Notices by Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us)

I'm not the only one to note that Nigel Farage gets a lot more coverage for his speculative policy proposals (when announced) than the Greens ever do.

You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to see a disparity in coverage & wonder why our media organisations are so willing to give the Right a platform, while only reporting the Green party's activities occasionally & spasmodically?

†he lurch to the Right isn't an accident of politics, it looks like its orchestrated by the media..

#politics

In Saudi Arabia 'disobedient' women are incarcerated for rehabilitation.... This is inhumane & a violation of human rights.

But, of course, 150 years ago we were doing something similar with early mental hospitals & other institutions aimed at 'caring' for 'hysterical' women.

This is in no way to defend the contemporary practice, but more to point out its hardly unprecedented in the annals of violence to women.

Women have fought this fight before!

#women #feminism

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/28/saudi-arabia-women-girls-rehabilitation-prisons-dar-al-reaya

The news that the International Monetary Fund had broadly supported Rachel Reeves deliberations around budgeting, including her revised fiscal rules, will either offer comfort to you (in the sense that her approach is in line with how the IMF sees the UK economies travails), or will confirm that Reeves is merely the latest representative of the global capital interest to sit in the Chancellor's seat.... you pays your money & you make your choice...

#politics #IMF
h/t FT

Gaby Hinsliff on a new report on insecurity & prejudice in work places:

'It would be interesting to know... how the third of white men who worried their sons would have worse opportunities than they did feel about their daughters’ prospects....

So if white men genuinely don’t think work is working for them, welcome to the club, boys. Just don’t forget that some of us have been here rather longer than you'!

#workers #gender #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/26/white-men-terrified-work-advice

If you're interested in the possibilities & promise of a 4 day working week, you might want to look at the 4 Day a Week Foundation website... they are working hard to expand the notion that the four day working week is not just plausible but actually beneficial both to staff's and to companies' wellbeing.

While not a silver bullet for the UK's productivity puzzle/problem, its certainly one component of a future shift fo the UK economy.

#workers #economics #productivity
https://www.4dayweek.co.uk

@jetlagjen @lyndamerry484

Ha ha, I sit corrected - a very plausible & convincing argument - I promise not to jump to negative conclusions next time I see people just looking at their phones together - a valuable corrective, thanks (and boosted!)

@Infoseepage

Crikey, I haven't seen mention of Janov & the primal scream for decades... part of my youth that, the coverage that is, not the screaming

My wife who has some mental health difficulties linked to her overall health finds crying cathartic (indeed, when one antidepressant effectively stopped her crying at all, we changed her medication to another), so this piece on the role of crying (from the new Observer) reporting on Hidefumi Yoshida's crying workshops struck a chord.

if you've ever wondered about crying's emotional utility, you might also find this of interest.

#MentalHealth

https://observer.co.uk/news/science-technology/article/read-it-and-weep-why-regular-crying-is-cathartic

If (as Keir Starmer recently opined) we are becoming an 'island of strangers' its not got much to do with migrants, but rather the attrition on social & community spaces that years of austerity, cuts & (more recently) successive lockdowns have wrought.

And, if you then look at people's lives, then a key indicator of loneliness & social disconnection looks to be financial/economic precariousness.

We must stop blaming migrants for the UK's social problems!

#politics

https://theconversation.com/britain-is-already-becoming-an-island-of-strangers-but-immigration-isnt-the-driver-256724

RIP Sebastião Salgado, perhaps best known for his environmental photos.... but who also produced a major work looking at workers across the world.

#photography #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2024/feb/08/i-photographed-the-world-the-art-of-sebastiao-salgado-in-pictures

I've said it before but those who worry the UK doesn't have an industrial strategy are mistaken; we have had (and continue to have) an industrial strategy, one that prioritises the interests of financial services.... and when a Govt. even considers measures that might shift that strategy a little, the lobbying & threats from bankers start.

While its Labour being lobbied this time, this is how our economy has been run (into the ground) for decades...

#politics

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/jp-morgan-chase-rachel-reeeves-leave-uk-increase-tax-bank-surcharge-jamie-dimon-autumn-budget/

Many of us will agree with Ross Greer MSP:

'Future generations will look back at this absurd concentration of wealth & the displays of excess & greed that come with it, and ask why it was allowed to get so out of control. There’s no better time than now to start reversing course. That begins by taxing wealth fairly & using the money to build a fairer, greener society'!

And why is it the Scottish Greens are saying this & the (so-called) Labour Party isn't?.

#politics
https://greens.scot/news/rich-list-shows-extremely-wealthy-must-be-taxed-properly

Overpayments of carer's allowance (paid over months) that the DWP tries to claw back as lump sums, seem to have been running at over £50m a year for the last six years & its largely the DWP's fault for letting overpayments continue for too long even when they'd been notified that payments should have been stopped.

As always its a tale of badly used technology & staff cuts, but carers lives have been made miserable because the DWP couldn't do its job properly!

#carers
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/19/at-least-357m-in-carers-allowance-paid-out-in-error-over-past-six-years-charity-finds

The war on vulnerable women continues with National Police Chiefs' Council guidance on how & when to search women's homes who are suspected of unauthorised terminations.

In the wake of the Nicola Parker case, this suggests along with the Crown Prosecution Service, women who have unexpected terminations or who have medical abortions are now likely to be more brutally investigated by Police, whatever the claims of compassion from the NPCC.

#women #abortion
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/police-could-search-homes-and-seize-phones-after-sudden-pregnancy-loss

Will the combination of a reforming Prisons Minister (James Timpson) & a previous (Tory, but liberal) justice secretary (David Gauke) lead to a transformation of sentencing & prison management?

Well, while polls suggest the public may be more supportive of liberal reforms than many Govts have assumed, as Keir Starmer won't move without considering what the right wing press have to say, the attitudes of certain newspapers to proposals will be make or break!

#prisons

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/starmer-backs-radical-reform-as-jail-population-doubles-and-cell-space-runs-out

Some Labour MPs recognise the problem with Keir Starmer's direction....

As Rachael Maskell MP notes: 'The people I talk to feel a deep dismay as policy after policy that has come out, which is not Labour politics...

Our usual coalition of support is just melting away, & people who support progressive politics are going to the Greens or Lib Dems because they think they are more progressive, whether it’s on migration or on welfare'!

The Labour left may be about to depart!

#politics
h/t FT

The future is here...

#AI

The more POTUS Trump backtracks from his 'tariff shock' the more it looks like an extended strategy of market manipulation for his investor friends who were able to 'buy the dips'.

I'd be interested how many of Ttrump's chums have made quick gains by by either shorting ahead of his tariff announcement(s), or buying in the turmoil after, and now selling as prices recover?

The number will be more than zero & might be quite a high proportion of his social circle, would be my guess.

#economics

One insidious aspect of the US/UK framework deal for trade negotiations is the issue of standards... it looks like (willingly?) the UK is considering a shift to de-allign standards (even if they are not diluted) various aspects of standards setting from European models & towards US standards setting.

If so, whatever Starmer says about not choosing between the US & EU, this would likely make any 'reset' in UK-EU relations harder, and less far reaching!

#economics #standards #politics

h/t FT

The latest on the NHS crisis; in its twilight months NHS England looks to be forcing fiscal adjustments that are causing a removal of NHS services:

'The survey of 160 senior figures from 114 trusts found that:

47% were cutting services &another 43% were considering doing so;
37% were cutting clinical posts & a further 40% may follow suit;
26% were closing some services & 55% more may do so'!

More preparation for Streeting's semi-privatisation?

#NHS #Health
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/09/nhs-hospitals-england-cuts-financial-reset