Best Of

Ben Houchen might be a wrong-un shock?

Auditors have identified a catalogue of financial reporting errors at the public body run by England’s only Conservative metro mayor, the latest setback to Lord Ben Houchen and his Tees Valley Combined Authority.

EY confirmed that it would be unable to sign off on the 2024-25 accounts at TVCA as a result, saying the errors included “material misstatements” that were evident simply from reading the document.

Loans made by TVCA without proper accounting include to Teesside Airport whose financing is so opaque no-one knows what's going on. Meanwhile certain developers are doing well out of the heavily indebted Authority.

https://bsky.app/profile/jenwilliamsft.bsky.social/post/3maau7zwai226

If this is the same Teesworks stuff Private Eye has been covering for years then expect people to start caring shortly after the ITV drama (Post Office) or Netflix drama (Adolescence).

There is a free-to-read FT link in the Bluesky post btw.

In some quite amusing news:

"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.

From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."

Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...

I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.

A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!

Condoms are no use the morning after..

In some quite amusing news:

"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.

From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."

Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...

I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.

A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!

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.....

surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London

Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.

It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.

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.....

I enjoyed your post. Gordon Brown made many mistakes and devolution was one of his biggest. How to do devolution well remains a challenge. As you say, devolved governments can escape accountability, and it's all too easy for parties to thrive at the polls by always blaming the centre. We should have looked at Spain, where these same issues have happened, and devolved governments have wasted money on white elephants. This led to the formation of Ciudadanos (Citizens) in Spain with an anti-federalism position, although in today's modern political environment of constantly unhappy electorates, they came, they saw, they conquered a bit, and then they crashed and have largely vanished again.

Are there examples of where the decentralisation of power has worked better? The German Länder or Swiss cantons maybe?

To work, it needs each level to be willing to relinquish some of their power, Westminster to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont, the devolved and national governments to local councils. It also needs the supporting civil servants to relinquish power as well. That may be even harder. Germany and Switzerland have a longer history of devolution.

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..

Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.

Yes, Trump is the fault of his critics, or the fault of the Democrats for standing Kamala Harris, or the fault of people being too woke. It's never the fault of the people who supported Trump.

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.

Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/barnet-council-rejects-nearly-1800-new-homes-across-two-schemes/5139733.article

Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.

Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.

In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.

The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.

So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?

People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.

You can do both. Increase council and private provision

That's the Will Of The People for you.

The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.

Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.

(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)

The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:

Service charges.

They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.

It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care.
.
I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.

I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.

In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.

A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?

My son has just moved into one of them in Tottenham Hale. He is renting. No idea what he is paying. I was quite impressed with it, but then it is brand new. Overlooks the canal and spitting distance to the station. His girlfriend is a fellow at Cambridge and he has just left Cambridge to work in London. Both their commutes are easy.

One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.

They’ve definitely made them look as best as they can. And they’re perfectly situated. Aesthetics are fine.

I just worry about what happens in 10-15 years when lifts start to age and structural maintenance becomes more a thing.

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..

Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.

I'm grateful for your infatuation, Alan.

Well its always the same Trump Trump Trump. I get bored shi6tless with Trump nonsense what about the rest of the world or even the UK ?

You should email the White House.

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. ..

Good news for those of us stuck in traffic caused by low density housing sprawl with no public transport provision - looking at you Midlothian Council, bunch of freeloading carbrain numpties.

Will our developers go for this? Entirely against the ethos of maximising their land values by building as inefficiently as possible. We might have to make building sprawl harder.

High density and no (more) public transport on the other hand raises the question of where to park cars.

Aren't these developments meant to be within walking distance of the station?

Yes but who goes shopping by train? There are lots of new flats round here with more on the way, but we have great bus and tube links. From other parts of the country, one hears horror stories of one bus every two days. I've been in favour (on pb) of building near railways for longer than it has been government policy, but it needs to be part of a package and in the medium to long term, we need new towns to revive the regions.

This is the theory behind 15-minute cities. If you build density around that train station, you generate the economic critical mass required for a High Street to develop around it.

That means that you can get 100,000 people (or more) who don't need to jump in a car to grab some food. It's also much cheaper to provide public services like schools and GP practices. Public transport requires density to work too - that's why we gave buses every 10 minutes in Edinburgh but not in Midlothian.

This isn't a crazy idea. This is how the economically productive parts of the UK operate already. Economies of scale were described by Adam Smith, and the Romans and Greeks probably had a good understanding of it too.

Unfortunately it's not in the private interests of developers, so you end up with these enormous estates miles away from anything.

100 years ago, the Metropolitan and Southern Railways built stations before the local housing was constructed. An example is Albany Park. We should do it again.

There is a plan for that at Tempsford i.e. where the new East West line from Oxford to Cambridge crosses the ECML - how far it gets not a clue but it should be the town of at least 100,000...