Notices by Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us), page 5

As Just Stop Oil protesters get 4 & 5 year sentences, Greenpeace Director, Amy Cameron sums up how many feel:

'What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call? We’re giving a free hand to the polluting elite robbing us of a habitable planet while jailing those who’re trying to stop them – it makes no sense'!

Labour must reverse this anti-democratic punishment of protest!

#politics

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/18/five-just-stop-oil-supporters-jailed-over-protest-that-blocked-m25

The final death of any idea the Silicon Valley Tech Bros are 'progressive' will be them trotting out to finically support Trump's campaign for a second term as POTUS.

Of course, their claim for liberality has been pretty thread bare for some time, but this (surely) will put an end to that - sure it may not be all of them, but enough to finally make those who think the IT crowd are in any way on our side (hopefully) see sense.

These men (and they are men!) are dangerous!

#politics #AmericaPac

If you think there a shortage of houses underlies the country's housing crisis (and of course, not all of you do), then as this graph starkly shows, that shortage is almost entirely the result of the collapse of public/social housing new builds - since the 1970s, there has been no appreciable rise (or fall) in annual private house construction.

But of course, private house builders want to engineer a shortage to maintain prices, so we shouldn't be surprised.

#housing #politics

h/t FT

As part of the damage wrought by the Tories was the degradation of the country's cultural sector; defunded & demeaned by successive ministers, we now find out selves (as Nick Serota puts it) of a 'cultural reboot'.

There are many (perhaps) more pressing crises for the new Govt. to address, but I think Serota is right that a small part of the renewed investment in the public sector would produce disproportionately large economic & social benefits.

#culture #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/jul/14/britain-needs-a-cultural-reboot-heres-my-five-point-plan-to-fix-the-arts

Right on time, as England has a new Education Secretary, the independent inquiry into the suicide of Ruth Perry after a grim OFSTED inspection has concluded that her death should 'highlight the folly of the macho culture of high-stakes accountability' that lies behind the practice of school inspections.

Now is the time to transform the culture of school inspections from judgemental & disciplinary, to supportive & developmental.

#education #schools #OFSTED

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/12/inquiry-into-headteachers-suicide-says-macho-culture-of-inspections-must-end

Please god NOOOOOOOO.

Jacob Rees Mogg is set to make a reality TV show about him & his family.....

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

#headinmyhands

You may recall last year Jack Monroe suggested that own brand/cheap label goods were going up in price faster than more expensive goods....

The ONS claimed she was wrong (on limited data) & Monroe was attacked by mansplaining economists....

Now Alberto Cavallo & Oleksiy Kryvtsov (in a NBER paper discussed in the FT) have looked at a much wider set of data & have confirmed/vindicated Monroe's conclusion: cheapflation is running higher than 'normal' inflation; in the UK by around 6%!

#inflation

For those of you who might be wondering how exactly we got to the water crisis we are currently experiencing, Nils Pratley (Guardian) offers a quick guide to how the dots joined up to deliver us dysfunctional privatised water & sewage utilities.

Many of us will remember these details all too well, but for my younger followers (good morning), it offers some useful context.

#water #privatisation #investment

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/10/cheap-sales-debt-and-foreign-takeovers-how-privatisation-changed-the-water-industry

Voter suppression update:

Now looks like 400,000 people may have been turned away from voting due to ID issues....

If Labour will not rid us of this law, then an amendment expanding considerably the range of acceptable documents/items that are valid is required.

Its anti-democratic & was driven by false 'concerns' about electoral fraud of which there is a vanishingly small incidence in the UK.

#elections #voterID
#politics

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/voter-id-rule-may-have-stopped-400000-taking-part-in-uk-election-poll-suggests

Here's an interesting Q. from Stanley Pignal (at the other place):

'I think the big question in France today is this: does the "front republicain" (ie vote for anyone except Le Pen) gain in strength every time it is used, or is it a tactic that gets exhausted and only works for so long.
Decisive for 2027 and I don't think anyone knows the answer'!

Indeed; the key Q. for the next election in France!

#france

So, it seems Asda have ended their experiment with four day weeks.... as it has been rejected by staff.

But, given this move at the supermarket merely involved a reallocation of hours worked into 4 x 11hour shifts, its no wonder exhausted workers rejected the move.

The four day week was supposed to be (and is) about more efficient working in the four days, not merely longer shifts over the four days.

Asda's approach really was not what four day weeks are about at all!

#workers #economics

When I hear people from the City of London & financial services hoping that the new Labour Govt. will now bring stability, I can only think back to the greatest recent economic instability we have had (leaving aside the Ukraine war's effects & Covid, both of which started as non-economic issues); the global financial crisis of 2008, caused exactly by people in financial services & their misunderstanding of risk....

But, now they want stability, so they can take bigger risks again!

#politics

As it becomes ever clearer (and documented) that artificial intelligence is highly dependent on exploiting human labour - from creatives whose content is stolen, to the low-paid staff who help sort & train AI programmes - once again we can see that a 'new economy' promised by the Tee-shirted 'revolutionaries' of Silicon Valley is nothing other than a reboot of C19th exploitative economic practice....

So, one important Q. for modern society is how to bring these new robber barons to heel!

#AI

This popped up on LinkedIn... thought I'd share it.

So, unfortunately, for the water companies, the UK Supreme Court has ruled that owners of assets & properties can seek redress for the dumping of sewage into their water courses (in a case brought by Manchester Ship Canal & supported by @goodlawproject). Previously the water firms had argued only the regulator could bring such actions!

So, the water sector could be about to find itself mired in a torrent of legal actions resulting from unregulated sewage discharges.

Good!

#water

h/t FT

Natasha Walter wants the next Govt. to do a better job for women... a demand with which I heartily concur:

'feminists know that inequality & violence are not abstract issues. For too many women, this is everyday reality – ground down by poverty, exhausted by caring in an uncaring world, broken by male violence'!

The normalisation of misogyny on-line & in the physical world need concerted action, not when other jobs have been done, but now!

#women #feminism

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/29/gender-poverty-violence-all-matter-to-women-and-all-must-matter-to-labour

art, out of its time?

Looking through a history of the portrait in C20th came across this Ernst Ludwig Kirchner portrait: 'Artist: Marcella' (1910).

Now I don't know about you, but when I fist looked it (before looking across to the caption) I was sure this must have been painted in London in about 1964..... so to find its a German painting from over half a century earlier was like a little seeing a painting out of its time.

Still, interesting portrait I thought.

#Art #portrait #germany

Not only have Tories effectively engineered a funding crisis across the university sector, the costs of visas, especially for non-UK researchers looking to relocate with families, has erected a significant financial barrier to them taking any posts offered!

Research is an international endeavour & the mobility of researchers is one of the key ways tacit knowledge spreads round the world.

Once again the UK cuts off its nose to spite its face!

#research #universities

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/29/top-scientists-turning-down-uk-jobs-over-tax-on-talent-says-wellcome-boss

Librarians are (social) heroes; stepping up when other social services have fallen away, to help those with few other places to go...

No wonder the Right wants to defund the libraries (via attrition against local authorities), when you look at the pragmatic but vital social support they are offering to the vulnerable & isolated.

[this is a long read but worth it]

#Libraries #inequality
@bookstodon

https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jun/25/how-britains-libraries-provide-more-than-books

'Water companies in England & Wales have averaged five serious sewage spills into rivers or seas every day over the past decade' data analysed in tomorrow's Observer shows!

And guess what Thames Water is the worst offender... yup privatisation of the sewage system has worked a treat... well for the rentier owners at least.

[Full disclosure: my pension is paid by one of those investors - USS]

#water #sewage

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/22/catastrophic-scale-sewage-spills-england-and-wales