This is irrelevant to the discussion, which was not ‘Is it an alternate timeline/who likes it?’ but ‘does it possess certain qualities?’.

Yep. I just watched ‘Past Tense’ this week, where DS9 spends an entire two-parter advocating for the humane treatment of homeless and unemployed people through an economic policy of full employment. The characters succeed in bringing this about by staging an armed uprising largely led by a black man. It’s not only ‘woke’ but explicitly socialist!

For me, trek was about people overcoming their differences and trying to work things out despite them, and being kind to each other. Newer shows lack this ideas, in my opinion.

In Discovery, a Vulcan woman gets married to a seven-foot tall walking squid man. In seasons 4-5, Book nearly destroys the galaxy and they forgive him because they understand he was traumatised. These strike me as pretty clear examples (just two, I could add more!) of people ‘overcoming their differences and trying to work things out despite them, and being kind to each other’.

This is entirely separate from the question of whether those plots lines and character arcs were well-written - they largely weren’t, IMO. But they did happen!

Big Bird on the barricades.

Decided to blame immigrants for all the country’s problems.

You are absolutely right. There’s empirical evidence that these kinds of ‘accommodationist’ policies only increase support for the far right. These polls are further evidence that the Starmer strategy is counter-productive.

I’m still a member for now, but I’m not surprised people feel that way.

Photons or protons?

Heh. Yeah, I can’t really hold up a country backsliding on trans rights as an example of an effective constitutional monarchy.

I think taking a broad view, there are quite a lot of constitutional monarchies that are really great places to live (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, the Bahamas, Japan, to name a few). There are also quite a lot of republics that can claim the same. So, from a sort of human development POV, I don’t think it really matters very much.

[EDIT: Should’ve added that there are also plenty of republics and monarchies that are disasters, too. My point is that there’s no consistent pattern of one works and the other doesn’t.]

Sure, monarchies are a bit daft but I think ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is quite a good rule. Especially since spending time on fixing things that ain’t broke is time you could be spending on fixing things that are broke. I live in the UK and we have a lot of major problems that need our attention. It’s better to focus on those than have a big argument about the King when, as we can see from international comparisons, the King isn’t really the issue.

motorways and dual carriageways, derelict industrial sites

That’s exactly where they’re planning on building! The Guardian chose a very misleading image.

That’s what I thought. No real surprises, but fun to play with!

Ridiculous.

I’m glad the results at the locals have led to at least some MPs finding their voices. Haigh, Whittome and Trickett have all spoken out, but they’re sort of the usual suspects. This guy is at least a bit new!

Objectively, both things are true! But I tend to think Labour is the one with the power and so they’re the ones who should be changing, not the relatively powerless seven voters.

100%. Point is that if Labour had appealed to their left flank, they’d have held the seat!

Assuming we’re going back far enough, antibiotics. Cure one person of the bubonic plague or tuberculosis and people will start taking you seriously.

I bet there were more than seven votes for the Greens and Lib Dems combined.

The BMA residents conference did pass the motion, but it won’t be official policy unless it passes at the annual meeting this year:

Resident doctors working in the NHS also condemned the supreme court’s ruling on gender as having “no basis in science or medicine”. Medics at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) resident doctors conference in London passed a motion stating that “attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine”. While the motion was passed at the conference it will not become BMA policy unless voted on at the union’s annual meeting later this year.

This is it. The temptation to slap on reciprocal tariffs is obvious but it’s generally self-defeating. Much better to do things this way and free up trade elsewhere.