The housing secretary, who is also the deputy prime minister, said building more homes would stop prices from rising further and pricing new buyers out.

This would only really works if supply outstrips demand, but even if Labour delivers on the 1.5m pledge, it still falls far short of the current 4m+ deficit. The best this policy will do is stop prices rising as fast, but it won’t stop prices rising.

I’d completely forgot about them tbh. You also see it a lot with cheese alternatives, even though they broadly fucking suck so I don’t know why the cheese industry even bothers.

In 2019, Oatly applied to trademark the phrase “Post Milk Generation” but this was rejected by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in January last year after ruling that its use of the term “milk” was “deceptive”.

But this trademark is clearly them establishing themselves as not-milk and plenty of vegan products term themselves like this (“No Steak Pie”) without issue, it’s only dairy products that this ridiculous standard applied to them. Guess I’ll just continue to enjoy the two bottles of oat ‘drink’ I have in my fridge.

To be honest I do think calling it “milk” lets them inflate the price when it is essentially porridge water.

Most good oat milks will have stabilisers and vitamins (B12 especially) added to them vs if you just made some at home.

Nah, I did it and that seems to have sent it through to everyone else. Just weird as I checked the logs and slrpnk seems to have not sent the pin activity to feddit.uk.

Weird, it didn’t federate.

I concur, that’s all three of us (don’t worry about tom, they’re inactive).

More info: https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/guardian-and-observer-journalists-strike-on-day-of-the-observer-s-233rd-anniversary-wednesday-4-december.html

The UK also relaxed its recruitment rules in 2022, allowing citizens with foreign-born parents to join security agencies, to increase the labour pool.

You could have foreign-born parents before 2022, it just had to be from an ‘approved nation’ (no prizes for guessing which nations those were).

Most countries don’t, it’s important to remember that the country isn’t Taiwan but the Republic of China and it continues to lay claim to mainland China, so any recognition would sour relations with the PRC.

How could Anna Isaac be such a scab /s.

In response to the decision to strike, Tortoise issued a statement saying that it was saving the Observer from its decline into “irrelevance”.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Observer (it’s where the TERFs are), but this is quite the statement to make about an asset you want to buy. It’s also obviously false, the thing James Harding is after here is the prestige of an established and (somewhat) trusted name.

By launching his illegal and unprovoked full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine 1,000 days ago this week, not only did Vladimir Putin accelerate the largest war on the European continent since the Second World War, he also sought to rewrite the international order.

This is also why we continue to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, the massive scale-up of humanitarian assistance, and the cessation of violent settlers’ activities in the West Bank in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Compare and contrast when a UK/French ally commits ethnic cleansing vs when a UK/French geopolitical rival does it.

Also, real absurd that these paragraphs:

In those exceptionally challenging times, we believe that the most pressing global problems need multilateral solutions. After the Bletchley Park AI Summit last year, we will work together to make the AI Action Summit in Paris a success in February.

We will address the challenges and seize the opportunities of AI, and ensure we narrow the digital divide between developed and developing countries.

Are followed by this:

Protecting our populations also requires protecting our planet. We will step up action on climate change through the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Ten years after its adoption, we will keep pushing for the highest possible level of ambition, on the road to COP30 in Belem. The ocean is one lung of our planet. After adopting the BBNJ treaty, we now need to push the ambition further towards the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, next June.

Screaming at my single-threaded, synchronous web scraper “Why are you so slow, I have a 4090!”

Why would an RTX 4090 make Python faster?

At this rate, the closest thing to a new Disco Elysium we’re getting is the book on all these disputes.

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Good to hear, given the trajectory of other Western countries it’s nice to see Starmer not underplaying the action needed.

The goal would be achieved by decarbonising the power sector and through a massive expansion of offshore wind, as well as through investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy.

Carbon capture really is going to be this government’s white elephant, isn’t it.

An elected HoL would probably require a referendum, something we’re all a bit burnt out on, so this probably isn’t going to go anywhere.

It absolutely argues that:

Frei argued to Blair that neither government would benefit if Pinochet were to die in England and that he could be tried in Chilean courts. […] Blair undertook to do what he could within the law provided the exchanges between the two leaders were kept secret. The authors claim that Blair suggested setting up a ‘back channel’, with two people appointed to liaise between the leaders’ private offices.

Skwawkbox links to this Guardian article, which itself is sourced from a book from the time. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched that a renowned negotiator would be involved with a negotiation.

The UK/US ‘special relationship’ is such a joke, it’s abundantly clear the US doesn’t hold us in anywhere near the same regard as we do them.

I do hope Labour plans to do more than try to appease Trump, I understand why this is their public stance but we should really try to reduce our reliance on America.

This was actually discussed at one of their recent meet-ups.