I'm currently watching my Don's team playing a pre season friendly, 6-0 up early in the second half and my son got an assist. Thought I'd report an interesting addition to the footballing lexicon - the "Brexit tackle" (noun and verb) - an ugly, needlessly aggressive tackle that is nevertheless just within the rules. I think its derivation is that it harks back to an earlier style of English football and is in contrast to a more skillful Continental European style of play.
Yep, row zed, get stuck in, long ball, and in the immortal words of my son's coach - "Rocky the Rock" - in the mid noughties, "no football in your own half".
This is England and it was most certainly in the subliminal mix of what drove Brexit.
This from the BBC is fair comment, and if she comes up with 100 billion of targeted support to the public and businesses some on here may have red faces, and according to Truss herself all will be revealed in the next week
I have deliberately not passed judgment on Truss as I do not know her, and until she stands at the dispatch box and announces her measurers and then takes on Starmer at PMQs most comments are purely political
It is about to become 'real' next week and she will sink or swim in as short a time as the month of September 2022
Analysis: Quick action on bills - but how much and who for?
Chris Mason
Political editor
The biggest moment of the summer’s campaign to replace Boris Johnson as Prime Minister was when Liz Truss said there would be support for people paying their energy bills, having previously rejected the idea of what she called “handouts”.
Vanishingly few people, if anyone, now seriously disputes that she is going to win.
Strikingly, Liz Truss did not dispute the Sunday Times’ suggestion this morning the intervention could be huge – costing around £100bn.
And we now know she’ll set out her plans within a week of taking office.
But we still await the information which really matters: who will get support, how much support and for how long?
We can still pass judgement on her campaign utterences of half-wittery. Suggesting the rescinding the 70mph motorway speed limit for a free for all was a cracker.
Of course you can, but there is only one issue that matters and that is how to deal with the cost of living crisis
The rest is irrelevant to most of the public
That is of course the crucial issue. She needs good fortune on her side too. Without that her £100b package may still not be enough.
But as you have said for a while, Truss' package when it comes, will be way better than the Labour alternative.
You are putting words into my mouth but there is no doubt a longer term package is needed and we will see
I just cannot see such a package being compatible with her "no handouts" freemarketeer mock-Thatcherite statements, tax cuts and any resemblance of fiscal sanity.
Yep this is the nub. The help for individuals really should be targeted on those who need it most. If they make it big enough to help them sufficiently but at the same time try to avoid the 'bailout' tag by spraying cash generally via tax cuts, this spells ruin for the public finances and carries massive risks of runaway inflation and currency debasement.
Yours, M. Thatcher, feeling dizzy from spinning. Grave.
Delta poll in today's Sun on Sunday: Labour 42 Tories 31
Best PM … Starmer 34 Johnson 23 Truss 11
What am I missing when I say the “best PM” polling is all over the shop? How seriously do we take this particular one, when other firms have it neck and neck with Starmer?
One movement which seems to have happened, as the hustings period has gone on, Liz lead over Sunak for best PM has tightened/disappeared in some of the polling.
The question here is where do the 23 Johnsons go? If to 'the new Tory' we have a dead heat, if mostly to 'the new Tory' we have pretty much what opinium showed, a few points lead for Starmer. Truss is not PM. When she is the numbers will rise. But by how much?
Yes. Spot on answer. Anything with Boris In with Truss and Starmer can have a low Truss at the moment.
Yet the ones with just Starmer v Truss have quite a range too?
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
The BBC reported that, “The total number of migrants crossing the Channel [in small boats] in 2022 is likely to reach 60,000, according to Border Force union officials.” This is markedly up on previous years. It was just 8404 in 2020, and far lower again in 2019.
I'm currently watching my Don's team playing a pre season friendly, 6-0 up early in the second half and my son got an assist. Thought I'd report an interesting addition to the footballing lexicon - the "Brexit tackle" (noun and verb) - an ugly, needlessly aggressive tackle that is nevertheless just within the rules. I think its derivation is that it harks back to an earlier style of English football and is in contrast to a more skillful Continental European style of play.
Yep, row zed, get stuck in, long ball, and in the immortal words of my son's coach - "Rocky the Rock" - in the mid noughties, "no football in your own half".
This is England and it was most certainly in the subliminal mix of what drove Brexit.
Brexit was a very English phenomenon.
Wales voted for it too, plus county Antrim and Banff and Buchan
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
We think the Russian military is in a bad state, but what if ours is even worse?
After decades of Tory defence cuts, what do you expect? There has long been the idea on parts of the right that all we need are some nukes and the SAS.
Well, the most obvious cuts had been to remove capability. So we had the early retirement of the harriers, reductions in troop numbers, paring back in the size of the fleet, other salami-slicing reductions in numbers of F35s ordered, etc.
I think you could be forgiven for assuming that the capability, troops and equipment we retained on paper could actually do what they were supposed to. Otherwise why not save more money by disbanding the Royal Artillery?
Apparently I will gain upwards of £1000 a year on Truss's proposals.
I don't need the money, I already earn well and I am not going to struggle in an incoming crisis. I have savings, investments and a secure job.
Why on Earth are they giving tax cuts to me, I am not going to spend money, I am going to save it.
Hold on a second, haven't you been complaining on this site that despite working hard you can't afford a home? And that it's unfair for your wages you work for to be so heavily taxed while unearned income, pensions etc isn't?
Now you're complaining that you'll be able to keep more of the money you worked for as you don't need it?
You objected to this tax rise when it went up, now you're objecting when it's reversed? Just what do you want? Other than for the Tories to lose the election.
Delta poll in today's Sun on Sunday: Labour 42 Tories 31
Best PM … Starmer 34 Johnson 23 Truss 11
What am I missing when I say the “best PM” polling is all over the shop? How seriously do we take this particular one, when other firms have it neck and neck with Starmer?
One movement which seems to have happened, as the hustings period has gone on, Liz lead over Sunak for best PM has tightened/disappeared in some of the polling.
The question here is where do the 23 Johnsons go? If to 'the new Tory' we have a dead heat, if mostly to 'the new Tory' we have pretty much what opinium showed, a few points lead for Starmer. Truss is not PM. When she is the numbers will rise. But by how much?
Yes. Spot on answer. Anything with Boris In with Truss and Starmer can have a low Truss at the moment.
Yet the ones with just Starmer v Truss have quite a range too?
Slight wording differences i think - redfield asks 'at the moment' opinium 'who would make the best PM' etc. At the margins it impacts responses
Thought experiment. I suggest the best possible outcome for America now is an obviously valid Trump win in 2024. A win that he doesn’t have to enforce with violence
Would that be deserved? No. Of course not. He’s a maniac and a brute
However it would mollify the right in the USA. At a crucial moment. Pulling them back from civil war
And trump is not obviously a bad politician. He has good instincts - like lab leak. The big issue would be US withdrawal from NATO and isolationism - clearly bad for the UK, tho justifiable from a US perspective
The likely alternative - a win by an aged Biden and a worsening of Wokeness leads, I think, to civil strife of some kind
I submit that you are a fool, fantasist, or combination of the two.
Down alt-right rabbithole, will refrain from amateur psychology as to why, will just say what I actually feel about it - which is sad. Not trembling anymore, not fighting it anymore, just sad.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. One of the later chapters.
would an extra 10 to 20 billion on weapons really have been that expensive?
To consider that question, ask who would pay and what they would they get for it.
It's curious how the British elite seems to allow foreign policy to be subject to parliamentary decision according to whether it feels like it or not, with the media always of course considering whatever the position is at the moment regarding any particular area of the world to be immune to being questioned or, if the instructions say so, even to being noticed, and in any case immune to being compared (e.g. with say Syria). Is that "democracy" or "деремократия"?
I do find the whine that opponents of support of Ukraine have been “silenced” entertaining.
If you have a minority view then you are going to have pushback from the majority.
Democracy doesn’t mean creating “a safe space” for every idea so that people don’t get their feelings hurt by opposition.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
We think the Russian military is in a bad state, but what if ours is even worse?
No military is as good as you think or as bad as you fear in my experience.
They all have incompetence, cowardice, brutality, corruption, valour, professionalism, honour, humour and staggering self-sacrifice. Just the various proportions of each vary from country to country and by less than you think.
I am not military (obvs...) but I'd argue that a big factor is the role/mission a military has been 'designed' to fulfil. No military - perhaps excluding the USA - can expect to be good at all roles, and therefore government and top brass have to decide on what they'll concentrate on. A navy? An air force? Armoured thrusts with tanks? Air defence? WMD? etc.
A military expected to fulfil a role that it has not been honed/trained to do will struggle. The really embarrassments occur when a military proclaims itself to be brilliant at a task and utterly mucks it up.
This is one reason why Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so poor from the outside - this was the sort of mission they'd been saying they'd be brilliant at. And they've been poor.
“Goods exports from the UK to the EU reached £16.9bn in May, the highest level since figures started in 1997.”
This is a point that I have been making for a while. The anecdotal evidence of problems in exports are not being matched by the figures which have been on a strong upward trend since late last year as the EU economy recovered from Covid. It may be that there is a differential effect in that larger producers are having no problems but smaller businesses are finding the new paperwork a bit much but the overall effect of not being in the SM is certainly not matching the models.
It's hard to say anything too conclusive as the single market exit has coincided with extremely strong goods trade globally as consumers substituted from services to goods post Covid. The UK seems to have lagged other countries in this regard but UK exports have done okay. It is notable that the new exports index in the manufacturing PMI has been far weaker in the UK than in the Euro Area since last January, which suggests something is awry. The impact is likely to be more long term as the kind of firms that would have stepped up to export as part of their growth trajectory in the past don't bother, and miss out on the productivity boost that typically comes with that.
The curious trade figure is that exports to non-EU countries have fallen faster than to the EU, in relative terms, when you might expect the opposite to be the case because of Brexit.
Incidentally, the ONS points out the "highest level since 1997" is only because of inflation and those export figures have fallen since in nominal terms. Also monthly figures are lumpy since Brexit. The article is factual and balanced, pointing out the genuine problems now faced by small businesses to the EU, while accepting overall exports have been less affected.
Also the figures have been skewed by us exporting vast amounts of energy to the EU, which have very little benefit for our SMEs and our manufacturing industry, leading to more employment etc.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. One of the later chapters.
There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today, 1916-2022
Apparently I will gain upwards of £1000 a year on Truss's proposals.
I don't need the money, I already earn well and I am not going to struggle in an incoming crisis. I have savings, investments and a secure job.
Why on Earth are they giving tax cuts to me, I am not going to spend money, I am going to save it.
Hold on a second, haven't you been complaining on this site that despite working hard you can't afford a home? And that it's unfair for your wages you work for to be so heavily taxed while unearned income, pensions etc isn't?
Now you're complaining that you'll be able to keep more of the money you worked for as you don't need it?
You objected to this tax rise when it went up, now you're objecting when it's reversed? Just what do you want? Other than for the Tories to lose the election.
I agree with the last statement. Also, you can rent btw and still be financially secure. Soem people might argue that getting a mortgage seriously deteriorates your financial position.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
We think the Russian military is in a bad state, but what if ours is even worse?
No military is as good as you think or as bad as you fear in my experience.
They all have incompetence, cowardice, brutality, corruption, valour, professionalism, honour, humour and staggering self-sacrifice. Just the various proportions of each vary from country to country and by less than you think.
In Russia the procurement money is straight up stolen.
In the U.K. our special thing is “unique requirements” which mean that we require something that no else uses. Which means incompatibility and dire support issues long term.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
Massive demonstration in Prague yesterday on CoL, energy etc, threatening strikes and 'coercive action' if the govt doesn't quit by Sept 25th. Coming soon to other EU capitals near you (and Londinium)
The more I think about it, the more I believe the Biden “semi fascist” speech was a crazy mistake
Standing in front of a blood red backdrop, flanked by marines, saying the Republicans are fascist, is basically saying: “republicans must never win. They are not American. I am America”
It’s the equivalent of Charles II dissolving Parliament in 1629
It was a very wierd speech, in content as well as in setting. The sort of thing that you’d expect to hear from Trump, rather than someone trying to bring America back together. It was the Basket of Deplorables on steroids, and is likely to get more Republicans turning out in November than Democrats.
What I can't wait to see - and I think it's coming - is Donald Trump lumbering around the stage at one of his fascist vibe rallies and after 4 hours of relentless mendacity and hatemongering he wraps up by telling the faithful that he's the last hope for The Enlightenment.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
The more I think about it, the more I believe the Biden “semi fascist” speech was a crazy mistake
Standing in front of a blood red backdrop, flanked by marines, saying the Republicans are fascist, is basically saying: “republicans must never win. They are not American. I am America”
It’s the equivalent of Charles II dissolving Parliament in 1629
It was a very wierd speech, in content as well as in setting. The sort of thing that you’d expect to hear from Trump, rather than someone trying to bring America back together. It was the Basket of Deplorables on steroids, and is likely to get more Republicans turning out in November than Democrats.
What I can't wait to see - and I think it's coming - is Donald Trump lumbering around the stage at one of his fascist vibe rallies and after 4 hours of relentless mendacity and hatemongering he wraps up by telling the faithful that he's the last hope for The Enlightenment.
Definitely. Already got a shortlist of PBers who will fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
This is one reason why Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so poor from the outside - this was the sort of mission they'd been saying they'd be brilliant at. And they've been poor.
Somebody, somewhere in the General Staff, convinced Putin they could do high tempo, USA style, maneuvering warfare. They couldn't. Hence the Gostomel Airport debacle. They are not the first country to seduce themselves into thinking they can do things American style and they won't be the last. The British defence establishment went very damp in the gusset over the USMC assault on Al-Faw in Iraq 2 and decided that this was the future of warfare until they worked out it would require 3x more rotary wing than they had or could conceivably afford. Ditto US Army Stryker brigades.
Once the Russians concentrated on the things they are good at (stealing, dying in large numbers and broad scale annihilation through artillery grid kills) they performed more to less to expectations. Given that they are fighting both Ukraine and the US DoD logisitics system.
'Nobody can suffer like we can.', as Shoigu recently said on Russian TV. But Truss is about the test the hypothesis.
The more I think about it, the more I believe the Biden “semi fascist” speech was a crazy mistake
Standing in front of a blood red backdrop, flanked by marines, saying the Republicans are fascist, is basically saying: “republicans must never win. They are not American. I am America”
It’s the equivalent of Charles II dissolving Parliament in 1629
It was a very wierd speech, in content as well as in setting. The sort of thing that you’d expect to hear from Trump, rather than someone trying to bring America back together. It was the Basket of Deplorables on steroids, and is likely to get more Republicans turning out in November than Democrats.
What I can't wait to see - and I think it's coming - is Donald Trump lumbering around the stage at one of his fascist vibe rallies and after 4 hours of relentless mendacity and hatemongering he wraps up by telling the faithful that he's the last hope for The Enlightenment.
Finding myself visualising Mr Trump walking past the High Kirk of St Giles chatting with Hume, Smith, Black, Hutton, Playfair, and Robertson and being summed up by Burns. Though I don't think Adam would be to his taste for the Trump Tower in the New Town of Edinburgh.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. One of the later chapters.
There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today, 1916-2022
Wilson, Tritton, Fuller and Liddell Hart would not be impressed.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
We think the Russian military is in a bad state, but what if ours is even worse?
No military is as good as you think or as bad as you fear in my experience.
They all have incompetence, cowardice, brutality, corruption, valour, professionalism, honour, humour and staggering self-sacrifice. Just the various proportions of each vary from country to country and by less than you think.
That may be the most optimistic assessment of our military I've ever seen you give. Which is concerning.
Several rumours of Ukraine liberating villages in the south *and* Donetsk.
Usual caveats apply, etc.
edit: on the other hand, there have been videos of kit from both sides having been captured. The Ukranian kit captured by the Russians are often easiest to verify, as the Russians shouldn't have western kit....
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
Massive demonstration in Prague yesterday on CoL, energy etc, threatening strikes and 'coercive action' if the govt doesn't quit by Sept 25th. Coming soon to other EU capitals near you (and Londinium)
Several rumours of Ukraine liberating villages in the south *and* Donetsk.
Usual caveats apply, etc.
edit: on the other hand, there have been videos of kit from both sides having been captured. The Ukranian kit captured by the Russians are often easiest to verify, as the Russians shouldn't have western kit....
Worth remembering that even if there is positive movement for Ukraine, that doesn't mean it is irreversible. Beware the counter counter offensive.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
Lula is favourite to be Brazilian President again.
Massive demonstration in Prague yesterday on CoL, energy etc, threatening strikes and 'coercive action' if the govt doesn't quit by Sept 25th. Coming soon to other EU capitals near you (and Londinium)
I'm hearing that the Russians have put a lot of effort in to mobilising that protest, though social media and there own agents on the ground.
Doesn't mean that lots of people ant feeling disgruntled, and it may well spread, but worth baring in mind.
This is one reason why Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so poor from the outside - this was the sort of mission they'd been saying they'd be brilliant at. And they've been poor.
Somebody, somewhere in the General Staff, convinced Putin they could do high tempo, USA style, maneuvering warfare. They couldn't. Hence the Gostomel Airport debacle. They are not the first country to seduce themselves into thinking they can do things American style and they won't be the last. The British defence establishment went very damp in the gusset over the USMC assault on Al-Faw in Iraq 2 and decided that this was the future of warfare until they worked out it would require 3x more rotary wing than they had or could conceivably afford. Ditto US Army Stryker brigades.
Once the Russians concentrated on the things they are good at (stealing, dying in large numbers and broad scale annihilation through artillery grid kills) they performed more to less to expectations. Given that they are fighting both Ukraine and the US DoD logisitics system.
'Nobody can suffer like we can.', as Shoigu recently said on Russian TV. But Truss is about the test the hypothesis.
We know from recent experience even the americans cannot really conquer and hold a country (presumably in part due to being less willing to flatten entire cities to do so?), but as a layman it seems like other nations underestimate the breadth and depth of american military capability as a result, which others simply cannot replicate. All those hundreds of billions must go somewhere I guess.
One would thing it would be fascinating to watch one of this site’s biggest luminaries circle the alt-right conspiracist plug-hole, but it’s actually deeply boring.
I now routinely skip his posts, which I never used to do.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
It does. I was struck at how strongly Sunak came back from the tax revelations (obv not quite strongly enough). This is why privileges committee is so important, if that doesn't nail him it will be easily misrepresented as a magnificent vindication from all charges in a year or 2.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
And that's where Truss's claims to be a free market libertarian hit reality.
The most useful thing she can do for the nation is to stop house prices being driven by scarcity. We all know it. It will probably be electoral suicide, even if she stuffs the mouths of the losers with money.
She's not going to do it, even in a second term, is she?
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
People do come back, dixiedean provides one likely to occur recent example, but I don't think the UK's political culture is currently ready for that sort of thing anymore. Once you cease being PM you are out, and people even get mad about former PMs trying to make contributions to political debate, even when they are still MPs like May. Leaders who lose no longer get a second go like they used to (Corbyn defied expectations there because he outperformed so much even today his followers pretend he won).
I'd like to see former leaders have more to contribute, especially for roles they might be better suited for (Special representative to Ukraine perhaps?), but to the top job? A new generation has taken over, moving backwards won't be seen as the answer.
but as a layman it seems like other nations underestimate the breadth and depth of american military capability as a result, which others simply cannot replicate.
The US Navy, not even the air force, has a single squadron (VF-122) which would be the seventh largest fast jet force in the world on its own.
The US are not shy about levelling places with MLRS, air strikes or whateverr - if they think it furthers the objective. eg Khosrow Sofia in Afghanistan.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
That's total bollocks. She's spent her entire time in parliament pursuing big state options, and I'm meant to believe she has gone against all her 'instincts' this entire time to do so, presumably for collective responsibility reasons? That does not speak well of her one bit, not least because we know by her own words that had she got what she wanted, Boris in charge, she would not have spoken up in favour of small state options (or, rather, she's pretend she was whilst doing big state things, which is what the Conservatives generally do). Your answer is to claim she has been a complete hypocrite her entire career to be self serving - she could have been a principled back bencher. I'm giving her more respect by assuming what she did and said is what she believes, not what others now report her 'instincts' are.
She's as big state as any of her party, like all those 'libertarians' who love to tell others what to do and have the state micromanage things, when they approve of it.
Massive demonstration in Prague yesterday on CoL, energy etc, threatening strikes and 'coercive action' if the govt doesn't quit by Sept 25th. Coming soon to other EU capitals near you (and Londinium)
I'm hearing that the Russians have put a lot of effort in to mobilising that protest, though social media and there own agents on the ground.
Doesn't mean that lots of people ant feeling disgruntled, and it may well spread, but worth baring in mind.
We should ask the likes of Eddie Dempsey if he is thinking of his compatriots in the industry and country when he urges strikes at the moment, or his separatist mates in the Donbass?
The more I think about it, the more I believe the Biden “semi fascist” speech was a crazy mistake
Standing in front of a blood red backdrop, flanked by marines, saying the Republicans are fascist, is basically saying: “republicans must never win. They are not American. I am America”
It’s the equivalent of Charles II dissolving Parliament in 1629
It was a very wierd speech, in content as well as in setting. The sort of thing that you’d expect to hear from Trump, rather than someone trying to bring America back together. It was the Basket of Deplorables on steroids, and is likely to get more Republicans turning out in November than Democrats.
What I can't wait to see - and I think it's coming - is Donald Trump lumbering around the stage at one of his fascist vibe rallies and after 4 hours of relentless mendacity and hatemongering he wraps up by telling the faithful that he's the last hope for The Enlightenment.
Finding myself visualising Mr Trump walking past the High Kirk of St Giles chatting with Hume, Smith, Black, Hutton, Playfair, and Robertson and being summed up by Burns. Though I don't think Adam would be to his taste for the Trump Tower in the New Town of Edinburgh.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
And that's where Truss's claims to be a free market libertarian hit reality.
The most useful thing she can do for the nation is to stop house prices being driven by scarcity. We all know it. It will probably be electoral suicide, even if she stuffs the mouths of the losers with money.
She's not going to do it, even in a second term, is she?
I don’t know.
I think the suggestion that Liz Truss is an ideological flip-flopper is misplaced. She’s pretty consistently libertarian to my eye, and I don’t think she resiles necessarily from unpopular stuff.
Libertarians wouldn’t put up with Britain’s prohibitive and oligopolistic planning system, and there was a manifesto pledge to do something about it.
Back on Planet Earth, I am a trustee of my old primary school. We have been offered a 4-year energy contract at 5 times what we currently pay annually.
Do we take it? Do we fix? What costs do we cut to pay for it? The increase is the equivalent of 2 teachers. Do we wait for Truss's brilliant plan, find that it does not help and lose even this offer?
And just as we are pondering these difficult issues, so are many other schools business, old peoples homes, hospices, nurseries etc etc all over the country.
Meanwhile the likely next PM thinks it is "fair" at this time to give a tax cut to the better off in our society. And thinks this is what people want to hear at just this time.
For a data point, chatting to the Head Coach of my gym yesterday, his energy charges are being increased threefold.
It is to their advantage that they run at about 10C. But the gas heating is largely staying off this winter.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
Like running the railways and maintaining the energy security of the country?
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
Sorry, I believe Truss has promised to make it harder to build locally (sorry, give more power to local residents).
This is one reason why Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so poor from the outside - this was the sort of mission they'd been saying they'd be brilliant at. And they've been poor.
Somebody, somewhere in the General Staff, convinced Putin they could do high tempo, USA style, maneuvering warfare. They couldn't. Hence the Gostomel Airport debacle. They are not the first country to seduce themselves into thinking they can do things American style and they won't be the last. The British defence establishment went very damp in the gusset over the USMC assault on Al-Faw in Iraq 2 and decided that this was the future of warfare until they worked out it would require 3x more rotary wing than they had or could conceivably afford. Ditto US Army Stryker brigades.
Once the Russians concentrated on the things they are good at (stealing, dying in large numbers and broad scale annihilation through artillery grid kills) they performed more to less to expectations. Given that they are fighting both Ukraine and the US DoD logisitics system.
'Nobody can suffer like we can.', as Shoigu recently said on Russian TV. But Truss is about the test the hypothesis.
We know from recent experience even the americans cannot really conquer and hold a country (presumably in part due to being less willing to flatten entire cities to do so?), but as a layman it seems like other nations underestimate the breadth and depth of american military capability as a result, which others simply cannot replicate. All those hundreds of billions must go somewhere I guess.
They can conquer just about anywhere - and extremely quickly at that. But the will to "Go Russian" on the population isn't there.
Most politicians, around the world, do things like count soldiers, not trucks.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
That falls a long, long way short of the state having a greater propensity to do harm than good.
One would thing it would be fascinating to watch one of this site’s biggest luminaries circle the alt-right conspiracist plug-hole, but it’s actually deeply boring.
I now routinely skip his posts, which I never used to do.
Conspiracies, beyond rare occasions, are inherently boring anyway. The precise details may be hard to predict but the themes never change.
One would thing it would be fascinating to watch one of this site’s biggest luminaries circle the alt-right conspiracist plug-hole, but it’s actually deeply boring.
I now routinely skip his posts, which I never used to do.
Like any other performance that depends on shocking the bourgeoisie by saying the unsayable, you have to keep upping the stakes. Then you end up saying things that are genuinely repulsive. See late night Channel 4.
There's a chunk of thinking in Conservative education circles- Katherine Birbalsingh, Fr Calvin Robinson- who are circling the same plughole. It's a shame, because they used to be interesting.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
That's total bollocks. She's spent her entire time in parliament pursuing big state options, and I'm meant to believe she has gone against all her 'instincts' this entire time to do so, presumably for collective responsibility reasons? That does not speak well of her one bit, not least because we know by her own words that had she got what she wanted, Boris in charge, she would not have spoken up in favour of small state options (or, rather, she's pretend she was whilst doing big state things, which is what the Conservatives generally do). Your answer is to claim she has been a complete hypocrite her entire career to be self serving - she could have been a principled back bencher. I'm giving her more respect by assuming what she did and said is what she believes, not what others now report her 'instincts' are.
She's as big state as any of her party, like all those 'libertarians' who love to tell others what to do and have the state micromanage things, when they approve of it.
What specific 'big state' things has Liz Truss in particular been advocating for in her time in Parliament?
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true. but the point of the article is really look at me, I knew Liz Truss at Oxford.
'The state; does have a propensity to do more harm than good,
How well Liz dismantles the state, and how competently she manages the proses is still to be determined.
don't be silly, what other than the state prevents your stronger-than-you neighbour from cooking and eating your children just because he feels like it?
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
Sorry, I believe Truss has promised to make it harder to build locally (sorry, give more power to local residents).
What has she actually said?
We desperately need more housing.
The problem is that the “market” is also quite fucked after years of dysfunction, and a truly free market in housing would destroy the British countryside.
I believe there are ways to square the circle and I’m not ruling out Liz doing something here.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true
I don't buy it anyway. She couldn't square that with her own actions climbing the greasy pole, particularly as she claims not to have wanted to take the top job in the first place - she was content for all those attempts for the state to good.
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
It's absolutely possible to square it, it's an entirely logical thing for a small state liberal Conservative to believe in.
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
That falls a long, long way short of the state having a greater propensity to do harm than good.
Quite. That's part of taking what is claimed to be her thoughts, and sanitising it.
One would thing it would be fascinating to watch one of this site’s biggest luminaries circle the alt-right conspiracist plug-hole, but it’s actually deeply boring.
I now routinely skip his posts, which I never used to do.
Like any other performance that depends on shocking the bourgeoisie by saying the unsayable, you have to keep upping the stakes. Then you end up saying things that are genuinely repulsive. See late night Channel 4.
There's a chunk of thinking in Conservative education circles- Katherine Birbalsingh, Fr Calvin Robinson- who are circling the same plughole. It's a shame, because they used to be interesting.
I didn’t know that about Birbalsingh. That’s very sad.
There is clearly an attention-economy, unleashed by social media, that drives extremism and polarity in political discourse.
I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but it is also clear that social media has created real harms.
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
Sorry, I believe Truss has promised to make it harder to build locally (sorry, give more power to local residents).
What has she actually said?
We desperately need more housing.
The problem is that the “market” is also quite fucked after years of dysfunction, and a truly free market in housing would destroy the British countryside.
I believe there are ways to square the circle and I’m not ruling out Liz doing something here.
The British countryside is fucked anyway. This is a great tragedy, given what a beautiful joint masterpiece of man and nature it was, but the right of people to exist and be decently housed trumps that. But the losing battle is going to be fought field by field for decades to come.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
but as a layman it seems like other nations underestimate the breadth and depth of american military capability as a result, which others simply cannot replicate.
The US Navy, not even the air force, has a single squadron (VF-122) which would be the seventh largest fast jet force in the world on its own.
The US are not shy about levelling places with MLRS, air strikes or whateverr - if they think it furthers the objective. eg Khosrow Sofia in Afghanistan.
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
Sorry, I believe Truss has promised to make it harder to build locally (sorry, give more power to local residents).
What has she actually said?
We desperately need more housing.
The problem is that the “market” is also quite fucked after years of dysfunction, and a truly free market in housing would destroy the British countryside.
I believe there are ways to square the circle and I’m not ruling out Liz doing something here.
The British countryside is fucked anyway. This is a great tragedy, given what a beautiful joint masterpiece of man and nature it was, but the right of people to exist and be decently housed trumps that. But the losing battle is going to be fought field by field for decades to come.
I don’t think so.
In my opinion one of the great achievements of Britain’s 20th century was the preservation of countryside even in the deeply-populated South East.
Sadly, it went hand-in-hand with disastrous urban planning.
Does anyone honestly think this last 12 years of Government has been anything but a disaster?
In the sense that they failed to reverse the disaster of the previous 13 years?
You mean when the NHS was actually working under Labour !
This country was at ease with itself under Blair, I maintain that society has got a lot nastier since they left.
So much was achieved in that time, minimum wage, shortest waiting times in history, peace in NI, Climate Change act, devolution, civil partnerships...
If you spend a lot of time online, you will think the country a steaming cesspit of rage, anger, bile and hatred.
If you go out and about in the real world, not so much.
Online, and twitter especially, are not real life.
I live in the real world, homelessness is certainly a loss worse in London than it ever was under Blair
We have had huge immigration thanks to Blair. Some of the homelessness will be related to that. Some are sad cases where drug and/alcohol dependency have wrecked their lives. I’m not sure that you can can blame the government for this.
As discussed and referenced many times on here, the biggest proportionate increase in homelesness was following the first round of welfare cuts after 2013-4. Other services, including drug, alcohol, psychological health and ex-prisoner rehabilitation services also were cut during this time.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true that we are still seeing large immigration numbers into the U.K. and there are only a finite number of beds for people. Where do the channel crossers end up?
The channel crossers constitute a pretty small proportion of the large immigration numbers into the UK.
How many this year? And last year? Adding to the total.
This is not a point about asylum, it’s about housing capacity.
Marriage/relationship breaks down. Someone forced out the marital home. Where do they go in a land that’s full (in housing terms)? Councils don’t have the capacity.
First it’s a mates house, then the streets.
We need to do something about housing capacity. I suggest we should build more houses.
Sorry, I believe Truss has promised to make it harder to build locally (sorry, give more power to local residents).
What has she actually said?
We desperately need more housing.
The problem is that the “market” is also quite fucked after years of dysfunction, and a truly free market in housing would destroy the British countryside.
I believe there are ways to square the circle and I’m not ruling out Liz doing something here.
The British countryside is fucked anyway. This is a great tragedy, given what a beautiful joint masterpiece of man and nature it was, but the right of people to exist and be decently housed trumps that. But the losing battle is going to be fought field by field for decades to come.
The stupid bit about the "preservers" is that by fighting any development, they are ensuring that when the other side wins, the result will be what the developers want. Which is pretty shit.
As opposed to things like 5 more houses in each hamlet in the Cotswolds, built in the local vernacular.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
People are often quite poor judges of what is efficient.
Socialist planners of the 1940s and 50s assumed they were more efficient.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true. but the point of the article is really look at me, I knew Liz Truss at Oxford.
'The state; does have a propensity to do more harm than good,
How well Liz dismantles the state, and how competently she manages the proses is still to be determined.
don't be silly, what other than the state prevents your stronger-than-you neighbour from cooking and eating your children just because he feels like it?
For me, its my team of ex-seals. Keeps the hungry from the gates.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
It also misses the point of how a functional market should work. Taking location out of the equation, brand new housing should be considered a luxury and command a premium over old housing stock that's in need of some care and attention.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
It also misses the point of how a functional market should work. Taking location out of the equation, brand new housing should be considered a luxury and command a premium over old housing stock that's in need of some care and attention.
The market’s not really there, though.
Due to the way the planning system works, the market tends towards oligopoly and cheaply designed/manufactured housing at scale.
Russia will eventually have to abandon Kerson (west of Dnieper) and that is when a peace deal could be negotiated.
Russia will want to hold everything it still holds at that point (but will drop its stupider requests such as receiving payment from Ukraine for Russia's war losses).
Ukraine will want Russia to return to its pre-2014 borders.
Compromise could be in Russia holding Crimea and its current land in Donbass - but returning other lands in Southern Ukraine and around Kharkiv. Crimea to be demilitarised (except for Sevastopol port) - With UN/Turkish peace-keeping troops brought in to police the border. Ukraine would need to guarantee water & electricity supply - and also demilitarise say 10km from Zaporizia nuclear plant - again use UN/Turkish troops to police.
Russian sanctions to be dropped in return for reparation payments to Ukraine - say at a 10% levy on gas exports for 10 years
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
People are often quite poor judges of what is efficient.
Socialist planners of the 1940s and 50s assumed they were more efficient.
It would undoubtedly be more efficient to build houses in whole estates. In a pure economic sense, in a non political world, where you can do what you like.
In the Really Real World....
It's a bit like Railways vs Buses - yes, railways are very nice. But if they cost 2 gazillion per mile and take 20 years to build, you could have a lot of buses bought and worn out through heavy use by then.
Screaming at the sky, demanding solutions that can never be implemented is just stupid.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
It also misses the point of how a functional market should work. Taking location out of the equation, brand new housing should be considered a luxury and command a premium over old housing stock that's in need of some care and attention.
The market’s not really there, though.
Due to the way the planning system works, the market tends towards oligopoly and cheaply designed/manufactured housing at scale.
Agreed, but it could work that way. Anyone who wants to reform the system while keeping NIMBYs onside needs to do it in a way that doesn't privilege the existing large-scale builders.
but as a layman it seems like other nations underestimate the breadth and depth of american military capability as a result, which others simply cannot replicate.
The US Navy, not even the air force, has a single squadron (VF-122) which would be the seventh largest fast jet force in the world on its own.
The US are not shy about levelling places with MLRS, air strikes or whateverr - if they think it furthers the objective. eg Khosrow Sofia in Afghanistan.
Typo? Wikipedia says VF-122 is long defunct. There is no reason to doubt the general claim that Americans have the seventh largest air force, except these things end up as definition wars. Wasn't there a fuss a few years back when someone noticed the RAF had shrunk past the Luftwaffe but Germany has no fleet air arm, or something?
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
The 'right' answer is to give people the autonomy to do what they wish with the property i.e. land and let anybody build, the developers will only build where people what to by at a prices above what it costs to build, so not every inch of land will be built on.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
"She instinctively believes that the state has a greater propensity to do harm than to do good."
Batshit if true. but the point of the article is really look at me, I knew Liz Truss at Oxford.
'The state; does have a propensity to do more harm than good,
How well Liz dismantles the state, and how competently she manages the proses is still to be determined.
don't be silly, what other than the state prevents your stronger-than-you neighbour from cooking and eating your children just because he feels like it?
For me, its my team of ex-seals. Keeps the hungry from the gates.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
We did in the past. Indeed New Towns with their dream of better quality housing and nearby work were very much part of political housing policy for several decades post war.
Not all of it worked out well, but there is no reason that we couldn't learn the lessons and do the same again.
Gregory's Girl is set in just such a late Seventies New Town. Sadly degraded now I believe, but that is due a lack of continued interest in the towns, but rather laissez-faire development instead.
Russia will eventually have to abandon Kerson (west of Dnieper) and that is when a peace deal could be negotiated.
Russia will want to hold everything it still holds at that point (but will drop its stupider requests such as receiving payment from Ukraine for Russia's war losses).
Ukraine will want Russia to return to its pre-2014 borders.
Compromise could be in Russia holding Crimea and its current land in Donbass - but returning other lands in Southern Ukraine and around Kharkiv. Crimea to be demilitarised (except for Sevastopol port) - With UN/Turkish peace-keeping troops brought in to police the border. Ukraine would need to guarantee water & electricity supply - and also demilitarise say 10km from Zaporizia nuclear plant - again use UN/Turkish troops to police.
Russian sanctions to be dropped in return for reparation payments to Ukraine - say at a 10% levy on gas exports for 10 years
Interesting. My guess is that Ukraine would prioritise land over reparations (I suppose they would say that whilst fighting a war) and would be loath to concede any territory without referenda.
And it isn't clear to me why the Ukrainians would want to do a deal just when they had got some momentum.
Labour should be a bit worried, the returning Johnson will be far more popular at next elections ballot box than Truss for sure - he won’t have made any wrong or painful decisions for a long while for one thing, and it will feel like a massive charisma, communication and gravitas increase for a second thing for sure.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
It's why Truss would be wise to let the Privileges Committee do its worst, so that she can dump Boris without too many of her fingerprints being on the axe. It's an interesting test of her Killer Instinct coming up.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
But history of world politics is littered with politicians losing power, but then coming back to popular acclaim after a period away? The period away seems to cleanse them of past sins and mistakes. They are now the seasoned and experienced option. Like return of a living legend. In Boris for example, he is a bit of a legend already, with his electoral success yet to taste defeat.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
So Prime Minister Tony Blair soon?
Maybe not Blair - but it is there for those with a much shorter first term as PM and unfinished business in their mind.
One thing that I sort-of like about the US is that they keep building modern homes in “traditional” style.
I’m not necessarily an architectural conservative, and there are ancillary issues around ugly mcmansions, but as a result new developments are not necessarily god-awful. At least, in the North East.
American has its own nightmarish problems with nimbyism of course. It’s worse in several US cities than it is in London.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
Except building new towns (or extensive refurbishment of old ones: I know someone up north whose home is next to three with boarded-up windows) might be more efficient in regenerating left-behind red wall and coastal regions. It immediately brings jobs and economic activity, followed by even more as people and firms move in.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
The 'right' answer is to give people the autonomy to do what they wish with the property i.e. land and let anybody build, the developers will only build where people what to by at a prices above what it costs to build, so not every inch of land will be built on.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
Part of the planning religion is density. Hence, in Marden in Kent, they built a bunch of houses where the gardens are so small that fence fires from BBQs are common. Think London style patio gardens - not even a square....
Russia will eventually have to abandon Kerson (west of Dnieper) and that is when a peace deal could be negotiated.
Russia will want to hold everything it still holds at that point (but will drop its stupider requests such as receiving payment from Ukraine for Russia's war losses).
Ukraine will want Russia to return to its pre-2014 borders.
Compromise could be in Russia holding Crimea and its current land in Donbass - but returning other lands in Southern Ukraine and around Kharkiv. Crimea to be demilitarised (except for Sevastopol port) - With UN/Turkish peace-keeping troops brought in to police the border. Ukraine would need to guarantee water & electricity supply - and also demilitarise say 10km from Zaporizia nuclear plant - again use UN/Turkish troops to police.
Russian sanctions to be dropped in return for reparation payments to Ukraine - say at a 10% levy on gas exports for 10 years
Interesting. My guess is that Ukraine would prioritise land over reparations (I suppose they would say that whilst fighting a war) and would be loath to concede any territory without referenda.
And it isn't clear to me why the Ukrainians would want to do a deal just when they had got some momentum.
Referenda would be very contentious, not just in administrating them, but also deciding who can vote. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees from the occupied areas, many more "filtered" and deported to Russia.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
The 'right' answer is to give people the autonomy to do what they wish with the property i.e. land and let anybody build, the developers will only build where people what to by at a prices above what it costs to build, so not every inch of land will be built on.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
Part of the planning religion is density. Hence, in Marden in Kent, they built a bunch of houses where the gardens are so small that fence fires from BBQs are common. Think London style patio gardens - not even a square....
Strangely, the locals hate them.
That sounds like rabbit-hutch sprawl rather than proper density.
“Goods exports from the UK to the EU reached £16.9bn in May, the highest level since figures started in 1997.”
This is a point that I have been making for a while. The anecdotal evidence of problems in exports are not being matched by the figures which have been on a strong upward trend since late last year as the EU economy recovered from Covid. It may be that there is a differential effect in that larger producers are having no problems but smaller businesses are finding the new paperwork a bit much but the overall effect of not being in the SM is certainly not matching the models.
I think gas/oil are large enough at present to mask the trends in noise.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
We did in the past. Indeed New Towns with their dream of better quality housing and nearby work were very much part of political housing policy for several decades post war.
Not all of it worked out well, but there is no reason that we couldn't learn the lessons and do the same again.
Gregory's Girl is set in just such a late Seventies New Town. Sadly degraded now I believe, but that is due a lack of continued interest in the towns, but rather laissez-faire development instead.
Part of the problem with that was the attempts at social engineering. To which people are remarkably resistant.
I am trying to remember the name of the architect who wanted to build ribbon tower blocks, with motorways on the roof. He lived in a Tudor mansion, playing games with water and mirrors in the ornamental garden. Using his pull with the planning people to prevent any development within 10 miles of him....
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
It also misses the point of how a functional market should work. Taking location out of the equation, brand new housing should be considered a luxury and command a premium over old housing stock that's in need of some care and attention.
The market’s not really there, though.
Due to the way the planning system works, the market tends towards oligopoly and cheaply designed/manufactured housing at scale.
Agreed, but it could work that way. Anyone who wants to reform the system while keeping NIMBYs onside needs to do it in a way that doesn't privilege the existing large-scale builders.
If you are designing a system, where your biggest priority is that 'large scale builders' cant benefit. then I would suggest your priorates are in the wrong place and the system will not work as effetely as it might in solving the problem its there to solve.
Also, 'large scale builders' like large companies in any market love lots of regulation, yes it costs them something, but prepotently the regulations tie up small company more and therefore keeps the competition.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
The 'right' answer is to give people the autonomy to do what they wish with the property i.e. land and let anybody build, the developers will only build where people what to by at a prices above what it costs to build, so not every inch of land will be built on.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
Part of the planning religion is density. Hence, in Marden in Kent, they built a bunch of houses where the gardens are so small that fence fires from BBQs are common. Think London style patio gardens - not even a square....
Strangely, the locals hate them.
That sounds like rabbit-hutch sprawl rather than proper density.
The problem isn’t that income taxes are too high, although they are, in relation to wealth taxes at least.
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
it should be much easer and quick to get planning permeation to build or convert, leading to a big increase in supply of housing which would solve the problem. for a pletera of political reasons that's unlikely to happen.
One interesting bit I came across recently - I was talking to some planning people on a forum, and they decried the idea of building a few houses here and there as "inefficient".
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
The 'right' answer is to give people the autonomy to do what they wish with the property i.e. land and let anybody build, the developers will only build where people what to by at a prices above what it costs to build, so not every inch of land will be built on.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
Part of the planning religion is density. Hence, in Marden in Kent, they built a bunch of houses where the gardens are so small that fence fires from BBQs are common. Think London style patio gardens - not even a square....
Strangely, the locals hate them.
That sounds like rabbit-hutch sprawl rather than proper density.
British people live in tiny, tiny houses.
Lettuce hope it doesn't catch on.
It’s an obsession of mine. British houses have got smaller and smaller. American houses have got bigger and bigger.
Yes, I know there’s rather a lot of land in America, but it seems to hold even in places like Connecticut and New Jersey which are populated at English densities.
To me this represents a profound divergence in living standards between the two countries.
Summary: they are almost all fucked beyond repair and the CO intends to turn his troops into the best cycling team in the MoD because there's nothing else for them to do.
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. One of the later chapters.
There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today, 1916-2022
Hope the tanks work. It’s the BritNats’ final gambit.
Comments
Yours, M. Thatcher, feeling dizzy from spinning.
Grave.
Yet the ones with just Starmer v Truss have quite a range too?
For background… Looking at the latest figures I could find: “population growth marks an increase of 0.5%, or an additional 361,000 people, between mid-2018 and mid-2019. Growth in the year mid-2018 to mid-2019 was slower than in any year since mid-2004.” https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/january2021 Roughly half of that appears to be from immigration and half from more children being born than people dying.
The BBC reported that, “The total number of migrants crossing the Channel [in small boats] in 2022 is likely to reach 60,000, according to Border Force union officials.” This is markedly up on previous years. It was just 8404 in 2020, and far lower again in 2019.
Put that Spectator article by Sean Someone-or-Other down and read a good book.
I think you could be forgiven for assuming that the capability, troops and equipment we retained on paper could actually do what they were supposed to. Otherwise why not save more money by disbanding the Royal Artillery?
Now you're complaining that you'll be able to keep more of the money you worked for as you don't need it?
You objected to this tax rise when it went up, now you're objecting when it's reversed? Just what do you want? Other than for the Tories to lose the election.
At the margins it impacts responses
If you have a minority view then you are going to have pushback from the majority.
Democracy doesn’t mean creating “a safe space” for every idea so that people don’t get their feelings hurt by opposition.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/03/suspect-old-friend-liz-truss-will-radical-british-prime-minister/
A military expected to fulfil a role that it has not been honed/trained to do will struggle. The really embarrassments occur when a military proclaims itself to be brilliant at a task and utterly mucks it up.
This is one reason why Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so poor from the outside - this was the sort of mission they'd been saying they'd be brilliant at. And they've been poor.
Batshit if true. but the point of the article is really look at me, I knew Liz Truss at Oxford.
In the U.K. our special thing is “unique requirements” which mean that we require something that no else uses. Which means incompatibility and dire support issues long term.
How does the psychology work here - the football player injured and not in the losing first team starts to look like the saviour? A civil war to depose a King and a few years later the Monarchy comes back to popular acclaim?
The year without Johnson sort of turns a page, the excitement of his return eclipses the reasons for his disappearance, he is judged on his second coming, not his first.
The psychology of this could be very much against Labour getting the switchers from Tory they need, with Boris coming back after his period out of number 10.
I'm not sure I can see BoJo returning. Too much of what was said two months ago can't be unsaid. And if Truss does badly enough to be deposed, the Conservative situation will be so bad that not even Boris can fix it. But even if it's an unattainable fantasy, it's going to send the Conservatives mad until it's properly resolved.
One way or another.
Already got a shortlist of PBers who will fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
Edit: Cyclefree got there first ...
Once the Russians concentrated on the things they are good at (stealing, dying in large numbers and broad scale annihilation through artillery grid kills) they performed more to less to expectations. Given that they are fighting both Ukraine and the US DoD logisitics system.
'Nobody can suffer like we can.', as Shoigu recently said on Russian TV. But Truss is about the test the hypothesis.
Usual caveats apply, etc.
edit: on the other hand, there have been videos of kit from both sides having been captured. The Ukranian kit captured by the Russians are often easiest to verify, as the Russians shouldn't have western kit....
It's just student politics sloganeering writ large.
I’m not making this up am I, it does often happen just like this?
The problem is housing.
Even stratospheric incomes don’t get you very far in London, and therefore middle class ambition is vanishingly hard to achieve unless you were lucky enough to inherit.
If you are over 50, you are probably oblivious to this problem, too.
Doesn't mean that lots of people ant feeling disgruntled, and it may well spread, but worth baring in mind.
Europe is going to lose 2 or 3% of GDP - ongoing - until this situation is resolved. Yet nobody seems to have seen that coming.
How well Liz dismantles the state, and how competently she manages the proses is still to be determined.
I now routinely skip his posts, which I never used to do.
The most useful thing she can do for the nation is to stop house prices being driven by scarcity. We all know it. It will probably be electoral suicide, even if she stuffs the mouths of the losers with money.
She's not going to do it, even in a second term, is she?
It's also possible to on believe that the state should do the (limited) things it can do well, while not doing the (much more numerous) things it would cause harm with.
I'd like to see former leaders have more to contribute, especially for roles they might be better suited for (Special representative to Ukraine perhaps?), but to the top job? A new generation has taken over, moving backwards won't be seen as the answer.
The US are not shy about levelling places with MLRS, air strikes or whateverr - if they think it furthers the objective. eg Khosrow Sofia in Afghanistan.
She's as big state as any of her party, like all those 'libertarians' who love to tell others what to do and have the state micromanage things, when they approve of it.
https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2019-10-23/eddie-dempsey-and-misogynistic-warlord
(Runs for cover...)
I think the suggestion that Liz Truss is an ideological flip-flopper is misplaced. She’s pretty consistently libertarian to my eye, and I don’t think she resiles necessarily from unpopular stuff.
Libertarians wouldn’t put up with Britain’s prohibitive and oligopolistic planning system, and there was a manifesto pledge to do something about it.
It is to their advantage that they run at about 10C. But the gas heating is largely staying off this winter.
Most politicians, around the world, do things like count soldiers, not trucks.
Using that phrase because she didn’t exactly win the Tory MP vote…
There's a chunk of thinking in Conservative education circles- Katherine Birbalsingh, Fr Calvin Robinson- who are circling the same plughole. It's a shame, because they used to be interesting.
I don't recognise that premise.
We desperately need more housing.
The problem is that the “market” is also quite fucked after years of dysfunction, and a truly free market in housing would destroy the British countryside.
I believe there are ways to square the circle and I’m not ruling out Liz doing something here.
That’s very sad.
There is clearly an attention-economy, unleashed by social media, that drives extremism and polarity in political discourse.
I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but it is also clear that social media has created real harms.
It seems to me that this missies the point of what is politically possible. If you are going to get monumental opposition to build an estate, adding a street to a village (say) is probably far more achievable.
Simply demanding that politicians green light the building of whole towns is not going to work.
In my opinion one of the great achievements of Britain’s 20th century was the preservation of countryside even in the deeply-populated South East.
Sadly, it went hand-in-hand with disastrous urban planning.
As opposed to things like 5 more houses in each hamlet in the Cotswolds, built in the local vernacular.
Socialist planners of the 1940s and 50s assumed they were more efficient.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff
Due to the way the planning system works, the market tends towards oligopoly and cheaply designed/manufactured housing at scale.
Russia will eventually have to abandon Kerson (west of Dnieper) and that is when a peace deal could be negotiated.
Russia will want to hold everything it still holds at that point (but will drop its stupider requests such as receiving payment from Ukraine for Russia's war losses).
Ukraine will want Russia to return to its pre-2014 borders.
Compromise could be in Russia holding Crimea and its current land in Donbass - but returning other lands in Southern Ukraine and around Kharkiv. Crimea to be demilitarised (except for Sevastopol port) - With UN/Turkish peace-keeping troops brought in to police the border. Ukraine would need to guarantee water & electricity supply - and also demilitarise say 10km from Zaporizia nuclear plant - again use UN/Turkish troops to police.
Russian sanctions to be dropped in return for reparation payments to Ukraine - say at a 10% levy on gas exports for 10 years
In the Really Real World....
It's a bit like Railways vs Buses - yes, railways are very nice. But if they cost 2 gazillion per mile and take 20 years to build, you could have a lot of buses bought and worn out through heavy use by then.
Screaming at the sky, demanding solutions that can never be implemented is just stupid.
However, I fully take your point that, this level of freedom is inconceivable in modern Brittan, so any thing that gets some homes built is a small step in the right direction, a house here, a street there, a dinly estate where we can....
One of the sad parts of this approach though, is it means that scraps of land that might otherwise have made a small park, get used. where as just building a new big estate on a farm would often be cheaper per-house, and would incentivise builders to leave parks, playgrounds and other amenities, that will increase the atractiness and therefore value of all the houses in the estate they have just built.
Not all of it worked out well, but there is no reason that we couldn't learn the lessons and do the same again.
Gregory's Girl is set in just such a late Seventies New Town. Sadly degraded now I believe, but that is due a lack of continued interest in the towns, but rather laissez-faire development instead.
And it isn't clear to me why the Ukrainians would want to do a deal just when they had got some momentum.
I’m not necessarily an architectural conservative, and there are ancillary issues around ugly mcmansions, but as a result new developments are not necessarily god-awful. At least, in the North East.
American has its own nightmarish problems with nimbyism of course. It’s worse in several US cities than it is in London.
Strangely, the locals hate them.
British people live in tiny, tiny houses.
A brief look at the spreadsheets gives oil/gas exports up by approx £35bn 2022 over 2021, and oil/gas imports up by up by more than double that. That's assuming current trends continue.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-trade-in-numbers/uk-trade-in-numbers-web-version
I am trying to remember the name of the architect who wanted to build ribbon tower blocks, with motorways on the roof. He lived in a Tudor mansion, playing games with water and mirrors in the ornamental garden. Using his pull with the planning people to prevent any development within 10 miles of him....
Also, 'large scale builders' like large companies in any market love lots of regulation, yes it costs them something, but prepotently the regulations tie up small company more and therefore keeps the competition.
British houses have got smaller and smaller.
American houses have got bigger and bigger.
Yes, I know there’s rather a lot of land in America, but it seems to hold even in places like Connecticut and New Jersey which are populated at English densities.
To me this represents a profound divergence in living standards between the two countries.