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The betting money goes on 4 CON by-election losses – politicalbetting.com

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  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,646
    edited July 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Gavin Newsom and Robert F Kennedy Jr have moved into a mad 13.5 and and madder still 14.5 for POTUS.

    Newsom's odds aren't mad, as if anything were to happen to Biden, he'd at least have a shot.
    RFKJ is mad.
    “RFKJ is mad.”

    I sort of like him. I know I shouldn’t.

    Does anyone else know what I mean?
    Why ?
    He would be the Greenest US President yet, which would be good to have US leading and pushing on climate change.

    And one of the most left wing US presidents in terms of economics. These things would be an interesting change would they not?

    He also comes across with lots of presidential gravitas. In the bigger picture it would be a busy, strong, very interventionist White House. It would be really interesting 8 years, with lots of positive US leading on climate change, lots of things shaken up and pushed along in a very positive and likeable way.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    What percentage of your wages went on rent? Because atm a single person who isn't a homeowner will typically spend more than a third of their income on rent.

    https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/single-person-salary-rent-percentage
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437
    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    It is not very clearly written but I read that as the £39,000 was the student loan debt.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    Chris said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    There is neither a human right nor a strong historical tradition for youngish professionals of family formation age to live a few kilometres from the centre of London. For previous generations the solution was to move out of London. The current generation seems to perceive this as some sort of hate crime.
    The reason young people don't move out of London is that there are fewer jobs outside of London - the vast majority of investment centres on London and that's where most jobs are. The other major cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow - see some graduates and commuting towns, like Brighton, also see large graduate populations.

    I went to uni near Stoke. If it had any decent graduate jobs, I would have loved to stay there; I liked the area, I had got to know it over 5 years, it was cheap. But outside of working in a call centre for a phone company or a gambling company there was nothing really there.
    Isn't it obvious that if AI means companies need to employ far fewer people, then the capitalist model will run into problems? Of course it will look great to the companies - until they realise that people can't afford to buy their products any more, because they aren't employed.

    I wouldn't bet on "graduates" lasting that much longer in the employment market than anyone else.

    Probably a form a socialism is the answer. Either that or a very nasty economic crash and an attempt to pick up the pieces somehow.
    Why do companies need to sell stuff to people? Sell it to AIs. They already sell lots to other companies, which are another kind of non-human agent.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    Chris said:

    EPG said:

    Chris said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    There is neither a human right nor a strong historical tradition for youngish professionals of family formation age to live a few kilometres from the centre of London. For previous generations the solution was to move out of London. The current generation seems to perceive this as some sort of hate crime.
    The reason young people don't move out of London is that there are fewer jobs outside of London - the vast majority of investment centres on London and that's where most jobs are. The other major cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow - see some graduates and commuting towns, like Brighton, also see large graduate populations.

    I went to uni near Stoke. If it had any decent graduate jobs, I would have loved to stay there; I liked the area, I had got to know it over 5 years, it was cheap. But outside of working in a call centre for a phone company or a gambling company there was nothing really there.
    Isn't it obvious that if AI means companies need to employ far fewer people, then the capitalist model will run into problems? Of course it will look great to the companies - until they realise that people can't afford to buy their products any more, because they aren't employed.

    I wouldn't bet on "graduates" lasting that much longer in the employment market than anyone else.

    Probably a form a socialism is the answer. Either that or a very nasty economic crash and an attempt to pick up the pieces somehow.
    No, because the demography of the West is itself moving toward a world where a smaller share of the population works. It would be a problem if there were too FEW workers for the tech level - which would look like eternal 2022-23 with permanent upward negotiations of prices and pay. But people come up with ways to deal with too MANY workers. On the one hand, early retirement, longer time spent in education, and the gradual creep of the welfare state, which is much larger than it used to be even in 2000. On the other hand, new types of work. There's always a job for a young person who is conscientious enough to provide care for the vulnerable.
    So relieved to know that this isn't going to be a problem.
    Obviously you have the alternative to go to doomer subreddits where 18-year olds convince themselves that life isn't worth living, because of this generation's version of peak oil or something.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,509
    Andy_JS said:

    "Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter ordered to demolish home spa"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66100178

    So it should be as well. Thinks she can do what she wants.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,509

    ..

    TOPPING said:

    malcolmg said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Dura_Ace said:

    Miklosvar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    Interesting developments overnight, each seemingly as a consequence of the war against cars meeting political reality.

    No 1

    Cambridge City Council elects a Conservative for the first time since 2012! The Conservative's fought this by-election on a platform of scrapping the city's proposed congestion charge - Labour, LDs & Greens all said they would reform, not scrap it.

    King's Hedges (Cambridge) Council By-Election Result:

    CON: 34.9% (+3.0) LAB: 33.6% (-5.6) LDM: 23.5% (+8.5) GRN: 8.0% (-6.0)

    Conservative GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2023.

    No 2

    The labour candidate in Uxbridge, Danny Beales, openly attacks Khan’s ULEZ as an indication that this could be having an effect on his campaign.

    https://news.sky.com/story/labour-split-as-partys-candidate-in-uxbridge-by-election-speaks-out-against-london-mayors-ulez-expansion-12915004

    Khan’s team were in the High Court yesterday, he’s being sued by five councils affected by the ULEZ expansion, who claim the consultation was inadequate and incomprehensible, with no enabling legislation passed, but as the equivalent of a order-in-council based on the original legislation for a much smaller zone.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12262955/Sadiq-Khan-lacks-legal-power-order-ULEZ-expansion-High-Court-hears.html

    Tories in London really need to get everyone running on this as a single issue campaign. Who’s their Londoner version of Andy Street?

    There’s also a civil liberties group trying to sue the mayor, on the basis of the increased surveillance and ANPR cameras resulting from the scheme.
    What do we want? MORE POLLUTION! When do we want it? NOW!
    What do we want? OUR KIDS WITH ASTHMA! When do we want it! NOW!

    Some morons are upset about having to upgrade their ancient car. More people are upset by the reality that you can taste the particulates spewed out of exhaust pipes and it is having a truly detrimental effect on people's health.
    People on minimum wage jobs, as well as key service workers such as nurses and care assistants, perhaps single mothers with kids in different schools are wondering if they can afford a £2k per year tax on going to work.

    Usually one might expect Labour to stand up for these people, no? Instead with get this reactionary hyperbole that makes no sense.

    On your actual point, no, paying £12.50 to the mayor doesn’t reduce pollution. It does raise money though. Big bonus for all the out-of-towners without a vote, who get caught up and unwittingly fined. Great for the car plate closers too, not so much for the millions of innocents dragged into court for that over the years.
    They won't pay £2k a year to go to work - they'll change the car. As has been discussed it isn't a lot of cars
    You say it is not a lot of cars - do you have a link ?

    And you ignore the real concern of the labour candidate in Uxbridge who I am certain is more aware of the position in his constituency than you are to be fair
    The guy in Uxbridge wants to win his byelection and is triangulating. Good for him! And then he will back Khan because he'll be a London MP knowing where the power sits in the regional party.

    Again, if the Tories are genuinely concerned about the budgets of the poorest, why are they so unconcerned on every other measure?

    This isn't about the poor. Its about the rich. Because if a 20 year old Mini is compliant then practically any old banger which could be used as a daily driver is. Note - Daily Driver. I keep being told the poor will be taxed £2k a day to go to work. Driving what? Do you know how much it costs to keep something truly ancient in use as a daily driver?

    This is NOT about them. Because once a car gets past a tipping point it is cheaper to change it. This is about the people who have some cherished old classic they take out on a Sunday. The ones on car forums talking about it. The ones who can afford that kind of hobby vehicle and the cost of keeping it running. Not the poor.
    You do seem extremely agitated, annoyed, and intemperate this morning following my posting of Election Maps reporting on the conservative win in Cambridge yesterday due to their objection to congestion charging in the City and also the about turn of the Uxbridge labour candidate

    You are relatively comfortably of, run a Tesla, and live in a lovely but sparsely populated area of the North East Scotland and it is easy for you to dismiss the problems of some car owners in the Greater London area but it does seem to be an issue and of course it is being challenged in the courts

    I would also comment that it is labour councils who are also objecting to the plans

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-64496668
    What does a single council by-election result have to do with anything?

    I've also quoted you a couple of very direct points about the ownership / running costs of older cars which disarms the argument that poor workers will pay £2k a year in tax. I am painfully aware of how hand to mouth some people are. I am also aware that the same people who claim to be speaking for these people are directly responsible for the policies which are making their existence hand to mouth.

    This is a culture war crayon objection, nothing more.
    I'm going to touch wood when I say this as it'll probably go wrong now, but my other half's (Previously my brother's) 2008 Passat is still running very well. Car maintenance has struck me as more to do with luck than anything else.
    You married your brother?

    Car engines last about 500k miles just fine, it's merely fashion makes people sell them younger and they end up as taxis in West Africa.
    Very, very few engines will do 500k on the original crank bearings, cams, rings, etc. Also by that time every seal and ancillary (water pump, oil pump, alternator) will have been replaced multiple times over.

    So you can make an engine last 500k but it's going to require an unfeasible amount of money spent on it or meticulous maintenance (oil change every 2,000 - 3,000 miles) and a lot of luck. This reckoning might be different in shit holes with very low labour costs.

    The Prius seems to be the mileage king and they seem to go to 300,000+ if they are well maintained. This is probably a consequence of being Atkinson Cycle rather than Otto Cycle engines and thereby less stressed.
    300,000+ is not an unreasonable projection for many of the EVs now being built.
    The suspension might need attention from time to time.
    My company Tesla is a vehicle that I can see us running for a long time. The bodyshell is likely to stay in production for a long time so it will still look fresh, the software will keep being updated, and as I have one of the last cars built with ultrasonic sensors I am happy with the current 3rd gen hardware and don't see huge leaps forward with HW4 which is coming next year.

    We will get a quantum leap forward in terms of battery technology at some point in the future, at which point my <250kW charging rate will seem as primative as the >100kW on so many other EVs still on sale. Then I might change it. Otherwise? Why bother? There's very little on the vehicle to actually go wrong.
    Sounds fantastic and long may it last. Although reading some of the posts I think Trigger's Broom applies to some of these longevity stories.

    But your post "...my company Tesla..." illustrates why you are not well qualified to tell those less well off than you that they should be getting rid of their 2008 Nissan Micras.
    You what?

    2008 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202305187507459
    2002 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202307049277142

    How many cars do you think this covers? You mentioned Micra - I've had to go back to pre-2001 cars to find ones that aren't compliant, and they cost more than the post-2002 cars.
    Good research skills. You win the whole argument about poorer people being able or not to afford a couple of grand on a car because the 2008 Nissan Micra is indeed ULEZ compliant.
    Would you be seen dead in a Micra though
    I have not been in one yet, Malc, but never say never.
    Closest I could find, get rewriting your will.


    The wife can save some cash and just put me out with the bins
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    edited July 2023
    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415

    Andy_JS said:

    "Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter ordered to demolish home spa"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66100178

    J'accuzzi.
    She's set up a company "Club Nook" to basically grift off of the Captain Tom name. And has also set up other companies to provide err "consulting" services to Club Nook. If what she's done isn't illegal it probably ought to be. Just an out and out bare faced grifter living the high life off the back of people donating to the Captain Tom foundation in good faith.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter ordered to demolish home spa"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66100178

    J'accuzzi.
    She's set up a company "Club Nook" to basically grift off of the Captain Tom name. And has also set up other companies to provide err "consulting" services to Club Nook. If what she's done isn't illegal it probably ought to be. Just an out and out bare faced grifter living the high life off the back of people donating to the Captain Tom foundation in good faith.
    The Charity Commission are a regulator with a bit of teeth on this front.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,592
    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no.
    That's the pain of being down south - round here prices have probably tripled and wages will have at least doubled if not tripled (assuming you aren't public sector)..
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    malcolmg said:

    ..

    TOPPING said:

    malcolmg said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Dura_Ace said:

    Miklosvar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    Interesting developments overnight, each seemingly as a consequence of the war against cars meeting political reality.

    No 1

    Cambridge City Council elects a Conservative for the first time since 2012! The Conservative's fought this by-election on a platform of scrapping the city's proposed congestion charge - Labour, LDs & Greens all said they would reform, not scrap it.

    King's Hedges (Cambridge) Council By-Election Result:

    CON: 34.9% (+3.0) LAB: 33.6% (-5.6) LDM: 23.5% (+8.5) GRN: 8.0% (-6.0)

    Conservative GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2023.

    No 2

    The labour candidate in Uxbridge, Danny Beales, openly attacks Khan’s ULEZ as an indication that this could be having an effect on his campaign.

    https://news.sky.com/story/labour-split-as-partys-candidate-in-uxbridge-by-election-speaks-out-against-london-mayors-ulez-expansion-12915004

    Khan’s team were in the High Court yesterday, he’s being sued by five councils affected by the ULEZ expansion, who claim the consultation was inadequate and incomprehensible, with no enabling legislation passed, but as the equivalent of a order-in-council based on the original legislation for a much smaller zone.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12262955/Sadiq-Khan-lacks-legal-power-order-ULEZ-expansion-High-Court-hears.html

    Tories in London really need to get everyone running on this as a single issue campaign. Who’s their Londoner version of Andy Street?

    There’s also a civil liberties group trying to sue the mayor, on the basis of the increased surveillance and ANPR cameras resulting from the scheme.
    What do we want? MORE POLLUTION! When do we want it? NOW!
    What do we want? OUR KIDS WITH ASTHMA! When do we want it! NOW!

    Some morons are upset about having to upgrade their ancient car. More people are upset by the reality that you can taste the particulates spewed out of exhaust pipes and it is having a truly detrimental effect on people's health.
    People on minimum wage jobs, as well as key service workers such as nurses and care assistants, perhaps single mothers with kids in different schools are wondering if they can afford a £2k per year tax on going to work.

    Usually one might expect Labour to stand up for these people, no? Instead with get this reactionary hyperbole that makes no sense.

    On your actual point, no, paying £12.50 to the mayor doesn’t reduce pollution. It does raise money though. Big bonus for all the out-of-towners without a vote, who get caught up and unwittingly fined. Great for the car plate closers too, not so much for the millions of innocents dragged into court for that over the years.
    They won't pay £2k a year to go to work - they'll change the car. As has been discussed it isn't a lot of cars
    You say it is not a lot of cars - do you have a link ?

    And you ignore the real concern of the labour candidate in Uxbridge who I am certain is more aware of the position in his constituency than you are to be fair
    The guy in Uxbridge wants to win his byelection and is triangulating. Good for him! And then he will back Khan because he'll be a London MP knowing where the power sits in the regional party.

    Again, if the Tories are genuinely concerned about the budgets of the poorest, why are they so unconcerned on every other measure?

    This isn't about the poor. Its about the rich. Because if a 20 year old Mini is compliant then practically any old banger which could be used as a daily driver is. Note - Daily Driver. I keep being told the poor will be taxed £2k a day to go to work. Driving what? Do you know how much it costs to keep something truly ancient in use as a daily driver?

    This is NOT about them. Because once a car gets past a tipping point it is cheaper to change it. This is about the people who have some cherished old classic they take out on a Sunday. The ones on car forums talking about it. The ones who can afford that kind of hobby vehicle and the cost of keeping it running. Not the poor.
    You do seem extremely agitated, annoyed, and intemperate this morning following my posting of Election Maps reporting on the conservative win in Cambridge yesterday due to their objection to congestion charging in the City and also the about turn of the Uxbridge labour candidate

    You are relatively comfortably of, run a Tesla, and live in a lovely but sparsely populated area of the North East Scotland and it is easy for you to dismiss the problems of some car owners in the Greater London area but it does seem to be an issue and of course it is being challenged in the courts

    I would also comment that it is labour councils who are also objecting to the plans

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-64496668
    What does a single council by-election result have to do with anything?

    I've also quoted you a couple of very direct points about the ownership / running costs of older cars which disarms the argument that poor workers will pay £2k a year in tax. I am painfully aware of how hand to mouth some people are. I am also aware that the same people who claim to be speaking for these people are directly responsible for the policies which are making their existence hand to mouth.

    This is a culture war crayon objection, nothing more.
    I'm going to touch wood when I say this as it'll probably go wrong now, but my other half's (Previously my brother's) 2008 Passat is still running very well. Car maintenance has struck me as more to do with luck than anything else.
    You married your brother?

    Car engines last about 500k miles just fine, it's merely fashion makes people sell them younger and they end up as taxis in West Africa.
    Very, very few engines will do 500k on the original crank bearings, cams, rings, etc. Also by that time every seal and ancillary (water pump, oil pump, alternator) will have been replaced multiple times over.

    So you can make an engine last 500k but it's going to require an unfeasible amount of money spent on it or meticulous maintenance (oil change every 2,000 - 3,000 miles) and a lot of luck. This reckoning might be different in shit holes with very low labour costs.

    The Prius seems to be the mileage king and they seem to go to 300,000+ if they are well maintained. This is probably a consequence of being Atkinson Cycle rather than Otto Cycle engines and thereby less stressed.
    300,000+ is not an unreasonable projection for many of the EVs now being built.
    The suspension might need attention from time to time.
    My company Tesla is a vehicle that I can see us running for a long time. The bodyshell is likely to stay in production for a long time so it will still look fresh, the software will keep being updated, and as I have one of the last cars built with ultrasonic sensors I am happy with the current 3rd gen hardware and don't see huge leaps forward with HW4 which is coming next year.

    We will get a quantum leap forward in terms of battery technology at some point in the future, at which point my <250kW charging rate will seem as primative as the >100kW on so many other EVs still on sale. Then I might change it. Otherwise? Why bother? There's very little on the vehicle to actually go wrong.
    Sounds fantastic and long may it last. Although reading some of the posts I think Trigger's Broom applies to some of these longevity stories.

    But your post "...my company Tesla..." illustrates why you are not well qualified to tell those less well off than you that they should be getting rid of their 2008 Nissan Micras.
    You what?

    2008 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202305187507459
    2002 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202307049277142

    How many cars do you think this covers? You mentioned Micra - I've had to go back to pre-2001 cars to find ones that aren't compliant, and they cost more than the post-2002 cars.
    Good research skills. You win the whole argument about poorer people being able or not to afford a couple of grand on a car because the 2008 Nissan Micra is indeed ULEZ compliant.
    Would you be seen dead in a Micra though
    I have not been in one yet, Malc, but never say never.
    Closest I could find, get rewriting your will.


    The wife can save some cash and just put me out with the bins
    Black bag collection every three weeks. You'll have to time shuffling off the mortal coil to perfection these days.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156
    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    What percentage of your wages went on rent? Because atm a single person who isn't a homeowner will typically spend more than a third of their income on rent.

    https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/single-person-salary-rent-percentage
    Depends at what point. First came down to London temping earnt about £15-20k a year paying about £350 a month rent for room in a house share so 20-25%, probably still increasing debt at that point. But within 18 months would have been on £30k a year plus and same rent so 10-15% and able to start repaying it fairly quickly.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    The Cambridge local election result is potentially good news for the Tories in Uxbridge.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137

    Faisal Islam
    @faisalislam
    ·
    16m
    NEW:

    UK Debt Management Office sold £4 billion of 2 year gilts this morning with a yield of 5.668% - the highest in 24 years…
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005
    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,680
    edited July 2023

    Barnesian said:

    Ollie Dowden is very good at PMQs.

    He's handing Rayner her a***!

    I thought the reverse. He was pathetic. She was focused.
    He crushed her, although Black's put down got the better of an otherwise sublime performance.
    He didn't! He came out with pathetic pre-prepared lines, rather nervously I thought. She was focused on holding him and the government to account with sharp questions which he was unable to answer.
    Sublime performance! What!! You're winding me up.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049
    Pulpstar said:

    Miklosvar said:

    Thinking of Nadine Dorries, is there such a thing as negative incumbency factor?

    Speaking of Nads she is positioning herself big ime in the great EV Debate

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12260483/NADINE-DORRIES-handed-electric-car-5-000-miles-clock.html

    That's "handed back" btw

    2030 is very bloody soon and the Great Transformation is going to be THE defining issue of lates 20s domestic politics. as big as Brexit was for the teens.

    I am, comme d'habitude, shafted, I have an Isuzu truck which seems to be the only 2016 registration in the entire country which is Euro 5 not Euro 6.
    iirc there is another exemption for commercial vehicles (vans, lorries and buses) otherwise red buses would be paying most.
    Interesting - Sheffield's charge zone is (Well currently) ONLY for commercial vehicles.
    same with the toon
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    edited July 2023
    A year ago today OGH sent me a message saying he was busy this afternoon and could I keep an eye on PB for the rest of the day.

    Within four hours Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak resigned from the cabinet and within 48 hours Boris Johnson announced his resignation.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    The national religion:

    @wabbey
    The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, gives the Bidding:

    ‘Born of the radical conviction that we must care for one another, the NHS sets before us all the better angels of our nature. Here is high principle translated into best practice.’


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676535490084761600

    The Dean gives the sermon:

    '75 years ago we dared to hope and that was an extraordinary thing to do. We still dare to hope. We will give thanks. We will be proud. We will name the difficulty today, but above all - and gladly - we will name the hope that is the NHS.'


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676544185527160839
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    It is not very clearly written but I read that as the £39,000 was the student loan debt.
    Given you have four likes for that, I'll take that as the consensus then! Granted that would make rather more sense.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter ordered to demolish home spa"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66100178

    J'accuzzi.
    She's set up a company "Club Nook" to basically grift off of the Captain Tom name. And has also set up other companies to provide err "consulting" services to Club Nook. If what she's done isn't illegal it probably ought to be. Just an out and out bare faced grifter living the high life off the back of people donating to the Captain Tom foundation in good faith.
    The Charity Commission are a regulator with a bit of teeth on this front.
    How many people ever go to prison for charity frauds? Or do they get disbarred from running a charity and told to stop being so naughty?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,546
    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    I think anyone coming into the housing market in 1993-2000 hit a very sweet spot, where prices were low, interest rates were lowish, and wages were rising. Then from 2000-07, prices just went through the roof.

    Coming into the market a few years earlier, things were a lot grimmer. Unemployment was higher, interest rates in double digits, and many found that what they'd bought was worth a lot less than the mortgage upon it.

    I do think that keeping interest rates very low for far too long, and tax changes that fuelled house price inflation (like stamp duty holidays, or IHT main residence relief) did your generation no favours.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,546

    The national religion:

    @wabbey
    The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, gives the Bidding:

    ‘Born of the radical conviction that we must care for one another, the NHS sets before us all the better angels of our nature. Here is high principle translated into best practice.’


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676535490084761600

    The Dean gives the sermon:

    '75 years ago we dared to hope and that was an extraordinary thing to do. We still dare to hope. We will give thanks. We will be proud. We will name the difficulty today, but above all - and gladly - we will name the hope that is the NHS.'


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676544185527160839

    It's a service, like any other. It has nothing to do with the better angels of our nature.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    edited July 2023

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter ordered to demolish home spa"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66100178

    J'accuzzi.
    She's set up a company "Club Nook" to basically grift off of the Captain Tom name. And has also set up other companies to provide err "consulting" services to Club Nook. If what she's done isn't illegal it probably ought to be. Just an out and out bare faced grifter living the high life off the back of people donating to the Captain Tom foundation in good faith.
    The Charity Commission are a regulator with a bit of teeth on this front.
    How many people ever go to prison for charity frauds? Or do they get disbarred from running a charity and told to stop being so naughty?
    Quite a few do end up in prison but depends on the nature of the offence but being barred as an trustee is also a option.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,509

    malcolmg said:

    ..

    TOPPING said:

    malcolmg said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Dura_Ace said:

    Miklosvar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    Interesting developments overnight, each seemingly as a consequence of the war against cars meeting political reality.

    No 1

    Cambridge City Council elects a Conservative for the first time since 2012! The Conservative's fought this by-election on a platform of scrapping the city's proposed congestion charge - Labour, LDs & Greens all said they would reform, not scrap it.

    King's Hedges (Cambridge) Council By-Election Result:

    CON: 34.9% (+3.0) LAB: 33.6% (-5.6) LDM: 23.5% (+8.5) GRN: 8.0% (-6.0)

    Conservative GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2023.

    No 2

    The labour candidate in Uxbridge, Danny Beales, openly attacks Khan’s ULEZ as an indication that this could be having an effect on his campaign.

    https://news.sky.com/story/labour-split-as-partys-candidate-in-uxbridge-by-election-speaks-out-against-london-mayors-ulez-expansion-12915004

    Khan’s team were in the High Court yesterday, he’s being sued by five councils affected by the ULEZ expansion, who claim the consultation was inadequate and incomprehensible, with no enabling legislation passed, but as the equivalent of a order-in-council based on the original legislation for a much smaller zone.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12262955/Sadiq-Khan-lacks-legal-power-order-ULEZ-expansion-High-Court-hears.html

    Tories in London really need to get everyone running on this as a single issue campaign. Who’s their Londoner version of Andy Street?

    There’s also a civil liberties group trying to sue the mayor, on the basis of the increased surveillance and ANPR cameras resulting from the scheme.
    What do we want? MORE POLLUTION! When do we want it? NOW!
    What do we want? OUR KIDS WITH ASTHMA! When do we want it! NOW!

    Some morons are upset about having to upgrade their ancient car. More people are upset by the reality that you can taste the particulates spewed out of exhaust pipes and it is having a truly detrimental effect on people's health.
    People on minimum wage jobs, as well as key service workers such as nurses and care assistants, perhaps single mothers with kids in different schools are wondering if they can afford a £2k per year tax on going to work.

    Usually one might expect Labour to stand up for these people, no? Instead with get this reactionary hyperbole that makes no sense.

    On your actual point, no, paying £12.50 to the mayor doesn’t reduce pollution. It does raise money though. Big bonus for all the out-of-towners without a vote, who get caught up and unwittingly fined. Great for the car plate closers too, not so much for the millions of innocents dragged into court for that over the years.
    They won't pay £2k a year to go to work - they'll change the car. As has been discussed it isn't a lot of cars
    You say it is not a lot of cars - do you have a link ?

    And you ignore the real concern of the labour candidate in Uxbridge who I am certain is more aware of the position in his constituency than you are to be fair
    The guy in Uxbridge wants to win his byelection and is triangulating. Good for him! And then he will back Khan because he'll be a London MP knowing where the power sits in the regional party.

    Again, if the Tories are genuinely concerned about the budgets of the poorest, why are they so unconcerned on every other measure?

    This isn't about the poor. Its about the rich. Because if a 20 year old Mini is compliant then practically any old banger which could be used as a daily driver is. Note - Daily Driver. I keep being told the poor will be taxed £2k a day to go to work. Driving what? Do you know how much it costs to keep something truly ancient in use as a daily driver?

    This is NOT about them. Because once a car gets past a tipping point it is cheaper to change it. This is about the people who have some cherished old classic they take out on a Sunday. The ones on car forums talking about it. The ones who can afford that kind of hobby vehicle and the cost of keeping it running. Not the poor.
    You do seem extremely agitated, annoyed, and intemperate this morning following my posting of Election Maps reporting on the conservative win in Cambridge yesterday due to their objection to congestion charging in the City and also the about turn of the Uxbridge labour candidate

    You are relatively comfortably of, run a Tesla, and live in a lovely but sparsely populated area of the North East Scotland and it is easy for you to dismiss the problems of some car owners in the Greater London area but it does seem to be an issue and of course it is being challenged in the courts

    I would also comment that it is labour councils who are also objecting to the plans

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-64496668
    What does a single council by-election result have to do with anything?

    I've also quoted you a couple of very direct points about the ownership / running costs of older cars which disarms the argument that poor workers will pay £2k a year in tax. I am painfully aware of how hand to mouth some people are. I am also aware that the same people who claim to be speaking for these people are directly responsible for the policies which are making their existence hand to mouth.

    This is a culture war crayon objection, nothing more.
    I'm going to touch wood when I say this as it'll probably go wrong now, but my other half's (Previously my brother's) 2008 Passat is still running very well. Car maintenance has struck me as more to do with luck than anything else.
    You married your brother?

    Car engines last about 500k miles just fine, it's merely fashion makes people sell them younger and they end up as taxis in West Africa.
    Very, very few engines will do 500k on the original crank bearings, cams, rings, etc. Also by that time every seal and ancillary (water pump, oil pump, alternator) will have been replaced multiple times over.

    So you can make an engine last 500k but it's going to require an unfeasible amount of money spent on it or meticulous maintenance (oil change every 2,000 - 3,000 miles) and a lot of luck. This reckoning might be different in shit holes with very low labour costs.

    The Prius seems to be the mileage king and they seem to go to 300,000+ if they are well maintained. This is probably a consequence of being Atkinson Cycle rather than Otto Cycle engines and thereby less stressed.
    300,000+ is not an unreasonable projection for many of the EVs now being built.
    The suspension might need attention from time to time.
    My company Tesla is a vehicle that I can see us running for a long time. The bodyshell is likely to stay in production for a long time so it will still look fresh, the software will keep being updated, and as I have one of the last cars built with ultrasonic sensors I am happy with the current 3rd gen hardware and don't see huge leaps forward with HW4 which is coming next year.

    We will get a quantum leap forward in terms of battery technology at some point in the future, at which point my <250kW charging rate will seem as primative as the >100kW on so many other EVs still on sale. Then I might change it. Otherwise? Why bother? There's very little on the vehicle to actually go wrong.
    Sounds fantastic and long may it last. Although reading some of the posts I think Trigger's Broom applies to some of these longevity stories.

    But your post "...my company Tesla..." illustrates why you are not well qualified to tell those less well off than you that they should be getting rid of their 2008 Nissan Micras.
    You what?

    2008 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202305187507459
    2002 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202307049277142

    How many cars do you think this covers? You mentioned Micra - I've had to go back to pre-2001 cars to find ones that aren't compliant, and they cost more than the post-2002 cars.
    Good research skills. You win the whole argument about poorer people being able or not to afford a couple of grand on a car because the 2008 Nissan Micra is indeed ULEZ compliant.
    Would you be seen dead in a Micra though
    I have not been in one yet, Malc, but never say never.
    Closest I could find, get rewriting your will.


    The wife can save some cash and just put me out with the bins
    Black bag collection every three weeks. You'll have to time shuffling off the mortal coil to perfection these days.
    True , never thought of that.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,352

    The national religion:

    @wabbey
    The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, gives the Bidding:

    ‘Born of the radical conviction that we must care for one another, the NHS sets before us all the better angels of our nature. Here is high principle translated into best practice.’


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676535490084761600

    The Dean gives the sermon:

    '75 years ago we dared to hope and that was an extraordinary thing to do. We still dare to hope. We will give thanks. We will be proud. We will name the difficulty today, but above all - and gladly - we will name the hope that is the NHS.'


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676544185527160839

    Makes me want to vomit. There are plenty of fine people in the NHS and also some that are not so fine. It is a bureaucracy for fecks sake. It is like venerating the civil service.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156
    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    I think anyone coming into the housing market in 1993-2000 hit a very sweet spot, where prices were low, interest rates were lowish, and wages were rising. Then from 2000-07, prices just went through the roof.

    Coming into the market a few years earlier, things were a lot grimmer. Unemployment was higher, interest rates in double digits, and many found that what they'd bought was worth a lot less than the mortgage upon it.

    I do think that keeping interest rates very low for far too long, and tax changes that fuelled house price inflation (like stamp duty holidays, or IHT main residence relief) did your generation no favours.
    Spot on, a lot of it was inevitable and just luck of the draw for different generations, but the tax breaks were wholly unnecessary and done for cynical electoral reasons. They have also re-enforced the belief that governments will perpetually support house prices, making them a one way bet, the best place for a "pension", and a bit of a ponzi scheme, albeit a long term one that will play out over decades rather than years.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    I think anyone coming into the housing market in 1993-2000 hit a very sweet spot, where prices were low, interest rates were lowish, and wages were rising. Then from 2000-07, prices just went through the roof.

    Coming into the market a few years earlier, things were a lot grimmer. Unemployment was higher, interest rates in double digits, and many found that what they'd bought was worth a lot less than the mortgage upon it.

    I do think that keeping interest rates very low for far too long, and tax changes that fuelled house price inflation (like stamp duty holidays, or IHT main residence relief) did your generation no favours.
    I became a London home owner in 2000 at the age of 21, I hit the fucking jackpot.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,546
    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Council housing was intended for "respectable" working classes. The disreputable got Peter Rachman.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    We don't have anything like a free market in housing, and social housing is occupied disproportionately by immigrant groups.

    https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/housing/social-housing/renting-from-a-local-authority-or-housing-association-social-housing/latest
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,145

    malcolmg said:

    ..

    TOPPING said:

    malcolmg said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Dura_Ace said:

    Miklosvar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    Interesting developments overnight, each seemingly as a consequence of the war against cars meeting political reality.

    No 1

    Cambridge City Council elects a Conservative for the first time since 2012! The Conservative's fought this by-election on a platform of scrapping the city's proposed congestion charge - Labour, LDs & Greens all said they would reform, not scrap it.

    King's Hedges (Cambridge) Council By-Election Result:

    CON: 34.9% (+3.0) LAB: 33.6% (-5.6) LDM: 23.5% (+8.5) GRN: 8.0% (-6.0)

    Conservative GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2023.

    No 2

    The labour candidate in Uxbridge, Danny Beales, openly attacks Khan’s ULEZ as an indication that this could be having an effect on his campaign.

    https://news.sky.com/story/labour-split-as-partys-candidate-in-uxbridge-by-election-speaks-out-against-london-mayors-ulez-expansion-12915004

    Khan’s team were in the High Court yesterday, he’s being sued by five councils affected by the ULEZ expansion, who claim the consultation was inadequate and incomprehensible, with no enabling legislation passed, but as the equivalent of a order-in-council based on the original legislation for a much smaller zone.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12262955/Sadiq-Khan-lacks-legal-power-order-ULEZ-expansion-High-Court-hears.html

    Tories in London really need to get everyone running on this as a single issue campaign. Who’s their Londoner version of Andy Street?

    There’s also a civil liberties group trying to sue the mayor, on the basis of the increased surveillance and ANPR cameras resulting from the scheme.
    What do we want? MORE POLLUTION! When do we want it? NOW!
    What do we want? OUR KIDS WITH ASTHMA! When do we want it! NOW!

    Some morons are upset about having to upgrade their ancient car. More people are upset by the reality that you can taste the particulates spewed out of exhaust pipes and it is having a truly detrimental effect on people's health.
    People on minimum wage jobs, as well as key service workers such as nurses and care assistants, perhaps single mothers with kids in different schools are wondering if they can afford a £2k per year tax on going to work.

    Usually one might expect Labour to stand up for these people, no? Instead with get this reactionary hyperbole that makes no sense.

    On your actual point, no, paying £12.50 to the mayor doesn’t reduce pollution. It does raise money though. Big bonus for all the out-of-towners without a vote, who get caught up and unwittingly fined. Great for the car plate closers too, not so much for the millions of innocents dragged into court for that over the years.
    They won't pay £2k a year to go to work - they'll change the car. As has been discussed it isn't a lot of cars
    You say it is not a lot of cars - do you have a link ?

    And you ignore the real concern of the labour candidate in Uxbridge who I am certain is more aware of the position in his constituency than you are to be fair
    The guy in Uxbridge wants to win his byelection and is triangulating. Good for him! And then he will back Khan because he'll be a London MP knowing where the power sits in the regional party.

    Again, if the Tories are genuinely concerned about the budgets of the poorest, why are they so unconcerned on every other measure?

    This isn't about the poor. Its about the rich. Because if a 20 year old Mini is compliant then practically any old banger which could be used as a daily driver is. Note - Daily Driver. I keep being told the poor will be taxed £2k a day to go to work. Driving what? Do you know how much it costs to keep something truly ancient in use as a daily driver?

    This is NOT about them. Because once a car gets past a tipping point it is cheaper to change it. This is about the people who have some cherished old classic they take out on a Sunday. The ones on car forums talking about it. The ones who can afford that kind of hobby vehicle and the cost of keeping it running. Not the poor.
    You do seem extremely agitated, annoyed, and intemperate this morning following my posting of Election Maps reporting on the conservative win in Cambridge yesterday due to their objection to congestion charging in the City and also the about turn of the Uxbridge labour candidate

    You are relatively comfortably of, run a Tesla, and live in a lovely but sparsely populated area of the North East Scotland and it is easy for you to dismiss the problems of some car owners in the Greater London area but it does seem to be an issue and of course it is being challenged in the courts

    I would also comment that it is labour councils who are also objecting to the plans

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-64496668
    What does a single council by-election result have to do with anything?

    I've also quoted you a couple of very direct points about the ownership / running costs of older cars which disarms the argument that poor workers will pay £2k a year in tax. I am painfully aware of how hand to mouth some people are. I am also aware that the same people who claim to be speaking for these people are directly responsible for the policies which are making their existence hand to mouth.

    This is a culture war crayon objection, nothing more.
    I'm going to touch wood when I say this as it'll probably go wrong now, but my other half's (Previously my brother's) 2008 Passat is still running very well. Car maintenance has struck me as more to do with luck than anything else.
    You married your brother?

    Car engines last about 500k miles just fine, it's merely fashion makes people sell them younger and they end up as taxis in West Africa.
    Very, very few engines will do 500k on the original crank bearings, cams, rings, etc. Also by that time every seal and ancillary (water pump, oil pump, alternator) will have been replaced multiple times over.

    So you can make an engine last 500k but it's going to require an unfeasible amount of money spent on it or meticulous maintenance (oil change every 2,000 - 3,000 miles) and a lot of luck. This reckoning might be different in shit holes with very low labour costs.

    The Prius seems to be the mileage king and they seem to go to 300,000+ if they are well maintained. This is probably a consequence of being Atkinson Cycle rather than Otto Cycle engines and thereby less stressed.
    300,000+ is not an unreasonable projection for many of the EVs now being built.
    The suspension might need attention from time to time.
    My company Tesla is a vehicle that I can see us running for a long time. The bodyshell is likely to stay in production for a long time so it will still look fresh, the software will keep being updated, and as I have one of the last cars built with ultrasonic sensors I am happy with the current 3rd gen hardware and don't see huge leaps forward with HW4 which is coming next year.

    We will get a quantum leap forward in terms of battery technology at some point in the future, at which point my <250kW charging rate will seem as primative as the >100kW on so many other EVs still on sale. Then I might change it. Otherwise? Why bother? There's very little on the vehicle to actually go wrong.
    Sounds fantastic and long may it last. Although reading some of the posts I think Trigger's Broom applies to some of these longevity stories.

    But your post "...my company Tesla..." illustrates why you are not well qualified to tell those less well off than you that they should be getting rid of their 2008 Nissan Micras.
    You what?

    2008 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202305187507459
    2002 Micra. Compliant: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202307049277142

    How many cars do you think this covers? You mentioned Micra - I've had to go back to pre-2001 cars to find ones that aren't compliant, and they cost more than the post-2002 cars.
    Good research skills. You win the whole argument about poorer people being able or not to afford a couple of grand on a car because the 2008 Nissan Micra is indeed ULEZ compliant.
    Would you be seen dead in a Micra though
    I have not been in one yet, Malc, but never say never.
    Closest I could find, get rewriting your will.


    The wife can save some cash and just put me out with the bins
    Black bag collection every three weeks. You'll have to time shuffling off the mortal coil to perfection these days.
    Donate your body to the anatomy dept of your local medical school and they will pay for the funeral, albeit after a year or two.
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855

    The national religion:

    @wabbey
    The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, gives the Bidding:

    ‘Born of the radical conviction that we must care for one another, the NHS sets before us all the better angels of our nature. Here is high principle translated into best practice.’


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676535490084761600

    The Dean gives the sermon:

    '75 years ago we dared to hope and that was an extraordinary thing to do. We still dare to hope. We will give thanks. We will be proud. We will name the difficulty today, but above all - and gladly - we will name the hope that is the NHS.'


    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1676544185527160839

    Makes me want to vomit. There are plenty of fine people in the NHS and also some that are not so fine. It is a bureaucracy for fecks sake. It is like venerating the civil service.
    And every health professional everywhere outside the UK, or before 1948, is a moral second rater. But then I suppose the Church of England (clue in name) is selling a parallel sort of shtick.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Gavin Newsom and Robert F Kennedy Jr have moved into a mad 13.5 and and madder still 14.5 for POTUS.

    Newsom's odds aren't mad, as if anything were to happen to Biden, he'd at least have a shot.
    RFKJ is mad.
    “RFKJ is mad.”

    I sort of like him. I know I shouldn’t.

    Does anyone else know what I mean?
    Why ?
    He would be the Greenest US President yet, which would be good to have US leading and pushing on climate change.

    And one of the most left wing US presidents in terms of economics. These things would be an interesting change would they not?

    He also comes across with lots of presidential gravitas. In the bigger picture it would be a busy, strong, very interventionist White House. It would be really interesting 8 years, with lots of positive US leading on climate change, lots of things shaken up and pushed along in a very positive and likeable way.
    Are we talking about the same guy ?

    He's an antivaxx grifter of decades standing, running as a Republican sockpuppet.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156
    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    EPG said:

    Chris said:

    EPG said:

    Chris said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    There is neither a human right nor a strong historical tradition for youngish professionals of family formation age to live a few kilometres from the centre of London. For previous generations the solution was to move out of London. The current generation seems to perceive this as some sort of hate crime.
    The reason young people don't move out of London is that there are fewer jobs outside of London - the vast majority of investment centres on London and that's where most jobs are. The other major cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow - see some graduates and commuting towns, like Brighton, also see large graduate populations.

    I went to uni near Stoke. If it had any decent graduate jobs, I would have loved to stay there; I liked the area, I had got to know it over 5 years, it was cheap. But outside of working in a call centre for a phone company or a gambling company there was nothing really there.
    Isn't it obvious that if AI means companies need to employ far fewer people, then the capitalist model will run into problems? Of course it will look great to the companies - until they realise that people can't afford to buy their products any more, because they aren't employed.

    I wouldn't bet on "graduates" lasting that much longer in the employment market than anyone else.

    Probably a form a socialism is the answer. Either that or a very nasty economic crash and an attempt to pick up the pieces somehow.
    No, because the demography of the West is itself moving toward a world where a smaller share of the population works. It would be a problem if there were too FEW workers for the tech level - which would look like eternal 2022-23 with permanent upward negotiations of prices and pay. But people come up with ways to deal with too MANY workers. On the one hand, early retirement, longer time spent in education, and the gradual creep of the welfare state, which is much larger than it used to be even in 2000. On the other hand, new types of work. There's always a job for a young person who is conscientious enough to provide care for the vulnerable.
    So relieved to know that this isn't going to be a problem.
    Obviously you have the alternative to go to doomer subreddits where 18-year olds convince themselves that life isn't worth living, because of this generation's version of peak oil or something.
    Your penetrating analysis has so completely set all my fears at rest that I won't need to do that now.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137

    George Monbiot
    @GeorgeMonbiot
    Alarm bells should be ringing everywhere. We seem to have underestimated the chance of climate breakdown causing simultaneous harvest failure in the world's major breadbaskets. It's an issue I discuss in Regenesis, but it appears much worse than we thought

    https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1676505239740985344
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    Dido Harding commenting on the NHS on WATO this lunchtime. Unmissable.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005
    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    Chris said:

    EPG said:

    Chris said:

    EPG said:

    Chris said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    There is neither a human right nor a strong historical tradition for youngish professionals of family formation age to live a few kilometres from the centre of London. For previous generations the solution was to move out of London. The current generation seems to perceive this as some sort of hate crime.
    The reason young people don't move out of London is that there are fewer jobs outside of London - the vast majority of investment centres on London and that's where most jobs are. The other major cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow - see some graduates and commuting towns, like Brighton, also see large graduate populations.

    I went to uni near Stoke. If it had any decent graduate jobs, I would have loved to stay there; I liked the area, I had got to know it over 5 years, it was cheap. But outside of working in a call centre for a phone company or a gambling company there was nothing really there.
    Isn't it obvious that if AI means companies need to employ far fewer people, then the capitalist model will run into problems? Of course it will look great to the companies - until they realise that people can't afford to buy their products any more, because they aren't employed.

    I wouldn't bet on "graduates" lasting that much longer in the employment market than anyone else.

    Probably a form a socialism is the answer. Either that or a very nasty economic crash and an attempt to pick up the pieces somehow.
    No, because the demography of the West is itself moving toward a world where a smaller share of the population works. It would be a problem if there were too FEW workers for the tech level - which would look like eternal 2022-23 with permanent upward negotiations of prices and pay. But people come up with ways to deal with too MANY workers. On the one hand, early retirement, longer time spent in education, and the gradual creep of the welfare state, which is much larger than it used to be even in 2000. On the other hand, new types of work. There's always a job for a young person who is conscientious enough to provide care for the vulnerable.
    So relieved to know that this isn't going to be a problem.
    Obviously you have the alternative to go to doomer subreddits where 18-year olds convince themselves that life isn't worth living, because of this generation's version of peak oil or something.
    Your penetrating analysis has so completely set all my fears at rest that I won't need to do that now.
    And anyway, I'll hopefully be dead before it happens.

    And the rest of you soon after.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    Laura Ingram-Moore is a grifter but having to tear down a swimming pool on your own property is another example of the UK’s draconian planning policy.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
    I agree if housing, hospitals,schools etc had been built to cope with numbers immigration would not be an issue. However they weren't so we are seeing the end result of that. Ever poorer services, ever more expensive housing costs
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
    The fundamental problem is that every migrant's additional taxes needs to go to keeping the existing show on the road so the additional infrastructure as you say doesn't get a look in.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,417
    @Stuartinromford, @Nigel_Foremain, @OnlyLivingBoy, @148grss, @Andy_JS, @northernvoter, @bondegezou, @EPG , @algarkirk, @selebian

    Regarding Matt Goodwin. I've just finished reading "Values, Voices, Vatever :)" by Goodwin in prep for an article, so I've replied backstage via PM. If you want to leave that conversation, there's a "leave conversation" button
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081

    Laura Ingram-Moore is a grifter but having to tear down a swimming pool on your own property is another example of the UK’s draconian planning policy.

    I don't know the details of this case - but when someone builds something without planning permission, what would you have the system do? Say "don't do it again"?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
    I agree if housing, hospitals,schools etc had been built to cope with numbers immigration would not be an issue. However they weren't so we are seeing the end result of that. Ever poorer services, ever more expensive housing costs
    In which case your ire should be more directed at the governments who promised to cut immigration to tens of thousands so didnt invest in housing and infrastructure rather than supporters of immigration who also tend to be supporters of investment in infrastructure and have tended to vote against the government.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    viewcode said:

    @Stuartinromford, @Nigel_Foremain, @OnlyLivingBoy, @148grss, @Andy_JS, @northernvoter, @bondegezou, @EPG , @algarkirk, @selebian

    Regarding Matt Goodwin. I've just finished reading "Values, Voices, Vatever :)" by Goodwin in prep for an article, so I've replied backstage via PM. If you want to leave that conversation, there's a "leave conversation" button

    I was unaware that this system even had a PMing ability...

    I have not read that book - I did on the otherhand listen to Trashfuture's podcast series reading it and debating Matt Goodwin on the points that they make; unfortunately Goodwin, who often says the left aren't willing to debate, did not reply to their invitation to debate the points in his book via his publisher and, indeed, had most of the members of the podcast blocked on twitter.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,685

    algarkirk said:
    “I’ve been a university professor for more than 20 years,” says Goodwin in the video there. This is completely untrue. 20 years ago he was finishing his undergrad degree. He became a professor in 2015. If he can’t even get basic facts about this own life straight, I’m not certain why we should trust anything else he says!
    Some places let you call yourself 'assistant professor' etc instead of lecturer (not a fan personally). Maybe he means that.

    Or he is just a complete arse...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081
    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    Cookie said:

    Laura Ingram-Moore is a grifter but having to tear down a swimming pool on your own property is another example of the UK’s draconian planning policy.

    I don't know the details of this case - but when someone builds something without planning permission, what would you have the system do? Say "don't do it again"?
    I don’t think the time fits the crime, as it were.
    There’s no suggestion, is there?, that the pool would not have got consent.

    She should be fined or perhaps charged with some kind of deception.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
    I agree if housing, hospitals,schools etc had been built to cope with numbers immigration would not be an issue. However they weren't so we are seeing the end result of that. Ever poorer services, ever more expensive housing costs
    In which case your ire should be more directed at the governments who promised to cut immigration to tens of thousands so didnt invest in housing and infrastructure rather than supporters of immigration who also tend to be supporters of investment in infrastructure and have tended to vote against the government.
    My ire is at both. All the main parties don't support matching investment in any of this. Nor do there supporters cf the nimbyist tendency of the lib dems. New labour presided over the major influx they did nothing, nor have the tories. Plenty on here support open borders, they never explain where all the money is going to come from to support the increased population.

    Indeed 148Grss seems to support instead filling up every bedroom instead because we don't have the right to keep a spare room I presume for visitors. Thankfully his view will never get into power in a democracy because no one wants to live in a house full of random people with no choice
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    Dido Harding commenting on the NHS on WATO this lunchtime. Unmissable.

    Not prepared to talk about Test and Trace, though. That ought to have been a condition for her appearance.
  • PeckPeck Posts: 517
    edited July 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Gavin Newsom and Robert F Kennedy Jr have moved into a mad 13.5 and and madder still 14.5 for POTUS.

    Newsom's odds aren't mad, as if anything were to happen to Biden, he'd at least have a shot.
    RFKJ is mad.
    “RFKJ is mad.”

    I sort of like him. I know I shouldn’t.

    Does anyone else know what I mean?
    Why ?
    He would be the Greenest US President yet, which would be good to have US leading and pushing on climate change.

    And one of the most left wing US presidents in terms of economics. These things would be an interesting change would they not?

    He also comes across with lots of presidential gravitas. In the bigger picture it would be a busy, strong, very interventionist White House. It would be really interesting 8 years, with lots of positive US leading on climate change, lots of things shaken up and pushed along in a very positive and likeable way.
    Are we talking about the same guy ?

    He's an antivaxx grifter of decades standing, running as a Republican sockpuppet.
    Does the second part of that sentence depend on the first? I haven't heard the idea before that RFKJr is a Republican sockpuppet. Is there a reasonable basis for it, or does the conclusion depend solely on his being a combination of a leftwing Democrat (Bernie Sanders was called the same) and a long-term critic of Big Pharma and of at least most mass vaccination campaigns (in which case the logic is similarly totally wrong)? Since when did a person have to be rightwing to think (to put it crudely) that governments and their experts tell big whopping lies to help big business?

    Give leftwing Dems a break! In 2016 I thought I was reading a Finbarr Saunders and His Double Entendres column when many were shouting that Sanders must be a stooge and that he would probably run third party at the same time that they seemed totally oblivious to the dirty work being done by Jill Stein of the Greens. When Stein was asked point blank what was the best way to fight Trump, she didn't even mention Trump in her reply but talked instead about the need to fight the danger posed by wicked Clinton. Bit of a giveaway, that.

    I'll be amazed if RFKJr wins the presidency. But a Trump vs Kennedy contest would be quite a piece of theatre, probably the best offered by any of the most likely pairings.
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    I hope they refuse any post 1930s medical intervention, and what are they doing allowing this to be published on the internet?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    This is interesting - the Green party on Solar farms. The climate emergency meeting local democracy.

    https://www.lgcplus.com/services/regeneration-and-planning/green-leader-expresses-reservations-about-solar-farms-05-07-2023/

    “Now clearly as a Green-led council we want to see renewable local energy production, but what's the right amount? And what, perhaps more importantly, is the amount that our communities will accept? One field on the edge of a village might be fine, but if a whole village is surrounded by shiny panels, probably that isn't.”

    He added: “We're not Nimbys, we want to take the right decisions but we need the national policy framework in which to make them.”




  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081

    Cookie said:

    Laura Ingram-Moore is a grifter but having to tear down a swimming pool on your own property is another example of the UK’s draconian planning policy.

    I don't know the details of this case - but when someone builds something without planning permission, what would you have the system do? Say "don't do it again"?
    I don’t think the time fits the crime, as it were.
    There’s no suggestion, is there?, that the pool would not have got consent.

    She should be fined or perhaps charged with some kind of deception.
    I should have been clearer that I'm leaping in without knowledge of the case here, so treat everything I say with that caveat - but it's possible to apply for retrospective planning permission. My assumption is that if she's been told to knock it down, the reasoning is that it wouldn't have got planning permission.
    I shall look up the case.

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318

    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
    There appears to be a competition inside the Tories as to whom can best appeal to their target voter.

    Sadly, their target voter appears to be an ex-lag called Ron, with a long record of GBH offences.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,328

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    As I pointed out here (https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/24/kicking-issues-into-the-long-grass/) the government would not even ban the use of "pain compliance techniques" on children in care. So this should not come as a surprise.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,167
    ..
    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    They can still have as much rickets and TB as they want.
  • PeckPeck Posts: 517
    edited July 2023
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    Immigration has been close to inevitable given our demographics and globalisation. The problem has been not planning for immigration by building more houses, hospitals, schools and transport links.
    I agree if housing, hospitals,schools etc had been built to cope with numbers immigration would not be an issue. However they weren't so we are seeing the end result of that. Ever poorer services, ever more expensive housing costs
    Health provision shouldn't be as based on hospitals as it is. The reason it is goes back to the late 1940s and a perceived need to give demobbed army officers the kind of managerial jobs they'd like, in charge of lots of personnel, premises, and equipment.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415
    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    She could always find a job. How much "looking after" does a house need ? Maybe she's Freddie's mum xD
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    People who own property outright in London have been so lucky in life that perhaps they ought to be subject to a special tax based on the value of their home.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,888


    George Monbiot
    @GeorgeMonbiot
    Alarm bells should be ringing everywhere. We seem to have underestimated the chance of climate breakdown causing simultaneous harvest failure in the world's major breadbaskets. It's an issue I discuss in Regenesis, but it appears much worse than we thought

    https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1676505239740985344

    But alarm bells won't. There are two major mufflers of alarm bells. The first is that a million doom laden coulds and shoulds have grabbed headlines while here we still are after all these years while people in actual power travel the world by air and turn lights on.

    Secondly, yes, all the harvests might fail even though they haven't and food production is miraculously high compared with 100 years ago. But if this happens there is precisely nothing Monbiot's audience can do to stop it. 100% of the conditions of its possibility are already in place and there is no plan to reverse it. No further alarm bells will assist those already ignored.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    Andy_JS said:

    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    People who own property outright in London have been so lucky in life that perhaps they ought to be subject to a special tax based on the value of their home.
    That smells a lot like rabid socialism.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779

    Chris said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    There is neither a human right nor a strong historical tradition for youngish professionals of family formation age to live a few kilometres from the centre of London. For previous generations the solution was to move out of London. The current generation seems to perceive this as some sort of hate crime.
    The reason young people don't move out of London is that there are fewer jobs outside of London - the vast majority of investment centres on London and that's where most jobs are. The other major cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow - see some graduates and commuting towns, like Brighton, also see large graduate populations.

    I went to uni near Stoke. If it had any decent graduate jobs, I would have loved to stay there; I liked the area, I had got to know it over 5 years, it was cheap. But outside of working in a call centre for a phone company or a gambling company there was nothing really there.
    Isn't it obvious that if AI means companies need to employ far fewer people, then the capitalist model will run into problems? Of course it will look great to the companies - until they realise that people can't afford to buy their products any more, because they aren't employed.

    I wouldn't bet on "graduates" lasting that much longer in the employment market than anyone else.

    Probably a form a socialism is the answer. Either that or a very nasty economic crash and an attempt to pick up the pieces somehow.
    Why do companies need to sell stuff to people? Sell it to AIs. They already sell lots to other companies, which are another kind of non-human agent.
    You've encapsulated my concern in a nutshell. (I believe that's almost a Two Ronnies punchline from the 1970s, but I can't remember the exact wording.)
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081
    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Laura Ingram-Moore is a grifter but having to tear down a swimming pool on your own property is another example of the UK’s draconian planning policy.

    I don't know the details of this case - but when someone builds something without planning permission, what would you have the system do? Say "don't do it again"?
    I don’t think the time fits the crime, as it were.
    There’s no suggestion, is there?, that the pool would not have got consent.

    She should be fined or perhaps charged with some kind of deception.
    I should have been clearer that I'm leaping in without knowledge of the case here, so treat everything I say with that caveat - but it's possible to apply for retrospective planning permission. My assumption is that if she's been told to knock it down, the reasoning is that it wouldn't have got planning permission.
    I shall look up the case.

    Case looked up:
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1787539/captain-tom-moore-daughter-1-2m-pool

    It's a newspaper report, so it's almost certain the journalist doesn't understand the issues either. But it's worth noting that apparently the council have said that the building wouldn't have got permission. Also, it's subject to an appeal (as you'd expect), so we'll see what PINS says.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    edited July 2023
    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    She could always find a job. How much "looking after" does a house need ? Maybe she's Freddie's mum xD
    Hardly.
    They live in Somerset.
    If they want to live in the 1930s, let them. No need to scorn. It takes all types.
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    darkage said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
    What? All the basic need markets (food, transport, education, medical care) are highly regulated.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,972

    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
    Have had to Google that - what the fuck is wrong with these Tories?

    Is having a few kids drawings on the wall really the deciding factor behind whether they are coming here by boat? 'I wasn't going to risk drowning my family, but I heard they have a really nice reception centre with cartoon animals on the wall so I decided to risk it'

    You want to know why the Tory vote share keeps falling? Its because the general public are not the amoral cold-hearted sods the Tories want them to be.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    She could always find a job. How much "looking after" does a house need ? Maybe she's Freddie's mum xD
    If I'm Freddie, my mum died when I was 11.

    And not quite North London (although I was born in North London, and lived in North London as a child with my grandparents - who were both working class cockney's who lived through the Blitz and benefited from all the post war social reform and instilled in me the importance of those benefits rather than doing what many of the boomer generation did and pulled up the ladder behind them), but South Herts, where my dad was born and his parents were nurses who had moved here from Wales (my grandfather having had experiences as a teen down the mines, and came from communities destroyed by the anti union movement after the destruction of coal mining - he hated mining as a job, it made him deeply claustrophobic, but he hated the destruction of his communities economic future more).

    So yeah, you know, Millennial's - just entitled avocado eaters.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    darkage said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
    Landlords, property developers, and old homeowners - the conservative base.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,328
    Meanwhile a former Met (and Surrey police officer) - Nick Ephgrave - with no apparent experience in fraud has been appointed the new director of the Serious Fraud Office.

    https://twitter.com/thelawyermag/status/1676531567097786368?s=61&t=wWWeJB3W_ksMJK4LA1OvkA

    The question is how good he is, what experience he brings & how good the SFO's legal department is. Previous directors have been lawyers and they have not exactly impressed. Frankly, the SFO's record over a long period has been poor.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005
    148grss said:

    darkage said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
    Landlords, property developers, and old homeowners - the conservative base.
    Yes blame everyone else while pretending you carry no blame, tough you do.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415
    darkage said:

    This is interesting - the Green party on Solar farms. The climate emergency meeting local democracy.

    https://www.lgcplus.com/services/regeneration-and-planning/green-leader-expresses-reservations-about-solar-farms-05-07-2023/

    “Now clearly as a Green-led council we want to see renewable local energy production, but what's the right amount? And what, perhaps more importantly, is the amount that our communities will accept? One field on the edge of a village might be fine, but if a whole village is surrounded by shiny panels, probably that isn't.”

    He added: “We're not Nimbys, we want to take the right decisions but we need the national policy framework in which to make them.”




    It's remarkable how no matter what local councillors colours campaign as - whether they're blue, red, yellow or green quickly turn to the

    "We're not Nimbys BUT" party once they're elected.

    This vid focuses mainly on windfarms but the issues are similar for solar:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLHfjNTldQ
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    edited July 2023
    Peck said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Gavin Newsom and Robert F Kennedy Jr have moved into a mad 13.5 and and madder still 14.5 for POTUS.

    Newsom's odds aren't mad, as if anything were to happen to Biden, he'd at least have a shot.
    RFKJ is mad.
    “RFKJ is mad.”

    I sort of like him. I know I shouldn’t.

    Does anyone else know what I mean?
    Why ?
    He would be the Greenest US President yet, which would be good to have US leading and pushing on climate change.

    And one of the most left wing US presidents in terms of economics. These things would be an interesting change would they not?

    He also comes across with lots of presidential gravitas. In the bigger picture it would be a busy, strong, very interventionist White House. It would be really interesting 8 years, with lots of positive US leading on climate change, lots of things shaken up and pushed along in a very positive and likeable way.
    Are we talking about the same guy ?

    He's an antivaxx grifter of decades standing, running as a Republican sockpuppet.
    Does the second part of that sentence depend on the first? I haven't heard the idea before that RFKJr is a Republican sockpuppet. Is there a reasonable basis for it, or does the conclusion depend solely on his being a combination of a leftwing Democrat (Bernie Sanders was called the same) and a long-term critic of Big Pharma and of at least most mass vaccination campaigns (in which case the logic is similarly totally wrong)? Since when did a person have to be rightwing to think (to put it crudely) that governments and their experts tell big whopping lies to help big business?

    Give leftwing Dems a break! In 2016 I thought I was reading a Finbarr Saunders and His Double Entendres column when many were shouting that Sanders must be a stooge and that he would probably run third party at the same time that they seemed totally oblivious to the dirty work being done by Jill Stein of the Greens. When Stein was asked point blank what was the best way to fight Trump, she didn't even mention Trump in her reply but talked instead about the need to fight the danger posed by wicked Clinton. Bit of a giveaway, that.

    I'll be amazed if RFKJr wins the presidency. But a Trump vs Kennedy contest would be quite a piece of theatre, probably the best offered by any of the most likely pairings.
    I didn't say he's right wing.
    But he's on good terms with Trump, who considered him fit a job at one point, and practices a similar brand of dishonest
    populism.
    In fairness, I ought to have called him a Trumpite sockpuppet rather than Republican.

    Or perhaps he is just simply nuts.

    You're absolutely right about Stein.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,081

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    Anyway - enough of Freddie in North London's debt and inability to buy a house. What about this for a lifestyle sob story:
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-live-like-we-re-in-the-1930s-but-hipsters-are-pricing-us-out/ar-AA1drXnv?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=711e25a898764290999a5789483d7738&ei=11

    Couple who insist on living like it's the 1930s complain that the cost of 1930s-type stuff is going up cos of hipsters. Where should our sympathies lie here, eh?

    She could always find a job. How much "looking after" does a house need ? Maybe she's Freddie's mum xD
    Hardly.
    They live in Somerset.
    If they want to live in the 1930s, let them. No need to scorn. It takes all types.
    Well yes. I'm not scornful. Well only mildly scornful. And mainly scornful of their complaint that the cost of 1930s stuff is going up because of hipsters.

    But I am curious. How happy are they, I wonder? I'm sure people in the 1930s were happy. But they were surrounded by other people also living in the 1930s. These people must be isolated from most social contact, which takes place in the 2020s.
    Whenever I see people living a wilfully odd lifestyle I always vaguely wonder if it's some sort of sex thing.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    I think anyone coming into the housing market in 1993-2000 hit a very sweet spot, where prices were low, interest rates were lowish, and wages were rising. Then from 2000-07, prices just went through the roof.

    Coming into the market a few years earlier, things were a lot grimmer. Unemployment was higher, interest rates in double digits, and many found that what they'd bought was worth a lot less than the mortgage upon it.

    I do think that keeping interest rates very low for far too long, and tax changes that fuelled house price inflation (like stamp duty holidays, or IHT main residence relief) did your generation no favours.
    Spot on, a lot of it was inevitable and just luck of the draw for different generations, but the tax breaks were wholly unnecessary and done for cynical electoral reasons. They have also re-enforced the belief that governments will perpetually support house prices, making them a one way bet, the best place for a "pension", and a bit of a ponzi scheme, albeit a long term one that will play out over decades rather than years.
    The cost of housing is not high compared with build costs. Building a 100 sqm house will cost £200,000 in build costs alone, at £2000 / sqm. If these kind of build costs are here to stay won't be possible to build a 100sqm detached house, with 20% developer profit, and planning costs and utilities etc for less than £300,000 - anything above that is the cost of land.
    Outside of some very desirable parts of london and the south east, in particular, there is no massive premium -
    The cost of housing is just rising with general inflation.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,972
    Cyclefree said:

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    As I pointed out here (https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/24/kicking-issues-into-the-long-grass/) the government would not even ban the use of "pain compliance techniques" on children in care. So this should not come as a surprise.
    We need to be taking these traumatised children and hurting them some more. Paint over those cartoon animals with something scary. Take their teddy bear away which they failed to declare at customs. Take a few outside and slap them round a bit. Yes its illegal and immoral, but its the people's priority so lets not stop lefty blob lawyer snowflakes tell us we can't beat these children (who aren't like our children, oh no, these are economic migrant alien invaders).

    There is right and wrong. Morality. Basic human decency. And this lot are happy to both burn it all to the ground to secure the pro-gollywog vote *and* preach morality at us from their Essex pulpit.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    Cyclefree said:

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    As I pointed out here (https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/24/kicking-issues-into-the-long-grass/) the government would not even ban the use of "pain compliance techniques" on children in care. So this should not come as a surprise.
    Spare the rod and spoil the child...

    But I do think if that's the rationale, Sunak should film himself administering "pain compliance" to his own children for a party political broadcast, just to show there's no favouritism. Some Tory members would probably lap it up.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,592
    darkage said:

    This is interesting - the Green party on Solar farms. The climate emergency meeting local democracy.

    https://www.lgcplus.com/services/regeneration-and-planning/green-leader-expresses-reservations-about-solar-farms-05-07-2023/

    “Now clearly as a Green-led council we want to see renewable local energy production, but what's the right amount? And what, perhaps more importantly, is the amount that our communities will accept? One field on the edge of a village might be fine, but if a whole village is surrounded by shiny panels, probably that isn't.”

    He added: “We're not Nimbys, we want to take the right decisions but we need the national policy framework in which to make them.”




    Fields on the edge of a village shouldn't be covered in solar panels.

    (Imagine a far longer gap here)....

    They are needed for housing to allow the village to expand
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,888
    darkage said:

    This is interesting - the Green party on Solar farms. The climate emergency meeting local democracy.

    https://www.lgcplus.com/services/regeneration-and-planning/green-leader-expresses-reservations-about-solar-farms-05-07-2023/

    “Now clearly as a Green-led council we want to see renewable local energy production, but what's the right amount? And what, perhaps more importantly, is the amount that our communities will accept? One field on the edge of a village might be fine, but if a whole village is surrounded by shiny panels, probably that isn't.”

    He added: “We're not Nimbys, we want to take the right decisions but we need the national policy framework in which to make them.”




    Heart of stone....
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    Nigelb said:

    Dido Harding commenting on the NHS on WATO this lunchtime. Unmissable.

    Not prepared to talk about Test and Trace, though. That ought to have been a condition for her appearance.
    It turned into a non- interview. Nothing of any substance to say and what she did say was contradictory rubbish.

    Anyway Sarah going in hard now on Starmer's purge of the left.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,972

    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
    There appears to be a competition inside the Tories as to whom can best appeal to their target voter.

    Sadly, their target voter appears to be an ex-lag called Ron, with a long record of GBH offences.
    After we had the Grays pub done for having a large collection of gollywog dolls behind the bar, the Home Secretary briefed the press that she had remonstrated with Essex police for enforcing the law.

    Home Office officials were so appalled that they contacted Essex Police to apologise, and were told that no such thing had happened. Braverman's team had briefed she had shouted at the police because the pro-Gollywog vote is important to todays Conservative Party. That she hadn't actually done so doesn't change the fact that they said she had.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    darkage said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
    Landlords, property developers, and old homeowners - the conservative base.
    Yes blame everyone else while pretending you carry no blame, tough you do.
    I have been able to vote in general elections for 14 years. Now, I understand that in that time there have been an atypical number of general elections, but considering that my vote went to the winning candidate once, and that winning candidate is in a party of 14 MPs, I don't see how much impact my vote had.

    I was answering the specific question of who has benefited from the current method of managing housing stock.
    Do you disagree that the main beneficiaries of how housing has been managed in the UK for essentially my entire lifetime are landlords, property developers and older homeowners, do you disagree that these three groups typically make up the base of the Conservative Party, or both?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,417
    darkage said:

    This is interesting - the Green party on Solar farms. The climate emergency meeting local democracy.

    https://www.lgcplus.com/services/regeneration-and-planning/green-leader-expresses-reservations-about-solar-farms-05-07-2023/

    “Now clearly as a Green-led council we want to see renewable local energy production, but what's the right amount? And what, perhaps more importantly, is the amount that our communities will accept? One field on the edge of a village might be fine, but if a whole village is surrounded by shiny panels, probably that isn't.”

    He added: “We're not Nimbys, we want to take the right decisions but we need the national policy framework in which to make them.”


    Green NIMBYs

    GRIMBYS!

    (you're welcome)

    :)

  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Nigelb said:

    Peck said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Gavin Newsom and Robert F Kennedy Jr have moved into a mad 13.5 and and madder still 14.5 for POTUS.

    Newsom's odds aren't mad, as if anything were to happen to Biden, he'd at least have a shot.
    RFKJ is mad.
    “RFKJ is mad.”

    I sort of like him. I know I shouldn’t.

    Does anyone else know what I mean?
    Why ?
    He would be the Greenest US President yet, which would be good to have US leading and pushing on climate change.

    And one of the most left wing US presidents in terms of economics. These things would be an interesting change would they not?

    He also comes across with lots of presidential gravitas. In the bigger picture it would be a busy, strong, very interventionist White House. It would be really interesting 8 years, with lots of positive US leading on climate change, lots of things shaken up and pushed along in a very positive and likeable way.
    Are we talking about the same guy ?

    He's an antivaxx grifter of decades standing, running as a Republican sockpuppet.
    Does the second part of that sentence depend on the first? I haven't heard the idea before that RFKJr is a Republican sockpuppet. Is there a reasonable basis for it, or does the conclusion depend solely on his being a combination of a leftwing Democrat (Bernie Sanders was called the same) and a long-term critic of Big Pharma and of at least most mass vaccination campaigns (in which case the logic is similarly totally wrong)? Since when did a person have to be rightwing to think (to put it crudely) that governments and their experts tell big whopping lies to help big business?

    Give leftwing Dems a break! In 2016 I thought I was reading a Finbarr Saunders and His Double Entendres column when many were shouting that Sanders must be a stooge and that he would probably run third party at the same time that they seemed totally oblivious to the dirty work being done by Jill Stein of the Greens. When Stein was asked point blank what was the best way to fight Trump, she didn't even mention Trump in her reply but talked instead about the need to fight the danger posed by wicked Clinton. Bit of a giveaway, that.

    I'll be amazed if RFKJr wins the presidency. But a Trump vs Kennedy contest would be quite a piece of theatre, probably the best offered by any of the most likely pairings.
    I didn't say he's right wing.
    But he's on good terms with Trump, who considered him fit a job at one point, and practices a similar brand of dishonest
    populism.
    In fairness, I ought to have called him a Trumpite sockpuppet rather than Republican.

    Or perhaps he is just simply nuts.

    You're absolutely right about Stein.
    It's also important to note that a lot of his money is currently coming from Trump supporting PACs and other conservative PACs:

    https://www.newsweek.com/rfk-jr-backed-group-connected-top-maga-republicans-1808780

    This could be because the GOP primary is pretty locked, and people don't have an anti-Trump candidate to coalesce around, so Trump world are happy spending their money giving Biden a headache rather than backing Trump
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987

    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
    There appears to be a competition inside the Tories as to whom can best appeal to their target voter.

    Sadly, their target voter appears to be an ex-lag called Ron, with a long record of GBH offences.
    After we had the Grays pub done for having a large collection of gollywog dolls behind the bar, the Home Secretary briefed the press that she had remonstrated with Essex police for enforcing the law.

    Home Office officials were so appalled that they contacted Essex Police to apologise, and were told that no such thing had happened. Braverman's team had briefed she had shouted at the police because the pro-Gollywog vote is important to todays Conservative Party. That she hadn't actually done so doesn't change the fact that they said she had.
    Because of the police investigation into a 'hate crime' at this pub, the pub was graffitied and had five windows damaged and has had to shut its doors.

    I suspect most voters would agree with Braverman than when burgleries and robberies get little police action but this does there is a disproportionate direction of police priorities

    https://news.sky.com/story/essex-pub-that-had-golliwog-dolls-seized-by-police-shuts-its-doors-12872315
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,546


    George Monbiot
    @GeorgeMonbiot
    Alarm bells should be ringing everywhere. We seem to have underestimated the chance of climate breakdown causing simultaneous harvest failure in the world's major breadbaskets. It's an issue I discuss in Regenesis, but it appears much worse than we thought

    https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1676505239740985344

    The trouble is when you endlessly cry Wolf, people stop believing you.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Miklosvar said:

    darkage said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    Pagan2 said:

    148grss said:

    EPG said:

    148grss said:

    Cookie said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    My word, The Telegraph have realised young people cannot get onto the property ladder.

    Rent costs Freddie and his friend each £825 a month and plus another £150 for bills. In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt and is paying it back in increments of £80 a month.

    “Overall, it means I have less than £700 for everything else. At the beginning of each month that feels fine but with days to go until payday, I’m generally on toast and water for lunch.”

    Getting a foot on the housing ladder is a distant hope.

    Hypothetically, if the pair wanted to join forces and buy a property together, Knight Frank have just launched a two-bedroom, one bathroom flat in Kensal Rise for £615,000. A quick calculation suggests they’d need to find a deposit of £61,500 and be looking at finding £3,398 a month to service the mortgage.

    “I don’t think people understand how disconnected our generation is with the concept of getting on the property ladder,” continues Peel.

    “A lot of us feel that everything is working against us. Rent inflation is just crazy. My boss couldn’t believe that over 60pc of my salary goes on rent and paying back loans – and I’m not living in a flash penthouse. Ten years ago, a flat in zone 2 for £1,500 a month would’ve meant a showstopper. This isn’t one.

    “Long term, I don’t know what the answer is. There used to be an assumption that, with a good degree and lots of hard work, you could live well in London and eventually get on the property ladder but my generation feels like we’re being shut out. I think a lot of people have accepted that instead of actively looking for the right answers to solve the problem.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy/buy-home-britain-different-experiences-generational-divide/

    Well obviously that all sounds shit and while it's a problem for that entire generation across the country, I would advise any teenager now including my own children neither to go to university nor to live in London, but:
    "In addition, having taken out three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance while at university, Peel has accrued approximately £39,000 worth of debt" - how has he accrued £39,000 of debt IN ADDITION TO three years of student loans to cover fees and maintenance?

    Sounds like he's got no assets, enjoys living in London and not much to show for his £39k with his likely main creditor being Mr Barclaycard - might as well go bankrupt tbh.
    Think I had a roughly equivalent amount of debt in relation to salaries at his age after university. 1 years salary is not that much in a 40 year career.

    The difference was it wasn't difficult to start repaying it once I had a reasonable job. Nowadays, the cost of rent in particular would make it much harder than it was back in the day.
    Note that that £39k is in addition to 'student loans for fees and maintenance'. So on top of just the cost of going to university. Hard to see how he can have racked up that much debt! Though if he thinks £115 is a reasonable price for a shirt it starts to become apparent...
    I was of the generation that didn't pay fees. Got something like the equivalent of maintenance from parents. Summer jobs but not term time. Still had significant debt by the time I was early twenties. Didn't live the life of riley or have shirts that cost much more than £15. Probably didn't know what an avocado was back then and would have definitely thought an apple was a fruit rather than a must have gadget....
    Also, when I was young, I was told that the older generation and capitalism was all about creating wealth so that the next generation can have a better life than the past. Now that the generation who was promised that better life are actually asking for it, the older generation (who benefitted from a period of huge taxes on the wealthy redistributed downwards into social safety nets, free education, free healthcare and better infrastructure) laugh at us and tell us we should be happy that life is shit...
    Life's better than the past. Look at what you're doing right now. You could be watching horseracing or lifting things on a building site or taking care of a few kids all day. But the internet is more fun.
    I am materially worse off than my parents. When my parents got a mortgage on a three bed house in 1997 it was £55k - the same house now is 6x that. Is the average wage 6x higher? Hell no. My parents also were not graduates and were in their early 20s (I was 6ish at that time)
    In 1997 we had 10 million less *(fewer) people in the country. Since then we have immigration constantly more than house building. Immigration is something I believe you are a supporter of so when looking for someone to blame...look in the mirror
    I am a supporter of immigration, yes; I'm an internationalist and see the impositions of borders as mere arbitrary constructs to separate people.

    Maybe the bigger issue is the fact that something essential for existence in society, a decent roof over your head, is left down to the free market and treated as an asset, is more of an issue - the destruction of government owned housing stock that could always provide and affordable rented property to those who couldn't afford private rented accommodation may also be a huge problem.
    Again the fault of your side when they decided social housing was allocated on need and working people found that they were spending years on lists because other people kept getting inserted above them in the list. Why should they bother supporting social housing when they have fuck all chance to get one. Even with social housing not enough would have been available when you "no borders" policy expands the population by 20% in a decade

    As I said want someone to blame look in the mirror....it is people like you that never consider the consequences of your ideology.
    I mean, I wasn't born when right to buy was a thing and I don't know what year the changes in social housing policy were implemented, but I don't think I would have been old enough to vote.

    My ideology is pretty clear on housing - rent seeking is bad, landlordism is bad, houses should be free because it is a basic human need. I would also redistribute wealth; so houses with literally hundreds of empty rooms (literal palaces) could be repurposed for habitation.

    I don't support the means testing of housing; nor anything that is a basic human need. Nor many things that are luxury human needs, even.
    It is worth questioning how something that is a basic need has become so highly regulated and who actually benefits from this situation.
    What? All the basic need markets (food, transport, education, medical care) are highly regulated.
    My point is about the regulation of building and land. We are told it is necessary for various reasons but it has led to a situation where a society is unable fulfil the basic housing needs of a large number of its citizens.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust
    The EU is investing billions into becoming a green energy superpower. But Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act means it’s the U.S. reaping the rewards.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/05/biden-hydrogen-europe-00104024
    ...Jorgo Chatzimarkakis agrees. As the CEO of Hydrogen Europe, he’s one of the continent’s most influential lobbyists, having helped secure industry handouts worth billions of dollars. “We have a very robust framework in the EU, but we fail to attract our own companies because it’s all too complex,” he said. “We have ambitious targets, but we don’t have simple and efficient instruments to incentivize businesses.

    “In their typical bureaucratic way, the Europeans will kill this business,” Chatzimarkakis said.

    That leaves those who’ve helped launch the industry at risk of losing out, Chatzimarkakis added.

    “Dung beetles spend hours rolling up balls of dung to attract females,” he said. “But there are some very smart dung beetles that just sit by the side and watch while others do hard work. Then they shoot in, take the dung ball, take the girl and run away with everything. That’s Joe Biden.”

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,972
    HYUFD said:

    ...

    Eesh.

    Rishi Sunak's spokesman defends his government's plans to make it easier to use "reasonable force" against child refugees, in order to remove them from the country, telling me force will only be used against children in "limited" circumstances.

    https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1676564727298703361

    Rishi's turning into a right hard barsteward.

    Jenrick painting over cartoons in boat children reception centres yesterday proves he is an even harder barsteward.
    There appears to be a competition inside the Tories as to whom can best appeal to their target voter.

    Sadly, their target voter appears to be an ex-lag called Ron, with a long record of GBH offences.
    After we had the Grays pub done for having a large collection of gollywog dolls behind the bar, the Home Secretary briefed the press that she had remonstrated with Essex police for enforcing the law.

    Home Office officials were so appalled that they contacted Essex Police to apologise, and were told that no such thing had happened. Braverman's team had briefed she had shouted at the police because the pro-Gollywog vote is important to todays Conservative Party. That she hadn't actually done so doesn't change the fact that they said she had.
    Because of the police investigation into a 'hate crime' at this pub, the pub was graffitied and had five windows damaged and has had to shut its doors.

    I suspect most voters would agree with Braverman than when burgleries and robberies get little police action but this does there is a disproportionate direction of police priorities

    https://news.sky.com/story/essex-pub-that-had-golliwog-dolls-seized-by-police-shuts-its-doors-12872315
    Live from the Essex Pulpit:

    The issue isn't the government wanting to beat defenceless children for their crime of being put on a small boat. No, the true moral people are upset that racist dolls aren't legal any more.

    If there was an issue with what Essex police did, would not Braverman have *actually* raised it with the police? Instead of just dog whistling to racists but not actually doing it?

    If there's not enough police to pursue burglaries whose fault is it? If Essex police done wrong then shouldn't she actually have acted?

    That plank in your eye must be as big as a galaxy by now.
This discussion has been closed.