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Understanding Reform voters – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,213
edited April 28 in General
Understanding Reform voters – politicalbetting.com

As have said before, immigration aside they could be Corbyn supporters given how much they talk about rigged system. Means they’re not going to be wooed back by a more true blue pitch from the Tories. As another eg Reform voters most likely to support House of Lords abolition. pic.twitter.com/FSaAN5r48b

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,898
    Interesting analysis.
    And is this a 'first'?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,898
    I'm not convinced by the argument that a "small state" pitch won't appeal to Reform voters. It seems to me that an authoritarian version of a small state philosophy (I know this is somewhat contradictory) would appeal to them - most of their responses, from scrapping inheritance tax to scrapping the HoL - are consistent with that kind of view. It seems to me that these voters are mostly resistant to change and new ideas (so are against university, education spending and immigration) and want the government to leave them alone (so are against tax, spending and government). I'm guessing they also skew elderly, as they're mostly resistant to spending money on children. To the extent they are against "the system" it seems to me that they want the system to have less power over their lives, rather than wanting to change or improve the system. They are not optimistic people, probably with good reason. They are, I would imagine, quite amenable to the Tories' overall message but probably think they are useless and don't trust Sunak.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,898
    As I wait for my flight home from Frankfurt, I guess I'm the only one awake!
  • As I wait for my flight home from Frankfurt, I guess I'm the only one awake!

    Good morning, have a lovely flight
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    As I wait for my flight home from Frankfurt, I guess I'm the only one awake!

    I did a commute from Finland to London this week before work. 4am start, 2 flights, got in to the office at 10.30am.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    edited March 21

    I'd imagine a large amount of Reform's support is NOTA and few have much idea what Reform's policies are, aside from something about Brexit and that's in the past anyway.

    Indeed and such is the nature of FPTP. They have to find space that is not covered by the other parties. The opportunity for Reform comes because the three main parties are so aligned on certain issues. IE Net Zero.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,898
    darkage said:

    As I wait for my flight home from Frankfurt, I guess I'm the only one awake!

    I did a commute from Finland to London this week before work. 4am start, 2 flights, got in to the office at 10.30am.
    I should be at work before 9!
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390
    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,693

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Note also the popularity of abolishing inheritance tax.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    Very interesting thread. Thank you @TSE

    p.s. just because the NHS is currently being run badly doesn’t mean we need to run down the NHS. It worked pretty well until it was stuffed full of bureaucracy and managers by Tony Blair’s New Labour and then chronically underfunded by the tories, many of whom don’t believe in it.

    The obsession with making nurses have degrees (again Tony Blair’s fault) is also where the rot set in for all kinds of reasons.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390
    ...
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Note also the popularity of abolishing inheritance tax.
    Indeed, although there is a greater party spread for abolishing inheritance tax.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,669
    This analysis is very interesting. It points to Reform being (potentially) the nucleus of a *different* coalition of voters than the traditional centre left/centre right axis. If it can be held together around some central core. At the moment its lack of identity is its strength, but it needs something more solid to build from 10% to 20% and some seats.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,177

    I'm not convinced by the argument that a "small state" pitch won't appeal to Reform voters. It seems to me that an authoritarian version of a small state philosophy (I know this is somewhat contradictory) would appeal to them - most of their responses, from scrapping inheritance tax to scrapping the HoL - are consistent with that kind of view. It seems to me that these voters are mostly resistant to change and new ideas (so are against university, education spending and immigration) and want the government to leave them alone (so are against tax, spending and government). I'm guessing they also skew elderly, as they're mostly resistant to spending money on children. To the extent they are against "the system" it seems to me that they want the system to have less power over their lives, rather than wanting to change or improve the system. They are not optimistic people, probably with good reason. They are, I would imagine, quite amenable to the Tories' overall message but probably think they are useless and don't trust Sunak.

    That doesn't really square with the who might you otherwise vote for question.
    The total for Lab+LibDem+Green is pretty well equal to Con.

    And all those 'wouldn't vote'.

    It's not very fruitful ground for any party, Tories included.

    This analysis is required reading for anybody who thinks sticking the Reform share of the vote (or a large percentage of that vote) to the Tory share of the vore is what will happen at the general election... is bang on.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,109
    Heathener said:

    Very interesting thread. Thank you @TSE

    p.s. just because the NHS is currently being run badly doesn’t mean we need to run down the NHS. It worked pretty well until it was stuffed full of bureaucracy and managers by Tony Blair’s New Labour and then chronically underfunded by the tories, many of whom don’t believe in it.

    The obsession with making nurses have degrees (again Tony Blair’s fault) is also where the rot set in for all kinds of reasons.

    The biggest problem in the NHS seems to be *lack* of management. As in good, competent administrative staff. There are too many accounts of senior clinical staff doing admin tasks to believe otherwise.

    The nursing degree thing is nonsense. You can either have three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work ending in a degree or three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work not ending in a degree.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,669
    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Isn't that 90% of General Practice though? It exists on the borders of medical care and social services.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,669

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Note also the popularity of abolishing inheritance tax.
    This latter could be achieved by announcing the actual current scope of inheritance tax as if it was new.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,177
    Interesting.
    He's also not obviously nuts, unlike most of the other front runners.

    My guess is that Trump is considering Rubio for VP because Trump got 250K fewer votes in the Florida primary this year than he did in the 2020 Florida primary.
    https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1770660553209647347

    Would need to move state if picked, but that's not a huge hurdle.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,668
    edited March 21
    Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times

    CON 19 (-1)
    LAB 44 (=)
    LIB DEM 9 (=)
    REF UK 15 (+1)
    GRN 8 (+1)

    Fieldwork 19 - 20 March

    https://x.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390
    mwadams said:

    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Isn't that 90% of General Practice though? It exists on the borders of medical care and social services.
    Yes. And yes.

    We have a problem with GPs: there aren't enough of them and they don't work enough, with short work weeks. We are coping by rationing by time, hence the fabled three-weeks-to-an-appointment (my next appointment was set up two months in advance - yes, really) and NHS 111 or whatever it is. I take your point that GPs are specifically for small-scale stuff and removing it is a remove-the-bottom-rung solution, so that's fair. But my point is still valid: we don't have the money and time to do it.

    (importing 500K to 1000K of people each year isn't helping this, btw. Increasing growth by increasing people requires the NHS to expand with it or accept a decrease in service, because the number of GPs and nurses is a lagging input)
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,950
    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Viewcode, sleeping poorly I got up particularly early one day. it turned out to be the day the clocks changed and I got up at 4am, which was less than ideal.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,468

    I'm not convinced by the argument that a "small state" pitch won't appeal to Reform voters. It seems to me that an authoritarian version of a small state philosophy (I know this is somewhat contradictory) would appeal to them - most of their responses, from scrapping inheritance tax to scrapping the HoL - are consistent with that kind of view. It seems to me that these voters are mostly resistant to change and new ideas (so are against university, education spending and immigration) and want the government to leave them alone (so are against tax, spending and government). I'm guessing they also skew elderly, as they're mostly resistant to spending money on children. To the extent they are against "the system" it seems to me that they want the system to have less power over their lives, rather than wanting to change or improve the system. They are not optimistic people, probably with good reason. They are, I would imagine, quite amenable to the Tories' overall message but probably think they are useless and don't trust Sunak.

    The first graphic in the Twitter thread somewhat contradicts the commentary around it. On nearly all of the items, Reform voters are close to Tory voters, but more extreme. They do deviate on Lords reform, and they may well say things in focus groups that are not captured by the items in the graphic.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,766

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Greens right about everything as usual. (Except HoL)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    viewcode said:

    mwadams said:

    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Isn't that 90% of General Practice though? It exists on the borders of medical care and social services.
    Yes. And yes.

    We have a problem with GPs: there aren't enough of them and they don't work enough, with short work weeks. We are coping by rationing by time, hence the fabled three-weeks-to-an-appointment (my next appointment was set up two months in advance - yes, really) and NHS 111 or whatever it is. I take your point that GPs are specifically for small-scale stuff and removing it is a remove-the-bottom-rung solution, so that's fair. But my point is still valid: we don't have the money and time to do it.

    (importing 500K to 1000K of people each year isn't helping this, btw. Increasing growth by increasing people requires the NHS to expand with it or accept a decrease in service, because the number of GPs and nurses is a lagging input)
    There are a couple of more subtle problems with GPs. It was reported recently that because the NHS subsidises recruitment of physician associates, pharmacists and other paramedical types, they are being taken on rather than actual doctors.

    Then there's what we might call the boredom factor. As noted upthread, much of GPs' caseload is managing chronic conditions. Curable infectious diseases are now largely a thing of the past.

    And most GPs are now part-time.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,458

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Viewcode, sleeping poorly I got up particularly early one day. it turned out to be the day the clocks changed and I got up at 4am, which was less than ideal.

    That's my normal. ;)
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,468
    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Are you talking just about mental health, or more broadly? What about the many disorders with no cure that can’t be handled by conservative management? I’m unconvinced of the practicality of your proposal.
  • CleitophonCleitophon Posts: 489
    They are basically radicalised momentum voters who lost confidence in socialism and sought protection from globalised capital in the ethno-nation state. Some say the political spectrum bends back on itself at the extremes. I think it is more precise to say that the traditional left-right on economic policy is intersected by a globalist/nationalist dimension. It is analytically cleaner. Those voters stayed in place economically but shifted on the other dimension..

    Our politicians failed in the 1990s and 2010s and on, by exposing citizens to the cold winds of extreme competition from distant countries all the while cutting securities and social services because of neoliberalism etc .... many felt given up on by their politicians and fell back on reactionary politics because of it. The Washington consensus was too radical and fostered resentment. In the wake of 2008 (and we are still living in the aftermath of that) that process accelerated and led to brexit and trump in 2016.

    I am still a believer in international collaboration and a kinder more empathetic and gradual approach to international cooperation (which I see in the eu with its social and workers rights and ecological/sustainable standards for instance). Further, the reactionary, toxic nostalgia politics of the far right are going to repeat all the horrific errors of the 20th century. In this sense, I can see where ukippers and reformers and trumpists are coming from - what brought them into existence. But their answer and political stance is just plain wrong. It proposes simple, bigoted answers that will cause self harm, to complicated issues.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,468

    They are basically radicalised momentum voters who lost confidence in socialism and sought protection from globalised capital in the ethno-nation state. Some say the political spectrum bends back on itself at the extremes. I think it is more precise to say that the traditional left-right on economic policy is intersected by a globalist/nationalist dimension. It is analytically cleaner. Those voters stayed in place economically but shifted on the other dimension..

    Our politicians failed in the 1990s and 2010s and on, by exposing citizens to the cold winds of extreme competition from distant countries all the while cutting securities and social services because of neoliberalism etc .... many felt given up on by their politicians and fell back on reactionary politics because of it. The Washington consensus was too radical and fostered resentment. In the wake of 2008 (and we are still living in the aftermath of that) that process accelerated and led to brexit and trump in 2016.

    I am still a believer in international collaboration and a kinder more empathetic and gradual approach to international cooperation (which I see in the eu with its social and workers rights and ecological/sustainable standards for instance). Further, the reactionary, toxic nostalgia politics of the far right are going to repeat all the horrific errors of the 20th century. In this sense, I can see where ukippers and reformers and trumpists are coming from - what brought them into existence. But their answer and political stance is just plain wrong. It proposes simple, bigoted answers that will cause self harm, to complicated issues.

    The results shown in the header do not appear entirely consistent with that. Reform voters don’t like tax or govt handouts, which is the opposite of Momentum.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390
    mwadams said:

    This analysis is very interesting. It points to Reform being (potentially) the nucleus of a *different* coalition of voters than the traditional centre left/centre right axis. If it can be held together around some central core. At the moment its lack of identity is its strength, but it needs something more solid to build from 10% to 20% and some seats.

    Good point
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 22,366
    edited March 21
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390

    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Are you talking just about mental health, or more broadly? What about the many disorders with no cure that can’t be handled by conservative management? I’m unconvinced of the practicality of your proposal.
    Given that the story of the next ten-fifteen years is going to be the repositioning of the NHS to cope with 10-15 million dying pensioners, you may have to get convinced because something, somewhere, is going to be deprioritised.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,109

    They are basically radicalised momentum voters who lost confidence in socialism and sought protection from globalised capital in the ethno-nation state. Some say the political spectrum bends back on itself at the extremes. I think it is more precise to say that the traditional left-right on economic policy is intersected by a globalist/nationalist dimension. It is analytically cleaner. Those voters stayed in place economically but shifted on the other dimension..

    Our politicians failed in the 1990s and 2010s and on, by exposing citizens to the cold winds of extreme competition from distant countries all the while cutting securities and social services because of neoliberalism etc .... many felt given up on by their politicians and fell back on reactionary politics because of it. The Washington consensus was too radical and fostered resentment. In the wake of 2008 (and we are still living in the aftermath of that) that process accelerated and led to brexit and trump in 2016.

    I am still a believer in international collaboration and a kinder more empathetic and gradual approach to international cooperation (which I see in the eu with its social and workers rights and ecological/sustainable standards for instance). Further, the reactionary, toxic nostalgia politics of the far right are going to repeat all the horrific errors of the 20th century. In this sense, I can see where ukippers and reformers and trumpists are coming from - what brought them into existence. But their answer and political stance is just plain wrong. It proposes simple, bigoted answers that will cause self harm, to complicated issues.

    The results shown in the header do not appear entirely consistent with that. Reform voters don’t like tax or govt handouts, which is the opposite of Momentum.
    I think you might be surprised. People are casting around for answers.

    Remember that Corbyn was selling “soak the rich” - see the Tax Gap nonsense. “Ordinary people” would see wonderful public services etc at no extra cost.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,109

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Another thing is the households bullshit. One of the juniors at work is sharing a flat. Was 3 bed, now the landlord has divided up the living room into 2. So 5 people in one flat. That’s a household, apparently.

    So if you build enough that she could afford a flat of her own (and her flatmates) then suddenly 4 extra “households” would pop into existence.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,014
    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
  • CleitophonCleitophon Posts: 489

    Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times

    CON 19 (-1)
    LAB 44 (=)
    LIB DEM 9 (=)
    REF UK 15 (+1)
    GRN 8 (+1)

    Fieldwork 19 - 20 March

    https://x.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ

    Wow... just wow. So this is what makes me think the idea of a snap election can't be ruled out. The tories are going to draw trend lines through reform tory and labour polling and they are going to see the things getting worse and worse leading to an even bigger wipeout if they don't cut their losses. Rishi might not want it, but the party will push him. I don't seeing anything turning these trends. People just want the conservatives our no matter what.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951
    edited March 21

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,109
    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,123

    They are basically radicalised momentum voters who lost confidence in socialism and sought protection from globalised capital in the ethno-nation state. Some say the political spectrum bends back on itself at the extremes. I think it is more precise to say that the traditional left-right on economic policy is intersected by a globalist/nationalist dimension. It is analytically cleaner. Those voters stayed in place economically but shifted on the other dimension..

    Our politicians failed in the 1990s and 2010s and on, by exposing citizens to the cold winds of extreme competition from distant countries all the while cutting securities and social services because of neoliberalism etc .... many felt given up on by their politicians and fell back on reactionary politics because of it. The Washington consensus was too radical and fostered resentment. In the wake of 2008 (and we are still living in the aftermath of that) that process accelerated and led to brexit and trump in 2016.

    I am still a believer in international collaboration and a kinder more empathetic and gradual approach to international cooperation (which I see in the eu with its social and workers rights and ecological/sustainable standards for instance). Further, the reactionary, toxic nostalgia politics of the far right are going to repeat all the horrific errors of the 20th century. In this sense, I can see where ukippers and reformers and trumpists are coming from - what brought them into existence. But their answer and political stance is just plain wrong. It proposes simple, bigoted answers that will cause self harm, to complicated issues.

    The results shown in the header do not appear entirely consistent with that. Reform voters don’t like tax or govt handouts, which is the opposite of Momentum.
    They were 2019 Tory voters in the main, so antithetical to Momentum when given the opportunity to vote for it.

    Mostly they are anti-immigration, socially conservative, and want people to keep more of their own money by cutting welfare and cutting taxes. They aren't far from Conservative Party rhetoric, just very angry that the Conservative government doesn't deliver what it says.

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,390

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
    If you want a real way of stealth UBI, increase the number of paid holidays... :)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,123
    edited March 21
    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    I'm one of them, after being made redundant from my global megacorp employer. One wrinkle I've mentioned before is that having taken any money from a pension means future tax relief is severely limited. I understand this is to stop sharks endlessly recycling the same money for exponential tax relief but there ought to be other ways round that.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,014

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
    It does, however, demonstrate the major flaw of UBI: a significant part of the population will choose not to work when given the choice. When you add this group (9m in total) to the ever increasing number of pensioners we have a pyramid that has a much higher ratio of non working to working than we used to have. Hence mass immigration to try to restore that balance.

    I suspect that the vast majority of these people are very unhappy, often chronically depressed and with dependencies of one sort or another. It is not doing them any good but it is not doing the rest of us much good either.

    Talking of which, time to go to work.

  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
    Which is one of the strongest arguments for UBI. We already do it.

    The great battle will be for simplicity. I would allow only for one adjustment - disability. For children, there would be no additional payment, but I would implement much lower tax rates.

    I would abolish local housing allowances - a flat payment across the UK. That would really level things up.
  • I’d guess that Reform voters map to the ‘battlers’ in the seven tribes.


    assisted dying, and abolishing inheritance tax should be introduced together, surely?



  • eekeek Posts: 28,586
    darkage said:

    As I wait for my flight home from Frankfurt, I guess I'm the only one awake!

    I did a commute from Finland to London this week before work. 4am start, 2 flights, got in to the office at 10.30am.
    For a while I did a project for a bank whose headquarters were near Schiphol airport.

    Used to annoy the locals be getting there before 8:30 most Monday mornings - with Starbucks coffee to emphasis my route….
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,123

    I’d guess that Reform voters map to the ‘battlers’ in the seven tribes.


    assisted dying, and abolishing inheritance tax should be introduced together, surely?

    They make a great pair of policies for unscrupulous children!

  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,311
    FPT (posted on a dead thread):
    Leon said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    I reckon you are all smashed aren’t you?

    Only explanation. Midweek buzz crew.

    I had a bottle of soju tonight.
    It hasn't appreciably altered my religious perspective.
    The important thing is not who you worship it is did you do more good than bad
    Any divinity worth worshipping takes that as the main thing
    Ayahuasca, on my first go, taught me to stop beating myself up, and chill out, because I make people laugh

    I may not be the most selfless person on earth (OK I am seriously selfish), I am skittish and I wander about and you wouldn’t trust me to park your car, but God said Fuck all that, I made you amusing, so go out and amuse yourself, and others

    It came at quite a tough moment in my life, and it has been salutary. If you make people laugh, or you entertain them in some other way, you have made the world, in a tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny microscopic form, a little bit better: you do more good than bad
    Derek Parfitt is dead now, but is/was a great philosopher. To paraphrase his ethics - we are all who we are and tend to make the best decisions we can based on the hand that God/gods/the universe/evolution/our parents/our village (delete as applicable) dealt us. Blame is therefore a fools game.

    It’s a good philosophy and chimes with what you got from ayahuasca. The best we can do is be who we are and be considerate/understanding of others being who they are.

    It’s tough to apply that philosophy to eg IS, though. Which is one reason why I have deep respect for what the Rojavans do with IS prisoners (seek to understand and rehabilitate rather than write them off as irredeemable).
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,014
    edited March 21
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,778
    "I suspect Sunak’s wooing of these voters will also not be effective."

    It's so obvious why anti-immigration voters will be reluctant to vote for Sunak.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,123

    viewcode said:

    mwadams said:

    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Isn't that 90% of General Practice though? It exists on the borders of medical care and social services.
    Yes. And yes.

    We have a problem with GPs: there aren't enough of them and they don't work enough, with short work weeks. We are coping by rationing by time, hence the fabled three-weeks-to-an-appointment (my next appointment was set up two months in advance - yes, really) and NHS 111 or whatever it is. I take your point that GPs are specifically for small-scale stuff and removing it is a remove-the-bottom-rung solution, so that's fair. But my point is still valid: we don't have the money and time to do it.

    (importing 500K to 1000K of people each year isn't helping this, btw. Increasing growth by increasing people requires the NHS to expand with it or accept a decrease in service, because the number of GPs and nurses is a lagging input)
    There are a couple of more subtle problems with GPs. It was reported recently that because the NHS subsidises recruitment of physician associates, pharmacists and other paramedical types, they are being taken on rather than actual doctors.

    Then there's what we might call the boredom factor. As noted upthread, much of GPs' caseload is managing chronic conditions. Curable infectious diseases are now largely a thing of the past.

    And most GPs are now part-time.
    Paramedical staff being employed in General Practice are fine. My last BP review was with a pharmacist for example, but General Practice is the wrong place for Physician Associates. General Practice has several core areas: filtering undifferentiated presentations for serious and treatable causes, management and coordination of care of chronic diseases which are often multiple, and dealing with the vast majority of of those with mental health issues. This requires a high level of medical training and clinical intuition rather than a lower one.
  • Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    OT Youtube has started to flag qualified health-related Youtubers.
    https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9795167#zippy=,for-the-uk
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,898
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    I quite like my job but there's a million and one things I'd rather be doing than working.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,963
    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,027
    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
    Which is one of the strongest arguments for UBI. We already do it.

    The great battle will be for simplicity. I would allow only for one adjustment - disability. For children, there would be no additional payment, but I would implement much lower tax rates.

    I would abolish local housing allowances - a flat payment across the UK. That would really level things up.
    I'd be well up for that. I would stop working immediately and start accessing my pensions to top up the UBI I would receive.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,177
    One possibly appreciated trend of the last decade or so has been the growing unwillingness of the oil states to lend their money to others to use.
    Increasingly they are buying directly into the growth bits of western economies.

    The Saudis are planning a $40B AI fund, perhaps in partnership with A16Z.

    A16Z has discussed opening an office in Riyadh according to the article.

    AI, the new black gold?

    https://twitter.com/pitdesi/status/1770194212312567899

  • TazTaz Posts: 15,027

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,449

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,027
    Can anyone tell me what was so offensive about the message at Kings Cross for Ramadan. I saw it and thought it innocuous enough and nice they were respecting some of their customers faith.

    Is it just triggering people, because, muslims, or is there a deeper more malign meaning to the message.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,352
    Would be interesting to see where this cohort of Reform voters came from, they presumably are substantially Con and DNV 2019. So, those Don't Know if Reform don't stand might skew back Con a bit, but there's only a couple of point closure of Labour's lead to be had.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,311
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    I am reluctant to sign people off as sick, as for many conditions signing off as sick makes things worse. Workplace stress does get to be too much, but a couple of weeks off will only make the return to work more daunting. Similarly being off for any length of time with a physical illness.

    I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
    Wholeheartedly agree from other end. Teachers taking stress leave rarely ends well.

    On the other hand, being supported properly in school can sustain you even when the job is relentlessly stressful.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,337
    mwadams said:

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Note also the popularity of abolishing inheritance tax.
    This latter could be achieved by announcing the actual current scope of inheritance tax as if it was new.
    Quite, the way so many Tories including at least one on PB seem to be convinced that the existing tax applied to all estates and confiscates the lot.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909

    Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times

    CON 19 (-1)
    LAB 44 (=)
    LIB DEM 9 (=)
    REF UK 15 (+1)
    GRN 8 (+1)

    Fieldwork 19 - 20 March

    https://x.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ

    A second polling company putting the Tories under 20% will create a few ripples. Will Sunak even make it to the local elections?
  • Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Another thing is the households bullshit. One of the juniors at work is sharing a flat. Was 3 bed, now the landlord has divided up the living room into 2. So 5 people in one flat. That’s a household, apparently.

    So if you build enough that she could afford a flat of her own (and her flatmates) then suddenly 4 extra “households” would pop into existence.
    Indeed. And if she gets a 3 bedroom as she wants kids then some would complain that is spare bedrooms! 🤦‍♂️
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,155
    viewcode said:

    mwadams said:

    viewcode said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    The reason why I don't think disorders (as opposed to diseases) should be treated on the NHS is because chronic conditions with no cure that can be handled with conservative management are structurally different to acute cases that require prompt intervention, even if they are both on the same spectrum. Devoting resources to the large former is unnecessary and to the detriment of the small latter.
    Isn't that 90% of General Practice though? It exists on the borders of medical care and social services.
    Yes. And yes.

    We have a problem with GPs: there aren't enough of them and they don't work enough, with short work weeks. We are coping by rationing by time, hence the fabled three-weeks-to-an-appointment (my next appointment was set up two months in advance - yes, really) and NHS 111 or whatever it is. I take your point that GPs are specifically for small-scale stuff and removing it is a remove-the-bottom-rung solution, so that's fair. But my point is still valid: we don't have the money and time to do it.

    (importing 500K to 1000K of people each year isn't helping this, btw. Increasing growth by increasing people requires the NHS to expand with it or accept a decrease in service, because the number of GPs and nurses is a lagging input)
    My experience with my local GP surgery has been quite good recently (though I sadly fear having had to deal with them twice in six months is a sign of aging...). I don't *like* the "ring up at 8:30am to get in a phone queue to be triaged by the receptionists" system, but it works (and the phone queue wasn't that long either). First time around, get call back from GP same morning, talk about cholesterol, appointment with practice nurse for blood test, results available online, all straightforward. Second time, I get an appointment for two days later with the in-surgery physio to look at a shoulder issue. This is a lot more efficient and involves less waiting around on my part than I had imagined it would do (and which is part of why I'd been procrastinating on the shoulder problem hoping it would heal by itself...)

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,963

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
    Sunak is convinced he is right and his critics are wrong. So go to the country and test it. As he said yesterday, going long gives Labour the chance to show people what they would do - and Sunak is wrong in his delusion that they don't have a plan, or indeed that he does.

    He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.

    It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    CON could be below REF in the weekend polls as traditional supporters turn away!

    Definite GE being called today

    (DYOR 😈)
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,453

    Heathener said:

    Very interesting thread. Thank you @TSE

    p.s. just because the NHS is currently being run badly doesn’t mean we need to run down the NHS. It worked pretty well until it was stuffed full of bureaucracy and managers by Tony Blair’s New Labour and then chronically underfunded by the tories, many of whom don’t believe in it.

    The obsession with making nurses have degrees (again Tony Blair’s fault) is also where the rot set in for all kinds of reasons.

    The biggest problem in the NHS seems to be *lack* of management. As in good, competent administrative staff. There are too many accounts of senior clinical staff doing admin tasks to believe otherwise.

    The nursing degree thing is nonsense. You can either have three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work ending in a degree or three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work not ending in a degree.
    Not really nonsense.

    In some cases nurses with degrees have resisted performing the more menial “care giving “ activities as they view themselves as degree-qualified medical professionals. Those functions are critical and have material impact on healing times and quality of life

  • Taz said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
    I'd like to see any evidence there's anywhere in the country with more than needed. We need massively more here in the North too.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,449
    maxh said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    I am reluctant to sign people off as sick, as for many conditions signing off as sick makes things worse. Workplace stress does get to be too much, but a couple of weeks off will only make the return to work more daunting. Similarly being off for any length of time with a physical illness.

    I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
    Wholeheartedly agree from other end. Teachers taking stress leave rarely ends well.

    On the other hand, being supported properly in school can sustain you even when the job is relentlessly stressful.
    Though what's the cause and the effect there? By the time people get to the point of even considering stress leave, they're often past the point of no return already.

    The tougher question is why do we have so many jobs that make so many people feel so overwhelmed?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,963

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    CON could be below REF in the weekend polls as traditional supporters turn away!

    Definite GE being called today

    (DYOR 😈)
    You've kept the faith with 2nd May - it would probably be in everyone's interests if you were right!!!
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,778

    Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times

    CON 19 (-1)
    LAB 44 (=)
    LIB DEM 9 (=)
    REF UK 15 (+1)
    GRN 8 (+1)

    Fieldwork 19 - 20 March

    https://x.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ

    A second polling company putting the Tories under 20% will create a few ripples. Will Sunak even make it to the local elections?
    Refuk only 4 points behind the Tories. Is it possible there will be a poll showing them level with or above the Tories?
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,155
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    I am reluctant to sign people off as sick, as for many conditions signing off as sick makes things worse. Workplace stress does get to be too much, but a couple of weeks off will only make the return to work more daunting. Similarly being off for any length of time with a physical illness.

    I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
    FWIW, having been signed off sick once (repetitive strain injury), at the time it was exactly what I needed. But it was for a short term, followed by a phased gradual return to work targeting a final state of a part time four days a week. This all worked because I had a very supportive employer, a helpful GP, and I knew what I was trying to get out of the process. (My prior experience had been such that I knew four days typing a week was sustainable for me, whereas five was not in the long term. But I'd changed employer and let myself get talked into starting with them at full time because, well, I needed the job. Eventually that came back to bite me.)
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    One way of looking at it is that we have implemented a shit version of UBI. With none of the simplicity. And all of the downsides.
    It does, however, demonstrate the major flaw of UBI: a significant part of the population will choose not to work when given the choice. When you add this group (9m in total) to the ever increasing number of pensioners we have a pyramid that has a much higher ratio of non working to working than we used to have. Hence mass immigration to try to restore that balance.

    I suspect that the vast majority of these people are very unhappy, often chronically depressed and with dependencies of one sort or another. It is not doing them any good but it is not doing the rest of us much good either.

    Talking of which, time to go to work.

    Why should I let the toad work
    Squat on my life?
    Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
    And drive the brute off?

    Six days of the week it soils
    With its sickening poison -
    Just for paying a few bills!
    That's out of proportion.

    Lots of folk live on their wits:
    Lecturers, lispers,
    Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
    They don't end as paupers;

    Lots of folk live up lanes
    With fires in a bucket,
    Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
    They seem to like it.

    Their nippers have got bare feet,
    Their unspeakable wives
    Are skinny as whippets - and yet
    No one actually _starves_.

    Ah, were I courageous enough
    To shout, Stuff your pension!
    But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
    That dreams are made on:

    For something sufficiently toad-like
    Squats in me, too;
    Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
    And cold as snow,

    And will never allow me to blarney
    My way of getting
    The fame and the girl and the money
    All at one sitting.

    I don't say, one bodies the other
    One's spiritual truth;
    But I do say it's hard to lose either,
    When you have both.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951

    Taz said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
    I'd like to see any evidence there's anywhere in the country with more than needed. We need massively more here in the North too.
    I agree that, all else held equal, building more homes will help with the housing crisis. That is obvious.

    I also agree that the costs of infrastructure should not fall on developers. That's very difficult to solve, but I agree in principle.

    Where we disagree is whether building homes is a silver bullet. I've demonstrated that home-building is happening faster than population growth. That the number of empty homes is growing. That the number of spare bedrooms is growing.

    The evidence suggests that something else is going on other than pure national demand and supply. The most simple answer is geographical asymmetries, with economic growth massively unbalanced across the country.

    At the very least, homebuilding is grossly inefficient in the UK.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,124

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
    Sunak is convinced he is right and his critics are wrong. So go to the country and test it. As he said yesterday, going long gives Labour the chance to show people what they would do - and Sunak is wrong in his delusion that they don't have a plan, or indeed that he does.

    He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.

    It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
    If Sunak is pushed out before the GE, the Tory Party will not just lose, they will be massacred on a scale never seen in the UK. Four PMs in five years would test the patience of the British voter to destruction. I'm not saying it won't happen, but even the most crazed ERG loon must surely hesitate...
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    Something is wrong with my wife. She typically sleeps for about twelve hours, and yet a couple of hours doing anything in particular will then lead to her nodding off. A couple of thousand steps is more than she can manage on a consistent daily basis, without suffering from debilitating pain for subsequent days.

    But because she still has both of her legs it would be impossible for her to qualify for any disability benefit.

    The problem is that we seem to be unable to find any way to help people with chronic conditions, not that they are mollycoddled.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,736
    So the election is shaping up to be a Tory party offering Thatcherism and a Labour Party offering Thatcherism. What the people need is an end to Thatcherism when you look at Thatcherism it’s the reason why the country is in the mess it is. We need an alternative to Thatcherism.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,311

    maxh said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    I am reluctant to sign people off as sick, as for many conditions signing off as sick makes things worse. Workplace stress does get to be too much, but a couple of weeks off will only make the return to work more daunting. Similarly being off for any length of time with a physical illness.

    I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
    Wholeheartedly agree from other end. Teachers taking stress leave rarely ends well.

    On the other hand, being supported properly in school can sustain you even when the job is relentlessly stressful.
    Though what's the cause and the effect there? By the time people get to the point of even considering stress leave, they're often past the point of no return already.

    The tougher question is why do we have so many jobs that make so many people feel so overwhelmed?
    Agree with this too - I was making a more narrow point but for sure structural changes are needed.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,240
    edited March 21
    As AI is a much discussed topic on the forum, here is an example of using the technology to its strengths: early detection of cancers. Much more interesting than the creation of derivative content IMV.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68607059
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 22,366
    edited March 21
    Eabhal said:

    Taz said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
    I'd like to see any evidence there's anywhere in the country with more than needed. We need massively more here in the North too.
    I agree that, all else held equal, building more homes will help with the housing crisis. That is obvious.

    I also agree that the costs of infrastructure should not fall on developers. That's very difficult to solve, but I agree in principle.

    Where we disagree is whether building homes is a silver bullet. I've demonstrated that home-building is happening faster than population growth. That the number of empty homes is growing. That the number of spare bedrooms is growing.

    The evidence suggests that something else is going on other than pure national demand and supply. The most simple answer is geographical asymmetries, with economic growth massively unbalanced across the country.

    At the very least, homebuilding is grossly inefficient in the UK.
    Eh?

    Home building is absolutely and categorically less than population growth.

    Use absolute numbers and that is crystal clear.

    Our quantity of population has grown by millions more than our quantity of homes. That is a fact, pretending otherwise is a lie or ignorance.

    In absolute terms the number of empty homes and spare rooms SHOULD be growing. They're not growing by enough. It's a failure that there is insufficient empty homes and the proportion of homes empty, by your own percentages, is down.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,586
    Cicero said:

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
    Sunak is convinced he is right and his critics are wrong. So go to the country and test it. As he said yesterday, going long gives Labour the chance to show people what they would do - and Sunak is wrong in his delusion that they don't have a plan, or indeed that he does.

    He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.

    It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
    If Sunak is pushed out before the GE, the Tory Party will not just lose, they will be massacred on a scale never seen in the UK. Four PMs in five years would test the patience of the British voter to destruction. I'm not saying it won't happen, but even the most crazed ERG loon must surely hesitate...
    If you are a Tory MP on track to lose your seat and you can't see Rishi solving the issue why wouldn't you try another shake of the dice and see if the next leader can do better..

    Now we know that it will look awful and not work but your typical MP isn't exactly the brightest...
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,027

    Taz said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
    I'd like to see any evidence there's anywhere in the country with more than needed. We need massively more here in the North too.
    I posted the link from the FT last night which also had the graphic.

    You may where you are in the North. The North is a big place. County Durham we are building enough. Other places we are building enough. We need to focus our energies on where we need property building not forcing it to be built where we have adequate provision.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,766
    Taz said:

    Can anyone tell me what was so offensive about the message at Kings Cross for Ramadan. I saw it and thought it innocuous enough and nice they were respecting some of their customers faith.

    Is it just triggering people, because, muslims, or is there a deeper more malign meaning to the message.

    Just standard gammony islamophobes and their relentess search for grievance.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,736

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    CON could be below REF in the weekend polls as traditional supporters turn away!

    Definite GE being called today

    (DYOR 😈)
    You've kept the faith with 2nd May - it would probably be in everyone's interests if you were right!!!
    Desperate stuff. October is the earliest we get a GE.

    I guessed October in the PB New Year quiz.

    Pretty sure we get a budget in October now so end of Nov GE likely the earliest now 🙃
  • Cicero said:

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
    Sunak is convinced he is right and his critics are wrong. So go to the country and test it. As he said yesterday, going long gives Labour the chance to show people what they would do - and Sunak is wrong in his delusion that they don't have a plan, or indeed that he does.

    He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.

    It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
    If Sunak is pushed out before the GE, the Tory Party will not just lose, they will be massacred on a scale never seen in the UK. Four PMs in five years would test the patience of the British voter to destruction. I'm not saying it won't happen, but even the most crazed ERG loon must surely hesitate...
    If Sunak is not pushed out before the GE, the Tory Party will not just lose, they will be massacred on a scale never seen in the UK.

    Having a shit PM tries the patience of the public more than changing the PM does.

    A new PM may still be shit. This one definitely is.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,123
    pm215 said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/20/mental-health-culture-has-gone-too-far-says-mel-stride/

    "Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

    “If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.

    Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.

    I was very concerned to read earlier this week that 20% of adults are not looking for work. Some of these will be housewives etc but a very large number, several million, have persuaded themselves that they are not fit for work. It is effectively hidden unemployment. It is why we need to import so much labour. It is one of the reasons that the State is quite so expensive. It is indeed a major problem for the country and it has got noticeably worse since Covid.
    Aren't you looking at the wrong end of the telescope? It is the employment rate of 80% that is the bit to see.



    There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
    We have an excellent record in creating employment in this country but the situation for some time is that vacancies exceed the conventional unemployed (ie those looking for work). And yet we have this huge pool of potential labour sitting untapped and costing us a fortune in benefits. I do not want to get into bashing the sick, far from it, but Mr Stride has put his finger on a very real problem, however clumsily.
    I am reluctant to sign people off as sick, as for many conditions signing off as sick makes things worse. Workplace stress does get to be too much, but a couple of weeks off will only make the return to work more daunting. Similarly being off for any length of time with a physical illness.

    I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
    FWIW, having been signed off sick once (repetitive strain injury), at the time it was exactly what I needed. But it was for a short term, followed by a phased gradual return to work targeting a final state of a part time four days a week. This all worked because I had a very supportive employer, a helpful GP, and I knew what I was trying to get out of the process. (My prior experience had been such that I knew four days typing a week was sustainable for me, whereas five was not in the long term. But I'd changed employer and let myself get talked into starting with them at full time because, well, I needed the job. Eventually that came back to bite me.)
    Yes, that is very much how time off for sickness should work. Whether broken leg or RSI, or stress the time off is therapeutic, but needs to be part of a plan for rehabilitation, with clear steps and milestones.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    Nigelb said:

    One possibly appreciated trend of the last decade or so has been the growing unwillingness of the oil states to lend their money to others to use.
    Increasingly they are buying directly into the growth bits of western economies.

    The Saudis are planning a $40B AI fund, perhaps in partnership with A16Z.

    A16Z has discussed opening an office in Riyadh according to the article.

    AI, the new black gold?

    https://twitter.com/pitdesi/status/1770194212312567899

    Yes, although also the loan thing might be partly due to interest being considered haram, and even Norway has a sovereign wealth fund whereas we spaffed North Sea oil revenues on unemployment benefit.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,177
    eek said:

    Cicero said:

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    All true. But his choice is a painful end in early May, or a (probably even more) painful end in the autumn. And the second choice has a tiny (1%?) chance that a miracle will turn up.

    If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.

    But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
    Sunak is convinced he is right and his critics are wrong. So go to the country and test it. As he said yesterday, going long gives Labour the chance to show people what they would do - and Sunak is wrong in his delusion that they don't have a plan, or indeed that he does.

    He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.

    It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
    If Sunak is pushed out before the GE, the Tory Party will not just lose, they will be massacred on a scale never seen in the UK. Four PMs in five years would test the patience of the British voter to destruction. I'm not saying it won't happen, but even the most crazed ERG loon must surely hesitate...
    If you are a Tory MP on track to lose your seat and you can't see Rishi solving the issue why wouldn't you try another shake of the dice and see if the next leader can do better..

    Now we know that it will look awful and not work but your typical MP isn't exactly the brightest...
    And it's not as though they haven't already tested the patience of the British voter to destruction.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,130

    It is interesting (from the graphic linked in the header) that the measures attracting the most concentrated cross-party support (except perhaps in Westminster) are more apprenticeships and legalising assisted dying.

    https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903

    Note also the popularity of abolishing inheritance tax.
    Some of those answers are a bit meaningless though. For instance, proposing to abolish the House of Lords without indicating what, if anything, will replace it is pointless since the whole difficulty is not abolition, it's what will replace it.

    Also "invest more money in tackling climate change"- how much more? 50p or £6 trillion? Whose? Etc etc.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    He's already ended, reality just hasn't caught up yet. He's a classic zombie PM at this point.

    The party cannot get its signature policy done and public support appears to be getting worse as Reform get attention, and all the talk is how long he can survive.

    But for him personally it's no worse to go later than now, so later it is.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,417
    Eabhal said:

    Taz said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    The Grauniad is utterly insane if they think we don't need housing construction.

    There simply aren't enough houses in the country. We need millions more, not hundreds of thousands more.

    We need villages to become towns, towns to become cities and cities to become bigger. We need new towns. We need massive, mammoth house building.

    Any NIMBYs need to go to hell. No tolerance for their BS.

    1. It's not The Guardian saying we don't need more houses, it's a barrister writing in The Guardian, a paper which often publishes views outside the Overton window.

    2. How do you answer the assertion in the article, supported by OECD data, that the UK has in fact about the average number of homes per capita when compared with the rest of the developed world?

    Like you, my position has been that we need more housing, but now I wonder. It's not as if we have 10,000s of people on the streets or living in temporary camps. The vast majority of people are housed right now. Arguably, building more houses would just lead to more empty houses.

    The issue seems to be our wealth inequality, particularly between the over-45s and the under-45s, which distorts the housing market.

    So, I (living on a pension, 100% equity in a large house) could afford to buy a 3-bed house locally, without a mortgage (but I could easily get a competitive mortgage if needed which I can service with the rental income), whereas a young working family on low-pay cannot get a look-in because they can't save enough to get a deposit.

    Thus, controlling rents would seem to be a way to go. At implementation fix the level at the rents being charged at the time the bill was published. Freeze rents for 10 years and allow inflation to do its work.

    Of course the BLT landlords would squeal as would free-marketeers, but let them squeal - they can always sell up if they think they can more money elsewhere.

    In time, lower real rents mean a lower cost to the taxpayer for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit too as an added fiscal benefit (and indeed every new home-owner is a potential future Housing Benefit claimant avoided).
    It's certainly more complicated than national supply/demand.

    The number of spare bedrooms in the UK has increased by 2 million over the last decade, even while the population has increased. So, at the very least, we're building the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place.

    You could plaster Benbecula with homes and it isn't going to do anything for the housing crisis in Manchester.
    Spare bedrooms is an irrelevant statistic.

    It's the circle of life that people get a home they need, get a bit older, their kids leave home, then they continue living until they die and someone else moves into the home who may need all those rooms once more. Until their kids get older and the cycle continues.

    Build more 3 plus bedroom homes and the problem is solved. Then young adults and migrants alike can have a home of their own, while existing homeowners can continue to live where they've put down roots.

    Or should old people be forced to live 3 couples sharing a 3 bedroom house rather than each having their own home?

    Plus of course studies where people work from home are classed as spare rooms.
    The total number of bedrooms available in the UK is increasing faster than the population.

    If your concern is solving the housing crisis, building lots of half empty or entirely empty homes is not very clever.
    You might want to check your facts as they don't add up.

    Spare bedrooms have risen by 2 million according to you in the last decade.
    Our population has grown by 4 million in the last decade.

    How is 2 million more than 4 million? In what universe?

    We aren't building lots of empty homes, we need more homes for young people, young people have kids, so we need to build three bedroom homes.

    That old people remain where they already were is irrelevant.
    I said total bedrooms, not spare bedrooms. Detail is important for some of us.
    You were claiming spare bedrooms was the problem originally, so nice way to slip from one irrelevant statistic to another.

    You're claiming that spare bedrooms are the problem, yet our spare bedrooms have grown by 2 million in the same time as our population (and our over 60s population) has grown by double that figure, which shows that actually proportionately it is falling.

    That we're building more bedrooms is a good thing, we shouldn't build slums, but we aren't building enough of them still. We need millions more houses to make up for our population growth.

    There always should be more bedrooms than people, as people get three bedroom homes as that's what they need, but then their kids move on and they still have their home but then their kids need a 3 bed and the circle of life goes on.

    The fact my nan still lives in her home she brought her kids up in sixty years ago doesn't stop her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren from needing somewhere to live too.

    She's not moved in the past sixty years, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren have.
    I'm just pointing out that we're actually building housing faster than the population is growing. Nowt to do with your nan.
    🤦‍♂️

    No, we're not.

    You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.

    The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.

    Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.

    Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.

    Again, circle of life.

    We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
    We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.

    Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
    Good morning!

    I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.

    The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.

    The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.

    The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
    So wildly insufficient construction, especially since the demographic changes, and we are going backwards not forwards in having slack in the system of unoccupied buildings too which are again a good thing not a bad thing.

    So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
    I do not see how anyone, other than the most rabid of NIMBYs can claim otherwise. We need more and we need it now. Also the link I posted last night showed that there are some areas of the country where we are building more than is needed.

    Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
    I'd like to see any evidence there's anywhere in the country with more than needed. We need massively more here in the North too.
    I agree that, all else held equal, building more homes will help with the housing crisis. That is obvious.

    I also agree that the costs of infrastructure should not fall on developers. That's very difficult to solve, but I agree in principle.

    Where we disagree is whether building homes is a silver bullet. I've demonstrated that home-building is happening faster than population growth. That the number of empty homes is growing. That the number of spare bedrooms is growing.

    The evidence suggests that something else is going on other than pure national demand and supply. The most simple answer is geographical asymmetries, with economic growth massively unbalanced across the country.

    At the very least, homebuilding is grossly inefficient in the UK.
    We need new towns, including employers, not simply more homes.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805

    Today is D-Day for Sunak. Either he goes to the palace, or...

    1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
    2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
    3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.

    Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.

    CON could be below REF in the weekend polls as traditional supporters turn away!

    Definite GE being called today

    (DYOR 😈)
    You've kept the faith with 2nd May - it would probably be in everyone's interests if you were right!!!
    Desperate stuff. October is the earliest we get a GE.

    I guessed October in the PB New Year quiz.

    Pretty sure we get a budget in October now so end of Nov GE likely the earliest now 🙃
    'Predicted' surely - sounds much more skilful ;-)

    I predicted/guessed 2nd May but am now thinking 12 December - 5 year anniversary of the Tories' last hurrah. (Now I've said that 2nd May is nailed on isn't it.)
This discussion has been closed.