This is on a par with the sort of things that happened in Ireland in 1921.
"France’s train network sabotaged in ‘massive arson attack’ hours ahead of Olympics opening ceremony Services on several routes cancelled after TGV facilities damaged, country’s rail operator says
“SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines."
Actually it happened in France before, on the 5th/6th of June 1944.
It was the only language they understood
The Russians are cruising for a hell of a kicking. This more or less open sabotage will lead to blow back. I came back from France yesterday and the mood towards Russia is increasingly hostile. If there is a successful sabotage, I think the DGSE will really go after the organisers as well as the perpetrators.
What makes you think it is the Russians?
Because the French government warned of a direct threat a couple of days ago when they arrested a sleeper agent.
What is a "classic line". Is this French for "normal railway line"?
All Eurostar trains to and from Paris diverted via classic line The Eurostar confirmed that all high-speed lines going to and from Paris will be diverted.
“Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday July 26,” A Eurostar spokesman said.
"Standard" would be a better translation, I think
I have the choice of getting the old "Mainline" from my village to Charing Cross or changing at Ashford to the High Speed Line (HS1) to St Pancras. I think Southeastern are missing a trick by not renaming the "Mainline" to the "Classic Line".
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
It is starting to look like picking Vance was the biggest unforced running mate error since McCain thought Sarah Palin was a good idea.
Childless cat ladies rant will have a similar lasting impact as deplorables rant.
The bizarre thing is that in his book - the one that made him famous and the reason he is veep nominee - he talks movingly of his grandparents struggle to have children and various miscarriages.
I suspect he is well past saying what he believes and onto the MAGA strategy of saying things to provoke, shock and gain attention. For some weird reason Trump can carry that off to a significant slice of the US audience, but its not as transferable to his surrogates.
Lol they've run out of proper food for the athletes at the Olympic village after organisers promised a sustainable plant based menu. Athletes complaining there's not enough grilled meat not enough eggs and the plant based options are shite. Team GB has brought in an extra chef to their base camp and the athletes are travelling there every evening for dinner.
Imagine providing a predominantly plant based menu at an elite sporting event. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
The idiots who watched that dodgy documentary about being able to be an elite athlete as a vegan.
John Salley won 4 x NBA Championships on a 100% vegan diet so it's possible. #veganpower
It's probably not possible if you adopt that diet the week before the Olympics.
Erhh, he is now, but...
"During the early 1990s, while still playing, he admitted that he was a "lying" vegetarian since he occasionally ate shrimp and fish. He took fish oil and was macrobiotic and played the large part of his NBA career as a vegetarian, albeit loosely."
I am sure it works for some to be full vegan, but the documentary that convinced a load of athletes to try was full of BS and most rapidly returned to not being vegan.
The documentary was dodgy but there is a long list of elite vegan athletes. Ultimately, it should be down to personal choice, and it's nothing to do with the Olympic Committee what any athlete eats, as long as its legal!
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure ...
Sorry but there is no such thing as "excessive housebuilding".
We have a chronic housing shortage and there is nowhere in the country with a surplus of housing, so there is no "excessive" anywhere.
You may have a problem of a lack of infrastructure, many places do, but that is a reason to demand more infrastructure not fewer homes when we have a chronic housing shortage.
At last there seems to be a recognition of the importance of infrastructure in the housing/housebuilding crisis rather than the meaningless "build, build, build" mantra.
I'm more than happy to see hundreds of thousands of new homes built as long as the supporting infrastructure is in place and that's not just utilities or transport. It's making sure the existing community infrastructure of schools, libraries, health facilities, refuse collection and all the rest of the areas the pro-building lobby doesn't seem to either consider or think important are also in place or planned (I've used the "P" word, I'll be in trouble for that).
House builders and developers already contribute to this via Section 106 payments but these need to be ramped up as a development is far more than just the bricks, mortar and pipework. As an aside, there needs to be much rigorous inspection of newbuilds given the horror stories coming out about the poor quality of construction.
Section 106 doesn't seem to work.
How about - laying out new suburbs/towns. Put the 'leccy, sewers, schools, hospitals, roads and rail in *first*. Then sell the plots for houses to builders, one road at a time.
That's how the Victorians and Edwardians did it in a number of cases.
Trouble is, that would require someone to invest- spend money upfront in the expectation of making a return in the future.
And at least sometimes, that someone has to be the State, which is automatic anathema for some.
(But yes, the social infrastructure has to be there in advance, and probably an overprovision for the first few years. Otherwise, new residents get into the habit of having to drive ten miles to the next town to do stuff, and the new community never really develops critical mass. The current model, where developers maximise profit by building out slowly, can't help there.)
Section 106 was seriously circumscribed from 2008 under the Planning Act 2008, where the planning gain charges had to be much more directly related to the particular development.
A new charge was introduced (where the local house prices would support it) called Community Infrastructure Levy.
By 2022 under 200 of ~500 Local Planning Authorities had it in place. It is charged per sqm of developed floor area, and comes in normally in bands of between £25 and perhaps £200, dependent on area and type of development. This web list has been running since about 2012: https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1121218/cil-watch-whos-charging-what
There were various scandals such as Shropshire charging stupid rates on barn conversions that made the projects impossible and I think Rutland-way where a levy caused a load of self-build projects to become impossible.
Obvious there's a Brobdingnagian mountain of legal action around this, just as there is around the cocked-up elements of the 2005 (I think) Housing Act where Local Authorities are *still* trying to impose unlawful requirements every single year - under the "you can't get at us meaningfully for breaking the law" Local Government Exception.
Another area of Local Gov Finance / Housing Law that needs a mess cleaning up, just like Community Charge levies based on 1991 house values.
I think this Govt will get around to this, unlike the previous arse-sitters.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
This is on a par with the sort of things that happened in Ireland in 1921.
"France’s train network sabotaged in ‘massive arson attack’ hours ahead of Olympics opening ceremony Services on several routes cancelled after TGV facilities damaged, country’s rail operator says
“SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines."
Actually it happened in France before, on the 5th/6th of June 1944.
It was the only language they understood
The Russians are cruising for a hell of a kicking. This more or less open sabotage will lead to blow back. I came back from France yesterday and the mood towards Russia is increasingly hostile. If there is a successful sabotage, I think the DGSE will really go after the organisers as well as the perpetrators.
What makes you think it is the Russians?
Because the French government warned of a direct threat a couple of days ago when they arrested a sleeper agent.
What is a "classic line". Is this French for "normal railway line"?
All Eurostar trains to and from Paris diverted via classic line The Eurostar confirmed that all high-speed lines going to and from Paris will be diverted.
“Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday July 26,” A Eurostar spokesman said.
A 'classic' line is a non-high speed line, probably built in the 1800s. In our case, that would be the WCML out of Euston as compared to HS2. In fact, we were due to call out high-speed trains that could operate on both HS2 and the old network 'classic-compatible'.
The High Speed Lines (LGV) support speeds higher that 250Km/h but the normal lines are not Victorian, and can support speeds similar to the UK. The problem is the power supply- the LGVs have very stiff catenary lines, to prevent high speed oscillations. This, means slower TGVs on standard lines plus the greater level of network congestion, and will mean delays of several hours for the whole network.
This was a co-ordinated, state level attack on France designed to disrupt the Olympic Games.
Given the previous arrests, it is clear that the French have good cause to strongly suspect Russia,
Nor will France take this lying down. It is not just Russians that can throw Russians out of windows.
Lol they've run out of proper food for the athletes at the Olympic village after organisers promised a sustainable plant based menu. Athletes complaining there's not enough grilled meat not enough eggs and the plant based options are shite. Team GB has brought in an extra chef to their base camp and the athletes are travelling there every evening for dinner.
Imagine providing a predominantly plant based menu at an elite sporting event. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
The idiots who watched that dodgy documentary about being able to be an elite athlete as a vegan.
John Salley won 4 x NBA Championships on a 100% vegan diet so it's possible. #veganpower
It's probably not possible if you adopt that diet the week before the Olympics.
Erhh, he is now, but...
"During the early 1990s, while still playing, he admitted that he was a "lying" vegetarian since he occasionally ate shrimp and fish. He took fish oil and was macrobiotic and played the large part of his NBA career as a vegetarian, albeit loosely."
I am sure it works for some to be full vegan, but the documentary that convinced a load of athletes to try was full of BS and most rapidly returned to not being vegan.
The documentary was dodgy (hello Hamilton!) but there is a long list of elite vegan athletes. Ultimately, it should be down to personal choice, and it's nothing to do with the Olympic Committee what any athlete eats, as long as its legal!
TSE will not be happy if you cast aspersions in the direction of Sir Lewis.
Lol they've run out of proper food for the athletes at the Olympic village after organisers promised a sustainable plant based menu. Athletes complaining there's not enough grilled meat not enough eggs and the plant based options are shite. Team GB has brought in an extra chef to their base camp and the athletes are travelling there every evening for dinner.
Imagine providing a predominantly plant based menu at an elite sporting event. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
How to see how many saddos are on the site. Insult the french and count the 'likes'.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
"A typical 4kW solar panel system, including installation, costs £5,000 - £6,000. Added together, the total cost of solar panels and a battery in the UK is £13,000-£15,500.
You can save between £440 - £1,005 per year on electricity costs, breaking even in 7 - 9 years."
Lets say the cost is the midpoint £14,250 and the saving is the midpoint £772.50p per year.
If I invest the money instead I only need a 5.5% annual return to be better off?
(noting also that Robert is predicting a gas glut so fuel prices will fall, lessening the saving.
Whats the point?
5.5% post tax
Which is equivalent to a 10% pretax yield.
Equities typically return 7% per year pretax.
And, of course, if energy prices rise at the rate of inflation (which I claim they won't, of course), then that's 10% pretax index linked.
Hang on 5.5% pretax = 10% post tax. Even allowing for compounding that seems high.
Currently paying 0% tax on savings /investments though (ISA etc). That might change temporarily when I retire and get a lump sum though.
That's not the point I'm making.
If I offer to reduce your expenses by £100 a year, or to increase your pretax income by £100 year, which is worth more?
Understood. However in my case I pay no tax or NI on my primary savings/investments on the way in or the way out.
(its a salary sacrifice AVC that bolts onto a DB pension scheme and forms the up to 25% cash lump sum - effectively with a 5% of your gross pay contribution limit).
Prior to child benefit limit going up to £60k I was getting about 70% marginal tax relief on AVCs and a few years before that when I had five kids on child benefit I also qualified for a small amount of tax credits and got in excess of 100% tax relief on pension AVCs, which was quite absurd.
As an aside, if Rachel Reeves is looking to save a few quid, then salary sacrifice might be a place to look. It is increasingly being used to maintain entitlement to state benefits by artificially reducing high salaries below benefit thresholds.
Really? I think it is an issue much further up the salary scale with people trying to retain some of the PA or simply avoiding harsh marginal rates of tax. People who still qualify for benefits do not strike me as the sort who could afford to forgo income.
There are £50k and £100k cut-offs for various child benefits.
Aren't those mainly Child Tax Credit type things for eg childcare, in for the benefit of households with incomes roughly in deciles 7->8 counting from the bottom (ie around the two top quartiles of household income)?
One increasingly frequent way of avoiding the thresholds at the top end is salary sacrifice for pension contributions, which as a double or perhaps triple whammy attract higher rate tax relief and also mean avoiding other tax tapers.
But forcing that diet (or vegetarian) on people is ridiculous.
He is a vegan. But he also has a full-time personal trainer who can put together a well-supplemented meal plan for him wherever he happens to be in the world, not something available to anyone who isn’t an elite athlete. His team also have their own chefs at every race weekend.
It’s not a diet change you’d make the week before the biggest day of your sporting career, that’s for sure.
To be fair they're all elite athletes.
However it is also worth noting that even if you were suddenly given access to a full-time personal trainer who can put together a well-supplemented meal plan for you, that it takes your body time to adjust to being on any new diet.
Never make dramatic changes immediately before big days is a good rule of thumb.
"Nothing new on race day" is a mantra that anyone keen on sport should live by.
It is starting to look like picking Vance was the biggest unforced running mate error since McCain thought Sarah Palin was a good idea.
Childless cat ladies rant will have a similar lasting impact as deplorables rant.
The Alien franchise was built entirely around a childless cat lady.
Ripley had a kid in the extended cut of Aliens...
But the kid died a childless lady. Ripley was meant to have been back for her 11th birthday so presumably knew her long enough for transmission of her cat ladiness (see under Jonesie). So there is a childless cat lady in there
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
It is starting to look like picking Vance was the biggest unforced running mate error since McCain thought Sarah Palin was a good idea.
That was a very different situation. McCain felt, probably correctly, he had to shake up a race where a poor economic backdrop put the incumbent party in a bad position. So he deliberately went for a surprise choice, and for a woman on the ticket to try to address the fact that there was a huge "historic first" buzz around Obama.
Initially, it worked really well - he got a big bounce and really overshadowed the Democratic Convention by announcing at that time. That went sour as people got to know Palin... but it was ultimately a failed attempt to change the dynamics of a race that, both on paper and as it played out, was a very difficult one for McCain to win. In reality, Palin didn't lose it for McCain - she was ultimately a drag on the ticket, but he'd not have won with a highly conventional pick either.
Whereas McCain choosing Palin spoke of his lack of confidence in his prospects, Trump choosing Vance spoke of his OVERconfidence. He thought he was up against Biden and might as well choose someone in his own image. It was a classic unforced error. Whereas McCain's was more of a forced error - a Hail Mary pass.
Donald Trump is besotted with himself and incapable of reaching out to the multitudes who aren't. His path to the White House runs through having a weak opponent. He had one but now he doesn't. I have him 2nd fav for November.
Lol they've run out of proper food for the athletes at the Olympic village after organisers promised a sustainable plant based menu. Athletes complaining there's not enough grilled meat not enough eggs and the plant based options are shite. Team GB has brought in an extra chef to their base camp and the athletes are travelling there every evening for dinner.
Imagine providing a predominantly plant based menu at an elite sporting event. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
The idiots who watched that dodgy documentary about being able to be an elite athlete as a vegan.
John Salley won 4 x NBA Championships on a 100% vegan diet so it's possible. #veganpower
It's probably not possible if you adopt that diet the week before the Olympics.
Erhh, he is now, but...
"During the early 1990s, while still playing, he admitted that he was a "lying" vegetarian since he occasionally ate shrimp and fish. He took fish oil and was macrobiotic and played the large part of his NBA career as a vegetarian, albeit loosely."
I am sure it works for some to be full vegan, but the documentary that convinced a load of athletes to try was full of BS and most rapidly returned to not being vegan.
The documentary was dodgy (hello Hamilton!) but there is a long list of elite vegan athletes. Ultimately, it should be down to personal choice, and it's nothing to do with the Olympic Committee what any athlete eats, as long as its legal!
TSE will not be happy if you cast aspersions in the direction of Sir Lewis.
"A typical 4kW solar panel system, including installation, costs £5,000 - £6,000. Added together, the total cost of solar panels and a battery in the UK is £13,000-£15,500.
You can save between £440 - £1,005 per year on electricity costs, breaking even in 7 - 9 years."
Lets say the cost is the midpoint £14,250 and the saving is the midpoint £772.50p per year.
If I invest the money instead I only need a 5.5% annual return to be better off?
(noting also that Robert is predicting a gas glut so fuel prices will fall, lessening the saving.
Whats the point?
5.5% post tax
Which is equivalent to a 10% pretax yield.
Equities typically return 7% per year pretax.
And, of course, if energy prices rise at the rate of inflation (which I claim they won't, of course), then that's 10% pretax index linked.
Hang on 5.5% pretax = 10% post tax. Even allowing for compounding that seems high.
Currently paying 0% tax on savings /investments though (ISA etc). That might change temporarily when I retire and get a lump sum though.
That's not the point I'm making.
If I offer to reduce your expenses by £100 a year, or to increase your pretax income by £100 year, which is worth more?
Understood. However in my case I pay no tax or NI on my primary savings/investments on the way in or the way out.
(its a salary sacrifice AVC that bolts onto a DB pension scheme and forms the up to 25% cash lump sum - effectively with a 5% of your gross pay contribution limit).
Prior to child benefit limit going up to £60k I was getting about 70% marginal tax relief on AVCs and a few years before that when I had five kids on child benefit I also qualified for a small amount of tax credits and got in excess of 100% tax relief on pension AVCs, which was quite absurd.
As an aside, if Rachel Reeves is looking to save a few quid, then salary sacrifice might be a place to look. It is increasingly being used to maintain entitlement to state benefits by artificially reducing high salaries below benefit thresholds.
Really? I think it is an issue much further up the salary scale with people trying to retain some of the PA or simply avoiding harsh marginal rates of tax. People who still qualify for benefits do not strike me as the sort who could afford to forgo income.
I'm afraid David you could not be more wrong.
"I can't do that work or I'll lose my benefits", or "the JobCentre doesn't let me work more than 16 hours" is a very real attitude, created by our benefit system and the cliff edges that exist in it. UC made it better than it was under Brown, but its still absolutely horrendous which I've been banging on about forever.
If you face a real marginal tax rate of 70-100% why would you bother doing more work? Picking up extra shifts for example? Especially if to do so will give you extra costs (like transport into work) that you won't have to pay if you don't do that work.
Only working 16 hours per week is a 'sweet spot' for many people which maximises benefits while minimising work, and our tax and benefit cliff edge means that working more hours doesn't really make them any better off.
It's not an attitude. For quite a few people, it is a reality.
I've had people sat in front of me, tearful at the possibility they "went over" on hours and that they'd get sanctioned. Fuck that shit.
If I had the power, I'd give people going from 16 hours a week to 40 hours a temporary *increase* in benefits. As a "well done".
And for long term unemployed who get back into work - start with a parade in their honour. Then extra money.
If you tax people past 50%, they will do lots of things to avoid the extra tax. This is known. So, when we tax people at 70%+, we are saying "don't do this".
Serious question for both of you.
Are benefit tapers of 70-100% still a thing, or are we on tax band tapers here - possibly exacerbated by Child Tax Credit?
I thought the benefit taper had been reduced to closer to 50% recently - to follow more closely IDS's original view of UC from 2013 or so (I give him credit for that, despite his current nonsense) that Osborne crippled to save money iirc?
Its still a thing.
Universal Credit taper is 55% of all income after NI and Income Tax but before Student Loans.
Student Loan threshold now is £25k, barely above minimum wage.
So someone on say £16k paying Income Tax, NI and taper pays a marginal rate of:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Total tax 28% Taper 55% of 72% remaining = 39.6% Effective Tax: 67.6%
If someone is on £25k and is a graduate they face:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Student Loans 9% Taper 39.6% Effective Tax: 76.6%
And that's before considering anything else means tested.
Add to that another 3% marginal rate of deduction from the payslip after automatic enrolment to an employer's workplace pension scheme. They could opt out but are then condemning themselves to penury later in life, sacrificing at least an 8% annual pension contribution including the employer's compulsory 5% contribution in order to keep the taper at only (!) 76.6%.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
As an aside, you betray the weakness of your travelogues, which is that everyone in France takes the same month off and overruns the near-deserted idylls you have described.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Don't forget the carers' allowance. Go over the small allowed working salary by £1, lose the entire allowanc.e
A marginal rate of 130% which I faced at one point as a single earning family, when I had five under 18s was ridiculous.
40% Tax. 2% NI. ~40% Child Benefit withdrawal. 41% Tax Credits Withdrawal. £250 Marriage allowance loss. £360 social water bill loss.
All happily solved by putting anything above the threshold into Pension AVCs through salary sacrifice and paying 0% tax on it.
Quite absurd.
Probably a pedant writes - is "Child Benefit" not "not means tested"?
It wasn't until Gideon came up with his claw it back at 1% of whatever you get per £100 earned over £50k wheeze.
I have toyed with writing a techno-terrorist novel as I have a couple of very plausible attack scenarios drawn up. I could shutdown a major city for less than a few thousand pounds. Needless to say I wont be posting these ideas in a public forum
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes).
There are constantly calls for more spending for public services, but my experience of them is that they don't need money spending - they need the organisations fixing.
Classic example - I needed an MRI scan. So I'm booked in for one at a Manchester hospital. Before the scan, I'm sent a checklist basically about "have I got bits of metal in me anywhere?" One question - have I ever had any metal splinters removed from an eye. I have, so I ring the number on the checklist as instructed. I speak to someone helpful "that's fine, please come 30 mins earlier than the appointment, we'll Xray and check there is no metal in your eyes first".
So I duly rock up, and after an hour of waiting about it transpires that the message that I needed an Xray didn't get passed on and they can't actually do one. So the expensive MRI slot gets wasted (as well as most of a day of my time) because someone didn't pass a message on.
A week later, a receptionist from the same hospital rings up - they've got a new booking for me, with the Xray included. They say something unclear about it being at MRI, which I take as the MRI department.
Turn up fairly early for this appointment, receptionist can't find me on the list. It eventually transpires that I'm booked at Manchester Royal Infirmary, not where I am, and that's what the receptionist who rang me was referring to when she said MRI. Only that's 30 mins away and my appointment is in 10 mins. I made it there, explained, got rushed through the Xray and had the MRI scan, but it was very nearly a second expensive missed appointment.
I'm fairly sure this sort of thing goes on all the time in the NHS. More money won't fix it - it's a culture problem, not a cash problem. But the only solution politicians know is more cash, so they keep shoveling in more, and wondering why it doesn't seem to be yielding results.
These sorts of stories are too common, but what actually causes them is not necessarily clear. You blame "a culture problem". But what's your evidence for this? Meanwhile, MisterBedfordshire says all NHS staff are just indolent.
I suggest it is a cash problem. Staff are overworked and underpaid. You write a lot about talking to receptionists. Would these problems have occurred if a nurse had talked to you, and had more time to do so? But that would have cost more money.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
I'm far from being an expert on France, but my impression from talking to people is that the TGV is seen as more than a transport system, but as a source of national pride. If that impression's correct, then I can see this attack being symbolic as well as a PITA.
It is starting to look like picking Vance was the biggest unforced running mate error since McCain thought Sarah Palin was a good idea.
Childless cat ladies rant will have a similar lasting impact as deplorables rant.
The bizarre thing is that in his book - the one that made him famous and the reason he is veep nominee - he talks movingly of his grandparents struggle to have children and various miscarriages.
I suspect he is well past saying what he believes and onto the MAGA strategy of saying things to provoke, shock and gain attention. For some weird reason Trump can carry that off to a significant slice of the US audience, but its not as transferable to his surrogates.
True of most Charismatic Strongman Populism. There aren't many examples of a Charismatic Strongman passing on the baton.
Führerprinzip does need a (thankfully rare) Führer to make it work.
I have toyed with writing a techno-terrorist novel as I have a couple of very plausible attack scenarios drawn up. I could shutdown a major city for less than a few thousand pounds. Needless to say I wont be posting these ideas in a public forum
Could I ask you not to put them into a published novel either?
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
When my agenda demands it I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
The issue here surely is the practise of listening to bull-shitters, which include about 87% of columnists.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
I misunderstood you; apologies. Banning them is going to be as tough as banning guns in the US would be, I suspect. Just too many out there.
Lol they've run out of proper food for the athletes at the Olympic village after organisers promised a sustainable plant based menu. Athletes complaining there's not enough grilled meat not enough eggs and the plant based options are shite. Team GB has brought in an extra chef to their base camp and the athletes are travelling there every evening for dinner.
Imagine providing a predominantly plant based menu at an elite sporting event. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
How to see how many saddos are on the site. Insult the french and count the 'likes'.
10 so far......;.
Given my experience with the French and food, the average French person will be pretty startled* that the organisers thought that telling people what to eat was a good idea.
*Probably saying something pungent about idiots from Paris.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
As an aside, you betray the weakness of your travelogues, which is that everyone in France takes the same month off and overruns the near-deserted idylls you have described.
Although, it's not hard to book a week or two in summer months that ≠ August.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
I misunderstood you; apologies. Banning them is going to be as tough as banning guns in the US would be, I suspect. Just too many out there.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
I misunderstood you; apologies. Banning them is going to be as tough as banning guns in the US would be, I suspect. Just too many out there.
Pretty simple really. As part of my plans to rework state provision of services, traffic wardens will get (in addition to the SLRs, anti-tank rifles and small nuclear weapons) -
Why does everyone assume that Paris attacks are by state actor? This sounds more like a AQ type cooordinated attack.
It doesn't really sound like their thing, unless they've changed considerably. They tend to go for spectacular outrages involving brutal murder, rather than coordinated economic disruption.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
As an aside, you betray the weakness of your travelogues, which is that everyone in France takes the same month off and overruns the near-deserted idylls you have described.
Although, it's not hard to book a week or two in summer months that ≠ August.
And (in non-Olympic years) Paris in August is easier to get round, as all the locals have fled south.
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
A bit thin? For starters writers don't write headlines so why pin the whole piece on them? Secondly this is a journey we have all been on in the last 2 weeks. With Biden in the picture it's Yay she is YOUNG, without him it's omg she's a bit female and black and west coast. When the facts change I change my mind. And columnists gotta column to put food on the table so he has to say something...
Why does everyone assume that Paris attacks are by state actor? This sounds more like a AQ type cooordinated attack.
It doesn't really sound like their thing, unless they've changed considerably. They tend to go for spectacular outrages involving brutal murder, rather than coordinated economic disruption.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
As an aside, you betray the weakness of your travelogues, which is that everyone in France takes the same month off and overruns the near-deserted idylls you have described.
No, I don’t. I’ve been travel writing for decades. I know whereof I speak. This corner of France is incredibly empty given its charms and summer climate (in winter it’s brutally cold)
I know this because I know the industry and also because I had a long talk about it with Pascal the owner of several properties in my last village - the exquisite Compeyre
He said that until a few years ago almost no one came. Now there are a few Parisians buying summer houses and renting properties as they’ve realised it’s lovely - and empty - and not as insufferably hot as Provence or as pricey as trendy Brittany and the west coast
But, he said, they still get almost zero foreign tourists. The ones they do get tend to be Brits or Belgians etc briefly passing through en route to the Med
This is confirmed by my so-far near-zero encounters with non French people in a week of travelling around aveyron. This is late July. Peak season for European travel
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes).
There are constantly calls for more spending for public services, but my experience of them is that they don't need money spending - they need the organisations fixing.
Classic example - I needed an MRI scan. So I'm booked in for one at a Manchester hospital. Before the scan, I'm sent a checklist basically about "have I got bits of metal in me anywhere?" One question - have I ever had any metal splinters removed from an eye. I have, so I ring the number on the checklist as instructed. I speak to someone helpful "that's fine, please come 30 mins earlier than the appointment, we'll Xray and check there is no metal in your eyes first".
So I duly rock up, and after an hour of waiting about it transpires that the message that I needed an Xray didn't get passed on and they can't actually do one. So the expensive MRI slot gets wasted (as well as most of a day of my time) because someone didn't pass a message on.
A week later, a receptionist from the same hospital rings up - they've got a new booking for me, with the Xray included. They say something unclear about it being at MRI, which I take as the MRI department.
Turn up fairly early for this appointment, receptionist can't find me on the list. It eventually transpires that I'm booked at Manchester Royal Infirmary, not where I am, and that's what the receptionist who rang me was referring to when she said MRI. Only that's 30 mins away and my appointment is in 10 mins. I made it there, explained, got rushed through the Xray and had the MRI scan, but it was very nearly a second expensive missed appointment.
I'm fairly sure this sort of thing goes on all the time in the NHS. More money won't fix it - it's a culture problem, not a cash problem. But the only solution politicians know is more cash, so they keep shoveling in more, and wondering why it doesn't seem to be yielding results.
These sorts of stories are too common, but what actually causes them is not necessarily clear. You blame "a culture problem". But what's your evidence for this? Meanwhile, MisterBedfordshire says all NHS staff are just indolent.
I suggest it is a cash problem. Staff are overworked and underpaid. You write a lot about talking to receptionists. Would these problems have occurred if a nurse had talked to you, and had more time to do so? But that would have cost more money.
And another thing. There are various ways to think about the public sector at the moment- continuous firefighting, trying to bail out the leaky boat to stop it sinking, you get the idea.
One of the reasons that's a bad place to be is that there is never time to pause, look round, and deal with the important issues. Because they're always trumped by the urgent ones.
(Everyone knows that spending more on capital, training and so on would pay off in 5-10 years. But when faced with an immediate problem, it's inevitable that money will get taken from the capital fund to deal.with it.)
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure ...
Sorry but there is no such thing as "excessive housebuilding".
We have a chronic housing shortage and there is nowhere in the country with a surplus of housing, so there is no "excessive" anywhere.
You may have a problem of a lack of infrastructure, many places do, but that is a reason to demand more infrastructure not fewer homes when we have a chronic housing shortage.
I half agree, half disagree. We do need more houses, however the local plan for our town is making it ~25% bigger, which isn't really viable without bulldozeing half the existing town to put in a road network that isn't all bottlenecks.
I used to think what we needed was massive amount of housebuilding, but after I realised all the current massive growth in housebuilding is doing is keeping up with immigration, I can't see the point - we're just trashing the place so we can import more immigrants.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
After the Balkan wars there was a very large supply of AK47s etc around the whole of Europe which thankfully never really took off here. The participants in the Ukraine war are now producing hundreds of thousands of drones specifically designed to deliver explosive charges each a year. It is extremely optimistic to assume that criminals and terrorists are not going to get some of these.
Police and security forces need to learn how to knock these out, whether by lasers, ABMs, EMP pulses or whatever. If they don't events like the Olympics may become an unacceptable risk.
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
Already noted in his Wiki biog:
In 2024, Riley was subject to notoriety online after arguing in a July 9th opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that Kamala Harris would be the best Democratic candidate to run for President, only to reverse the position two weeks later and hours after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee arguing in another opinion piece for the Journal that Kamala Harris isn’t the change Democrats need.
As presumptive nominee now Harris is polling not much better than Dukakis did in 1988 and lower than Gore, Kerry and Hillary got let alone the more than 50% Obama and Biden 2020 received. So Trump likely remains favourite. While Harris is polling better than Biden was with women, younger and black voters she is also polling worse than Biden was with pensioners and white males.
To have a chance to win therefore she needs a white male as VP candidate from a swing state, probably Shapiro, maybe Kelly. She is also fortunate the GOP picked the divisive Trump as nominee not the more centrist Haley who would be heading for a landslide
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
"What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?"
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure ...
Sorry but there is no such thing as "excessive housebuilding".
We have a chronic housing shortage and there is nowhere in the country with a surplus of housing, so there is no "excessive" anywhere.
You may have a problem of a lack of infrastructure, many places do, but that is a reason to demand more infrastructure not fewer homes when we have a chronic housing shortage.
I half agree, half disagree. We do need more houses, however the local plan for our town is making it ~25% bigger, which isn't really viable without bulldozeing half the existing town to put in a road network that isn't all bottlenecks.
I used to think what we needed was massive amount of housebuilding, but after I realised all the current massive growth in housebuilding is doing is keeping up with immigration, I can't see the point - we're just trashing the place so we can import more immigrants.
Even if net migration dropped to zero today, we'd still need massive housebuilding both for the people already here, our shortage that already exists and our changing demographics.
If you need to build more roads then build more roads, but if town is expanding there's no reason that new roads need to go into the existing town. Indeed a new road at the (current) edge of town can relieve pressure in the existing town and take transport from new houses built on the other side of that road then as the town expands in that direction.
When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who that it's namin' For the loser now will be later to win For the times, they are a-changin'
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
"What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?"
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
"How can you build a library in an area of dense housing?"
Very easily.
Indeed just as you can convert shops to houses (its being done in much of the country, you can do the other way around too if need be.
If town is expanding outwards, then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is. Which as town continues to expand it will not remain the edge either.
The builders for houses should only be building houses, not shops. The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
I'm far from being an expert on France, but my impression from talking to people is that the TGV is seen as more than a transport system, but as a source of national pride. If that impression's correct, then I can see this attack being symbolic as well as a PITA.
Also, it's the opening day of the first summer Olympics in France for 100 years.
Imagine if this had happened in the UK in 2012 - the anger would have been immense.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
I'm far from being an expert on France, but my impression from talking to people is that the TGV is seen as more than a transport system, but as a source of national pride. If that impression's correct, then I can see this attack being symbolic as well as a PITA.
Also, it's the opening day of the first summer Olympics in France for 100 years.
Imagine if this had happened in the UK in 2012 - the anger would have been immense.
The London bombings did happen the day after London was awarded the Olympics.
I'd say that's just a Usonian thing, where everything is a touch Mickey Mouse Club, and the Obamas being a little LibDem - wait until the tendency is clear and then stand in front of the crowd.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
After the Balkan wars there was a very large supply of AK47s etc around the whole of Europe which thankfully never really took off here. The participants in the Ukraine war are now producing hundreds of thousands of drones specifically designed to deliver explosive charges each a year. It is extremely optimistic to assume that criminals and terrorists are not going to get some of these.
Police and security forces need to learn how to knock these out, whether by lasers, ABMs, EMP pulses or whatever. If they don't events like the Olympics may become an unacceptable risk.
We do a very good job of keeping out unlicensed firearms which are produced in even greater numbers worldwide. Drones should be treated like weapons. Drone hobbyists is as niche an activity as gun clubs and closing it down as a hobby item is clearly justified. They should not be available to consumers on the likes of amazon.
"A typical 4kW solar panel system, including installation, costs £5,000 - £6,000. Added together, the total cost of solar panels and a battery in the UK is £13,000-£15,500.
You can save between £440 - £1,005 per year on electricity costs, breaking even in 7 - 9 years."
Lets say the cost is the midpoint £14,250 and the saving is the midpoint £772.50p per year.
If I invest the money instead I only need a 5.5% annual return to be better off?
(noting also that Robert is predicting a gas glut so fuel prices will fall, lessening the saving.
Whats the point?
5.5% post tax
Which is equivalent to a 10% pretax yield.
Equities typically return 7% per year pretax.
And, of course, if energy prices rise at the rate of inflation (which I claim they won't, of course), then that's 10% pretax index linked.
Hang on 5.5% pretax = 10% post tax. Even allowing for compounding that seems high.
Currently paying 0% tax on savings /investments though (ISA etc). That might change temporarily when I retire and get a lump sum though.
That's not the point I'm making.
If I offer to reduce your expenses by £100 a year, or to increase your pretax income by £100 year, which is worth more?
Understood. However in my case I pay no tax or NI on my primary savings/investments on the way in or the way out.
(its a salary sacrifice AVC that bolts onto a DB pension scheme and forms the up to 25% cash lump sum - effectively with a 5% of your gross pay contribution limit).
Prior to child benefit limit going up to £60k I was getting about 70% marginal tax relief on AVCs and a few years before that when I had five kids on child benefit I also qualified for a small amount of tax credits and got in excess of 100% tax relief on pension AVCs, which was quite absurd.
As an aside, if Rachel Reeves is looking to save a few quid, then salary sacrifice might be a place to look. It is increasingly being used to maintain entitlement to state benefits by artificially reducing high salaries below benefit thresholds.
Really? I think it is an issue much further up the salary scale with people trying to retain some of the PA or simply avoiding harsh marginal rates of tax. People who still qualify for benefits do not strike me as the sort who could afford to forgo income.
I'm afraid David you could not be more wrong.
"I can't do that work or I'll lose my benefits", or "the JobCentre doesn't let me work more than 16 hours" is a very real attitude, created by our benefit system and the cliff edges that exist in it. UC made it better than it was under Brown, but its still absolutely horrendous which I've been banging on about forever.
If you face a real marginal tax rate of 70-100% why would you bother doing more work? Picking up extra shifts for example? Especially if to do so will give you extra costs (like transport into work) that you won't have to pay if you don't do that work.
Only working 16 hours per week is a 'sweet spot' for many people which maximises benefits while minimising work, and our tax and benefit cliff edge means that working more hours doesn't really make them any better off.
It's not an attitude. For quite a few people, it is a reality.
I've had people sat in front of me, tearful at the possibility they "went over" on hours and that they'd get sanctioned. Fuck that shit.
If I had the power, I'd give people going from 16 hours a week to 40 hours a temporary *increase* in benefits. As a "well done".
And for long term unemployed who get back into work - start with a parade in their honour. Then extra money.
If you tax people past 50%, they will do lots of things to avoid the extra tax. This is known. So, when we tax people at 70%+, we are saying "don't do this".
Serious question for both of you.
Are benefit tapers of 70-100% still a thing, or are we on tax band tapers here - possibly exacerbated by Child Tax Credit?
I thought the benefit taper had been reduced to closer to 50% recently - to follow more closely IDS's original view of UC from 2013 or so (I give him credit for that, despite his current nonsense) that Osborne crippled to save money iirc?
Its still a thing.
Universal Credit taper is 55% of all income after NI and Income Tax but before Student Loans.
Student Loan threshold now is £25k, barely above minimum wage.
So someone on say £16k paying Income Tax, NI and taper pays a marginal rate of:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Total tax 28% Taper 55% of 72% remaining = 39.6% Effective Tax: 67.6%
If someone is on £25k and is a graduate they face:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Student Loans 9% Taper 39.6% Effective Tax: 76.6%
And that's before considering anything else means tested.
Add to that another 3% marginal rate of deduction from the payslip after automatic enrolment to an employer's workplace pension scheme. They could opt out but are then condemning themselves to penury later in life, sacrificing at least an 8% annual pension contribution including the employer's compulsory 5% contribution in order to keep the taper at only (!) 76.6%.
Its the Employer who pays 3% The employee pays 5% (from gross)
If this sabotage continues and “succeeds” then it could be the end of the Games as we know them. Who would ever want to host if there’s a major chance of disaster?
There is I suspect a good argument to be made nowadays for hosting the games across different countries and cities (a bit like the WC). Spread the cost and risk.
Rotate around regions (eg Western Europe, US/Canada/Mexico, Asia Pacific, East Asia/Australasia, South America, Middle East etc) if you need to give it some form of geographic focus.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
"What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?"
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
"How can you build a library in an area of dense housing?"
Very easily.
Indeed just as you can convert shops to houses (its being done in much of the country, you can do the other way around too if need be.
If town is expanding outwards, then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is. Which as town continues to expand it will not remain the edge either.
The builders for houses should only be building houses, not shops. The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications.
If you're talking about knocking down existing houses to build a library (or GP surgery, or whatever...) then that'd be massively more expensive that just building it in the first place.
"The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications."
I'd hate to see how many times the road would need to be dug up, and where all the sh*t goes...
"... then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is."
You can, but that assumes that that's where the demand all is. It also means you need transport links to the new library, and that requires... yes, you've guessed it:
PLANNING.
Everything requires planning if it is to be done well.
As presumptive nominee now Harris is polling not much better than Dukakis did in 1988 and lower than Gore, Kerry and Hillary got let alone the more than 50% Obama and Biden 2020 received. So Trump likely remains favourite. While Harris is polling better than Biden was with women, younger and black voters she is also polling worse than Biden was with pensioners and white males.
To have a chance to win therefore she needs a white male as VP candidate from a swing state, probably Shapiro, maybe Kelly. She is also fortunate the GOP picked the divisive Trump as nominee not the more centrist Haley who would be heading for a landslide
If this sabotage continues and “succeeds” then it could be the end of the Games as we know them. Who would ever want to host if there’s a major chance of disaster?
There is I suspect a good argument to be made nowadays for hosting the games across different countries and cities (a bit like the WC). Spread the cost and risk.
Rotate around regions (eg Western Europe, US/Canada/Mexico, Asia Pacific, East Asia/Australasia, South America, Middle East etc) if you need to give it some form of geographic focus.
It'll probably go the way of the Commonwealth eBay Olympics in the end. Just too much risk and not enough benefit.
"A typical 4kW solar panel system, including installation, costs £5,000 - £6,000. Added together, the total cost of solar panels and a battery in the UK is £13,000-£15,500.
You can save between £440 - £1,005 per year on electricity costs, breaking even in 7 - 9 years."
Lets say the cost is the midpoint £14,250 and the saving is the midpoint £772.50p per year.
If I invest the money instead I only need a 5.5% annual return to be better off?
(noting also that Robert is predicting a gas glut so fuel prices will fall, lessening the saving.
Whats the point?
5.5% post tax
Which is equivalent to a 10% pretax yield.
Equities typically return 7% per year pretax.
And, of course, if energy prices rise at the rate of inflation (which I claim they won't, of course), then that's 10% pretax index linked.
Hang on 5.5% pretax = 10% post tax. Even allowing for compounding that seems high.
Currently paying 0% tax on savings /investments though (ISA etc). That might change temporarily when I retire and get a lump sum though.
That's not the point I'm making.
If I offer to reduce your expenses by £100 a year, or to increase your pretax income by £100 year, which is worth more?
Understood. However in my case I pay no tax or NI on my primary savings/investments on the way in or the way out.
(its a salary sacrifice AVC that bolts onto a DB pension scheme and forms the up to 25% cash lump sum - effectively with a 5% of your gross pay contribution limit).
Prior to child benefit limit going up to £60k I was getting about 70% marginal tax relief on AVCs and a few years before that when I had five kids on child benefit I also qualified for a small amount of tax credits and got in excess of 100% tax relief on pension AVCs, which was quite absurd.
As an aside, if Rachel Reeves is looking to save a few quid, then salary sacrifice might be a place to look. It is increasingly being used to maintain entitlement to state benefits by artificially reducing high salaries below benefit thresholds.
Really? I think it is an issue much further up the salary scale with people trying to retain some of the PA or simply avoiding harsh marginal rates of tax. People who still qualify for benefits do not strike me as the sort who could afford to forgo income.
I'm afraid David you could not be more wrong.
"I can't do that work or I'll lose my benefits", or "the JobCentre doesn't let me work more than 16 hours" is a very real attitude, created by our benefit system and the cliff edges that exist in it. UC made it better than it was under Brown, but its still absolutely horrendous which I've been banging on about forever.
If you face a real marginal tax rate of 70-100% why would you bother doing more work? Picking up extra shifts for example? Especially if to do so will give you extra costs (like transport into work) that you won't have to pay if you don't do that work.
Only working 16 hours per week is a 'sweet spot' for many people which maximises benefits while minimising work, and our tax and benefit cliff edge means that working more hours doesn't really make them any better off.
It's not an attitude. For quite a few people, it is a reality.
I've had people sat in front of me, tearful at the possibility they "went over" on hours and that they'd get sanctioned. Fuck that shit.
If I had the power, I'd give people going from 16 hours a week to 40 hours a temporary *increase* in benefits. As a "well done".
And for long term unemployed who get back into work - start with a parade in their honour. Then extra money.
If you tax people past 50%, they will do lots of things to avoid the extra tax. This is known. So, when we tax people at 70%+, we are saying "don't do this".
Serious question for both of you.
Are benefit tapers of 70-100% still a thing, or are we on tax band tapers here - possibly exacerbated by Child Tax Credit?
I thought the benefit taper had been reduced to closer to 50% recently - to follow more closely IDS's original view of UC from 2013 or so (I give him credit for that, despite his current nonsense) that Osborne crippled to save money iirc?
Its still a thing.
Universal Credit taper is 55% of all income after NI and Income Tax but before Student Loans.
Student Loan threshold now is £25k, barely above minimum wage.
So someone on say £16k paying Income Tax, NI and taper pays a marginal rate of:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Total tax 28% Taper 55% of 72% remaining = 39.6% Effective Tax: 67.6%
If someone is on £25k and is a graduate they face:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Student Loans 9% Taper 39.6% Effective Tax: 76.6%
And that's before considering anything else means tested.
Add to that another 3% marginal rate of deduction from the payslip after automatic enrolment to an employer's workplace pension scheme. They could opt out but are then condemning themselves to penury later in life, sacrificing at least an 8% annual pension contribution including the employer's compulsory 5% contribution in order to keep the taper at only (!) 76.6%.
Its the Employer who pays 3% The employee pays 5% (from gross)
Good point.
That's taken before taper (unlike Student Loans) so reduces the taper, but doesn't help with taking money home if you're on a tight budget.
Recalculating the figures on say £25k on UC and with a Student Loan and Pension you now get:
Income Tax 20% National Insurance 8% Pension 5% Taper (55%*67%) = 36.9% Student Loans 9% Total Deductions: 78.9%
Hardly worth going in for overtime/another shift when you'll only get 21.1% of whatever you earn in your payslip. And that's before considering any knock on consequences like dentistry, Council Tax, electricity and other things conditional on benefits.
I see the Liverpool-supporting Mayor of London is lobbying for Premier League games to be played in the USA. Didn't see that in his manifesto this year.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
After the Balkan wars there was a very large supply of AK47s etc around the whole of Europe which thankfully never really took off here. The participants in the Ukraine war are now producing hundreds of thousands of drones specifically designed to deliver explosive charges each a year. It is extremely optimistic to assume that criminals and terrorists are not going to get some of these.
Police and security forces need to learn how to knock these out, whether by lasers, ABMs, EMP pulses or whatever. If they don't events like the Olympics may become an unacceptable risk.
Drones are easy to get hold of and fly but harder to weaponise. Not only would terrorists have to get hold of explosives, they'd also need someone who knows how to use them. And in Britain at least, Islamist terrorists have been mainly lone wolves armed with vans and kitchen knives because they cannot even get hold of guns when the continent is awash with them.
Some criminal gangs do have guns but even there, machetes are more common and it is hard to see the use case for drones.
If this sabotage continues and “succeeds” then it could be the end of the Games as we know them. Who would ever want to host if there’s a major chance of disaster?
There is I suspect a good argument to be made nowadays for hosting the games across different countries and cities (a bit like the WC). Spread the cost and risk.
Rotate around regions (eg Western Europe, US/Canada/Mexico, Asia Pacific, East Asia/Australasia, South America, Middle East etc) if you need to give it some form of geographic focus.
It'll probably go the way of the Commonwealth eBay Olympics in the end. Just too much risk and not enough benefit.
Oh I think it will keep going because it is the pinnacle of many sporting disciplines. But the 20th century model of essentially being the World’s Fair of Sport looks very outdated now.
As presumptive nominee now Harris is polling not much better than Dukakis did in 1988 and lower than Gore, Kerry and Hillary got let alone the more than 50% Obama and Biden 2020 received. So Trump likely remains favourite. While Harris is polling better than Biden was with women, younger and black voters she is also polling worse than Biden was with pensioners and white males.
To have a chance to win therefore she needs a white male as VP candidate from a swing state, probably Shapiro, maybe Kelly. She is also fortunate the GOP picked the divisive Trump as nominee not the more centrist Haley who would be heading for a landslide
If they had picked Haley instead of Trump, there would be much less fear of the consequences of a GOP victory.
Actually, having dismissed the idea my tiny town would be fussed by this sabotage, my town square cafe terrace has several unhappy French people - in different groups - all rapidly talking into their cellphones. This is the beginning of the great summer holiday in France. A lot of northerners would be hoping to come down to sunny tranquil Aveyron this weekend and now they can’t
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
I'm far from being an expert on France, but my impression from talking to people is that the TGV is seen as more than a transport system, but as a source of national pride. If that impression's correct, then I can see this attack being symbolic as well as a PITA.
Also, it's the opening day of the first summer Olympics in France for 100 years.
Imagine if this had happened in the UK in 2012 - the anger would have been immense.
The London bombings did happen the day after London was awarded the Olympics.
...and caused immense anger across the country.
My point, to return to Leon's original post, is that I suspect the average French villager in Aveyron is going to be very upset by this attack on his or her country.
As presumptive nominee now Harris is polling not much better than Dukakis did in 1988
I note you've overlooked two minor points:
1) Trump is not polling anywhere near H. Bush levels;
2) Harris is polling *considerably* better than Clinton in 1992. Who won.
It's not about the raw share, it's about the relative share.
It's also about movement, which has been towards Kamala and away from Trump, including in swing states. We need to see if this trend continues or is just a post-declaration bounce.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure ...
Sorry but there is no such thing as "excessive housebuilding".
We have a chronic housing shortage and there is nowhere in the country with a surplus of housing, so there is no "excessive" anywhere.
You may have a problem of a lack of infrastructure, many places do, but that is a reason to demand more infrastructure not fewer homes when we have a chronic housing shortage.
At last there seems to be a recognition of the importance of infrastructure in the housing/housebuilding crisis rather than the meaningless "build, build, build" mantra.
I'm more than happy to see hundreds of thousands of new homes built as long as the supporting infrastructure is in place and that's not just utilities or transport. It's making sure the existing community infrastructure of schools, libraries, health facilities, refuse collection and all the rest of the areas the pro-building lobby doesn't seem to either consider or think important are also in place or planned (I've used the "P" word, I'll be in trouble for that).
House builders and developers already contribute to this via Section 106 payments but these need to be ramped up as a development is far more than just the bricks, mortar and pipework. As an aside, there needs to be much rigorous inspection of newbuilds given the horror stories coming out about the poor quality of construction.
Sorry, but no "as long as".
Build, build, build is the only solution.
Yes we need other investments too, but they need to happen on top of (not before or instead of, or conditional upon or vice-versa) more housing.
Section 106 should be totally abolished in my view. All taxpayers equally should pay for new public infrastructure not just new home buyers. Private new infrastructure should be owned by the buyer privately, that's all they should be paying for.
So you want to build huge estates with no facilities and no compulsion to provide them in the hope that they get built some time in the future. You are mad.
Thatcher had this right 40 years ago. Those who profit should pay. Developers make vast sums from housing and they should be the ones to contribute to the services that help them make those profits. Section 106 should be reformed but mostly to make the compulsion on builders stronger. They should be the ones carrying the burden not the tax payer.
The taxpayer will already be carrying the increased burden going forward for the actual staffing and running of those facilities. They should not be paying out for the actual infrastructure as well.
But forcing that diet (or vegetarian) on people is ridiculous.
So (sort of) is Djokovic.
I'm not sure they were forcing it on anyone ? They were more likely just incompetent in estimating demand.
I think they had the idea of providing food that is healthier and also refined in the French taste. But athletes who are only thinking about their competitions just want what they eat anyway, which is mainly chicken nuggets.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
"What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?"
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
"How can you build a library in an area of dense housing?"
Very easily.
Indeed just as you can convert shops to houses (its being done in much of the country, you can do the other way around too if need be.
If town is expanding outwards, then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is. Which as town continues to expand it will not remain the edge either.
The builders for houses should only be building houses, not shops. The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications.
If you're talking about knocking down existing houses to build a library (or GP surgery, or whatever...) then that'd be massively more expensive that just building it in the first place.
"The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications."
I'd hate to see how many times the road would need to be dug up, and where all the sh*t goes...
"... then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is."
You can, but that assumes that that's where the demand all is. It also means you need transport links to the new library, and that requires... yes, you've guessed it:
PLANNING.
Everything requires planning if it is to be done well.
No it does not require planning, it requires adaption and evolution.
Evolution beats planning almost every time.
If requirements are changing, then adapt to them. But requirements don't only change when houses are built.
My grandad lives in a house he bought, when new build, in the 1970s with my late nan. At the time it was built it was all young families moving in and schools etc were required. Now everyone on the street seems to be a pensioner, either as they've stayed there since the 1970s, or increasingly commonly as the old inhabitants have passed away its a very popular area for old people to move to now.
If more investment is needed in care now, because of the changing demographics, should that have been planned for in the 1970s when it was built? Or should we adapt as changes happen.
I'd say that's just a Usonian thing, where everything is a touch Mickey Mouse Club, and the Obamas being a little LibDem - wait until the tendency is clear and then stand in front of the crowd.
We had been led to expect fireworks around the Obama endorsement. This video is rather a damp squib.
Looks pretty grisly in Paris. The whole tgv network derailed? Those are the arteries of France
“Astonishment more than cacophony at Montparnasse station. Several thousand travelers wait, stunned, and scrutinize the notice board where 90% of departures are pending #TGV @sudouest”
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure ...
Sorry but there is no such thing as "excessive housebuilding".
We have a chronic housing shortage and there is nowhere in the country with a surplus of housing, so there is no "excessive" anywhere.
You may have a problem of a lack of infrastructure, many places do, but that is a reason to demand more infrastructure not fewer homes when we have a chronic housing shortage.
At last there seems to be a recognition of the importance of infrastructure in the housing/housebuilding crisis rather than the meaningless "build, build, build" mantra.
I'm more than happy to see hundreds of thousands of new homes built as long as the supporting infrastructure is in place and that's not just utilities or transport. It's making sure the existing community infrastructure of schools, libraries, health facilities, refuse collection and all the rest of the areas the pro-building lobby doesn't seem to either consider or think important are also in place or planned (I've used the "P" word, I'll be in trouble for that).
House builders and developers already contribute to this via Section 106 payments but these need to be ramped up as a development is far more than just the bricks, mortar and pipework. As an aside, there needs to be much rigorous inspection of newbuilds given the horror stories coming out about the poor quality of construction.
Sorry, but no "as long as".
Build, build, build is the only solution.
Yes we need other investments too, but they need to happen on top of (not before or instead of, or conditional upon or vice-versa) more housing.
Section 106 should be totally abolished in my view. All taxpayers equally should pay for new public infrastructure not just new home buyers. Private new infrastructure should be owned by the buyer privately, that's all they should be paying for.
So you want to build huge estates with no facilities and no compulsion to provide them in the hope that they get built some time in the future. You are mad.
Thatcher had this right 40 years ago. Those who profit should pay. Developers make vast sums from housing and they should be the ones to contribute to the services that help them make those profits. Section 106 should be reformed but mostly to make the compulsion on builders stronger. They should be the ones carrying the burden not the tax payer.
The taxpayer will already be carrying the increased burden going forward for the actual staffing and running of those facilities. They should not be paying out for the actual infrastructure as well.
Barty ignores the externalities of his build, build, build vision. He says build anywhere in the middle of the field down the road, not understanding that to supply water and power and whatnot to the middle of that field will require amendment to the existing infrastructure of existing residents and I am sure he is enough of a democrat to appreciate that those locals should have a say in the development of that existing infrastructure.
Re Black Hole...as Paul Johnson from the IFS has said now with the OBR and more data than ever available there is no unknown surprise of a black hole. Excluding some rounding around the edge, all the numbers that are required are available to all. Its all theatre to claim you have only just discovered it.
No - it won't be a surprise to them because they were telling the truth during the election campaign and before. Meanwhile, Hunt was telling us that everything was wonderful - a delusion he carried forward to the King's Speech debate earlier this week.
Actually both Labour and the Tories were extremely reticent about addressing the implied 'black hole' in the finances which every financial commentator recognised was implied by Hunt's existing tax & spending plans.
Reeves is now fessing up to what everyone paying attention already knew.
Which makes her as least as much of a lying scumbag as the previous government.
My big gripe is with all the "Broken Britain" memes. I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, but even so last few times I've needed to see a doctor I've had appointments done on the same day. My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago - whilst I've a few issues with some of the post birth care, none of that was anything to do with resources, and more to do with staff who didn't listen to what they were told (and I found out subsequently in a couple of cases wrote the exact opposite of what they were told on the notes). (Snip)
". I live in a small town that's rapidly being wrecked by excessive housebuilding without the construction of matching infrastructure, "
This is where I think politicians have got it all wrong. They're concentrating on housebuilding, when we need to be concentrating on building communities.
The first is relatively easy. The second is much harder and more expensive, but vital.
As an example, the new town I live in is being massively expanded. Yet the overworked GP surgery is not being expanded to suit. Neither is the library. We still don't have a High Street, and the rental costs of the few shop units available are astronomical.
Oh, and congrats on the new addition to your family. Hope you're all well.
Investment follows demand, it doesn't precede it.
If a second GP surgery is needed, then invest in it.
If enough customers are there to make a High Street viable, then firms will (privately) invest in it.
If investment in the library is needed, then invest in it.
But none of that is an excuse to block housing.
I'm not looking for an excuse to block housing. But at the moment we're getting housing but not enough supporting infrastructure - and this really matters. I fear your vision for housing would just be sink estates in a couple of decades' time.
The bit of Cambridgeshire I know is St Ives, which I think is a similar population to your gaff, but as a historic town has way more infrastructure.
It's all very well saying that more infrastructure should be provided, but right now it clearly isn't. So something, maybe beefing up state provision, maybe nudging the invisible hand of the market, needs to change. Either that, or we need benevolent nobility to manage the process, as at Poundbury.
I agree. As it happens, my gaff was 'designed' in such a ways as to have infrastructure, and tbf it isn't too bad. The core Masterplan of 30 years ago wasn't bad. There are, for instance, five children's playgrounds; two cricket pitches/pavilions, a country park, lakes, a library, police station (mostly unmanned...), fire station, two Co-Ops and a large supermarket.
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
"Masterplan" is just an excuse to do nothing, when there is a chronic shortage today.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
"What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?"
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
"How can you build a library in an area of dense housing?"
Very easily.
Indeed just as you can convert shops to houses (its being done in much of the country, you can do the other way around too if need be.
If town is expanding outwards, then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is. Which as town continues to expand it will not remain the edge either.
The builders for houses should only be building houses, not shops. The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications.
If you're talking about knocking down existing houses to build a library (or GP surgery, or whatever...) then that'd be massively more expensive that just building it in the first place.
"The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications."
I'd hate to see how many times the road would need to be dug up, and where all the sh*t goes...
"... then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is."
You can, but that assumes that that's where the demand all is. It also means you need transport links to the new library, and that requires... yes, you've guessed it:
PLANNING.
Everything requires planning if it is to be done well.
No it does not require planning, it requires adaption and evolution.
Evolution beats planning almost every time.
If requirements are changing, then adapt to them. But requirements don't only change when houses are built.
My grandad lives in a house he bought, when new build, in the 1970s with my late nan. At the time it was built it was all young families moving in and schools etc were required. Now everyone on the street seems to be a pensioner, either as they've stayed there since the 1970s, or increasingly commonly as the old inhabitants have passed away its a very popular area for old people to move to now.
If more investment is needed in care now, because of the changing demographics, should that have been planned for in the 1970s when it was built? Or should we adapt as changes happen.
We plan so that future adaptation is facilitated; it's not rocket science.
This is on a par with the sort of things that happened in Ireland in 1921.
"France’s train network sabotaged in ‘massive arson attack’ hours ahead of Olympics opening ceremony Services on several routes cancelled after TGV facilities damaged, country’s rail operator says
“SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines."
Actually it happened in France before, on the 5th/6th of June 1944.
It was the only language they understood
The Russians are cruising for a hell of a kicking. This more or less open sabotage will lead to blow back. I came back from France yesterday and the mood towards Russia is increasingly hostile. If there is a successful sabotage, I think the DGSE will really go after the organisers as well as the perpetrators.
What makes you think it is the Russians?
Because the French government warned of a direct threat a couple of days ago when they arrested a sleeper agent.
Given what we are seeing in Ukraine, doing something like this is incredible stupid.
Priestman removed as Olympic boss over drone incident https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2x0y786rv0o Canada women's football manager Beverly Priestman has been removed as Olympic head coach and suspended by the country's football federation as the fall out continued after a drone was flown over New Zealand's training session on Monday. Canada Soccer said it took the action because "over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games". English-born Priestman, 38, had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her side's opening 2-0 victory over the Kiwis on Thursday, while Jasmine Mander, Priestman's assistant, was sent home along with "unaccredited analyst" Joseph Lombardi. On Thursday a French court said Lombardi had been handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to flying a drone in an urban area without a licence...
The prospect of weaponised drones at mass public events is now a pretty scary one. And there aren't, for now, any good answers to the problem.
License them very strictly.
They already are; that doesn't really address the problem of someone wanting to use them for disruption, or worse.
Looks like I can buy them off Amazon delivered tomorrow. Why? Essentially I am suggesting ban them as a leisure/hobby item.
After the Balkan wars there was a very large supply of AK47s etc around the whole of Europe which thankfully never really took off here. The participants in the Ukraine war are now producing hundreds of thousands of drones specifically designed to deliver explosive charges each a year. It is extremely optimistic to assume that criminals and terrorists are not going to get some of these.
Police and security forces need to learn how to knock these out, whether by lasers, ABMs, EMP pulses or whatever. If they don't events like the Olympics may become an unacceptable risk.
We do a very good job of keeping out unlicensed firearms which are produced in even greater numbers worldwide. Drones should be treated like weapons. Drone hobbyists is as niche an activity as gun clubs and closing it down as a hobby item is clearly justified. They should not be available to consumers on the likes of amazon.
The global drone market is considerably larger than that for firearms. And it's a lot easier to build your own.
It's far from a niche activity - there are at least half a million registered users in the UK. And probably a lot more unregistered.
Comments
A new charge was introduced (where the local house prices would support it) called Community Infrastructure Levy.
By 2022 under 200 of ~500 Local Planning Authorities had it in place. It is charged per sqm of developed floor area, and comes in normally in bands of between £25 and perhaps £200, dependent on area and type of development. This web list has been running since about 2012:
https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1121218/cil-watch-whos-charging-what
There were various scandals such as Shropshire charging stupid rates on barn conversions that made the projects impossible and I think Rutland-way where a levy caused a load of self-build projects to become impossible.
Obvious there's a Brobdingnagian mountain of legal action around this, just as there is around the cocked-up elements of the 2005 (I think) Housing Act where Local Authorities are *still* trying to impose unlawful requirements every single year - under the "you can't get at us meaningfully for breaking the law" Local Government Exception.
Another area of Local Gov Finance / Housing Law that needs a mess cleaning up, just like Community Charge levies based on 1991 house values.
I think this Govt will get around to this, unlike the previous arse-sitters.
This was a co-ordinated, state level attack on France designed to disrupt the Olympic Games.
Given the previous arrests, it is clear that the French have good cause to strongly suspect Russia,
Nor will France take this lying down. It is not just Russians that can throw Russians out of windows.
10 so far......;.
The couple right next to me look quite panicked and sighing and anxious and the husband is saying. “Mais le tgv! Le tgv!” - so yeah I think it is impacting
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-62036045
Child benefit thresholds are £50-80k
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68491052
(Child tax credits start to fall at £20k.)
One increasingly frequent way of avoiding the thresholds at the top end is salary sacrifice for pension contributions, which as a double or perhaps triple whammy attract higher rate tax relief and also mean avoiding other tax tapers.
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-pundits-play-both-sides-a-tale
On Tuesday, July 9, Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Jason L. Riley published a piece urging Democrats to dump President Joe Biden from the top of the presidential ticket and replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. Aptly titled “Kamala Harris Would Be the Best Democratic Choice,” the article made a fairly straightforward argument that Biden was a “problem that need[ed] to be solved,” and that Harris was the party’s best option at this stage of the campaign.
Fast forward just two weeks, and Riley's tune has changed so dramatically it would give even the most nimble political gymnast whiplash. On July 23, Riley penned a new column with the telling title: "Kamala Harris Isn't the Change Democrats Need." This stunning reversal in such a short span of time raises serious questions about the nature of political punditry and the cynicism that often underlies it...
No PB commenter would ever do so shameful a thing.
for anyone interested, here's the 1995 masterplan. What was built is not *too* far off, except more housing was squeezed into a new area. Oh, and the golf course is just wasteland.
https://www.scambs.gov.uk/media/3309/cambourne_masterplan_1995_reduced_file_size.pdf
As an aside, I'm bemused to see the bus accessway to Broadway (*), which has only just had the land cleared for it to be built, despite it being rather important...
But that's what we need for any new settlement of any size: a masterplan. And if it is extended with new housing, the new masterplan has to take into account the existing settlement, as well as the new.
(*) A local road.
What's wrong with just investing in services wherever they are needed?
You guys acting like "excessive housing" is the issue are ignoring the chronic housing shortage. Being short on housing and infrastructure is two problems, fixing one problem is better than fixing neither - and once people are there then investing in infrastructure is more viable than before they are there where there's no guarantee that customers/employees will be available.
The fiddler whilst Rome burns.
I suggest it is a cash problem. Staff are overworked and underpaid. You write a lot about talking to receptionists. Would these problems have occurred if a nurse had talked to you, and had more time to do so? But that would have cost more money.
Führerprinzip does need a (thankfully rare) Führer to make it work.
https://x.com/kamalaharris/status/1816760632982622245
Banning them is going to be as tough as banning guns in the US would be, I suspect. Just too many out there.
*Probably saying something pungent about idiots from Paris.
You'd have been happier if it was about batteries and sharks I suppose?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/europe-on-high-alert-after-suspected-moscow-linked-arson-and-sabotage
I know this because I know the industry and also because I had a long talk about it with Pascal the owner of several properties in my last village - the exquisite Compeyre
He said that until a few years ago almost no one came. Now there are a few Parisians buying summer houses and renting properties as they’ve realised it’s lovely - and empty - and not as insufferably hot as Provence or as pricey as trendy Brittany and the west coast
But, he said, they still get almost zero foreign tourists. The ones they do get tend to be Brits or Belgians etc briefly passing through en route to the Med
This is confirmed by my so-far near-zero encounters with non French people in a week of travelling around aveyron. This is late July. Peak season for European travel
They just called to say how much they care
Borked for suggesting the demolition of Wendover.
One of the reasons that's a bad place to be is that there is never time to pause, look round, and deal with the important issues. Because they're always trumped by the urgent ones.
(Everyone knows that spending more on capital, training and so on would pay off in 5-10 years. But when faced with an immediate problem, it's inevitable that money will get taken from the capital fund to deal.with it.)
I used to think what we needed was massive amount of housebuilding, but after I realised all the current massive growth in housebuilding is doing is keeping up with immigration, I can't see the point - we're just trashing the place so we can import more immigrants.
Unless? ...
Police and security forces need to learn how to knock these out, whether by lasers, ABMs, EMP pulses or whatever. If they don't events like the Olympics may become an unacceptable risk.
In 2024, Riley was subject to notoriety online after arguing in a July 9th opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that Kamala Harris would be the best Democratic candidate to run for President, only to reverse the position two weeks later and hours after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee arguing in another opinion piece for the Journal that Kamala Harris isn’t the change Democrats need.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L._Riley
Also, apparently adoption doesn't count for divan guy.
To have a chance to win therefore she needs a white male as VP candidate from a swing state, probably Shapiro, maybe Kelly. She is also fortunate the GOP picked the divisive Trump as nominee not the more centrist Haley who would be heading for a landslide
Because 'services' are almost everything you need. For instance, one excuse why we have not yet got a High Street is because the builders laid the services for the street not along the road, but along the space the shops were meant to be on. Meaning they need to be moved at massive expense if the land above is built on. Because of a balls-up in the plan. Without a plan, it would have happened much more.
Also if you have crammed houses into an area, where can the services go? How can you build a library in an area of dense housing? You need a plan to allow everything to function well. Water supply, sewage, power, Internet/comms, transport... these are all important, and utterly fail without a centralised plan.
You could still lay Michelle at around 60 for the nomination last night.
Would Kamala for President be better?
If you need to build more roads then build more roads, but if town is expanding there's no reason that new roads need to go into the existing town. Indeed a new road at the (current) edge of town can relieve pressure in the existing town and take transport from new houses built on the other side of that road then as the town expands in that direction.
1) Trump is not polling anywhere near H. Bush levels;
2) Harris is polling *considerably* better than Clinton in 1992. Who won.
It's not about the raw share, it's about the relative share.
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'
Bob says it all, as usual.
Very easily.
Indeed just as you can convert shops to houses (its being done in much of the country, you can do the other way around too if need be.
If town is expanding outwards, then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is. Which as town continues to expand it will not remain the edge either.
The builders for houses should only be building houses, not shops. The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications.
Imagine if this had happened in the UK in 2012 - the anger would have been immense.
J.D Vance Approval Polling:
Disapprove: 42%
Approve: 34%
Don't Know: 23%
YouGov / July 23, 2024 / n=1605
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1816617894127481109
The employee pays 5% (from gross)
Rotate around regions (eg Western Europe, US/Canada/Mexico, Asia Pacific, East Asia/Australasia, South America, Middle East etc) if you need to give it some form of geographic focus.
"The shops should have their own builders and fitters to lay down whatever they require, to their own specifications."
I'd hate to see how many times the road would need to be dug up, and where all the sh*t goes...
"... then there's no reason you can't invest in a new library on the new edge of town either, if that's where the demand is."
You can, but that assumes that that's where the demand all is. It also means you need transport links to the new library, and that requires... yes, you've guessed it:
PLANNING.
Everything requires planning if it is to be done well.
...Trump likely probably remains favourite.
That's taken before taper (unlike Student Loans) so reduces the taper, but doesn't help with taking money home if you're on a tight budget.
Recalculating the figures on say £25k on UC and with a Student Loan and Pension you now get:
Income Tax 20%
National Insurance 8%
Pension 5%
Taper (55%*67%) = 36.9%
Student Loans 9%
Total Deductions: 78.9%
Hardly worth going in for overtime/another shift when you'll only get 21.1% of whatever you earn in your payslip. And that's before considering any knock on consequences like dentistry, Council Tax, electricity and other things conditional on benefits.
Some criminal gangs do have guns but even there, machetes are more common and it is hard to see the use case for drones.
My point, to return to Leon's original post, is that I suspect the average French villager in Aveyron is going to be very upset by this attack on his or her country.
Thatcher had this right 40 years ago. Those who profit should pay. Developers make vast sums from housing and they should be the ones to contribute to the services that help them make those profits. Section 106 should be reformed but mostly to make the compulsion on builders stronger. They should be the ones carrying the burden not the tax payer.
The taxpayer will already be carrying the increased burden going forward for the actual staffing and running of those facilities. They should not be paying out for the actual infrastructure as well.
And that is my point. The relative share is what matters.
Evolution beats planning almost every time.
If requirements are changing, then adapt to them. But requirements don't only change when houses are built.
My grandad lives in a house he bought, when new build, in the 1970s with my late nan. At the time it was built it was all young families moving in and schools etc were required. Now everyone on the street seems to be a pensioner, either as they've stayed there since the 1970s, or increasingly commonly as the old inhabitants have passed away its a very popular area for old people to move to now.
If more investment is needed in care now, because of the changing demographics, should that have been planned for in the 1970s when it was built? Or should we adapt as changes happen.
“Astonishment more than cacophony at Montparnasse station. Several thousand travelers wait, stunned, and scrutinize the notice board where 90% of departures are pending #TGV @sudouest”
https://x.com/julienrousset/status/1816743301761933720?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
And it's a lot easier to build your own.
It's far from a niche activity - there are at least half a million registered users in the UK.
And probably a lot more unregistered.