Latest news with #TikTok-friendly
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Liberal Democrats are a protest group masquerading as a party
I looked at my watch, and realised we had all been sat in the council chamber for over an hour. I glanced at the agenda. What next? A petition for the council to divest from companies with connections to Israel, and to stand with Gaza 'on the right side of history'. Will this make a jot of difference to the lives of people in Dorset? Such a question seems not to have crossed the mind of those who sat alongside me in our most recent council meeting. Local Government is often mocked for obsessing about bin collections and potholes, bus timetables and library hours. But that, understandably, is what local people care about. Councils are given a defined set of responsibilities; voters expect their local representatives to deliver on them effectively. Over the last two years, voters have taken a punt on the Liberal Democrats governing in some fifteen councils across the country. The motivation for this can be traced back to events in Westminster: people in rural areas wanted to send a message to the Conservative Party that their support cannot be taken for granted. A smaller number perhaps thought that a change in local government could bring a change in the quality of their neighbourhood services. The truth, however, is that Liberal Democrats in local government seem to be mimicking the farcical TikTok-friendly persona of party leader Ed Davey: they love performance, petition, pontification. What they hate is actually governing. I'm a Conservative councillor in the beautiful county of Dorset, the place where I grew up, and I know that I have an opportunity to make a difference to local people. Getting involved here with the minutiae of community life – from raising money for village halls to getting developers to meet their planning obligations – is a source of great satisfaction. We lost overall control to the Liberal Democrats last year, so I sit on the opposition benches amongst Conservatives with years and years of experience in local government. It has been quite remarkable to observe how divorced the interests of some Liberal Democrats are from those of the people they are meant to represent. Every week, I speak to people who want to see potholes filled, residents who are worried that there's no real plan for the development coming Dorset's way, businesses owners who are buckling thanks to the scourge of rural crime, and locals who just want their verges to be properly maintained. These are the vital concerns of local government. But they are the ordinary concerns of locals – and probably too boring for the Liberal Democrats who would rather spend their time and council taxpayers money on saving the world. A typical council meeting involves an evening spent discussing hedgehogs, planting trees in solidarity with the United Nations (to whom I was told we owe all our most inviolable rights), and applauding each other for our self-righteousness. We were required to sit in silence while a wholly partisan and substantially erroneous petition on Israel-Palestine was read. And when we finally got to the moment to discuss something that genuinely matters to Dorset people – how we can best support local businesses suffering from the Government's tax changes – the Liberal Democrats simply amended the motion in order to congratulate themselves on the work already being undertaken. This is symptomatic of a general shift in local government business under the party's watch towards a version of activism that uncomfortably smacks of student politics. I'm told by a colleague that he still receives reminders to complete his online DEI training modules. Meanwhile, the Labour government has whacked up council tax and increased borrowing at the same time budgets for libraries, highway maintenance and communities and public protection have all been cut in real terms. We know the pressures that local government is under. We know that well over half our budget is consumed by statutory services over which we have little control. We know that the current funding formula for local authorities is intensely unfair for rural councils like Dorset. But with control over just a third of the budget, a good council could greatly improve the lives of the residents it represents. Soon, Liberal Democrats will be up for election in councils they control, and they will have to defend their record. Voters, who just want better maintained roads, regular bin collections, and sensible use of their tax contributions, might well feel just a little bit of buyers remorse. James Vitali is a Conservative councillor in Dorset and a senior fellow at Policy Exchange Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Daily Maverick
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
We're in the F**k Around and Find Out phase of democracy
To F**k Around and Find Out (FAFO) is a modern proverb, born from meme culture but rich in truth: test the limits of someone or something and eventually the consequences will arrive. Often spectacularly. It's a phrase that perfectly captures the global democratic moment we find ourselves in. Because let's be honest, we've entered the FAFO phase of democracy. The era where years of democratic backsliding, unchecked corporate capture and digital disinformation are finally colliding with reality. Where playing games with truth, law and public trust now carries a cost. We are living the consequences. Authoritarian nostalgia has gone mainstream, from Trump's teetering comeback in the US to Modi's hypernationalist project in India and South Africa's own flirtations with populist grievance politics. Right-wing influencers repackage fascist ideas in TikTok-friendly language. Entire political platforms are built on vibes, victimhood and vague conspiracy theories. And tech bros? They've stopped pretending. Their libertarian fantasies are now openly hostile to regulation, human rights and democracy itself. All this chaos has a digital architecture. Years of f**king around with algorithms that reward outrage over accuracy, polarisation over nuance and profit over public interest have left us swimming in misinformation, drowning in noise and unsure of what's even real. The civic space has become gamified. Electoral trust eroded. And the truth, poor thing, no longer trends. But FAFO isn't just a threat. It's a reckoning. A reckoning with the limits of our collective denial. A reckoning with the people we allowed to amass unchecked power, whether they wear suits or hoodies. And this reckoning is not abstract. It's the disillusioned voter who believed the conspiracy theories and now faces a crumbling healthcare system. It's the journalist in Johannesburg or Delhi dodging death threats and online mobs for daring to expose corruption. It's the young activist in Hong Kong or Myanmar, imprisoned for a single tweet that challenged the narrative. It's the whistle-blower inside the belly of a tech giant, leaking documents that reveal how profits consistently trumped ethics. The Find Out phase is brutal because it forces us to confront what we tried to ignore: the slow dismantling of democratic guardrails; the transformation of truth into a commodity; the arrogance of those who thought they could endlessly game the system without consequences. In South Africa, we recently commemorated Freedom Day, an occasion that, while historic and hard-won, now feels uneasy against the backdrop of state failure, institutional decay and deliberate digital manipulation. Disinformation campaigns here have not only sought to rewrite our history but to rig our future, distorting the collective memory needed to build a just society. Yet here's the thing about FAFO: it cuts both ways. Power is finding out that the public can only be pacified for so long. That rage, when dismissed, does not disappear, it organises. That civil society, though often underfunded and under siege, persists. That journalists and whistle-blowers, despite being demonised and targeted, continue to shine a light where darkness thrives. And that young people, often written off as politically apathetic, are forging new vocabularies of justice, participation and resistance. Democracy, in this phase, is not tidy. It is jagged. It is chaotic. It is painful. But it is not defeated. What we are witnessing is not democracy's end, but perhaps its refusal to go gently into the good night. The Find Out phase, though tough in many ways, is also a crucible. It is where illusions shatter. It is where false gods are exposed. It is where the hard, necessary work of rebuilding must begin. There is no guarantee that we will emerge stronger. The stakes are enormous and the forces aligned against democracy are powerful and deeply entrenched. But there is also no inevitability to collapse. History has shown that when people organise, when they refuse to be cowed and when they demand better, cracks can be forced open even in the most fortified walls. So, here's to the FAFO phase. May it break what must be broken – greed, lies, authoritarianism – and may it spare what still has value: solidarity, courage, accountability and the stubborn belief that democracy, despite everything, remains worth fighting for. DM
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Socialist mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani pitches 2% tax hike on NYC's millionaires to raise $10B for freebie-filled agenda
It's a bit rich. Democratic socialist mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani pitched a 2% tax hike Wednesday on New York City's millionaires to help pay for his freebie-filled agenda. Mamdani unveiled his tax-the-rich proposal — which includes another hike targeting big corporations — in a news conference outside City Hall. 'We are putting forward a platform today that will raise $10 billion a year to pay for our agenda,' he said. 'When it comes to taxing the 1% of New York City will do so by taxing them an additional 2%.' Mamdani's plan calls to increase corporate taxes by 4.5%, which campaign officials said would collect $5.4 billion from corporations. Another $4 billion would come from the increased taxes on the wealthy, with additional income flowing in by beefing up the city's tax collection agency, officials said. The state Assembly member from Queens has risen from dark horse candidate to the runner up in polls, behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the crowded June Democratic mayoral primary. Mamdani has done so through a mix of engaging TikTok-friendly videos and an unapologetically socialist agenda, promising free buses and childcare, a rent freeze and city-run food stores. But his lofty goal of showering New Yorkers in freebies comes with a hefty price tag — and potential logistical hurdles. Hiking income taxes would require approval by Albany lawmakers likely loathe to soak the rich. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio similarly vowed to raise taxes on the rich during his 2013 run, but he was stymied by then-Gov. Cuomo. Millionaires fled the Big Apple in droves during the coronavirus pandemic's early days, a 2023 study by the Fiscal Policy Institute found. But while New York state lost 2,400 millionaires between during the first three years of COVID, it also 'gained 17,500 millionaires in the same period due to a strong economy and rising wages,' the study states. Those high earners also tended to move to other high tax states such as California, Connecticut and New Jersey, the study found. 'When high earners do move, they are more like to move to another high tax state than to a low tax state, indicating that taxes are relatively low on the list of motivating factors in high earners' moving decisions,' the study states.
The Independent
11-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
How a sculpted jaw became the new holy grail of beauty
In 2006, the legendary writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron was, to borrow the title of the book she released that year, feeling bad about her neck. The perceived decline of this particular part of the body was a real tell-tale sign of ageing, Ephron believed. But if she was around to muse on beauty culture in 2025, I'm pretty sure she would have honed in a little higher up, with her (self) critical gaze landing somewhere around the mandible bone that lends shape to our lower faces and chins. Because right now, I feel pretty bad about my jawline. And I'm certainly not the only one. A defined jawline has been a desirable physical trait for decades, even centuries. Just think of the square-jawed hunks of Old Hollywood, the angular beauty of Katharine Hepburn, or, for a few more contemporary examples, Angelina Jolie's exquisite bone structure and Bella Hadid's striking features. For as long as I've been aware of what's deemed beautiful (aka ever since I was a young girl listening in on older women bemoaning their appearances), I've had it drilled into me that a double chin was something to try and avoid. I'm someone who is naturally round of face, so this particular flaw was always my personal neurosis; photos in which I had any wobbliness around the jawline would get deleted (or at least detagged). But over the past five years or so, a so-called 'snatched' jaw – to parrot a TikTok-friendly phrase that was in turn borrowed from drag culture – seems to have become a universal holy grail of beauty. It's now an undeniable aesthetic status symbol – or, alternatively, just the latest impossible aesthetic ideal for us to castigate ourselves for failing to embody. My ever-present but mostly dormant fixation has re-emerged, because perfectly sculpted jawlines, plus a whole load of beauty treatments, surgical and non-surgical fixes and deeply dubious hacks promising fast results, are everywhere. Look at any red carpet during awards season and you'll see an apparently endless stream of perfectly angled jawlines, sharp enough to cut glass, and side profiles that are noticeably free from the puffiness, double chins and incipient jowls that seem to plague us mere mortals. Margot Robbie, Lily-Rose Depp and Emily Ratajkowski are just a handful of mandibular-ly blessed celebs who spring to mind, while ultra-sleek jawlines have also contributed to the recent incredible 'glow-ups' of two Nineties and Noughties stars, Christina Aguilera and Lindsay Lohan (neither woman has commented on or confirmed any surgery rumours, but that has only increased feverish speculation online). But this is a beauty standard that seems to be just as prevalent among leading men. For every actor who's clearly been genetically blessed with an almost cartoonishly square jaw since his teen idol days, there's a clutch of male stars who have re-emerged onto the scene, after an absence from the public eye, with strikingly stronger, more chiselled jawlines, as if they'd recently been reimagined as cartoon superheroes. A few years back, former Disney heartthrob Zac Efron sparked conjecture when his face shape underwent a striking change. He later explained that he'd in fact undergone corrective surgery after hitting his chin on a fountain; after that, his other facial muscles overcompensated. 'The masseters just grew,' he told Men's Health in 2022. Comedians such as Matt Rife and John Mulaney have been subjected to the 'then and now' transformation photo galleries that are more commonly used to overanalyse the intricacies of women's faces online (Rife has denied plastic surgery, while Mulaney hasn't commented). For men, a defined jaw tends to be associated with a sort of hyper-masculinity. In women, conversely, I fear this fetishisation is part of the swing back towards skinniness, thanks to Ozempic's ubiquity. For both genders, these sharper-than-sharp facial angles signify vitality and youthfulness. As we get older, we don't just lose youth-enhancing collagen: a process known as bone resorption, in which our bones are broken down and absorbed by the body, also results in shrinking or weakening around the jaw. That can cause the whole structure of our face to change, leaving us looking saggier and jowlier. Once, only a surgical procedure such as a facelift could have spruced up a sagging jaw. Now, though, the beauty industry has moved on so significantly that there are a plethora of options for those wanting to take action. Some practitioners suggest ultrasound or radiofrequency treatments to stimulate collagen production and 'tighten' up the offending area. Others opt for injectables to shape and sharpen the contours of the face. For a more permanent option, there are implants. These have modernised massively since Marilyn Monroe underwent this procedure in 1950, when she had a piece of carved cow cartilage placed in her famous chin (that then slowly began to dissolve). Now, implants are typically made of silicone, and can last a lifetime; the downtime tends to be a couple of weeks. And where celebrities go, we civilians tend to follow. And if we can't afford surgery, there are plenty of other 'solutions' being touted around. Over on TikTok, you can watch as women wrap up their faces in a 'chin strap' to wear overnight, looking like a cross between a medieval peasant and the cartoonish stereotype of a plastic surgery patient. Inevitably, you can follow a link to purchase said product, and give the TikTokker a cut of the profits. Experts, I should add, say that straps like this don't have any long-term impact on the shape of your face. Then there's a whole other army of social media users waxing lyrical about the benefits of facial massage. Many of them wield gua sha tools, angled implements used in traditional Chinese medicine; they're dragged up and down the face to improve circulation and lymphatic drainage. You can find hundreds, probably thousands of gushing testimonials online, complete with before and after shots and tutorial videos, titled things like 'When I started doing this, my whole face started to change!' or 'How I sculpted my face and reduced my double chin in a month!' Inevitably, I've bought into this particular hype: for a couple of months last year, I'd prod and poke at my jaw and eyebrows on a near-nightly basis after watching one too many of those videos. It might've made me look less puffy sometimes, but as for long-term change? I wasn't overly convinced. What's especially striking, though, is the way that chin-enhancing products are also being marketed towards a demographic that typically tends to be free from such efforts: young men. Silicone jaw trainers have exploded in popularity; the idea is that you bite down on these small, strange-looking devices and exercise your facial muscles in the process, leading to a snatched jawline. Other brands are selling ultra-hard chewing gum that promises similar results. It's all part of the 'looksmaxxing' movement, where men (and teenage boys) share tips on how to make themselves appear more stereotypically masculine; the term has roots in online incel communities, and the trend has been criticised for perpetuating unrealistic ideals about body image. Experts, I should add, are pretty dubious about both purported solutions, noting that there's little research to back such claims – and that extreme chewers might just end up with jaw pain, rather than Hollywood-style facial structure. What the purveyors of all these treatments, from the more reputable to the obvious cash grabs, tend to neglect to mention, though, is the fact that a good jawline tends to be a matter of genetics. Are your parents looking snatched in their sixties? Chances are, with good skincare and a healthy lifestyle, you'll inherit a lack of jowls. And if not? Chin up – in a year or so, we'll all be fixating on a different part of our face altogether.
