Weekend Box: Slovak Comeback, Media Nasties & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
FICO’S SLOVAK COMEBACK?
Elections take place in Slovakia this Saturday. They will do so amid deep divisions and with wider potential ramifications for the rest of Europe, should pro-Russian populist Robert Fico win. The former prime minister, currently leading in most polls, is accused of toxic campaigning around issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, tapping into nostalgia for Slovakia’s communist past.
Fico and his Direction - Social Democracy party are up against Progressive Slovakia, a relatively new centre-left party of young modernisers with a contrasting vision for Slovakia. They have mobilised a younger base with an agenda centred on reform and action on corruption, a reinforced pro-EU orientation, and safeguards for minorities. While polling suggests a close race, no one party has a strong lead over the other, suggesting that there could be multiple parties in the new parliament. Forming a working coalition may prove difficult.
Divisions within Slovakia have been deepened by extensive online disinformation, much of it attributed to Russia, including a conspiracy theory that caretaker President Zuzana Čaputová is an American agent. However, these are the first European elections to come after a new European Union law came into force that will put greater pressure on social media platforms to actively monitor and remove disinformation or face fines of up to 6% of their revenue. Under the new rules of the Digital Services Act, online platforms must implement ways to prevent and remove posts containing illegal goods, services, or content while giving users the means to report this type of content.
Other elections are due in Luxembourg and Poland next month, and all of the EU’s 27 member states vote next year for members of the European Parliament, so Slovakia’s elections are being seen by many as a test case for whether sustained influence operations by Russia and others can be defeated through pressure on the social media platforms. Expect a public battle of wills between the EU and those platforms.
Image credit/Barnabas Csomor on Flickr/License
SCOTS GIVE DRUG ROOMS A GLAS-GO
Scotland’s drug problem is well documented. The rate of drug deaths is higher there than anywhere in Europe – by a considerable margin. Recent statistics put the number of drug-related deaths in Scotland at around 13,000 per year, almost five times higher than England and Wales. More concerning still, while this number fell through 2020-2022, preliminary figures have shown they are rising sharply again now.
It is against this backdrop that the Scottish Government announced the first ‘drug consumption room’ to open in Glasgow’s east end, a city in which “4-500 people [regularly inject] drugs in public places.” There are already schemes in existence that provide addicts with synthetic heroin, but at this new room they will be able to inject illegally bought street drugs under the supervision of NHS staff.
The efficacy of drug consumption rooms is much debated, and are part of a wider conversation about drug abuse and potential decriminalisation. The concept is in place in several European countries as well as Canada and Australia and has been championed by SNP politicians for years, along with a more liberal approach to drug laws as a whole.
Until now, it hasn’t been enacted because drug policy is reserved and remains under the control of Westminster. But Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, ruled that it would ‘not be in the public interest’ to prosecute users for taking drugs in consumption rooms. This stance conflicts with the UK Home Office, which opposes such policies.
In response to the policy, Home Office minister Chris Philip said, “There is, of course, no safe way to take drugs. That’s why they’re illegal. The UK Government doesn’t support drug consumption rooms in England and Wales because we think they condone and even encourage illegal drug taking.”
This is, then, a critical moment in the power struggle between Holyrood and Westminster. Some campaigners continue to blame Scotland’s drugs issues on Westminster’s reluctance to take a more liberal stance on criminalisation, while Scotland’s critics point to cuts to frontline drug support services (which fall under the devolved areas of health and social care) as an explanation for the gulf between Scotland’s and other nations’ drug deaths. Putting comparisons aside, if this consumption room is a success it will be a boost for the SNP’s pro-independence narrative.
Image credit/HM Treasury on Flickr/License
MEDIA NASTIES
GB News, the oft-beleaguered scourge of Ofcom, is once again at the centre of controversy this week; though on this occasion, one it has proven harder to weather. The channel has suspended hosts Dan Wootton and Laurence Fox after the latter made misogynistic remarks about journalist Ava Evans on Wootton’s show.
Fox’s ad hominem attack on Evans was in response to comments by the JOE correspondent suggesting that the creation of a ‘minister for men’ role to address men’s mental health could “[feed] into the culture war a little bit.” Evans later expressed regret over her comments.
While we will not give any more space here to Fox’s response, suffice to say that it was so reprehensible as to cause both him and Wootton, who was amused rather than disgusted by his fellow host’s comments, to lose their places on GB News.
The channel is known as a place for those right of centre to exercise their freedom of speech. It is perhaps noteworthy, then, that Fox’s comments have been condemned by prominent figures of the right, among them Caroline Nokes; Reform UK leader Richard Tice, who also presents on GB News alongside his party’s founder Nigel Farage; and even fellow culture war provocateur Piers Morgan.
It is also noteworthy that this has occurred the same year that GB News was crowned Britain’s most-loved news media brand by market researchers Savanta. While Fox and Wootton crossed a line, something about the place that would platform their ilk apparently works with the public. Soon, more established media may be singing from the same hymn sheet: GB News’ co-owner Sir Paul Marshall has received billionaire Ken Griffin’s backing for his bid to buy The Telegraph.
While it might do well for The Telegraph’s brand, one wonders what it means for the future of public discourse in Britain.
STRIKES WHILE THE IRON’S HOT
Despite strikers joining the picket line in May, it has taken until this week to finalise a deal between The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The strike – put simply – concerned the writers wanting greater job security and fairer compensation. With heads of the Union calling the deal “exceptional” and “meaningful,” it appears the WGA’s 11,500 screenwriters and members got what they asked for.
In terms of numbers, members will receive 5%, 4%, and then 3.5% minimum increases in annual pay rises from October 2023. They will also receive viewership data with 50% bonus payments for residual releases viewed by more than 20% of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days. Concerning AI, such technology cannot be used to “write or rewrite literary material” nor “can a company require the writer to use AI (e.g, ChatGPT) when performing writing services.” A writer may use it if they wish and have consent from the studio to do so, but the studio may not use writer’s material to train AI.
Such success for one union appears to be inspiring others across the US, with the actor’s guild (SAG-AFTRA) still on strike in Hollywood. Meanwhile in Michigan, auto-workers on strike against America’s car-giants (Ford, GM Motors, and Stellants) have been joined by a surprising visitor this week: President Joe Biden.
The president endorsed the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, in a move the Trump campaign derided as a “cheap photo op.” Trump has since made a similar visit to a non-union auto shop in Michigan. Time will tell if such high-profile visits command the outcome the WGA have secured, or indeed, hurry things along…
INVERSE VACCINES: VAX TO FRONT
We’ve all heard about vaccines – in fact, most of us have had one stuck in our arm – but have you heard about inverse vaccines?
Ever since Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine two centuries ago, immunization efforts have almost exclusively focused on activating the immune system to defend against ‘known foes,’ but now, thanks to new research, this is being turned on its head.
Scientists at the University of Chicago have now developed an ‘inverse vaccine’ that hopes to switch off the body's defenses and encourage the immune system to forget, rather than reawaken memories of these pathogens as a typical vaccine does.
Why do this? Well, this could be a breakthrough in the treatment of poorly understood and hard-to-treat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes. They occur when the body's immune system attacks and destroys healthy body tissue by mistake, causing ‘friendly fire.’ There is not yet a targeted therapeutic vaccine to treat autoimmune diseases and current treatments often comprise of life-long immunosuppressants that can leave patients vulnerable to opportunistic infections and cancer.
In theory, this inverse vaccine could get the immune system to recognize nerves as ‘safe’ rather than as foreign invaders, and help reduce the response of an overactive immune system to the body's own triggers. Early tests have been promising, with the team at Chicago successfully reversing a disease similar to multiple sclerosis in mice by using the liver to reset immunity.
While it's early days yet, this is a glimmer of hope for the 10% of the population who suffer from these diseases and often face a lifetime of illness and treatment.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audleyadvisors.com.
For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.