Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
I didn’t claim that every possible subset of voters wanted it, so I’m not certain why you’re making a complaint of this nature.
Glad to hear that we belong to a “possible subset” (sic).
Re Boris - appreciate this is not the polled question, but I can totally believe people prefer Boris to Truss. I mean, Truss has been an unmitigated disaster. It doesn’t mean people love Boris.
The Tories had a chance to change the narrative and move on from Boris scandals this summer. They backed the wrong horse. It doesn’t mean people want them to bring Boris back.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
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:
Oborne there managing to provoke an ever rarer stirring in my sadly depleted middle-ages loins with his fruity talk of a complete Conservative collapse.
Oborne once predicted that Ming Campbell's leadership of the Lib Dems would prove 'deadly' for the Tories.
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."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
My brother got his lawnmower out one Sunday in Germany, and two police cars pulled up to stop him. He didn't do it again.
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
Considering conservative voters are a dying breed 65% of them is irrelevant
And the fact voters overall by a 20% margin now think Tory MPs will regret Boris going?
All a bit second guessish, isn't it? Why not ask whether it was a good idea, not whether you think x thinks it was a good idea?
This strikes me as like regretting the loss of your favourite babysitter because, OK, he has been jailed for serial violent paedophilia, but his rates were very reasonable and the kids really liked him.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
Your patience was rewarded. A tax on time instead of money! At least you didn't just get disconnected, as I often find with private sector companies who have outsourced call centres.
I have no direct experience of HMRC but if they are like other government departments then their IT systems will also be increasingly behind the curve. I would hope not given the importance of revenue collection but you never know. "Something has gone wrong" is not unusual even in well-provisioned IT systems!
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:
Oborne there managing to provoke an ever rarer stirring in my sadly depleted middle-ages loins with his fruity talk of a complete Conservative collapse.
Oborne once predicted that Ming Campbell's leadership of the Lib Dems would prove 'deadly' for the Tories.
Gee, thanks. Flaccidity has returned. Got a cock like a burst balloon.
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:
Oborne there managing to provoke an ever rarer stirring in my sadly depleted middle-ages loins with his fruity talk of a complete Conservative collapse.
Oborne once predicted that Ming Campbell's leadership of the Lib Dems would prove 'deadly' for the Tories.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
2 hours @ 7p per minute = £8.40. A nice little earner.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I do not need to even vote for labour, you and others in the party have ensured Starmer will be the next PM and you are going to be irrelevant politically for a very long time
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr....
Do you expect your own hotline or something?
Given that I am trying to persuade them to sign off on documents that mean I will pay tax on foreign income here in the UK, rather than, say, in Germany, France, Portugal, or Brazil, you'd think I'd get pretty quick service, not an 8 month delay on the documents, and several hours-long phone calls going nowhere
I am actually STRIVING to make sure His Majesty's Revenue gets more money! Pillocks
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I do not need to even vote for labour, you and others in the party have ensured Starmer will be the next PM and you are going to be irrelevant politically for a very long time
Come now, that's unfair to poor HYUFD. There's always the Parish Council, and maybe even the Borough if the Residents haven't rebelled over Ms Truss selling Epping Forest to an overseas consortium to build investment flats.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
Your patience was rewarded. A tax on time instead of money! At least you didn't just get disconnected, as I often find with private sector companies who have outsourced call centres.
I have no direct experience of HMRC but if they are like other government departments then their IT systems will also be increasingly behind the curve. I would hope not given the importance of revenue collection but you never know. "Something has gone wrong" is not unusual even in well-provisioned IT systems!
It is typical of the short-sightedness of this government's "efficiency savings" to close so many IR offices. Ours used to be very helpful, but closed a few years back. I reckon that they lose more revenue than they save by doing so.
JK Rowling is increasingly becoming a political figure.
@jk_rowling I note the genderists are now arguing that it doesn't matter that a paedophilia apologist was a trustee of a trans children's charity, because he was 'only one'.
You know, I thought things were pretty bad when you were arguing to put convicted rapists in women's jails, when you shrugged off masked men roughing up lesbian protestors and tried to shout down detransitioners talking about what was done to them by ideologically-captured doctors.
Women, gay people and vulnerable kids have suffered real harm and you? You cheered it all on.
You still prefer wilful blindness and four word mantras to considering you might have got this badly wrong. You became part of an authoritarian, misogynist, homophobic movement and you didn't even notice. Enjoy the sense of your own righteousness while you can. It won't last.
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
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."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
My brother got his lawnmower out one Sunday in Germany, and two police cars pulled up to stop him. He didn't do it again.
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
No government seems able to do anything about extremely noisy motorbikes. They are a nuisance in every country I have been recently - America to Spain, Georgia to Italy
Seville was particularly bad. They race down the narrow cobbled roads of the old town at about 2am, and the noise is acutely unpleasant, because the stonework echoes and amplifies it
JK Rowling is increasingly becoming a political figure.
@jk_rowling I note the genderists are now arguing that it doesn't matter that a paedophilia apologist was a trustee of a trans children's charity, because he was 'only one'.
You know, I thought things were pretty bad when you were arguing to put convicted rapists in women's jails, when you shrugged off masked men roughing up lesbian protestors and tried to shout down detransitioners talking about what was done to them by ideologically-captured doctors.
Women, gay people and vulnerable kids have suffered real harm and you? You cheered it all on.
You still prefer wilful blindness and four word mantras to considering you might have got this badly wrong. You became part of an authoritarian, misogynist, homophobic movement and you didn't even notice. Enjoy the sense of your own righteousness while you can. It won't last.
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
2 hours @ 7p per minute = £8.40. A nice little earner.
Cant you deduct the £8,40 as a business expense?
Alternatively Leon is it because you told them your real name was Thomas or Sean or something and now they are confused
Have been crazy busy with work all day. Did see a news clip of her speech on a TV screen in the background in one meeting and said "oh god why is she in front of a blue screen? That will get chromakeyed" to laughter from my colleague.
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
A girls' school in Iran brought a member of the IRGC-run Basij paramilitary to speak to students. The girls welcomed the speaker by taking off their headscarves & chanting "get lost, Basiji".
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
Well, can't say Wokingham hasn't taken its fair share. I grew up there and it is being obliterated by massive housing estates, particularly in the last 15 years. There is basically now a non stop housing belt between Reading and Ascot. Lots of countryside obliterated by poorly thought out developments.
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
Utterly batshit. The people are Wokingham are idiots.
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
Well, can't say Wokingham hasn't taken its fair share. I grew up there and it is being obliterated by massive housing estates, particularly in the last 15 years. There is basically now a non stop housing belt between Reading and Ascot. Lots of countryside obliterated by poorly thought out developments.
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
They could be drawing down SIPPs rather than having bought annuities. Lots of people are what with the annuity rates on offer these days.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
Well, can't say Wokingham hasn't taken its fair share. I grew up there and it is being obliterated by massive housing estates, particularly in the last 15 years. There is basically now a non stop housing belt between Reading and Ascot. Lots of countryside obliterated by poorly thought out developments.
I have a friend there. Gives the impression to me of being all houses, dual carriageways, and the odd school playing ground and flooded gravel pit. Not nice.
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
They could be drawing down SIPPs rather than having bought annuities. Lots of people are what with the annuity rates on offer these days.
Is that common, as it is 13 years since I retired and annuities seemed to be the norm
One suspects that the cigar chomping, obese Therese Coffey is going to become one of the key grotesques in the Tory gallery.
Truss, Kwarteng, Braverman, Coffey, Rees-Mogg.
They are quite repulsive looking or acting individuals.
At least Cleverley is “only” stupid.
You've missed quite a few! Even after Thatcher had removed the wets around '89 I can't remember an uglier more right wing selfish looking 'nasty' party than this incarnation. The zeitgeist is changing
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."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
My brother got his lawnmower out one Sunday in Germany, and two police cars pulled up to stop him. He didn't do it again.
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
If we implemented such a law here, lack of police enforcement would leave the grass-cutter uninterrupted, as long as he nicked the lawnmower from somewhere else rather than used his own.......
Have been crazy busy with work all day. Did see a news clip of her speech on a TV screen in the background in one meeting and said "oh god why is she in front of a blue screen? That will get chromakeyed" to laughter from my colleague.
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
The choice was still between a Tory led government or a Labour led government even in 2010. The Tories were largest party and the LDs went into coalition with then as the junior party
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
They could be drawing down SIPPs rather than having bought annuities. Lots of people are what with the annuity rates on offer these days.
Is that common, as it is 13 years since I retired and annuities seemed to be the norm
I am not obviously as upto date
Annuity rates have been exceedingly low since the GFC and people can drawdown instead since 2015. Think most new retirees choose lump sum and drawdown ahead of annuities.
LOL @ John Redwood on PM: local Conservative associations sometimes feel they shouldn't hog all the lovely housing development for their own area but should distribute the benefits of growth more widely.
Well, can't say Wokingham hasn't taken its fair share. I grew up there and it is being obliterated by massive housing estates, particularly in the last 15 years. There is basically now a non stop housing belt between Reading and Ascot. Lots of countryside obliterated by poorly thought out developments.
I have a friend there. Gives the impression to me of being all houses, dual carriageways, and the odd school playing ground and flooded gravel pit. Not nice.
There have been a few commercial developments in the centre that are nice. However it is vastly outweighed by the awful rings of developments miles out from the centre. My parents moved there in the 70s and are still there. I moved away 10 years ago the over development was a major factor.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
Is this supposed to be an insult?
It is the doctrine of purity which questions even the premise that you are not tribal and can think for yourself
@HYUFD has this strange attitude that anyone voting for another party is a traitor to the cause even though it was in the country's best interests
Mind you do not ask how he came to vote for Plaid as that is not counted
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
The choice was still between a Tory led government or a Labour led government even in 2010. The Tories were largest party and the LDs went into coalition with then as the junior party
A "UK Tory government or a UK Labour government" is what you said. That excludes coalitions clearly - and we can add the DUP-Tory coalition as well.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr....
Do you expect your own hotline or something?
Given that I am trying to persuade them to sign off on documents that mean I will pay tax on foreign income here in the UK, rather than, say, in Germany, France, Portugal, or Brazil, you'd think I'd get pretty quick service, not an 8 month delay on the documents, and several hours-long phone calls going nowhere
I am actually STRIVING to make sure His Majesty's Revenue gets more money! Pillocks
Poor show, yes. But what I do in such circs is put the phone on speaker and do other things, eg some housework. If you do that, there's nothing much lost. Much better than getting wound up. Also means when they finally pick up you're calm and focussed rather than angry and 'tight'. You can just give a little chuckle and say "about time, now then ... here's my issue".
You've done me wrong, your time is up You took a sip from the devil's cup You broke my heart, there's no way back Move right out of here, baby, go on pack your bags
Have been crazy busy with work all day. Did see a news clip of her speech on a TV screen in the background in one meeting and said "oh god why is she in front of a blue screen? That will get chromakeyed" to laughter from my colleague.
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
You've done me wrong, your time is up You took a sip from the devil's cup You broke my heart, there's no way back Move right out of here, baby, go on pack your bags
Brilliant choice of entrance song.
The original songwriter is not too pleased about it by used by her.
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."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
My brother got his lawnmower out one Sunday in Germany, and two police cars pulled up to stop him. He didn't do it again.
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
Yes, it's not to my taste but I do understand the appeal of orderliness, a place for everything and everything in its place etc.
Have been crazy busy with work all day. Did see a news clip of her speech on a TV screen in the background in one meeting and said "oh god why is she in front of a blue screen? That will get chromakeyed" to laughter from my colleague.
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
John Curtice on R5L now. Get markets onside. PM needs to show she's up to the job. Growth plan needs to work. All 3 need to happen to turn it around. Says this is like Black Wednesday.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
The choice was still between a Tory led government or a Labour led government even in 2010. The Tories were largest party and the LDs went into coalition with then as the junior party
A "UK Tory government or a UK Labour government" is what you said. That excludes coalitions clearly - and we can add the DUP-Tory coalition as well.
No it doesn't, the PM and Leader of the Government still comes from either the Tories or Labour
Have been crazy busy with work all day. Did see a news clip of her speech on a TV screen in the background in one meeting and said "oh god why is she in front of a blue screen? That will get chromakeyed" to laughter from my colleague.
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
Just went and had a quick look into this on gov.uk. The gist of the rules appears to be that if you're in a money purchase scheme, most of those are run by pension providers rather than directly by employers, and what happens if the provider goes bust depends on whether or not it was authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (which I would assume the overwhelming majority of such firms providing schemes for UK pensioners and pension savers would be.) If an FCA authorised provider sinks then you're made to apply to the FSCS for compensation, as you would be if a bank collapsed whilst holding your savings.
The FSCS website states that, for firms that failed after April 1st 2019, they'll pay out full compensation with no upper limit for claims in respect of pension providers, and £85,000 per eligible person per firm for SIPP (self-invested personal pension) providers, which is the same limit as for bank accounts with collapsed banks.
Defined benefit pension schemes are covered by the Pension Protection Fund, which usually preserves 100% of your benefits if you have already reached the pension age of the scheme, or 90% if you haven't.
Regardless, the large bulk of pension savings aren't threatened, especially where pensions are already in payment. Doesn't mean that it wouldn't cost the Government a fortune in taxpayers' money if it needed to bail any of them out though.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
I can believe it. Have always found Austria a lovely place to visit but gives off the vibe that there is a lot of pressure to conform.
Yes there was. A very set ways of doing things. Eg I remember only being able to buy fags from registered outlets that opened 10 till 12 and then 2 till 4. And not at the weekend. Nor on Wednesdays. If you missed it, that was it. No smokes.
A girls' school in Iran brought a member of the IRGC-run Basij paramilitary to speak to students. The girls welcomed the speaker by taking off their headscarves & chanting "get lost, Basiji".
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
The choice was still between a Tory led government or a Labour led government even in 2010. The Tories were largest party and the LDs went into coalition with then as the junior party
A "UK Tory government or a UK Labour government" is what you said. That excludes coalitions clearly - and we can add the DUP-Tory coalition as well.
No it doesn't, the PM and Leader of the Government still comes from either the Tories or Labour
That's an abuse of political terminology and precision. YOu said "UK Tory Government or an UK Labour Government". Not "Coalition Government led by Mr Cameron".
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
You’re doing your classic arithmetic fail.
Scottish Tories: 11%
The only choice at Westminster is between a UK Tory government or a UK Labour government, so if they don't want a Labour led government then Scottish nationalists clearly want a Tory government by default instead
Not true, as any fule kno, and as 2010-2015 showed, for instance.
The choice was still between a Tory led government or a Labour led government even in 2010. The Tories were largest party and the LDs went into coalition with then as the junior party
A "UK Tory government or a UK Labour government" is what you said. That excludes coalitions clearly - and we can add the DUP-Tory coalition as well.
No it doesn't, the PM and Leader of the Government still comes from either the Tories or Labour
That's an abuse of political terminology and precision. YOu said "UK Tory Government or an UK Labour Government". Not "Coalition Government led by Mr Cameron".
Remarkable tergiversation.
Still a Conservative led government as a Conservative PM was leading it.
That is the choice and if the SNP ever held the balance of power and did not back Labour they would be ensuring a Tory government and Tory PM instead
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I do not need to even vote for labour, you and others in the party have ensured Starmer will be the next PM and you are going to be irrelevant politically for a very long time
Bang on @Big_G_NorthWales . HYUFD is one of the useful idiots who kept providing succour to those that shifted the Party ever more in disastrous direction of right wing populism, led by his dishonest dickhead of a hero, "Boris"; a man not worthy of licking the boots of even his most undistinguished predecessors. They have destroyed the Conservative Party and made it an even bigger laughing stock than Labour was under Corbyn. The only glimmer of hope is that Labour has managed to turn itself around, though largely because of the credibility suicide squad led by the likes of HYUFD.
John Curtice on R5L now. Get markets onside. PM needs to show she's up to the job. Growth plan needs to work. All 3 need to happen to turn it around. Says this is like Black Wednesday.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I do not need to even vote for labour, you and others in the party have ensured Starmer will be the next PM and you are going to be irrelevant politically for a very long time
Bang on @Big_G_NorthWales . HYUFD is one of the useful idiots who kept providing succour to those that shifted the Party ever more in disastrous direction of right wing populism, led by his dishonest dickhead of a hero, "Boris"; a man not worthy of licking the boots of even his most undistinguished predecessors. They have destroyed the Conservative Party and made it an even bigger laughing stock than Labour was under Corbyn. The only glimmer of hope is that Labour has managed to turn itself around, though largely because of the credibility suicide squad led by the likes of HYUFD.
Boris won the biggest Tory landslide since Thatcher. It is removing him that has led to 1997 style leads for Labour. Most polls even in the summer had Labour only getting to hung parliament territory at best
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."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
My brother got his lawnmower out one Sunday in Germany, and two police cars pulled up to stop him. He didn't do it again.
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
I have always liked the fact that Switzerland is a country where not possessing an assault rifle can be a crime.
And flushing your toilet after 11pm can get a visit from the police - for disturbing your neighbours.
That's quite funny. I bristle slightly at the North of England being in the 'post-industrial depression' category - most of it is at least 'both of the above'. Also a pedant notes West Cumberland is also rugby league. Though the rugby league band in Lancashire and Yorkshire is too wide - doesn't extend that far north. (ISTR that this only applies to watching rugby - even in the rugby league heartlands I think at least as many people play rugby union than play rugby league. @dixiedean may have a viewon this!)
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."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
Nancy sounds like a pain in the arse.
But withholding her citizenship is not proportionate. They should give Nancy a passport. I'm going to write to the Swiss Consulate.
I'm with the Swiss here. It's entirely proportionate. Citizenship isn't a right. You have to be prepared to be a bit Swiss to be given it.
They're telling her she can't have it because she "bores them". This is not on imo. It's capricious.
My view is that citizenship is a club. It's up to the members of the club who they admit.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I do not need to even vote for labour, you and others in the party have ensured Starmer will be the next PM and you are going to be irrelevant politically for a very long time
Bang on @Big_G_NorthWales . HYUFD is one of the useful idiots who kept providing succour to those that shifted the Party ever more in disastrous direction of right wing populism, led by his dishonest dickhead of a hero, "Boris"; a man not worthy of licking the boots of even his most undistinguished predecessors. They have destroyed the Conservative Party and made it an even bigger laughing stock than Labour was under Corbyn. The only glimmer of hope is that Labour has managed to turn itself around, though largely because of the credibility suicide squad led by the likes of HYUFD.
Boris won the biggest Tory landslide since Thatcher. It is removing him that has led to 1997 style leads for Labour. Most polls even in the summer had Labour only getting to hung parliament territory at best
You demonstrate with every post why you are a dying breed of so called conservatives undertaking an internal and deathly civil war
Must be an accumulation of Tories starting out with notional majority of around 100 (accounting for boundary change) plus Tories might get rid of Truss and miraculously stumble upon a popular replacement plus Labour might yet do something really silly, such as including a pledge to behead all puppies in the GE manifesto.
Well, there's the dress and the necklace and what, while we are on the subject, is a particularly naff slogan, especially given her lot have been running the show for the past 12 years.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I think you’ve misunderstood the point of politics… it’s about getting people to vote FOR you
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:
"Many Tory members are retired, and understandably terrified for their future because Kwarteng’s unforgivable financial buffoonery threatens pension funds with collapse. "
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
I am not sure how the retired are affected by their pension funds as they will already have their pensions
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
They could be drawing down SIPPs rather than having bought annuities. Lots of people are what with the annuity rates on offer these days.
Is that common, as it is 13 years since I retired and annuities seemed to be the norm
I am not obviously as upto date
I don't know anyone who takes an annuity now. I and my wife have drawdowns in addition to other investments.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
Is this supposed to be an insult?
It is the doctrine of purity which questions even the premise that you are not tribal and can think for yourself
@HYUFD has this strange attitude that anyone voting for another party is a traitor to the cause even though it was in the country's best interests
Mind you do not ask how he came to vote for Plaid as that is not counted
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
It’s a deliberate action from the senior civil servants in charge of the department, to make ‘savings’ in the most public-facing way possible, in order to generate complaints to the politicians.
Rather like when the MoD proposes cutting the Buckingham Palace Guard or the Red Arrows.
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."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
Nancy sounds like a pain in the arse.
But withholding her citizenship is not proportionate. They should give Nancy a passport. I'm going to write to the Swiss Consulate.
I'm with the Swiss here. It's entirely proportionate. Citizenship isn't a right. You have to be prepared to be a bit Swiss to be given it.
They're telling her she can't have it because she "bores them". This is not on imo. It's capricious.
My view is that citizenship is a club. It's up to the members of the club who they admit.
You have to keep prejudice out of it though. You can slide into that if you take too much account of popular opinion in these matters.
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
I think you’ve misunderstood the point of politics… it’s about getting people to vote FOR you
I am a Tory and will vote for the Tories at every general election for all eternity but unless you want a one party state occasionally some swing voters will go to Labour, like BigG
Was busy earlier when Truss' speech was on. A few good bits on her background catching up on iplayer but my goodness the delivery is awful and wooden.
They make even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
The problem you have is the toxic behaviour of your hero Johnson has plunged the party into this existential crisis, to which you are part of the problem as you are one of many different factions pulling each other apart in a deathly embrace
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
Bye then, I always said you would go back to Labour as you did under Blair, no surprise there
Is this supposed to be an insult?
It is the doctrine of purity which questions even the premise that you are not tribal and can think for yourself
@HYUFD has this strange attitude that anyone voting for another party is a traitor to the cause even though it was in the country's best interests
Mind you do not ask how he came to vote for Plaid as that is not counted
He's voted for Plaid? That's quite amazing.
I voted for every Tory candidate on the town council ballot paper ie 4. However I had 6 votes and on principle always use all my votes
Comments
The Tories had a chance to change the narrative and move on from Boris scandals this summer. They backed the wrong horse. It doesn’t mean people want them to bring Boris back.
The party is heading to oblivion and to be honest it only has itself to blame and you are part of the problem
I have no sympathy and await PM Starmer
https://twitter.com/ivanastradner/status/1577274116255932419
I don't think it daft to have a rule for peace and quiet on a Sunday.
This strikes me as like regretting the loss of your favourite babysitter because, OK, he has been jailed for serial violent paedophilia, but his rates were very reasonable and the kids really liked him.
I have no direct experience of HMRC but if they are like other government departments then their IT systems will also be increasingly behind the curve. I would hope not given the importance of revenue collection but you never know. "Something has gone wrong" is not unusual even in well-provisioned IT systems!
I am actually STRIVING to make sure His Majesty's Revenue gets more money! Pillocks
@jk_rowling
I note the genderists are now arguing that it doesn't matter that a paedophilia apologist was a trustee of a trans children's charity, because he was 'only one'.
You know, I thought things were pretty bad when you were arguing to put convicted rapists in women's jails, when you shrugged off masked men roughing up lesbian protestors and tried to shout down detransitioners talking about what was done to them by ideologically-captured doctors.
Women, gay people and vulnerable kids have suffered real harm and you? You cheered it all on.
You still prefer wilful blindness and four word mantras to considering you might have got this badly wrong. You became part of an authoritarian, misogynist, homophobic movement and you didn't even notice. Enjoy the sense of your own righteousness while you can. It won't last.
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1577678023062585347
And they put her in there against all the advice of anyone with more than 2 functional braincells. This was a train-wreck that was totally avoidable and visible from a long, long way off.
The Tory Corbyn!
Seville was particularly bad. They race down the narrow cobbled roads of the old town at about 2am, and the noise is acutely unpleasant, because the stonework echoes and amplifies it
Alternatively Leon is it because you told them your real name was Thomas or Sean or something and now they are confused
Is that if for this year's "The Thick of It Live" or is there any more to come?
Nothing that has happened has made any difference to my private pension nor the terms of it
It will of course worry very many who are getting near to retirement
Teenage girls have been at the forefront of protests for days.
https://twitter.com/KianSharifi/status/1577543177925435395
The people are Wokingham are idiots.
Spent 5 hrs trying to grow my Pukka cant seem to do it
I called HMRC they didnt know either
Although they were on for 2 hrs trying to help
I am not obviously as upto date
https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1577623252121395201?t=pxhY3e6CiLauiUEOsJa1yA&s=19
Though this was rather good:
https://twitter.com/LabourDesign/status/1577633905733156865?t=gO7UL9OBbfuLCZ63EZ8veQ&s=19
And this
https://twitter.com/dollisp/status/1577620808716935168?t=4di90G7IuLhTI3IDW7BrkA&s=19
@HYUFD has this strange attitude that anyone voting for another party is a traitor to the cause even though it was in the country's best interests
Mind you do not ask how he came to vote for Plaid as that is not counted
Dont tell em about the honey mummy
https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1577626223219539969/photo/1
You took a sip from the devil's cup
You broke my heart, there's no way back
Move right out of here, baby, go on pack your bags
Brilliant choice of entrance song.
The bar is clearly low when standing there and giving a wooden performance full of vacuous nonsense is now seen as some victory .
https://twitter.com/themike_p/status/1577610088407244802
I want her to fook off so thats all good with me
https://i.redd.it/2wjievs17vr91.jpg
My favorite is "Horses"
Get markets onside.
PM needs to show she's up to the job.
Growth plan needs to work.
All 3 need to happen to turn it around.
Says this is like Black Wednesday.
In our moment of Triumph?
I think you over-estimate their chances...
The FSCS website states that, for firms that failed after April 1st 2019, they'll pay out full compensation with no upper limit for claims in respect of pension providers, and £85,000 per eligible person per firm for SIPP (self-invested personal pension) providers, which is the same limit as for bank accounts with collapsed banks.
Defined benefit pension schemes are covered by the Pension Protection Fund, which usually preserves 100% of your benefits if you have already reached the pension age of the scheme, or 90% if you haven't.
Regardless, the large bulk of pension savings aren't threatened, especially where pensions are already in payment. Doesn't mean that it wouldn't cost the Government a fortune in taxpayers' money if it needed to bail any of them out though.
Remarkable tergiversation.
That is the choice and if the SNP ever held the balance of power and did not back Labour they would be ensuring a Tory government and Tory PM instead
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1577704851600945154?t=0vkbgJQdINHbNdcI6mVJIQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/Feher_Junior/status/1577706867651903492
The Ukrainian "I don't want to die" hotline is getting thousands of calls. From Russians.
And flushing your toilet after 11pm can get a visit from the police - for disturbing your neighbours.
I bristle slightly at the North of England being in the 'post-industrial depression' category - most of it is at least 'both of the above'.
Also a pedant notes West Cumberland is also rugby league. Though the rugby league band in Lancashire and Yorkshire is too wide - doesn't extend that far north.
(ISTR that this only applies to watching rugby - even in the rugby league heartlands I think at least as many people play rugby union than play rugby league. @dixiedean may have a viewon this!)
Even so, I agree that 17% still seems excessive.
2 30pm, the main race of the Derby does not start until 4 30pm
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/britische-premierministerin-liz-truss-umzingelt-von-parteifeinden-a-3b8663b2-1311-4b75-bdf2-b5cd82a1216a
Rather like when the MoD proposes cutting the Buckingham Palace Guard or the Red Arrows.