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Good point. A system that ‘automagically’ registered some voters but not others would lead to more confusion and errors. Census data is the closest we get to a universal database, but that is only valid for the date of the census, and happens once in a blue moon. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 We had exactly this dilemma in a company I worked for which had a ‘no defence work’ rule. We were asked to provide equipment for on-base schools. We decided that was OK, but not everyone was comfortable with the decision. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I have a half-formed thought about what is going wrong with the world, which I think deserves to be explored further. Comments and suggestions welcome… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Agreed Chris. Being unable to carry enough of your 403 MPs to pass your most major piece of legislation, and being forced to back down on its content not once but twice sounds like a major misstep to me, especially as what Starmer was trying to do was deeply unpopular in the country. And there is still scope for further misstepping on the issue once the promised review is published. So frustrating! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I accept that it’s an exaggeration, but Labour is certainly on track to lose in 2029. Which is very scary. Its major missteps so overshadow the good stuff that the overall impression is not good. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I certainly couldn’t vote for a party that distanced itself from any climate action. So no, your strategy fails as it will piss off anyone likely to support a new party. They’ll all vote Green instead, as will I. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Herman Hauser (Acorn & ARM founder) describes this as the ‘two phone call’ phenomenon. In a well supported locality you should be able to find the answer to any problem within two phone calls: one to someone you know, who will know who to ask, and the second call to that contact to find the answer/service you need. That’s what makes Cambridge the hi-tech hub that it is. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 You make good points. Could it be fixed by making the rule that the new dwellings have to be built in areas where the average price is say 20% or 30% above the national average? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 This is an approach I have long advocated… make a “fiscal rule” (*shudder*) that the Government must build enough houses to keep house price inflation below general inflation (ideally keep it at zero until average house prices are below four times average wage). npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I wonder whether it would be feasible to levy capital gains taxes on annual increase in capital value, rather than only when the gain is realised? npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 We should propose that the Government reevaluate its decision to issue an invitation the Trump for a Royal Visit! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 H/t @npub1j79…rc5v who doesn’t do AltText. 🫤 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’m going to gently tease you about your use of ‘the professions’. Production engineers, etc, are just as professional as accountants or lawyers. That’s exactly the message we need the next generation to take on board. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Pure Thatcher…. apparently she could not imagine that some people are motivated by a desire to serve the community, or simply to do a good job. She tried to implement a carrot and stick approach for everyone from hospital consultants to estate agents. Britain has not yet recovered from that damage. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 There’s the problem, right there! An obsession with financial performance, not with delivering what customers need. It’s the root cause of most enshittification. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 A bit of a catch 22: capitalism only works as an economic system if it is strongly regulated to protect society, but capitalism only makes big profits when it is free from regulation. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 The fundamental problem is that doing water properly is not and never has been profitable. Privatisation was only attractive to investors because there was no obligation to do it properly. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Here’s thought… npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 As a big supporter of Universal Basic Income, giving money to everyone and taxing it back from the rich seems like a great model! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 From the Green Party Manifesto: npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I wish I had your confidence! npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Whilst that is true, bots can force themselves onto any timeline they can see, and they could easily build a tree of accessible accounts. And that tree-building only needs to be done once, to be used by any new bot account. npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 I’ll have another read when I’m more awake. Or is that ‘woke’? 😁 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 That article doesn’t seem to cover the point that government debt *has* to increase to fund growth, otherwise there is insufficient money in circulation to pay for the new goods and services. Maybe that’s not part of the MMT cannon? Or maybe I just missed that part of the article. 🤷 npub1npwrdcqh5yahwgu8qh5f00h4ytsr5gycah6s2wfw8w4cadgwa78qvet4lp Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 Labour Party Conferences put forward a lot of the right ideas. It’s time the leadership stopped ignoring what is decided there.
