brewery

@brewery@feddit.uk

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guantánamo prisoner can sue UK government, supreme court rules⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Good, what the UK and other countries did there was and is utterly shameful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BBC licence fee is ‘regressive tax’, broadcaster’s former chair says⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It is horrible how they target those who haven’t paid even if they don’t have to. They should put a stop to that, especially given how much people are struggling.

  I don’t think we should get into a trap of blaming things that cost us for being unaffordable but to be challenging why we are so poor compared to previous years. Austerity, big business and the lack of taxes on the rich are to blame for everyone suffering now. Also the B word hasn’t helped. Yes, there has been the Ukraine war and covid but other countries seem to doing much better in response.

  The licence fee is extremely good value for money for what we get and once we lose it, it’s gone and will never come back. To get the same things we did from private companies would be ten times as much. BBC is £13 a month. To replace that you’d need netflix (with UHD and multiple users, which bbc offers is £17.99), Planet radio (3.99 although free with ads), News (depends on your flavour. Telegraph is 29.99, Guardian £14.99. Free options are available but are paid by ‘special interests’ wanting to direct your thinking and ads) and even more other services on top.

  If you are not using it you should not be paying though, I definitely agree. There should be an assumption that you are not using it rather than you are choosing not to pay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What a #$%¢π⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I am the child of immigrants from India who came a long time ago. I was born and raised here, and absolutely abhor and cannot understand how they can do this, so have been thinking about this a lot.

  I think one of the factors is that often, it was the richest or highest castes from India and other countries that were able to afford to move here when it was legal and you could just jump on a boat. To buy the ticket was probably enough to factor most people out. They were therefore typically more Conservative in their views beforehand being on top of society that means you probably have a higher degree of that mentality of superiority due to genes/upbringing/social class similar to the upper classes here, so felt very at home with this British class system. I’ve heard some immigrant people make comments about the poorer in their societies being less smart, less willing to work, gaming the welfare systems etc, which sounds familiar right?

  My parents, as an example of some immigrants, were suddenly at the bottom of this society and knew that it wasn’t because of their genes or intelligence. My dad went to university in India before moving but it was not recognised here so he worked in factory jobs most of his life. He is Song and had a turban but he had to cut it off to find work as they wouldn’t hire him otherwise. My mum moved before her teenage years and is one of the most intelligent women I know but didn’t do well in school because of the language barrier, racism (she was forced to go to school miles away from her sisters because there was a policy to divide ethnic groups between schools to not create non white majorities) and low expectations (University was never considered by her working class school or her parents as they could not understand the benefits over earning as soon as possible). It challenged their thinking on their views and made them more left wing. My parents were 100% working class in the British class system and worked their life to give my and my siblings an education to try to “move up” the system.

  Some immigrants came over and did well straight away without much issue, so did not have any challenge to their existing views and fit quite nicely into the upper classes in British society. The British Upper class were welcoming as they matched values, had much experience together given lots of british upper classes lived in or experienced India during the Raj. These Indians could speak the “queens English” etc etc. I have a school friend whose grandfather started a clothes business and was very successful, and very early on after moving. He was brought up very wealthy, was taught it was because they were very smart and worked hard, with no mention of the minimum wage employees they used from the immigrant population to make that money, and is therefore extremely Conservative in his views.

  Nowadays, there is not really a legal and safe path to the UK so the “upper class” foreigners are going elsewhere. In reality, we are now getting people so desperate to escape whatever horrors they had and have nothing to give up so they are willing to risk their lives and/or the people smugglers are taking advantage of these vulnerable people by offering passage for loans they will struggle to pay off. In the minds of Sunak and Suella, they are lesser people so we should keep them out.

  It seems to me like the experience of black, other Asian or African immigrants is very different to this as they were always seen as “lesser”. There are many more Tories of Indian origin than other groups. I think the above goes some way to explain it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BBC licence fee is ‘regressive tax’, broadcaster’s former chair says⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It is and it isn’t. It’s regressive that we all pay the same. It isn’t because it is still a choice whether you choose to watch TV or not.

  I’d happily have it funded by tax in theory. However, only if it was guaranteed somehow but knowing Tories would gut it straight away means I would never support this. Other parties might choose to reduce funding to serve political needs.

  We also need to think how much we get for the price really. It pays for decent news coverage (especially internationally), Welsh language shows, weather, radio stations (with a lot of support to all types of music/ musicians, especially non mainstream and small artists), children’s education (tv channels and bitesize), food recipes (they have a lot of healthy newsletters). The news is contentious with some people but its only a small part of it all. They have also pushed creative, technological and social boundaries.

  The BBC is the UK’s NASA!!! We should be proud of it, push to keep it going and as with everything, push to improve it to serve us as people.

  I used bitesize just the other week to remind me of multiplying fractions as applying to do a degree as a mature student. It was such good content for free and there was much more on so many topics.

  They have a lot of TV shows that private producers like netflix would never make. They cater for making money for shareholders only. How many good tv shows do they cancel because not profitable anymore? How many shows for ethnic minorities or small parts of the country do they make?

  We should also support the ITV and Channel 4. They are differently operated to how a private company would be even without fees but do so much less than the BBC because they don’t get fees so is not a real alternative option. They challenge the BBC and produce a wider mix of content. I never watch ITV tbh but appreciate people must do.

  Let’s take away any political influence (e.g. choosing the chair and board), make sure its accountable to the UK public by ensuring its independence from the current government so it can actually challenge them, and make sure its following aims like increase access to culture of all types, support British creators, support/represent all parts of the community, help teach us and our kids, give us information how/ when we need it and make us proud!

  Wow, this was supposed to be one or two lines but I got carried away!

  TL:DR: the BBC does so much more than we often think about (TV, radio, news, weather, children’s shows, Bitesize, recipes etc). Let’s make it properly independent from govt and help it carry on supporting the British people in the many ways it already does so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ex-PM David Cameron appointed foreign secretary in Cabinet reshuffle⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I really doubt it. Brexit is still too toxic right now for any reversal and everyone wants to just move on. The Tories doing it would be completely suicidal.

  I think its Sunak and the party leadership completely out of ideas and any remotely competent people willing to work with them. He had decent public support before, especially with big business which labour have completely brought to their side so this is probably to try to woo them back. I’m not sure it’ll work. Business right now just want stability and know the Tories cannot give that until they decide who will lead once they lose the general election and how far right they will end up (I.e. if its too much, I think big businesses will struggle to support them because of their HO staff and need for cheap immigrant labour to do the actual work)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Welfare cuts worth billions planned by ministers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  They know they’re gone so trying to (1) extract as much money as they can now and (2) fuck up the country as much as possible so labour have a harder job in the hope they can get elected quicker.

  No aims to improve the country as a whole, or the people within it in any shape or form. They should be kicked out of the country and sent to Jersey or cayman Islands.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨British Police are Using Period Tracker Data and Blood Tests To Investigate Patients Who Miscarry⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This is horrifying. It’s interesting what/ who they use their powers to target. The most committed crime is probably speeding so would they ask Google maps how fast you were going? Probably not as it would catch too many of their own but women with unexplained abortions…

  On the flip side, although still want to stress this is horrible what they are doing, I am kind of curious what is happening when by my understanding, abortion is fairly easy to get here and is free. Is it people having miscarriages themselves but trying to keep it quiet from partners/ family, is it people not realising they’re pregnant, people changing their mind or is it, as I suspect, mostly actual medical miscarriages but they are chavs or poor so must’ve done wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woman slams selfish paragliders who 'made her think Hamas were invading Doncaster'⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This made me laugh so hard! Thank you to everyone who contributed to this nonsense article

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tory candidate shared post using foul language towards struggling parents⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of people don’t know how to find good deals, and funnily enough that is impossible without the Internet and good knowledge of how to avoid the various traps laid out for people. I learned about this stuff and general computing myself, not at school. Most of my friends and family still don’t know a lot of this so rely on me for advice.

  It’s easy for us to judge but imagine you had no Internet. What would you do? You’d go into a mobile phone store where they are engineered to make you leave with the highest contact possible, and you don’t know enough to challenge them. Or you search on a friends phone but what comes up is SEO gamed to again, give you a high contract. Or you know there’s Vodafone as they advertise heavily so go straight to their website. Funnily enough, the contracts they initially advertise are pretty high and they don’t advertise their cheaper sister brand talk mobile.

  Now, imagine trying to do all this when your PIP payment has not come through so you have £6 in your account. You try going to the job centre but they just say you have to go online. The council can’t help. Your friends don’t know enough to help. So you desperately are trying to get a phone contact to figure out what’s going on and decide £30 sounds reasonable and it’s less of a concern than trying to find money to feed my kids today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Government to replace HS2 rail link to Manchester with brand new horse and cart⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never come across this site, it’s class! Thank you

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Free streaming platform with live TV from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 launches next year⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I dunno, if you add in bbc news and radio and no ads on any services, it’s definitely better value than other services

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Lib Dems will raze this place to the ground’: Mid Beds byelection duel could gift seat to Tories⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve already received the usual lib dem leaflet showing a graph proving that only they can beat the Tories here. It’s almost exactly the same as I got in the last general election, which was in a completely different constituency. A bar graph with Tories high, Lib Dems slightly below and then Labour near the bottom with a massive graph.

  It might very well be correct but it really just puts me off them, especially as the constituency candidates they put on there are two roads over and not ours. I’m sure I’ll get another one for this constituency at some point of course, with the same graph but different names.

  I am really struggling as in my last constituency, I voted for them to remove the Tory and their hard line brexit but they took just enough off Labour for the Tories to win whilst being a very distant third place, so completely different to what they were suggesting. Of course it’s hard to know if any of those voters would have gone Labour instead but I certainly did so am guessing others did. Plus Labour were not anti hard brexit and non committal which didn’t help them.

  F this FPTP system, really wish we voted for the alternative vote

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Road casualties have become normal in Britain. But there is another way⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the car driving test now is actually quite good and can be difficult to pass but once you pass (potentially at 17) then that’s it. There’s no requirement to keep those skills up, learn about law changes, no further tests, just nothing. Accountants, doctors, lawyers, social workers etc are all required to keep up professional development annually and usually have to submit an annual declaration with a certain number audited. Driving a literal killing machine centimetres away from children needs nothing extra.

  My suggestion would be the government and insurance companies develop an optional extra certificate like the pass plus but something you do regularly, needs you to pass tests under new laws, and to prove safe driving somehow. You pay for but it gives a discount on insurance to make up for it. I would go for this. I am hesitant about having a tracker on the car even though I drive very safely.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Road casualties have become normal in Britain. But there is another way⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a huge part. A lot of people just can’t put themselves in others shoes unfortunately

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Road casualties have become normal in Britain. But there is another way⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  They have been given out tickets to speeding cyclists for a while now, at least according to a friend who cycles a lot, so I think it applies equally but is just exceptionally harder to enforce. You need multiple police officers physically stopping and giving tickets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Ugly Truth About Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (RAAC)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Great video, thanks for sharing!

  I was thinking this early on on the video and have been thinking this for years so glad he picked up on this - wtf do we use flat roofs in this country!!!

  Some great other points about having a standard design but can’t see it getting past the NIMBYs. Tbh, buildings have got very similar looking anyway and at this point, we’ve really got to question why we’re allowing our children to spend several hours a day in buildings which weren’t designed to last this long and has asbestos everywhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Just wanted to point out you don’t get 12 months paid maternity leave in the UK. Leave and pay have completely different rules so you have to think of them separately, even though they are intrinsically linked.

  You are entitled to 12 months maternity leave, and in fact by law have to take the first 2 weeks (or 4 weeks for a factory worker) for health reasons. This is great but lots of women don’t take the full 12 months time because the last few months would often be unpaid so is not the main factor.

  Statutory maternity pay, which is what you are guaranteed and what the government pays the company, is 90% of your average earnings for the first 6 weeks, then it is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings, for the next 33 weeks. Notice thats not 52 weeks in total! The average is also based on a certain time before you know you’re pregnantso my wife got a bit screwed because of taking time off when changing job.

  A lot of employers offer full paid maternity leave but it tends to be already better paying jobs or civil service jobs, and it’s for 6 or 9 months. Then it’s a reduced rate or even unpaid for last few months. There’s also some caveats like having to work there for a full year before getting full pay, depends on seniority etc, because it is down to company policy rather than legally required.

  Paternity leave is up to 2 weeks leave but statutory pay is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings. Again, better employers offer full pay for 2 weeks or more.

  They introduced shared parental leave afew years ago but most people only saw the headline and didn’t realise you have to split out the pay, which is the lower of the two statutory amounts above. Good employers offer full pay for a few weeks but is very varied, even in “better” jobs. I wanted to take more shared parental leave time but would have to sacrifice my full pay to get it so could not afford it. My company at the time (well paid head office role at one of the largest banks in the UK) did not offer full pay for shared parental leave that is over paternity leave.

  Most voters think its great because it works for them but actually there’s a lot of inequality/capitalism in it, and therfore much room for improvement.

  Yes, it’s better than federally in America, and pregnancy/labour itself is completely free on the NHS so no costs on top but we should strive to be better, especially compared to a lot of continental European countries.

  Our rules might be a good step up for you, especially as they’re in quite a capitalist society, but it should not be the end goal by any means!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Covid booster jabs to be approved for sale to UK public⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Didn’t various countries massively fund these vaccine programs? I’m hoping the vaccine price is marginally above the actual cost of making them but something tells me probably not…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Government calls on councils to allow pubs to open earlier for World Cup final⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Potentially controversial opinions:

  A. We don’t need to drink to enjoy the match. We’ve already had 6 England games quite early in the day without the need.

  B. The government, with a bit of foresight and any degree of competence, could have legislated for this exemption given they control parliament and therefore hold ultimate power, at least for England maybe.

  C. Of course, it’s the lefty councils fault for not doing day PrOpEr PeOpLe want!?!?!