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Trevor Price's avatar

Miri and Jeff thank you both for a thoroughly enjoyable podcast. I am posting this on both your Substack comment threads as I have the good taste to subscribe to you both!

On the topic of fighting back, I am completely on board with the “go local and independent” approach to elections but in addition to that I wonder what you think about the prospects for more direct democracy measures which the Brexit referendum was a gratifying example of. The Swiss have their system of petitions attracting sufficient support leading to national referenda and I wonder if we have exploited sufficiently our petition processes. I can see Bob Moran’s point relating to petition fatigue:

https://x.com/search?q=bob%20moran%20%22stunning%20and%20brave%22&src=typed_query

but I was struck by the success of the following petition to the Welsh Senedd

https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/245548

against the blanket reduction of 30mph speed limits to 20mph in Wales. This petition garnered almost 470,000 signatures which I believe is more than the total votes cast for the governing party in the previous Senedd election. Compared to total electorate, I think this number would equate to over 8 million signatures for the whole UK. It has recently been announced by the new Welsh Transport Minister that this blanket speed limit reduction will be reversed. Eminently sensible Westminster parliamentary petitions seem to struggle to get over the 100,00 signature level which triggers consideration for parliamentary debate. As well as fatigue, this suggests social media suppression, shadow banning etc. Do you think there is merit in pushing resistance via this route too?

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Mick Wyatt's avatar

Very interesting chat about a broad range of topics.

Regarding UBI, as our market stall is in a town centre we come into contact with lots of different types of people. Many people that are in the benefits system (some for genuine reasons) have been out of the employment system for so long they will never return.

My biggest concern though is the university students. Many (not all) do not appear even close to entering the world of work and quite a lot would fall into the ‘unemployable’ category. The university does not seem to be equipping their students with the tools for a working life (allowing them to identify as furries etc), in fact they are creating a generation primed for a life of willingly accepting UBI. Sadly I can’t see how this can be prevented.

Thanks again for a thought provoking discussion 👍🏻

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