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

One option is to get an IPTV service and use it with an app where you can record the shows on disk (like TiVo I think you guys use, heard that a lot on older TV shows lol). Will only record future shows but tbh, a lot gets repeated on their other channels (https://www.channel4.com/tv-guide).

Using a VPN is another option but I recently couldnt load the app while using a lesser known VPN from within the UK so they seem hot on blocking them.

Another option is rent a cheap VPS from in the UK to act as your own VPN.

All of their shows is on their app, and they have a pretty cheap ad free option if you can figure that out too.

First I thought he left because they continue to push for this illegal, expensive and unworkable Rwanda plan but now can see he left because they refused to go far enough and overwrite international law… Just wow

NIMBYism at its absolute finest. Fuck me

Are they going to monitor MPs bank accounts for “security” purposes, company bank accounts for tax evasion, directors bank accounts for bribery/AML? If they think these would be horrible and unworkable then this is too. Absolutely messed up

I really feel for the students now with the high fees. They’re paying so much more money to get a degree than older generations. They need to because any half decent graduate job needs a degree with at least a 2.1, so they feel like they don’t have a choice but know they are paying for the certificate rather than an education really.

It doesn’t excuse shitty behaviour and entitlement but I don’t think it’s fair to just blame them. The social contract is broken, they are still kids trying to figure out the world, they are used to being spoon fed exam questions at school, they are worried about climate change, the old people in power suck, they were really messed up by covid and the future looks pretty bleak.

By the way, that graduate job pays less than it did for older generations, in some cases a lot less as companies have taken advantage of the apprenticeship scheme by getting rid of higher paying grad jobs to the unliveable pay they get. By the way, in my profession, all the apprentices seem to have degrees as the competition is so high. They also come with a worse pension, worse benefits and worse pathway to promotions. That job will barely cover increasing rents if you’re lucky enough, let alone allow you to build up a deposit for unaffordable housing.

At my highly rated course at a red brick uni, I’d say about a quarter of my lecturers were actually good teachers, about half were sort of OK and another quarter really sucked. You can tell they were there for the research and resented teaching. I paid £3k a year for the privilege of that so was slightly annoyed. If I was paying £9k or whatever it is, I’d be pretty pissed off.

The university system is broken with all the research targets, funding issues, low pay, etc.

All of this adds together to make it a shitty time for everyone! Now I’ve depressed myself for the day…

My belief is this all comes down to austerity. We have poorer people, a much poorer health service (physical and mental health), less benefits, less money for teachers, less money for social workers, less money for police, less job opportunities, less pay, higher rent, higher costs etc across the board but especially worse in poorer areas. This is a society on the verge of collapse and we’re seeing signs of it everywhere.

Happy families and happy kids want to engage with other people, learn things and be part of a community. What makes them happy - enough money for shelter, food and basic necessities without worry of where the money for rent is going to come from or having to use a food bank. I’ve been there and when you are struggling it’s hard to care for the wider society / community. Thankfully I didn’t have kids eating up that stress which they will easily pick up on.

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

I knew about the girl who died and her mother’s campaign but didn’t realise how central it was to Khan’s push for this. I also didn’t know his personal problems with asthma and pollution, or his additional security needs.

I’ve seen a lot of these campaigners around. They rolled through Epsom Town centre a few weeks ago and funnily enough, their vans completely blocked the crossing I was trying to use with my 4 year old on a very busy street making it very unsafe.

They’ve caused lots of annoyance with their constant horns, driving up local traffic unnecessarily and megaphones. I hear more hate for Just Stop Oil but can frankly say, they’ve never caused me personally any problems at all so funny isn’t it…

Let’s not forget, with FPTP and voter turnout, it’s not half.

In the 2019 general election, they won 43% of the votes with 67% turnout, which, to be fair, was higher than Labour at 32% of the votes.

Brexit was 52% of votes with 72% turnout.

I wish we had a higher turnout and it’s hard to justify that the will of the people is not met if they don’t bother voting but guess I’m just saying, it’s not true that it’s over half of the country.

That is true but the article clearly says they are looking at overall travel habits including walking, cycling and public transport.

I’m not a fan of uber or sick plaster solutions instead of radical long term redesign/change, but found the experiment and article very useful.

If you are a student with certain schools you can get it for free. I’m doing a part time course at a UK university and they gave it for free, I just had to register using my university email address. I’ve not taken it up as want to avoid it in favour of libreoffice but will use for coursework on a VM if I really need to.

Guess they try to suck people in so they pay in the future

I have a family car, road bike, ebike and escooter. I really like my escooter the most for traveling around by myself, especially so I can jump on a train or bus, or even get a taxi if needed BUT they are still illegal here so I got pulled over by the police (I wasn’t riding like an idiot so they let me off with a warning) and all the trains and buses have banned them so it’s now useless. They never made them legal so we only have dangerous cheap ones. We could have legalised them like we did with ebikes and would have tackled this problem but only young or poor people use them so no chance. I love my ebike too but prefer the e scooter unless I’m going shopping or much longer trips without getting public transport. My road bike is for cycling trips in nice weather.

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

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

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

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

I was joking but also got depressed when I thought of that as some tories would actually love that. I agree that is the slight glimmer of a positive about her. At least you can have a debate with someone who has a view on something if their goal is still improve the UK, even if misguided.

It is funny that both the left wing and right wing in the UK complain so much about the police “targeting” them more so than the other.

I do think they were very heavy handed during the blm protests and tend to have a soft spot for right wing protests because they themselves are historically right wing, similar to the US I guess. However, they have absolutely no time for these far right football hooligans and they know they are looking for trouble so no matter where they go to “protest” (I.e. drink lots and spew hatred) they tend to have to follow them and contain them from the normal public just going about their lives.

Then it’s fine that he left but he shouldn’t be allowed back in surely?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah just throw them away, you deserve fresh 😀. I have to admit though, we are lazy and use those microwave steam veg bags a lot if having oven food (made in the air fryer of course). Bad amount of plastic but when you’re shattered from work and life, we just wouldn’t cook the veg parts so would be a beige plate

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

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