[HN Gopher] The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent m...
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The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management
(2025)
Author : robtherobber
Score : 208 points
Date : 2026-01-13 12:39 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freedomnews.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (freedomnews.org.uk)
| fosron wrote:
| Day by day these things sound more like Sci-Fi series
| announcments.
| mountaineer727 wrote:
| I hope they name it Pickles
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Black Mirror continues to be a 5-7yr leading indicator
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror
| anthk wrote:
| Orwell predates Black Mirror by decades. 1984 should be a must
| read for everyone.
| xnorswap wrote:
| I'd argue that makes Black Mirror more prescient.
|
| In the case of Black Mirror, it was a set of studies on the
| dangers of current and near technologies. That some of those
| fears are materialising not long after the episodes, is in my
| opinion more damning than Orwell's fears of the state which
| didn't really come to pass in the same way, even decades
| later.
|
| I don't disagree that Nineteen Eighty-Four is essential
| reading however. ( I'd also add Brave New World to that list
| ).
| omnimus wrote:
| We are one renaming cycle away from renaming Department of
| War to Department of Love.
| barrenko wrote:
| 'Years and years' disturbing as well.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Shocking. I enjoyed Black Mirror from the start but found it a
| bit on the nose. A Prime Minister fucking a pig? That's a bit
| much. And before you know it, certain rumours of David Cameron
| arise.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I think that one PM episode was the only one totally out of
| whack. The rest were quite on point. There are dozens of
| episodes deep in the realm of reality.
|
| https://variety.com/lists/black-mirror-best-episodes/
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Isn't Minority Report a documentary about why this doesn't work?
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| I mean technically a lot of countries already have laws against
| conspiracy to murder, without doing the actual murder bit. And
| we are broadly ok with this because it makes a lot of sense.
| Tostino wrote:
| That generally still takes the person taking some sort of
| action in furtherance of that plan, not just thinking it.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| Yeah because prosecution requires evidence. Not because we
| don't agree with the principal.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I feel like "conspiracy to murder" means "we found a plan of
| you murdering someone and a baseball bat in your car" rather
| than "The algorithm has decided you are evil"
| ajb wrote:
| What do you mean by "doesn't work"?
|
| Doesn't work to prevent crime? Or doesn't work too suppress
| dissent?
| voidUpdate wrote:
| It's been a while since I watched it, but doesn't it falsely
| imprison people because they disregarded some of the data
| that went contrary to other data?
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| There are 3 Precogs in the film, but in reality the female
| one is the most powerful and the twins seem to only
| function as amplifiers. It's revealed that there is
| sometimes/often a disagreement between their visions and
| that they do a 2/3 selection or something like that and
| discard the disagreeing vision (the 'minority report'). I
| believe this is what happened to the main character when he
| is framed, the stronger female's dissenting vision is
| ignored in favor of the two amplifiers. In the film it is
| ambiguous if he even commits the murder at all, the guy he
| kills was paid to die and more or less forces him to kill
| him in the struggle.
|
| There's also the echos of visions that occur which is how
| the villain manages to get away with a murder, he uses his
| inside knowledge to copy cat another murder method which
| allows him to have it written off as an echo.
|
| The wilder question in the movie is how the precogs are
| randomly created mutations in response to the mother taking
| a weird street drug during pregnancy. They'd have to dose
| pregnant women and hope they gave birth to more mutants if
| they ever want to replace the set they have, and I believe
| they're planning to roll it out nationwide. But given how
| crappy the precogs' lives seem to be maybe that is just a
| cost they consider worth paying.
| weberer wrote:
| I don't know if this is a joke, but Minority Report was a
| fictional movie.
| Surac wrote:
| where is my minority report?
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| This is how you govern from a position of unpopularity.
|
| The government knows they're on the wrong side of many issues, to
| the point they know they can't win an open debate.
|
| So media control, regulation by enforcement, and institutional
| control becomes the focus of effort.
| varispeed wrote:
| Also never look at what current government is going to do with
| the framework, but what future much worse government could use
| it for.
| miroljub wrote:
| Does it get worse? They are making a benchmark that is hard
| to beat.
| c0n5pir4cy wrote:
| I wouldn't like to see all the legal infrastructure they're
| putting in under a Reform UK government - I'd imagine
| they'll use it for far more nefarious means.
|
| That being said - the blame lies squarely with Labour here.
| I have a gut feel a lot of it has to do with donors to the
| Tony Blair Institute.
| miroljub wrote:
| Well World Economic Forum (WEF) lists Tony Blair and his
| institute as one of the top Agenda contributors [1].
|
| It's not even funny that you can trace almost any person
| responsible for the deterioration of human rights in
| Western society to one of the WEF alumni or associates.
|
| These supernatural institutions and interest groups
| should be made illegal if we want to continue as a
| civilization.
|
| [1] https://www.weforum.org/stories/authors/tony-blair-2/
| exe34 wrote:
| They need to, at the very least, obey the prevailing laws
| of physics.
| owisd wrote:
| They're also strengthening the criminal consequences for
| future governments that misuse their position:
| https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4019
| iamnothere wrote:
| Which can be undone by another single act of your
| "sovereign" Parliament. Acts like this must be understood
| in that context.
| squidbeak wrote:
| By this logic, governments shouldn't legislate anything
| or have any kind of policy. Child benefit? Scrap it in
| case King Herod takes over and has an ready made hit
| list.
| owisd wrote:
| This works both ways though, ie there's no point opposing
| the laws on the grounds that they might be abused in
| future because the future sovereign parliament could just
| pass the same abusable laws.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Man, its like everyone is blind to the current state of
| things.
|
| Here is the truth:
|
| * Everyone with above sentiment always votes for anyone
| libertarian, which is necessarily conservative, and all
| conservatives are pretty much liars.
|
| * These same conservatives that champion against government
| overreach, for law and order, and for personal freedoms do
| the exact opposite once they get into office. Nor do they
| give a shit about the law.
|
| So yea, the whole libertarian ideology is pretty much dead.
| Its pretty obvious that the best course of action is to
| sacrifice personal freedoms and elect a government that can
| keep a tight rein over the populace and keep things like Nazi
| ideology from spreading.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Totalitarianism has the same end state whether it comes
| from the left or the right. It always results in
| suppression of the truth, broken feedback loops that lead
| to poor decisions by government, economic failure, and
| finally either bloody repression, war, or revolution.
|
| It's possible to move through this to a place of stability.
| After all, China only had to kill 15-55 million people in
| the Great Leap Forward and a couple thousand more in 1989.
| Today they are fairly stable and prosperous, even with
| tight controls on information. Perhaps the UK will have a
| similar path!
| justincormack wrote:
| This has been ongoing for a long time, its not at all specific
| to this government.
| erichocean wrote:
| Huh? Starmer is the least popular Prime Minister, I believe,
| ever.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| He wins or draws on every measure of unpopularity, other
| than YouGov net satisfaction where Liz Truss still beats
| him.
| geremiiah wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/28/kei
| r-s... https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/30/uk/keir-
| starmer-labour-pa...
|
| I've come across various sources that lean center-left,
| note, CENTER-left, saying this. I think there might be
| something to it.
| iso1631 wrote:
| It's a problem with pretty much anyone. Things are bad
| from a fundamental structural failings for decades, elect
| new person, don't see immediate turn-around, they're
| massively unpopular.
|
| The only way out of this is if you successfully blame
| $marginalised_group for the peoples problems. Or spend
| decades undoing the damage, but nobody ever gets decades
| in power.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Some of it is deliberately attempting to appeal to Reform
| voters, in ways which have infuriated Labour supporters
| while not winning any Reform support.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| It's because he was elected with a historically low % of
| the vote. Few wanted him at the election, few want him
| now.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| Most don't want any of the options presented to them.
| Almost all the parties don't really serve the electorate,
| so a large number of people are abstaining.
|
| I appreciate this in an anecdotal but I've spoken to
| quite a few people I know in my family, that saw it as
| their civil duty to vote and they told all told me some
| variation of "there is nobody worth voting for", "I don't
| think it matters who I vote for".
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| The UK is FPTP. Reform split the previously unified
| conservative vote so labour won with a historically low
| %.
| erichocean wrote:
| Total Reform + Conservative vote was at historical lows
| as a percentage of the electorate.
| RansomStark wrote:
| That might be true, but the votes (not seats, first past
| the post, almost guarantees people aren't represented):
| Labour: 9.7M Conservatives 6.8M Reform: 4.1M Liberal
| Democrats 3.5M
|
| The point clearly stands that had Reform not been a
| thing, 2024 would have been a conservative landslide.
|
| What we got was a Labour landslide, what we should have
| got was some coalition.
| pmyteh wrote:
| Yes, though I'd be careful about assuming that votes are
| Conservatives <-> Reform on a left-right median voter
| model. The other aspect that Reform has (and will have at
| least until it forms a government) is anti-
| system/populist credentials. Labour had a little of that
| last time (they are a _deeply_ establishment party,
| especially under current leadership, but they were coming
| off a period as very public opposition to the government
| and the current state of things) but will have very
| little next time.
|
| It's certainly not a given that all the 2024 Reform vote
| would have gone to the Conservatives: a good chunk of it
| would have likely been disgusted abstention, another
| chunk to other anti-system parties (mostly of the right
| fringe, I suspect, but not excluding the Greens despite
| wild ideological differences), and likely a further (if
| smaller) chunk to other parties which were simply not the
| Conservatives (including Labour and the Lib Dems).
|
| Edit: the best analysis on this is likely to be in the
| latest volume of the long-standing The British General
| Election of XXXX series, which has just been published
| online[0]. I haven't had time to look at it yet, though.
|
| [0]: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-95952-3
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| As the sibling comment said. You are making the
| assumption that every Reform voter would have held their
| nose and voted Conservative instead. A lot more people
| would have stayed home I think. I don't think anyone
| thought the Conservatives could win and that includes the
| Conservatives themselves.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| Turnout was historically low. Labour didn't really "win",
| the Conservatives lost. A lot of Conservatives voters
| didn't really recognise the party.
|
| Also not every Reform voter would vote Conservative if
| Reform didn't exist.
| vablings wrote:
| There are good options I think for most people. I did not
| like labors party policy, so I voted for the Lib Dems in
| a large labour area, did it achieve anything for them?
| No, did I do my civil duty?
|
| I am sure many green voters felt the same way for many
| years and now they stand a decent chance of getting many
| seats!
| iso1631 wrote:
| Yet these laws and general direction have been in place
| through half a dozen prime ministers, including ones
| initially very popular (Johnson especially, but Cameron
| wasn't particularly unpopular until the brexit mess)
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right. When I'm at a counter-protest facing the local+
| Nazis (who in this incarnation have decided to call
| themselves "patriots") among all the rhetoric accusing us
| of supporting terrorists (no matter where brown people may
| come from they're apparently "ISIS" or "Taliban" these
| days) or rapists or any number of weird conspiracies, one
| thing they often yell about is that Keir Starmer is (to
| quote them) "a Wanker" and I have observed to other
| protesters that uniquely this is probably a widely shared
| viewpoint. Yeah, he is, but, why you are you being so
| racist, why do you want to terrify my neighbours, what does
| that have to do with Keir?
|
| + Local in the sense of being the ones who turn up, my
| guess is that a good number of them travel by car from
| quite some distance, personally I live five minutes walk
| away.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Which is even more bizarre given appointing someone as
| divisive and pig-ignorant as Priti Patel the Home Secretary
| would have the tabloids crucifying a Labour PM. Johnson and
| his after-dinner speeches about the Mayor from Jaws forgave
| a lot of blunders during C19.
|
| https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-
| comment/2021/0526/12239...
|
| Remember also that when Sunak stepped down, Priti was put
| forward for leader. If she had played off her Zionist
| aspirations just a few years later she'd be right in the
| current newscycle re proscribed organisations and 'domestic
| terrorism' charges in the UK, and possibly in the running
| for the big chair.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priti_Patel#Meetings_with_Isr
| a...
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of this is just .. well, I hesitate to use the
| over used phrase "deep state", but a lot of it is the work of
| people in the security institutions who "advise" the
| government, rather than the changing cast of the thin
| democratic bit on the front. There's long been
| authoritarianism in response to the fear of terrorism, from
| the IRA onwards. Then there's things like the "spycops"
| scandal, which make you wonder whether certain protest groups
| are deliberately engaging in really unpopular stunts in order
| to facilitate a crackdown.
|
| The British public are in an odd place on this. There's a lot
| of "folk libertarianism", but that mostly consists of not
| having ID cards, while at the same time supporting all sorts
| of crackdowns on protest as soon as it's mildly inconvenient.
|
| And then there's immigration. As in the US, it's a magic
| bullet for discourse that allows any amount of
| authoritarianism (or headshots to soccer moms) as long as you
| promise it will be used against immigrants.
| geremiiah wrote:
| There seems to be a prevalent notion within UK establishment
| circles, "we are being attacked from both sides, therefore we
| must be right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it
| works. You see used for example to defend the supposed
| impartiality of the BBC.
| piltdownman wrote:
| The BBC has never been impartial to internal concerns -
| domestic politics in particular. Leveson Inquiry
| recommendations not being implemented is the tip of the
| iceberg in relation to the extent of client-journalism it
| engages in with regard to the Conservative party.
|
| https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/bbc-under-
| sc...
| geremiiah wrote:
| I used the BBC just an example. Starmer seems to have the
| same attitude. If both Farage and Corbyn, and Polanski and
| whoever is leading the Conservatives and LibDems are
| attacking me, then I must be super in the middle i.e. I
| must be so doing it all super right!
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| I don't think Starmer really knows what he is doing one
| way or another. The Island of Strangers speech out flaked
| Farage to the right.
|
| Dominic Cummings had a bunch of interview appearances
| online. His experience in office when he was working with
| Johnson (and many Ministers in general) is that they
| don't actually understand what they can and can't do in
| the job. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar situation
| is present under Starmer.
| piltdownman wrote:
| I mean where is Sir Humphrey Appleby when you need him!
|
| Johnson's incredibly colourful reaction to Starmers trade
| deal, in that he was 'acting like an orange-ball chewing
| manical gimp', speaks volumes about the discourse around
| Starmer.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ld3qkz
|
| Hislop is particularly scathing, albeit cynically
| pragmatic, since Starmers appointment - ""Keir Starmer is
| the man who likes to sit on the fence unless you don't
| like fences and then maybe he can find a hedge, or if you
| don't like hedges he'll find a wall."
|
| "People have suggested Keir Starmer is very boring, but I
| think that's partly his superpower, in that being
| interesting in the way his predecessor was manages to
| lose you elections.
|
| "You have to be careful when you dismiss people as
| boring. Everyone thought John Major was boring, but then
| you had him for two elections."
| chimprich wrote:
| I think we can fairly easily dismiss Cummings' views on
| anything. He was of the opinion that the best thing for
| the UK economy was Brexit, and that the the best team to
| carry out that out was to be headed by Boris Johnson.
|
| He changed his mind on Johnson, but he seems to be of the
| view that nothing works and that there is nothing for it
| but to burn everything down and start again according to
| the Dominic Cummings vision.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| > He was of the opinion that the best thing for the UK
| economy was Brexit, and that the the best team to carry
| out that out was to be headed by Boris Johnson.
|
| Not exactly. I think you need to listen to the
| interviews.
|
| Dominic Cummins has solid rationale for why he believes
| what he believes. I would need to listen to them again to
| remember what he said, but what you are describing was
| too simplistic.
|
| Also his opinions on Brexit have nothing to do with some
| of the things he said about how COVID was handled.
|
| > He changed his mind on Johnson, but he seems to be of
| the view that nothing works and that there is nothing for
| it but to burn everything down and start again according
| to the Dominic Cummings vision.
|
| I don't remember him saying that exactly.
| chimprich wrote:
| > That has never been his opinion. There are many
| interviews with him on YouTube and I suggest you listen
| to them.
|
| I've viewed and read an interminable number of interviews
| with Cummings.
|
| He decided that a) Brexit was a good idea (we can see how
| that turned out), b) he decided to help get a Johnson
| government elected, and c) joined his administration as
| de facto chief of staff and chief advisor. If that's not
| a tacit approval of Johnson and his government, then what
| is? Of course, he backtracked later when it was a
| disaster.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| > I've viewed and read an interminable number of
| interviews with Cummings.
|
| The statements you have made don't really line up with
| the interviews I've listened to.
|
| The context around the events and what his involvement
| was and was not, is important.
|
| You are leaving out key information that he mentioned in
| many interview appearances.
|
| > He decided that a) Brexit was a good idea (we can see
| how that turned out)
|
| Without re-litigating everything. It _may_ have been
| different if the politicians and those that worked for
| them hadn 't frustrated the process. I was genuinely
| disgusted by the attitudes that many of the politicians
| had after the Leave won. That was my interpretation of
| what happened. Your obviously differs.
|
| _It also says nothing about the validity of his other
| statements, which is what I was referring to._
|
| > b) he decided to help get a Johnson government elected
|
| Yes, but the way you are talking about it is omitting
| events both before and after the 2019 General Election.
|
| Theresa May had been ousted by the Conservative
| Leadership. Earlier she ran an awful election campaign,
| squandered a huge lead in the polls and had to form a
| coalition Government with the DUP to maintain a majority.
|
| Cummins said he was contacted by Johnson because Johnson
| had a minority government and couldn't call a re-
| election. His first job was to get Johnson out of that
| Quagmire, then prepare for re-election. He decided to
| help Johnson under certain guarantees / conditions. Which
| tells me that he didn't actually trust Johnson.
|
| He claims to have been gradually forced out by Carrie
| Johnson and his team shortly after the election.
|
| If you are being hampered by the Prime Minster's wife on
| the agenda that you are supposed to implement. It is
| likely to fail.
|
| I've actually experienced something similar in my career
| where I was being blocked (for political reasons) by
| another team. It makes getting anything done impossible.
|
| So there is no reason to believe he is lying, back
| tracking or retconning events.
|
| This is because his statements about Carrie Johnson's
| involvement line up with other accounts from other people
| that I've heard during the time period shortly after his
| departure.
|
| > c) joined his administration as de facto chief of staff
| and chief advisor. If that's not a tacit approval of
| Johnson and his government, then what is? Of course, he
| backtracked later when it was a disaster.
|
| It not about it being an approval or disapproval of his
| government. Often you must work with people that you
| would rather not to, to achieve things.
|
| His feelings about the Johnson government doesn't change
| his the validity of his statements about how Whitehall
| operate while he was present.
|
| His comments about ossified organisations lines up with
| my past experience of working in both ossified Public and
| Private orgs.
|
| His account of the events around COVID match up with the
| timeline of events, and I re-watched old interviews of
| him and he hasn't backtracked at all or changed his story
| around what happened. He has mentioned things he couldn't
| mention at the time e.g. his residence was broken into
| and he was advised not to mention this at the time.
|
| I have no reason to not believe him, since his statements
| match up with both what I have experienced and a known
| timeline of events.
|
| I think your dislike of Cummins and his involvement with
| Vote Leave. As a result is clouding your judgement on the
| validity of his statements about how Boris Johnson
| behaved and how Whitehall operates.
|
| Generally there is a lot of stuff in his interviews that
| I've seen that quite honestly changed my opinion of him
| (which was somewhat negative). I believe he is telling
| the truth.
| solumunus wrote:
| > It may have been different if...
|
| Genuinely, how? Give me the best case scenario.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _He was of the opinion that the best thing for the UK
| economy was Brexit_
|
| I don't want to start another Brexit debate or even take
| position on it. However I'd like to point out that the
| key with Brexit is the plan on what to do afterwards and
| that is what has been completely lacking.
|
| Whatever one's opinion of Cummings, he did put forward a
| plan and that plan was never attempted (probably too
| bold, shall we say, for politicians to touch it). I am
| not commenting on whether that would have worked or not,
| but at least he put forward a plan and strategy. On the
| other hand, Bojo's "plan" for Brexit seemed to have been
| limited to becoming PM...
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| I would say "could not possibly be implemented" rather
| than "bold".
|
| Anyone can propose a brave or bold course of action. It's
| very rare these people have any idea how to actually
| execute their plans.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I think one issue we are having is that more and more
| things are said to be impossible to implement to the
| point that nothing happens... There is a lack of
| ambition, boldness, and leadership.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| I don't know.
|
| Increasingly I see people offering simplistic solutions
| that don't even pass basic smell tests.
|
| And then when you point out the obvious flaws the
| response is that you just have to be brave or take a
| risk.
|
| But I do agree - we seem to be in a world full of
| intractable problems and doing something may be better
| than nothing.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes there are simplistic solutions but, on the other
| hand, more often that not I think that claiming that
| issues are extremely complex is a way of avoiding doing
| anything for whatever reasons. So, it depends.
|
| I think that the UK won't solve its issues until it gets
| a PM with a bold plan and great leadership, whatever side
| they may come from.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| > It's very rare these people have any idea how to
| actually execute their plans.
|
| Regarding Cummins, Why exactly? Dominic Cummins is
| articulate, seems to be quite intelligent and seems to be
| very fact/data orientated. I've also heard him describe
| how he would action particular policy.
|
| Therefore I find it hard to believe he had didn't have
| any idea on how to execute his plans.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| You are Dominic Cummins and I claim my 5 pounds :)
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| It seems when some people don't have an answer they
| prefer to deflect with a joke.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > client-journalism it engages in with regard to the
| Conservative party.
|
| _BBC Caught Altering Budget Article to Be More Favourable
| to Labour_ - https://order-order.com/2024/11/01/bbc-caught-
| altering-budge...
|
| When Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP that, among other
| things, attacked Musk for talking about Pakistani rape
| gangs, was arrested for pedophilia [1], this is the article
| they published - no photo, no name, no party affiliation,
| and no followup article -
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg45y4r0yngo
|
| BBC omits identity of Nigerian murderer from article about
| how he killed his wife [2,3], making it entirely about
| "gendered violence" instead. Readers can't make the
| incorrect inference if you simply withhold information from
| them.
|
| BBC omits all criticism of Starmer from their reporting on
| his meeting with Trump [4].
|
| The famous Trump capitol speech splicing:
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/03/bbc-report-
| revea...
|
| When Farage's private bank account was closed due to his
| politics, the BBC first simply took the bank's word that
| this was entirely due to financial considerations. When
| Farage obtained internal documents of that bank, explicitly
| saying he met financial criteria for an account, but it was
| closed _despite_ this due to his politics, the BBC issued a
| correction article trying to imply his politics were merely
| "also" considered [5].
|
| BBC uses all-white stock photos to warn about obnoxiously
| loud phone use on trains [6].
|
| But makes sure to use a racially-diverse cast for the 1066
| Battle of Hastings [7].
|
| This is not the only such instance, nor a coincidence, by
| their own admission: _Moffat even talks about the idea he
| mentions above -- the excuse of "historical accuracy" that
| some people often give to justify an all-white cast --
| "[W]e've kind of got to tell a lie: we'll go back into
| history and there will be black people where, historically,
| there wouldn't have been, and we won't dwell on that. We'll
| say, 'To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better
| version of the world. By believing in it, we'll summon it
| forth.'"_ [8,9]
|
| "Piers Wenger said failing to update the classics with
| diverse characters would be a dereliction of duty" -
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/bbc-drama-
| boss-d...
|
| They cropped a photo to remove a weapon from a protester:
| https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/bbc-cropping-out-weapon-
| black-...
|
| They instruct white parents to teach their children about
| white privilege, and to examine their biases if their
| toddler has only white friends: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-
| happy-people/articles/zrgcf82
|
| They had and defended a no-whites-allowed internship
| (despite BAME-workers already being slightly over-
| represented at the BBC [10]):
| https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/19/bbc-criticised-for-banning-
| wh...
|
| They censor their own shows to be more racially sensitive
| on re-broadcast - without mentioning it until pressed:
| https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/the-bbc-quietly-
| censo...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Caplin
|
| [2] https://www.surinenglish.com/malaga/benalmadena-
| torremolinos...
|
| [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyw7g4zxwzo
|
| [4] https://x.com/chrismid/status/1950163250852540547
| (contains links to full Trump-Starmer meeting and the BBC
| articles, on the off chance you don't trust a random tweet)
|
| [5] "On 4 July, the BBC reported Mr Farage no longer met
| the financial requirements for Coutts, citing a source
| familiar with the matter. The former UKIP leader later
| obtained a Coutts report which indicated his political
| views were also considered." -
| https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66288464
|
| [6] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce83p1ej8j7o
|
| [7] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/07/racially-
| diverse...
|
| [8] https://www.themarysue.com/steven-moffat-on-doctor-who-
| diver...
|
| [9] https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-on-diversity-in-
| doctor-...
|
| [10] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-
| white-pe...
| piltdownman wrote:
| I've no idea what Dr. Who, murder-reporting, period
| dramas or stock photography choices have to do with the
| Labour party, but I'll pretend you're arguing in good
| faith and address what I believe to be the point in your
| copypasta.
|
| The most empirical and robust study regarding bias was
| performed by Cardiff University in 2013. Its major
| finding regarded the dominance of Conservative party
| political sources in BBC coverage; in coverage of
| immigration, the EU and religion, they accounted for
| 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in
| 2012.
|
| The data also showed that the Conservative Party received
| significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In
| 2012, Conservative leader and then Prime Minister David
| Cameron outnumbered Labour leader Ed Miliband in
| appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15),
| and governing Conservative cabinet members and ministers
| outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four
| to one (67 to 15).
|
| In reporting of the EU the dominance was even more
| pronounced with party political sources accounting for
| 65% of source appearances in 2007 and 79.2% in 2012.
|
| In strand two (reporting of all topics) Conservative
| politicians were featured more than 50% more often than
| Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the
| BBC News at Six
|
| This is evident right up to the 2019 election - BBC
| Question Time editing out audience laughter at Prime
| Minister Boris Johnson's fumbling responses, and soft-
| shoeing his ascendancy by excusing him from the tender
| mercies of Andrew Neil - unlike his opposition.
|
| https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-
| the-...
| like_any_other wrote:
| > I've no idea what Dr. Who, murder-reporting, period
| dramas or stock photography choices have to do with the
| Labour party
|
| If you believe the most relevant political division in
| the UK is Labour vs Tory, then it does all seem a bit
| random.
| RansomStark wrote:
| Wait a news channel gave more air time to the current
| prime minister and his cabinet, the guy and team with the
| power, than someone else. Consider me shocked!
|
| Have you considered that by choosing different time
| periods you get different results.
|
| Maybe the BBC bends the knee to whoever is calling the
| shots, that's what it looks like to me.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Your bias is showing...
|
| This is the same BBC that's put Nigel Farage on Question
| Time more than any other politician
|
| Or frequently gives a platform to the various think tanks
| of the Tufton St mafia
| dijit wrote:
| The thing is, the BBC is incredibly partial, depending on
| which area of the BBC we're talking about.
|
| BBC News on the web vs BBC News the programme, vs BBC
| worldwide (which is a seperate org inside the BBC), then
| there's regional BBC and the prime time talk shows (the
| hard hitting Andrew Neil and co).
|
| So, when someone says "the BBC is biased against the left"
| or "the BBC is biased agains the right"; ironically they
| can both be right, and it's not an indicator of
| impartiality. _It depends on which section of the BBC we
| 're talking about_.
|
| And you're totally blind to the bits of the BBC you agree
| with; you will think those bits are the impartial ones.
| nephihaha wrote:
| The BBC is institutionally biased in two major ways:
|
| * Pro the royal family since it is chartered by them.
|
| * Against Scottish independence since it would lose 10%
| of its funding.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > attacked from both sides, therefore we must be
| right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it works
|
| Exactly. Also because this is easily gamed by attacking the
| media that is already biased in your favour to get an even
| more favourable treatment.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| I believe US conservatives have done this since 1980s. I'm
| not sure it was deliberate at first: there's feedback.
| Loudly invoking "liberal bias" in 1975 most certainly got
| the press to reevaluate and attempt to mitigate any bias
| they might have shown. That was a reward for conservatives,
| which probably motivated more accusations of liberal bias,
| another round of press accomodations. It reinforced itself.
| gmac wrote:
| Indeed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45990786
| youngtaff wrote:
| Indeed - it's why the BBC platform people like Nigel Lawson
| when ever they have someone to talk about the impact of
| climate change or the Tufton St mafia
| iamnothere wrote:
| The problem isn't the balance, it's the police state. I don't
| want an authoritarian Left government any more than I want an
| authoritarian Right or Center government.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| The problem is most Brits, at least on HN, seem to deny
| what is happening and/or support it. People being arrested
| for holding up blank signs at Charles' coronation was
| ridiculous and nothing like it has happened in the US, but
| anytime that's brought up they pivot to mass shootings in
| the US or some other whataboutism.
| Nursie wrote:
| Because it is massively exaggerated by those with an
| agenda to distract from the US.
|
| But go on, tell me about how "free speech zones" are
| meaningfully different to this. You won't be arrested so
| long as you stay in your zone down the street and round
| the corner and out of sight.
|
| The UK has serious problems, but reading Americans
| catastrophising over this stuff as I have been for a
| couple of decades now is always incredible. Take the beam
| from your own eyes. And stop believing lies about the
| streets of London being a war zone.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > Because it is massively exaggerated by those with an
| agenda to distract from the US.
|
| I don't think there has to be any negative motive. I'm
| not from the US or the UK but have lived in both
| countries, so feel I can be somewhat objective. What's
| going on in both countries is disturbing to me, but they
| have differences with what they are doing.
|
| > But go on, tell me about how "free speech zones" are
| meaningfully different to this. You won't be arrested so
| long as you stay in your zone down the street and round
| the corner and out of sight.
|
| That hasn't been a thing for a long time. There have been
| nationwide protests the last few days not restricted to
| any kind of 'free speech zone'.
|
| Consider what you are trying to defend: holding up a
| _blank sign_. Are you really OK with that? You really
| think that is reasonable?
|
| > The UK has serious problems, but reading Americans
| catastrophising over this stuff
|
| Pointing out a legitimate concern is not catastrophising
| anything.
|
| > And stop believing lies about the streets of London
| being a war zone.
|
| I never mentioned anything like that.
| Nursie wrote:
| > That hasn't been a thing for a long time
|
| It's still the law, was expanded under Obama and is used
| widely. It is used to control dissent at events where
| protest would be unsightly, much as the UK incident you
| brought up.
|
| > Consider what you are trying to defend:
|
| Consider that I didn't defend it.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > It is used to control dissent at events where protest
| would be unsightly, much as the UK incident you brought
| up.
|
| Arresting people for holding up a blank sign is very
| different and much worse.
|
| > Consider that I didn't defend it.
|
| Do you agree it was a problem?
| Nursie wrote:
| > Arresting people for holding up a blank sign is very
| different and much worse.
|
| On the contrary, it's no different whatsoever from
| corralling away protest until it's out of sight in an
| approved zone, and arresting anyone who expresses dissent
| in sight.
|
| It's exactly the same use of police in concealment of
| dissent by the state.
|
| > Do you agree it was a problem
|
| Of course, it's fucking awful. It's your contention that
| "nothing like this ever happened in the US" that I took
| issue with - it does and it's entirely routine.
|
| This is _my_ very point - the UK is used as some sort of
| out-there example of Orwellian repression, but the US,
| often painted in contrast as some sort of bastion, albeit
| a troubled one, is usually doing _exactly the same damn
| thing_.
|
| It's in this thread. We have your assertions above, and
| below we have someone decrying how _unimaginable_ it
| would have been for a government to attempt to wholesale
| spy on people's communications two decades ago, seemingly
| completely unaware of the activities of the NSA in AT &T
| and other companies' data infrastructure in the US,
| revealed in 2006.
|
| It's a weird mix of jingoism and ignorance.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > On the contrary, it's no different whatsoever from
| corralling away protest until it's out of sight in an
| approved zone, and arresting anyone who expresses dissent
| in sight.
|
| You are not being genuine here IMO, and this seems to be
| a case of the very tribalism I spoke of. The two are not
| remotely the same. One is restricting a protest to a
| zone. The other is punishing people for what they are
| saying, even when what they are saying is a blank piece
| of cardboard.
|
| > It's your contention that "nothing like this ever
| happened in the US" that I took issue with - it does and
| it's entirely routine.
|
| > ...
|
| > the US, often painted in contrast as some sort of
| bastion, albeit a troubled one, is usually doing exactly
| the same damn thing.
|
| Can you cite an example of people in the US being
| arrested for holding up a blank piece of cardboard?
|
| > It's a weird mix of jingoism and ignorance.
|
| This only describes your behavior.
| foldr wrote:
| As another poster has already pointed out to you, the
| person holding the blank piece of paper was not arrested.
| A number of the arrests of anti-monarchy protestors were
| subsequently ruled unlawful (e.g.
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyenzdz66wo).
|
| All of this was widely reported in the British media and
| generally agreed to be a bad thing, so it doesn't really
| fit with your narrative of Brits being in denial about
| these problems.
|
| By being sloppy with the facts you're only reinforcing
| Nursie's point that much of the discussion around these
| issues on HN is based on exaggeration and poorly sourced
| claims. That's what people actually object to, but you
| misinterpret these objections as a defense of police
| overreach.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > As another poster has already pointed out to you, the
| person holding the blank piece of paper was not arrested.
|
| I was under the impression it was not a single incident,
| but that's great that it wasn't.
|
| The bigger problem, though, was people being arrested for
| holding up "not my king" or similar signs. According to
| one site[0], there were 64 arrests that day. I don't
| think it matters that no charges were filed or whatever,
| what matters is they were taken at the time for
| expressing an opinion.
|
| > All of this was widely reported in the British media
| and generally agreed to be a bad thing, so it doesn't
| really fit with your narrative of Brits being in denial
| about these problems.
|
| That's also good to know. I should have been clearer, but
| I meant within the context of my experience online. I
| also don't know that they are truly in denial, it just
| seems they are overly defensive about it and want to
| point out the US is worse in various ways.
|
| > That's what people actually object to, but you
| misinterpret these objections as a defense of police
| overreach.
|
| I'm misinterpreting anything, and certainly not in this
| discussion. In past discussions, closer to the
| coronation, there were Brits being _very_ active in
| downplaying the arrests, that to me would seem to be
| denying there was an issue. If it was widely reported in
| British media as a bad thing, it would seem these
| particular people being in denial were outliers.
|
| [0] https://hnksolicitors.com/news/met-police-regrets-
| coronation...
| foldr wrote:
| Ok, but please just do a quick search and check your
| facts before kicking off a long discussion thread on a
| false basis. I promise you that a lot of the pushback
| you're getting from Brits is down to the factual
| inaccuracies and exaggerations in your posts, not any
| great love we have for police crackdowns on peaceful
| protests.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > Ok, but please just do a quick search and check your
| facts before kicking off a long discussion thread on a
| false basis.
|
| My facts here would have been previous HN discussions
| that would have been very hard to find.
|
| > I promise you that a lot of the pushback you're getting
| from Brits is down to the factual inaccuracies and
| exaggerations in your posts
|
| No, that isn't the case, and you're not in a position to
| promise that; it's an assumption you're making, and I
| would ask you to question your motivation for doing so.
|
| In the previous posts I was using as an example
| discussion the coronation, people were downplaying
| protestors being arrested for holding up signs. Nothing
| was being exaggerated, all the facts were accurate as
| they had just happened - sources were abundant.
| iamnothere wrote:
| I am convinced that a good bit of this is paid
| astroturfing and another segment is people who work in
| government or government contracting. Brits generally
| seem more open to government intrusion, it's true, but in
| my experience they don't go out of their way to defend
| things like this. It's more of a passive acceptance.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| I think tribalism is the simpler explanation. One of the
| worst offenders I saw was a guy on here who wrote one of
| the new generation shells written in go...went out of his
| way to say the US had the same behavior as the UK,
| arresting people holding a blank sign, except his
| evidence was the disproportionate shooting of black
| people by police. An entirely unrelated issue. The point
| was though he was flailing due to feeling defensive, and
| unable to take a step back and analyze the criticisms
| objectively. This is super common behavior in pretty much
| all countries, and I think it's a huge problem.
| iamnothere wrote:
| True, now that you mention it I've seen the same sort of
| thing from people who are definitely not bots. Although,
| you can't discount the possibility that they do some
| government or law enforcement work as a consultant. The
| full throated defense of police state tactics is unreal.
| (For what it's worth, there are plenty of Americans who
| show up in Palantir/Flock threads doing the same thing,
| and I have the same suspicions there.)
| JCattheATM wrote:
| For a current example look at the other guy replying to
| my comments, earnestly trying to equate 'free speech
| zones' in the US which have not been a thing in years,
| maybe more than a decade, with people in the UK being
| arrested for holding up blank signs.
|
| I can't imagine it's paid work because what would be the
| point? It's not like he is influencing anyone's opinions.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Edit: I agree with you about many of these posts, and
| it's quite frustrating. Perhaps I should go for a walk.
| tdeck wrote:
| > free speech zones' in the US which have not been a
| thing in years, maybe more than a decade
|
| This is from 2024
|
| https://www.thefire.org/news/how-milwaukee-and-chicago-
| circu...
| JCattheATM wrote:
| OK. SO, one city decided to do that, around a convention
| where there was very likely reasonable security concerns.
| Not sure I agree with it, but it's hardly a national
| issue. Look at all the no kings and anti-ice protests
| nation wide not confined in any way as evidence.
| graemep wrote:
| > his evidence was the disproportionate shooting of black
| people by police
|
| In the UK? The police shoot very few people of any
| colour! Two in 2025: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o
| f_killings_by_police_in_...
|
| Is there even a bit enough sample to draw such
| conclusions (let alone that correlation does not imply
| causation)
| JCattheATM wrote:
| No, in the US. That's why it was silly.
|
| I was talking about protestors being arrested for holding
| up signs, he said the same thing happened in the US but
| his evidence was the disproportionate shooting of black
| people by police in the US, which while very bad is an
| entirely different issue.
| tdeck wrote:
| I was curious about the "blank sign" story because it's
| slightly different from what I remembered reading. As far
| as I can tell, this is the incident you're referring to:
| On 12 September, Charles addressed parliament as king for
| the first time. The Metropolitan police called in
| reinforcements in case of protests. Powlesland, who works
| nearby, walked from Parliament Square to Downing Street
| and back with his blank piece of paper. "Then a guy from
| Norfolk police came up and spoke to me, and that was the
| video that went viral." Powlesland recorded the encounter
| on his phone. "He asked for my details, I asked why and
| he said, 'I want to check you're OK on the Police
| National Computer.' I said, 'I've not done anything
| wrong, so I'm not giving you them.' I wanted to test it
| without getting arrested. So I asked, 'If I wrote "Not my
| king" on the paper, would I get arrested?' and he said,
| 'Probably, because it would be a breach of the Public
| Order Act; it would be offensive.'" Was he right?
| Powlesland laughs. "No! Just having something someone
| else finds offensive is not a criminal offence because
| then pretty much anything could be."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/29/the-
| crowd-we...
| JCattheATM wrote:
| I'm glad that was only a single instance, I had
| misremebered it as being multiple. I think the bigger
| isser then is people arrested for holding up signs saying
| "not my king" or similar, of which there were at least
| 64[0].
|
| [0] https://hnksolicitors.com/news/met-police-regrets-
| coronation...
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| One thing that is often missed in this narrative is that the
| UK has a voting system which was explicitly designed to
| counteract this issue reaching definitive results with the
| minimum amount of consensus.
|
| I agree with you but I think this idea of being "fair" is
| something that is said but no-one actually believes in. Most
| recent government is one of the most extreme examples of
| this: do things that annoys everyone, say you are just being
| "fair" because everyone is annoyed...it doesn't make sense.
|
| To say this another way, there is genuinely an easier option:
| stop doing things that people do not want.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The obvious implication is that "balance" between freedom and
| surveillance just moves things away from freedom.
|
| Of course, on the note of being attacked from "both" sides,
| there are often more than two sides to a story. Also, not
| every side has to be, or maybe even should be, considered
| with equal weight.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The "eating shit" fallacy as I like to call it.
|
| Just because a fascist and a communist agree that eating shit
| is bad, doesn't mean that eating shit is a good idea.
| miroljub wrote:
| > So media control, regulation by enforcement, and
| institutional control becomes the focus of effort.
|
| You forgot gun control. That's the first thing they took away.
| Thereafter, freedom after freedom has been made optional by the
| government [1].
|
| When government becomes overreaching, and you don't have the
| means to protect yourself and your rights, that's where it
| goes.
|
| [1] I said "government", but probably "regime" would be a more
| suitable term here.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| i'm absolutely, concretely and overwhelmingly fine with the
| concept of gun control here as a uk citizen.
|
| i say this as someone who did target rifle shooting as a kid.
| so, i've been around weapons in a positive way.
|
| the controls are a good thing.
| baal80spam wrote:
| > i'm absolutely, concretely and overwhelmingly fine with
| the concept of gun control here as a uk citizen.
|
| That... speaks volumes of the citizens of the said country.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The guns in the US don't seem to be helping people avoid
| getting shot by ICE.
|
| (to the extent that armed revolution worked in the UK, the
| IRA were helped only slightly by US-backed supplies of
| Armalite rifles, and much more by a large supply of Libyan
| high explosives. Guns are a much less effective political
| weapon than the car or truck or hotel bomb)
| logicchains wrote:
| >The guns in the US don't seem to be helping people avoid
| getting shot by ICE.
|
| The woman who was shot was a democrat without any guns,
| maybe if she'd had a gun she wouldn't have been shot.
| tavavex wrote:
| > maybe if she'd had a gun she wouldn't have been shot
|
| And how do you imagine that, exactly? You think that cop
| was fine shooting her for driving away in panic, but
| would patiently wait for her to grab a gun? And what
| would you like a person in her situation to do with the
| gun? Shoot him? The fact is, pulling a weapon in front of
| a US cop is begging to be killed on the spot. A common
| point of advice is that if you're stopped in the US by
| police, you should never look like you're reaching for
| anything, because the worst-case penalty for that is
| death. It instantly escalates the situation to life-or-
| death for a group of people that is largely already
| itching to pull the trigger.
| Zizizizz wrote:
| Maybe if he didn't have a gun she wouldn't have been
| shot.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >The guns in the US don't seem to be helping people avoid
| getting shot by ICE.
|
| I don't see ICE prowling "the cops don't come serve a
| warrant here with anything less than a SWAT team" parts of
| New Orleans or St. Louis.
|
| Stop thinking about this based on indoctrinated emotion and
| politics. Think about it in terms of an all out war and
| "how do I force my enemy to expend resources not toward his
| goals".
|
| Personal ability to credibly threaten lethal violence
| (note: I did not say "firearms") acts much like an AGTM or
| MANPADS for an infantry squad. Making any potential target
| substantially more prickly to a potentially superior force
| and doing so for little cost is a huge boon for the little
| guy. A firearm is a force multiplier same as a bomb
| carrying drone or a cell phone that records things the
| government does not like or a media platform that puts
| those things in front of the eyes of the masses.
|
| The idea that any cranky old man or mentally on the edge
| person might just snap and put a bullet in your favorite
| bespoke enforcer (i.e. not a cop but someone who hands out
| state backed fines all the same) puts a huge damper on your
| ability to deploy those people for example. The risk that
| your informants might get clapped increases the cost of
| your informants for like results, etc, etc. And when you
| game it out to it's ends what it comes down to is that the
| population doing the subjugating might simply not be rich
| enough or motivated enough to have or be willing to
| allocate the resources needed to do the job.
|
| This is a large part of why drugs won the war on drugs.
| There were enough glawk fawtys wit da switch kicking around
| on the "wrong" side of the law that the cops needed to
| adopt militarized tactics, the public didn't wanna pay for
| that shit (monetarily or politically) over weed, and thus
| drugs won the war on drugs. If they could've rolled up on
| just about anyone "cheaply" with just a couple cops it
| would've gone on way longer.
|
| >(to the extent that armed revolution worked in the UK, the
| IRA were helped only slightly by US-backed supplies of
| Armalite rifles, and much more by a large supply of Libyan
| high explosives. Guns are a much less effective political
| weapon than the car or truck or hotel bomb)
|
| The semtex wouldn't have gotten anywhere useful if the
| Brits could just walk into wherever all willy nilly chasing
| down every lead in search of it. Bringing enough credible
| threat of violence to force their enemy to actually behave
| like a proper occupying force burning money and political
| credibility as a result limited the Brit's ability engage
| (at the right price) in the kind of police action they
| needed to catch the bombs.
|
| If they could've just sent pairs of cops after every lead
| in an "oi you got a license for that meme" manner they'd
| have dredged up all the semtex and none of it would've made
| it to London.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| I still don't know what's so important about guns and how
| it's a metric for freedom.
| logicchains wrote:
| As Mao said, political power grows from the barrel of the
| gun. In the past decade freedom of speech and internet
| freedom has being dramatically curtailed in pretty much
| every western country where the citizen are unarmed.
| Maken wrote:
| These guns didn't stop the CLOUD act.
| wormpilled wrote:
| Predators are less likely to attack someone who can defend
| themselves, it's quite simple.
| chimprich wrote:
| The empirical evidence from the US does not bear that
| out. Compare murder rates between the US and any peer
| country with more gun control.
| miroljub wrote:
| Most of the murders (homicides) in the USA are committed
| using illegal weapons. Banning legal weapons wouldn't
| reduce crime, it would just make it harder for victims to
| defend themselves.
|
| Besides, USA is not a good example. According to
| Wikipedia [1], high murder rate statistics in the USA are
| skewed due to the overrepresentation of one specific part
| of the population, which is not that common in comparable
| countries. If that population were to be removed from the
| statistics, the murder rate in the USA would drop
| significantly.
|
| > According to the FBI 2019 Uniform Crime Report,
| African-Americans accounted for 55.9% of all homicide
| offenders in 2019, with whites 41.1%, and "Other" 3% in
| cases where the race was known. Including homicide
| offenders where the race was unknown, African-Americans
| accounted for 39.6% of all homicide offenders in 2019,
| with whites 29.1%, "Other" 2.1%, and "Unknown" 29.3%[48]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_U
| nited_S...
| chimprich wrote:
| > Most of the murders (homicides) in the USA are
| committed using illegal weapons
|
| Hardly relevant. If you control guns better, you get
| fewer illegal weapons as well. Most of the murders in
| Europe are committed by illegal weapons as well.
|
| > Banning legal weapons wouldn't reduce crime
|
| Of course it would - see the reduction in gun violence in
| countries where this has been implemented.
|
| > Besides, USA is not a good example. According to
| Wikipedia [1], high murder rate statistics in the USA are
| skewed due to the overrepresentation of one specific part
| of the population
|
| Oh. You're one of those.
|
| It's a peculiarly American thing to try first to look to
| race to try to understand something, when there are more
| salient correlations.
|
| Presumably since Black Americans are overrepresented as
| victims of gun violence, you'd like to see a
| significantly higher proportion carrying guns?
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Yes, for the US with their unique historical and cultural
| differences, but it doesn't make it an international
| metric.
|
| Everyone in the US agrees with the inequalities and
| segregation and find it acceptable that an individual has
| to become a predator to survive because they don't find
| it acceptable to help each other on a governmental scale.
|
| Some countries have worse inequalities than the US but
| they don't think they need guns to have freedom in their
| daily lives.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| I don't agree. The British State has been going in this
| direction ever since Blair's government and probably before
| that. I don't remember Blair's government being that unpopular.
| vablings wrote:
| New labour really laid the groundwork for alot of the
| orwellian laws that are in place now. Its a shame nobody who
| has been elected since sought to roll them back...
| letn1 wrote:
| Why is it happening in the UK though? Why does their government
| think that they need this?
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| who chooses who chooses who watches the watchers ?
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Corporate. Google, Meta, TikTok. All governmental entities or
| tied to.
|
| What's the harm if your data is "lost" along the way. /s
| geremiiah wrote:
| They all believe to be morally infallible. I don't think they
| would even be able to function as politicians without such
| cognitive dissonance.
| varispeed wrote:
| "We detected that you are about to commit a crime. Here is
| provisional 2-years sentence shall you decide to go ahead with
| the plans. It includes free single room, 3 meals a day, gym,
| library, daily walks and company of people like yourself. You
| will also receive counselling and you could take up a free course
| to advance your skills in desired field and post-release support
| for a year."
| amitav1 wrote:
| This is the end result of Finland annexing the UK, lol
| codebyaditya wrote:
| What's unsettling here isn't any single policy, but the
| convergence: predictive policing, protest restrictions, and
| administrative punishments all justified as "risk management."
| Even if each tool seems narrow, together they normalize acting on
| suspicion rather than action, which quietly lowers the bar for
| dissent.
| anthk wrote:
| Dobleplusgood.
| FpUser wrote:
| I wonder at what point these countries will loose any moral
| ground against the likes of Russia, China etc.
|
| Up until this point it was mostly that they would gladly fuck the
| other countries up but treated their own people way better than
| the other camp. But this difference is disappearing.
|
| Of course there is always North Korea and other totally fucked up
| regimes they could use to compare and look white and fluffy
| fabianholzer wrote:
| > I wonder at what point these countries will loose any moral
| ground against the likes of Russia, China etc.
|
| When arbitrary extrajudicial killings happen at some scale on a
| regular basis?
| slfreference wrote:
| I heard Boeing whistleblowers died unexpectedly.
|
| Two prominent Boeing whistleblowers, John Barnett (died March
| 2024) and Joshua Dean (died April 2024), have died in recent
| times, raising significant concerns about retaliation and
| safety at the aerospace giant; Barnett died from a self-
| inflicted gunshot wound after battling Boeing in a
| retaliation lawsuit, while Dean died from a sudden infection
| after raising quality concerns, with his family suspecting
| foul play despite official rulings. Barnett's death was ruled
| a suicide, though his family's wrongful death suit claims
| Boeing's harassment caused his distress, while Dean's death
| followed rapid illness, with his family also alleging
| misconduct by his employer, Spirit Aerosystems, and Boeing.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Also Suchir Balaji. And if you're willing to go back
| further, Michael Hastings and Gary Webb.
|
| But that's all the US. For the UK you need Gareth Williams,
| the GHCQ analyst who was found dead inside a padlocked
| duffel bag.
| js8 wrote:
| Another suspicious death was David Kelly, who was
| involved in weapons inspections in Iraq and disputed the
| casus belli for the Iraq war.
| RansomStark wrote:
| think its important to leave some context here:
|
| As far as it is known, Kelly walked a mile (1.6 km) from
| his house to Harrowdown Hill. It appears he ingested up
| to 29 tablets of co-proxamol, an analgesic drug; he also
| cut his left wrist with a pruning knife he had owned
| since his youth, severing his ulnar artery. Forensic
| analysis established that neither the knife nor the
| blister packs showed Kelly's fingerprints on their
| surfaces [0].
|
| and a letter to the editor:
|
| As specialist medical professionals, we do not consider
| the evidence given at the Hutton inquiry has demonstrated
| that Dr David Kelly committed suicide.
|
| Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist at the Hutton
| inquiry, concluded that Dr Kelly bled to death from a
| self-inflicted wound to his left wrist. We view this as
| highly improbable. Arteries in the wrist are of
| matchstick thickness and severing them does not lead to
| life-threatening blood loss. Dr Hunt stated that the only
| artery that had been cut - the ulnar artery - had been
| completely transected. Complete transection causes the
| artery to quickly retract and close down, and this
| promotes clotting of the blood.
|
| The ambulance team reported that the quantity of blood at
| the scene was minimal and surprisingly small. It is
| extremely difficult to lose significant amounts of blood
| at a pressure below 50-60 systolic in a subject who is
| compensating by vasoconstricting. To have died from
| haemorrhage, Dr Kelly would have had to lose about five
| pints of blood - it is unlikely that he would have lost
| more than a pint.
|
| Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the
| inquiry, considered the amount ingested of Co-Proxamol
| insufficient to have caused death. Allan could not show
| that Dr Kelly had ingested the 29 tablets said to be
| missing from the packets found. Only a fifth of one
| tablet was found in his stomach. Although levels of Co-
| Proxamol in the blood were higher than therapeutic
| levels, Allan conceded that the blood level of each of
| the drug's two components was less than a third of what
| would normally be found in a fatal overdose.
|
| We dispute that Dr Kelly could have died from haemorrhage
| or from Co-Proxamol ingestion or from both. The coroner,
| Nicholas Gardiner, has spoken recently of resuming the
| inquest into his death. If it re-opens, as in our opinion
| it should, a clear need exists to scrutinise more closely
| Dr Hunt's conclusions as to the cause of death.
|
| David Halpin - Specialist in trauma and orthopaedic
| surgery C Stephen Frost - Specialist in diagnostic
| radiology Searle Sennett [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_ex
| pert)#D... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/20
| 04/jan/27/guardian...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _For the UK you need Gareth Williams, the GHCQ analyst
| who was found dead inside a padlocked duffel bag._
|
| And whose death was "probably an accident" according to
| the Met Police...
| simmerup wrote:
| Iran used machine guns in protesters
|
| China used tanks against students
|
| Russia still has gulags for people who criticise the government
|
| You're incredibly naive if you think they're the same as us
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| While you have a point, you are looking at this the wrong
| way.
|
| 20 years ago if you had told someone you needed to get a face
| scan or upload your ID to view certain websites or that you
| might get your messages and emails scanned in case you send
| something that the government deems suspicious to someone
| else, people would have laughed at you.
|
| Yet as we are seeing currently this is what is happening
| slowly but surely.
|
| Yes, the UK government is not gunning down protesters in the
| street but can you say with certainty that the screws are not
| being tightened and that the so called western values of
| freedom of speech are not being eroded systematically year
| after year under the pretense of safety?
|
| It seems to me that every western government is looking at
| what China and Russia are doing and instead of staying true
| to their values, they are actually trying to figure out how
| to roll out the same exact measures in the west.
|
| Will we see Gulags in the west make a comeback? Most likely
| not but in terms of freedom of speech and online privacy
| rights, we are seeing clearly a rollback and if we do nothing
| to stop it, we will end up like China with governments
| looking at everything we say and write on our phone and
| computer and that is unacceptable especially when these
| measures are cowardly disguised as 'safety" measures.
| Nursie wrote:
| > 20 years ago if you had told someone ... you might get
| your messages and emails scanned in case you send something
| that the government deems suspicious to someone else,
| people would have laughed at you.
|
| 20 years ago we already knew the US government was watching
| everything.
|
| You haven't been paying attention.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
| FpUser wrote:
| >"You're incredibly naive if you think they're the same as
| us"
|
| And you are "incredibly" inattentive (considering the best
| case). I did not say they're "the same as us", I said they're
| heading there. Depending on what particular country we are
| talking about mileage can vary.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| 'Moral ground' was the product of a controlled media
| environment.
| mapt wrote:
| This is a thousand times as concerning in the context of London
| than in the context of Baltimore. It addresses a concern that
| doesn't exist for the UK public, in a way that appears intended
| to oppress from the start, against a backdrop of arresting
| thousands of pensioners for disagreeing about a genocide.
| simmerup wrote:
| The only people being arrested in the Uk are for supporting a
| proscribed group.
|
| A group that broke a police officers back with sledge hammers,
| committed multiple acts of vandalism against our military, and
| have tons of links to Hamas
|
| They can oppose Israel action in Palestine, they just can't
| support terrorists
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| De facto, arresting 80 year old women for holding signs is
| always going to look authoritarian. They're not exactly the
| type to strap on a vest but we have to pretend we dont know
| what a terrorist looks like.
| simmerup wrote:
| They are the type to sledgehammer police officers though
| apparently
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| I find that physically unlikely.
| simmerup wrote:
| Well we know they support the people that do
| ddq wrote:
| Then why did you say 80-year old women were "the type to
| sledgehammer police officers though apparently" and then
| immediate shift the goalposts? Further, the statement
| "The only people being arrested in the Uk are for
| supporting a proscribed group" is patently false; the UK
| government has not limited its arrests for social media
| posts to those expressing support for Hamas. You are not
| engaging in good faith discussion.
| jjgreen wrote:
| This is a jury trial in progress, there are rules against
| prejudicing such. Genuinely interested readers can read a
| trial report here: https://realmedia.press/the-filton-
| trial-4/
| Piezoid wrote:
| Not a word on Palantir. Is this because of the adept wording by
| the ministry of justice? I highly doubt they are developing this
| in a vacuum.
|
| As re reminder, In the UK Palantir holds extensive contracts
| across defense (multi-billion MoD deals for AI-driven battlefield
| and intelligence systems) and healthcare (7y PS330m+ NHS Data
| Platform). In France, its involvement is narrower but
| concentrated on *domestic* intelligence.
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| The UK faces real structural problems with the inflating cost of
| living regardless of government, roughly halfway attributable to
| failing the lower-level challenge of continuing to import
| adequate quantities of diesel at affordable prices and the rest
| mostly coming from an aging population. Spot diesel has come down
| from the price spike of covid to approximately 1.3x the 2019
| price.
|
| Almost all physical goods have diesel prices contribute to their
| sticker price in a significant way. The diesel exporting
| countries are all incrementally increasing their domestic
| consumption, leaving less for the world market year on year.
|
| The UK government isn't trying much policy for tackling the
| causes or the symptoms, largely because the government is
| disproportionately drawn from a class of people who don't want
| those policies. The media of the upper middle class of the UK has
| sincere column after sincere column of hating the rest of the
| population and calling for better controls over the cattle.
|
| Tens of millions of people, held hostage by a clique of crabs in
| a bucket.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I would say "so diesel uses should be encouraged to transition
| to electric where feasible", except the government has _also_
| dropped the ball on electricity prices and is now looking at
| increasing taxes on EVs.
|
| > The UK government isn't trying much policy for tackling the
| causes or the symptoms, largely because the government is
| disproportionately drawn from a class of people who don't want
| those policies. The media of the upper middle class of the UK
| has sincere column after sincere column of hating the rest of
| the population and calling for better controls over the cattle.
|
| This is spot on, though. I joke that instead of state
| controlled media we have a media controlled state.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > The UK government isn't trying much policy for tackling the
| causes or the symptoms
|
| It doesn't know what it wants, nor how to prioritise between
| conflicts from vague pre (and post) election statements. It
| certainly doesn't want to make the hard compromises that are
| actually required.
|
| That said...
|
| _I_ wouldn 't want the job of trying to balance the books, fix
| the housing backlog, modernise our energy infrastructure,
| integrate social and medical care, address social cohesion,
| manage persistent inequality, improve our global
| competitiveness etc etc etc
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I would, because despite having no idea how to accomplish any
| of that, I know how to delegate to people who do.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Costs are inflating because they have more money than things to
| invest in. Same thing happened to Spain after the new world was
| found and exploited.
|
| All that gold and silver just went to paying off foreign debt
| and inflating local markets.
|
| Same thing is happening because the UK only have the London
| Financial hub going for it.
| budududuroiu wrote:
| In China, the social contract at least is "you give up some
| individual freedoms and some privacy, never dissent against the
| government, and in exchange the government promises you
| prosperity"
|
| I wonder what the Brits get in exchange for their giving up of
| personal freedoms?
| miroljub wrote:
| > I wonder what the Brits get in exchange for their giving up
| of personal freedoms?
|
| Well, at least little girls get protected from the grooming /
| rape gangs.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| The people who talk pretty get to keep buying nice houses for
| their kids. It seems like a pretty good deal.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Brits already _have_ more prosperity (= > median wages) even
| after adjusting for purchasing power.
|
| Some stagnation is to be expected from high energy prices and
| trade disruption (brexit).
|
| British surveillance state tolerance has always been pretty
| high for Europe, and is typically "sold" to the average citizen
| as anti-crime.
| url00 wrote:
| It is important to note that this is a deal struck for just
| some ethnic groups of the citizenry. It does not apply fairly
| across the board to all people under Chinese governments'
| control so it's not even as good as it sounds for the average
| Chinese citizen.
| Alex2037 wrote:
| diversity :)
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Walking down the street and hearing 4 different languages and
| understanding nobody is soo amazing and heart warming and
| demonstrates how well everyone has integrated really well
| Alex2037 wrote:
| exactly! I'm not sure why we're being downvoted :(
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| The difference is that the purpose of government in China is to
| govern effectively. They dedicate resources to producing
| leaders who have proven they can govern at lower levels to some
| degree (you always find that the corruption in China comes from
| leaders who came up through SOEs or similar). In terms of civil
| service and province-level leadership, it is just incredibly
| effective.
|
| In the UK, you have leaders who are incredibly unpopular, they
| have no real skills, and they spend most of their time
| pandering to very small groups of people for various reasons.
| There is no real incentive to do anything relevant to voters,
| in fact you have seen over the last five years that political
| engagement has dropped significantly in a way that has
| generally benefitted incumbents.
|
| To say this another way: the point of the UK system is so that
| people who are manifestly unfit to govern end up governing, and
| a small rotating group of special interests are continually
| pandered to (there is complete blindness to this in the UK,
| people often assume this is wealthy people when wealthy people
| are largely ignored...a politics grad working in research for a
| think tank will have more power in actual government than
| someone who gives PS10m to the governing party).
| thesz wrote:
| Orwell worked in Spain for about a year, 1936-37, his work on BBC
| during WWII was twice as long.
|
| In my opinion, 1984 was shaped by his work in Britain.
| miroljub wrote:
| And the brilliant MI6 / BBC propaganda made it as if 1984 were
| about the Soviet Union :)
|
| As if it was not enough that the author himself put it in
| Britain.
|
| If you want Soviet Style distopia, better read "We" from
| Zamyatin.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Between arresting grannies for saying they support Palestinian
| Action and using armed officers to apprehend comedy writers I
| doubt they'll have the time.
| azangru wrote:
| > The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime
| continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest,
| dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest.
|
| Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about
| bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get
| snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to
| prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast
| to how they do prosecute noncrime crimes such as 'hate speech').
|
| Here, for comparison, is a paragraph from an essay by Konstantin
| Kisin:
|
| > A month earlier, I was walking through a posh part of London
| when I saw a young man in a balaclava snatch a bag from a
| tourist. When I told people about what I saw at various meetings,
| most people were surprised that I was surprised. Phone thefts,
| muggings and all kinds of petty crime are now considered normal
| and routine.
|
| Which story is correct?
|
| [0] -https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/theres-good-news-for-
| brita...
| fidotron wrote:
| Everyone in London knows what happens if you try to report
| "minor" street crime.
|
| Obviously everyone saying the UK isn't a utopia is a Russian
| bot, and we should be censoring them.
| foldr wrote:
| Do you even go here?
| fidotron wrote:
| > Do you even go here?
|
| Is that authentic vernacular?
| widdershins wrote:
| Fine, but also how to explain the crazy claims flying around
| the internet that London is a warzone and a no-go area? I
| live here and... seriously, nothing has changed. I feel
| perfectly safe and always have.
|
| Yeah sure, there's some phone theft, it's not great. This
| phone theft wave is just a symptom of everyone carrying PS500
| devices around. Big cities have always had theft, pickpocket
| and snatching crimes. But it's nothing astonishingly new or
| different. I know one person who had their phone snatched,
| never seen it happen myself.
|
| So how to explain this massive wave of social media posts
| making out that London's unsafe? There is definitely a
| narrative being pushed, whether by Russian bots or not, I
| cannot say.
| fidotron wrote:
| Because everyone that experiences the crime stops
| tolerating it and leaves. This is why the area around the
| greenbelt so closely resembles the inner cities of 20 years
| before. This isn't some new phenomenon - Lee Kuan Yew
| famously described the newspaper purchasing arrangement at
| Piccadilly Circus in the 1950s, which was incomprehensible
| by the 1980s.
|
| I'm old enough to remember when they had posters telling
| people not to wear iPod white earphones because that will
| get you mugged (and it would) - pure blaming the victim
| nonsense.
|
| If London defenders were half as enthusiastic about
| cleaning up their city as they are about attacking anyone
| pointing out the all too obvious problems they genuinely
| would be in utopia.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| I lived in South London a few decades ago, it was the
| exact same situation.
|
| Lived in central London, close to 100% of the crime was
| happening from one area. Police refused to go into that
| area because of "community relations". No crime in areas
| that didn't abut this location but no desire to fix.
| Police pretend to police.
|
| Moved to South London, crime more prevalent but, again,
| certain areas are worse. Police won't go to these areas,
| "community relations" even worse. Cash machine near
| housing estate treated like lootbox. Next election comes
| round, candidate spends most of their time canvassing on
| estate. Police only go onto the estate to attend events
| with "community" telling them they are bigots. Crime
| continues.
|
| Everyone who works this out either leaves or, if they get
| enough money, move to safe areas of West London. Today's
| Londoners do not realise everyone has left, it is just a
| bunch of people who moved there in the last ten years
| telling everyone how brilliant it is and pretending they
| have lived there for years before being forced to leave
| too. Property prices suggest that actual long-term
| citizens are continuing to leave in large numbers.
| fidotron wrote:
| > Everyone who works this out either leaves or, if they
| get enough money, move to safe areas of West London.
| Today's Londoners do not realise everyone has left, it is
| just a bunch of people who moved there in the last ten
| years telling everyone how brilliant it is and pretending
| they have lived there for years before being forced to
| leave too. Property prices suggest that actual long-term
| citizens are continuing to leave in large numbers.
|
| Painfully accurate.
|
| The fact even Lily Allen, of all people, made a music
| video about delusional Londoners telling themselves it's
| all fine, when it's not, speaks volumes, and they're
| still at it. (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmYT79tPvLg )
| cameronh90 wrote:
| What are we supposed to do to "clean up our city"? I live
| in one of the worst areas, statistically, for crime and
| haven't experienced anything beyond porch piracy and
| someone trying my car door.
|
| My girlfriend walks to/from the train station daily in
| the early morning and late night without any trouble and
| personal safety isn't even something we spend any time
| thinking about. Obviously crime happens, but against
| other comparable large cities it's only really Tokyo and
| a few cities in semi-authoritarian countries that seem
| _that_ much safer to me. Big European cities are about
| the same and US cities are much worse.
|
| Beyond reporting anything I see, which I do, I'm not sure
| what kind of cleaning up you expect me to do? Obviously
| it's a factor in how I vote, but it's not even a top 3
| issue to be honest.
| fidotron wrote:
| > My girlfriend walks to/from the train station daily in
| the early morning and late night without any trouble and
| personal safety isn't even something we spend any time
| thinking about.
|
| You understand this is the kind of thing those of us that
| lived there have heard a million times?
|
| It's exactly what people say before the thing that
| happens that makes them leave.
|
| > US cities are much worse.
|
| This also is not the case, and it's amazing how
| propagandized the UK has to be to think it. If you lot
| were aware of the true standard of life in most of the US
| you'd riot.
| foldr wrote:
| Ok, so we can either listen to
|
| (i) people who live in London, or
|
| (ii) people who left London _because_ they were victims
| of a crime.
|
| I'm genuinely sorry that you were the victim of a crime,
| but people in group (ii) are obviously likely to have a
| negative perception of London regardless of how much or
| how little crime London actually has.
|
| By way of analogy, consider that there are people who
| experienced a traumatic air accident and who have never
| flown again. I don't blame them. But their experiences
| don't countervail the statistics showing that flying is
| safe.
|
| >> US cities are much worse.
|
| > This also is not the case, and it's amazing how
| propagandized the UK has to be to think it. If you lot
| were aware of the true standard of life in most of the US
| you'd riot.
|
| I've lived in London and DC, and DC (at the time at
| least, 2007-2011) was uncontroversially much more
| dangerous than London. And of course it's only 6 months
| ago that the President of the USA declared a public
| safety emergency in DC ;) You're not wrong about the
| overall standard or living, but you are wrong about crime
| and safety.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Bad things can happen anywhere. A one-off incident
| wouldn't make me leave.
|
| I visit the US often and have been a victim of crime
| there more often than anywhere in Europe. That's not to
| say I don't love the US. San Diego is probably my
| favourite city in the world. But apart from one or two
| exceptions, large US cities suffer from far worse crime
| than anywhere in the UK. I got mugged at gunpoint by a
| crackhead in Philly. Quality of life can be fantastic of
| course. My aunt lives in a gated community in LA and
| drives to work so she never has to interact with the real
| world, so to speak, and her QoL is amazing. But large
| parts of the city are absolutely dystopian.
|
| Try walking from Fashion District to Chinatown and tell
| me where you'd find something like that anywhere in
| London, let alone Z1. I don't even know if I've seen
| anything that bad in actual third world cities.
| youngtaff wrote:
| "Everyone knows" says someone who now lives in Montreal!
| fidotron wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602802
|
| I do appreciate your efforts at digging.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police
| absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a
| fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime
| is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be
| (and less than US cities, of course).
| azangru wrote:
| Sure; but the article's premise is that street crime is
| falling (and as a result, the police, which, presumably, has
| more free time on their hands, can focus on other things).
| Assuming petty crime is street crime, and seeing that you
| agree that the police suck at it, is the article's premise
| correct?
| foldr wrote:
| Yes, it's correct. Violent crime in London and the UK more
| generally has been on a long term downward trend. This is
| not incompatible with there being spikes in some specific
| categories of crime. But it's consistent with the trends
| for homicide, for which the statistics are pretty hard to
| dispute, and where London has fewer per capita than Berlin,
| Brussels and Paris (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2026/jan/12/london-homic...).
|
| You're posting an article by someone with eccentric views
| on a lot of topics and an anti-multiculturalist agenda to
| advance. (For example, they believe that Rishi Sunak is not
| English.)
| BunsanSpace wrote:
| Similar story in Canada. Violent crime and serious crime is
| on a clear downward trend. Yet in most majour cities you a
| less safe, and the public transit system is more dangerous
| than ever.
|
| Not sure about the UK, at least in Canada it's
| poverty/people being broke. More homeless people and the
| general harassment they inflict on people in their
| surrounding area, more petty crime that the police don't
| bother investigating so people don't bother reporting it.
| More theft from grocery stores, more petty scams for <$1000
| &c.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Anecdote is not data.
|
| This is a situation where the data may not be capturing the
| reality, though.
|
| An increasingly common tactic for decreasing crime statistics
| is to reduce reporting of crimes. The more difficult you make
| it to report a crime, the better the crime numbers look.
|
| In one city I'm familiar with, it became so well known that
| reporting small crimes was a futile endeavor that people just
| gave up. It was common knowledge that you don't bother
| calling the police unless it was a major crime. Not
| surprisingly, the crime statistics started to look better.
| reedf1 wrote:
| pretty hard to underreport homicide
| theappsecguy wrote:
| Not sure homicide fits into "small crime" category.
| foldr wrote:
| No, but it serves as a sense check on the other data. If
| the official stats were bogus and crime were spiraling
| out of control in London, it would be somewhat surprising
| to see homicides going _down_. The fact that one of the
| most objectively measurable crimes is going down lends
| some additional credibility to the statistics indicating
| that this trend is also being seen across other crime
| categories.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| That's why we have the national crime survey, performed by
| the ONS.
|
| Correlating it with police stats and murder stats suggests
| that reporting and recording is actually going up as a
| proportion of crime. Petty crime like shoplifting has gone
| up, but relatively speaking most people would probably take
| that over stabbing and murder even if ideally we'd have
| neither.
|
| There's this weird trend that's taken over social media
| trying to portray London as a lawless hell hole but few
| people who actually live here are experiencing it that way,
| and the stats back that up. It's largely people outside
| London that are claiming the crime is bad here.
| logicchains wrote:
| Rape rates in the UK have more than tripled over the past two
| decades, why doesn't that count as serious violent crime?
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-
| off...
| Nursie wrote:
| From the link - This is possibly due to better reporting
| practices by the police as well as an increasing
| willingness of victims to come forward, including historic
| victims of sexual violence.
|
| Not definitive, but certainly a possible explanation.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/world/europe/london-
| polic... A record 80,000 phones were stolen
| in the city last year [inferred to be 2024], according to the
| police, giving London an undesirable reputation as a European
| capital for the crime. Overall crime in London has
| fallen in recent years, but phone theft is disproportionately
| high, representing about 70 percent of thefts last year. And
| it has risen sharply: The 80,000 phone thefts last year were
| a stark increase from the 64,000 in 2023, the police told a
| parliamentary committee in June. That is partly
| because this crime is both "very lucrative" and "lower risk"
| than car theft or drug dealing, Cmdr. Andrew Featherstone,
| the police officer leading the effort to tackle phone theft,
| told a news conference. Thieves can make up to PS300 (about
| $400) per device -- more than triple the national minimum
| wage for a day's work. And they know they are
| unlikely to be caught. Police data shows about 106,000 phones
| were reported stolen in London from March 2024 to February
| 2025. Only 495 people were charged or were given a police
| caution, meaning they admitted to an offense.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| There was a phone theft wave that peaked in 2024. It's
| still happening, but it's significantly less of a problem
| now - some stats say 30% down from the peak by mid 2025. I
| had my phone stolen in 2024, I know others who did, but I
| haven't heard of anyone having theirs stolen recently and
| people aren't really worrying about it any more.
|
| Turns out it wasn't just random street crime. It was being
| run by organised crime networks, and it went down
| significantly after they managed to disrupt a few major
| rings.
|
| These waves do happen from time to time when criminal
| networks discover a new tactic, before the police figure
| out an effective method to deal with it. It was youth
| stabbings a few years ago and acid attacks before that,
| both are much reduced now.
|
| Those criminals will move onto something else now,
| undoubtedly. Perhaps shoplifting, which it's now reported
| is being also increasingly run by gangs. Point is, you
| can't necessarily look at an individual type of crime as an
| indicator of criminality as a whole, could just be
| exploiting an opportunity.
| vablings wrote:
| Something that does upset me is that only the monetary
| value of a phone is ultimately considered in sentencing but
| these days a phone is a lot more, it is a lifeline to the
| rest of the world often having your ability to pay and
| travel built in. A theft of a phone can make a bad day very
| long and very difficult.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| So far, I have never seen any article or even comment online
| explain explicitly why this is the case.
|
| Almost everyone can see quite visibly that crime is not
| decreasing but then you have people with a clear political
| and financial motive saying: the stats, you are just a loon
| or (even worse) someone who might not be from London.
|
| If you read the best source on this, hospital admissions, you
| will see that ~95% of the drop in "violent crime" is due to
| decreases in alcohol consumption. That is it. Ex this impact
| and in relative terms, violent crime in cities has been
| increasing significantly. And violent crime is supposed to be
| the rare subset of crime when, obviously, other categories of
| crime are generally increasing.
|
| Btw, the group that publishes this data is also (strangely)
| unwilling to make this known and, afaik, do not include this
| information in press releases.
|
| The other factor is that the composition of London's
| population has naturally changed over the last ten years. As
| London has continued to dominate economically, the poor have
| been emptied out from certain areas contributing greatly to a
| reduction in crime stats (and, unfortunately, an increase
| elsewhere in the country). For example, Camden has seen a
| huge reduction in violent crime, is this a surprise? If you
| look at areas that have stayed the same, crime has got worse
| (again, in relative terms/ex the above factors, crime in the
| UK is falling in many areas and rising in others).
|
| I will say this another way: data is not collected fairly or
| accurately. There are massive political and financial
| incentives against accurate data. In London, this has always
| been the case because it is not possible to win elections in
| some areas in London with high crime if you admit that crime
| is high in those areas...you have to blame society. Twenty
| years ago, you had the same thing: city has never been safer,
| politicians doing so well, Met doing so well...once you have
| seen this a few times, you should start to wonder whether it
| is true...particularly as the current line is that crime was
| rampant twenty years ago...when it obviously wasn't.
| Anecdotes will always tend to represent the reality better
| than data which is produced for political purposes (and I
| think people know this, the stats exist in part so that
| people can hop online and say that everyone is doing a great
| job, you see the same thing online with central
| government...it is very weird).
| teh64 wrote:
| The man who says Rishi Sunak is not English [0] might be lying?
| Thats crazy.
|
| [0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/society/2025/02/of-
| cou...
| RansomStark wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you mean by English. England is a
| country, but you can't have an English passport, you can only
| get a UK passport. so, English is a kinda-sorta a non-
| nationality, but it is very much an ethnic group.
|
| I don't think anyone is claiming that Rishi Sunak isn't a UK
| citizen, but he certainly isn't a member of the English
| ethnic group, or any of the Celtic ethnic groups that also
| make up the UK's native population.
| foldr wrote:
| The usual meaning of English. Say, roughly the criteria
| that would make someone eligible to play for the England
| football team. Skin color has nothing to do with it, and I
| can assure you that very few English people either know or
| care whether they have any 'Celtic' ancestry.
|
| No-one questions the Englishness of white men born in
| England to two non-English parents. People raising the
| absurd non-issue of Rishi Sunak's Englishness are just
| concealing their rather obvious prejudices with a lot of
| bafflegab about 'English ethnicity' (a concept which not
| even they can really take at all seriously, if they at
| least have some acquaintance with English history).
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| There are Ethnic groups in England that have been present
| for several thousand years. Some people clearly mean this
| and can't articulate it better.
|
| Rushi Sunak ancestry is obviously Indian. I don't really
| care about his ethnicity (he another politician in a suit
| to me), but I can understand what people mean when they
| say he isn't English without automatically assuming they
| are Racist.
| RansomStark wrote:
| Sports teams aren't a particularly good criteria, I could
| be Scottish or Welsh and play for England, it's one of
| those idiocracies of living in a country that pretends to
| be 4.
|
| Denying the existence of an ethic group is extremely
| racist, and is often considered a precursor to other much
| more serious issues.
|
| If you have any acquaintance with English history you
| would be well aware that there are native ethnic groups
| that have been in the UK since approximately the end of
| the younger dryas around 11,000 years ago.
|
| The last major migration was the anglo-saxons around 1500
| years ago.
|
| These groups still exist and the majority of the UK
| population can still trace their origin back to one of
| these groups.
| foldr wrote:
| >If you have any acquaintance with English history you
| would be well aware that there are native ethnic groups
| that have been in the UK since approximately the end of
| the younger dryas around 11,000 years ago.
|
| And you'd be aware that nothing even vaguely
| corresponding to 'England' existed 11,000 years ago. If
| you are willing to lump the descendants of Romans,
| Normans, Jutes, Durotriges, Iceni, Vikings, etc. together
| into one group and call them all 'English' just because
| they happened to live in the territory of what is now
| England, then you've already conceded the point that the
| identity is national, not ethnic.
|
| But hey, over in the other thread you are denying that
| Boris Johnson is English, so it's clear that you have a
| rather eccentric concept of the category.
| teh64 wrote:
| If we go by the explanation from wikipedia [0], Boris
| Johnson and Nigel Farage would not be considered English,
| as their families are not part of the English or Celtic
| ethnic groups. Their ancestors are Turkish and German who
| came to the UK after 1850. Do you believe they are not
| English? I mean even the current King of the UK would not
| be considered English by your definition! He is descended
| from Greek, Danish and German people [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_monarchy_o
| f_the...
| RansomStark wrote:
| I agree, they are not ethnically English, they are
| British citizens and have all the rights that come with
| citizenship, the same as every other UK citizen including
| those that would call themselves English. You think
| there's some kind of gotcha there, but there isn't.
|
| England hasn't had an English king since 1066, that's not
| controversial, and even then the inbreeding between the
| European royal houses was creating a pan-european elite
| that made world world 1 more of a really bad family
| argument than anything else.
|
| What's really odd is that Rishi Sunak is extremely proud
| of his ethnicity and heritage, it's unfortunate that
| we've made it almost impossible for other people's to
| have that same pride.
| zpeti wrote:
| You know how the NHS reduced waiting lists a few years back? If
| you had waiting lists of say 100 for a surgery, they basically
| said - the list is maximum 15 people, after that it's whoever
| books first who gets the surgery. So basically you had to be
| lucky and be the number 15 on the list once a spot was open.
|
| But! Magically NHS waiting lists got shorter! The government
| could say this on Question Time on the BBC, woohoo!
|
| I imagine this is the kind of thing that's happening now with
| petty crime reports.
| foldr wrote:
| Claims about certain categories of crime rising or falling in
| England are usually based on the Crime Survey for England and
| Wales, which is not based on police reports, but on surveying
| a random sample of people to see if they have been self-
| reported victims of various kinds of crime.
| tialaramex wrote:
| One of the really boring things about crime stats is that if
| you insist that "Nobody will do anything" and so you don't
| bother to report crimes, the crime stats go down -- because you
| didn't report a crime.
|
| It suits a certain kind of person to have this obvious
| statistical fact portrayed as some sort of failing of existing
| institutions. Because it's just how statistics work it won't
| magically change if you're dumb enough to put them in charge
| but they can certainly _tell_ gullible people like you that
| they 've fixed it.
|
| Reporting crimes is one of those tedious things citizens have
| to do to get a nice society to live in, like patiently queueing
| for things, or putting trash in the bin. You _could_ choose not
| to do it, but don 't blame anybody else if no-one does it and
| now your society sucks.
| tdeck wrote:
| While this sounds true, it's also true that police often will
| try to bully you into abandoning a crime report or treat you
| with contempt of they don't consider the crime "worthwhle".
| So not only do you not get a resolution, as expected, but you
| get to waste your time and be treated poorly. All that to
| increment a couter that might in aggregate reach a number
| that might get noticed by someone that might result in a
| policy that might 5 years later start to address the problem
| but may also just be used to crack down on everyone's rights
| as part of a right wing fear campaign? It's nowhere near as
| clear cut as waiting in line or picking up litter.
| tialaramex wrote:
| So, fun fact, I actually reported a crime last week.
|
| A few days later I got a "Caller ID blocked" call and was
| like "Scammers?" but I'm the kind of person who at least
| answers the call to say "Fuck off" if they're scammers and
| it wasn't a scam it was some nice lady whose job is to sift
| this endless pile of crime reports.
|
| She didn't treat me with contempt, though of course she's
| not going to magically make the crime not have happened, or
| - given I wasn't sure who did it - even commit to having
| somebody actually do anything about it. But hey, that's
| statistics for you.
|
| I disagree that somehow picking up litter is different.
| You're not going to magically make there not be any litter
| are you? No. But nevertheless in aggregate it has an
| effect.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| That's just the way "freedom news" is framing it.
|
| Social movements don't just happen from grassroots these days.
| They're seeded by foreign states. A simpler solution would be
| require ids for social media posting. If you don't provide an id
| you get a limited number of views.
|
| And I don't see anything wrong with a preventative system in
| principle, we should be able to join up social services
| information with policing, because we have had cases where a mass
| murderer has been known to multiple services.
|
| Edit: probably not ids but a token that verifies my nationality
| would be enough.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > A simpler solution would be require ids for social media
| posting
|
| It's strange times when even the comments on posts about
| government overreach are calling for more government overreach
| and limitations on speech and privacy.
|
| Do you really want to have to verify your ID to post anything
| online, including HN?
| thmsths wrote:
| And I am willing to bet that on top of the chilling effect on
| regular people, it will only act as an inconvenience for the
| bad actors as they will find ways to circumvent it.
| Controlling the online discourse is far too valuable, they
| are not going to just shrug and give up because the
| government puts up a barrier.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| What chilling effect? Have you seen what people post on
| facebook under their own name.
| mnau wrote:
| Meet selection bias. Self-censorship is very common.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| Yeah it might be just be a verified token to say I'm citizen
| of the country. Doesn't have to be my actual id. The OSA is a
| crappy implementation.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The US is rounding up and murdering people like cattle. _And
| also_ managing dissent with bot farms and deliberate suppression
| of bad think on social media _and also_ normalising a president
| who is not just senile, but likely also a psychopath, and very
| possibly - and this is, sadly, not exaggeration, given recent
| revelations - not just a sexual predator, but a serial killer.
|
| Compared to Rest of World, the UK is barely making a dent on the
| Authoritarian Leaderboard.
|
| Which is not to say things are great, because they really aren't,
| and the deals with Palantir are especially suspect.
|
| But so far at least, the death toll is still pretty low.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| In the UK what you are going to need to do going forward is
| essentially have an official and a non-official presence online.
| You are also going to need to use the cockroach strategy (at
| least tech wise), until this stuff gets unpopular enough amongst
| enough people that there is large push back that can't be
| ignored.
|
| > The surveillance and predictive systems now being assembled are
| being designed not only for the current moment, but in
| preparation for what comes next. Whether in response to renewed
| austerity, military escalation, or widespread resistance, these
| tools are positioned to contain unrest before it surfaces. What's
| emerging is a model of preemptive policing--structured around
| behaviour, association, and predicted risk. Individuals are
| reduced to data profiles, tracked not for what they've done but
| for their statistical proximity to disruption. Suppression is
| exercised in advance.
|
| That is why they are so keen to backdoor any popular encrypted
| messaging platform. They can't monitor communications.
| Unfortunately most people seem to supportive of this. I was quite
| surprised when my Father (who is a layman) told me he supported
| this, this is a person that doesn't vote largely for the same
| reasons that I don't (I think all politicians are awful)..
|
| Additionally. I was listening to someone that engaged at
| essentially Red Teaming for UK authorities (I forget who it was
| now). They stated that if you were a dissident, if you kept your
| activities offline and organise in person the authorities
| wouldn't be aware of this activity. I don't know if this is true,
| but it sounds plausible.
| chimprich wrote:
| A lot of these attacks on the UK regarding free speech are coming
| from the American Right, an obsession which I can't quite
| understand the motive for.
|
| Notably, stories on HN about the very severe repression on civil
| liberties in the US (get shot in the face for protesting about
| ICE...) get flagged for closure, but putting the boot into the UK
| for much more wishy-washy issues like this seem to be fair game.
|
| I'm not saying there aren't genuine issues with civil liberties
| (for example, things like the Online Safety Act are ridiculous)
| but they are magnified out of all proportion by the US media /
| social media disinformation megaphone.
|
| This particular article is an opinion piece from last April by
| "the world's oldest surviving anarchist publication"
| (apparently). I'm not sure why it deserves front page HN status.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(British_newspaper)
| room271 wrote:
| 100%. Unfortunately, rather than rebut the substance of your
| argument, people are voting you down (and the same for my own
| similar comment). It is convenient for certain parts of the US
| right (Fox and also Musk come to mind) to present a narrative
| about the UK which distracts from the actual hard realities of
| recent events in the US itself.
| vablings wrote:
| It feels pretty awful to have such a one-sided bias in the
| media of the UK getting clowned on for civil liberties, I have
| noticed so much more astroturfing on reddit about these issues
| with made-up ragebait lies.
|
| There are absolutely issues with the police focusing more on
| "crime online" such as people posting or saying offensive
| things, I do think that saying something outright offensive to
| the benefit of nobody is a net bad for society but instead of
| punishing say British people for "wrong think" I think the
| police force should be really investigating where this kind of
| stuff comes from, Foreign influence bot farms ect and enact
| legal removal of protection to ensure that people when they say
| such online in a public manner are actually people
| youngtaff wrote:
| Yup... there's a very strong right wing streak in parts of the
| HN audience
|
| Those with opposing views also tend to find themselves rate
| limited - dropped two comments on this story and now being told
| I'm posting too fast (even after going away for 60 mins)
| miohtama wrote:
| Here is a good book on how pre-crime society is created, who is
| driving more "management" and who benefits
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Compliance-Industrial-Complex-Operati...
|
| God bless Managed Democracy.
| room271 wrote:
| As a Brit, I find it very hard to believe that the majority of
| comments in this thread are not either written out of ignorance
| or are bots.
|
| The article is from an anarchist organisation and sensationalist.
| 'Precrime' in the sense described is performed routinely by all
| intelligence agencies and police networks in the West.
|
| Criticisms from across the pond reflect a spectacular lack of
| perspective. The UK is far more free than the US - a country with
| a fascist leader, ICE thugs who go about masked with guns and
| shoot to kill US citizens apparently with the full endorsement of
| the US President, a weaponised justice system that can target the
| chairman of the federal bank and strip a military Senator of his
| pension and rank simply for what he says (so much for 'free
| speech!'), and levels of inequality and centralised wealth and
| political funding that undermine democracy.
| robtherobber wrote:
| As a Brit, I find it very hard to believe that you're a Brit
| and that your method of drawing superficial conclusions about
| the other participants is sound. Perhaps we are both bots here.
|
| Instead of attacking the other participants for not being as
| enlightened as you may be and the source of the information, a
| more appreciated approach would've been to address the
| substance of the article.
|
| For example, what are some "intelligence agencies and police
| networks in the West" that are routinely performing those kind
| of programmes, and why should we conclude that all of them are
| doing that? Are those programmes identical to the UK's
| "homicide prediction project", as it was originally called? Are
| there better legal frameworks for such programmes in other
| countries (say, a Constitution), or at least more democratic
| oversight than in the UK? Perhaps some sources that document
| such a conclusion would help.
|
| You speak of lack of perspective from the commenters here, but
| haven't yet provided an informed one either.
|
| > The UK is far more free than the US
|
| Trump and his oligarchs aside, why do you believe that the UK
| is "far more free" than the US? And how exactly do you define
| that freedom? I'm no big fan of the US in general (mainly due
| to their neoliberal and religious culture), but to deny that
| they've enjoyed a variety of freedoms would be provably wrong.
| Different organisations measure these differently and the UK is
| generally not "far more free" in that sense, only marginally so
| - again, it depends on the frameworks employed. [0] [1]
|
| If the definition of freedom includes democratic accountability
| + equal political power + civil liberties in practice: neither
| country is doing that great; the UK's unelected
| Lords/sovereignty/executive dominance and First Past the Post
| voting system are undeniable flaws - many if not most European
| countries don't have that. It's also entirely true that US has
| deeper structural distortions (malapportionment + Electoral
| College + gerrymandering + life-tenured apex judiciary).
|
| Overall, the UK tends to score higher on broad civil-
| liberty/democracy assessments, but not by as far as you seem to
| imply. And judging by the recent developments, one wouldn't be
| entirely wrong to conclude that these freedoms are actively
| being eroded (which is what the article says). Let's not forget
| the deep drive of successive governments to privatise key
| public services which objectively gave the UK an advantage in
| terms of freedoms compared to US - for example universal
| healthcare, which works as a social safety net and effectively
| offering higher practical freedom of life choices for most
| citizens.
|
| > levels of inequality
|
| The UK has one of the highest levels of income inequality in
| Europe. [2]
|
| "OECD figures suggest that the UK has among the highest levels
| of income inequality in the European Union (as measured by the
| Gini coefficient), although income inequality is slightly lower
| than in the United States." [3] "The UK spends more than
| anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural
| inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of
| 23 OECD countries." [4]
|
| "The key findings are that the UK has high levels of income
| inequality compared with similar developed economies, with a
| (pre-pandemic) Gini coefficient that is the second highest in
| the G7 (after the US), and is more unequal than all the
| countries in the EU other than Lithuania and Latvia." [5]
|
| [0] https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=all&year=2025
|
| [1] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/United-
| Kingdom/liberal_demo...
|
| [2] https://www.understandingglasgow.com/glasgow-
| indicators/econ...
|
| [3] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-
| briefings/cbp-...
|
| [4] https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2023/nov/27/uk-
| spends...
|
| [5] https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/10/Tre...
| room271 wrote:
| Thanks for your considered reply, and I do appreciate my
| initial post was somewhat exaggerated and done in
| frustration.
|
| Your own evidence, however -- albeit expressed less
| polemically -- seems indeed to support my conclusion, namely
| that on a range of measures the UK is indeed more 'free' than
| the US. Moreover, it is somewhat a large sleight of hand for
| you to say 'Trump and his oligarchs aside' when Trump is the
| President and Congress does not seem interested in curtailing
| his executive power.
|
| Re inequality, I completely agree that the UK does poorly on
| inequality measures but the data is somewhat ambiguous here.
| E.g. the OECD picture is closer to what you describe, but the
| World Bank (which uses the Luxembourg Income Study) paints a
| different picture:
|
| France: 31.8 Germany: 32.4 UK: 32.4 USA: 41.4
|
| (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI)
|
| By this measure, the UK is not at all an outlier among the
| largest EU economies, while the USA is. Moreover, inequality
| is falling in the UK but rising in the USA so the trend
| further excacerbates the difference. You can explore many
| other inequality measures across the USA/UK at
| https://pip.worldbank.org/# and the picture is very
| consistent: the USA is less 'equal' across all measures.
|
| I would have to dive into things more to attempt to explain
| the discrepancy in the two data sources. The Parliamentary
| report you cite does hint at a partial explanation; the
| family survey they use doesn't correct for many benefits,
| which results in an overstatement of inequality. It may also
| be that the World Bank is total income rather than disposable
| income but it's not easy to determine their precise
| methodology (though see
| https://datanalytics.worldbank.org/PIP-
| Methodology/surveyest...).
|
| Re so-called pre-crime. All police organisations monitor high
| risk individuals through increased patrols in hotspots,
| targeted surveillance, etc. My point I guess is that there is
| not some binary scale between Minority-Report style precrime
| units and an hypothesised modern police form that is
| indifferent to risk factors. It is a scale. The 'precrime'
| project referred to in the article does not facilitate pre-
| emptive arrest but appears to provide additional risk data
| when allocating police resources (and probably helps with
| parole and rehabilitation strategies too). A touch of
| suspicion towards the rhetoric of the article is warranted
| too given the source. In any case, the UK has a long
| tradition of policing by consent and while there have been
| some regressions on policing of protest (which I deeply
| oppose) in general policing in the UK is good and crime is
| falling.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| > As a Brit, I find it very hard to believe that the majority
| of comments in this thread are not either written out of
| ignorance or are bots.
|
| I am a Brit and I object to a lot of the expansion of powers
| that have happened in Britain during successive governments
| since the "War on Terror" started which was pretty might right
| after 9/11. I would like to see much of this legislation
| repealed. However that is unlikely to happen.
|
| > The article is from an anarchist organisation and
| sensationalist
|
| Why does it matter if they are a anarchist organisation or not?
|
| As for sensationalist, possibly. But they seem to highlight
| genuine concerns that have been raised by other organisations.
|
| > The UK is far more free than the US - a country with a
| fascist leader, ICE thugs who go about masked with guns and
| shoot to kill US citizens apparently with the full endorsement
| of the US President, a weaponised justice system that can
| target the chairman of the federal bank and strip a military
| Senator of his pension and rank simply for what he says (so
| much for 'free speech!'), and levels of inequality and
| centralised wealth and political funding that undermine
| democracy.
|
| All you are doing in this speil is repeating talking points
| found on the news sites. I find this sort of stuff tiresome to
| read. I don't care about what happens in the US generally. It
| is literally on the other side of an ocean. I do care about the
| OSA, I do care about Digital ID, I do care about the expansion
| of government powers that I believe are unjustified.
| baal80spam wrote:
| UK dystopia: accelerating (Precrime)
|
| EU dystopia: accelerating (Chat Control)
|
| US dystopia: probably accelerating?
|
| What a time to be alive!
| lavezzi wrote:
| > US dystopia: probably accelerating?
|
| Yeah, absolutely no indicators whatsoever we can go off of
| right now.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I'm very confused by this, on many fronts.
|
| I don't really know why the government is doing it. It's not for
| grand headline reasons, as it's all pretty quiet, for this and
| for prior changes.
|
| I also really don't think the UK is in the grips of some kind of
| authoritarian nightmare. If anything, my experience is that it's
| impossible to convince the police to do anything. These days,
| surveillance state or not, when your car or phone get stolen, the
| police write you a crime number to take to the insurers and
| consider their job done. Even if it's all done for nefarious
| reasons, this would be an easy sidekick to running a surveillance
| state that earns the state some cash, and every autocrat likes
| money. The UK democracy is flawed in many ways, but I really
| don't think a spy state is currently the problem.
|
| So... Why?
| elcritch wrote:
| In my view a corrupt government tends to also be less effective
| at basic governance while looking out more for the government.
| Hence police don't pursue thieves but will arrest people for
| twitter/x posts.
|
| Add in things like suspending the right to jury trial for some
| crimes because "its taking too long" shows how ineptitude in
| governance can overlap with government overreach.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| I think Orwell was prescient and attuned to this sort of thinking
| in England at his time. Perhaps, it never really went away? e.g.:
| "crimestop"
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/725596-crimestop-means-the-...
|
| It isn't precrime or "dissent management" that is the problem,
| but the engineering of behavior and thought in society where such
| concepts are acceptable to people.
|
| I don't think we can discuss it in detail here, but with this ,
| chat control, and all sorts of other controversial laws, you'll
| notice the people of the country actually support that stuff.
| There is an interesting conversation there about democracy, and
| the priority of the working class people. Naturally, a person
| living paycheck-to-paycheck and fighting for healthcare and
| keeping their job (or getting one) does not care about this
| stuff. So who does? Not the ruling class. A lot of people
| (including on HN) who think this stuff is important (rightfully)
| are not poor people, perhaps middle-class?
|
| Is democracy itself something that can survive, if it is left
| entirely up to popular vote? Power has gravity, it always wants
| more. Ideally, there would be institutions that are
| democratically established and managed that would be trusted to
| safeguard the people's interests. In the US, there are executive
| department agencies for example like the FCC, FTC, FDA and more,
| but they are subject to those in power who are elected by the
| people.
|
| My "food for thought" here is that similar to supreme courts,
| there needs to be a regulatory and oversight branch of the
| government, whose chiefs are apolitical (like actually, not like
| the US supreme court), well compensated, long-tenured (but not
| lifetime, more like 20 years), and appointed by confirmation of
| all other branches of government.
|
| We need to address the problem of power, influence to wield power
| and incentives for those entrusted with power to act in good
| faith, but also with good competence. The last part is important,
| because I have no doubt, a lot of the politicians that come up
| with this Orwellian nonsense have good intentions, the outcome
| they seek are noble, just not the means. they just happen to be
| incompetent when it comes to the subject matter.
| vablings wrote:
| This doesn't work. The current POTUS is clearly trying to
| politicize the chair of the federal reserve who is independent
| and for his sociopathic fanbase it is working a treat, they do
| not even understand that Powell is not the sole decision maker
| of the interest rates
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| He is able to do that and a whole lot more because the
| regulators, attorney general, ombudsmans,etc.. report to him.
| it's a vulnerability in the structure of the US government
| he's exploiting. Even if he leaves peacefully, and a decent
| administration comes along, it will only be temporary, he's
| shown others what can be abused. What maddens me is not him,
| someone like that has been inevitable. It isn't even his
| opposition's lack of competence. No one talked about this
| stuff, constitutional amendments, curbing the executive
| power, passing laws to clarify limits of powers,etc.. even in
| the previous admin. No one is talking about now, and they
| won't even after this one leaves. They don't care, nobody
| does. They're all just sitting in the house and complaining
| about the arsonist burning it down.
|
| Even as he's dismantling nato or trying to invade greenland,
| do you think it's difficult to get a handful of republicans
| to support a bipartisan law to forbid that? They're just
| spectators, the lawmakers. The judges are scared sh*#!less,
| and powerless. Everyone is hoping that problem goes away, or
| at best they only care about the latest and immediate issue.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I'm aware this is a cultural difference, government betrayal and
| overreach are hotbutton and mainstay topics in the common culture
| of the UK and related states (e.g. the US).
|
| It is nevertheless so weird to me that rather than trying to
| _monitor_ and _mitigate_ the abuses of legal instruments like the
| ones proposed, people are trying to _prevent_ and _abolish_
| things wholesale.
|
| Everything is depicted as a slippery slope to abuse or as an
| excuse for abuse, and perhaps because people actually believe in
| it, they do materialize as one too. Presents as a vicious cycle
| to me, and as if people were disallowing themselves from
| recovering of it.
|
| I really have to wonder how much of it is the available options
| always being just two parties in these territories, and the
| electoral systems supporting that convergence. In such a scheme,
| I can indeed definitely imagine people being compelled to vote
| further and further from their own interests and values, and the
| slippery slope rhetoric being finding a manifestation.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| People are seemingly very unhappy with the status quo, but also
| even unhappier when the Government tries to legislate around
| real issues. For example, people in hacker news seem to bring
| up grooming rape gangs specifically when talking about
| "Diversity" in the UK as a cudgel when the UK tries to
| introduce safety laws.
|
| Meanwhile some of the most prolific child abusers are being
| sent to jail (who happened to be young 20s and white) who were
| only enabled to abuse hundreds of young people over a matter of
| months due to online platforms.
|
| The latter example is the type of thing the UK Government is
| trying to tackle. The abuse is rife, but people would rather
| talk about "Diversity" and complain about laws clearly designed
| to protect children.
|
| Do I want the laws? No. But other people have ruined it, and
| now we no longer live in a high trust society. I certainly want
| _something_ that will try to lower the abuse women and children
| face from the Internet (and men).
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| The reason why this is the case in the UK is because we have
| two different parties and an election, and we have ended up
| with the same result.
|
| The reason why people think it is a slippery slop is because it
| is. Government shouldn't have any of these powers. In the UK,
| it has been proven over many years that this power cannot be
| wielded effectively by people working for government or
| oversight provided by elected officials.
|
| As an example, the OSA...no-one needs this. You may not be
| aware but there is a massive issue with parenting in the UK.
| Children are turning up to school at 4 years old unable to
| communicate with adults (with no learning difficulties) or use
| the toilet. There is a very strong belief amongst civil
| servants (not ministers, they are basically irrelevant) that
| the state must step in to perform parenting functions. Does
| this sound like a good idea? This is the justification in many
| of these areas, Ofcom use to be a small agency that regulated
| what commercials could run on TV, it is now grown into Newspeak
| regulator...this isn't over 20 years, this has happened within
| the last three years.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I wonder how many people are actually from the UK on these
| threads. There is always comments about "diversity" and "grooming
| rape gangs" and how everything labour do is bad, or about how the
| UK is an oppressive regime or somehow fundamentally anti-freedom.
| This always reads like fear mongering / Russian psy-ops
| propaganda to me.
|
| I have many bones to pick with the UK government but a large
| number of people sprinting to these talking points at every
| chance they get is highly suspicious to me.
| gadders wrote:
| Me.
|
| The Grooming Rape Gangs and their cover-up was absolutely
| appalling.
|
| I don't think the UK has hit US-level of extremes in terms of
| DEI for hiring etc, but I think it is undeniable that there is
| two tier policing in place - EG the banning of Maccabee fans
| from the Aston Villa game.
|
| I think the fact that people are getting prison sentences for
| tweets/facebook posts is very, very bad. I don't think this is
| just Labour though - I think the Wet Tories were just as bad in
| terms of freedom of speech.
| daveac wrote:
| Public money gets spent on the advice of AI systems and
| consultancies.
|
| Costs overrun, benefits are unclear, and it quietly disappears.
|
| Those responsible resurface later at consultancies, selling the
| same ideas elsewhere.
| jonehiskey1 wrote:
| just think if the prior election went the other way in the US,
| this is where the us would be right now
| tim333 wrote:
| Precrime in Minority report results in "Would-be killers are
| placed in an electrically induced coma and held in a panopticon-
| like prison facility." Obviously dystopian.
|
| What they are doing in the UK is more chatting to people involved
| in gangs and the like to talk them out of screwing up their
| lives. Kind of common sense.
|
| This has led to "London's lowest murder rate in more than a
| decade" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/12/why-
| londons-...
|
| There was quite an interesting interview with Sadiq Khan about it
| yesterday https://youtu.be/SOhIxmYiZRg?t=202 (starting at the
| crime bit).
|
| The MAGA types love to go on about Khan, who is a lefty Pakistani
| origin muslim, as being the downfall of London but the reality is
| kind of different. (typed in central London).
| simianparrot wrote:
| People don't like to admit it, but JD Vance was right about
| Europe. And the UK is up there with the worst of us. I am
| European.
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