I feel like I’m living on a completely different planet right now.

I’m really surprised to see that this tobacco ban has so many supporters on all sides of the political spectrum. I am also surprised to see so many people on Lemmy supporting this…

I’m all for making corpos squirm, especially ones which create products that are designed to be addictive (e.g. big tobacco). But let’s not go around pretending that these businesses are the only victims of substance bans. For one, substance bans are always disproportionately applied to vulnerable minority groups.

Furthermore, folks who are motivated enough to acquire these substances despite bans will be more vulnerable to exploitation and adverse health effects than they already are. Big tobacco already does a great job of harming and exploiting folks. But at least we can regulate and monitor them. The customer can know with greater certainty exactly what each cigarette contains, you don’t get that privilege when acquiring substances illegally. You can also be fairly confident as to the affordability of legal substances versus getting fleeced for your entire income by a dealer who knows personally just how addicted you are.

If nothing else, this is going to end up as a massive waste of time. It is a fools errand to ban substances, and history has shown this time and time again. I do not see any evidence that we have learned from history, of what we will be doing differently to make this work when it has failed in the past. This ban will not last more than a few years at most.

I doubt that the UK could lead anything on this front. Drugs which are already banned in the UK are still consumed in the UK and beyond. I do not think it’s possible to stop humanity from consuming drugs (incl. tobacco and alcohol). It’s something we have done for thousands of years for a wide variety of reasons.

Banning alcohol didn’t work in the long-term during the Prohibition era in America. People will always find a way to access these things, they will just be less safe whilst doing so and their money will not be taxed.

New Zealand tried a similar tobacco ban in 2022, and it got repealed about a year later in order to fund tax cuts (if I am remembering correctly). I forsee this going the same way if it actually passes.

I get the network effect of having all the other kids with phones.

I don’t think the network effect is the only factor to consider here. Kids are at real risk of social ostracization and bullying by their peers if they do not have a smartphone. And that’s dangeous in of itself.

I’m not sure if the dangers of being ostricised and bullied are more significant than the dangers presented by owning a smartphone. Either way, I don’t think it’s a simple decision for a parent to make.

That this prejudice will follow these children into adulthood is perhaps the bleakest part.

This is the thing that horrifies me the most about this story. Adults, schools, and parents are setting an abominable example to these children.

I can only imagine the confusion and shame a child must experience when being told to hide their insulin pumps, their wheelchairs, their hearing aids, etc. And I’m frightened to think of the pupils who feel empowered to “other” their classmates because they are being “othered” by the adults. It’s a clear example of how we teach children bigotry.

An experience from my childhood which still sticks with me to this day is from when attending an ultra-orthodox church. I was maybe 5 years old and tried to follow my dad into a restricted area and being stopped by the priest, being told “sorry, only boys are allowed back here”.

As a child I was taught that adults are always right, and to listen to them. This may very well be my earliest memory of being taught sexism, which only got reinforced throughout my life due to trusting the adults at this church and through trusting my very religious right-wing father. Even as a kid I recognised that what I was witnessing was unfair, but I did not have the power, the understanding, nor the will to challenge this unfairness because the adults must know what they’re doing… right?

I think it’s better to vote for a party which has no chance of winning than to spoil your vote. At the very least it communicates what kinds of policies you would like to see and what policies would win your vote in the future.

I constantly think about the 2015 general election and how UKIP got almost 4 million votes (the third highest number of votes amongst all the parties). I feel that this caused a shift within the Conservative party towards populist, Eurosceptic, and anti-environmental ideals because they realised by doing so they could win back those 4 million voters.

I would personally never spoil my ballot for this reason. I don’t think it’s especially valuable to communicate that you’re not happy with anything without communicating what would make you happy.

I’m currently in a circular debate with myself as to whether to vote Labour or Green. The classic eternal debate of “splitting the left vote” which we must deal with since we use an archaeic First-Past-The-Post system which should not exist in any modern democracy. I don’t even especially like the Greens but a vote for them may communicate that one of my biggest values is preserving the environment and tackling climate change. Perhaps this could encourage Labour to establish policies to address these things in order to win back Green votes.

My first thought was “wow those comments must be shockingly bad if even Reform UK is suspending/investigating them”.

They absolutely are awful and embarrassing comments. But they’re also comments I would fully expect a Reform UK candidate/supporter to make. Therefore I’m pretty surprised Reform UK is investigating them in the first place. Perhaps it’s because they said the quiet bit out loud?

They’re a right-wing populist and Eurosceptic party after all, so of course they’re gonna attract racists and transphobes.

Two spring to mind. I could rant forever about them but I’ll try to keep it short.

First was an apprenticeship at a furniture logistics company. I was essentially an extremely overworked and underpaid spreadsheet monkey (I got paid £4 an hour). I received no training and gained no valuable experience or qualifications. In hindsight it’s clear to me the company just wanted cheap labour from vulnerable teenagers.

After this I took a job handing out leaflets for a store which buys/sells goods. The job was in fact not to hand out leaflets like I thought but to harass people I saw walking towards CEX (to try and convince them to sell their games/consoles to us instead of CEX). Obviously this was seedy as hell and embarrassing. I’d get told off at the end of the day every day for not bringing in multiple PS4s or whatever.

Of the £21.5m in cash received by Labour in 2023, just £5.9m came from the trade union movement, compared with £14.5m from companies and individuals – a huge increase on the previous year, and indeed more than in the three previous years of Keir Starmer’s leadership combined.

As trade union contributions have dipped slightly, from around £6.9m in 2020 and 2021 to £5.3m in 2022, donations from businesses and individuals have soared: they totalled £2.3m in 2020 and rose to £3m in 2021 and £7.6m in 2022 before nearly doubling last year.

Around £10m of this total comes from just four sources: Gary Lubner (£4.6m), David Sainsbury (£3.1m), Fran Perrin (£1m) and Ecotricity (£1m). This means that just two individuals gave the Labour Party more money last year than all the trade unions combined.

Very concerning… but also not surprising.

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