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RFK Jr’s ratings – politicalbetting.com
RFK Jr’s ratings – politicalbetting.com
Economist/YouGov: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has become deeply unpopular with Democrats since 2023https://t.co/RoUxIp2JNt pic.twitter.com/ZLwtLHKDL0
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Who knew that rent controls wouldn't work?
Rents rise at fastest rate in UK under SNP cap
Price controls branded an ‘abject failure’ after 16.5% surge
The SNP’s rent control scheme has been branded an “abject failure” as new figures revealed that prices increased more rapidly in Scotland than any other nation or region in the UK.
Analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data reveals that since constraints came into force average private rent in Scotland rose by 16.5 per cent, from £813 to £947.
In some areas, such as Lothian and Glasgow, the increases were more than 20 per cent.
Nicola Sturgeon’s government introduced a 3 per cent cap on annual rent increases from September 6, 2022, and placed a pause on evictions as a response to the cost of living crisis while inflation soared.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scottish-rent-control-an-abject-failure-as-prices-soar-jxnrc5fhr
Good morning, everyone.
Ladbrokes' maintenance has been extended from 7.30am to 8.30am, so we'll see how that goes.
Considering Leclerc or Norris to do well in qualifying and the race.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/17/shadow-chancellor-raises-possibility-rent-caps-under-labour/
April 1st was seven weeks ago, Labour. A sensible housing policy needs to involve building millions more houses, the developers need to both innovate in construction methods, and hire a lot more apprentice tradespeople, while government needs to prevent landbanking, penalise late deliveries, and make the planning process easier for smaller builders.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report
Perhaps it isn't growth vs action on climate change at all, but rather the opposite.
My town has added 20% to its size in the last 5 years, with no additional infrastructure. Virtually none of those living in the new housing are from town - they are all people from elsewhere. All this has achieved is house prices flat-lining. We can't keep expanding housing at this rate indefinitely, especially without building the infrastructure to go with it; part of the fix has to be to control demand, and as that's almost entirely driven by immigration that means getting a lid on immigration.
In fact I recall pointing this out on here just a few days ago.
I have little knowledge of US politics but really do not want Trump as POTUS
What is it with Conservative, SNP, and Labour prime ministers and First Ministers who seem hooked on sleeze and alleged corruption
Plaid Cymru seeking to oust Gething and corruscating about Labour's arrogance in Wales that they thing think they can do everything and anything they like without consequences
https://news.sky.com/story/plaid-cymru-pulls-out-of-co-operation-agreement-with-welsh-labour-13137829
I frankly wonder if RFK will still be there in November. What on earth does he think that he is achieving? The criteria for the debate have been set out this week. They are designed for him to fail them. If he doesn’t get to play that may well bring an end to it.
The housing crisis in Edinburgh, and English equivalents, is due to the disparity in economic growth between those cities and the rest of the country, with young people cramming into a few dense urban areas - exacerbated by the growth in the number of students fighting for space. Smart landlords have taken advantage.
Ultimately there are enough houses going round at a UK level. We've just failed to make towns and rural areas attractive places to live or work.
The renting class have increased dramatically over the last 10 years, and the average age of a first time buyer is 34 - prime voters to catch now, doubly screwed by rents and interest rates.
And while the SG policy on rent controls has failed, it's not like anyone is going to vote Conservative as a result. In fact, if I were still renting my instinct would be to vote Green for an even more dramatic (if economically illiterate) intervention on private rentals.
Full disclosure: I am an Edinburgh landlord and very grateful to my tenant who, enjoying a rent freeze, had not burnt the place down yet.
It's a free country, so there's probably not a lot to be done about that, but it is vexing.
Go full Thatcher. Become the party of home ownership again. Appeal directly to everyone living in private rental accomodation or owning with a mortgage. Ignore the landlords.
"Right to Buy" but extend it to the the private sector? That might be too far but messaging like that would get earners on side.
Having a policy that is restricted and controlled (because the decision and plan rests with the local council) solves an awful lot of problems for Labour - it gives them a policy that looks good, removes a reason for a drift towards the Green Party ANS is hard to implement (because the central Government response can quietly be, don't do this it won't work because of XYZ).
Now central Government can say it's up to local councils to implement and local councils can do nothing and shift the blame elsewhere.
See also Nicias[sp], who opposed the Sicilian expedition during the Peloponnesian War and whose argument was it would require huge manpower and resources. Instead of putting off the Athenians, they committed the huge resources, which they subsequently lost.
Are you aware that “impromptu” HMO - sharing a property between multiple people, but forgetting to do any of the safety or legal stuff - is counted as one household?
So the 12 or so people I saw living in a 4 bed house are counted as one household. For example.
It’s a bit like that stat about the number of rooms built. Because they include en-suite bathrooms, utility rooms etc this is bullshitted into suggesting lots of bedrooms.
Mind you, with a bit of ingenuity, you *could* put a bunk bed in en-suite.
Not everything needs to be decided in Whitehall.
And with the
industrial scale vote riggingthe changes to the electoral system Labour have put through with the help of those dozy fuckers in Plaid that's going to get worse rather than better.I would like to register my heartfelt thanks to the board of Lancashire CCC for their sterling work in relieving Gloucestershire of a dud coach so we could get a good one in.
I would also like to offer my sympathies to all Lancashire supporters, who in true Benkenstein club fashion seem destined for Division Two next season having been genuine title contenders last year.
The number of net* spare bedrooms has also increased over the same period.
(That's total spare bedrooms less total over-occupied bedrooms).
Landlords face hit to their rents from scheme that seeks to deal with blight of boarded-up high streets
...
... councils will be able to hold “high street rental auctions” with no reserve price for properties that have been left empty for more than a year.
Landlords of the auctioned properties will have to accept new tenants on leases of up to five years, even if they are offering annual payments far below the ostensible market rates.
https://www.ft.com/content/f0ec7e49-9af1-490d-ac55-4a22775d3c0f
Rent controls bad; forcing lower rents good is the new Conservative mantra.
I have no idea how they're going to turn that around but they need a plan soon or America is sleepwalking into another 4 years of Trump, which is a disaster for all of us. While Biden might be shit, he is still a lot better than the alternative.
Zero tenants are going to vote Conservative because they are concerned about the long-term distorting effect of rent controls.
These people are living paycheck to paycheck. It's about sourcing the next 6 months. And the Greens are looking attractive...
And any landlord leaving a property empty for that long because the price they're asking is too high is an idiot for not dropping said price.
I'd wonder more about any flats above them - but I gather they're often let and managed and sometimes owned separately anyway.
Just about every other developed country in Western Europe and the Anglosphere has several orders of magnitude more devolved power.
https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/yacht-design/national-flagship-yacht-design-competition
I hadn't realised how advanced it was when Baldy Ben cancelled it in between brunch and a pre-lunch snack one day. Apparently, it was mostly the idea of one elderly obsessive who convinced Johnson to announce it then sank half a mil of his own cash into a proposal.
and that is actually the point here today if I go into Town I will see a number of shops that have been empty for ages because the landlord has set a rent that keeps their book valuation in place. Were they to issue a new lease at the current market rate their assets would drop say 50% and they can't take the hit.
1. We need new towns and cities. England isn't "full". Start off with Milton Keynes 2 in the flatlands at the eastern end of the M62
2. We need to plan for the construction bonanza. We need to invest in making construction a desirable career and training people to do it
3. Developers are welcome to participate, but they cannot be the driver. They land bank for profit and to bypass planning laws, and build what is most profitable rather than what people need
4. LA/LHA properties are never for sale, sit outside the market so can have rents set at a level people can afford. That will help to reset a housing market where too many people can't afford to rent, never mind buy
5. We need to make apartments desirable again. People need to live in town and city centres. How do you remove the stigma of apartment blocks, especially after Grenfell? Again its taking the developers out of making choices - no more "hi-flash" panels installed because they are cheap.
It's really hard for politicians to give away power. Partly because power is fun to wield, but also because other people might stuff things up. And Conservatives have been as bad as that as anyone. So we have a situation where everything has to pass through SW1, with the problems we see.
So if some places want to try it, why not let them, even if it's probably a mistake? Will of the people and all that.
Maybe we should try and rebalance the country and housing market. Infrastructure investment weighted by the inverse of average hourly wages. We could call it... "Levelling up"?
Personally, I don't mind RTB, if only to break up the social rental monocultures of the 50s to 70s. But for the foreseeable future, it's got to be on a 1 out, 1 in basis- the receipts from selling a home air used to build another one.
It's on the internet, so it is fact.
But more generally, London's hinterland needs more homes, provincial cities need more and more interesting jobs so that their hinterlands work as places to commute from. And small remote towns need an idea to make them viable.
Leicester has cheap housing despite a booming population and very good transport links. The problem is that much work is poorly paid.
The government should own and run its own affordable construction company.
I get that there's no money for it, or the appetite to upset big business, but it's the only way sufficent houseswill ever be built.
https://x.com/JMannhart/status/1791532757736214668
Highlights the mess we have got ourselves in, though. If the receipts from selling a house are really enough to build two, building homes ought to be money for old rope, with enormous profit opportunities. And yet we've manoeuvred ourselves into a bit of the graph where it doesn't happen.
There’s something else here.
It’s very common for banks to put a clause in loans on commercial property, forbidding a drop in the rental price. So many landlords *can’t* drop the price to get a shop filled.
If they legislating to break such clauses, then that would actually be getting the market to function again. Adam Smith spent quite a bit of time on the iniquity of price fixing, price floors etc.
But don’t worry. If there was any danger of the policy actually doing the above, the Treasury will kill it.
I used to do heroin and go to brothels
People with the right skillset are generally doing well, especially in the cheaper parts of the country.
If you give all the development in an area to one or two big companies, then strangely, they will try and optimise the price. For them.
For decades the price of TVs fell in real terms, year on year. Yet Sony didn’t stage a sellers strike - or even a slow down in production. Why?
Back in the day me and my mates squatted multiple big Georgian houses in Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia. This is in the mid 80s when they were often empty - incredibly. All we wanted was somewhere central and free to live - is that too much to ask? We didn’t want anything else like furniture. We had our mattresses and booze and drugs and girlfriends - ca suffit. And these places were empty and sometimes rotting
Looking back I realise we were a vital part of the ecosystem. The dung beetles of property. We utilised what no one cared to use, we remedied a dysfunctional market and kept these areas alive with young people. Local pubs loved us
And when we squatted some properties continuously the owners got all angsty and often decided it was better to do up the places, put them on the market, and then rent them to proper paying tenants. Better that than endless squatters
So we revived entire districts. London should ennoble us
The solution?
1. CPO and open. Buy it for a song and offer it up to new businesses for a nominal rent. Better still divide it up and create an indoor bazaar. Like Stockton-on-Tees have successfully done
2. CPO and bulldoze. Tatty shops an eyesore? In the wrong place? Buy them, bulldoze them. Again, Stockton are doing this brilliantly, flattening an ugly 70s centre and turning it into a riverside park.
Be honest, could Ay Eye have reproduced or added to any part of that experience?
"Post Office lawyer who oversaw Alan Bates case refusing to co-operate with inquiry
It is understood that Jane MacLeod is living in New Zealand and the inquiry cannot compel her to give evidence while she is abroad"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/17/post-office-lawyer-who-oversaw-bates-case-wont-co-operate/
Why are we in fear of these giant investment houses? They aren't adding value to our economy. They're killing our economy. We have a regulated free market, so regulate them.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let anarchy rule. Give out empty shops for peppercorn rents to young start ups. Create new markets with food courts and little pop up bistros
And if even that doesn’t work then level them and turn them into beautiful gardens
The Tories can’t do any of this because they are wedded to and pathetically dependant on Big Developers and the Property Owning Pensioners
Fuck all these people. Parasitic wankers. Make a country fit for young people, give young people a reason to want lots of babies so we don’t have to import still more people
If we must have a Labour government I’d quite like it to be radical in areas like this
(I can imagine a desperate Sunak considering this...)
For Saturday morning here are a couple of very interesting little vids.
1 - A pleasant video by a dad taking his 3 and 4 year old for a bike ride on cycles and in his trailer along the excellent-looking Stratford-upon-Avon Greenway.
!5 minutes, and an excellent - local history describing in part - relaxed commentary. The path looks to be worth exploring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT4Gjn8krSo
2 - A 4 minute look at Seattle's first "Dutch-style" 'protected cycle and pedestrian' road junction, by a guy riding a bright yellow Brompton who also has a drone.
It's amusing in its way - 'Dutch style' is the road designer version of "I look like (choose a film star)' on a dating profile, and it all says more about the values of the design system. Any city will never learn from other places and gets the detail wrong first time round - just like Liverpool at their recent one built in St Helens. Can't possibly learn from Manchester who have built several !
In the USA, they always treat cycles like huge motor vehicles, so this one has SUV sized kerbs that make the already narrow cycle track about 2ft narrower (need to avoid pedal strike), full unnecessary sets of traffic lights where the cycleway meets the footway, and different stages to cross each road rather than green all round.
Again, a really good commentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT4Gjn8krSo
Just as many working class northerners struggled from 1975 onwards as the job opportunities reduced now many middle class southerners struggle as the housing opportunities reduce.
Two generations on the working class northerners now have both job and housing opportunities.
Perhaps many middle class southerners will have neither until after the AI and globalisation changes have finished.
Grim I'm afraid and what it does mean is that southern teenagers will need to think seriously about their career and life plans.
When we’re all enserfed by the machines and tolerated as (at best) a sort of harmless bacteria on the surface of their brave new world we’ll be living in a barter and make-do-and-mend society, so we might as well make a start now.
https://www.theguardian.com/the-future-of-sustainable-entrepreneurship/article/2024/may/09/vintage-fashion-to-upcycling-five-great-reasons-to-visit-the-westfield-good-festival
All of the Tory problems - many of Britain’s problems - stem from his total lack of imagination, his sneering narcissism, and his dismal mediocrity when it comes to policy. He and Osborne failed to fix Britain after the GFC. Look at the graphs
They then added to that with a botched Brexit referendum which grotesquely divided the country, a referendum Cameron lost because he overestimated his ability to win concessions from the EU (precisely because Cameron told them he’d never leave the EU and he was bound to win the vote - where was their motivation to offer concessions??). A vote which was certain to throw us into chaos because Cameron refused to plan for a LEAVE victory
And as soon as he lost Cameron resigned, leaving party and nation in turmoil when a nobler and abler man would have stayed on to calm the waters
Its him. Its Cameron. Somehow he has snuck under the radar but its him and Osborne who should shoulder so much of the blame for our present ills, in so many aspects