My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
The green lobby in particular will be a hard call. They can challenge new development on a range of issues and have legal back up to do it. Net zero, environmental risk assessments, local impact assessments - schools, hospitals infrastructure. All good local government posts which Starmer aims to put to one side.
I fully agree with the aim but am at touch sceptical he will do what is needed.
And then theres the other bullet he has to bite which is if he knows where he wants to build new towns will he announce them ? This will of course send big chunks of southern England on the protest marches. Everybody wants more houses built but just not in their area. And if there are houses then the roads and other infrastructure have to be built too.
The British countryside is one of the few things Britain has left of any merit, and Sir Keir wants to bury it all beneath tarmac and ghastly new builds just to give a leg up on the housing ladder to the spawn of people who probably shouldn't be breeding anyway. Gaza, rural England - is there nothing he wouldn't see obliterated on his brutish route march to power? What dastardly and unprincipled fiend. No, he must be destroyed!
The Greenbelt policy is institutionally racist.
The younger generations who can’t get on the housing ladder or rent a good property are more diverse. As a result, immigrants have poorer housing.
So anyone opposing house building is a racist.
Your output often has a sort of 'ambushing the new woke young boyfriend your daughter has brought round for dinner' vibe to it.
Maybe - but it is a legitimate argument.
1) institutional racism, as defined as differential outcomes for minority groups. Is used in Governmental policy making. Now. 2) housing is definitely a massive factor in people’s lives. You spend half your life there. People have died from shitty housing. Literally. 3) add those 2 together.
I’ve spent some time volunteering for a charity that does reworks on people’s flats - emphasising better accommodation for children. The people living in the shitty estates have a tendency towards a bit of a sun tan.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
The green lobby in particular will be a hard call. They can challenge new development on a range of issues and have legal back up to do it. Net zero, environmental risk assessments, local impact assessments - schools, hospitals infrastructure. All good local government posts which Starmer aims to put to one side.
I fully agree with the aim but am at touch sceptical he will do what is needed.
And then theres the other bullet he has to bite which is if he knows where he wants to build new towns will he announce them ? This will of course send big chunks of southern England on the protest marches. Everybody wants more houses built but just not in their area. And if there are houses then the roads and other infrastructure have to be built too.
The British countryside is one of the few things Britain has left of any merit, and Sir Keir wants to bury it all beneath tarmac and ghastly new builds just to give a leg up on the housing ladder to the spawn of people who probably shouldn't be breeding anyway. Gaza, rural England - is there nothing he wouldn't see obliterated on his brutish route march to power? What dastardly and unprincipled fiend. No, he must be destroyed!
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
Many many years ago I used to have good friends in Bridgtown and Heath Hayes. Used to drink at a pub at the top of Longford Road. Worked not far from Bridgtown. I guess it’s different now, the factory I worked as has long since closed.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
A lot of these people have been voting against the Conservative in local elections, but this will probably drive them back, after Labour have won the next election.
Won’t matter. Labour will have five years. They should build build build in the south east and Home Counties where there is more demand for Homes. Few votes will be lost as it is not, largely, natural labour territory anyway.
If they cannot name where they are going to build now then the 5 years will be largely spent on planning, design and contract placement. Not much will be built imo.
Starmer is going for a 2 term pitch though so I think he’ll have an aspirational time scale of term 1 actually instituting the reform and term 2 seeing the results. Of far greater challenge in my mind is getting that reform through, and for it to actually work in the way it seems he wants it to. I have my doubts that he can remove the bureaucratic planning framework in the sweep of a pen, but maybe I am being too cynical.
Some of the chatter is about using the New Towns Act, which is still on the statue book, which gives governments the sort of powers you might expect from an Attlee era law.
The problem here is that the original post-war new towns were built with a significant industrial base. Back in the day, my own home town of Crawley had dozens upon dozens of light-engineering firms in its Manor Royal industrial estate - many of them global leaders. But now we don't have any engineering left, so what are the inhabitants of these towns supposed to do except claim dole and smoke dope all day? Sir Keir is literally planning to build hellish ghettos devoid of all hope and meaning. This could amount to the greatest act of wickedness ever inflicted upon the British race.
That’s not true - there’s tons of industrial manufacturing in this country. Top 10 on the whole planet.
Just because it isn’t half naked men pouring steel with no H&S doesn’t mean it’s not industrial.
I juxtaposed these comments because I was just thinking how much Cannock still relies on industry. Of my friends of working age, one works in a chemicals plant in Bridgtown, one works in a car door factory in Lichfield, several work for JLR and one for JCB (God help him).
It's just not quite the same sort of industry. Cannock Chemicals must be one of the largest chemical/industrial engineering concerns in the country but it occupies a tiny site and employs about thirty people.
I worked at the vehicle lighting factory. I left in August 1990.
My friends in Cannock moved away, many years ago.
Cannock will always be somewhere I have a lot of affection for.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
The green lobby in particular will be a hard call. They can challenge new development on a range of issues and have legal back up to do it. Net zero, environmental risk assessments, local impact assessments - schools, hospitals infrastructure. All good local government posts which Starmer aims to put to one side.
I fully agree with the aim but am at touch sceptical he will do what is needed.
And then theres the other bullet he has to bite which is if he knows where he wants to build new towns will he announce them ? This will of course send big chunks of southern England on the protest marches. Everybody wants more houses built but just not in their area. And if there are houses then the roads and other infrastructure have to be built too.
Give King Charles leave to do Poundbry 2.0 x 10
The screaming from idiots from Left & Right would be magnificent.
Duchy communites[1] are Poundbury, Nansledan, Tregurra Park, Tregunnel Hill. All four of then combined accommodate less than 15,000 people. Sunak.xlsx is currently importing 40 to 70 times that. Per year. The King will have to do two hundred Poundburys per year to keep up
I keep banging on about this. Importing 500K to 1000K people per year is an enormous task and we just don't have the houses nor the building capacity. At full stretch, using frankly heroic methods under the existing system will bring in about 200,000 houses pa, which would just about do it at 5 people per house. Every year. For years to come. Starting now.
Everybody keeps banging on about Conservative principles, but I can't see how sensible Conservatives can view this with equanimity. You either have an absolutely epic building program and tear up the Green Belt, or you have Soylent-Green-On-The-Wold.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
I don't feel massively attached to anywhere but I feel quite attached to lots of places, and that's enough for me.
Yes I have that and it's nice. Hampstead. Roseland Peninsula Cornwall, Peak District, Amalfi Coast, Croydon. But just missing that deeply ingrained sense of 'home' that some people have. It doesn't bug me but I'm conscious of it.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
As I have mentioned before, this is a policy followed by the Netherlands as a means to encourage self build although they go further and put all the basic infrastructure in as well prior to selling the plots.
It's by Nile Rodgers and Bernie Edwards, who wrote and produced more utterly great songs than pretty much anyone in pop music, certainly since the Beatles. Although IMHO their masterpiece, also performed with Sister Sledge, is He's the Greatest Dancer. Absolute musical perfection, and one of the greatest songs ever to dance to, appropriately.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
As I've said to you before, I think you're underestimating him.
Only time will tell and I cant see either of us shifting our position.
Oh I will if he turns out rubbish. Right now it's about winning the GE, and I'm a fan because he seems to be nailing that.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
Personally I think the first think HMG should do is review all the land it already holds and see what can take a town or a village. No need to buy.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
I don't feel massively attached to anywhere but I feel quite attached to lots of places, and that's enough for me.
Yes I have that and it's nice. Hampstead. Roseland Peninsula Cornwall, Peak District, Amalfi Coast, Croydon. But just missing that deeply ingrained sense of 'home' that some people have. It doesn't bug me but I'm conscious of it.
I have just arrived in Cornwall
Where my family have been provably living for 1000 years - my sister lives in a house 5 miles from the house where our ancestors lived in 1150AD (the estate is still there and you can see the 12th century pier on the fal river named for our forefathers)
And we therefore likely go back in Cornwall to 2000BC
Its nice to have roots THAT deep but it is also sometimes confining. A kind of bindweed
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
I am all for land development having a time limit. 5 years or you have to resubmit in a competitive situation.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
The other day I listened to a song from when I was a kid the other day - De La Soul’s ‘Eye Know’ . That just have been late 80s, nice rap! I guess it got a bit more thuggish in the early 90s with NWA?
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
Personally I think the first think HMG should do is review all the land it already holds and see what can take a town or a village. No need to buy.
I've no problem with that. But I'd be an all at once advocate. To make a significant change you have to (metaphorically) kick arses.
'First we'll do a review' means giving the civil service 12 months before anything happens.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
The other day I listened to a song from when I was a kid the other day - De La Soul’s ‘Eye Know’ . That just have been late 80s, nice rap! I guess it got a bit more thuggish in the early 90s with NWA?
I think rap was a terrible evolution in black music. A cul de sac
It meant the voice was used as an instrument - percussion and bass - and therefore it favoured hard consonants and repetitions = lots of F words and N words and a machine gun of violent plosives
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
Many many years ago I used to have good friends in Bridgtown and Heath Hayes. Used to drink at a pub at the top of Longford Road. Worked not far from Bridgtown. I guess it’s different now, the factory I worked as has long since closed.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
A lot of these people have been voting against the Conservative in local elections, but this will probably drive them back, after Labour have won the next election.
Won’t matter. Labour will have five years. They should build build build in the south east and Home Counties where there is more demand for Homes. Few votes will be lost as it is not, largely, natural labour territory anyway.
If they cannot name where they are going to build now then the 5 years will be largely spent on planning, design and contract placement. Not much will be built imo.
Starmer is going for a 2 term pitch though so I think he’ll have an aspirational time scale of term 1 actually instituting the reform and term 2 seeing the results. Of far greater challenge in my mind is getting that reform through, and for it to actually work in the way it seems he wants it to. I have my doubts that he can remove the bureaucratic planning framework in the sweep of a pen, but maybe I am being too cynical.
Some of the chatter is about using the New Towns Act, which is still on the statue book, which gives governments the sort of powers you might expect from an Attlee era law.
The problem here is that the original post-war new towns were built with a significant industrial base. Back in the day, my own home town of Crawley had dozens upon dozens of light-engineering firms in its Manor Royal industrial estate - many of them global leaders. But now we don't have any engineering left, so what are the inhabitants of these towns supposed to do except claim dole and smoke dope all day? Sir Keir is literally planning to build hellish ghettos devoid of all hope and meaning. This could amount to the greatest act of wickedness ever inflicted upon the British race.
That’s not true - there’s tons of industrial manufacturing in this country. Top 10 on the whole planet.
Just because it isn’t half naked men pouring steel with no H&S doesn’t mean it’s not industrial.
I juxtaposed these comments because I was just thinking how much Cannock still relies on industry. Of my friends of working age, one works in a chemicals plant in Bridgtown, one works in a car door factory in Lichfield, several work for JLR and one for JCB (God help him).
It's just not quite the same sort of industry. Cannock Chemicals must be one of the largest chemical/industrial engineering concerns in the country but it occupies a tiny site and employs about thirty people.
Yup, it tends to be smaller stuff these days - bespoke work and higher unit value, a lot of it.
The myth of The End Of British Industry is quite harmful. I’ve encountered MPs who believe that there was no British Industry left. Which must make balancing policies interesting.
It was repeated on here just yesterday when Josiah Jessop was claiming that manufacturing was abandoning the UK after Brexit. Of course this is rubbish given that manufacturing is increasing, that reshoring is massive at the moment with many firms bringing manufacturing back into the UK from the far east and from Europe and that we just overtook France to become the 8th largest manfacturing country in the woirld.
Brexit has been damaging *and* we have a substantial manufacturing sector.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
move to the countryside and get a sense of place
The countryside is something I like to visit.
Its a shift of mindset. Ive lived in villages since 1988. But did live in Manchester and medium size towns. I like being able to walk out the door and be in the countryside in 2 minutes. There are loads of things I have to put up with crap broadband, poor services and you have to think in advance since you havent got a shop round the corner. But thats worth it for a community where you know everyone, the wildlife and walks and a decent pub.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
I don't feel massively attached to anywhere but I feel quite attached to lots of places, and that's enough for me.
Yes I have that and it's nice. Hampstead. Roseland Peninsula Cornwall, Peak District, Amalfi Coast, Croydon. But just missing that deeply ingrained sense of 'home' that some people have. It doesn't bug me but I'm conscious of it.
I have just arrived in Cornwall
Where my family have been provably living for 1000 years - my sister lives in a house 5 miles from the house where our ancestors lived in 1150AD (the estate is still there and you can see the 12th century pier on the fal river named for our forefathers)
And we therefore likely go back in Cornwall to 2000BC
Its nice to have roots THAT deep but it is also sometimes confining. A kind of bindweed
Perhaps if you travelled to different places you would feel less bound
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
As I have mentioned before, this is a policy followed by the Netherlands as a means to encourage self build although they go further and put all the basic infrastructure in as well prior to selling the plots.
We used to do that in this country, in Edwardian times for example.
And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
Re Header: I'm sure there's no absolute right/wrong in Palestine. Quite such a Corbynite divergence though has to be worrying. Labour leaders have never really carried their party, but it seems Starmer is pretty much in a different party altogether. I'm resigned to Labour being the next government, but if the Starmerites are just a surface polish which leads to the nonsense of core Labour then we're all in some trouble.
I'm just hoping that the LDs find a tub of lard at least, so that they become a realistic vote.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
Many many years ago I used to have good friends in Bridgtown and Heath Hayes. Used to drink at a pub at the top of Longford Road. Worked not far from Bridgtown. I guess it’s different now, the factory I worked as has long since closed.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
Which natural supporters are you thinking of?
The Nimbies most likely to be annoyed by Starmertowns are homeowners in green belts around cities, and they're one of the demographics currently sticking with the Conservatives.
It'll be messy, sure, but Labour have a far better chance of making this happen than the Conservatives.
A lot of these people have been voting against the Conservative in local elections, but this will probably drive them back, after Labour have won the next election.
Won’t matter. Labour will have five years. They should build build build in the south east and Home Counties where there is more demand for Homes. Few votes will be lost as it is not, largely, natural labour territory anyway.
If they cannot name where they are going to build now then the 5 years will be largely spent on planning, design and contract placement. Not much will be built imo.
Starmer is going for a 2 term pitch though so I think he’ll have an aspirational time scale of term 1 actually instituting the reform and term 2 seeing the results. Of far greater challenge in my mind is getting that reform through, and for it to actually work in the way it seems he wants it to. I have my doubts that he can remove the bureaucratic planning framework in the sweep of a pen, but maybe I am being too cynical.
Some of the chatter is about using the New Towns Act, which is still on the statue book, which gives governments the sort of powers you might expect from an Attlee era law.
The problem here is that the original post-war new towns were built with a significant industrial base. Back in the day, my own home town of Crawley had dozens upon dozens of light-engineering firms in its Manor Royal industrial estate - many of them global leaders. But now we don't have any engineering left, so what are the inhabitants of these towns supposed to do except claim dole and smoke dope all day? Sir Keir is literally planning to build hellish ghettos devoid of all hope and meaning. This could amount to the greatest act of wickedness ever inflicted upon the British race.
That’s not true - there’s tons of industrial manufacturing in this country. Top 10 on the whole planet.
Just because it isn’t half naked men pouring steel with no H&S doesn’t mean it’s not industrial.
I juxtaposed these comments because I was just thinking how much Cannock still relies on industry. Of my friends of working age, one works in a chemicals plant in Bridgtown, one works in a car door factory in Lichfield, several work for JLR and one for JCB (God help him).
It's just not quite the same sort of industry. Cannock Chemicals must be one of the largest chemical/industrial engineering concerns in the country but it occupies a tiny site and employs about thirty people.
Yup, it tends to be smaller stuff these days - bespoke work and higher unit value, a lot of it.
The myth of The End Of British Industry is quite harmful. I’ve encountered MPs who believe that there was no British Industry left. Which must make balancing policies interesting.
It was repeated on here just yesterday when Josiah Jessop was claiming that manufacturing was abandoning the UK after Brexit. Of course this is rubbish given that manufacturing is increasing, that reshoring is massive at the moment with many firms bringing manufacturing back into the UK from the far east and from Europe and that we just overtook France to become the 8th largest manfacturing country in the woirld.
Brexit has been damaging *and* we have a substantial manufacturing sector.
A substantial and growing manufacturing sector. Doesn't really reconcile with the first part of your sentence.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
Personally I think the first think HMG should do is review all the land it already holds and see what can take a town or a village. No need to buy.
I've no problem with that. But I'd be an all at once advocate. To make a significant change you have to (metaphorically) kick arses.
'First we'll do a review' means giving the civil service 12 months before anything happens.
You could do a review in a month to pick sites. If Starmer is serious he can do it now.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
move to the countryside and get a sense of place
The countryside is something I like to visit.
Cities are places I visit under sufference and would never choose to live in.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
I don't feel massively attached to anywhere but I feel quite attached to lots of places, and that's enough for me.
Yes I have that and it's nice. Hampstead. Roseland Peninsula Cornwall, Peak District, Amalfi Coast, Croydon. But just missing that deeply ingrained sense of 'home' that some people have. It doesn't bug me but I'm conscious of it.
I have just arrived in Cornwall
Where my family have been provably living for 1000 years - my sister lives in a house 5 miles from the house where our ancestors lived in 1150AD (the estate is still there and you can see the 12th century pier on the fal river named for our forefathers)
And we therefore likely go back in Cornwall to 2000BC
Its nice to have roots THAT deep but it is also sometimes confining. A kind of bindweed
Perhaps if you travelled to different places you would feel less bound
(ducks)
I’m sure it’s one of the reasons I do travel so obsessively
Also however I’ve been reading “Nomads” by Antony Sattin. Interesting book about the wandering urge in humans
He says that scientists have actually identified a gene in “successful wanderers” - nomads who seem to enjoy nomadism and positively thrive at it and who are unhappy or even miserable if prevented
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
I am all for land development having a time limit. 5 years or you have to resubmit in a competitive situation.
I would make it substantially less than that - say 2 years - at the end of which you get charged the full Council tax that would be payable on the completed property.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
Do you not feel any attachment to London? At all? I do. Quite deeply
It’s always a love hate relationship but it can really be love - especially after a long time away - driving in and seeing the first Tube station, the first black cab, the first big red bus
And then the particular places I know and adore. Soho on a busy rainy night; the cobbles glistening. Regent’s Park on a glorious sunny day, the Nash Terraces shining like palaces. The Thames at Richmond or Westminster or Tower Bridge, mighty and indifferent
Primrose Hill at dusk
I am attached to quite a few places by roots or later emotions but London is fundamental to me as one of those
Yes, to the extent I feel what you're describing it's London I feel it about. Lived here my whole adult life, with the occasional dive off abroad.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
As I have mentioned before, this is a policy followed by the Netherlands as a means to encourage self build although they go further and put all the basic infrastructure in as well prior to selling the plots.
We used to do that in this country, in Edwardian times for example.
I have not studied it but I was under the impression we did it with a lot of the new towns in the 30s as well.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
I am all for land development having a time limit. 5 years or you have to resubmit in a competitive situation.
I would make it substantially less than that - say 2 years - at the end of which you get charged the full Council tax that would be payable on the completed property.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
move to the countryside and get a sense of place
The countryside is something I like to visit.
Its a shift of mindset. Ive lived in villages since 1988. But did live in Manchester and medium size towns. I like being able to walk out the door and be in the countryside in 2 minutes. There are loads of things I have to put up with crap broadband, poor services and you have to think in advance since you havent got a shop round the corner. But thats worth it for a community where you know everyone, the wildlife and walks and a decent pub.
I’d absolutely hate a community where I “knew everyone”. I’d have to keep saying hello. And they’d all know me
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
Personally I think the first think HMG should do is review all the land it already holds and see what can take a town or a village. No need to buy.
There were plans for a big development - both housing and manufacturing - at RAF Scampton before the Government decided to use it for hosing* asylum seekers. Those plans have now collapsed and many years' work has gone to waste.
*Edit that should of course have said 'housing' but I think this spelling mistake is a good reflection of current asylum policy under Braverman so I will leave it.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
Sure they are generic and their high streets are hollowed out shells, but you are reasonably close to the country and not surrounded by the great mass of a metropolis, without being totally isolated or lacking a more moderate number of people to get comfortably lost within.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
The other day I listened to a song from when I was a kid the other day - De La Soul’s ‘Eye Know’ . That just have been late 80s, nice rap! I guess it got a bit more thuggish in the early 90s with NWA?
I think rap was a terrible evolution in black music. A cul de sac
It meant the voice was used as an instrument - percussion and bass - and therefore it favoured hard consonants and repetitions = lots of F words and N words and a machine gun of violent plosives
I did like Blondie's Rapture though. Not too many F words or N words there.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
At one stage I used to want to get back to Canvey Island.
Those days are long gone though!
My roots - and indeed the roots of my roots - are sunk deep in the coalfields of South Yorkshire. I feel not the slightest pull, which is rational because it's a bit grim, but just occasionally I feel sad about this because I haven't replaced it with any alternative sense of belonging anywhere else.
move to the countryside and get a sense of place
The countryside is something I like to visit.
Its a shift of mindset. Ive lived in villages since 1988. But did live in Manchester and medium size towns. I like being able to walk out the door and be in the countryside in 2 minutes. There are loads of things I have to put up with crap broadband, poor services and you have to think in advance since you havent got a shop round the corner. But thats worth it for a community where you know everyone, the wildlife and walks and a decent pub.
I’d absolutely hate a community where I “knew everyone”. I’d have to keep saying hello. And they’d all know me
Ugh
Different strokes, eh
When you're young I think it's rather great to know everybody, you just smile or wave and that's that. At some point though the idea of having a conversation happens.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
The other day I listened to a song from when I was a kid the other day - De La Soul’s ‘Eye Know’ . That just have been late 80s, nice rap! I guess it got a bit more thuggish in the early 90s with NWA?
I think rap was a terrible evolution in black music. A cul de sac
It meant the voice was used as an instrument - percussion and bass - and therefore it favoured hard consonants and repetitions = lots of F words and N words and a machine gun of violent plosives
Neil Tennant does rap properly in "West End Girls".
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
I don’t know that it’s by female singers in particular. If it’s a recent trend I’m unlikely to have heard it at all, I probably couldn’t tell you more than five songs from the last decade.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
I am all for land development having a time limit. 5 years or you have to resubmit in a competitive situation.
I would make it substantially less than that - say 2 years - at the end of which you get charged the full Council tax that would be payable on the completed property.
Thats really going for it :-}
We have a housing crisis. I would say that getting builders to actually build on the hundreds of thousands of plots that already have permission would be a good place to start dealing with it.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
No, he’s not
Well I think he is. At least to some extent. We must agree to disagree.
On an massive segue, can anybody recommend a charity that still takes cash/postal orders? It's coming up to Xmas and my internal helping-humans guilt index is beginning to twitch upwards. My usual go-tos (Tank Museum, British Legion, Red Cross, Shelter) are gradually moving to online payments which I refuse to do, so this will cause a problem in future. No political or political-adjacent charities, please.
MSF take postal orders and I think do good work. Friends who have worked for several humanitarian outfits normally pick them as one of the best.
If you care about cost-effectiveness, I think Against Malaria Foundation are great, and they take cheques.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
And if it doesn't happen, that shows what a brilliant government we have, keeping us safe.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Great that she’s thinking of decent people, a group outwith her own inclinations.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
A march against a war on the anniversary of fighting stopping? How shocking!
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
I don’t know that it’s by female singers in particular. If it’s a recent trend I’m unlikely to have heard it at all, I probably couldn’t tell you more than five songs from the last decade.
Well you wouldn't like it if you did hear it. Because it's the opposite of what you're taking about liking, that all I need is my man and my man makes me happy, this is more my man was a jerk so I dumped him and I've never felt better.
Anyone who watched at the time (or bothered to watch afterwards) the performance of Eric Trump on his daddy's version of "The Apprentice" can testify that ET was the Dumb Trump, at least on that forum.
Dumber than a box of rocks stupid.
Which has been confirmed (yet again) by his unraveling under oath at the Trump Organization fraud trial.
Where it appears ET may have committed perjury? That is, comparing his testimony to his emails put on record by . . . you guessed it . . . the prosecution.
As per following published by Politico.com:
Eric Trump, who testified after his brother, initially denied any knowledge of or involvement with the documents, but later admitted that he was aware of them and had been asked by the company’s controller to assist him with preparing notes for the document.
“I never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said at the start of his testimony. A few moments later, he testified: “I don’t believe I ever saw or worked on a statement of financial condition. I don’t believe I would have had knowledge of it.” He subsequently added: “It’s just not what I did for the company, sir.”
After a lawyer for James’ office produced emails and notes that showed the controller, Jeffrey McConney, asking Eric Trump for information to assist McConney in preparing the annual financial statement, Eric Trump admitted that he understood that his father had such statements and that McConney had solicited his help on them. McConney is also a defendant in the case.
Throughout his testimony, however, Eric Trump sought to draw a distinction between his general knowledge that the company produced financial documents and his involvement in the specific statements at issue in the trial.
At times, he appeared to grow frustrated with questioning. Raising his voice, he testified: “We’re a major organization, a massive organization. Yes, I’m fairly certain I understand that we have financial statements.”
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be none housing though. As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely tat it is a mahjor factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
My concern is more that governments have little incentive to genuinely tackle aspects of the planning system which are problematic, because at the end of the day people don't want housing to be built, not in practice, so there's no political reward to getting tough on developers for when they are indeed at fault, because whilst people hate the developers for where they build and how, the short term impact of housing being delayed in their local area is popular. It's self defeating because developers use it to get permission in areas people like even less, but in the short term it weirdly gives people what they want - slow or no development.
So whilst I think we can solve a lot of the problems without worrying about NIMBY tendency itself, I do think its prevalence indicates a major problem with our society and how it influences political priorities.
Anyone who watched at the time (or bothered to watch afterwards) the performance of Eric Trump on his daddy's version of "The Apprentice" can testify that ET was the Dumb Trump, at least on that forum.
Dumber than a box of rocks stupid.
Which has been confirmed (yet again) by his unraveling under oath at the Trump Organization fraud trial.
Where it appears ET may have committed perjury? That is, comparing his testimony to his emails put on record by . . . you guessed it . . . the prosecution.
As per following published by Politico.com:
Eric Trump, who testified after his brother, initially denied any knowledge of or involvement with the documents, but later admitted that he was aware of them and had been asked by the company’s controller to assist him with preparing notes for the document.
“I never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said at the start of his testimony. A few moments later, he testified: “I don’t believe I ever saw or worked on a statement of financial condition. I don’t believe I would have had knowledge of it.” He subsequently added: “It’s just not what I did for the company, sir.”
After a lawyer for James’ office produced emails and notes that showed the controller, Jeffrey McConney, asking Eric Trump for information to assist McConney in preparing the annual financial statement, Eric Trump admitted that he understood that his father had such statements and that McConney had solicited his help on them. McConney is also a defendant in the case.
Throughout his testimony, however, Eric Trump sought to draw a distinction between his general knowledge that the company produced financial documents and his involvement in the specific statements at issue in the trial.
At times, he appeared to grow frustrated with questioning. Raising his voice, he testified: “We’re a major organization, a massive organization. Yes, I’m fairly certain I understand that we have financial statements.”
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
That's not what I was suggesting.
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
Personally I think the first think HMG should do is review all the land it already holds and see what can take a town or a village. No need to buy.
I've no problem with that. But I'd be an all at once advocate. To make a significant change you have to (metaphorically) kick arses.
'First we'll do a review' means giving the civil service 12 months before anything happens.
You could do a review in a month to pick sites. If Starmer is serious he can do it now.
That's not how it works, though, is it?
One of the perks of opposition is not having to have detailed policies, but talk in generalities. But given the criteria (house price hotspot, easy access to jobs, places where building is physically possible), a list of places to develop would be blooming obvious.
Hence doing the review now and not after the election wouldn't save much time. But would go against the "no hostages to fortune" approach.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
Ah. I see. Then yes I agree
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
The other day I listened to a song from when I was a kid the other day - De La Soul’s ‘Eye Know’ . That just have been late 80s, nice rap! I guess it got a bit more thuggish in the early 90s with NWA?
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
A march against a war on the anniversary of fighting stopping? How shocking!
Touche.
Although surely the fighting stopped because one side was defeated and was surrendering, which may not be the outcome people are wanting here.
Edit: Does remind me of a line from The Colbert Report showing clips of talking heads and politicians angry at Obama shaking hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's funeral, with Colbert asking if Mandela's funeral was really the time and place for reconciliation.
It seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
When you're a person of colour and somebody tells you to go back home/specific country it can be incredibly hurtful.
My response is generally, sure, I really want to get back to Sheffield as well.
I once said, at the end of a very long, tiring parents' evening, 'I really, really want to get back to Cannock.'
One of my colleagues gave me a strange look, and said, 'I've never heard anyone say that before.'
(Not that she could talk, she was from Burton.)
I lived in Stone for three years and found it rather enjoyable.
I lived there in the late 80s. Very different now. sadly. It is suffering from the creeping malaise of economic decay, like Stafford, my hometown as a youth.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
I don’t know that it’s by female singers in particular. If it’s a recent trend I’m unlikely to have heard it at all, I probably couldn’t tell you more than five songs from the last decade.
Well you wouldn't like it if you did hear it. Because it's the opposite of what you're taking about liking, that all I need is my man and my man makes me happy, this is more my man was a jerk so I dumped him and I've never felt better.
I don’t think I said I liked one or the other actually
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Giving offence to millions of decent British people doesn't usually seem to bother Suella Braverman.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
A march against a war on the anniversary of fighting stopping? How shocking!
Touche.
Although surely the fighting stopped because one side was defeated and was surrendering, which may not be the outcome people are wanting here.
Edit: Does remind me of a line from The Colbert Report showing clips of talking heads and politicians angry at Obama shaking hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's funeral, with Colbert asking if Mandela's funeral was really the time and place for reconciliation.
A march on Saturday shouldn't disrupt a commemoration on Sunday. Just keep off the Mall so preparations can be made.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Giving offence to millions of decent British people doesn't usually seem to bother Suella Braverman.
She always seems so cross about stuff considering she’s in government.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Giving offence to millions of decent British people doesn't usually seem to bother Suella Braverman.
She always seems so cross about stuff considering she’s in government.
Perhaps she's cross because she's in government and people are still doing things she doesn't like.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
[Citation needed] on 90% claim since last time we discussed this a third of housing applications were rejected.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
I don’t know that it’s by female singers in particular. If it’s a recent trend I’m unlikely to have heard it at all, I probably couldn’t tell you more than five songs from the last decade.
Well you wouldn't like it if you did hear it. Because it's the opposite of what you're taking about liking, that all I need is my man and my man makes me happy, this is more my man was a jerk so I dumped him and I've never felt better.
I don’t think I said I liked one or the other actually
Relax, you're not under caution! Just chatting away here. The 'takedown song' is what I'm offering up as an example of the sort of thing you're bemoaning. Brittle self-congratulatory 'look at me' toughness appearing in music at the expense of warmhearted feelgood romance.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Giving offence to millions of decent British people doesn't usually seem to bother Suella Braverman.
She always seems so cross about stuff considering she’s in government.
Perhaps she's cross because she's in government and people are still doing things she doesn't like.
Has she considered expressing her displeasure in the form of chanted free style poetry to a backing beat?
I had a take about a decade ago that one of the big differences between pop music now and that of the 60s-80s was the lack of vulnerability shown/sadness that a relationship ended. Don’t know if that’s actually proven by the stats. I am so out of the loop now I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that music is now more boastful and tough than it once was
Something in that, however “Thinking of You” is about the sheer unadulterated joy of being in love: the pristine happiness. And, magically, the music captures that and shares it with the listener
Sublime. As good as any single piece of classical music to my mind - and I love classical music
Yes, what brought to mind my old thought was the vulnerability & lack of cynicism shown by the singer in “Thinking of You” - just flat out saying her man was what makes life living.
You're thinking of the recent trend for 'takedown' songs by female singers about their exes, I sense. You're not keen on that.
I don’t know that it’s by female singers in particular. If it’s a recent trend I’m unlikely to have heard it at all, I probably couldn’t tell you more than five songs from the last decade.
Well you wouldn't like it if you did hear it. Because it's the opposite of what you're taking about liking, that all I need is my man and my man makes me happy, this is more my man was a jerk so I dumped him and I've never felt better.
I don’t think I said I liked one or the other actually
Relax, you're not under caution! Just chatting away here. The 'takedown song' is what I'm offering up as an example of the sort of thing you're bemoaning. Brittle self-congratulatory 'look at me' toughness appearing in music at the expense of warmhearted feelgood romance.
Yes I think that is what I’m talking about being more prevalent nowadays. I’m not really bemoaning it though, there are plenty of feel good romance songs to listen to. I just wondered if it’s true that it’s less popular to admit feeling gutted than it used to be
I’m more of a ‘feel bad about a romance that’s over’ kind of guy actually, you might have noticed!
Watched The Long Good Friday last week, and now I’m constantly rewatching the last two mins of it - one of the greatest scenes in British film history I reckon
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
[Citation needed] on 90% claim since last time we discussed this a third of housing applications were rejected.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
I would like planning consent conditional of building starting within 6 months of permission being granted and completed within 2 years. If either of these conditions are not met, the local authority takes over the site without compensation. That would avoid land banking by developers in order to prevent their competitors using the land.
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
Their performance of ‘Yes’ on Jools Holland is one my all time favourite renditions of a song - what a voice David McAlmont had
‘Miss Misery’ & ‘Angeles’ by Elliott Smith are great, and quite under the radar I think
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
[Citation needed] on 90% claim since last time we discussed this a third of housing applications were rejected.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
You are getting desperate again Bart. I cited the 90% claim in my original posting upthread. And no, it was not 30% rejected last time we discussed this. That was your false figures. It has been 90%+ every time from my side. Indeed after appeal it is up to 95%.
The rest of your comment is just special pleading based on no evidence at all. You comprehensively lost the 'planning permission is stopping development' argument last time so you have switched to the 'wrong sort of developers' argument. Neither are valid.
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Giving offence to millions of decent British people doesn't usually seem to bother Suella Braverman.
She is so annoying she mananges to offend most of us indecent ones as well.
Politico.com About George Santos: He sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him this week And Jamie Raskin sent back a hand-edited response... correcting his grammar.
George Santos sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him earlier this week. Democrat Jamie Raskin, who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him.
At least one recipient of the letter wasn’t impressed. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him. . . .
“I appreciate your note and only wish someone had proofread it first. Meantime, you should apologize to the people of New York for all of your lies and deceit.” he wrote, adding “P.S. It’s not shameful to resign.”
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
Their performance of ‘Yes’ on Jools Holland is one my all time favourite renditions of a song - what a voice David McAlmont had
‘Miss Misery’ & ‘Angeles’ by Elliott Smith are great, and quite under the radar I think
‘For Tomorrow’ & ‘Chemical World’ by blur?
‘Then’ by The Charlatans?
‘The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get’ by Morrissey
Watched The Long Good Friday last week, and now I’m constantly rewatching the last two mins of it - one of the greatest scenes in British film history I reckon
Just shows what a brilliant actor Bob Hoskins was. That transformation from anger and bemusement to a resigned slightly sick smile is remarkable.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
[Citation needed] on 90% claim since last time we discussed this a third of housing applications were rejected.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
You are getting desperate again Bart. I cited the 90% claim in my original posting upthread. And no, it was not 30% rejected last time we discussed this. That was your false figures. It has been 90%+ every time from my side. Indeed after appeal it is up to 95%.
The rest of your comment is just special pleading based on no evidence at all. You comprehensively lost the 'planning permission is stopping development' argument last time so you have switched to the 'wrong sort of developers' argument. Neither are valid.
No, your 90% claim last time was based on false data by misreading overall planning applications, of which 90% was for existing dwellings to have eg loft conversions/extensions/conservatories etc, it was a third rejected for new build housing.
You say you have cited it up thread, I've just scanned the thread and can't see any such citation or any hyperlink at all. Please provide a link to any such citation as I've given you them before and you stopped repeating the 90% claim for a while so I'm shocked to see you back on it.
Planning permission 100% is stopping development, our planning system means competitors can't get build at will on land, simply saying "well they have permission so nobody else needs it" doesn't cut the mustard.
My thoughts exactly. Is Starmer ready to take on what must be a large element of his natural supporters. Those PBers laughing at Sunak tarmaccing over southern England havent realised Starmer wants to do it too.
Likewise it is easy to announce the concept of housing and infrastructure. But where is he going to put them ? If he knows he will be asked to declare it cue the Nimbys and if he doesnt he wont be doing much in his term of office as it will take years to get stuff up and moving.
In three or four safe Tory constituencies, I'd guess ? Or the new Lib Dem ones if he has a large enough majority.
Rewrite the planning laws in the first six months.
He was announcing expansion in the North East at lunchtime.
But we are back to , if he doesnt have his plans in place now he lose will most of the next terms just getting to contract issuance. Then theres also the small matter of capacity. Its quite a jump to go from 250k houses p.a. to 500k with a construction industry which is hardly dynamic.
No doubt they are gaming out how to balance the political and practical imperatives, and whatever they end up will be some sort of compromise. Which you'll quite fairly critique.
But it will be a serious improvement on what we have now, if they just make it the priority, at the beginning of their first Parliament.
And there's always the second term...
As I said Im fully behind the aim. But I suspect he'll back off if he meets much opposition.
I'm not a Starmer advocate, so I'm not going to argue the point. But it ought not to be impossible for a determined PM with a decent majority.
The appeal for him is that the greatest demand is in the southeast, where he has the least to lose. It ought not to take a political genius to see that as a golden opportunity to deliver meaningful change.
Depends what that change is of course I cant see it being much by way of the productive economy. If he concentrates on the South East he gets whacked twice over. Blue Wall nimbyism while Red Wall say London gets everything. A difficult balancing act.
Really he should be pushing more growth to the North and trying to regenerate some of our struggling towns. But you cant just build towns willy nilly they need productive output and thats where Im not clear on how his economic policy ( zilch ) is going to help out.
There are currently plans to convert many thousands of hectares of land in Lincolnshire into solar parks. I would have thought, if the land is being taken out of agricultural usage anyway, then it would be far better to build houses on all that same land and then stick solar panels on all the roofs. Build some new towns rather than messing around with little bits here and there.
Yes I agree, but do the planning laws also get relaxed outisde the new towns ? I live in a village with a population of 800. I would quite happily see it double in size over time if it was done sensibly ( ie not graft an executive mega estate on the side ). The village needs people if it is to keep its basic amenities going and preferably get some of them back.
In spite of Bart's idiotic claims, it is not the planning laws which are at fault for the lack of building. That is a myth spread by developers. The number of plots with full planning permission that are undeveloped has been increasing by over 10% a year for many years. Over 90% of housing developments get approval without reference to the Inspectorate and in many cases those that are refused are on technical grounds which are subsequently overturned.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
It's definitely not the only reason, as developers are indeed sh*ts. They in fact benefit from delaying, and councils get punished for their actions.
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
Most of the NIMBYism appears to be non-housing though (roads, wind farms, phone masts etc). As I say, given that over 90% of housing planning applications are approved without reference to the Inspectorate, it seems unlikely that it is a major factor in preventing housing developments.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
[Citation needed] on 90% claim since last time we discussed this a third of housing applications were rejected.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
You are getting desperate again Bart. I cited the 90% claim in my original posting upthread. And no, it was not 30% rejected last time we discussed this. That was your false figures. It has been 90%+ every time from my side. Indeed after appeal it is up to 95%.
The rest of your comment is just special pleading based on no evidence at all. You comprehensively lost the 'planning permission is stopping development' argument last time so you have switched to the 'wrong sort of developers' argument. Neither are valid.
No, your 90% claim last time was based on false data by misreading overall planning applications, of which 90% was for existing dwellings to have eg loft conversions/extensions/conservatories etc, it was a third rejected for new build housing.
You say you have cited it up thread, I've just scanned the thread and can't see any such citation or any hyperlink at all. Please provide a link to any such citation as I've given you them before and you stopped repeating the 90% claim for a while so I'm shocked to see you back on it.
Planning permission 100% is stopping development, our planning system means competitors can't get build at will on land, simply saying "well they have permission so nobody else needs it" doesn't cut the mustard.
The link I included earlier in the thread that you somehow missed
Watched The Long Good Friday last week, and now I’m constantly rewatching the last two mins of it - one of the greatest scenes in British film history I reckon
Just shows what a brilliant actor Bob Hoskins was. That transformation from anger and bemusement to a resigned slightly sick smile is remarkable.
Politico.com About George Santos: He sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him this week And Jamie Raskin sent back a hand-edited response... correcting his grammar.
George Santos sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him earlier this week. Democrat Jamie Raskin, who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him.
At least one recipient of the letter wasn’t impressed. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him. . . .
“I appreciate your note and only wish someone had proofread it first. Meantime, you should apologize to the people of New York for all of your lies and deceit.” he wrote, adding “P.S. It’s not shameful to resign.”
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
If they've been forgotten they are clearly not 'essential'.
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
‘Linger’ by The Cranberries. An example of the type of song I think is less prevalent nowadays @kinabalu
Watched The Long Good Friday last week, and now I’m constantly rewatching the last two mins of it - one of the greatest scenes in British film history I reckon
Just shows what a brilliant actor Bob Hoskins was. That transformation from anger and bemusement to a resigned slightly sick smile is remarkable.
Funny that two prominent Brexiters should be such big fans of The Long Good Friday.
Of course Bob Hoskins did that documentary a couple of years later bemoaning (very un TLGF) Heseltine's plans for the docklands.
Watched The Long Good Friday last week, and now I’m constantly rewatching the last two mins of it - one of the greatest scenes in British film history I reckon
Just shows what a brilliant actor Bob Hoskins was. That transformation from anger and bemusement to a resigned slightly sick smile is remarkable.
Funny that two prominent Brexiters should be such big fans of The Long Good Friday.
Of course Bob Hoskins did that documentary a couple of years later bemoaning (very un TLGF) Heseltine's plans for the docklands.
I'm trying to come up with a list of essential 90s tracks and am particularly looking for ones that been rather forgotten. Things like Regret by New Order, Yes by McAlmont/Butler, Wide Open Space by Mansun.
Comments
Radical planning in the south, with development at least partly funded by local authorities buying land cheaply and taking the planning gain - and serious central government spending in the north.
Get the market to do its thing where it can; intervene where it can't.
1) institutional racism, as defined as differential outcomes for minority groups. Is used in Governmental policy making. Now.
2) housing is definitely a massive factor in people’s lives. You spend half your life there. People have died from shitty housing. Literally.
3) add those 2 together.
I’ve spent some time volunteering for a charity that does reworks on people’s flats - emphasising better accommodation for children. The people living in the shitty estates have a tendency towards a bit of a sun tan.
The idea that Nimbyism or planning is the main factor holding up increased housebuilding does not stand up to a minutes' scrutiny.
One of the problems you do have with smaller village developments is that the houses often are quite difficult to sell, at least in the timescale that the developers want. Hence the reason they prefer to build around larger towns.
My friends in Cannock moved away, many years ago.
Cannock will always be somewhere I have a lot of affection for.
Black music used to be so creative and joyous, one of the great artistic genres of human history - now it seems poisoned by violence, misogyny, vulgarity, monotony - rap, drill, r&b, drum n bass, more rap
I keep banging on about this. Importing 500K to 1000K people per year is an enormous task and we just don't have the houses nor the building capacity. At full stretch, using frankly heroic methods under the existing system will bring in about 200,000 houses pa, which would just about do it at 5 people per house. Every year. For years to come. Starting now.
Everybody keeps banging on about Conservative principles, but I can't see how sensible Conservatives can view this with equanimity. You either have an absolutely epic building program and tear up the Green Belt, or you have Soylent-Green-On-The-Wold.
Notes
[1] https://nansledan.com/duchy-communities/
Where my family have been provably living for 1000 years - my sister lives in a house 5 miles from the house where our ancestors lived in 1150AD (the estate is still there and you can see the 12th century pier on the fal river named for our forefathers)
And we therefore likely go back in Cornwall to 2000BC
Its nice to have roots THAT deep but it is also sometimes confining. A kind of bindweed
But I'd be an all at once advocate. To make a significant change you have to (metaphorically) kick arses.
'First we'll do a review' means giving the civil service 12 months before anything happens.
It meant the voice was used as an instrument - percussion and bass - and therefore it favoured hard consonants and repetitions = lots of F words and N words and a machine gun of violent plosives
(ducks)
I'm just hoping that the LDs find a tub of lard at least, so that they become a realistic vote.
Also however I’ve been reading “Nomads” by Antony Sattin. Interesting book about the wandering urge in humans
He says that scientists have actually identified a gene in “successful wanderers” - nomads who seem to enjoy nomadism and positively thrive at it and who are unhappy or even miserable if prevented
Pretty sure I’ve got that gene
Ugh
Different strokes, eh
*Edit that should of course have said 'housing' but I think this spelling mistake is a good reflection of current asylum policy under Braverman so I will leave it.
Sure they are generic and their high streets are hollowed out shells, but you are reasonably close to the country and not surrounded by the great mass of a metropolis, without being totally isolated or lacking a more moderate number of people to get comfortably lost within.
https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/housing-backlog-more-million-homes-planning-permission-not-yet-built
But given the great political benefit that there appears to be in being NIMBY, which is why MPs and councillors pander to it whenever they can (against national and local policy from those taking a broader view) I find it very hard to believe it is not a significant issue, because it is demonstrative of the public attitude that there is a problem, but we can solve it with a magic wand or it is always the case that it must not be solved wherever they are.
I've seen far too many objections to utterly harmless development with pathetic fig leaf justifications, or objections to the solutions of things they claimed were the reason for objection, to conclude it is not a significant negative influence on why we have gotten into this mess.
Developers simply make it so much worse because they exploit the crappy rules in other aspects.
https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1720469853520183565
Suella: It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London.
If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people.
Certainly in the case of the larger developments such as the Growth Points which were approved over a decade and a half ago, NIMBYism could not play a part because the planning and approvals were done in secret and only announced to the public once it was a done deal. Many of those houses still haven't been built.
https://twitter.com/JackTindale/status/1720508551389446249
Dumber than a box of rocks stupid.
Which has been confirmed (yet again) by his unraveling under oath at the Trump Organization fraud trial.
Where it appears ET may have committed perjury? That is, comparing his testimony to his emails put on record by . . . you guessed it . . . the prosecution.
As per following published by Politico.com:
Eric Trump, who testified after his brother, initially denied any knowledge of or involvement with the documents, but later admitted that he was aware of them and had been asked by the company’s controller to assist him with preparing notes for the document.
“I never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said at the start of his testimony. A few moments later, he testified: “I don’t believe I ever saw or worked on a statement of financial condition. I don’t believe I would have had knowledge of it.” He subsequently added: “It’s just not what I did for the company, sir.”
After a lawyer for James’ office produced emails and notes that showed the controller, Jeffrey McConney, asking Eric Trump for information to assist McConney in preparing the annual financial statement, Eric Trump admitted that he understood that his father had such statements and that McConney had solicited his help on them. McConney is also a defendant in the case.
Throughout his testimony, however, Eric Trump sought to draw a distinction between his general knowledge that the company produced financial documents and his involvement in the specific statements at issue in the trial.
At times, he appeared to grow frustrated with questioning. Raising his voice, he testified: “We’re a major organization, a massive organization. Yes, I’m fairly certain I understand that we have financial statements.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/02/trump-sons-testify-civil-fraud-trial-00125140
Will let PB legal eagles, accounting professionals and the like draw their own conclusions from Eric Trump's farrago of ferretpoop.
So whilst I think we can solve a lot of the problems without worrying about NIMBY tendency itself, I do think its prevalence indicates a major problem with our society and how it influences political priorities.
One of the perks of opposition is not having to have detailed policies, but talk in generalities. But given the criteria (house price hotspot, easy access to jobs, places where building is physically possible), a list of places to develop would be blooming obvious.
Hence doing the review now and not after the election wouldn't save much time. But would go against the "no hostages to fortune" approach.
Guns don’t kill people, rappers do.
Although surely the fighting stopped because one side was defeated and was surrendering, which may not be the outcome people are wanting here.
Edit: Does remind me of a line from The Colbert Report showing clips of talking heads and politicians angry at Obama shaking hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's funeral, with Colbert asking if Mandela's funeral was really the time and place for reconciliation.
And that's without considering the potential homes never built in the first place as people never put in an application in the first place.
NIMBYism does play a part because why aren't other builders building on other land beyond what has been agreed in deals? They can't because they can't get permission.
To follow on from the thread earlier in the week.
Techne splits the 2019 Conservative vote - 49% Conservative, 17% Labour, 11% Don't Know, 8% Reform, 8% Won't Vote, 6% LD.
Find Out More has the 2019 Conservative vote dividing - 44.3% Conservative, 14.2% Don't Know, 13.5% Reform, 11.1% Labour.
Clear as mud or the planning process (apparently).
I’m more of a ‘feel bad about a romance that’s over’ kind of guy actually, you might have noticed!
‘Miss Misery’ & ‘Angeles’ by Elliott Smith are great, and quite under the radar I think
‘For Tomorrow’ & ‘Chemical World’ by blur?
‘Then’ by The Charlatans?
The rest of your comment is just special pleading based on no evidence at all. You comprehensively lost the 'planning permission is stopping development' argument last time so you have switched to the 'wrong sort of developers' argument. Neither are valid.
He sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him this week
And Jamie Raskin sent back a hand-edited response... correcting his grammar.
George Santos sent thank you notes to members who voted against expelling him earlier this week.
Democrat Jamie Raskin, who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him.
At least one recipient of the letter wasn’t impressed. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who voted against the expulsion citing the precedent it could create, copy edited Santos’ letter by hand and sent it back to him. . . .
“I appreciate your note and only wish someone had proofread it first. Meantime, you should apologize to the people of New York for all of your lies and deceit.” he wrote, adding “P.S. It’s not shameful to resign.”
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/11/03/congress/santos-says-thanks-00125253
[copy of Raskin's response]
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018b-9653-da71-a98f-b7f7e89d0000
You say you have cited it up thread, I've just scanned the thread and can't see any such citation or any hyperlink at all. Please provide a link to any such citation as I've given you them before and you stopped repeating the 90% claim for a while so I'm shocked to see you back on it.
Planning permission 100% is stopping development, our planning system means competitors can't get build at will on land, simply saying "well they have permission so nobody else needs it" doesn't cut the mustard.
https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/housing-backlog-more-million-homes-planning-permission-not-yet-built
Including the line:
"The number of planning permissions granted for new homes has almost doubled since 2012/13 with councils approving 9 in 10 applications."
Not existing dwellings, not loft conversions, new homes.
It is you who are misrepresenting the data because it doesn't suit your argument.
Of course Bob Hoskins did that documentary a couple of years later bemoaning (very un TLGF) Heseltine's plans for the docklands.
Edit. Remarkably that was 1988.