Reform’s Danny Kruger criticises UK’s ‘totally unregulated sexual economy’
The UK is “suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy”, the Reform MP Danny Kruger has said, and he indicated he expected the party to have a “limited but important role” in resetting sexual culture.Kruger said Reform UK had a “pronatalist ambition” and would seek policies to encourage people to have more children, including exploring changes to the tax system to make payments based on households rather than individuals.In an interview with the House magazine, the MP, who recently defected from the Conservatives, said he would personally support reversing changes that allowed no-fault divorce.Asked what role a political party could have in undoing the sexual revolution, Kruger said: “A limited but important one.” He said policy would be “critically important to the way families form” and he suggested changes could come via the tax system to mean that partners compile a household tax return rather than individually.
“Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy,” he said.“I’m not interested in your love life, or anything about your personal life – that is your business.But I am interested in the framework in which you make your decisions, and I’d like the framework to be more pro-social.If you want – most people do want – to settle down with one person to have children, we should make that easier.”Kruger said there were no plans to repeal the 2022 introduction of no-fault divorces.
Previously couples needed to cite adultery, unreasonable behaviour or separation.He said the change “basically means that your vows don’t matter”, but he added: “I don’t know whether we’d be able to reverse it.I don’t think that would be party policy, to change that.”Kruger said he was worried about the declining birthrate and that the party wanted to encourage more women to have children.“Yes, we have a pronatalist ambition.
We want people to have more children, and we think the government should get behind that wish,” he said.Kruger denied that Reform UK was a divisive party, and he suggested there could be widespread anger if the party did not win the next election.“The total opposite is the case.The only chance of unity for our country is Reform.If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country,” he said.
“The Reform slogan is family, community, country.We’re talking about the associations that give us meaning and identity and security and a sense of belonging.I think that’s where the country is now going – away from a doctrine of total liberal individualism.”A Labour party spokesperson said: “Reform’s team of men repeatedly telling women how they should lead their lives should be concerning to everyone.“From taxing childless women more, to bemoaning women in higher education, to abolishing the Equality Act and protections from discrimination in the workplace, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is something out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
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New datacentres risk doubling Great Britain’s electricity use, regulator says
The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog.Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity – 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand.The figure was revealed in an Ofgem consultation on demand for new connections to the power grid. It pointed to a “surge in demand” for connection applications between November 2024 and June last year, with a significant number coming from datacentres. This has exceeded even the most ambitious forecasts
Palantir deals are a threat to our data rights as UK citizens | Letters
For 100 years, the UK government has led us through existential threats, including two world wars. But instead of resisting the latest threat to democratic accountability, it has welcomed it with open arms: Palantir Technologies (NHS deal with AI firm Palantir called into question after officials’ concerns revealed, 12 February).This polarising US surveillance giant provides data-fusion and AI platforms used by by the US for immigration enforcement and by Israel in the Gaza conflict. Its software amplifies state power through militarised analytics and opaque algorithms.The current government hasn’t just surrendered citizens’ data rights to Palantir – it has paid for the privilege
Sam Altman defends AI’s energy toll by saying it also takes a lot to ‘train a human’
The OpenAI boss, Sam Altman, has tried to ease concerns about how much power is used by artificial intelligence models by comparing it to the amount of energy required by human development.“People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model – but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman told the Indian Express recently while in India for the AI Impact summit. “It takes about 20 years of life – and all the food you consume during that time – before you become smart.”Despite that defense, he said that the public assessment of AI’s energy consumption was “fair”, adding: “We need to move towards nuclear or wind and solar very quickly.”Those remarks come amid growing discussion about the environmental impact of the datacenters required to power AI models – and, more generally, about technology’s possible impact on society
US farmers are rejecting multimillion-dollar datacenter bids for their land: ‘I’m not for sale’
When two men knocked on Ida Huddleston’s door last May, they carried a contract worth more than $33m in exchange for the Kentucky farm that had fed her family for centuries.According to Huddleston, the men’s client, an unnamed “Fortune 100 company”, sought her 650 acres (260 hectares) in Mason county for an unspecified industrial development. Finding out any more would require signing a non-disclosure agreement.More than a dozen of her neighbors received the same knock. Searching public records for answers, they discovered that a new customer had applied for a 2
Amazon’s cloud ‘hit by two outages caused by AI tools last year’
Amazon’s huge cloud computing arm reportedly experienced at least two outages caused by its own artificial intelligence tools, raising questions about the company’s embrace of AI as it lays off human employees.A 13-hour interruption to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) operations in December was caused by an AI agent, Kiro, autonomously choosing to “delete and then recreate” a part of its environment, the Financial Times reported.AWS, which provides vital infrastructure for much of the internet, suffered several outages last year.One incident, in October, downed dozens of sites for hours and prompted discussion over the concentration of online services on infrastructure owned by a few massive companies. AWS has won 189 UK government contracts worth £1
‘It’s survival of the fittest’: the UK kebab chain seeking an edge with robot slicers
They are already packing our groceries and delivering shopping. Now robots are coming to the kebab shop, alongside self-service screens and loyalty apps, as takeaways look for ways to tackle rising costs.German Doner Kebab (GDK), a perhaps surprisingly British-owned chain that has been springing up across the country, has turned to technology to keep its fast food business buzzing in the face of rising costs and tough times on the high street.With households cooking at home more often to save money, and restaurants facing increases in energy bills, business rates, national insurance and hourly pay, profits are under pressure despite rising prices at the till.“It is survival of the fittest,” says Simon Wallis, the CEO of the brand, which operates via dozens of franchise partners running 155 outlets in the UK and nearly 40 more overseas including in the US, Dubai, Ireland and Sweden
‘Tinderbox’ UK may be one shock away from food riots, experts say
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