Zac Polanski, running to be head of the Green Party:
'My key message to Jeremy Corbyn is '‘join the Green party,”... The people we’re fighting against are the 1%, and it’s about unifying the 99% in recognising that it’s corporations & the super-rich who are destroying our environment, our communities & our democracy'!
He wants to appeal to people's anger & frustration with the current political class (the agents of austerity) & lead a political reformation of the UK.
#Greens #politics
h/t FT
The workplace tussle over hybrid working continues to see managers demand workers be 'on site'; now 48% of firms are seeking full time attendance at the workplace (up from 27% two years ago) despite pretty clear evidence that hybrid working enhances worker well-being & has a positive impact on productivity (although less that 20% of firms/managers agree with that proposition).
Its just one more sign of rubbish managers' need to have staff present to 'manage' them!
#management #workers
h/t FT
Anthony Barnett (for whom I worked when I was at Charter 88 in the early 1990s) is right:
'The problem is not, ‘How do we restore British voters’ trust in the way we are governed?’ It is, ‘How do we change the way we are governed so that it becomes trustworthy?’.... and he then goes on to (rightly) reassert the constitutional changes we were arguing for in the 1990s
Trust is earned not engineered & this is especially the case in politics!
#politics #democracy
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/compulsory-voting-wont-fix-uk-politics-need-system-change-improve-trust/
As John Naughton points out the AI 'revolution' is starting to eat its own with the major Big Tech owners of major AI assets laying off lower level staff whose work will be replaced by the AI they control, while at the same time paying massive hiring bonuses for AI 'talent'.
If you wanted an example of how Big Tech is a mechanism for the concentration of wealth, this would be it (but of course by no means the first indication or example of that trend).
#AI #inequality
https://observer.co.uk/news/columnists/article/paying-geeks-200m-but-slashing-jobs-this-is-what-an-ai-bubble-looks-like
Good morning booklovers,
if you, like me, have bookshelves stuffed with #books around your house, then Eva Wiseman has got news for you... they signify more about your life & the society we live in than you thought.
'bookshelf wealth' (a new design trend), is not the innocent amassing of things to read, we may have thought...
@bookstodon@a.gup.pe
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/25/using-books-as-interior-design
So, now its the 'wealthy boomers' who are going to help out the #Tories, thinks Phillip Inman.
Well, I'm one 'comfortable' retired #boomer, who has never voted for those #Toryscum & never will....
The reading off of the advantages flowing to baby boomers (still) & their likely voting patterns feels like rather lazy materialism.
Lets stop blaming the boomers & say what's really the problem: the mendacious, corrosive right wing media's grip on political debate(s)!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/30/life-is-good-for-baby-boomers-but-jeremy-hunt-plans-to-make-it-even-better
Emeritus Prof Christopher May