For fuck sake, what else are they waiting for? Cap political donations at £10k per person per year. Stop with blatant political corruption.
And cap foreign political donations at zero, with asset forfeiture and sanctions as penalties.
God, it’s just all so bleak.
billionaires already bought up the media why not the commons and downing street too?
Lol, who do you think owns them now?
(we have our own billionaires, some even “anointed by god” 🙄)
Huh, so we’re all worried about foreign interference from Russia and friends, but the US just does it over the table? Really???
Is US interference not Russian interference at this point?
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Do we pretend it’s any different? Why is the default assumption when stuff like this happens that the UK (or any other country for that matter) is whiter than white and totally above board such that these revelations make people’s stomach’s churn? The default assumption should be that the the UK (and other countries for that matter) act in their own selfish shit bedraggled reasons and are highly partisan 100% of the time. That way you’re not going to be surprised that Elon Musk has the influence he does despite being an utter cunt. Or that he has managed to buy an election in the US. Or that he wants to interfere in the UK’s politics. And that that people will quite happily sit back and let it happen.
Musk has positioned himself in a place where the UK (and a bunch of other countries for that matter) need to be ok his friendly side. Be that with Shitter, or with EV battery storage, or with space technology. Three super important vehicles for the future economy (unfortunately). The UK doesn’t have shit to compete on any of these fronts so needs to not upset this man child too badly.
It is what it is, and it sucks.
Musk has positioned himself in a place where the UK (and a bunch of other countries for that matter) need to be ok his friendly side.
Not really. Twitter / X is his only real influence. And since taking over, he has trashed his reputation. So much so, only people like Farage pay any attention to him. Who also has a pretty awful reputation.
He has gained power in US politics. But only in a role that is limited to US gov internal affairs.
His companies SpaceX and tesla have limited power in the UK. Starlink is growing, but still not a major player here.
He really is no more than a very rich, mouthy idiot that our government tends to ignore.
An idiot he may be, but if you look at the industries that this cunt has aligned himself with (Space, clean electric transport, clean electric storage, mass demographic social media, AI) these are all things that the UK wants to have a foot in the door with.
Best case scenario is that other players emerge in these industries that are of equal or bigger weight to this clown such that the government doesn’t need to listen to him. But if you think how hard Murdoch has clung onto governments around the globe using traditional media then this arse hat is Murdoch on Ket!
Unfortunately he’s going to be around for a lot longer than anyone would like.
Unfortunately he’s going to be around for a lot longer than anyone would like.
That happened a few years ago.
Yep but other then space. (where we already have a huge foot)
He has no ability to limit the UK and is not an actual leader.
Clean transport he is actually just a name. He owns no standards that other does not have alternatives to. Tesla really is not very popular in the UK. Other cheaper options from Nissan (and others) are much more common.
Storage. Again, her does not have a huge hold on that market. Competition is huge and generally cheaper.
Space is the only place he has something unique. That being reusable launch. And while he is likely to remain cheap compared to other options. The UK also has a huge hold in satellite technologies and production (Much of it built a couple of miles from me). Along with a huge influence in radar and space tracking technology. Launch has really been the only area the UK avoided. And our government works through ESA to handle the limited launch they need. So only corperations need deal with him. Few that do are UK only.
He simply does not have a huge hold over the UK gov. This is in part why he is working with Outlier parties rather than the 2 main ones. The main ones ignore him as he has little actual hold over them economically.
It’s not huge, I don’t mean to suggest that. You’re totally right.
I suppose my point is that for the industries of the future he may become a key player. These industries are relatively small now but you’d imagine they would grow over the next ten years.
Storage. Again, her does not have a huge hold on that market.
Maybe I’m misremembering but wasn’t there a huge giga / mega factory that Tesla was involved within the UK for battery storage?
I do hope he has little to nothing to do with the UK over the next decade. But something tells me this turd isn’t going away 😕.
Giga factory did not happen in the UK.
If I was a sceptic, I’d say the UK was one of a few nations he proposed to try and gain some economic influence.
But few here generally believed he would choose a place with expensive labour like the US or UK to host such a thing. Honestly, factory manufacturing is not huge in the UK for good reason economically.
We do have a good few smaller corps building batteries. But honestly, it’s mainly importing cells from China and putting things together. But nothing huge exists.
his industry alignments absolutely show a purposeful arc. he’s either bright and deranged or lucky and deranged. there is only one common element here.
He’s very good at getting US government subsidies and taking credit for other people’s hard work. That’s a skill… right?
because caring about this takes up time from demonising trans ppl and eradicating them from existence.
The Electoral Commission, the political finance watchdog, last week repeated its demand to link donations to the UK profits of the companies used to make them. Farage immediately pounced on the comments, describing the Electoral Commission as “establishment stooges” and suggested that the main parties were fearful of Reform’s rise.
That seems like a sensible idea. I’m assuming it hurts both Labour & Conservatives too though, hence why they’re not pursuing it.
I can’t imagine looking at what billionaire money is doing to America right now and thinking, “yeah, we’ll have some of that”. It’s blatantly a bad idea.
Have you seen how much money the American political grifters make? Of course the UK grifters want some of that too
Have you seen how much money the American political grifters make?
Enough to fund a bunch of healthcare I imagine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_in_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election
Democrats, alone, raised $1 billion to lose. 😬
It’s time ol’ Leon got an adjustment
Well of course they do. How ever crappy and dumb reform may be.
It is a political party. Even with its odd set up.
There is no way to prevent a millionaire donating to them. That dose not also effect their own parties donations.
Unfortunalty we dont really have a way to ban donations to or from the southern end of north faceing donkeys.
