Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
@left-sharkey.bsky.social
Uphold Sister Smudge Thought. He/him.
Pinned
cake and violins for all, in civic abundance
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Is welfare spending ''out of control''?
Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.
That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️
buff.ly/s5mz97u
Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.
That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️
buff.ly/s5mz97u
November 25, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Is welfare spending ''out of control''?
Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.
That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️
buff.ly/s5mz97u
Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.
That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️
buff.ly/s5mz97u
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Great to hear Rachel Reeves acknowledge that "there are many reasons why people choose to have children then find themselves in difficult times. The death of a partner. Separation. Ill health. A lost job. I don’t believe that children should bear the brunt of that."
So why should migrant children?
So why should migrant children?
November 26, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Great to hear Rachel Reeves acknowledge that "there are many reasons why people choose to have children then find themselves in difficult times. The death of a partner. Separation. Ill health. A lost job. I don’t believe that children should bear the brunt of that."
So why should migrant children?
So why should migrant children?
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Re. Farage being racist in his youth, imo is not that much of a story or a suprise. But if it tells us anything today, it's that the lesson Farage learnt in his youth was that it could be fun to bully people, and that he has built several political movements that valorise being a dickhead
November 27, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Re. Farage being racist in his youth, imo is not that much of a story or a suprise. But if it tells us anything today, it's that the lesson Farage learnt in his youth was that it could be fun to bully people, and that he has built several political movements that valorise being a dickhead
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Thankfully the IPCC's models of future climate action do not lean heavily on something so profoundly absurd to allow for a picture of more gradual fossil fuel decline in the future :) :)
*presses finger to ear*
Uh getting some updates here
*presses finger to ear*
Uh getting some updates here
November 27, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Thankfully the IPCC's models of future climate action do not lean heavily on something so profoundly absurd to allow for a picture of more gradual fossil fuel decline in the future :) :)
*presses finger to ear*
Uh getting some updates here
*presses finger to ear*
Uh getting some updates here
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
For those unfamiliar, this involves:
- Cutting down trees that have sucked up carbon as they grew
- Burning them for energy
- Capturing the carbon that results from burning
- Transporting the carbon
- Injecting it underground
- Guarding it for the next few thousand years at least
- Cutting down trees that have sucked up carbon as they grew
- Burning them for energy
- Capturing the carbon that results from burning
- Transporting the carbon
- Injecting it underground
- Guarding it for the next few thousand years at least
NEW | A single carbon removal project at a biomass power station In the UK could cost £30 BILLION in government subsidies.
This would cost more than the UK government plans on spending for carbon capture programmes over 25 years.
https://loom.ly/XibxT4k
This would cost more than the UK government plans on spending for carbon capture programmes over 25 years.
https://loom.ly/XibxT4k
November 27, 2025 at 10:48 AM
For those unfamiliar, this involves:
- Cutting down trees that have sucked up carbon as they grew
- Burning them for energy
- Capturing the carbon that results from burning
- Transporting the carbon
- Injecting it underground
- Guarding it for the next few thousand years at least
- Cutting down trees that have sucked up carbon as they grew
- Burning them for energy
- Capturing the carbon that results from burning
- Transporting the carbon
- Injecting it underground
- Guarding it for the next few thousand years at least
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
this was bad before, but these are the most troubling and serious allegations you can make about a journalist. if they’re true, i genuinely can’t think of a worse scandal in the history of political journalism. devastating to our industry, to public trust as a whole, and to everyone in its orbit
November 26, 2025 at 9:21 PM
this was bad before, but these are the most troubling and serious allegations you can make about a journalist. if they’re true, i genuinely can’t think of a worse scandal in the history of political journalism. devastating to our industry, to public trust as a whole, and to everyone in its orbit
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
this fuckin guy ...dropping allegations of journalistic malpractice and source betrayal in separate piece meal events like it’s delicious media gossip and then writing, “we haven’t reached the halfway point, and I haven’t yet described the most bizarre, consequential, and newsworthy events”
November 26, 2025 at 9:06 PM
this fuckin guy ...dropping allegations of journalistic malpractice and source betrayal in separate piece meal events like it’s delicious media gossip and then writing, “we haven’t reached the halfway point, and I haven’t yet described the most bizarre, consequential, and newsworthy events”
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
By the above measures, the Johnson/Sunak governments were also amongst the most leftwing in British history
November 27, 2025 at 9:51 AM
By the above measures, the Johnson/Sunak governments were also amongst the most leftwing in British history
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
The question is how much of this 'leftism' is ideological, and how much of it a result of trying to maintain commitments to an increasingly old and unwell population, in the absence of economic growth?
Starmer and Reeves run probably the most economically left-wing government of past five decades and yet bleeding support to its left thanks to dumb strategy www.economist.com/britain/2025...
November 27, 2025 at 9:50 AM
The question is how much of this 'leftism' is ideological, and how much of it a result of trying to maintain commitments to an increasingly old and unwell population, in the absence of economic growth?
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
also if I can Stoicism post just a bit: this is also what memento mori is for. you are going to die someday - do you really imagine than one of your regrets will be that you didn't organize more of your life around what random Redditors think is gay?
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
So many men go through life like that. You can play poker because it's right-coded, you can't enjoy fruity alcoholic drinks because they're women-coded, you can't lick an ice cream cone because it's gay-coded. All day, every day, choosing and judging things based on coding for narrow norms.
November 26, 2025 at 4:06 PM
also if I can Stoicism post just a bit: this is also what memento mori is for. you are going to die someday - do you really imagine than one of your regrets will be that you didn't organize more of your life around what random Redditors think is gay?
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
this is just the great replacement conspiracy theory with the serial numbers filed off, especially since as I've noted before, the two child benefit cap had a minimal effect on birth rates
Reflections on the budget from the head of Students4Reform
November 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
this is just the great replacement conspiracy theory with the serial numbers filed off, especially since as I've noted before, the two child benefit cap had a minimal effect on birth rates
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
But the idea that the solution is *Suno*, a service which teaches you nothing, provides a legally shaky form of ownership, builds no relationships, fosters no development, has no possibility of reflecting anything at all about you as a musician, is bad. It’s not democratising, it’s fake.
November 26, 2025 at 3:27 PM
But the idea that the solution is *Suno*, a service which teaches you nothing, provides a legally shaky form of ownership, builds no relationships, fosters no development, has no possibility of reflecting anything at all about you as a musician, is bad. It’s not democratising, it’s fake.
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Access to instruments is a political issue - schools should be fully equipped to provide all kinds of music education in my opinion, and community studios have been historically important in making recording accessible to all since recording began. These things take effort to sustain.
November 26, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Access to instruments is a political issue - schools should be fully equipped to provide all kinds of music education in my opinion, and community studios have been historically important in making recording accessible to all since recording began. These things take effort to sustain.
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
going back over the two-child benefit stuff and all the nonsense around it, I would like to humbly submit a "if you think people are living it up on benefits, we will tax you until you have the same income as the average person on benefits, you are welcome to try" clause in the next budget
November 26, 2025 at 3:15 PM
going back over the two-child benefit stuff and all the nonsense around it, I would like to humbly submit a "if you think people are living it up on benefits, we will tax you until you have the same income as the average person on benefits, you are welcome to try" clause in the next budget
the last part about Osborne is more charitable than it needs to be. He didn't just claim it was unfair for families on benefits to be subsided - he also claimed it incentivised being in benefits over being in work, and that the cap would instead incentivise increased labour force participation.
November 26, 2025 at 3:03 PM
the last part about Osborne is more charitable than it needs to be. He didn't just claim it was unfair for families on benefits to be subsided - he also claimed it incentivised being in benefits over being in work, and that the cap would instead incentivise increased labour force participation.
one of the things that has become clear over the last decade or two is that the folk in charge of the uk have active contempt for devolution and hate any mechanism that even tries to make it work
and when deciding what Scotland’s financial needs are did the Chancellor also engage with our elected Scottish Government or just her pal
November 26, 2025 at 2:32 PM
one of the things that has become clear over the last decade or two is that the folk in charge of the uk have active contempt for devolution and hate any mechanism that even tries to make it work
I fear that to be the economics editor at BBC News nowadays having no self respect is a prerequisite
You are the Economics Editor on BBC News, have some self respect!
November 26, 2025 at 2:23 PM
I fear that to be the economics editor at BBC News nowadays having no self respect is a prerequisite
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
And the two child benefit limit is abolished. An enormous victory for those who have campaigned tirelessly for eight long years through successive governments. This will lift at least 450,000 children out of poverty. Fewer kids will be hungry. No more women forced to disclose their rape.
November 26, 2025 at 1:37 PM
And the two child benefit limit is abolished. An enormous victory for those who have campaigned tirelessly for eight long years through successive governments. This will lift at least 450,000 children out of poverty. Fewer kids will be hungry. No more women forced to disclose their rape.
I have seen a fair few anti-trans throwaway accounts recently make reference to "alchemists" when discussing trans people and coming across this again it suddenly makes sense
What it sounds like when philosophers who are also anti-trans activists submit an amicus brief to a US court where they argue for banning trans girls and women from women's sports.
November 26, 2025 at 10:47 AM
I have seen a fair few anti-trans throwaway accounts recently make reference to "alchemists" when discussing trans people and coming across this again it suddenly makes sense
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
Call me cynical—haha—but I think it might have a harmful impact on civic pride and people's enthusiasm for engaging in political life when the best representative image of every British premier's ascent to power is that of soap scum floating to the top of a bowl of dishwater.
November 26, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Call me cynical—haha—but I think it might have a harmful impact on civic pride and people's enthusiasm for engaging in political life when the best representative image of every British premier's ascent to power is that of soap scum floating to the top of a bowl of dishwater.
Reposted by Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer
It's quite frustrating that loads of people who I generally agree with are shrugging at this saying other countries don't have juries and it's like, yes, they don't, but they do have other safeguards that we *don't* have (like, for example, allowing judges a lot more freedom to set token sentences)
November 26, 2025 at 9:42 AM
It's quite frustrating that loads of people who I generally agree with are shrugging at this saying other countries don't have juries and it's like, yes, they don't, but they do have other safeguards that we *don't* have (like, for example, allowing judges a lot more freedom to set token sentences)
not a lawyer but for me this is another worrying case of "this seems very short-sighted when you're odds on to lose an election to reform"
Worth noting that a lot of continental European systems don't use jury systems as much as the UK or US, the really fucking sketchy part of Labour's plans is limiting right to appeal decisions
November 26, 2025 at 9:24 AM
not a lawyer but for me this is another worrying case of "this seems very short-sighted when you're odds on to lose an election to reform"
cat update: she is now purring like a motorbike and pushing her head under my hand for attention, affection and chin scritches
November 25, 2025 at 11:50 PM
cat update: she is now purring like a motorbike and pushing her head under my hand for attention, affection and chin scritches