Green party membership in UK passes 200,000 after byelection victory
The Green party said its membership had passed 200,000 this weekend in the wake of its victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection, in which it overturned a huge Labour majority,The party’s membership has tripled since September last year, when it was about 68,000, after the announcement of Zack Polanski as its leader,The Green victory in Gorton and Denton is its first in a national byelection, forcing Labour into third place with Reform in second,The Greens now have five MPs and are regularly matching the Lib Dems in the polls while snapping at the heels of Labour and the Conservatives,Labour is under pressure from some of its MPs to steer more to the left to win back progressive voters from the Greens after the byelection result, where 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer was elected.
Polanski said: “This membership surge proves that the future of progressive politics belongs to the Greens.” He described it as a “political turning point”, with its members joining a “movement that refuses to accept managed decline, climate delay or timid politics”.He added: “Greens are not here to be disappointed by Labour, but to replace them.We will not wait politely for change; we are building it.”Figures released last summer suggested Labour was still the UK’s largest political party with more than 330,000 members – down from more than 500,000 in 2019.
However, a report in the Times put it lower, at fewer than 250,000 late last year – fewer than Reform UK,The number of Conservative party members is not known but is thought to be about 120,000, while Reform UK says it has more than 270,000,Figures published in August suggest that Lib Dem membership was last recorded at about 80,000,High membership numbers do not necessarily translate into electoral success, with Labour having had a peak of more than 500,000 members under Jeremy Corbyn, who lost two general elections,However, they are an indication of how much the party is enthusing its core base whose support can lead to higher levels of volunteering and activism during an election.
The Greens’ surge has caused worries among some senior Labour figures, who believe Polanski’s party could take votes and seats from theirs in May’s local elections in England, particularly in some London boroughs,Polanski has repeatedly set out the Greens’ ambition to supplant Labour,In his speech to his party’s annual conference, he said that without action Keir Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform UK,
OpenAI announces $110bn funding round that would value firm at $840bn
OpenAI said on Friday it is raising $110bn in a blockbuster funding round that would value the ChatGPT maker at $840bn, in a deal that signals the feverish pace of investment in artificial intelligence.It’s more than double the amount the company raised last year, when it racked up $40bn in the largest private tech deal on record.This year’s funding round, which is still open, includes a $30bn investment from SoftBank, $30bn from Nvidia, and $50bn from Amazon, and comes ahead of the AI startup’s expected mega-IPO later this year. Even more investors are expected to join.“We’re super excited about this deal,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC on Friday
Instagram to alert parents if teens repeatedly search self-harm terms
Instagram will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm.The announcement on Thursday comes as Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is in the midst of two trials over harms to children.A trial under way in Los Angeles questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm minors. Another in New Mexico seeks to determine whether Meta failed to protect kids from sexual exploitation on its platforms.The alerts will only go to parents who are enrolled in Instagram’s parental supervision program
Jack Dorsey to cut 4,000 jobs due to AI advances at Square parent Block
Fintech company Block announced that it would be laying off 4,000 of its 10,000 employees because of gains in AI productivity.“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey, Block’s CEO, said in a letter to shareholders on Thursday. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week
Woman at heart of US trial says she was addicted to social media at age six
The young woman at the heart of the landmark trial about the addictive nature of social media testified for the first time on Thursday, saying she got hooked on YouTube starting at age six and Instagram at nine. By the time she was 10, she said, she had become depressed and was engaging in self-harm.The woman, who is now 20 and known by her initials KGM, is the lead plaintiff in an expansive lawsuit against YouTube and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook. The crux of the case alleges social media companies intentionally create addictive products, leading to mental health issues in young people.KGM testified on Thursday that her use of social media made her anxious and insecure, and features like beauty filters distorted her self-image
Riaz Hasan obituary
My father, Riaz Hasan, who has died aged 87, was a water resources engineer with a distinguished career working across 40 countries – in the 1970s with the British firm Halcrow and, from the 80s, at the UN and the World Bank.Originally from Hyderabad, Riaz arrived in the UK in 1965 with £3 and an A–Z, invited, like many engineers in India at that time, by the government. After completing a master’s degree in water resources at Bradford University, where he developed a love of Yorkshire pudding and received his degree from Harold Wilson (which he described as a real privilege), he embarked on his career designing life-saving, long-term water and food solutions for the most vulnerable and those affected by war, famine and natural disasters.Born in the small town of Warangal, near Hyderabad, to Mohammed, an English professor, and his wife, Khadija, Riaz went to Nizam college. He did his engineering degree at Osmania University, graduating in 1960, then got his first job at the Central Water Power Commission (CWPC) in Delhi
Met police to pilot facial recognition identity checks, mayor confirms
Metropolitan police officers are to start scanning citizens’ faces using automated facial recognition technology to check their identities, in a move backed by the mayor of London but described as “alarming” by opponents.The pilot was revealed on Thursday when Sadiq Khan said 100 officers would use the roaming technology – commonly deployed on smartphones – for six months. The mayor was responding to questioning from an opposition politician amid rising concern about the rollout of AI-powered policing tools. The Met’s website still states it “does not presently use the so-called operator initiated facial recognition”.Face scanning has already been deployed by police with cameras on vans and in fixed locations including in Croydon, Manchester and South Wales
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