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.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
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.
Land cost and planning pressure. In the case of the development in Marden, the developers were told that they would only get permission if they reduced the area built on, while keeping the number of houses built the same.
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.
Sadly, it is hobbit forming.
Doe!
That was an awful joke, and not relevant.
It bucked the trend of your puns normally being quite good.
Not sure that headline comes across quite the way the Express intended. Great that Unionist cowards & hypocrites (which is not all Unionists I hasten to add, but over represented here) have a policy to make their hearts beat faster tho'.
"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.
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.
Sadly, it is hobbit forming.
Doe!
That was an awful joke, and not relevant.
It bucked the trend of your puns normally being quite good.
Ha! Mill House telling Arkle his steeplechasing is normally quite good
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.
Land cost and planning pressure. In the case of the development in Marden, the developers were told that they would only get permission if they reduced the area built on, while keeping the number of houses built the same.
Strangely.....
I don’t know Marden.
But - looking at a map - it’s New York equivalent would have a stagnant property market and you’d almost need to pay people to move there.
I haven’t quite worked out why this is the case yet.
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.
Sadly, it is hobbit forming.
Doe!
That was an awful joke, and not relevant.
It bucked the trend of your puns normally being quite good.
Ha! Mill House telling Arkle his steeplechasing is normally quite good
“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 trade balance was arguably on a sustained upward trend from 2016 until the Ukraine crisis. The big peak is probably brexit stockpiling, but the trend is there:
"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.
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
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?
Yeah, should have been VFA-122. It's now the combined Legacy Hornet/Super Hornet training squadron and sometimes gets up to 80+ a/c.
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
I stopped taking Douglas Murray seriously once I notced his twitter profile pic which he seems to have put through a male cosmetics filter.
Ok, it's a fair cop, I never really took Dougie seriously.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
Probably. And some of it was just boredom that the big picture question of politics was broadly solved. Which (if it were true) put loudmouth pundits out of work, in the same way that we don't ask columists how to treat disease.
The Maairowneronegg approach to running a country wasn't perfect. It ignored some reasonable complaints from people who were left behind, made some big mistakes, could be cosy and smug.
But it was better for the country as a whole than what's come since.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
The 1946 Act was an explicit reaction to the arterial sprawl of the 1930s.
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
I stopped taking Douglas Murray seriously once I notced his twitter profile pic which he seems to have put through a male cosmetics filter.
Ok, it's a fair cop, I never really took Dougie seriously.
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
Probably. And some of it was just boredom that the big picture question of politics was broadly solved. Which (if it were true) put loudmouth pundits out of work, in the same way that we don't ask columists how to treat disease.
The Maairowneronegg approach to running a country wasn't perfect. It ignored some reasonable complaints from people who were left behind, made some big mistakes, could be cosy and smug.
But it was better for the country as a whole than what's come since.
I agree. I'm not Centrist Dad - since I really would abolish private schools and I really would nationalize a few things and I really would do an eye popping Wealth Tax - but I'd have that triangulating 1992 to 2016 politics back in a heartbeat.
Hate populism. Mainly of the right wing kind, because that's always accompanied by softhead bigotry and xenophobia, but also not keen on some of its equivalent from the left - you know, "the 1%" and all of that.
Isn't technology wonderful? "OptiFi, a decentralized options exchange using the Solana blockchain" destroyed $600,000 when a techie used the wrong command. Customers will be refunded by the buzzword-heavy firm.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
Sorry I couldn't resist it. As a retired teacher the errors jump out of the page....
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
Big Rich is one of the better commentators on here, despite or regardless of his avowed dyslexia.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
The 1946 Act was an explicit reaction to the arterial sprawl of the 1930s.
Writing from one of those 1930s speculative estates on the fringe of London...
There's a lot to be said for this sort of development. Inoffensive, dense enough to give a viable community and support a rail station, spacious accommodation, liveable. Could probably do with being three stories not two, and somewhat narrower roads, but sensibly frugal with land.
Two things stop us building like this. One is that the amount of spare land inside the green belt has tended to zero. Cambridge is the worst example of this; it burst its belt years ago, and you have weird places like Bar Hill, Cambourne and the modern bits of St Ives and Ely. Families who really ought to be attached to Cambridge, but can't be.
The other is cars. A lot of 1930s suburbia got away with this by turning front gardens into hardstanding for cars. But in general, the infrastructure for cars ends up taking up a lot of land.
My family home in London is a mid-Victorian three story semi in Hackney. It is not listed, although it is in a conservation area.
According to Google Maps’ ruler function it is only a mile from the City of London, probably the densest pool of jobs in Europe.
Yet to densify - even in a style respectful of the Victorian vernacular - would be near impossible, I reckon.
Serious question - how many similar places in the road have been converted to flats?
Three storey could usually be 3 x 1/2 bed flats or 1 flat plus a duplex flat over. Which is two or three couples/young or older families. Or a mansard storey.
One other issue is that we have a *lot* of under-occupation of large houses. I was looking up the numbers earlier for elsewhere, and in England there are 9 million households with 2 or more spare bedrooms - a crude stat but it suggests an increased emphasis on rent-a-room and encouraging eg older singles to share houses.
Or one could follow the model of much of postwar London, and rebuild the area from scratch. The Borough of Camden formed in 1965, for example, did a lot of very innovative public housing on large sites.
Not sure that headline comes across quite the way the Express intended. Great that Unionist cowards & hypocrites (which is not all Unionists I hasten to add, but over represented here) have a policy to make their hearts beat faster tho'.
Hmm, is that pic of Ms Truss not carefully selected for the Mrs T vibes?
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.
Sadly, it is hobbit forming.
Doe!
That was an awful joke, and not relevant.
It bucked the trend of your puns normally being quite good.
Ha! Mill House telling Arkle his steeplechasing is normally quite good
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
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.
In London we have to because it's £1500 per square foot!
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
If you read it, reading the words phonetically, it makes perfect sense.
At this point I think the housing crisis is politically unsolvable - the only way is can be solved is by increasing supply through massive construction, especially in the south east, but that's politically impossible given that all the major parties want the votes of asset-rich suburban dotards who oppose any kind of development.
The obvious solution is extreme localisation; instead of gluing development onto the outskirts of existing settlements, build a million+ new homes with accompanying infrastructre in a new planned city somewhere, maybe Cornwall or north Wales, and incentivise people to move there (perhaps by offering student loan forgiveness after a certain length of residency, or centralising some government departments there so civil servants are forced to relocate). This would be a lot less efficient and more expensive than simply building homes where people already want to live, but again impossible without irritating the dotards - at least this way the electoral damage is extremely localised.
Thatcher's model of a property-owning capitalist democracy is basically dead at this point now that an entire generation has been locked out of accumulating capital, purchasing property, or having the ability to influence decision making through democratic means, so the next government could take a very radical approach to home ownership. Build hundreds of thousands of new state-owned one- and two-bedroom flats, specifically aimed at younger people in the 20s and 30s, with a new basic marginal tax rate of, say, 15%. Assuming it costs the state £150,000 to build this very basic flat (probably an overestimation) and the occupant pays 15% of a salary of £30,000 per year, that's a monthly rent of £375 for the occupant (a huge saving for young people living in the south east especially, enough that they can spend more in the wider economy/save for a deposit), and assuming constant occupancy the state recoups its initial investment in just 34 years. After that, other than maintenance, it's a pure money-making operation for the state.
Less seriously, the government could also look at trying to negotiate free movement with wealthier countries like Canada and Australia with the specific goal of sparking a brain drain. Of course, the Canadian and Australian housing markets are even worse than ours, but you could probably convince at least a few hundred thousand young people to try their chances elsewhere. That's a few hundred thousand less homes we need to build.
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 often feel a disconnect between planet punditry and planet earth. When I sink into the punditry – if it’s well written and punchy – I can for long periods get carried along, I either nod along if it’s my kind of politics, or get a bit trembly if it’s not, but then, before too long and all of a sudden, I take a pull and it hits me that, hang on, this doesn’t really accord with actual life as actual people live it in this actual world … it is, not to beat around the bush, utter bollocks.
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
I stopped taking Douglas Murray seriously once I notced his twitter profile pic which he seems to have put through a male cosmetics filter.
Ok, it's a fair cop, I never really took Dougie seriously.
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
Especially as the Republicans are very likely to take control of the House of Representatives through legitimate, democratic means in a few weeks time.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
If you read it, reading the words phonetically, it makes perfect sense.
Yes, if you know the context etc. At school we had to correct issues like this, even though I was a science teacher.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
I sometimes get entire words wrong, not because of any issues, but because I type on the phone and am too lazy to check fat fingers getting things wrong before the edit timer runs out, so it wouldn't help everyone.
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
Especially as the Republicans are very likely to take control of the House of Representatives through legitimate, democratic means in a few weeks time.
Incredible how this outrage about language hasn't applied in the other direction.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
I sometimes get entire words wrong, not because of any issues, but because I type on the phone and am too lazy to check fat fingers getting things wrong before the edit timer runs out, so it wouldn't help everyone.
Not sure that headline comes across quite the way the Express intended. Great that Unionist cowards & hypocrites (which is not all Unionists I hasten to add, but over represented here) have a policy to make their hearts beat faster tho'.
I haven't actually done the sums - and I might be being misled by the prolificity of one particular construct - but my sense is that the Unionists on PB who are most opposed to a SindyRef2 are of a Leaver persuasion. Which if true is quite interesting.
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.
I'm not suggesting that should be a priority for its own sake, but to foster a broader marker with genuine competition in quality and to encourage more vernacular architecture to develop.
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
The golden age of house building in the UK was the 1930s. many butifull houses and estates date form this time, there were no regulation to speak off. however there was a global depression, with the UK being much less badly affected than the US, Canada or most of Europe, part of the reason was that when unemployment truck the UK, a lot of it was taken up by people who wanted to build houses, lots of house. As lots of houses where being built, the developers were competing against each other and therefor there was a lot of incentive to make the houses as attractive as possible, hence the development of things like bay winddowns. (which had existed before where where not widely used in most people houses.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
Spelling, punctuation and grammar were better in the 30s as well.
They've mentioned previously that they have problems with this (spelling), it isn't intentional or laziness.
Apologies to him if he has issues, I didn't know. I wonder if the MODs could incorporate a spellchecker like Word? It would at least highlight the word. It used to help the children I taught if they prepared the sentences in Word etc.
If you read it, reading the words phonetically, it makes perfect sense.
Yes, if you know the context etc. At school we had to correct issues like this, even though I was a science teacher.
At one stage in my career I had to read letters from fellow pharmacists in a number of circumstances, including when there were complaints against them. Quite often the English used in such correspondence was appalling. Sadly we were not allowed to reject such applications out of hand! I put it down to science teachers not correcting poor English. And I'm very glad to read that you did correct such issues!
At this point I think the housing crisis is politically unsolvable - the only way is can be solved is by increasing supply through massive construction, especially in the south east, but that's politically impossible given that all the major parties want the votes of asset-rich suburban dotards who oppose any kind of development.
The obvious solution is extreme localisation; instead of gluing development onto the outskirts of existing settlements, build a million+ new homes with accompanying infrastructre in a new planned city somewhere, maybe Cornwall or north Wales, and incentivise people to move there (perhaps by offering student loan forgiveness after a certain length of residency, or centralising some government departments there so civil servants are forced to relocate). This would be a lot less efficient and more expensive than simply building homes where people already want to live, but again impossible without irritating the dotards - at least this way the electoral damage is extremely localised.
Thatcher's model of a property-owning capitalist democracy is basically dead at this point now that an entire generation has been locked out of accumulating capital, purchasing property, or having the ability to influence decision making through democratic means, so the next government could take a very radical approach to home ownership. Build hundreds of thousands of new state-owned one- and two-bedroom flats, specifically aimed at younger people in the 20s and 30s, with a new basic marginal tax rate of, say, 15%. Assuming it costs the state £150,000 to build this very basic flat (probably an overestimation) and the occupant pays 15% of a salary of £30,000 per year, that's a monthly rent of £375 for the occupant (a huge saving for young people living in the south east especially, enough that they can spend more in the wider economy/save for a deposit), and assuming constant occupancy the state recoups its initial investment in just 34 years. After that, other than maintenance, it's a pure money-making operation for the state.
Less seriously, the government could also look at trying to negotiate free movement with wealthier countries like Canada and Australia with the specific goal of sparking a brain drain. Of course, the Canadian and Australian housing markets are even worse than ours, but you could probably convince at least a few hundred thousand young people to try their chances elsewhere. That's a few hundred thousand less homes we need to build.
Significantly lower personal and corporate tax rates in areas of surplus cheap housing might do quite a lot. Perhaps balanced by higher taxes in overpopulated regions.
Not sure that headline comes across quite the way the Express intended. Great that Unionist cowards & hypocrites (which is not all Unionists I hasten to add, but over represented here) have a policy to make their hearts beat faster tho'.
Hmm, is that pic of Ms Truss not carefully selected for the Mrs T vibes?
Looks like another of Leon's AI horror thingies has slipped through the net.
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.
Do the people who buy them hate them? They would seem to be the key group here. It's usually for the Council to tell them what the density and mix, and aiui a general requirement that 10% of the area on a decent sized estate be devoted to open space. Or something similar be provided.
There are plenty of people who only want a patio or courtyard garden.
For an example, myself and another family member have just sold a smallish bungalow (~700 sqft) converted from my dad's architectural office a decade ago on a very small site to a man with a disability, who just wants somewhere which is easy to live in and easy to look after.
At this point I think the housing crisis is politically unsolvable - the only way is can be solved is by increasing supply through massive construction, especially in the south east, but that's politically impossible given that all the major parties want the votes of asset-rich suburban dotards who oppose any kind of development.
The obvious solution is extreme localisation; instead of gluing development onto the outskirts of existing settlements, build a million+ new homes with accompanying infrastructre in a new planned city somewhere, maybe Cornwall or north Wales, and incentivise people to move there (perhaps by offering student loan forgiveness after a certain length of residency, or centralising some government departments there so civil servants are forced to relocate). This would be a lot less efficient and more expensive than simply building homes where people already want to live, but again impossible without irritating the dotards - at least this way the electoral damage is extremely localised.
Thatcher's model of a property-owning capitalist democracy is basically dead at this point now that an entire generation has been locked out of accumulating capital, purchasing property, or having the ability to influence decision making through democratic means, so the next government could take a very radical approach to home ownership. Build hundreds of thousands of new state-owned one- and two-bedroom flats, specifically aimed at younger people in the 20s and 30s, with a new basic marginal tax rate of, say, 15%. Assuming it costs the state £150,000 to build this very basic flat (probably an overestimation) and the occupant pays 15% of a salary of £30,000 per year, that's a monthly rent of £375 for the occupant (a huge saving for young people living in the south east especially, enough that they can spend more in the wider economy/save for a deposit), and assuming constant occupancy the state recoups its initial investment in just 34 years. After that, other than maintenance, it's a pure money-making operation for the state.
Less seriously, the government could also look at trying to negotiate free movement with wealthier countries like Canada and Australia with the specific goal of sparking a brain drain. Of course, the Canadian and Australian housing markets are even worse than ours, but you could probably convince at least a few hundred thousand young people to try their chances elsewhere. That's a few hundred thousand less homes we need to build.
Significantly lower personal and corporate tax rates in areas of surplus cheap housing might do quite a lot. Perhaps valves by higher taxes in overpopulated regions.
Cutting taxes in certain areas to increase demand, without also increasing supply, will just make the problem worse nationally and much worse in the areas where people want to/have to live. Cheaper housing and lower taxes in Merthyr Tydfil doesn't mean much when you're a nurse working at Mile End Hospital.
I am pleased to report that Lisbon airport now has an extremely efficient e-passport and stamping operation - for UK, USA, Canada etc. Several planeloads of people processed in 5 minutes
Brexit problem? - SORTED
All these problems will be sorted and the Remoaners will be left Remoaning about nothing
Don't worry - there'll be some proper sport next Sunday with the second day of the Irish Champions Weekend at The Curragh.
Musing on the impending accession of Liz Truss to be this country's new Prime Minister, it seems as though she is in the mindset of 1979 or perhaps 1970 - there's more than a hint of "Government is wrong, people are lazy and we need to snap out of this and become something else". Now, absent the proceeds of North Sea Oil and privatisation, I'm curious as to how this transformation is going to be paid for.
The second round of what we call "Thatcherism" had a price in terms of jobs and a brief but sharp recession at the very start of the 1980s. The first round collapsed in the face of Union discontent, inflation and rising oil prices (curious echoes of 50 years of more ago).
Indeed, I well remember doing my homework by candlelight when there were power cuts - now it seems the candles may be out again as a cheap alternative to electricity.
Be that as it may - both Heath and Thatcher could argue they came in after periods of Labour Government - Truss has been elected after 12 years of Tory "misrule" (so it would seem). The fact remains some in her Cabinet served happily under Johnson and others served happily under May so why this new attempt at backwards-looking radicalism?
I suppose it's the echoes of December 2019 which were thwarted by the pandemic - the Government Johnson would have led had the virus not intervened. Maybe, but the changes to workers' rights will inevitably come over not as a method of flexibility but as mean-spirited and of course if Truss has reportedly criticised British workers that will accentuate the sense not of liberation but of punishment.
There is plenty of flexibility currently - there are labour shortages in many sectors and that will drive up inflation - perhaps Rees-Mogg will seek to abolish salaries and re-introduce indentured servitude.
It seems this new Government is full of yesterday's solutions to today's problems never mind the issues of tomorrow or the day after.
I notice that there were 6 hour queues at Calais yesterday. Those annoying French Border agents again....oops sorry, British.
Yes, delays because of all those who went to France for six weeks for the school hols coming before school starts again. As happened every year for a very long time.
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
Especially as the Republicans are very likely to take control of the House of Representatives through legitimate, democratic means in a few weeks time.
Biden was very specific. He was talking about MAGA Republicans, not all Republicans.
Trump backed Biden's case up within hours at his own semi-fascist rally where he praised Xi as a "strongman" who rules with iron and "is President for life".
Speakers included this whacko:
Bill Kristol Retweeted Marshall Cohen @MarshallCohen · 16h Cynthia Hughes, who runs a support group for J6ers, spoke at tonight's Trump rally. She told the story of her nephew Tim Cusanelli, a convicted Capitol rioter — and Nazi sympathizer, who said "Hitler should've finished the job." This is their poster child for J6 "injustice." /1 https://twitter.com/MarshallCohen/status/1566178439866056705
Driver of the day - any advance on George Russell? Very effective drive with minimal fuss apart from somewhat messing up Hamilton's race and then nearly running into him.
The latest Swedish polls from the two main "rolling" pollsters:
Novus has the centre-left parties on 50.3% and the centre-right on 49.0% Sifo has the centre-left on 48.6% and the centre-right on 49.6%
Germany votes in just over three years - the current Infratest poll has the Union on 27% (+3 on the 2021 Bundestag election), Greens on 22% (+7). SPD on 17% (-9), AfD on 13% (+3), FDP on 8% (-3) and Linke on 5% (nc).
The current coalition has 47% support - a "Jamaica" coalition of Union, Green and FDP would have 57%.
Re the US November elections, there is some very interesting polling coming out from Trafalgar (hear me out) in some of the states. For the NY Governorship, Trafalgar has it 48 v 43 for the Ds
The obvious reaction will be "It's Trafalgar". However, (1) these polls are not just 3 or 5 points difference from others, they are something like 15-20 points difference and (2) there have been a few other Trafalgar polls in other races (GA Senate / Governorship; PA Governorship / Senate) where the Trafalgar findings have been replicated in later polls.
Any insights into what is going on? Even if you think Trafalgar is sh1t, that magnitude of discrepancy is massive.
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
Especially as the Republicans are very likely to take control of the House of Representatives through legitimate, democratic means in a few weeks time.
Biden was very specific. He was talking about MAGA Republicans, not all Republicans.
Trump backed Biden's case up within hours at his own semi-fascist rally where he praised Xi as a "strongman" who rules with iron and "is President for life".
Speakers included this whacko:
Bill Kristol Retweeted Marshall Cohen @MarshallCohen · 16h Cynthia Hughes, who runs a support group for J6ers, spoke at tonight's Trump rally. She told the story of her nephew Tim Cusanelli, a convicted Capitol rioter — and Nazi sympathizer, who said "Hitler should've finished the job." This is their poster child for J6 "injustice." /1 https://twitter.com/MarshallCohen/status/1566178439866056705
The idea is to frame it as his "deplorables" moment. Won't work because (i) it factually isn't and (ii) the original HRC "deplorables" moment (as an election influencer) is more myth than reality imo.
I notice that there were 6 hour queues at Calais yesterday. Those annoying French Border agents again....oops sorry, British.
Yes, delays because of all those who went to France for six weeks for the school hols coming before school starts again. As happened every year for a very long time.
Given we'll not be allowed holidays in Trussite Britain, this won't be a problem next year presumably.
More seriously, it's no surprise - having a Bank Holiday just before the end of the school holidays encourages people to book the latter part of August as it saves a day off any annual leave entitlement yet as you say it's well known, happens every year and is more about making a political point than anything.
Not sure that headline comes across quite the way the Express intended. Great that Unionist cowards & hypocrites (which is not all Unionists I hasten to add, but over represented here) have a policy to make their hearts beat faster tho'.
Hmm, is that pic of Ms Truss not carefully selected for the Mrs T vibes?
Looks like another of Leon's AI horror thingies has slipped through the net.
Wouldn't dream of suggesting that, but I'd need to do a very careful check of nasal profile to be sure whom the photo is of.
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
Bit early to be drunk? Or has the squalling infant had a similar effect?
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
Isn't that just the bog standard pomp and circ for the POTUS? 2 squaddies is pretty small beer.
Mr Johnson liked to have about 20 as many police, servicemen etc. in the background for his speeches as I recall.
Re the US November elections, there is some very interesting polling coming out from Trafalgar (hear me out) in some of the states. For the NY Governorship, Trafalgar has it 48 v 43 for the Ds
The obvious reaction will be "It's Trafalgar". However, (1) these polls are not just 3 or 5 points difference from others, they are something like 15-20 points difference and (2) there have been a few other Trafalgar polls in other races (GA Senate / Governorship; PA Governorship / Senate) where the Trafalgar findings have been replicated in later polls.
Any insights into what is going on? Even if you think Trafalgar is sh1t, that magnitude of discrepancy is massive.
I don't believe Trafalgar conducts polls. There is no corporate entity. They don't have clients.
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
You have got to stop trawling the internet for crap. It has addled your brain.
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
It would possibly help us, if you were to tell us where you the image
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
It would possibly help us, if you were to tell us where you the image
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.
Do the people who buy them hate them? They would seem to be the key group here. It's usually for the Council to tell them what the density and mix, and aiui a general requirement that 10% of the area on a decent sized estate be devoted to open space. Or something similar be provided.
There are plenty of people who only want a patio or courtyard garden.
For an example, myself and another family member have just sold a smallish bungalow (~700 sqft) converted from my dad's architectural office a decade ago on a very small site to a man with a disability, who just wants somewhere which is easy to live in and easy to look after.
The people who live in them have started a bitter campaign to stop any more being built. On the grounds they are ugly and shit.
Biden’s team have absolutely used Fascist tropes in the staging of that speech. Which, given that it was a speech denouncing fascist republicans - and using the F word - is mind boggling and deeply strange
Re the US November elections, there is some very interesting polling coming out from Trafalgar (hear me out) in some of the states. For the NY Governorship, Trafalgar has it 48 v 43 for the Ds
The obvious reaction will be "It's Trafalgar". However, (1) these polls are not just 3 or 5 points difference from others, they are something like 15-20 points difference and (2) there have been a few other Trafalgar polls in other races (GA Senate / Governorship; PA Governorship / Senate) where the Trafalgar findings have been replicated in later polls.
Any insights into what is going on? Even if you think Trafalgar is sh1t, that magnitude of discrepancy is massive.
I don't believe Trafalgar conducts polls. There is no corporate entity. They don't have clients.
I think they are entirely made up.
Ok, let's run with that.
538 rates them at A-. Doesn't mean they are right, 538 could be completely wrong. However, they include Trafalgar in their polls so they clearly don't believe they are fake.
Let's take another example, the GA Senate race. The polls for July / August had Warnock between +3 to +10. Trafalgar then comes up with Walker +1. One or two days later, Emerson comes up with a +2 Walker lead. So is Trafalgar getting lucky with their guesses? Tapping into other polling companies' data?
As I said. scepticism is natural but claiming they falsify their data is something else.
My family home in London is a mid-Victorian three story semi in Hackney. It is not listed, although it is in a conservation area.
According to Google Maps’ ruler function it is only a mile from the City of London, probably the densest pool of jobs in Europe.
Yet to densify - even in a style respectful of the Victorian vernacular - would be near impossible, I reckon.
Serious question - how many similar places in the road have been converted to flats?
Three storey could usually be 3 x 1/2 bed flats or 1 flat plus a duplex flat over. Which is two or three couples/young or older families. Or a mansard storey.
One other issue is that we have a *lot* of under-occupation of large houses. I was looking up the numbers earlier for elsewhere, and in England there are 9 million households with 2 or more spare bedrooms - a crude stat but it suggests an increased emphasis on rent-a-room and encouraging eg older singles to share houses.
Or one could follow the model of much of postwar London, and rebuild the area from scratch. The Borough of Camden formed in 1965, for example, did a lot of very innovative public housing on large sites.
Of course most of them are flats. That enables new households, of course, but doesn’t provide them more “space”.
People suggest a new town is in order.
I agree, but it should be in London, which is not actually very dense.
My house is in Hackney, allegedly the second densest borough in Britain. Full of two storey houses from the Victorian era onwards, and generously endowed with back gardens and parkland.
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
Anyone depicting Biden as a fascist is totally bonkers. No fuhrer sits in a rocking chair distributing Werthers Originals.
Is this deliberate? Some kind of bizarre, trolling joke? If so that is criminally irresponsible when America is so volatile. Or is Biden trying to say “I’m the real fascist”. But why would he do that?
I suspect it is just an enormous error
Anyone depicting Biden as a fascist is totally bonkers. No fuhrer sits in a rocking chair distributing Werthers Originals.
Have I said Biden is a fascist?
No, because he obviously isn’t
What I am saying is that his team used quite blatant fascist imagery in the staging of that speech about “fascism” which is either some truly bizarre, misguided meta trolling, or a colossal error
Comments
The quickest way to create additional housing would be to ring every town with concrete tower blocks, but it would just prove the NIMBYs right. We need to focus on the quality and let quantity take care of itself.
Or one plane row (shouting match) that you pick with the parents?
Strangely.....
That was an awful joke, and not relevant.
It bucked the trend of your puns normally being quite good.
Edit - I love the mingled exasperation and resignation in Sainz' voice. And I'm not surprised Perez is pissed off.
According to Google Maps’ ruler function it is only a mile from the City of London, probably the densest pool of jobs in Europe.
Yet to densify - even in a style respectful of the Victorian vernacular - would be near impossible, I reckon.
It's immaculately on point.
But - looking at a map - it’s New York equivalent would have a stagnant property market and you’d almost need to pay people to move there.
I haven’t quite worked out why this is the case yet.
Shame there were no replacements!
I sometimes picture a big sweaty room with all of these ‘strong’ opinion mongers toiling away together, joshing around, throwing paper planes, keeping things light as they strain for that ‘take’ that will achieve digital lift-off. On the right of the room, Douglas Murray or somebody comes up with something like “Woke is killing the Enlightenment!” and those around him start hooping and hollering - it’s a hit! - so he summons the drivel-pipe and he shoots it out there. Over on the left there’s a collective curling of the lips and Owen Jones retaliates with “Neoliberalism gaslights its victims before eating them alive!”, it’s also a hit and he shoots this one out there as soon as he can grab the pipe off of Murray. And so on and so forth.
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto tells Sky Sports that Carlos Sainz pit stop was "a mess".
Ok, it's a fair cop, I never really took Dougie seriously.
the came the war, followed by the 1946 'Town and contrary planning act'
The Maairowneronegg approach to running a country wasn't perfect. It ignored some reasonable complaints from people who were left behind, made some big mistakes, could be cosy and smug.
But it was better for the country as a whole than what's come since.
Hate populism. Mainly of the right wing kind, because that's always accompanied by softhead bigotry and xenophobia, but also not keen on some of its equivalent from the left - you know, "the 1%" and all of that.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/02/defi_optifi_assets/
Isn't technology wonderful? "OptiFi, a decentralized options exchange using the Solana blockchain" destroyed $600,000 when a techie used the wrong command. Customers will be refunded by the buzzword-heavy firm.
Sorry I couldn't resist it. As a retired teacher the errors jump out of the page....
Prancing, not counting..
There's a lot to be said for this sort of development. Inoffensive, dense enough to give a viable community and support a rail station, spacious accommodation, liveable. Could probably do with being three stories not two, and somewhat narrower roads, but sensibly frugal with land.
Two things stop us building like this. One is that the amount of spare land inside the green belt has tended to zero. Cambridge is the worst example of this; it burst its belt years ago, and you have weird places like Bar Hill, Cambourne and the modern bits of St Ives and Ely. Families who really ought to be attached to Cambridge, but can't be.
The other is cars. A lot of 1930s suburbia got away with this by turning front gardens into hardstanding for cars. But in general, the infrastructure for cars ends up taking up a lot of land.
Three storey could usually be 3 x 1/2 bed flats or 1 flat plus a duplex flat over. Which is two or three couples/young or older families. Or a mansard storey.
One other issue is that we have a *lot* of under-occupation of large houses. I was looking up the numbers earlier for elsewhere, and in England there are 9 million households with 2 or more spare bedrooms - a crude stat but it suggests an increased emphasis on rent-a-room and encouraging eg older singles to share houses.
Or one could follow the model of much of postwar London, and rebuild the area from scratch. The Borough of Camden formed in 1965, for example, did a lot of very innovative public housing on large sites.
Who are the sister team of Red fucking Bull.
And sending him back out again to stop again was a mistake anyone might make. Naturally.
Oddly it actually helps Mercedes if anything.
Leclerc utterly screwed.
This is the second biggest scandal in F1 since crashgate.
The obvious solution is extreme localisation; instead of gluing development onto the outskirts of existing settlements, build a million+ new homes with accompanying infrastructre in a new planned city somewhere, maybe Cornwall or north Wales, and incentivise people to move there (perhaps by offering student loan forgiveness after a certain length of residency, or centralising some government departments there so civil servants are forced to relocate). This would be a lot less efficient and more expensive than simply building homes where people already want to live, but again impossible without irritating the dotards - at least this way the electoral damage is extremely localised.
Thatcher's model of a property-owning capitalist democracy is basically dead at this point now that an entire generation has been locked out of accumulating capital, purchasing property, or having the ability to influence decision making through democratic means, so the next government could take a very radical approach to home ownership. Build hundreds of thousands of new state-owned one- and two-bedroom flats, specifically aimed at younger people in the 20s and 30s, with a new basic marginal tax rate of, say, 15%. Assuming it costs the state £150,000 to build this very basic flat (probably an overestimation) and the occupant pays 15% of a salary of £30,000 per year, that's a monthly rent of £375 for the occupant (a huge saving for young people living in the south east especially, enough that they can spend more in the wider economy/save for a deposit), and assuming constant occupancy the state recoups its initial investment in just 34 years. After that, other than maintenance, it's a pure money-making operation for the state.
Less seriously, the government could also look at trying to negotiate free movement with wealthier countries like Canada and Australia with the specific goal of sparking a brain drain. Of course, the Canadian and Australian housing markets are even worse than ours, but you could probably convince at least a few hundred thousand young people to try their chances elsewhere. That's a few hundred thousand less homes we need to build.
It's not as stupid as having three tyres rather than four, but it's still not smart.
I notice that there were 6 hour queues at Calais yesterday. Those annoying French Border agents again....oops sorry, British.
Verstappen now bailed out by the Bottas safety car; Lewis might have won on mediums vs hards.
What the fuck are these people on? They're more useless than Liz Truss.
Not an unsafe release he says.
Edit - by the way, has Russell screwed Hamilton as well here?
Edit edit - yes.
I put it down to science teachers not correcting poor English.
And I'm very glad to read that you did correct such issues!
There are plenty of people who only want a patio or courtyard garden.
For an example, myself and another family member have just sold a smallish bungalow (~700 sqft) converted from my dad's architectural office a decade ago on a very small site to a man with a disability, who just wants somewhere which is easy to live in and easy to look after.
Brexit problem? - SORTED
All these problems will be sorted and the Remoaners will be left Remoaning about nothing
Former Levelling Up secretary denies plan to fritter away money so his department could ‘ask for more in the future’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/03/michael-gove-plotted-waste-15bn-unspent-taxpayer-cash/ (£££)
I don't know why given it's his default state.
Don't worry - there'll be some proper sport next Sunday with the second day of the Irish Champions Weekend at The Curragh.
Musing on the impending accession of Liz Truss to be this country's new Prime Minister, it seems as though she is in the mindset of 1979 or perhaps 1970 - there's more than a hint of "Government is wrong, people are lazy and we need to snap out of this and become something else". Now, absent the proceeds of North Sea Oil and privatisation, I'm curious as to how this transformation is going to be paid for.
The second round of what we call "Thatcherism" had a price in terms of jobs and a brief but sharp recession at the very start of the 1980s. The first round collapsed in the face of Union discontent, inflation and rising oil prices (curious echoes of 50 years of more ago).
Indeed, I well remember doing my homework by candlelight when there were power cuts - now it seems the candles may be out again as a cheap alternative to electricity.
Be that as it may - both Heath and Thatcher could argue they came in after periods of Labour Government - Truss has been elected after 12 years of Tory "misrule" (so it would seem). The fact remains some in her Cabinet served happily under Johnson and others served happily under May so why this new attempt at backwards-looking radicalism?
I suppose it's the echoes of December 2019 which were thwarted by the pandemic - the Government Johnson would have led had the virus not intervened. Maybe, but the changes to workers' rights will inevitably come over not as a method of flexibility but as mean-spirited and of course if Truss has reportedly criticised British workers that will accentuate the sense not of liberation but of punishment.
There is plenty of flexibility currently - there are labour shortages in many sectors and that will drive up inflation - perhaps Rees-Mogg will seek to abolish salaries and re-introduce indentured servitude.
It seems this new Government is full of yesterday's solutions to today's problems never mind the issues of tomorrow or the day after.
As happened every year for a very long time.
Trump backed Biden's case up within hours at his own semi-fascist rally where he praised Xi as a "strongman" who rules with iron and "is President for life".
Speakers included this whacko:
Bill Kristol Retweeted
Marshall Cohen
@MarshallCohen
·
16h
Cynthia Hughes, who runs a support group for J6ers, spoke at tonight's Trump rally. She told the story of her nephew Tim Cusanelli, a convicted Capitol rioter — and Nazi sympathizer, who said "Hitler should've finished the job." This is their poster child for J6 "injustice." /1
https://twitter.com/MarshallCohen/status/1566178439866056705
@wartranslated
Russians routed in many places today. Pro-Rus telegram channels recaps the situation and says "everything will be fine".
Meanwhile this video appears to show a large column moving towards Crimea via Kerch Bridge. Looks like a bit of a panic response.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1566429878458761221
Novus has the centre-left parties on 50.3% and the centre-right on 49.0%
Sifo has the centre-left on 48.6% and the centre-right on 49.6%
Germany votes in just over three years - the current Infratest poll has the Union on 27% (+3 on the 2021 Bundestag election), Greens on 22% (+7). SPD on 17% (-9), AfD on 13% (+3), FDP on 8% (-3) and Linke on 5% (nc).
The current coalition has 47% support - a "Jamaica" coalition of Union, Green and FDP would have 57%.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/governor/ny/new_york_governor_zeldin_vs_hochul-7749.html
Meanwhile, in the Washington Senate race, the Democrats have only a +3 lead
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/wa/washington_senate_smiley_vs_murray-7400.html
The obvious reaction will be "It's Trafalgar". However, (1) these polls are not just 3 or 5 points difference from others, they are something like 15-20 points difference and (2) there have been a few other Trafalgar polls in other races (GA Senate / Governorship; PA Governorship / Senate) where the Trafalgar findings have been replicated in later polls.
Any insights into what is going on? Even if you think Trafalgar is sh1t, that magnitude of discrepancy is massive.
More seriously, it's no surprise - having a Bank Holiday just before the end of the school holidays encourages people to book the latter part of August as it saves a day off any annual leave entitlement yet as you say it's well known, happens every year and is more about making a political point than anything.
I suspect it is just an enormous error
Mr Johnson liked to have about 20 as many police, servicemen etc. in the background for his speeches as I recall.
I think they are entirely made up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0EUwBqhrJo
F1: I see Mercedes' new strategy hire from Ferrari is working out well.
The 21st century doesn’t get any more normal
538 rates them at A-. Doesn't mean they are right, 538 could be completely wrong. However, they include Trafalgar in their polls so they clearly don't believe they are fake.
Let's take another example, the GA Senate race. The polls for July / August had Warnock between +3 to +10. Trafalgar then comes up with Walker +1. One or two days later, Emerson comes up with a +2 Walker lead. So is Trafalgar getting lucky with their guesses? Tapping into other polling companies' data?
As I said. scepticism is natural but claiming they falsify their data is something else.
Joe Biden rallying in Philadelphia in 2022
That enables new households, of course, but doesn’t provide them more “space”.
People suggest a new town is in order.
I agree, but it should be in London, which is not actually very dense.
My house is in Hackney, allegedly the second densest borough in Britain. Full of two storey houses from the Victorian era onwards, and generously endowed with back gardens and parkland.
No, because he obviously isn’t
What I am saying is that his team used quite blatant fascist imagery in the staging of that speech about “fascism” which is either some truly bizarre, misguided meta trolling, or a colossal error