Best Of

https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/2069649219112071576

Jones also confirms Burnham will borrow more. However mostly for infrastructure which is an excellent idea.

Council house building.

Put like that, it's pretty sensible, isn't it? Borrowing to create things that are both useful and should generate income.

And, splendid as the profit motive is, in housebuilding it seems to lead to a throttling of supply.

Borrowing for investment in new labour speak was simply spending money on day to day stuff so if they do this, I cannot see an issue. As long as it is a proper market based return and not heavily subsidised.

There is plenty of spare capacity in the house building industry. Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off

If,you can’t make a profit or adequate return doing something, why do it. I listened to a Bloomberg money podcast on housing. In some parts of London if a builder had the land for free they wouldn’t make any money. We need to encourage private businesses.

Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off because the demand isn't there for houses at the current cost of building.

Unless the Government kicks off a social housing scheme which would open up a whole set of Nimby issues I can't see much that can be done to resolve the issue.

Down here in the South after all the pressure to build new homes, Vistry are offering shared ownership on a large 600+ homes development. Normally it would be 50% equity. Then it dropped to 25% equity. Now they are offering 10% which equates to £45K on a £450K 3 bed. Desperate not to cut prices.

Shared ownership, I’d run like hell from it.

Depends if you can afford full ownership.

As a step on the ladder then shared ownership can be considerably better than renting, even if not as good as full ownership. Its a compromise.

Especially good shared ownership schemes that let you buy out the shares that you don't own over time so you can end in full ownership- and many of them also have discounted rents on the shares you don't own too.

I know someone who got [I believe either a 25% or 40%] on a 2 bed flat in London, with a mortgage and rent on the remainder [either 75% or 60%]. He uses 1 bed and lets out the other (allowed under the scheme) and the rent he's gets from the second bed basically covers his full mortgage and rent.

So he is basically rent and mortgage free on his own cost of living, in London - not too shabby!

As always though, buyer beware.

Looks like they've slightly downgraded temperatures forecast today, as they did yesterday morning. This is London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743

Oh, that'll be disappointing for all the OAPs who were hoping to promenade out in the lovely soupy weather.

But never fear, perhaps the grannies can go on a trip to Hampshire or Dorset to warm up. It's already over 34C in several places in the South and it's only midday!

Beautiful here, blue sky , low 20's and fresh

Actually similar here in Cappadocia, 1300m up. Pic of the day, distant Mt Ercyes from Uchisar

BREAKING: Nottingham maternity review exposes ‘cruel’ care and toxic bullying at NHS trust:

Some 520 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or death.
There were at least 156 deaths of babies and six mothers died.
Of the baby deaths, 94 were stillbirths.
Some 62 cases were neonatal deaths shortly after birth

Of the 14 senior leaders at CCG/ICB level, only 4 agreed to give evidence. Of 66 senior managers at
@nottmhospitals only 35 actually engaged with the review just 53%.

This is shocking behaviour by supposed NHS leaders.

https://x.com/ShaunLintern/status/2069734314003034169

The logic should be refusal to talk to an inquiry is admission of gross misconduct - with the appropriate immediate consequence.

Absolutely. As @Cyclefree frequently reminds us these inquiries will never achieve anything until those responsible are held accountable with clear consequences.

No, that’s nonsense. You do inquiries to work out what went wrong. That might be someone’s fault, but it might not be, it might be a problem with the system. Assigning blame should not be the primary purpose of an inquiry: it stops people from cooperating. The airline industry learnt this decades ago.

The point here is that those who should be sacked refused to cooperate with the inquiry so that such lessons could indeed be learned. I have sympathy for overworked doctors facing sometimes impossible choices. I have no sympathy for those who seek to cover up such disasters and refuse to even give evidence. None. They are a disgrace.

You don’t know why certain people didn’t cooperate or whether their cooperation would’ve made any difference to the review’s answers. If people should be sacked, then they should be taken through the appropriate disciplinary procedure.

The tweet quoted above is misleading. The review, available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a3bb63930b491f55b3c4862/ockenden-report-review-of-maternity-services-nottingham-university-hospitals-nhs-trust-web-accessible.pdf , is not saying all 162 deaths were avoidable. The review doesn’t make a big thing of non-cooperation of witnesses. The tragedy of the review is that its conclusions are very similar to umpteen other maternity reviews. I don’t think there are any lessons that have been missed because some people didn’t talk to the review.

Complaining about people not cooperating is a distraction here. The actual recommendations of the review on p. 328 seq. are what matters here.

Sky

The rail accident investigation branch says that the train driver who died passed a red signal moments before the collision

I understood the braking system automatically overrides the driver if the train passes a red signal but maybe it was too late

No matter, still very sad

That's bad reporting - but hardly expected from people who don't understand the stopping distance for a train due to metal wheels and metal tracks is measured in miles not metres..

It's worth reporting this paragraph from the actual Government report

Having entered the Up Fast line, train 1H46 then approached signal WH154. FFCCTV shows that this signal was displaying a red aspect as the train approached and then passed it. The data downloaded from the OTDR on the front vehicle of this train is still being analysed, as the recorder could not be accessed until the vehicle was recovered. This means that it is not yet possible to say what indication the driver received from the AWS equipment on the train or how they responded to this.

No leavers calling out Farage for still being obsessed, note.

10 years ago, today, the British people triggered an earthquake when they voted to get their country back.

But the political class have betrayed Britain and not delivered a proper Brexit...
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/2069389861669236777

The "no true Brexit" argument.

I don't see anything remotely controversial in his line of argument. Nobody on either side of the Brexit debate *ever* made the suggestion that we would change no EU laws or regulations. Yet overwhelmingly that is what has happened - courtesy of civil servants (remember when they publicly begged the Reform & Revocation Bill to be cancelled) and the political class, we have remained Miss Havisham-like, decaying in our bridal frock, waiting for rejoin.

-The TIGGR commission's recommendations were never implemented.
-The Reform and Revocation bill was cancelled it, and what replaced it courtesy of Kemi (who I'm a big fan of) was less than derisory.
-We continued with EU environment and species regulations that have meant no dredging, no reservoirs being built until just recently, bat tunnels, and a Paramount theme park being cancelled due to non-rare jumping spiders.

Is that what you would call 'a proper Brexit'. Is that what you expected when you voted, whatever side you were on?