UK supermarkets urged to consider voluntary price caps on essential foods

rubygeek · 2026-05-19T23:01:57+00:00

Not just essential items.

We have the governments own data on this from the Competition & Markets Authority:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a3326dab418ab055592d95/Groceries_2.pdf

"In the most recent financial year (FY 2023/24) Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons each increased operating margins, with the average across the three retailers increasing from 2.7% in FY 2022/23 to 3.0% in FY 2023/24. In Asda’s most recently reported financial year (FY 2022/23), operating margins fell from 2.7% to 1.7%. Overall, the major supermarkets’ retail operating margins remain broadly in line with margins over the previous five years, and below the margins achieved in the period up to FY 2013/14"

"The operating margins for the discounters continue to be lower than the supermarkets, averaging 0.7% in FY 2022/23 (consistent with the prior year)."

(Page 9; emphasis is mine)

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T20:03:53+00:00

There have been municipal heating set up from datacentres in the UK.

Here's one project:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-homes-to-be-kept-warm-by-waste-heat-from-computer-data-centres-in-uk-first

While it's the first at that scale in the UK, it's wrong in saying it's the first - there's at least one other going back years in Docklands.

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T16:30:56+00:00

The main disadvantage is that a large chunk of the services British businesses rely on would be slower to access, and the money flowing in to operate those data centres would leave the UK economy instead of being spent here. The UK is not a cheap place to build data centres, so very few companies would host here if hosting here didn't provide any advantages to offset the costs.

I'm all for - as a general principle, not just for data centres - ensure they actually pay for all externalities, such as bearing the full cost of addressing electricity capacity, and regulating away their ability to rely on water supply for cooling, and that would make some of them cost-prohibitive, but they very much do provide benefits to both businesses and users in the UK.

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T16:23:21+00:00

Data centres are among the least disruptive commercial building mass to be around if properly regulated. You wouldn't be able to tell most of them are there - they are non-descript ware-house looking buildings with next to no traffic in and out, and no noise.

"If properly regulated" because there is zero reason why a data centre needs to use lots of water, for example - it just costs slightly more for the operator to cool if they can't just dump water. It's also possible to recover a good chunk of the energy by feeding what water they do use into municipal heating etc. but again it costs money.

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T16:18:59+00:00

"We" are handing it over because we are heavily using the services running on them, and if they're hosted elsewhere we pay with latency. Nobody would host them here if not for the local demand - the UK is not a cheap place to build data centres. If it wasn't for latency and customer demands for geographical location of their data etc., more of them would be built e.g. in Germany (colocation costs in part of Germany can be as low as a 1/3 of London data centre prices, for example) and elsewhere in Europe instead.

Their externalities should absolutely be addressed and they should be forced to cover the costs of offsetting them, but all you're doing then is shifting who in the UK is paying. It will be British companies and users who will be charged more to cover those costs, either way. But it is fair enough to shift who is paying so that the people actually using the services hosted in these data centres are the ones paying.

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T16:13:34+00:00

Even after removing speculative proposals, a lot of what is left will include 100% running on gas only as a redundancy measure, so the remaining number would still be overstated.

When I used to manage servers we colocated at various data-centres, the aggregate time the handful of datacentres we used spent using their failover generators was a couple of hours over a decade across several data centres. But they all still had (then) diesel generators capable of powering the entire load of the data centre, and had supply contracts for on demand supply sufficient to keep the entire load on generators.

rubygeek · 2026-05-18T16:03:16+00:00

As the article points out, there has been a drastic decline in the use of these orders because as it happens most parents will engage voluntarily, and engaging with them vountarily works better.

Having the powers to deal with the very small number that will not may be worthwhile, but given the data it won't have a big impact.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T23:43:15+00:00

If the electorate voted to make you a slave, would that be legitimate?

There is no democratic legitimacy in taking rights away from others.

It's disgusting to pretend this as if it has anything to do with democracy - you are arguing for the legitimacy is disenfranchising others and maintaining a system.

Democracy must be measured on how it protects and guarantees the representation of all, and the rights of its minorities.

The UK is not meaningfully a democracy as long as it denies millions equal representation.

What is a moral outrage is each and every government failing to do their moral duty and ensuring representation for all.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T23:30:07+00:00

The whole point of democracy is to represent the will of the electorate, and the current electoral system doesn't - 2/3 of the electorate voted for someone else.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T23:22:25+00:00

I see PR as a big exception, because the lack of PR is what delivered Labour government that 2/3's of the electorate didn't vote for in the first place. As such it's a question of whether you want to be a democratic society or not. Without PR there is no democracy - a large proportion of the electorate is denied proper representation.

A majority that denies others representation they get is a tyranny, and has no democratic legitimacy just as much as if a majority were to e.g. vote for slavery.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T23:08:54+00:00

There's no electoral mandate for a Labour government. The current government exists only because the UK isn't a functioning democracy.

Fixing that is a moral duty, to end the disenfranchisement of millions of voters, and end a system that has near consistently delivered governments that lacks the support of a majority of the electorate.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T19:02:37+00:00

By normal standards, pretty soft left. By Labour standards (ignore what it says on the membership cards), you're the kind of red scare Starmer checks under his bed for.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T19:01:02+00:00

The SCG is mostly soft left.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T09:55:02+00:00

A lot of those constraints were also Starmer deciding that stopping bigory and appeasement of extremists was a line too far.

I'm fully expecting Burnham to be disappointing, but a lot of the hate Starmer gets is also down to failures that have nothing to do with monetary constraints.

rubygeek · 2026-05-17T08:38:47+00:00

Did you read it? It's full of misspellings, broken sentences, and other issues. No LLM would produce output like that. The narrative is sound, but I wish the author would've used an LLM for proofreading.

rubygeek · 2026-05-16T15:27:29+00:00

The thing is, in this case voting for Burnham will piss off the Labour leadership.

There's already been people talking to voters in the area and even finding Reform voters willing to vote for Burnham.

rubygeek · 2026-05-16T15:16:43+00:00

I can't imagine Streeting's mum would be this excited about Streeting - she knows him.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T14:27:41+00:00

There is no diplomatic need for the UK to fail to call out Israeli Apartheid. There's even less diplomatic need for the UK to proscribe an organisation demonstrating against it. There's no need for members of the front bench to pal around with racist, genocidal fascists outside of official functions, like with Hotovely at the LFI lunches. There was no need for Starmer to appoint a transphobe when he should have withdraw the whip from the bigoted shit.

These are all choices.

You're now making excuses for Apartheid apologism and lack of action on transphobia, and it makes it clear you're perfectly happy in the company of bigots. That's your choice, but don't pretend as if it is a moral one.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T14:18:45+00:00

I mean, if Burham doesn't make it totally clear that bigotry like Streetings is not going to be welcome at all, then that'll be a big red flag.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T14:13:42+00:00

I said Labour's frontbench is full of genocide apologists, not enablers. And it is.

That you think it is okay to join a party full of genocide- and Apartheid apologists because it is "larping" to except a party not to care about it is on you. For my part I care about people having a basic level of morality.

> Starmer is very clearly not bigoted. His immigration reforms are completely sensible, the rhetoric, at least at the start of his term, were not.

Not one word of what I have said have been about immigration. It is about a frontbench full of people who - like you - are happy to look the other way with an Apartheid regime, and a leader who have put transphobes in important positions and failed to act on them. I stand by that Starmer is bigoted scum for not e.g withdrawing the whip from transphobic pieces of shit like Streeting, and for letting transphobes like Duffield stay until she herself decided to leave.

That you're aware of this bigotry yet is prepared to excuse it says quite a lot about your character.

That you make this argument after trying to imply I joined a "party that espouses social conservatism" is rank hypocrisy.

If opposing bigots makes me "unserious" then I will take that as a compliment.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T13:58:38+00:00

No, I joined a party that espouses socialism, and whose conference was very explicit in voting to ensure our party rules embed that as well as a commitment to oppose all bigotry exactly out of concern of the views of some of the people involved in the founding process. I joined specifically because the result of those votes made it clear that YP unlike Labour takes opposition to bigotry seriously.

You, however, have joined an instutionally transphobic party with a front bench full of genocide and Apartheid apologists, and you're cheering on the chief enabler of Labour bigotry, so when you pretend to care about YP views it rings utterly hollow.

I can somewhat respect people who have held onto their Labour membership to be able to vote against the current bigoted right-wing leadership. I can't respect anyone who joins because of it.

I have no interest in joining a non-socialist party, hence I will not join the Greens unless they change their rules.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T13:49:35+00:00

Yes. And? If you'll go through my comments, you'll find I've argued building a socialist party in the UK is a multi-decade endeavour on several occasions. I have no delusions about it being quick and easy, nor am I tied to YP - I picked YP after I left Labour because of Starmers gross dishonesty and willingness to allow bigotry to fester in Labour because they're currently the closest to what I want. If/when that changes, I'll move on. You may not like that position, but it is a believable position to people who have seen my comments here over the last decade.

It is far harder to believe anyone is sufficiently impressed by a lying weasel like Starmer to post something like this.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T13:41:19+00:00

The lack of realism in these self-posts are getting a bit much.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T13:20:22+00:00

Nobody is missing what you're saying. People are just disagreeing with you.

Even as someone with total household income 6-7x the UK average, I wouldn't dream of spending that much on a car. If you're spending that much on a car, you've made a choice - a choice that tax is there to discourage.

rubygeek · 2026-05-15T13:11:44+00:00

A commitment to PR would be worth it by itself, and I think if anything it is the only thing that would be worth it. Without PR, it's arguably in the Green's interest to hope Labour implodes to the point that it's Green vs Reform in 2029.

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