Only 5% of the respondents to the consultation used by Labour to justify shutting down social media for under-16s were young people. Those who actually experience social media in the same way…
DCMS minister Ian Murray has been busy telling Parliament how much the Government listened to the young before banning them from forums. Answering Labour MP Graeme Downie he boasted the consultation “heard from over 116,000 people, including nearly 6,000 young people.” 5%…
DCMS defines young people as those aged 16 to 21. Murray also cites “a visit to Citadel Youth Centre in Edinburgh” as proof of engagement. Buried in the government response over the summer is the admission that 34% of children’s consultation respondents opposed age restrictions and 47% wanted under-16 access to at least some platforms. And these are the youngsters who bothered to answer the survey…
Meanwhile a leaked draft shows the EU will look to bar under-15s from creating social media accounts without parental consent with safety-by-design rules for AI chatbots and video games. France’s Constitutional Council struck down its under-15 ban in August 2026, ruling it disproportionately infringed freedom of expression and lacked privacy safeguards for mandatory age verification. The tech iron curtain continues to fall over Europe…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”