How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Just dipping in but I think we will see a repeat of 2001-3 compressed into the next 12 months.
As older PBers will recall in 2001 the Conservatives made an obvious dud their leader - IDS - after he won the members' vote, having scraped into the last 2 with the support of hard right factionalists in the parliamentary party. But leaving the majority of MPs aghast. This is exactly what has happened here.
In due course the MPs understandably booted him out and agreed on a successor - Michael Howard -who was unanimously elected with the members excluded. That process took two years.
The obvious person to fulfil the Howard role is Ben Wallace. Everyone respects him. I suspect this will play out in about 12 months.
Outcome will be a less devastating defeat than if Truss is kept in place. Her position is irrecoverable but she can at least absorb the next 12 months of bad news, leaving Wallace a further 12 months to attempt some kind of recovery.
Apols if this forecast has already been posted.
This is essentially my prediction, but the PCP have to conclude by strong majority that neither Boris, Sunak or Braverman are viable.
Extended stretches of poor polling may change their mind; or a disaster in May locals. Though as some have pointed out, the Tories performed so badly in locals four years ago that May could flatter to deceive.
The PCP would probably install Mark Francois as PM.
TSE would probably take that over Andrea Jenkyns....
The big difference with 2003, when Michael Howard had his coronation, is that the calibre of Conservative MP's was notably higher than it is today.
I'd agree with you, but extend that to Labour too. They've also got a heap of real moon-howlers - and out of a much smaller pot.
Who’d want to be a Parliamentarian today, in an era of social media muck-raking, offence-taking and hyper-partisanship on every issue?
Certainly true.
I considered, for a second, that my social media feeds were entirely bland, but then I realised my PB oeuvre - if someone were to link it to me - would totally screw me.
I’d like to think my PB posting wasn’t too bad - generally polite, not too drunk and not too sweary.
That doesn’t mean I’d want my wife or parents to be subject to harassment at home, nor to see an online comment from a decade past, taken without context and applied to whatever social standards apply a decade in the future, on the front page of a newspaper.
It’s good that people do stand for office, of course, but I think it’ll become increasingly difficult to find good people as time goes on. 2024’s 35-year-olds, will have had cameras on their phones since they were 15 or 16.
As soon as another Tory is caught doing something inappropriate (and precedent suggests that won’t be long) you can be sure we’ll be hearing about an anti-grope coalition.
Treasury orthodoxy arguing for policies that don’t crash the pound = anti-groat coalition
Plenty of opportunities to use anti-gross coalition.
Kit Malthouse clip playing out on the radio: “Starmer wants the status quo- he wants more of the status quo, Liz Truss is about change for the next generation.” So govt argument is that status quo (after govt of 12 years) is bad, and Starmer would keep it going. It’s a tough sell https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1577676194945941508
If mortgage rates go up and it precipitates a collapse in house prices then it might actually help first time buyers get on the housing ladder. They won't have to borrow so much so even if higher rates their monthly payments may be less. All those recently on the housing ladder who paid over the odds and had short term mortgage deals will be the ones in trouble.
In most variations of a nuclear war, outside a few big cities, physical destruction will be surprisingly small. Deaths from radiation and collapse in food supply will reduce the population by about 80%.
Think empty villages in the bucolic sunshine, with only a few dogs/rats eating the corpses to spoil the view.
So house prices in the aftermath should be quite affordable.
Would be a right bugger heating a large house with no gas or electricity though.
Pick the recently renovated ones with modern insulation foam. Which, come to think of it, probably blocks radiation in interesting ways - polymers and foil layers.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Barty doesn’t believe in inalienable human rights, just the cold robotic logic of a market which even a cursory understanding of history will tell you, depends entirely on government to maintain rule of law, and left unchecked, tends to monopoly.
If mortgage rates go up and it precipitates a collapse in house prices then it might actually help first time buyers get on the housing ladder. They won't have to borrow so much so even if higher rates their monthly payments may be less. All those recently on the housing ladder who paid over the odds and had short term mortgage deals will be the ones in trouble.
In most variations of a nuclear war, outside a few big cities, physical destruction will be surprisingly small. Deaths from radiation and collapse in food supply will reduce the population by about 80%.
Think empty villages in the bucolic sunshine, with only a few dogs/rats eating the corpses to spoil the view.
So house prices in the aftermath should be quite affordable.
Difficult to get spares for the combi boiler. Though there would be other problems which rather mitigate that.
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
And it’s not going to work, because Keir and Reeves will commit to government spending plans for their first term, just like in 1997.
As soon as another Tory is caught doing something inappropriate (and precedent suggests that won’t be long) you can be sure we’ll be hearing about an anti-grope coalition.
Treasury orthodoxy arguing for policies that don’t crash the pound = anti-groat coalition
Plenty of opportunities to use anti-gross coalition.
If mortgage rates go up and it precipitates a collapse in house prices then it might actually help first time buyers get on the housing ladder. They won't have to borrow so much so even if higher rates their monthly payments may be less. All those recently on the housing ladder who paid over the odds and had short term mortgage deals will be the ones in trouble.
In most variations of a nuclear war, outside a few big cities, physical destruction will be surprisingly small. Deaths from radiation and collapse in food supply will reduce the population by about 80%.
Think empty villages in the bucolic sunshine, with only a few dogs/rats eating the corpses to spoil the view.
So house prices in the aftermath should be quite affordable.
Would be a right bugger heating a large house with no gas or electricity though.
Pick the recently renovated ones with modern insulation foam. Which, come to think of it, probably blocks radiation in interesting ways - polymers and foil layers.
Admire the view from your triple glazed windows….
Solar panels on the roof might be pretty useful.
Knocking up a basic wind turbine with a rewired motor or an alternator should be fairly easy if you need to manage in the winter.
Threre would be plenty of disabled cars with the right parts (and a battery).
If mortgage rates go up and it precipitates a collapse in house prices then it might actually help first time buyers get on the housing ladder. They won't have to borrow so much so even if higher rates their monthly payments may be less. All those recently on the housing ladder who paid over the odds and had short term mortgage deals will be the ones in trouble.
In most variations of a nuclear war, outside a few big cities, physical destruction will be surprisingly small. Deaths from radiation and collapse in food supply will reduce the population by about 80%.
Think empty villages in the bucolic sunshine, with only a few dogs/rats eating the corpses to spoil the view.
So house prices in the aftermath should be quite affordable.
Would be a right bugger heating a large house with no gas or electricity though.
Pick the recently renovated ones with modern insulation foam. Which, come to think of it, probably blocks radiation in interesting ways - polymers and foil layers.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
For 4 years when I was US Editor I went to endless Trump rallies where we’d be accused of being ‘enemies of the people’ - the ‘we’ were the media, but also ‘liberals’, civil servants, environmentalists, the swamp, the think tanks. All felt a bit familiar in B’ham today https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1577678310779371520
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
The 1992 election lives long in the collective Tory memory. In fact 4 elections seem to have achieved this mythic status such that echoes if them are felt in later election campaigns: 1983 (war), 1992 (labour tax bombshell), 2015 (coalition of this and that) and 2019 (stick it to the remoaners).
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
And it’s not going to work, because Keir and Reeves will commit to government spending plans for their first term, just like in 1997.
I neither think it'll work this time. But it's an old favourite, and has worked before, so I do think they'll be giving it a whirl.
Extraordinary for Liz Truss to rail against "the vested interests, dressed up as think tanks", while appointing several Tufton Street employees in her team, several more as 'unofficial advisors', and - until days ago - was happy to have some actually PAID by their own think tank. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1577678800632320000
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A written constitution guaranteeing individual and minority rights with revision subject to some kind of supermajority is probably the best available outcome.
Kit Malthouse clip playing out on the radio: “Starmer wants the status quo- he wants more of the status quo, Liz Truss is about change for the next generation.” So govt argument is that status quo (after govt of 12 years) is bad, and Starmer would keep it going. It’s a tough sell https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1577676194945941508
Feels right to me though. Who is proposing radical solutions and who is proposing steadiness and unexcitingness? You might not be in the market for radical solutions, or at least not these radical solutions. Indeed, voters might not be in the market for radical solutions (and in 2019 only voted for radical solutions because the alternative was even more radical solutions). But the radicalism is coming from the Tories. Liz is the candidate for the voter in the mood for a high risk option, Keir for one going for the low risk option. Without taking a view on which is the better one, I think Keir's is the easier sell to the voters.
Trying to explain why so little Conservative has been achieved since 2010 is the harder aspect of this positioning.
(Granted there was Brexit, the single but rather large exception to the gradual drift Brownwards - though you could argue that this was achieved almost by accident.)
Extraordinary for Liz Truss to rail against "the vested interests, dressed up as think tanks", while appointing several Tufton Street employees in her team, several more as 'unofficial advisors', and - until days ago - was happy to have some actually PAID by their own think tank. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1577678800632320000
Ha ha it is pure projection. She is a complete shill for dark money funnelled through 55 Tufton Street.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A key question. I like the idea of a supranational body you can appeal breaches of fundamental rights to. Second best, same but national only.
For 4 years when I was US Editor I went to endless Trump rallies where we’d be accused of being ‘enemies of the people’ - the ‘we’ were the media, but also ‘liberals’, civil servants, environmentalists, the swamp, the think tanks. All felt a bit familiar in B’ham today https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1577678310779371520
"There's another beauty"
To be honest, depending on your point of view, the BBC's values do not always chime with yours. The BBC is metropolitan, southern, liberal, shockingly white (although it tries to hide that by picking as many presenters of colour as possible, just not in all the other jobs that the BBC has).
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
Monday evening I posted the Truss pitch as
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive, you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
I wasn’t far out, it’s all there in the speech today wasn’t it. In fact Trussism is a simple pitch, not a complicated one.
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
What there wssn’t in Truss Speech today,, to its detriment, was no rabbit from the hat big announcement
“In the coming days we will move forward and sign contracts that will ensure our energy security for years to come - this government will be keeping the lights on this winter, and next winter, and the following winter regardless what the global situation will throw at us.”
“We will bring forward the details in Parliament next week how universal credit will rise this year in line with inflation.”
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A key question. I like the idea of a supranational body you can appeal breaches of fundamental rights to. Second best, same but national only.
And when that “body” gets taken over by people who think abortion is on the list of criminal things that The People can’t be allowed to vote on?
Kit Malthouse clip playing out on the radio: “Starmer wants the status quo- he wants more of the status quo, Liz Truss is about change for the next generation.” So govt argument is that status quo (after govt of 12 years) is bad, and Starmer would keep it going. It’s a tough sell https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1577676194945941508
She is trying to recapture the Brexit vote feeling, which was in large part a "something has to change" vote.
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
I managed to get 1.68% for 5 years back in January, and I was pretty astonished at that. I thought the best I could dare hope for was around 2.3%.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
Well done.
Are mortgage companies taking the hit (presumably they will be losing money) on these deals to avoid bringing the property market to a standstill? If they stopped them all would they be worse off after all?
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
On another subject, I am on the 7th floor in Central Manchester and the day's heavy rain has given way to a beautiful and sparkly evening. I have a sort of 180 degree view of the hills surrounding Manchester to the east and north. Sutton Common. Shutlingsloe. Sponds Hill. Werneth Low. Kinder Scout. Wild Bank Hill. Scout Moor. Winter Hill. Proper poetry.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
The 1992 election lives long in the collective Tory memory. In fact 4 elections seem to have achieved this mythic status such that echoes if them are felt in later election campaigns: 1983 (war), 1992 (labour tax bombshell), 2015 (coalition of this and that) and 2019 (stick it to the remoaners).
Those elections live long in MY memory too. Oh god.
92 and 15 were the worst - since there was optimism going in.
Anyone know how to sign up to the Anti-Growth Coalition? Sounds like something I’d want to join. Do they have a website? Google’s not helping me here.
If you complain about house prices but oppose them being built near you, if you moan about airports being busy but don't want a third runway, if you hate traffic jams but don't want a bypass, then I have good news for you, YOU are already a member of the Anti-Growth Coalition. No further action is necessary.
Actually none of those statements apply to me. However, the Brexit denial wing does appeal to me because frankly who could deny that Brexit has turned out to be nothing but a steaming bucket of cowshit?
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
Well done.
Are mortgage companies taking the hit (presumably they will be losing money) on these deals to avoid bringing the property market to a standstill? If they stopped them all would they be worse off after all?
My vague understanding is that the reason you pay an application fee for these sorts of deals is to cover the cost to the bank of securing the financing at that point. So that should mean they are protected by subsequent changes in market rates after you have applied.
On another subject, I am on the 7th floor in Central Manchester and the day's heavy rain has given way to a beautiful and sparkly evening. I have a sort of 180 degree view of the hills surrounding Manchester to the east and north. Sutton Common. Shutlingsloe. Sponds Hill. Werneth Low. Kinder Scout. Wild Bank Hill. Scout Moor. Winter Hill. Proper poetry.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
The Marsden area is NE of where you describe. I go for regular walks around Marsden, Marsden Moor and the reservoirs on the very edge of the Peak District. It's only 45 mins drive from where I live in Leeds and it's nice and varied.
On a good day you can see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, especially on Standedge Hill and around one of the reservoirs. Sadly when I was last there a week and a half ago it was too cloudy. I would recommend it for a day out though, it's even nice on clear, cool autumn days.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Extraordinary for Liz Truss to rail against "the vested interests, dressed up as think tanks", while appointing several Tufton Street employees in her team, several more as 'unofficial advisors', and - until days ago - was happy to have some actually PAID by their own think tank. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1577678800632320000
Ha ha it is pure projection. She is a complete shill for dark money funnelled through 55 Tufton Street.
Those pesky metropolitan elite again, some canny politicians should start scapegoating them.......
If you want a small litmus test of the mood of the country, I’ve just seen a friend who enthusiastically voted for Shaun Bailey to be mayor, sharing what they deemed to be his best policies - criticising Kwarteng and Truss heavily.
It seems that Ukraine are now regaining territory in Luhansk.
Considering Luhansk is the only region other than Crimea that is (edit: was) fully occupied by Russia, that is quite a remarkable achievement to be pushing back there now too. I would have thought their hands would be full with the fronts around Kherson and Kharkiv.
It seems the Russian lines are disintegrating everywhere. Good.
And a lesson for those who were saying six months ago that Ukrainians should surrender/we shouldn't support Ukraine as Russia would "obviously" win the war and there was nothing we could do to prevent that or support Ukraine to stop that.
Kit Malthouse clip playing out on the radio: “Starmer wants the status quo- he wants more of the status quo, Liz Truss is about change for the next generation.” So govt argument is that status quo (after govt of 12 years) is bad, and Starmer would keep it going. It’s a tough sell https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1577676194945941508
Feels right to me though. Who is proposing radical solutions and who is proposing steadiness and unexcitingness? You might not be in the market for radical solutions, or at least not these radical solutions. Indeed, voters might not be in the market for radical solutions (and in 2019 only voted for radical solutions because the alternative was even more radical solutions). But the radicalism is coming from the Tories. Liz is the candidate for the voter in the mood for a high risk option, Keir for one going for the low risk option. Without taking a view on which is the better one, I think Keir's is the easier sell to the voters.
Trying to explain why so little Conservative has been achieved since 2010 is the harder aspect of this positioning.
(Granted there was Brexit, the single but rather large exception to the gradual drift Brownwards - though you could argue that this was achieved almost by accident.)
“Feels right to me though. Who is proposing radical solutions and who is proposing steadiness and unexcitingness? Trying to explain why so little Conservative has been achieved since 2010 is the harder aspect of this positioning.“
Top Post.
I’ve been trying to explain this exact point to the PB Labour Herd for a couple of days, but the PB Labour Herd are not in a listening or sensible mood right now.
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
I managed to get 1.68% for 5 years back in January, and I was pretty astonished at that. I thought the best I could dare hope for was around 2.3%.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Yes my daughters 2,6% 10yr fix with Nationwide, agreed in July went through on Friday
£727 a month compared to Nationwides best current deal of £1,188
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
A message from Tory conference: Don't get sick Don't be disabled Don’t be on low pay with kids to feed Don’t rely on Universal Credit or public services If you do, get ready to pay for £43bn in tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest the most. [THREAD] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-must-ditch-welfare-28153979
On another subject, I am on the 7th floor in Central Manchester and the day's heavy rain has given way to a beautiful and sparkly evening. I have a sort of 180 degree view of the hills surrounding Manchester to the east and north. Sutton Common. Shutlingsloe. Sponds Hill. Werneth Low. Kinder Scout. Wild Bank Hill. Scout Moor. Winter Hill. Proper poetry.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
The Marsden area is NE of where you describe. I go for regular walks around Marsden, Marsden Moor and the reservoirs on the very edge of the Peak District. It's only 45 mins drive from where I live in Leeds and it's nice and varied.
On a good day you can see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, especially on Standedge Hill and around one of the reservoirs. Sadly when I was last there a week and a half ago it was too cloudy. I would recommend it for a day out though, it's even nice on clear, cool autumn days.
Dovestones is good for an easy walk although there's probably a lot of police around there at the moment.
I like Wessenden Moor - Black Moss Resvr - The old Pennine Way goes through NT land which is recovering from drainage and overgrazing and lots of interesting things are sprouting up.
(Black Moss Reservoir has a good view of the centre of Manchester, so must be visible)
It seems that Ukraine are now regaining territory in Luhansk.
Considering Luhansk is the only region other than Crimea that is (edit: was) fully occupied by Russia, that is quite a remarkable achievement to be pushing back there now too. I would have thought their hands would be full with the fronts around Kherson and Kharkiv.
It seems the Russian lines are disintegrating everywhere. Good.
And a lesson for those who were saying six months ago that Ukrainians should surrender/we shouldn't support Ukraine as Russia would "obviously" win the war and there was nothing we could do to prevent that or support Ukraine to stop that.
Ukraine have almost run out of areas of Kharkiv that need liberating, and so Luhansk is next in line. Have to call it the Northern Luhansk front now.
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
Well done.
Are mortgage companies taking the hit (presumably they will be losing money) on these deals to avoid bringing the property market to a standstill? If they stopped them all would they be worse off after all?
I think I just got in ahead of the curve. Prices were starting to tick up, so we missed a couple of even better rates, but there were plenty of options. We are extending, so the driving force was freeing up cash for that, but taking the opportunity to fix the rate for that long was too good to miss.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A key question. I like the idea of a supranational body you can appeal breaches of fundamental rights to. Second best, same but national only.
And when that “body” gets taken over by people who think abortion is on the list of criminal things that The People can’t be allowed to vote on?
Nothing's perfect but it's about the balance of risk and for me having certain fundamentals enshrined 'over and above' lowers the risk of egregious breaches. It's also why the wider the better - supranational better than national better than local better than nothing. For this, I mean, the protection of fundamentals, not for things generally. For things generally, power should rest at its lowest possible point compatible with efficiency, ie within reason.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
I went to Tory conference at Birmingham. The Conservative Party has been smashed. Truss is finished and is on her way out. My new piece for Middle East Eye:
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What is this coherent Tory philosophy of which you speak?
It strikes me Truss’s policies are actually the status quo, but more of it.
Austerity and slow degradation of almost all public services => more rapid degradation of public services
Brexit orthodoxy and picking fights with Europe => a more Redwoodian Brexit orthodoxy and picking fights with Europe.
Talk of bonfires of regulations => actual bonfire of regulations
Blaming remainers and citizens of nowhere for everything => blaming them plus markets, the IMF, the Treasury and think tanks (oh the irony) for everything
What she’s offering is undiluted Toryism with a bit of recklessness added in. It’s hardly a paradigm shift.
Labour is offering fairly bog standard Brownite policy. No paradigm shift either, but a bit more attractive to the electorate. And unlike Truss (or Corbyn) not going out of his way to make enemies of his potential voter base.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
On another subject, I am on the 7th floor in Central Manchester and the day's heavy rain has given way to a beautiful and sparkly evening. I have a sort of 180 degree view of the hills surrounding Manchester to the east and north. Sutton Common. Shutlingsloe. Sponds Hill. Werneth Low. Kinder Scout. Wild Bank Hill. Scout Moor. Winter Hill. Proper poetry.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
The Marsden area is NE of where you describe. I go for regular walks around Marsden, Marsden Moor and the reservoirs on the very edge of the Peak District. It's only 45 mins drive from where I live in Leeds and it's nice and varied.
On a good day you can see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, especially on Standedge Hill and around one of the reservoirs. Sadly when I was last there a week and a half ago it was too cloudy. I would recommend it for a day out though, it's even nice on clear, cool autumn days.
Dovestones is good for an easy walk although there's probably a lot of police around there at the moment.
I like Wessenden Moor - Black Moss Resvr - The old Pennine Way goes through NT land which is recovering from drainage and overgrazing and lots of interesting things are sprouting up.
(Black Moss Reservoir has a good view of the centre of Manchester, so must be visible)
Yes it was Black Moss Reservoir actually where I could see in. Walked past there on my recent walk and it was too cloudy but the last time on the last weekend of Feb it was a beautiful clear day and you could see right into Manchester.
Wessenden, Blakeley and Butterley Reservoirs looked very empty compared to earlier in the year as well. I had pictures from February and it was concerning to see how much the water had receded when I stood in the same spot and held my phone up to compare.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What planet are you living on?
"Truss's platform engages with the UK's problems" (my paraphrase).
"Growth is good. Growth is what we need to address Britain's problems. I have facilitated growth". Fantastic, but they are just meaningless platitudes. You could easily substitute "growth" for "magic" or "unicorns" or just "bullshit". Each statement would mean no more or no less.
This is where I claim the Labour conference last week was poor, I ask you to what degree did it engage with the pressure on UK from globalisation, demographic time bomb (and permanent higher inflation it brings) and transformation to UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment. Or was Labours a safety first conference - For all talk of not being Corbyn anymore it’s now very different, the proof of the pudding will be comparing what Starmer’s manifesto has to say about the main issues, compared to the solutions in Corbyn’s manifesto.
there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and out for eighteen years whilst rival philosophy as clear as Tory’s now laying down, wields the blade and makes necessary changes.
My own one nation instincts are not liking two nation solutions that widen the apartheid of the pocket, so leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics. Doesn’t it?
If your aim at the start of the day was "can I be really, really obtuse on PB today?" Mission accomplished!
Stop playing dum. We know you are intelligent, that cats out the bag,
To me good politics is engaging and winning the arguments, not coasting along safety first. You have to play the long game, and this means arguing and winning the argument. Last weeks Labour conference was poor on this benchmark.
But don’t just ask me what planet I am on for suggesting this, ask Ganesh - one of the more left wing economic columnists around, what planet he is on. For him the exact opposite of a Pyrrhic victory is a defeat that turns out to bring success in the long run
If Trussnomics attempting to answer the problems facing UK today, and Starmerology 😴 isn’t, that’s the very opposite of good politics, it’s a Pyrrhic victory regardless what opinion polls say going into the next election - if Tory’s go into 2029 election both challenging the consensus with their radical solutions, and ahead in the polls.
Janan Ganesh leftwing?
Only on PB.
I know!
We're being razzled by a moon rabbit ... moon rabbit moon rabbit
Janan was at university at the same time as me and was a Tory Association member for a time
Not surprised. He's trad non-populist centre right imo. Economically and socially liberal. Kind of a Topping without the uniform.
Yes I've chatted to him and this is exactly where he is - a Cameron era Tory. Nice chap and super smart but definitely not left-wing.
Ganesh was active in Labour Students, the student wing of the Labour Party, having been inspired to join when he was 17 by Tony Blair's 1999 annual Labour Party Conference speech. Ganesh opted not to attend his local constituency Labour Party meetings as they were "too dominated by Trots".
You are all quite sure of his GE voting record then? OK.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A key question. I like the idea of a supranational body you can appeal breaches of fundamental rights to. Second best, same but national only.
And when that “body” gets taken over by people who think abortion is on the list of criminal things that The People can’t be allowed to vote on?
Nothing's perfect but it's about the balance of risk and for me having certain fundamentals enshrined 'over and above' lowers the risk of egregious breaches. It's also why the wider the better - supranational better than national better than local better than nothing. For this, I mean, the protection of fundamentals, not for things generally. For things generally, power should rest at its lowest possible point compatible with efficiency, ie within reason.
The problem with supranational bodies is that they are virtually unchangeable. A friend used think that the UN would be a good place for such things. Imagine the Saudis on the Womens Rights Court, though….
The biggest danger with trying to “lock away” Wrong Behaviour is that it fails to deal with the problem of democratic consent. If you can only maintain human rights by denying the population their wishes, how long before the system is destroyed?
The Swiss system of using referenda as the ultimate arbiter seems to have worked extremely well.
Looks like the Ukrainians in NE Kherson took the bold step of painting a Z on their vehicles and just charged through the Russian lines without engaging. The Russians, seeing fleeing "Russian" vehicles, then did the same... Then got ambushed by the Ukrainians ahead of them and those following up behind.
The chutzpah of the Ukrainians is quite remarkable.
No doubt the Russian ambassador will be bleating "It's not fair...."
That could potentially be a war crime under Article 8 of the ICC statutes.
However, that does rather depend on whether the 'Z' is considered enemy insignia or not. It may not be since Russia has never actually declared war.
Equally the Ukrainians would be wise to remember that they will want the ICC's help if they're to punish some of these criminals they are pursuing, and therefore they need to be as far as possible beyond reproach themselves.
Given half their armour is captured from the Russians, I’m pretty sure they just ran out if time to paint over the markings before advancing.
On another subject, I am on the 7th floor in Central Manchester and the day's heavy rain has given way to a beautiful and sparkly evening. I have a sort of 180 degree view of the hills surrounding Manchester to the east and north. Sutton Common. Shutlingsloe. Sponds Hill. Werneth Low. Kinder Scout. Wild Bank Hill. Scout Moor. Winter Hill. Proper poetry.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
The Marsden area is NE of where you describe. I go for regular walks around Marsden, Marsden Moor and the reservoirs on the very edge of the Peak District. It's only 45 mins drive from where I live in Leeds and it's nice and varied.
On a good day you can see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, especially on Standedge Hill and around one of the reservoirs. Sadly when I was last there a week and a half ago it was too cloudy. I would recommend it for a day out though, it's even nice on clear, cool autumn days.
Dovestones is good for an easy walk although there's probably a lot of police around there at the moment.
I like Wessenden Moor - Black Moss Resvr - The old Pennine Way goes through NT land which is recovering from drainage and overgrazing and lots of interesting things are sprouting up.
(Black Moss Reservoir has a good view of the centre of Manchester, so must be visible)
Yes it was Black Moss Reservoir actually where I could see in. Walked past there on my recent walk and it was too cloudy but the last time on the last weekend of Feb it was a beautiful clear day and you could see right into Manchester.
Wessenden, Blakeley and Butterley Reservoirs looked very empty compared to earlier in the year as well. I had pictures from February and it was concerning to see how much the water had receded when I stood in the same spot and held my phone up to compare.
Yes. I was up at Readycon Dean last weekend and it was empty. Should be an improving situation now though.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
I managed to get 1.68% for 5 years back in January, and I was pretty astonished at that. I thought the best I could dare hope for was around 2.3%.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Yes my daughters 2,6% 10yr fix with Nationwide, agreed in July went through on Friday
£727 a month compared to Nationwides best current deal of £1,188
My mortgage ticked over this week, got 2.76% for 7 years fixed.
Very happy, but I was shitting bricks on sunday when the app played up and told me that my repayment was £300 per month more than I was expecting.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
I believe in democracy, yes. I think that's the best safeguard for all our civil rights, including minority rights.
I would oppose KKK villages and I would hope my countrymen and women would too and would, like me, vote accordingly.
Telling elected governments they can't do what they're elected to do just undermines democracy. If the court is on your side, then you may think that's a good thing, but what happens when the court turns against you? When the court is packed with "Judges" that are against your liberties, and Parliament is neutered, then where do you turn?
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What is this coherent Tory philosophy of which you speak?
I’m not saying I like it, I’m sayings it’s coherent. Simple coherent mix of dog whistles and flag waving. Once it gets traction it’s not as unappealing to many voters as you think.
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive, you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
Monday evening I posted the Truss pitch as
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive, you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
I wasn’t far out, it’s all there in the speech today wasn’t it. In fact Trussism is a simple pitch, not a complicated one.
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
What there wssn’t in Truss Speech today,, to its detriment, was no rabbit from the hat big announcement
“In the coming days we will move forward and sign contracts that will ensure our energy security for years to come - this government will be keeping the lights on this winter, and next winter, and the following winter regardless what the global situation will throw at us.”
“We will bring forward the details in Parliament next week how universal credit will rise this year in line with inflation.”
Etc.
That’s the way we would do it isn’t it?
I don't want Labour coasting home if it means they run scared of saying or proposing anything radical. I think they'll get the balance right. Propose nothing that jeopardises the win but avoid uber blandness. Starmer looks increasingly sure-footed to me. It's not ALL about the Tory implosion. Mostly, yes, but not all. He's nailing it really. In many ways he's nailing it.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
HMRC’s customer service and call centre headcount have been cut to the bone in repeated waves over a number of years.
Years ago you’d have got on the phone to a clerical officer, probably been working in the local tax office for 2 decades, and they’d have dealt with your issue there and then. A quick walk up to the inspector’s office, put it in the in tray and job done. Now you queue for a call centre employee who’s on a short term contract with hardly any training and your call gets logged on a database somewhere.
Governments keep asking them to find savings. So given they prefer not to cut front line compliance they keep having to look in the back office.
Complete false economy. One department you really want to give proper resources to is the one that collects revenue. Contrast with the IRS in the US who have been piling up the funding and resources in the last few years and increasing tax yield.
You can’t move to London with your band, live on the dole in a squat and perfect your craft in clubs doing gigs these days and that’s why music is being left to public school kids like every other sector https://twitter.com/marcusjdl/status/1577596078396002304
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
I managed to get 1.68% for 5 years back in January, and I was pretty astonished at that. I thought the best I could dare hope for was around 2.3%.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Most people though aren't on long term fixed mortgage deals.
Leaving aside those paying the SVR, I would expect that nearly all homeowners with mortgages haven't yet paid a penny in rising mortgage costs but will do so in the next couple of years once the remaining term of their fixed deal expires.
There's a big difference between worrying now about a forecast rise in payments a year or two down the line, and actually experiencing a doubling in payments, probably by then combined with a crash in the housing market that would pile on further pain.
So I don't think we've yet seen the full impact of the mortgage crisis on polling. That will only come in 2023 and 2024, just in time for a general election delayed until the last possible minute in the hope that something will turn up. And the blame is going to fall entirely on the Conservatives because, unusually, they haven't been able to pull their usual trick of getting out of a mess of their own making by finding a scapegoat to divert attention to.
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What planet are you living on?
"Truss's platform engages with the UK's problems" (my paraphrase).
"Growth is good. Growth is what we need to address Britain's problems. I have facilitated growth". Fantastic, but they are just meaningless platitudes. You could easily substitute "growth" for "magic" or "unicorns" or just "bullshit". Each statement would mean no more or no less.
This is where I claim the Labour conference last week was poor, I ask you to what degree did it engage with the pressure on UK from globalisation, demographic time bomb (and permanent higher inflation it brings) and transformation to UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment. Or was Labours a safety first conference - For all talk of not being Corbyn anymore it’s now very different, the proof of the pudding will be comparing what Starmer’s manifesto has to say about the main issues, compared to the solutions in Corbyn’s manifesto.
there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and out for eighteen years whilst rival philosophy as clear as Tory’s now laying down, wields the blade and makes necessary changes.
My own one nation instincts are not liking two nation solutions that widen the apartheid of the pocket, so leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics. Doesn’t it?
If your aim at the start of the day was "can I be really, really obtuse on PB today?" Mission accomplished!
Stop playing dum. We know you are intelligent, that cats out the bag,
To me good politics is engaging and winning the arguments, not coasting along safety first. You have to play the long game, and this means arguing and winning the argument. Last weeks Labour conference was poor on this benchmark.
But don’t just ask me what planet I am on for suggesting this, ask Ganesh - one of the more left wing economic columnists around, what planet he is on. For him the exact opposite of a Pyrrhic victory is a defeat that turns out to bring success in the long run
If Trussnomics attempting to answer the problems facing UK today, and Starmerology 😴 isn’t, that’s the very opposite of good politics, it’s a Pyrrhic victory regardless what opinion polls say going into the next election - if Tory’s go into 2029 election both challenging the consensus with their radical solutions, and ahead in the polls.
Janan Ganesh leftwing?
Only on PB.
I know!
We're being razzled by a moon rabbit ... moon rabbit moon rabbit
Janan was at university at the same time as me and was a Tory Association member for a time
Not surprised. He's trad non-populist centre right imo. Economically and socially liberal. Kind of a Topping without the uniform.
Yes I've chatted to him and this is exactly where he is - a Cameron era Tory. Nice chap and super smart but definitely not left-wing.
Ganesh was active in Labour Students, the student wing of the Labour Party, having been inspired to join when he was 17 by Tony Blair's 1999 annual Labour Party Conference speech. Ganesh opted not to attend his local constituency Labour Party meetings as they were "too dominated by Trots".
You are all quite sure of his GE voting record then? OK.
Ganesh co-authored Compassionate Conservatism in 2006, with Jesse Norman, the Tory MP. Rather like Truss, his allegiances have changed. He's a Tory.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
After a contentious leadership election the Tories will have been hoping to see the party come together. But Britons see it as even more divided than it was
Very divided: 45% (+8 from 1 Sep) Fairly divided: 33% (-4) Very/fairly united: 7% (-3)
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
HMRC’s customer service and call centre headcount have been cut to the bone in repeated waves over a number of years.
Years ago you’d have got on the phone to a clerical officer, probably been working in the local tax office for 2 decades, and they’d have dealt with your issue there and then. A quick walk up to the inspector’s office, put it in the in tray and job done. Now you queue for a call centre employee who’s on a short term contract with hardly any training and your call gets logged on a database somewhere.
Governments keep asking them to find savings. So given they prefer not to cut front line compliance they keep having to look in the back office.
Complete false economy. One department you really want to give proper resources to is the one that collects revenue. Contrast with the IRS in the US who have been piling up the funding and resources in the last few years and increasing tax yield.
The IRS had to push in resource, for fear of total collapse.
Just had the phone call - completion of our remortgage (10-year fix, just over 3%). Chose it in July, taken this long to get finalised. Looks a very good deal right now.
I managed to get 1.68% for 5 years back in January, and I was pretty astonished at that. I thought the best I could dare hope for was around 2.3%.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Most people though aren't on long term fixed mortgage deals.
Leaving aside those paying the SVR, I would expect that nearly all homeowners with mortgages haven't yet paid a penny in rising mortgage costs but will do so in the next couple of years once the remaining term of their fixed deal expires.
There's a big difference between worrying now about a forecast rise in payments a year or two down the line, and actually experiencing a doubling in payments, probably by then combined with a crash in the housing market that would pile on further pain.
So I don't think we've yet seen the full impact of the mortgage crisis on polling. That will only come in 2023 and 2024, just in time for a general election delayed until the last possible minute in the hope that something will turn up. And the blame is going to fall entirely on the Conservatives because, unusually, they haven't been able to pull their usual trick of getting out of a mess of their own making by finding a scapegoat to divert attention to.
I think something like 8% of the market needs to renew every quarter.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
Seriously, I sympathise. I have spent many hours listening to the interminable 12 second musak loop, trying to resolve my late mum's small estate.
Comments
That doesn’t mean I’d want my wife or parents to be subject to harassment at home, nor to see an online comment from a decade past, taken without context and applied to whatever social standards apply a decade in the future, on the front page of a newspaper.
It’s good that people do stand for office, of course, but I think it’ll become increasingly difficult to find good people as time goes on. 2024’s 35-year-olds, will have had cameras on their phones since they were 15 or 16.
Treasury orthodoxy arguing for policies that don’t crash the pound = anti-groat coalition
Plenty of opportunities to use anti-gross coalition.
Etc
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1577676194945941508
Admire the view from your triple glazed windows….
Knocking up a basic wind turbine with a rewired motor or an alternator should be fairly easy if you need to manage in the winter.
Threre would be plenty of disabled cars with the right parts (and a battery).
All felt a bit familiar in B’ham today
https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1577678310779371520
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1577678800632320000
Liz is the candidate for the voter in the mood for a high risk option, Keir for one going for the low risk option.
Without taking a view on which is the better one, I think Keir's is the easier sell to the voters.
Trying to explain why so little Conservative has been achieved since 2010 is the harder aspect of this positioning.
(Granted there was Brexit, the single but rather large exception to the gradual drift Brownwards - though you could argue that this was achieved almost by accident.)
To be honest, depending on your point of view, the BBC's values do not always chime with yours. The BBC is metropolitan, southern, liberal, shockingly white (although it tries to hide that by picking as many presenters of colour as possible, just not in all the other jobs that the BBC has).
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish,
you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive,
you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?)
You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
I wasn’t far out, it’s all there in the speech today wasn’t it. In fact Trussism is a simple pitch, not a complicated one.
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
What there wssn’t in Truss Speech today,, to its detriment, was no rabbit from the hat big announcement
“In the coming days we will move forward and sign contracts that will ensure our energy security for years to come - this government will be keeping the lights on this winter, and next winter, and the following winter regardless what the global situation will throw at us.”
“We will bring forward the details in Parliament next week how universal credit will rise this year in line with inflation.”
Etc.
That’s the way we would do it isn’t it?
She is not the salesman that Johnson is though.
I am also most unlikely to take my mortgage beyond five years, so I'm very lucky with how that's worked out.
Are mortgage companies taking the hit (presumably they will be losing money) on these deals to avoid bringing the property market to a standstill? If they stopped them all would they be worse off after all?
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
*the eagle eyed Greater Mancunian may notice a bit of a blank to the North east where my geography fails me a bit.
I’m back in the market November 23.
My only saving grace is that I should be pretty good over 40% equity.
Johnson/Sunak in putting up taxes and spending, especially choosing National Insurance as the tax to put up, regrettably were.
92 and 15 were the worst - since there was optimism going in.
"The Ringmaster has left the Circus and now the Lions are eating the Clowns"
On a good day you can see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, especially on Standedge Hill and around one of the reservoirs. Sadly when I was last there a week and a half ago it was too cloudy. I would recommend it for a day out though, it's even nice on clear, cool autumn days.
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Is she also continuity Brown?
Considering Luhansk is the only region other than Crimea that is (edit: was) fully occupied by Russia, that is quite a remarkable achievement to be pushing back there now too. I would have thought their hands would be full with the fronts around Kherson and Kharkiv.
It seems the Russian lines are disintegrating everywhere. Good.
And a lesson for those who were saying six months ago that Ukrainians should surrender/we shouldn't support Ukraine as Russia would "obviously" win the war and there was nothing we could do to prevent that or support Ukraine to stop that.
Top Post.
I’ve been trying to explain this exact point to the PB Labour Herd for a couple of days, but the PB Labour Herd are not in a listening or sensible mood right now.
£727 a month compared to Nationwides best current deal of £1,188
Don't get sick
Don't be disabled
Don’t be on low pay with kids to feed
Don’t rely on Universal Credit or public services
If you do, get ready to pay for £43bn in tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest the most.
[THREAD]
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-must-ditch-welfare-28153979
Truss has cut National Insurance.
So no, she is not.
Hopefully she'll do something about the income tax distortions by the time of the next election.
"Baby names: Oliver knocked off top spot by Noah"
I like Wessenden Moor - Black Moss Resvr - The old Pennine Way goes through NT land which is recovering from drainage and overgrazing and lots of interesting things are sprouting up.
(Black Moss Reservoir has a good view of the centre of Manchester, so must be visible)
I’m being paid in dollars, which helps.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-liz-truss-finished-so-are-tories
Austerity and slow degradation of almost all public services => more rapid degradation of public services
Brexit orthodoxy and picking fights with Europe => a more Redwoodian Brexit orthodoxy and picking fights with Europe.
Talk of bonfires of regulations => actual bonfire of regulations
Blaming remainers and citizens of nowhere for everything => blaming them plus markets, the IMF, the Treasury and think tanks (oh the irony) for everything
What she’s offering is undiluted Toryism with a bit of recklessness added in. It’s hardly a paradigm shift.
Labour is offering fairly bog standard Brownite policy. No paradigm shift either, but a bit more attractive to the electorate. And unlike Truss (or Corbyn) not going out of his way to make enemies of his potential voter base.
Well, yes
Two hours later...
Boris Johnson's flagship '40 hospitals' policy under threat and could be scaled back under Liz Truss's Government https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-flagship-policy-scaled-back-1895462?ito=twitter_share_article-top
Wessenden, Blakeley and Butterley Reservoirs looked very empty compared to earlier in the year as well. I had pictures from February and it was concerning to see how much the water had receded when I stood in the same spot and held my phone up to compare.
@eiecampaign
·
46m
Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
You are all quite sure of his GE voting record then? OK.
The biggest danger with trying to “lock away” Wrong Behaviour is that it fails to deal with the problem of democratic consent. If you can only maintain human rights by denying the population their wishes, how long before the system is destroyed?
The Swiss system of using referenda as the ultimate arbiter seems to have worked extremely well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-38595807
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Very happy, but I was shitting bricks on sunday when the app played up and told me that my repayment was £300 per month more than I was expecting.
I would oppose KKK villages and I would hope my countrymen and women would too and would, like me, vote accordingly.
Telling elected governments they can't do what they're elected to do just undermines democracy. If the court is on your side, then you may think that's a good thing, but what happens when the court turns against you? When the court is packed with "Judges" that are against your liberties, and Parliament is neutered, then where do you turn?
Truss, Kwarteng, Braverman, Coffey, Rees-Mogg.
They are quite repulsive looking or acting individuals.
At least Cleverley is “only” stupid.
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish,
you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive,
you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?)
You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Years ago you’d have got on the phone to a clerical officer, probably been working in the local tax office for 2 decades, and they’d have dealt with your issue there and then. A quick walk up to the inspector’s office, put it in the in tray and job done. Now you queue for a call centre employee who’s on a short term contract with hardly any training and your call gets logged on a database somewhere.
Governments keep asking them to find savings. So given they prefer not to cut front line compliance they keep having to look in the back office.
Complete false economy. One department you really want to give proper resources to is the one that collects revenue. Contrast with the IRS in the US who have been piling up the funding and resources in the last few years and increasing tax yield.
https://twitter.com/marcusjdl/status/1577596078396002304
True this. As I said, cheap housing gave us Blondie and Philip Glass. Expensive housing gives us Mumford and Sons.
https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2018/03/cultural-costs-of-high-house-prices.html https://twitter.com/CJFDillow/status/1577687018225762305
Leaving aside those paying the SVR, I would expect that nearly all homeowners with mortgages haven't yet paid a penny in rising mortgage costs but will do so in the next couple of years once the remaining term of their fixed deal expires.
There's a big difference between worrying now about a forecast rise in payments a year or two down the line, and actually experiencing a doubling in payments, probably by then combined with a crash in the housing market that would pile on further pain.
So I don't think we've yet seen the full impact of the mortgage crisis on polling. That will only come in 2023 and 2024, just in time for a general election delayed until the last possible minute in the hope that something will turn up. And the blame is going to fall entirely on the Conservatives because, unusually, they haven't been able to pull their usual trick of getting out of a mess of their own making by finding a scapegoat to divert attention to.
Very divided: 45% (+8 from 1 Sep)
Fairly divided: 33% (-4)
Very/fairly united: 7% (-3)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2022/10/05/b7507/1 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577686321396596741/photo/1
Britons now tend to see Labour as a united party, by 45% to 30%.
At the start of September they saw it as divided, by 49% to 25%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2022/10/05/b7507/2 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577686326945763335/photo/1