They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.

But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!

There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....

Political analysis of the week.
(Truncated for brevity.)

https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2001479563222954403
Trump tonight:

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..

A great example of how Gavin Newsom is as unsuitable as Kamala Harris was as a presidential candidate. He’s not going to out-Trump the president, no matter how hard he tries.

“Make America California Again” has little support in California any more, especially when there’s been precisely no houses rebuilt from January’s fires.

I don't much like Newsom, but he has the advantage over Trump that he is not senile, insane, stupid, nor malevolent.

Political analysis of the week.
(Truncated for brevity.)

https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2001479563222954403
Trump tonight:

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..

Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy.
My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative.
The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.

https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing
..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.

It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.

This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.

California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.

There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..

"Building near train stations will mean busier train"

I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.

There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.

Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.

Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.

Accidental racism from Starmer.

https://x.com/lewis_goodall/status/2001262534545092623

Keir Starmer: "I have a Christmas message for Reform. If mysterious men from the east come bearing gifts...this time, report it to the police."

I see the intention... but it doesn't really work as a joke.

One of Starmer's biggest problems is that he seems entirely humourless. It is basically impossible to warm to him unless you're also a paid up member of the Fabian Human Rights Lawyer Lanyard Class

Ooh lanyards again! This is the edgy content we come here for.

I've worked in plenty of private sector offices where keycards were used. I never saw the need to wear it around my neck; nor did my colleagues. Isn't that what wallets are for holding?

A classic example of why personal anecdote us no measure of objective reality. I have never worked in an office where you didn't have to display your ID card at all times. It is considered a fundamental part of data security

Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy.
My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative.
The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.

https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing
..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.

It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.

This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.

California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.

There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..

Voters support middle class kids dossing around for a year abroad. 👍

You, and the poll question, are not quite right. It's not just for university students - it includes apprentices and FE college vocational students, many/most of whom are not middle class. In 2018/19 10,000 Erasmus beneficiaries were university students, and 8,000 were from the latter groups. And you may not have noticed, but a lot of university students aren't middle class these days.

Personally, I'm pleasantly surprised by the polling on this.

The polling is worthless without any mention of the cost.

No one is interested in the cost. Big government figures are meaningless. Millions billions shmillions....if only we were all accountants we might give a shit

And that's why the national debt is almost £3bn and why the debt interest is now £2k per person per year.

The national debt is, of course, almost £3tr.

Millions, billions, shmillions as Roger would say.

But real money when its being deducted from your pay.

To be fair if you deducted 3tr from my pay you’d end up with close to negative 3tr

The Turing scheme was nowhere near as good for the students as Erasmus is . Bozo thought he could dupe the gullible by sticking the Turing name on it .

You keep posting this, but you never say why! Do you have a link to a comparison?

It's difficult to compare Erasmus with Turing because they are completely different beasts. We can say that Turing is a lot more limited in what it offers than Erasmus. The key difference is that Erasmus is a student exchange programme that comes with funding, while Turing only provides travel bursaries and is not an exchange programme.

The big advantage of Erasmus to the institution is that it keeps the fees of the outgoing student.. While it effectively has to take incoming students for free, the marginal cost is minimal of an extra student in a course they are already running. For the same reason it doesn't matter too much if they take more students than they send.

Under Turing, institutions are "encouraged" to waive tuition fees while their students are abroad. But they have no incentive to do so and is actual loss of income for them. Which means students potentially have to pay additional tuition fees while they are abroad unless their institution has entered a bilateral arrangement with a partner abroad. This is a hassle for the institution and much more limited for the student compared with the market offered by Erasmus.

Good review of the two programmes here

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9141/

Starmer might have to avoid Brighton hotels for the next few years.

Palestine Action hunger strikers ‘set to die unless minister acts’

David Lammy, the justice secretary, has refused to meet lawyers for eight protesters refusing food while they await trials scheduled for months away

Palestine Action activists on hunger strike are likely to die in prison if the justice secretary does not intervene, lawyers for the eight protesters have claimed.

On Wednesday two of the group reached day 46 of their protest — the point at which Martin Hurson, 24, became the sixth of ten IRA hunger strikers to die in 1981. A third is on day 45.

In a letter sent to David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, on Tuesday the activists’ lawyers said that without intervention their deaths were “increasingly more than a mere possibility. It is a likelihood.”

Qesser Zuhrah, 20, who is on remand in HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, has been refusing food since November 2. She collapsed “a few nights ago” with her legs shaking uncontrollably, her lawyers said.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/palestine-action-hunger-strikers-set-to-die-unless-minister-acts-qcjttqg8t

The callous comments some have made under this disgust me, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Why? It’s their idiotic choice. No one is forceably starving the idiots.