United Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/281741

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

cross-posted from: https://fedinews.net/m/ImproveTheNews/t/4308

• UK Defense Sec. Grant Shapps announced Sunday that London awarded the British defense company BAE Systems a £4B ($4.9B) contract to build nuclear-powered attack submarines under the AUKUS program that includes the UK, Australia, and the US. Dw.Com
• According to the UK Ministry of Defense, the new submarines, designated SSN-AUKUS, "will be the largest, most advanced and most powerful attack submarines" the British Navy has ever operated, combining "world-leading sensors, design and weaponry in one vessel." Al Jazeera (LR: 2 CP: 1)
• While the deal's main contractor is BAE Systems, Britain's Babcock Int. has been awarded a five-year contract for the detailed design of the submarines and Rolls-Royce is supplying the nuclear reactors for the vessels, which are scheduled for delivery by the late 2030s. The Telegraph
• According to BAE, construction of the next-generation SSN-Aukus attack submarines, which will be operated by Australia and the UK and replace the current Astute class, is expected to begin near the end of the decade and create more than 5K jobs. FT
• The multi-billion dollar investment will help the UK maintain its "strategic advantage and secure our leading position in a contested global order," Shapps said. The 2021 trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK, and the US has been criticized by China. BBC News (LR: 3 CP: 5)
• The three countries unveiled details of the Aukus plan in March — which involves Australia receiving nuclear-powered submarines with greater stealth power from the US to replace its diesel-powered ones — and then building a new model using US and UK technology to counter China's Indo-Pacific ambitions. The Defense Post

Anti-China narrative:

• These nuclear-powered attack submarines are paramount in the West's effort to address China's military buildup. It is misleading to blame the US-led AUCUS alliance for a regional arms race. Rather, Beijing's aggressive expansionism in the South China Sea and beyond, as well as the increase in its defense budget, alarm not only Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines, but all freedom-loving nations. To contain the Chinese threat, the US should further develop military partnerships with like-minded countries.
  Nikkei Asia

Pro-China narrative:

• This deal benefits only two groups: the British arms industry and Western imperialistic bureaucrats. As for AUKUS, both the US and UK, along with their junior partner Australia, make no secret of the fact that they are primarily concerned with their hegemonic interests with respect to their geopolitical struggle with China — even if this means betraying Western "partners" such as France. With its military buildup and Cold War mentality, the alliance is trying to stifle Beijing's prominence on the world stage.
  PressTV

Nerd narrative:

• There is a 20% chance that the UK will respond with military forces if China invades Taiwan before 2035, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
  Metaculus (LR: 3 CP: 3)

Onlookers near Oxford have filmed a fireball, after reports of a large explosion heard in the area.

UK Windows and Doors enters administration, with hundreds of jobs to go at four sites in Wales.

The National Trust has raised concerns about “political pressure” and defended its right to lobby on nature amid a renewed campaign by a self-styled “anti-woke” group seeking to recruit Conservative MPs to its cause.

The leadership of the UK’s largest charity is facing a fresh challenge at its annual meeting next month from the right-leaning Restore Trust group, whose candidates tried but failed to win seats on the National Trust’s 36-strong governing council last year.

The home secretary’s assertion that multiculturalism has ‘failed’ crosses the line, says the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

There’s a quiet transport revolution going on in different corners of the UK, from “the world’s most ambitious and complex autonomous bus system” in Edinburgh, to a minibus network in Milton Keynes that picks you up and drops you off (almost) wherever you want. This long read contains clues to a “small vehicle-small infrastructure” vision of public transport that is likely to be a big part of all our futures.

Andrew Testa’s photographs tell the stories of individuals, organisations, and communities across the UK who are welcoming people who were forced to flee their homes in other countries.

On Wednesday, at a media briefing in London, a panel of expert scientists suggested consumers should not get too hung up on concerns raised about UPFs. They could sometimes even be good for people, they said.

The briefing, organised by the Science Media Centre, generated headlines including “Ultra-processed foods as good as homemade fare, say experts”, “Ultra-processed foods can be good for you, say nutritionists”, and “Ultra-processed foods can sometimes be better for you, experts claim”.

Three of the five participants on the panel have either received financial support for research from UPF manufacturers or hold key positions with organisations that are funded by them. The manufacturers include Nestlé, Mondelēz, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and General Mills.

...

There is no suggestion that the scientists failed to declare potential conflicts of interest. Each provided declarations of interests before the briefing, which the Science Media Centre shared with journalists. However, there was no mention of their links to UPF manufacturers in any of the media coverage.

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/280332

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

Over the next 25 years, the population above the age of 85 will almost double. And yet, the trajectory we are on in terms of the financing and organisation of health and social care in older age is one that promises to merely deepen divides, both within generations and also across them. This is privatisation in two senses: in the foregrounding of care as a personal responsibility and in the marketisation of care.

Sue Cowley, an education expert who runs training for schools, tweeted her response to the records she had been sent under her name this week: “Excuse my language but WTAF [what the actual fuck] are the DfE doing spending taxpayer money conducting surveillance on critics of government policy on here?”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/9906910

Grant Shapps to send UK troops to Ukraine Army will train Zelensky’s military on the ground and Navy may move into Black Sea

By Edward Malnick, SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR 30 September 2023

British troops will be deployed in Ukraine for the first time under plans being discussed with military chiefs, the new Defence Secretary has disclosed....

Drivers who ditched petrol and diesel to help save the planet face huge price rises in premiums

Imagine demanding an “honest” debate over the cost of net zero in a report full of errors that even a schoolboy would be embarrassed about. Then imagine getting coverage of your report in the Sun, Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Spectator.

Sound impossible? Well, let me tell you how Civitas, one of the thinktanks housed at 55 Tufton Street in London, did exactly that, and nearly got away with it.

On Wednesday, Civitas published a pamphlet on net zero by Ewen Stewart, whose consultancy, Walbrook Economics, works on “the interaction of macroeconomics, politics and capital markets”.

Stewart is also a climate sceptic, having written in 2021 that human-caused warming is a “contested theory”. Along with Civitas, 55 Tufton Street also houses the climate-sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation and its campaigning arm Net Zero Watch. These groups previously attempted to spark an “honest debate about the cost of net-zero” in 2020.

The Civitas report claims to offer a “realistic” £4.5tn estimate of the cost of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and says “the government need to be honest with the British people”.

This estimate is much higher than the figure produced by the government’s official adviser, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which has said that reaching net zero would require net investments of £1.4tn by 2050. Note the difference between Civitas’s “costs” and the CCC’s “net investments”. The CCC also found that reaching net zero would generate savings in the form of lower fossil fuel bills worth £1.1tn, resulting in a net cost of £0.3tn.

In his report for Civitas, Stewart adopts the well-worn climate-sceptic tactic of simply ignoring these savings. He also ignores what the Office for Budget Responsibility has called the potentially “catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences” of unmitigated climate change.

The report was timed to follow hot on the heels of Rishi Sunak’s big climate speech, in which he called for an “honest” approach to net zero that ends “unacceptable costs”.

Unfortunately the report’s author has confused power capacity in megawatts (MW) with electricity generation in megawatt hours (MWh). As a result, he presents a distinctly unrealistic “£1.3m per MWh” figure for the cost for onshore wind power. The true number is around £50-70/MWh – more than 10,000 times lower. He then compounded his embarrassment by mixing up billions with trillions.

Tomorrow, Sunday, the Tory conference starts, discussing needed measures like cutting services to cut taxes.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, or LTNs, reduce traffic in residential streets, and improve access for pedestrians and cyclists with dedicated lanes, wider pavements and planters blocking off vehicle access.

Speed limits of 20mph are designed to reduce the severity of injuries suffered in accidents.