I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
With all due respect, that's utter bullshit.
I have an apartment in Central London that sits on top a set of offices, and we are the only people in the 40 person block who don't use our apartment full time. Some are owned by retirees, some by couples pre children, and some are flat shares of people in their 20s, who want a place that's really central and to minimise commuting time.
And when the kids leave home (and the animals die), I shall be moving to a large lateral apartment somewhere where I can walk to restaurants, bars, theatres, parks, etc.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
True, but can you not find high prices for any old shitbox in many cities in the world? People will want whatever they can get, and pay through the nose for it, without it being their preferred mode of living, though I don't doubt some do live the high rise life.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
Quite so. There are the people who value the things I like, and then there are the deviants.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
The Brits “invented” the garden square. It’s a great typology, typically surrounded by five or six floor terraced housing. Sometimes by Victorian apartment blocks. The districts in London that specialise in it are highly desirable.
Yet move much outside of Zone 1 and you’re in a world of two-storey Edwardian semis.
I don’t want dystopian HK style blocks everywhere. I just think we should encourage densification of our urban cores.
The ideal is surely a mix, which is what much of London does rather well already. Too many towers - much of Manhattan, Macao, can get a bit claustrophobic, but making everything low-rise creates tedious depressing sprawl - think LA with rain (LA is only bearable because of the sun)
Paris suffers, despite its great beauty, from the fact they can't really build towers inside the Peripherique (because the centre is a museum city and is deemed perfect, as is). That means ALL of the poor are pushed into the outskirts. Not good
George Parker @GeorgeWParker · 47m “Sunak is a low-tax chancellor, in the same way that people who play air guitar in their bedrooms are rock stars.” A welcome return of @henrymance to the lobby team for one day only
In the last couple of days I read Metropolis by Ben Wilson, a history of city development through the ages - the consistency of people decrying cities, even as they flock to them and (in the West at any rate) when they are awful to live in so many ways, is pretty notable it seems (as well as people then shifting to suburbia, for urban life but without some of the other drawbacks)
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
Good point.
Although in my case, the “suburb” was Zone 1/2 borders.
There isn’t really much apartment stock in London that’s good for a family, and there’s not much of a culture of apartment living for families.
That needs to change, if we want to square the circle of house-building without destroying the countryside.
London is soooooo low-rise. As are all the other cities of the UK. And there’s emerging evidence to suggest that’s causing a productivity problem too, since we are forfeiting the agglomeration benefits of denser cities.
I’ve moved to New York, and I’m now on the 11th floor. I’m v close to Central Park and my kids love it. And no maintenance!
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
You can already see that because the prices of houses are soaring relative to flats.
I think the solution is to build half a dozen garden cities on farmland around London along railway lines into the city. At least that way you concentrate and limit opposition.
That's an assertion without evidence. It might be true. It might not be true. But we need to look at traded price per square foot over time to see the ratio.
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned that a ban on Russian energy imports would mean a European recession. He must urgently wake up to the fact that the alternative is a European genocide.
The overall piece is excellent, but on that point I don't think the author is correct.
Right now, the Europeans receive Russian energy, and Russia receives European dollars/rubles/Euros.
But the Russians have limited ways to spend that money. Sanctions have cut off imported components that are essential for them to run their economy: once you disallow ARM, Intel, etc. semiconductors, there's not a lot you can make that contains electronics.
The Russians have no shortage of money. What they have is a limited ability to spend that money on things their economy needs.
And there's another thing. It's spring right now, and summer is around the corner. Europe would be well advised to fill gas storage to capacity, because that minimises Putin's leverage next Winter.
If Putin can't do much with the money then he doesn't have much incentive to maintain supply. If we refuse to pay in rubles and he turns off the tap next week, how long will it be until the stored gas runs out?
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Isn't it even better in Scotland as people can roam just about anywhere?
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
The flats in the Barbican towers are highly desired, and, now, very expensive. They don't have bloody gardens, but of course there are lovely shared gardens at ground level, and you live above a world class arts centre surrounded by ancient Roman walls, churches, the City and Farringdon - a glorious place to live
Hence the prices:
A 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower: £1.85 MILLION
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
You can already see that because the prices of houses are soaring relative to flats.
I think the solution is to build half a dozen garden cities on farmland around London along railway lines into the city. At least that way you concentrate and limit opposition.
That's an assertion without evidence. It might be true. It might not be true. But we need to look at traded price per square foot over time to see the ratio.
Of course I have evidence to back it up. What particularly brought it home to me was when I was looking at prices in one London street compared to another close by. 25 years ago, which is as far back as the online records go, the three bedroom houses in one street were the same as the two bedroom flats in another. Now they are about 50%-75% more expensive. And neither street is out of whack with others around town as far as I can see.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
You might if they were in their late 30s and above with a family.
If they were in their twenties and could afford it most young people would jump at the chance of living in a high rise in the centre of a big city close to clubs and bars etc
In the last couple of days I read Metropolis by Ben Wilson, a history of city development through the ages - the consistency of people decrying cities, even as they flock to them and (in the West at any rate) when they are awful to live in so many ways, is pretty notable it seems (as well as people then shifting to suburbia, for urban life but without some of the other drawbacks)
Economic duress drives an awful lot of otherwise involuntary migration. People move to cities cos that's where the money is.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
You’re just turned off by the history of apartment building in the UK, which has tended to be about brutalist council flats.
Even now the Uk is ducking it up. Witness the wasteland that is Vauxhall.
I must admit I’m quite inspired by Manhattan, but I’m equally impressed by Haussman’s Paris. Row upon row of uniform 6-floor blocks. Paris could use some green space, though.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
You can already see that because the prices of houses are soaring relative to flats.
I think the solution is to build half a dozen garden cities on farmland around London along railway lines into the city. At least that way you concentrate and limit opposition.
That's an assertion without evidence. It might be true. It might not be true. But we need to look at traded price per square foot over time to see the ratio.
I think that people realised the joy of even a modest garden or private outdoor space during the lockdowns.
I think that will fade alongside working from home.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
You can already see that because the prices of houses are soaring relative to flats.
I think the solution is to build half a dozen garden cities on farmland around London along railway lines into the city. At least that way you concentrate and limit opposition.
That's an assertion without evidence. It might be true. It might not be true. But we need to look at traded price per square foot over time to see the ratio.
I think that people realised the joy of even a modest garden or private outdoor space during the lockdowns.
Given that the police were moving people on from getting some vitamin D in empty parks, hardly surprising.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
So how do you explain a 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower fetching £1.85 million?
Is it because these poor people, who can barely scratch together £1.85 million, are prevented by their dire poverty from buying bigger houses with gardens in Muswell Hill which cost, er, £800,000?
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
Anyways. I thought there was a significant constituency of voters who were less affluent middle aged and working in lower paid employment who went Tory last time? ISTR Tories were delighted. And declared Labour had abandoned the traditional working class? Must have been mistaken. Apparently it was pensioners and the affluent. There are plenty of the former. There'll be fewer of the latter soon. So. It doesn't even work as a cynical strategy.
I would mainly say was a tranche of working class/lower middle class 40-65 year old voters who dropped off for Labour last time and they will be hoping to win back a large chunk of those voters in northern marginals which is Labour's entire strategy.
That is surely the most electorally important demographic at the next election.
I can't really see pensioners in England abandoning the Tories whatever happens.
Not overall, but but reducing the imbalance in the pensioner vote back a couple of elections would help Labour noticeably.
Perhaps some pensioners might start to care more about their grandchildrens prospects, housing and education. Probably a forlorn hope, but might twinge a few oldie consciences.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
Yeah, but the average voter on this site is wealthy, posh, and a Cameron/Osborne type. They think they are more liberal (and are rather enjoying playing at opposition to the evil Boris Tories) but actually they don’t give a shit about people less well off than them.
Boris won his majority by cutting through to the people those Cameron/Osborne voters despise. Now personally I think he and his Government has failed to follow through, and the PM has personally fallen short, but that’s still the constituency he’ll win his next majority from (and I think he will. It’s the average voter in the part of the country I grew up in. They voted Maggie. They voted Blair. They disliked Cameron and his sort.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
The flats in the Barbican towers are highly desired, and, now, very expensive. They don't have bloody gardens, but of course there are lovely shared gardens at ground level, and you live above a world class arts centre surrounded by ancient Roman walls, churches, the City and Farringdon - a glorious place to live
Hence the prices:
A 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower: £1.85 MILLION
And how much does a detached property in the same location go for (well maybe not detached as there probably aren't any lol)? My point is that I accept that apartments can be expensive and maybe even desirable, yet a lot of it is circumstance. I lived in a flat in Hampstead for 7 years simply because I couldn't afford a house there, I didn't have the requisite £3.5m to buy one, if someone had offered me a house for the same price as my flat I absolutely would have taken it.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Yes, if you follow this dude @createstreets on Twitter, and people like him - they are very good on this
You certainly CAN extend upwards, it just has to be done harmoniously. It can work, well
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
You’re just turned off by the history of apartment building in the UK, which has tended to be about brutalist council flats.
Even now the Uk is ducking it up. Witness the wasteland that is Vauxhall.
I must admit I’m quite inspired by Manhattan, but I’m equally impressed by Haussman’s Paris. Row upon row of uniform 6-floor blocks. Paris could use some green space, though.
Yes, a very large number of people don’t want a garden. I am not one of them, but I think they are now a plurality. See new builds where a postage stamp garden with artificial grass is often a “feature”.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
And yet 6-floor terraces in Knightsbridge are about as desirable as you can get.
Go figure.
Sure, but when it came to you getting a place, you didn't go for the high rise, you went for the big house with a garden in the suburbs. So did I, so did my sister. No one *wants* to live in a high rise, some people are trapped in social housing which happens to be in one.
I am amazed at your ability to talk for everyone.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
That's just circumstance though, if you offered people the same location with a nice big garden and a detached house for the same money I'd be shocked if most of them didn't take the offer.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
So how do you explain a 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower fetching £1.85 million?
Is it because these poor people, who can barely scratch together £1.85 million, are prevented by their dire poverty from buying bigger houses with gardens in Muswell Hill which cost, er, £800,000?
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
The flats in the Barbican towers are highly desired, and, now, very expensive. They don't have bloody gardens, but of course there are lovely shared gardens at ground level, and you live above a world class arts centre surrounded by ancient Roman walls, churches, the City and Farringdon - a glorious place to live
Hence the prices:
A 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower: £1.85 MILLION
And how much does a detached property in the same location go for (well maybe not detached as there probably aren't any lol)? My point is that I accept that apartments can be expensive and maybe even desirable, yet a lot of it is circumstance. I lived in a flat in Hampstead for 7 years simply because I couldn't afford a house there, I didn't have the requisite £3.5m to buy one, if someone had offered me a house for the same price as my flat I absolutely would have taken it.
They’re not making more Hampstead though. But they could send it upwards (moderately).
When I moved to NY I started out thinking I would live in the suburbs.
In the end, the commuter experience looked to be shit, and quality schooling was easier to find in Manhattan. So - despite ourselves - we’re living in an apartment.
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Isn't it even better in Scotland as people can roam just about anywhere?
Swings and roundabouts. I’ve walked in Scottish hills and mountains and the lack of paths is liberating and more challenging. In the lakes some of the tracks are more like motorways. Generally in England the land is farmed, with much less in the way of open country, so roaming would be more challenging. The footpath network is fantastic, and also a great relic of past times, with many certainly having a centuries old pedigree. When I lived in NZ I was shocked at the lack of paths, outside of reserves which featured trails.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
I think it’s a great idea. In practice likely to be stuffed by our crap foundations that can’t support another storey, but a good idea.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
Propaganda can be true. It merely means "that which is propagated".
I always thought at the core of political parties (I don't necessarily mean the greasy pole climbing shysters) that those people believed in trying to make the country a better place for everybody. Now their methods of doing so, you might disagree with, but that was the core principle.
Not, well its not for us to do right, you need to vote us out if you want that.
It’s the ideology of a bully, or a street-gang.
In all seriousness, I would have thought I am key demographic for the Tories. Highly educated (that isn't supposed to be a humble brag), relatively well off from a working class background, have entrepreneurial background. Voted Remain, but not an FBPE, more we need to just get on with this. Have voted for all the main parties at some point.
Now this is just a niche internet forum, but HYUFD has stated that he posts on here to get his debating / campaigning skills up to scratch and be able to win arguments. He seems a man on a mission to ensure I think the worst of them.
You are a graduate who voted Remain, statistically you would almost certainly be a Labour or LD voter. Sorry
Ummm - aren't you a graduate who voted remain?
Yes statistically as a 40 year old graduate Remain voter I would probably be Starmer Labour or LD or at most a swing voter as I own a property in part with a mortgage.
Obviously there are exceptions, I was talking generally. The average Tory voter is over 50, a home owner, a non graduate and voted Leave.
The Tories doing little to ensure the next generation gets on the housing ladder will, ultimately, be their demise.
Building too much in the greenbelt would also be their demise, see Chesham and Amersham. The problem is developers land banking if anything
Developers land bank to manage risk in the planning process.
We need to change the planning process (though not, I agree, in order to favour the destruction of the green belt).
The green belt is just a subsidy to people who live in the outskirts of cities.
I prefer to think of it as preserving an asset for the nation.
I mean, I tend to live very centrally, but I’d hate to think of England without its green belts.
Obviously there is a cost in terms of house prices, though it is not, in my view, the main driver.
You're also in favour of immigration-led population growth?
Yes.
Essentially I believe the UK needs to go “up”, similar to European cities and indeed a handful of wealthier US ones.
I believe the job of the planning process is to encourage that.
Horrible. No one wants to live in a high rise with no access to private outdoor space.
Ah hem - prices of apartments tells you there is a substantial subset of people who want exactly that.
Not really, prices of apartments in central London are inflated by foreign buyers using them as quasi bank accounts for dirty money. No one lives in them.
I'd be quite happy to live 500 foot in the air with a big balcony if it was central. I haven't got a garden now and it's fine
And I WOULD actually live there: lofty apartments have marvellous views
It's almost like different people value different things.
The flats in the Barbican towers are highly desired, and, now, very expensive. They don't have bloody gardens, but of course there are lovely shared gardens at ground level, and you live above a world class arts centre surrounded by ancient Roman walls, churches, the City and Farringdon - a glorious place to live
Hence the prices:
A 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower: £1.85 MILLION
And how much does a detached property in the same location go for (well maybe not detached as there probably aren't any lol)? My point is that I accept that apartments can be expensive and maybe even desirable, yet a lot of it is circumstance. I lived in a flat in Hampstead for 7 years simply because I couldn't afford a house there, I didn't have the requisite £3.5m to buy one, if someone had offered me a house for the same price as my flat I absolutely would have taken it.
Well, QED. Sure, if you could flatten the entire City of London and build Barratt Homes with gardens, I guess that would be nice for kids or something
But the fact is some areas just don't have the space for houses with gardens - eg most of central London - and, moreover - the point you are ignoring - a lot of people (not families) actually LIKE the density and excitement of urban life, including apartments 1000 feet in the air (as long as they are maintained well - like the Barbican)
And it's not just the young. Quite a lot of older people move back in to central or central ish London when their kids grow up. They like being able to walk to great restaurants, galleries, museums. They don't want the hassle of a garden, they love London
Hence the popularity of the Barbican. If you go there you'd be surprised how old the denizens are. 60s and 70s, lots of them. Rich people who have chosen to live in the sky, in a Brutalist tower
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
In a way I feel sad for her legacy. Neither the right nor left wing caricature is accurate, but both groups are so dogmatic that no one ever gets to reassess impartially. It will come in time I suppose.
As for planning, I think one of the major reforms we could have is removing the effective veto neighbours have on development. We've been coming up against this and it turns out our neighbours are upper middle class c**** who basically don't like my wife and I because we're not old money yet we live on their upmarket street.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
Propaganda can be true. It merely means "that which is propagated".
In the case of the Western response to Russian misinformation - it seems that briefing the intelligence that governments are working from directly to the media is the response. I remember, before the war in Ukraine started, some people were startled by how direct the US and UK government were being, in saying what they knew and how.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison. “The forgotten millions” yells the, EXPRESS? What? “The up yours budget” say the star.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
Governments, and councils in particular, need to stop using planning policies for social engineering.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
At presents it’s the reverse. There’s no “do this” guidance, a lot of “don’t do this” rules, and you have to hope and pray for approval.
The whole thing is so convoluted, we’ve made it impossible to build houses unless you’re a massive oligopolistic housebuilder who can land-bank and hedge the planning risk.
Ever wonder why there’s no self-build sector worth a damn in the UK?
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
Yeah, but the average voter on this site is wealthy, posh, and a Cameron/Osborne type. They think they are more liberal (and are rather enjoying playing at opposition to the evil Boris Tories) but actually they don’t give a shit about people less well off than them.
Boris won his majority by cutting through to the people those Cameron/Osborne voters despise. Now personally I think he and his Government has failed to follow through, and the PM has personally fallen short, but that’s still the constituency he’ll win his next majority from (and I think he will. It’s the average voter in the part of the country I grew up in. They voted Maggie. They voted Blair. They disliked Cameron and his sort.
Harsh. Also true of the left, mind - they find the UK poor distasteful and common, which is why they love to affect concern for faraway places like S Africa and Palestine, and microscopic issues like transgenderism. But moral revulsion is occasionally an electoral force in itself. See 1997.
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Isn't it even better in Scotland as people can roam just about anywhere?
Swings and roundabouts. I’ve walked in Scottish hills and mountains and the lack of paths is liberating and more challenging. In the lakes some of the tracks are more like motorways. Generally in England the land is farmed, with much less in the way of open country, so roaming would be more challenging. The footpath network is fantastic, and also a great relic of past times, with many certainly having a centuries old pedigree. When I lived in NZ I was shocked at the lack of paths, outside of reserves which featured trails.
The Coastal Paths in Cornwall are awesome - and underused.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
I find most planners are pretty live and let live, unless you are in an AONB or open countryside.
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Isn't it even better in Scotland as people can roam just about anywhere?
Swings and roundabouts. I’ve walked in Scottish hills and mountains and the lack of paths is liberating and more challenging. In the lakes some of the tracks are more like motorways. Generally in England the land is farmed, with much less in the way of open country, so roaming would be more challenging. The footpath network is fantastic, and also a great relic of past times, with many certainly having a centuries old pedigree. When I lived in NZ I was shocked at the lack of paths, outside of reserves which featured trails.
The Coastal Paths in Cornwall are awesome - and underused.
Yep. Have you read the salt path? Very evocative, and brings home how long the SW coast route is. Never did found out why the husband is called Moth though (which was my main motivation for buying the book). 😀
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
In a way I feel sad for her legacy. Neither the right nor left wing caricature is accurate, but both groups are so dogmatic that no one ever gets to reassess impartially. It will come in time I suppose.
She was the most divisive PM of my life time, and she revelled in it. Each policy being assessed to be sure it benefited "one of us".
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
Wasn't that the plan that got Jenrick fired? (or at least it was going to be closer to that).
The current Local Plan approach is a right pain the arse for officers, and despised by elected politicians, yet it their outcries that will keep that approach largely in place.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
At presents it’s the reverse. There’s no “do this” guidance, a lot of “don’t do this” rules, and you have to hope and pray for approval.
The whole thing is so convoluted, we’ve made it impossible to build houses unless you’re a massive oligopolistic housebuilder who can land-bank and hedge the planning risk.
Ever wonder why there’s no self-build sector worth a damn in the UK?
No, you're wrong (this is something of a hobby of mind: urbanism and architecture - after flint knapping my second chosen career would have been architecture)
There absolutely ARE guidelines set by the government for councils, to improve the built environment. The latest in London are quite precise about extensions up and out, and seen as a victory for traditionalists who want to beautify the city. They are not prohibitive, at all, but they are firm, and if you follow them you can do your extension
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
Doesn't take much to make a NIMBY howl, in fairness.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
Propaganda can be true. It merely means "that which is propagated".
That would be propagata. It means things which need to be propagated.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
I find most planners are pretty live and let live, unless you are in an AONB or open countryside.
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
The thing was, that they are pretty generic cottages. The kind of terraced housing the Edwardians built by the mile. I vent know the name of a chap who has the original moulds for all the plaster bits and ornamentation.
As usual nothing much changed at the front. You can see the odd skylight in the roof - you have to drop the ceiling on the first floor to make the loft conversion work. Because rooflines are more sacred than the alignment of the Stones of Stonehenge.
That's another one - all the houses with roofs that can't be converted to lofts. Let them raise the ridge pole by 2 meters.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
I find most planners are pretty live and let live, unless you are in an AONB or open countryside.
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
My sister had struggles with an arse of a planner who objected to a style of roof as being out of character with the area. This, despite there being multiple examples within half a mile of the same style.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
No it was her second term that was the problem, not the third. That was when the Community Charge was conceived and the Single European Act signed. The third term, where she started to realise how dire the EU was, was a recovery.
Rishi is a poor chancellor. I haven't seen a statement from a chancellor with less ambition than this since Brown got rid of the 10p rate and hoped that poor people wouldn't notice the tax rise.
Honestly, the Tories are finished if Boris and Rishi aren't replaced ASAP. No way for them to win in 2024 with these two in charge, the spendthrift clown and the penny pinching fool.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
Propaganda can be true. It merely means "that which is propagated".
In the case of the Western response to Russian misinformation - it seems that briefing the intelligence that governments are working from directly to the media is the response. I remember, before the war in Ukraine started, some people were startled by how direct the US and UK government were being, in saying what they knew and how.
Propaganda is often true, but it still presents a distorted image due to ommision of various salient facts.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Perhaps the fact that it was an opportunity missed, and that it did nothing much? In the midst of the biggest squeeze on incomes for decades.
I have a theory that this is where politicians SHOULD earn their money. The job of the civil service is to implement, and if you don’t steer it you’ll end up with a Budget composed of “modules” of options from previous ones. That steering is where a good Chancellor comes in, and I don’t think it’s in Rishi. That ability to say “no, I want ambitious things done”. We may not all like Gove (an understatement) but do any of us doubt he’d do some transformative things as CX? To give one example.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
At presents it’s the reverse. There’s no “do this” guidance, a lot of “don’t do this” rules, and you have to hope and pray for approval.
The whole thing is so convoluted, we’ve made it impossible to build houses unless you’re a massive oligopolistic housebuilder who can land-bank and hedge the planning risk.
Ever wonder why there’s no self-build sector worth a damn in the UK?
No, you're wrong (this is something of a hobby of mind: urbanism and architecture - after flint knapping my second chosen career would have been architecture)
There absolutely ARE guidelines set by the government for councils, to improve the built environment. The latest in London are quite precise about extensions up and out, and seen as a victory for traditionalists who want to beautify the city. They are not prohibitive, at all, but they are firm, and if you follow them you can do your extension
London is better than most. I’d go further though.
To be specific, my house is in Hackney. Much of it is very very low rise, despite being designated inner London by statisticians.
The council should say that they’re happy to see residential development to 4, 5, 6 floors, and here’s ways how…(unless your house is listed).
At present it’s more like, hey wanna build a loft? Do it like this.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison. “The forgotten millions” yells the, EXPRESS? What? “The up yours budget” say the star.
“This is a strategy for inequality” whines the Guardian. I think it’s a bit over the top to be honest.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I find the belief that pensioners have vast piles of gold they sleep on, in the style of Smaug, interesting. There are quite a few poor old people.
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
In a way I feel sad for her legacy. Neither the right nor left wing caricature is accurate, but both groups are so dogmatic that no one ever gets to reassess impartially. It will come in time I suppose.
She was the most divisive PM of my life time, and she revelled in it. Each policy being assessed to be sure it benefited "one of us".
I think there’s truth in that. But also some of the caricature.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
I find most planners are pretty live and let live, unless you are in an AONB or open countryside.
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
My sister had struggles with an arse of a planner who objected to a style of roof as being out of character with the area. This, despite there being multiple examples within half a mile of the same style.
This is the sort of arse-quackery I’m talking about.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
Yeah, but the average voter on this site is wealthy, posh, and a Cameron/Osborne type. They think they are more liberal (and are rather enjoying playing at opposition to the evil Boris Tories) but actually they don’t give a shit about people less well off than them.
Boris won his majority by cutting through to the people those Cameron/Osborne voters despise. Now personally I think he and his Government has failed to follow through, and the PM has personally fallen short, but that’s still the constituency he’ll win his next majority from (and I think he will. It’s the average voter in the part of the country I grew up in. They voted Maggie. They voted Blair. They disliked Cameron and his sort.
Harsh. Also true of the left, mind - they find the UK poor distasteful and common, which is why they love to affect concern for faraway places like S Africa and Palestine, and microscopic issues like transgenderism. But moral revulsion is occasionally an electoral force in itself. See 1997.
I expressed concern on here today about how the poor in the UK would fare in the face of the cost of living squeeze and was told by one of our right leaning posters that I was being over-emotional. Now I am told that actually left wing people don't care about poverty in the UK. 🤦♂️
I haven't delved into enough of the detail to say whether or not this statement is as bad as some make out but isn't the fundamental problem the current economic position we are in? What should Sunak have done? Borrowed more, spent more, cut more? I'd like to know.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
There’s no need to come over all revolutionary Leninist Max, is there?
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
In a way I feel sad for her legacy. Neither the right nor left wing caricature is accurate, but both groups are so dogmatic that no one ever gets to reassess impartially. It will come in time I suppose.
She was the most divisive PM of my life time, and she revelled in it. Each policy being assessed to be sure it benefited "one of us".
Thatcher used the phrase "one of us" to refer to like-minded people within the Tory party. It was never about clientelism.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I find the belief that pensioners have vast piles of gold they sleep on, in the style of Smaug, interesting. There are quite a few poor old people.
No doubt, but there is a class of rich pensioner that exists and pays very little tax with net rates well below the same earnings for working people. You only have to raise £5-7k per person in that bracket to make a huge difference for tax cuts for the working poor.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Because it offended people with clipboards. Who will be first against the wall when the Malmesbury revolution comes. Actually not against the wall - more providing shade on Appian Way.....
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
I find most planners are pretty live and let live, unless you are in an AONB or open countryside.
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
My sister had struggles with an arse of a planner who objected to a style of roof as being out of character with the area. This, despite there being multiple examples within half a mile of the same style.
Many areas have no defining character, it's absurd to try to invent one.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I agree with you but I assume you realise you will be in that "those with the most" group, as will I?
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
Wasn't that the plan that got Jenrick fired? (or at least it was going to be closer to that).
The current Local Plan approach is a right pain the arse for officers, and despised by elected politicians, yet it their outcries that will keep that approach largely in place.
No.
Jenrick got fired for the mutant algorithm which basically said:
“House prices are high in Amersham, let’s concrete over Amersham”.
We do need an algorithm, but one that says:
“Houses are very low rise in Zones 1-4 of London. Let’s increase those. And the same in the equivalent areas of Manchester et al.”
But I think it is rather telling that TSE, MaxPB, etc, all big Call Me Dave Fans can't get on here fast enough to criticise many of the current government decisions.
If I was a Tory strategist, that would have me rather worried. That's you upwardly mobile middle aged demographic right there, who would have voted Thatcher in a heart beat.
I would probably vote for Thatcher right now. She may have been eminently dis likeable but at least she was intelligent, decisive and determined. Even if she did things were wrong, at least she did them because she thought they might improve things in the end.
This lot, however...
She was certainly head and shoulders above all her successors and most of her predecessors.
And she didn't need quotas or any of the "it's time" crap to get there either.
She went bonkers in the end with big headed arrogance, convinced of her own rectitude.
That is why her own party deposed her.
Bonkers like thinking the ERM was a terrible idea or speaking against EU power grabs?
In many things she was right long before her time.
Bonkers about forcing through the highly regressive Poll Tax.
She was the architect of the Single Market.
She was also the main founder of right-wing Euroscepticism (after Enoch Powell) when she realised how wrong it was going.
Yes, that was part of her third term decline.
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
In a way I feel sad for her legacy. Neither the right nor left wing caricature is accurate, but both groups are so dogmatic that no one ever gets to reassess impartially. It will come in time I suppose.
She was the most divisive PM of my life time, and she revelled in it. Each policy being assessed to be sure it benefited "one of us".
Thatcher used the phrase "one of us" to refer to like-minded people within the Tory party. It was never about clientelism.
Yes, her most successful policy (RTB) benefited Labour voters living in social housing.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
In theory I agree with you but just imagine if some helpful British chap in 1941 was publishing charts of remaining food stocks co-related with U-boat sinkings? The great fried chicken shortage of 2018 would have nothing on it.
I always try to question why I think news is good and bad, no doubt with varying degrees of success.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I find the belief that pensioners have vast piles of gold they sleep on, in the style of Smaug, interesting. There are quite a few poor old people.
No doubt, but there is a class of rich pensioner that exists and pays very little tax with net rates well below the same earnings for working people. You only have to raise £5-7k per person in that bracket to make a huge difference for tax cuts for the working poor.
The problem always comes to the issue that there aren't enough rich people to soak. You need (if you are a government) to go after the middle class.
Most houses (and much of the value of the housing stock) are not owned by pensioners. If you want to start tapping into housing money, then you need to take on the middle.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I agree with you but I assume you realise you will be in that "those with the most" group, as will I?
I'd specifically target retirees tbf, turn them into forced sellers of big houses.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
I posted about that at the time. The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
A destructive combination of love of bureaucracy clashing with our fetishisation of localised consent for building. So we end up trying to cover off everything in a complex process, and tell people they should be able to stop any development they do not personally like. Whilst still purporting to want to encourage it.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Councils should publish a detailed local plan and design guidelines.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
Wasn't that the plan that got Jenrick fired? (or at least it was going to be closer to that).
The current Local Plan approach is a right pain the arse for officers, and despised by elected politicians, yet it their outcries that will keep that approach largely in place.
No.
Jenrick got fired for the mutant algorithm which basically said:
“House prices are high in Amersham, let’s concrete over Amersham”.
We do need an algorithm, but one that says:
“Houses very low rise in Zones 1-4 of London. Let’s increase those. And the same in the equivalent areas of Manchester et al.”
I was speaking part in jest, as there was much about the paper people didn't like, but they definitely didn't like the idea of consent being easier in some areas if they adhered to broad plans either.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
Yeah, but the average voter on this site is wealthy, posh, and a Cameron/Osborne type. They think they are more liberal (and are rather enjoying playing at opposition to the evil Boris Tories) but actually they don’t give a shit about people less well off than them.
Boris won his majority by cutting through to the people those Cameron/Osborne voters despise. Now personally I think he and his Government has failed to follow through, and the PM has personally fallen short, but that’s still the constituency he’ll win his next majority from (and I think he will. It’s the average voter in the part of the country I grew up in. They voted Maggie. They voted Blair. They disliked Cameron and his sort.
Harsh. Also true of the left, mind - they find the UK poor distasteful and common, which is why they love to affect concern for faraway places like S Africa and Palestine, and microscopic issues like transgenderism. But moral revulsion is occasionally an electoral force in itself. See 1997.
I expressed concern on here today about how the poor in the UK would fare in the face of the cost of living squeeze and was told by one of our right leaning posters that I was being over-emotional. Now I am told that actually left wing people don't care about poverty in the UK. 🤦♂️
I didn't mean you, but I don't see what other conclusion to draw from the sheer unbridled wankerdom on the left about things which are none of their sodding business. Just think how good it would be if lefty twitter devoted to the UK poor one percent of the time it devotes to discussing whether chopping your willy off makes you a woman
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I find the belief that pensioners have vast piles of gold they sleep on, in the style of Smaug, interesting. There are quite a few poor old people.
I don’t want to come over all history again, but as a form of banking people used to bury their wealth, and then the worms (meteorites) were across the sky, bright, fiery and loud. And when you got to where they landed, they have clearly buried underground. Obvious what they were after.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
The great fried chicken shortage of 2018 would have nothing on it.
Legally protected footpaths in Britain are a fantastic asset. Just get an ordnance survey map showing some countryside nearby and study it. They served the common people and glow with social history. Walking them is therapeutic. They get one away from the smell and clangor of city life.
Isn't it even better in Scotland as people can roam just about anywhere?
Swings and roundabouts. I’ve walked in Scottish hills and mountains and the lack of paths is liberating and more challenging. In the lakes some of the tracks are more like motorways. Generally in England the land is farmed, with much less in the way of open country, so roaming would be more challenging. The footpath network is fantastic, and also a great relic of past times, with many certainly having a centuries old pedigree. When I lived in NZ I was shocked at the lack of paths, outside of reserves which featured trails.
The Coastal Paths in Cornwall are awesome - and underused.
I have used them! The walk out to Rame from Tregonhawke cliffs is my favourite.
Such meetings - military to military are quite common and usually kept very quiet. The reason for them is to humanise the "other guys" making decisions, that you may be facing. The US does this with some surprising "other guys" - even North Korea, some say.
The idea came out of Cold War strategy - a common theme in the studies of conflicts is poor decision making and escalation due to not understanding the opponents.
Publicising the contents of such a meeting - I'm not sure if I've heard of this before. Normally they are kept very, very quiet - so that people can feel free to talk to each other. Which is th point.
The decision to give this information to CNN must have been deliberate - is this part of the "open information" strategy that the Biden Administration (and UK) seem to be using in this crisis? Certainly, they have been giving information to the press that normally would have been the sort of thing that was kept secret.
Hmmmmmmm.....
Seems rather more intended to end the practise doesn't it?
I don't think so - I think it was about an "open information" strategy which seems to be a deliberate counter to the whole Russian-troll-farm idea.
I think that some people have been thinking very hard about how to fight back against the disinformation social media thing. That we are seeing a form of information warfare. After all, haven't we all noticed a these events -
- Troll farms and bot accounts hammered. Huge swathes of Twitter et al wiped out. - Openly presenting intelligence, publicly, to the press.
I'm not on Twitter personally, so I haven't noticed (1). (2), I've noticed people noticing it. There always seems to be quite a lot of intelligence info released during conflicts like Syria, but I suppose in this conflict the releases have been given greater prominence by coming from Boris/Biden etc.
There's been a lot of briefing, publican of information that would previously have been COBRA stuff. It's seems like a definite policy.
I'm not a social media type - but those that are tell me there has been a massive change. The trolls are coming alive again, but they've taken a massive hit. It's hard to think that this wasn't played for.
Back to the question of the meeting being publicised - even giving the name of the Russian general. Why? To emphasise the Russians are now the ones with a problem?
Like I said, the obvious knock on effect of it is to clam the Russian Generals up. That's a shame and seems counterproductive.
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
In theory I agree with you but just imagine if some helpful British chap in 1941 was publishing charts of remaining food stocks co-related with U-boat sinkings? The great fried chicken shortage of 2018 would have nothing on it.
I always try to question why I think news is good and bad, no doubt with varying degrees of success.
Actually the government was remarkably open about the food situation - rationing was backed up by a lot of explanations about food imports and the costs of those. Including in lives.
Though the petrol rationing was a farce. The UK was swimming in petroleum throughout the war.
Will this budget make the weekend before it is shot down and declared one of the worst in living memory?
Everyone here and everyone I have heard on various radio programs seems to have got there already.
I don’t think it all bad. £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance a £6bn ish giveaway to 30 million ish people. Raising NI and income tax cut announced in same statement a bit odd. Cut in fuel tax, not very green except it is time limited 1yr and not for ever. Maybe not much obvious help overall with poorer households faced with energy bill problems. But nothing stands out as worst budget ever as yet does it
Now I’ve read newspaper front pages, is it possible to have this previous post deleted? It makes me look completely out of touch 🤦♀️
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT. “Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us. “Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink. Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
The thing I didn't like about the budget was the triumphalist tone and Brownite slight of hand but where do the papers expect Sunak to have got the money from? We have shelled out billions for the last 2 years on the pandemic. We shelled out further billions little over a decade back on the financial crisis. Sorry, there is no money left.
Easy, fucking tax rich pensioners and their vast property wealth and rent seeking. You know, actually target those with the most so that those with the least can be protected from the oncoming storm of inflation.
I find the belief that pensioners have vast piles of gold they sleep on, in the style of Smaug, interesting. There are quite a few poor old people.
No doubt, but there is a class of rich pensioner that exists and pays very little tax with net rates well below the same earnings for working people. You only have to raise £5-7k per person in that bracket to make a huge difference for tax cuts for the working poor.
The problem always comes to the issue that there aren't enough rich people to soak. You need (if you are a government) to go after the middle class.
Most houses (and much of the value of the housing stock) are not owned by pensioners. If you want to start tapping into housing money, then you need to take on the middle.
Oh there's absolutely enough rich pensioners to soak, many of them with little to no chance of tax minimisation either. Either they sell up and downsize to reduce their tax (freeing up said property) or they pay the tax.
The 80 seat majority has made the tories complacent.
I think it’s downhill from here for Boris.
Even without him, I think it’s still a stretch for the tories to win another majority.
I'm not sure it has made them complacent - they've seem terrified to act sometimes. The NI increase was a pretty rare counter example of using the majority for something big.
Comments
I have an apartment in Central London that sits on top a set of offices, and we are the only people in the 40 person block who don't use our apartment full time. Some are owned by retirees, some by couples pre children, and some are flat shares of people in their 20s, who want a place that's really central and to minimise commuting time.
And when the kids leave home (and the animals die), I shall be moving to a large lateral apartment somewhere where I can walk to restaurants, bars, theatres, parks, etc.
And equally amazed that Manhattan even exists.
Paris suffers, despite its great beauty, from the fact they can't really build towers inside the Peripherique (because the centre is a museum city and is deemed perfect, as is). That means ALL of the poor are pushed into the outskirts. Not good
@GeorgeWParker
·
47m
“Sunak is a low-tax chancellor, in the same way that people who play air guitar in their bedrooms are rock stars.” A welcome return of
@henrymance
to the lobby team for one day only
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
Although in my case, the “suburb” was Zone 1/2 borders.
There isn’t really much apartment stock in London that’s good for a family, and there’s not much of a culture of apartment living for families.
That needs to change, if we want to square the circle of house-building without destroying the countryside.
London is soooooo low-rise. As are all the other cities of the UK. And there’s emerging evidence to suggest that’s causing a productivity problem too, since we are forfeiting the agglomeration benefits of denser cities.
I’ve moved to New York, and I’m now on the 11th floor. I’m v close to Central Park and my kids love it. And no maintenance!
I dislike the whole business of propaganda. It's approved lying. As educated observers we're supposed to approve of our own skills in 'the information war' when we're the intended targets of such tripe. I genuinely feel that if a cause is just, people should be levelled with. I see no danger to unvarnished truth in politics, ever, on any issue. Just trust people.
Urban density is a scourge and high rises invariably result in squalor. Developers are notoriously bad at making apartments actually big enough for people to live in.
The flats in the Barbican towers are highly desired, and, now, very expensive. They don't have bloody gardens, but of course there are lovely shared gardens at ground level, and you live above a world class arts centre surrounded by ancient Roman walls, churches, the City and Farringdon - a glorious place to live
Hence the prices:
A 3 bed flat on the 31st floor of a Barbican tower: £1.85 MILLION
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121149095#/?channel=RES_BUY
No garden
https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/
If they were in their twenties and could afford it most young people would jump at the chance of living in a high rise in the centre of a big city close to clubs and bars etc
Even now the Uk is ducking it up. Witness the wasteland that is Vauxhall.
I must admit I’m quite inspired by Manhattan, but I’m equally impressed by Haussman’s Paris. Row upon row of uniform 6-floor blocks. Paris could use some green space, though.
I think that will fade alongside working from home.
A north London council, responding to an issue with very large families, has started giving permission to extend upwards. Put another story on the house (not just a loft conversion).
Let's really go for it.
So every 2 bed cottage can become a 3/4 bed.
Get the Nimbies howling.
Is it because these poor people, who can barely scratch together £1.85 million, are prevented by their dire poverty from buying bigger houses with gardens in Muswell Hill which cost, er, £800,000?
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120978128#/?channel=RES_BUY
The way they’ve done it is to publish strict design guidelines and then say, if you can stick to these guidelines - go for it!
And why the hell not?????
Why do we make it so hard on ourselves?
Boris won his majority by cutting through to the people those Cameron/Osborne voters despise. Now personally I think he and his Government has failed to follow through, and the PM has personally fallen short, but that’s still the constituency he’ll win his next majority from (and I think he will. It’s the average voter in the part of the country I grew up in. They voted Maggie. They voted Blair. They disliked Cameron and his sort.
You certainly CAN extend upwards, it just has to be done harmoniously. It can work, well
She was increasingly disliked, including by her own party by 1989. That's why the Tories chucked her out. Though she still seems to make some Tory boys of a certain age go rather moist.
But they could send it upwards (moderately).
When I moved to NY I started out thinking I would live in the suburbs.
In the end, the commuter experience looked to be shit, and quality schooling was easier to find in Manhattan. So - despite ourselves - we’re living in an apartment.
I’ve no regrets so far.
Nothing. Literally nothing in this budget.
When I lived in NZ I was shocked at the lack of paths, outside of reserves which featured trails.
When that example shows how they can work well together
Seriously, I had a "discusion" with a planner. Who was upset that people were "spoiling the essential character" of a row of Edwardian cottages. By extending them at the back.
They were 2 bed cottages - how dare people want bathrooms. Or a third bedroom.
But the fact is some areas just don't have the space for houses with gardens - eg most of central London - and, moreover - the point you are ignoring - a lot of people (not families) actually LIKE the density and excitement of urban life, including apartments 1000 feet in the air (as long as they are maintained well - like the Barbican)
And it's not just the young. Quite a lot of older people move back in to central or central ish London when their kids grow up. They like being able to walk to great restaurants, galleries, museums. They don't want the hassle of a garden, they love London
Hence the popularity of the Barbican. If you go there you'd be surprised how old the denizens are. 60s and 70s, lots of them. Rich people who have chosen to live in the sky, in a Brutalist tower
Sunak seems to be forced to carry a cross to his execution, not for what he announced, but everything he failed to do.
“No help with rising energy bills” declares the FT.
“Reality behind mini budget? No heat to eat!” The Metro yells at us.
“Sunak squeezes poorest “ yells guardian in big black ink.
Telegraph chooses to show disdain and disgust here by having every reporter and communist sneer at it in unison.
“The forgotten millions” yells the, EXPRESS? What?
“The up yours budget” say the star.
If you meet the plan, consent should be near automatic.
At presents it’s the reverse. There’s no “do this” guidance, a lot of “don’t do this” rules, and you have to hope and pray for approval.
The whole thing is so convoluted, we’ve made it impossible to build houses unless you’re a massive oligopolistic housebuilder who can land-bank and hedge the planning risk.
Ever wonder why there’s no self-build sector worth a damn in the UK?
You'd be surprised at the extent of amorphous blandness of some areas which people will object to a particular design spoiling its character though.
Never did found out why the husband is called Moth though (which was my main motivation for buying the book). 😀
The current Local Plan approach is a right pain the arse for officers, and despised by elected politicians, yet it their outcries that will keep that approach largely in place.
There absolutely ARE guidelines set by the government for councils, to improve the built environment. The latest in London are quite precise about extensions up and out, and seen as a victory for traditionalists who want to beautify the city. They are not prohibitive, at all, but they are firm, and if you follow them you can do your extension
As usual nothing much changed at the front. You can see the odd skylight in the roof - you have to drop the ceiling on the first floor to make the loft conversion work. Because rooflines are more sacred than the alignment of the Stones of Stonehenge.
That's another one - all the houses with roofs that can't be converted to lofts. Let them raise the ridge pole by 2 meters.
Honestly, the Tories are finished if Boris and Rishi aren't replaced ASAP. No way for them to win in 2024 with these two in charge, the spendthrift clown and the penny pinching fool.
The headline itself however is a stinker.
I’d go further though.
To be specific, my house is in Hackney.
Much of it is very very low rise, despite being designated inner London by statisticians.
The council should say that they’re happy to see residential development to 4, 5, 6 floors, and here’s ways how…(unless your house is listed).
At present it’s more like, hey wanna build a loft? Do it like this.
At least wait till Big G gone to bed.
Jenrick got fired for the mutant algorithm which basically said:
“House prices are high in Amersham, let’s concrete over Amersham”.
We do need an algorithm, but one that says:
“Houses are very low rise in Zones 1-4 of London. Let’s increase those. And the same in the equivalent areas of Manchester et al.”
I always try to question why I think news is good and bad, no doubt with varying degrees of success.
Most houses (and much of the value of the housing stock) are not owned by pensioners. If you want to start tapping into housing money, then you need to take on the middle.
I think it’s downhill from here for Boris.
Even without him, I think it’s still a stretch for the tories to win another majority.
Lab Maj & lab most seats look like value to me.
Though the petrol rationing was a farce. The UK was swimming in petroleum throughout the war.