This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Harriet Harman, long before t'internet was invented, with case law interpreting digital matters.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Oh the end result is that they may be paying the same amount but it's going to look absolutely horrendous - and it's going to have a whole set of unintended consequences.
so the best approach really would be x% of the current market value, something that wasn't possible in 1990 but is incredibly easy to do nowadays.
Disagree completely. The concept of council tax is sound, that the tax rates are set locally.
Anything involving a national scale of house prices will be massively distorted North to South, and East to West, and will leave tens of millions of people often significantly worse off to the tune of potentially tens of thousands of pounds a year.
What a revaluation will do is capture areas that have been significantly gentrified since 1991, for example parts of East London.
- 40% increase in theft from the person year-on-year - shoplifting at its highest level in 20 years, up 30% year-on-year - robbery up 8% year-on-year - computer misuse up 37%, 42% increase in stealing personal information"
Blimey. And Starmer's only been running the country a month.
He, or at least his Home Secretary, should obviously resign.
Overdue. Afterall, she's already been in post longer than Shapps was.
And almost as long as Braverman's first stint too.
Reminded of HYUFD gleefully posting the stats for the decline of the UK's economy in comparison with others, the other day, and crowing how it proved Labour was shite or words to that effect. But failing to spot that the data period ended in 2023.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Harriet Harman, long before t'internet was invented, with case law interpreting digital matters.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Oh the end result is that they may be paying the same amount but it's going to look absolutely horrendous - and it's going to have a whole set of unintended consequences.
so the best approach really would be x% of the current market value, something that wasn't possible in 1990 but is incredibly easy to do nowadays.
Disagree completely. The concept of council tax is sound, that the tax rates are set locally.
Anything involving a national scale of house prices will be massively distorted North to South, and East to West, and will leave tens of millions of people often significantly worse off to the tune of potentially tens of thousands of pounds a year.
What a revaluation will do is capture areas that have been significantly gentrified since 1991, for example parts of East London.
So what?
Why shouldn't those who've seen gains in prices because they've objected to construction near them pay the cost of their choices? I lack a violin small enough.
Taxes that mean people are better off if land value goes down and pay more tax if it goes up would correct an imbalance in the market currently and mean there's no opting out of facing the consequences of ever-higher prices just because you happened to buy a long time ago.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
That's way more worth though and open to major arguments. There is very little you can argue about if you are being asked to pay tax based on the price you bought a property for...
Remember I get a ringside seat via Eek Twin A on the arguments used to revalue commercial property and there are times the arguments are so stupid they manage to make 2 points that contradict each other...
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
That's way more worth though and open to major arguments. There is very little you can argue about if you are being asked to pay tax based on the price you bought a property for...
There's arguments either way.
On the price you bought it for, or the price others bought similar ones nearby for, for instance.
Someone who moved into a house yesterday shouldn't pay any more than someone who moved into the same house next door 40 years ago.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Firstly, you need to distinguish arrest and conviction. Even where something isn't a strict liability offence, you can be arrested on suspicion. If, say, I'm found in your house late at night without your permission, I might reasonably be arrested on suspicion of burglary - it might turn out I'm a sleepwalker who came in through an open door and had no intention to steal, but it's not an unreasonable suspicion for Police to hold that I'm a burglar.
Secondly, you'd not be convicted as its strict liability in the sense the Crown don't need to prove intent BUT there are statutory defences (i.e. the burden of proof is effectively flipped). One of these is "legitimate reason" and that's pretty obviously made out when it's a picture of yourself or a family photo.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
The CPS wouldn’t prosecute in such a case. And, of course, the judge in their sentencing has a lot of room.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Your suggestion would make living anywhere near London significantly more expensive than it is already.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
Every year you get owners to self-value. The trick is they have to sell at that price if someone offers them the money…
isn't that what Donald Trump did?
I think he was coming up with different values depending on who asked.
While you are here, I think you might be interested in this, which is the entire text of one of my grandmother’s finals paper for her history degree. I found it while going though some of her old books.
ESSAYS. THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. HONOURS SCHOOL OF HISTORY. PART II. V. June 7th, 1929, 9-45-12-45. Write an Essay on one of the following subjects : Livery and Uniform. The Alps in History. Diplomacy: Historical Impartiality. Poetry and Politics.
Firstly whites are clearly not the least criminal ethnic group. Black people at 4% of the overall population are 12% of the prison population Alarmingly among under 18s, they are 30% of the prison population. There are several times more Muslims in prison than there are people of all other minority religions combined.
When you actually think about the diversity of the black and Muslim population you might argue lumping them all together is unwise. But it does suggest trouble within SOME black and SOME Muslim communities.
One probably should control for age and sex. I.e., young men and disproportionately criminal. If most of the people of type [x] are young men, then that could skew numbers quite a lot.
… and poverty, or index of multiple deprivation.
Not sure on that one.
Some people want to deliberately import people on unskilled low wages, precisely because they don't want to pay a higher wage or see costs go up.
If that's happening as a matter of policy, I'm not sure it should be controlled for in analysis. It's right perhaps to say this is a problem and paying higher wages rather than importing people to work on minimum wage may be required.
The analysis was of ethnicity (and religion), not on immigration status. Most people not identifying as White in the UK are not immigrants.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
I believe 0.7% would be more than enough to eliminate both Stamp Duty and Council Tax, so £7k.
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Your suggestion would make living anywhere near London significantly more expensive than it is already.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
Why not - provided we provide a solution that allows those unable to pay it immediately to pay it later when the house was sold.
We've argued over the need to have a wealth tax for years and the only sane way to do that is to attach it to an item that isn't particularly mobile (i.e. property).
Every year you get owners to self-value. The trick is they have to sell at that price if someone offers them the money…
isn't that what Donald Trump did?
I think he was coming up with different values depending on who asked.
While you are here, I think you might be interested in this, which is the entire text of one of my grandmother’s finals paper for her history degree. I found it while going though some of her old books.
ESSAYS. THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. HONOURS SCHOOL OF HISTORY. PART II. V. June 7th, 1929, 9-45-12-45. Write an Essay on one of the following subjects : Livery and Uniform. The Alps in History. Diplomacy: Historical Impartiality. Poetry and Politics.
Edited to delete an extraneous “l’m”.
Gosh. Three hours on one of those. Fun...
I think I'd go for 'historical impartiality' on the grounds that it's easy to demonstrate, contrary to Ranke's naivety, that it doesn't exist.
Every year you get owners to self-value. The trick is they have to sell at that price if someone offers them the money…
isn't that what Donald Trump did?
He did the first bit - if New York had implemented the second bit - Trump would have had to sell his properties immediately as other people sought a bargain.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
A problem with that is that it is illegal to show the image to a jury. They are just told that an expert has deemed it to be a category 1 or 5 etc image.
That's not the case as there is a statutory defence in relation to making images for the purposes of criminal proceedings.
It's fair to say courts are cautious about it, as they are for other upsetting material. Often, the defence and prosecution will agree on the category of material so there is absolutely no need to show the jury - court cases don't dwell on agreed facts.Partly, it's just a bad look for a defendant to sit there while the jury look at an upsetting image and lawyers quibble over the category, so there is a strong incentive to agree on category.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
The judge would explain the law to the jury, who would almost certainly convict.
Jury nullification is very rare in this country - not completely unknown but generally juries follow the direction of the judge on the law. Insisting on a jury trial in the hope that a jury will find you not guilty of a crime you are clearly guilty of is a high risk strategy that occasionally works for sympathetic defendants.
Note that the sentencing guidelines are public & are reasonably lenient to first time / borderline offenders: Edwards’ lawyers would have a good idea of the likely sentence that he would be given before they even entered the courtroom.
I've just passed a prominent and what I think (?) is a mildly uplifting graffito in Manchester City Centre: "Unite Allah and Jahweh!" Which I'm interpreting as a call for greater understanding between Muslim and Jew. I feel very tempted to add "That would be an ecumenical matter."
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
Every year you get owners to self-value. The trick is they have to sell at that price if someone offers them the money…
isn't that what Donald Trump did?
I think he was coming up with different values depending on who asked.
While you are here, I think you might be interested in this, which is the entire text of one of my grandmother’s finals paper for her history degree. I found it while going though some of her old books.
ESSAYS. THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. HONOURS SCHOOL OF HISTORY. PART II. V. June 7th, 1929, 9-45-12-45. Write an Essay on one of the following subjects : Livery and Uniform. The Alps in History. Diplomacy: Historical Impartiality. Poetry and Politics.
Edited to delete an extraneous “l’m”.
Gosh. Three hours on one of those. Fun...
I think I'd go for 'historical impartiality' on the grounds that it's easy to demonstrate, contrary to Ranke's naivety, that it doesn't exist.
I think my grandmother went for Diplomacy, though I’m not sure.
The openness of the questions would be a shock for modern students I think. You would also have difficulty getting ChatGTP to give you anything useful I expect.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
Actually, I don't credit the likes of the Southport mob with the ability to do the strategic thinking to go round creating anything. Russians create conspiracy theories. Racists just happily feed on them.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I remember that at the time, and to be honest I didn't disagree with him. I thought she should be sympathised with. But she was lauded like a champion. It was an odd moment. Still, 2020 and its aftermath was a pretty odd time.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
The judge would explain the law to the jury, who would almost certainly convict.
Jury nullification is very rare in this country - not completely unknown but generally juries follow the direction of the judge on the law. Insisting on a jury trial in the hope that a jury will find you not guilty of a crime you are clearly guilty of is a high risk strategy that occasionally works for sympathetic defendants.
Note that the sentencing guidelines are public & are reasonably lenient to first time / borderline offenders: Edwards’ lawyers would have a good idea of the likely sentence that he would be given before they even entered the courtroom.
No, this isn't right. There can be statutory defences to a strict liability offence (i.e. prosecution don't need to prove mens rea beyond reasonable doubt but defence can say on the balance of probabilities that a statutory defence applies. That's the case here, and one statutory defence is legitimate reason and a parent having a picture is very likely to constitute a legitimate reason.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
I'm not convinced the social media conspiracy theorists are all racists.
I think a lot of the noise is from bad actors which then results in actual racists getting angry. We've seen this before - eg with the racist stuff posted about footballers which when examined comes 95% from overseas.
In this case conspiracies seem to have died off a bit because a more believable story has done the rounds.
How do we stop the trolls? A licence to use the internet with Digital ID for everyone? I'm not sure I want to live on that planet.
One minor point though - if 16 year olds are going to get the vote, should that change any other age boundaries?
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
A problem with that is that it is illegal to show the image to a jury. They are just told that an expert has deemed it to be a category 1 or 5 etc image.
That's not the case as there is a statutory defence in relation to making images for the purposes of criminal proceedings.
It's fair to say courts are cautious about it, as they are for other upsetting material. Often, the defence and prosecution will agree on the category of material so there is absolutely no need to show the jury - court cases don't dwell on agreed facts.Partly, it's just a bad look for a defendant to sit there while the jury look at an upsetting image and lawyers quibble over the category, so there is a strong incentive to agree on category.
Hopefully things are better done than during the witchhunts at the turn of the century when thousands were rounded up after US authorities busted a paywalled website and send the credit card details of UK creditcard holders on their books to Scotland Yard.
This resulted in thousands being raided in the night and arrested and having their computers examined, where they found nothing, they did them for "inciting distribution" based on the US company having their credit card numbers and them being done because they were unable to prove their credit card had been hacked/stolen. Lots of ruined marriages and suicides resulted.
I would like to think the CPS wouldn't charge in the situations you mention but, unless you can afford expensive lawyers, you are wholly at their mercy and you only need an individual who has an axe to grind or a target to meet or sees it all as a "game" they have to win mentality and game over.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
And anything that increases what the Government ends up paying is definitely not going to last 30 seconds with the current state of the Governments budget. remember Bozo / Rishi's fix for social care was to add 2.5% to employer & employee NI. And then instead of it increasing by 2.5%, Hunt reduced employee NI by 4% using every trick in the book to justify the unafforded tax cut.
I remember that at the time, and to be honest I didn't disagree with him. I thought she should be sympathised with. But she was lauded like a champion. It was an odd moment. Still, 2020 and its aftermath was a pretty odd time.
He'd prefer that we encourage people not to be open about mental health issues ?
This is also the guy who argues it's best for kids for women to stay in violently abusive marriages.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
I'm not convinced the social media conspiracy theorists are all racists.
I think a lot of the noise is from bad actors which then results in actual racists getting angry. We've seen this before - eg with the racist stuff posted about footballers which when examined comes 95% from overseas.
In this case conspiracies seem to have died off a bit because a more believable story has done the rounds.
How do we stop the trolls? A licence to use the internet with Digital ID for everyone? I'm not sure I want to live on that planet.
One minor point though - if 16 year olds are going to get the vote, should that change any other age boundaries?
Social media companies need to do more to crack down on bad actors and statements that are libellous. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t need radical change.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Firstly, you need to distinguish arrest and conviction. Even where something isn't a strict liability offence, you can be arrested on suspicion. If, say, I'm found in your house late at night without your permission, I might reasonably be arrested on suspicion of burglary - it might turn out I'm a sleepwalker who came in through an open door and had no intention to steal, but it's not an unreasonable suspicion for Police to hold that I'm a burglar.
Secondly, you'd not be convicted as its strict liability in the sense the Crown don't need to prove intent BUT there are statutory defences (i.e. the burden of proof is effectively flipped). One of these is "legitimate reason" and that's pretty obviously made out when it's a picture of yourself or a family photo.
This is all true but a difficulty remains. In the curerent climate there is limited trust in all levels of state authority to act sensibly and rationally in this entire area. So it is possible to imagine almost anyone finding themselves subject to a random witch hunt on the part of zealous police/prosecutors etc.
And also, in the current climate, once an allegation is made or arrest or interview under caution, then in many communities you are from that point on a pariah for ever, whatever the outcome and however innocent you are.
Which is why pictures which only a few yeas ago were innocent and charming - baby bath time and all that, shared among loving and admiring family - may now be unwise. And as for the family archive, digital and otherwise going back decades of bath, baby and small yellow duck, it is hard to know what to say.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
The judge would explain the law to the jury, who would almost certainly convict.
Jury nullification is very rare in this country - not completely unknown but generally juries follow the direction of the judge on the law. Insisting on a jury trial in the hope that a jury will find you not guilty of a crime you are clearly guilty of is a high risk strategy that occasionally works for sympathetic defendants.
Note that the sentencing guidelines are public & are reasonably lenient to first time / borderline offenders: Edwards’ lawyers would have a good idea of the likely sentence that he would be given before they even entered the courtroom.
No, this isn't right. There can be statutory defences to a strict liability offence (i.e. prosecution don't need to prove mens rea beyond reasonable doubt but defence can say on the balance of probabilities that a statutory defence applies. That's the case here, and one statutory defence is legitimate reason and a parent having a picture is very likely to constitute a legitimate reason.
I was assuming that Barty’s “not done anything untoward” implied that the person prosecuted was unable to avail themselves of any of the statutory defences.
Eg, one could reasonably argue that the police chief we discussed earlier had “not done anything untoward” yet she was still prosecuted & found guilty, no matter how unfair that seems.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
I'm not convinced the social media conspiracy theorists are all racists.
I think a lot of the noise is from bad actors which then results in actual racists getting angry. We've seen this before - eg with the racist stuff posted about footballers which when examined comes 95% from overseas.
In this case conspiracies seem to have died off a bit because a more believable story has done the rounds.
How do we stop the trolls? A licence to use the internet with Digital ID for everyone? I'm not sure I want to live on that planet.
One minor point though - if 16 year olds are going to get the vote, should that change any other age boundaries?
Social media companies need to do more to crack down on bad actors and statements that are libellous. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t need radical change.
Knowing who is a bad actor and who isn't is hard.
Admittedly X and other social media companies probably also don't want to admit that 80% of their 'users' are fictional but getting 100% accuracy on that is near impossible.
Also, what do you do when a statement is legal in one country but not another?
Firstly whites are clearly not the least criminal ethnic group. Black people at 4% of the overall population are 12% of the prison population Alarmingly among under 18s, they are 30% of the prison population. There are several times more Muslims in prison than there are people of all other minority religions combined.
When you actually think about the diversity of the black and Muslim population you might argue lumping them all together is unwise. But it does suggest trouble within SOME black and SOME Muslim communities.
One probably should control for age and sex. I.e., young men and disproportionately criminal. If most of the people of type [x] are young men, then that could skew numbers quite a lot.
… and poverty, or index of multiple deprivation.
The figures on sex were not provided. Black people are 5% of under 18s according to those ONS figures.
Of course you can control for other factors but then ask the question why are (x) so much more likely to be in poverty etc?
Here's Tony Blair in 2007 talking about black culture and crime. Political correctness not helping apparently.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
I've lost track, and can no longer see the point.
Point of order, the key conflict point at Colwich Junction is a Diamond Crossing not a set of Points. Oh yes.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
I've lost track, and can no longer see the point.
Point of order, the key conflict point at Colwich Junction is a Diamond Crossing not a set of Points. Oh yes.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
It's been difficult.
We've been helped by the fact that at night it's been kept up by sleeper agents.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
Though presumably if someone could reasonably demonstrate that they had not done anything untoward and it reached the court they could request a jury trial and the jury could in theory apply common sense and acquit them?
One would hope so, but my understanding is that certain defences are not allowed.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
That people might decide sod-it, take their pension in cash, sell up and blow that on their savings on a luxury lifestyle, then when the money runs out live the rest of their lives on benefits and get that and all their care paid for by the state.
Moral Hazard.
That said the 86,000 cap was useless anyway as you had to be really wealthy to avoid it (noting that it didnt include "hotel" costs).
What has gone with it is the lower means teating limit going up from 14k to 20k and the upper means testing limit going up from 23k to 100k
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
The downside is moral hazard. Why save when those who haven't saved get the same treatment for free?
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
I've lost track, and can no longer see the point.
Point of order, the key conflict point at Colwich Junction is a Diamond Crossing not a set of Points. Oh yes.
#Colwichgate
So I had that bit right, then ?
It might be one of those switchable diamond crossings they use on faster lines which could get into all sorts of Tram / Train / Filioque arguments.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
That people might decide sod-it, take their pension in cash, sell up and blow that on their savings on a luxury lifestyle, then when the money runs out live the rest of their lives on benefits and get that and all their care paid for by the state.
Moral Hazard.
That said the 86,000 cap was useless anyway as you had to be really wealthy to avoid it (noting that it didnt include "hotel" costs).
What has gone with it is the lower means teating limit going up from 14k to 20k and the upper means testing limit going up from 23k to 100k
What are annual social care costs? Fair number of people do rent properties out when someone goes into care. If a house costs £300,000 what is the rental income per year? £15,000? State pension of £10,000 plus usually some more pension of £5-10,000?
Alternatively sell the property and put the money in a savings account and get £10-15,000 per year. I'm also seeing that happen a bit now.
To be totally clear, I did not say this was an issue in Southport barbarism. Indeed, as I explained to @Iromg, rush to opportunistically link that tragedy to a local mosque was gruesome/wrong-headed. As were riots. However, we need to understand & discuss openly reasons why there's a general sense of public frustration, fury & fear about a sense of lawlessness and double-standards @TalkTV"
This seems to be a new take from the British Right (I've heard similar on here): 'Look, I'm not saying ethnic minorities are to blame for all the country's ills, but the fact that a lot of the natives think that way means their very presence is in some way to blame for the national mood of disquiet.'
In all fairness, I've also seen this line of argument used by the American woke - e.g. in the Jussie Smollett case - i.e. the fact that I even thought his attack might be genuine shows that there is a problem. And it's equally nonsensical there.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Buried in all this, somewhere, is a sensible point.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Racists on social media create conspiracy theories. Let’s do something about that before upending mechanisms to ensure a fair trial.
I'm not convinced the social media conspiracy theorists are all racists.
I think a lot of the noise is from bad actors which then results in actual racists getting angry. We've seen this before - eg with the racist stuff posted about footballers which when examined comes 95% from overseas.
In this case conspiracies seem to have died off a bit because a more believable story has done the rounds.
How do we stop the trolls? A licence to use the internet with Digital ID for everyone? I'm not sure I want to live on that planet.
One minor point though - if 16 year olds are going to get the vote, should that change any other age boundaries?
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Firstly, you need to distinguish arrest and conviction. Even where something isn't a strict liability offence, you can be arrested on suspicion. If, say, I'm found in your house late at night without your permission, I might reasonably be arrested on suspicion of burglary - it might turn out I'm a sleepwalker who came in through an open door and had no intention to steal, but it's not an unreasonable suspicion for Police to hold that I'm a burglar.
Secondly, you'd not be convicted as its strict liability in the sense the Crown don't need to prove intent BUT there are statutory defences (i.e. the burden of proof is effectively flipped). One of these is "legitimate reason" and that's pretty obviously made out when it's a picture of yourself or a family photo.
This is all true but a difficulty remains. In the curerent climate there is limited trust in all levels of state authority to act sensibly and rationally in this entire area. So it is possible to imagine almost anyone finding themselves subject to a random witch hunt on the part of zealous police/prosecutors etc.
And also, in the current climate, once an allegation is made or arrest or interview under caution, then in many communities you are from that point on a pariah for ever, whatever the outcome and however innocent you are.
Which is why pictures which only a few yeas ago were innocent and charming - baby bath time and all that, shared among loving and admiring family - may now be unwise. And as for the family archive, digital and otherwise going back decades of bath, baby and small yellow duck, it is hard to know what to say.
The state failing to act reasonably isn't a problem specific to strict liability offences though. You could be charged with any manner of criminal offence if the Police don't listen to you and continue to investigate, CPS don't listen to you and decide to prosecute, and judge doesn't listen to you and won't dismiss the case. You may end up with the matter being argued out in court in front of a jury or magistrate.
Certainly, strict liability offences require less of the prosecution. However, as I say there are statutory defences for some statutory offences and if you can persuade the Police, CPS, judge or jury that one applies to your case, that's it.
In terms of whether there should be strict liability offences, the argument is the same as when they were first introduced to deal with the inability of the criminal law to deal with factory owners playing fast and loose with safety. There are categories of offence where placing the burden on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt what was in someone's mind is so difficult it is contrary to the public interest to have the burden on them rather than the defence. That can be because the offence is trivial (nobody would get a parking ticket if you had to go to court to prove beyond reasonable doubt they'd seen and understood the sign rather than just they were parked in a restricted area). Or it can be because the nature of the offence is serious and the nature of the offending makes circumstantial evidence of mental state scarce.
In this case, it's really hard to prevent the creepy uncle nobody has ever trusted, and his friends, sharing images without making it a bit more risky for doting parents - although the reality is the doting parents are a lot safer than this thread has suggested.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
That people might decide sod-it, take their pension in cash, sell up and blow that on their savings on a luxury lifestyle, then when the money runs out live the rest of their lives on benefits and get that and all their care paid for by the state.
Moral Hazard.
That said the 86,000 cap was useless anyway as you had to be really wealthy to avoid it (noting that it didnt include "hotel" costs).
What has gone with it is the lower means teating limit going up from 14k to 20k and the upper means testing limit going up from 23k to 100k
C'est la vie.
If they make that choice, they make that choice.
Similarly if we tax working people too much, they may decide "sod it" and not work.
Which at the cliff edges absolutely does happen.
If there's money going to reduce moral hazard, I'd rather it go to fixing our broken tax system for those working for a living, than to protect the assets of those who are not.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
I believe 0.7% would be more than enough to eliminate both Stamp Duty and Council Tax, so £7k.
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
Essentially this is replacing a capped ~ 0.3% council tax (averaged over the country ish) + a very unevenly distributed national property tax that only falls on house buyers with a 0.3% council tax + a 0.4% property tax.
The only quibble I would add is that, if such a change is made, people who have recently moved should have their stamp duty counted as a prepayment of the property tax element for the relevant number of years. Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to doubly tax people who have just moved who are almost certainly at the time in their lives when their finances are most stretched already.
Otherwise it’s clearly the economically correct thing to do & will push older people living in homes that are far too big to downsize which can only be a good thing.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
The downside is moral hazard. Why save when those who haven't saved get the same treatment for free?
Why work if all your earnings are taken off you?
Lets fix those cliff edges first, before we fix theoreticals.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
The downside is moral hazard. Why save when those who haven't saved get the same treatment for free?
In which case you better fix the housing market quickly. Because if you are 40/50 years old there is zero point saving for a pension only to see the money disappear in rent..
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
I've lost track, and can no longer see the point.
Point of order, the key conflict point at Colwich Junction is a Diamond Crossing not a set of Points. Oh yes.
#Colwichgate
So I had that bit right, then ?
It might be one of those switchable diamond crossings they use on faster lines which could get into all sorts of Tram / Train / Filioque arguments.
Eh, they had the argument in Roman times? But I shoulkd have remembered ...
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
I believe 0.7% would be more than enough to eliminate both Stamp Duty and Council Tax, so £7k.
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
Essentially this is replacing a capped ~ 0.3% council tax (averaged over the country ish) + a very unevenly distributed national property tax that only falls on house buyers with a 0.3% council tax + a 0.4% property tax.
The only quibble I would add is that, if such a change is made, people who have recently moved should have their stamp duty counted as a prepayment of the property tax element for the relevant number of years. Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to doubly tax people who have just moved who are almost certainly at the time in their lives when their finances are most stretched already.
Otherwise it’s clearly the economically correct thing to do & will push older people living in homes that are far too big to downsize which can only be a good thing.
Good catch - any stamp duty paid in the past year (tapering down to by 20% for the past 5 years) should be included as an allowance for the property tax part. I would equally restrict it to 5 years maximum but it's not a massive concession to make things plausible.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
I believe 0.7% would be more than enough to eliminate both Stamp Duty and Council Tax, so £7k.
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
Essentially this is replacing a capped ~ 0.3% council tax (averaged over the country ish) + a very unevenly distributed national property tax that only falls on house buyers with a 0.3% council tax + a 0.4% property tax.
The only quibble I would add is that, if such a change is made, people who have recently moved should have their stamp duty counted as a prepayment of the property tax element for the relevant number of years. Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to doubly tax people who have just moved who are almost certainly at the time in their lives when their finances are most stretched already.
Otherwise it’s clearly the economically correct thing to do & will push older people living in homes that are far too big to downsize which can only be a good thing.
That's a very reasonable point and amendment. Quite happy to agree to that, as a sensible transitional arrangement.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
The social care issue has been kicked down the road since at least 1997. The Blair government set up the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care otherwise known as the Sutherland commission. Every government and PM has continued to kick the issue into touch.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
In a time of rising prices, it's a big disincentive on people to move houses - much better to keep that valuation of 30 years ago. Also a huge penalty on people in the better areas of the country.
I think a local VAT is the way forward for local government finance. It can be added on to exisiting VAT and it would encourage healthy competition between boroughs to deliver the lowest rates.
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
I've lost track, and can no longer see the point.
Point of order, the key conflict point at Colwich Junction is a Diamond Crossing not a set of Points. Oh yes.
#Colwichgate
So I had that bit right, then ?
It might be one of those switchable diamond crossings they use on faster lines which could get into all sorts of Tram / Train / Filioque arguments.
Eh, they had the argument in Roman times? But I shoulkd have remembered ...
Comments
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
Anything involving a national scale of house prices will be massively distorted North to South, and East to West, and will leave tens of millions of people often significantly worse off to the tune of potentially tens of thousands of pounds a year.
What a revaluation will do is capture areas that have been significantly gentrified since 1991, for example parts of East London.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
Also, didn't Claire Fox used to be a raving communist?
Why shouldn't those who've seen gains in prices because they've objected to construction near them pay the cost of their choices? I lack a violin small enough.
Taxes that mean people are better off if land value goes down and pay more tax if it goes up would correct an imbalance in the market currently and mean there's no opting out of facing the consequences of ever-higher prices just because you happened to buy a long time ago.
No interesting idea yet. Unless you think she might win Florida.
Remember I get a ringside seat via Eek Twin A on the arguments used to revalue commercial property and there are times the arguments are so stupid they manage to make 2 points that contradict each other...
Kelly out to 6.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
On the price you bought it for, or the price others bought similar ones nearby for, for instance.
Someone who moved into a house yesterday shouldn't pay any more than someone who moved into the same house next door 40 years ago.
That is - redacting details about such incidents, while publishing others, creates the starting point for the conspiracy theories and then the violence.
We need to get ahead of the lies by publishing the truth faster.
Secondly, you'd not be convicted as its strict liability in the sense the Crown don't need to prove intent BUT there are statutory defences (i.e. the burden of proof is effectively flipped). One of these is "legitimate reason" and that's pretty obviously made out when it's a picture of yourself or a family photo.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
WATCH: JD Vance go after GOAT Simone Biles after she withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo #Olympics
"I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people, not for moments of strength... but for their weakest moments."
https://x.com/American_Bridge/status/1818363346225447389
While you are here, I think you might be interested in this, which is the entire text of one of my grandmother’s finals paper for her history degree. I found it while going though some of her old books.
ESSAYS.
THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER.
HONOURS SCHOOL OF HISTORY.
PART II.
V.
June 7th, 1929, 9-45-12-45.
Write an Essay on one of the following subjects :
Livery and Uniform.
The Alps in History.
Diplomacy:
Historical Impartiality.
Poetry and Politics.
Edited to delete an extraneous “l’m”.
Rep 1.71
Dem 2.46
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.178176964
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
We've argued over the need to have a wealth tax for years and the only sane way to do that is to attach it to an item that isn't particularly mobile (i.e. property).
Cutting out bacon and sausages ‘could reduce dementia risk’
Researchers found that swapping meat for plant-based proteins such as nuts helps to prevent the disease
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/cutting-out-bacon-and-sausages-could-reduce-dementia-risk-3b2x9bgvd
Now back to a meeting on capital adequacy requirements and reporting.
I think I'd go for 'historical impartiality' on the grounds that it's easy to demonstrate, contrary to Ranke's naivety, that it doesn't exist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng50pj2l8o
That's nuts.
Facking hell, accountants are the most boring people in the world.
It's fair to say courts are cautious about it, as they are for other upsetting material. Often, the defence and prosecution will agree on the category of material so there is absolutely no need to show the jury - court cases don't dwell on agreed facts.Partly, it's just a bad look for a defendant to sit there while the jury look at an upsetting image and lawyers quibble over the category, so there is a strong incentive to agree on category.
"That was some weird shit," George W. Bush said of Trump's inauguration,
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/847286695863107584
Jury nullification is very rare in this country - not completely unknown but generally juries follow the direction of the judge on the law. Insisting on a jury trial in the hope that a jury will find you not guilty of a crime you are clearly guilty of is a high risk strategy that occasionally works for sympathetic defendants.
Note that the sentencing guidelines are public & are reasonably lenient to first time / borderline offenders: Edwards’ lawyers would have a good idea of the likely sentence that he would be given before they even entered the courtroom.
I feel very tempted to add "That would be an ecumenical matter."
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
The openness of the questions would be a shock for modern students I think. You would also have difficulty getting ChatGTP to give you anything useful I expect.
I thought she should be sympathised with. But she was lauded like a champion. It was an odd moment. Still, 2020 and its aftermath was a pretty odd time.
https://x.com/EugeneDaniels2/status/1818446340570923098
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/30/this-is-just-the-start-of-labour-war-on-pensioners/
Cultural Decay Can Hardly Go Further
On France’s sordid Olympic spectacle"
https://www.city-journal.org/article/on-frances-sordid-olympic-spectacle
I think a lot of the noise is from bad actors which then results in actual racists getting angry. We've seen this before - eg with the racist stuff posted about footballers which when examined comes 95% from overseas.
In this case conspiracies seem to have died off a bit because a more believable story has done the rounds.
How do we stop the trolls? A licence to use the internet with Digital ID for everyone? I'm not sure I want to live on that planet.
One minor point though - if 16 year olds are going to get the vote, should that change any other age boundaries?
This resulted in thousands being raided in the night and arrested and having their computers examined, where they found nothing, they did them for "inciting distribution" based on the US company having their credit card numbers and them being done because they were unable to prove their credit card had been hacked/stolen. Lots of ruined marriages and suicides resulted.
I would like to think the CPS wouldn't charge in the situations you mention but, unless you can afford expensive lawyers, you are wholly at their mercy and you only need an individual who has an axe to grind or a target to meet or sees it all as a "game" they have to win mentality and game over.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
And anything that increases what the Government ends up paying is definitely not going to last 30 seconds with the current state of the Governments budget. remember Bozo / Rishi's fix for social care was to add 2.5% to employer & employee NI. And then instead of it increasing by 2.5%, Hunt reduced employee NI by 4% using every trick in the book to justify the unafforded tax cut.
This is also the guy who argues it's best for kids for women to stay in violently abusive marriages.
Something of a pattern there.
And also, in the current climate, once an allegation is made or arrest or interview under caution, then in many communities you are from that point on a pariah for ever, whatever the outcome and however innocent you are.
Which is why pictures which only a few yeas ago were innocent and charming - baby bath time and all that, shared among loving and admiring family - may now be unwise. And as for the family archive, digital and otherwise going back decades of bath, baby and small yellow duck, it is hard to know what to say.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Eg, one could reasonably argue that the police chief we discussed earlier had “not done anything untoward” yet she was still prosecuted & found guilty, no matter how unfair that seems.
Admittedly X and other social media companies probably also don't want to admit that 80% of their 'users' are fictional but getting 100% accuracy on that is near impossible.
Also, what do you do when a statement is legal in one country but not another?
Of course you can control for other factors but then ask the question why are (x) so much more likely to be in poverty etc?
Here's Tony Blair in 2007 talking about black culture and crime. Political correctness not helping apparently.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race
Here's Obama talking about absent black fathers.
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/obama-talks-tough-on-awol-fathers-011096
Would any mainstream figure say this now?
#Colwichgate
We've been helped by the fact that at night it's been kept up by sleeper agents.
Moral Hazard.
That said the 86,000 cap was useless anyway as you had to be really wealthy to avoid it (noting that it didnt include "hotel" costs).
What has gone with it is the lower means teating limit going up from 14k to 20k and the upper means testing limit going up from 23k to 100k
Alternatively sell the property and put the money in a savings account and get £10-15,000 per year. I'm also seeing that happen a bit now.
Certainly, strict liability offences require less of the prosecution. However, as I say there are statutory defences for some statutory offences and if you can persuade the Police, CPS, judge or jury that one applies to your case, that's it.
In terms of whether there should be strict liability offences, the argument is the same as when they were first introduced to deal with the inability of the criminal law to deal with factory owners playing fast and loose with safety. There are categories of offence where placing the burden on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt what was in someone's mind is so difficult it is contrary to the public interest to have the burden on them rather than the defence. That can be because the offence is trivial (nobody would get a parking ticket if you had to go to court to prove beyond reasonable doubt they'd seen and understood the sign rather than just they were parked in a restricted area). Or it can be because the nature of the offence is serious and the nature of the offending makes circumstantial evidence of mental state scarce.
In this case, it's really hard to prevent the creepy uncle nobody has ever trusted, and his friends, sharing images without making it a bit more risky for doting parents - although the reality is the doting parents are a lot safer than this thread has suggested.
If they make that choice, they make that choice.
Similarly if we tax working people too much, they may decide "sod it" and not work.
Which at the cliff edges absolutely does happen.
If there's money going to reduce moral hazard, I'd rather it go to fixing our broken tax system for those working for a living, than to protect the assets of those who are not.
The only quibble I would add is that, if such a change is made, people who have recently moved should have their stamp duty counted as a prepayment of the property tax element for the relevant number of years. Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to doubly tax people who have just moved who are almost certainly at the time in their lives when their finances are most stretched already.
Otherwise it’s clearly the economically correct thing to do & will push older people living in homes that are far too big to downsize which can only be a good thing.
Lets fix those cliff edges first, before we fix theoreticals.
https://x.com/OptimoPrincipi/status/1302641014310604802
Completely pointless, but you watch on the off-chance someone bins it in spectacular fashion...
I think a local VAT is the way forward for local government finance. It can be added on to exisiting VAT and it would encourage healthy competition between boroughs to deliver the lowest rates.
Hungary blocks EU bid for unified statement on Venezuela election
https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-block-eu-statement-venezuela-election-results-foreign-policy-josep-borrell/