Labour News
4 articles in labour
Lords put pressure on Starmer with vote to ban social media for under-16s
Commons will now have to consider Tory-led amendment, which is likely to be supported by Labour MPs As a parent – and a Conservative – I know that banning social media for under-16s is the right thing to do The House of Lords has voted decisively for a ban on social media for under-16s in a move that puts pressure on Keir Starmer to bring in Australian-style restrictions. Peers voted by 261 to 150 in favour of a Tory-led amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which was not backed by the government. Continue reading...
UK politics: West Midlands crime commissioner resists calls for immediate sacking of chief constable – as it happened
Simon Foster says he will give report into force’s handling of Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban ‘careful consideration’ in deciding Craig Guildford’s fate Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn. Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced. I remember a leisurely lunch over the summer when a supporter of digital IDs told me how they thought Keir Starmer would reset his premiership. Alongside a reorganisation of his team in Number 10, and maybe a junior ministerial reshuffle, they predicted he would announce in his speech at party conference that his government would be embracing digital IDs. “It will allow him to show he’s willing to do whatever it takes to tackle illegal immigration,” was their rationale. Sure enough, Starmer announced “phase two” of his government, reshuffled his top team and, on the Friday before Labour party conference, he duly announced his government would make digital IDs mandatory for workers. “We need to know who is in our country,” he said, arguing that the IDs would prevent migrants who “come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally”. In policy terms, I don’t think you particularly gain anything by making the government’s planned new digital ID compulsory. One example of that: Kemi Badenoch has both criticised the government’s plans to introduce compulsory ID, while at the same time committing to creating a “British ICE” that would go around deporting large numbers of people living in the UK. In a country with that kind of target and approach, people would be forced to carry their IDs around with them in any case! The Online Safety Act, passed into law by the last Conservative government with cross-party support and implemented by Labour, presupposes some form of ID to work properly. Here is the political challenge for Downing Street: the climbdowns, dilutions, U- turns, about turns, call them what you will, are mounting up. In just the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of business rates on pubs in England and inheritance tax on farmers. We welcome Starmer’s reported U-turn on making intrusive, expensive and unnecessary digital IDs mandatory. This is a huge success for Big Brother Watch and the millions of Brits who signed petitions to make this happen. The case for the government now dropping digital IDs entirely is overwhelming. Taxpayers should not be footing a £1.8bn bill for a digital ID scheme that is frankly pointless. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer tells MPs he is open to social media ban for young people
PM says he is alarmed at reports about children’s screen time and has shifted position on Australian-style policy UK politics live – latest updates Keir Starmer has told MPs he is open to the idea of an Australian-style ban on social media for young people after becoming concerned about the amount of time children and teenagers are spending on their phones. The prime minister told Labour MPs on Monday evening he had become alarmed at reports about five-year-olds spending hours in front of screens each day, as well as increasingly worried about the damage social media is doing to under-16s. Continue reading...
No 10 condemns ‘insulting’ move by X to restrict Grok AI image tool
Spokesperson says limiting access to paying subscribers just makes ability to generate unlawful images a premium service UK politics live – latest updates Downing Street has condemned the move by X to restrict its AI image creation tool to paying subscribers as insulting, saying it simply made the ability to generate explicit and unlawful images a premium service. There has been widespread anger after the image tool for Grok, the AI element of X, was used to manipulate thousands of images of women and sometimes children to remove their clothing or put them in sexual positions. Continue reading...