I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
Just been reading about the museum Georgian garden at Royal Circus, Bath. The Circus was done like that - as was the New Town of Edinburgh. But both with strict planning policies applied.
East Cambridgeshire ranks 16th by starts and 21st by completions according to my calculations out of 309 council areas, so it's one of the few pulling it's weight on housing.
May I ask where South Cambridgeshire is on that list? I'd expect it to be high, as it includes both us and Northstowe.
12th for both starts and completions. (0.65 & 0.66%) - data is 2018 -> 2023.
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, if the Tories are going to rebuild it doesn’t harm them to protect their right flank from Reform in the first instance. And therefore choosing a candidate of the right is not the worst tactical move they could make.
I personally would be exceptionally unlikely to support or vote for them, but let’s not pretend that the Tories are going to snap back into competent centrism any time soon. There’s no candidate who can convincingly offer that.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
Th Hartlipudlians choice (in order) 3 Remainers 3 Leavers
1. Patel (Bring back hanging-Leaver) 2. Jenrick (Rwanda paint over kiddies cartoons ) 3. Badenoch (Leaver Rwanda bring back the birch (probably) Hanging (unconfirmed) 4. Cleverly (Rwanda Leaver) 5 Tugendhat (Leave the ECHR Rwanda) 6. Stride (A big softie in the wrong Party)
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, if the Tories are going to rebuild it doesn’t harm them to protect their right flank from Reform in the first instance. And therefore choosing a candidate of the right is not the worst tactical move they could make.
I personally would be exceptionally unlikely to support or vote for them, but let’s not pretend that the Tories are going to snap back into competent centrism any time soon. There’s no candidate who can convincingly offer that.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
1/ The thing about Trump's disastrous trash fire appearance at @NABJ yesterday that seems missing in the overt racism, pandering to his alt-white base, and typical mendacity is how utterly lost, weak, pissy, and small he is outside the MAGA media ecosystem.
and pondering how Tory politicians will fare without a rabid press echoing their bullshit
Th Hartlipudlians choice (in order) 3 Remainers 3 Leavers
1. Patel (Bring back hanging-Leaver) 2. Jenrick (Rwanda paint over kiddies cartoons ) 3. Badenoch (Leaver Rwanda bring back the birch (probably) Hanging (unconfirmed) 4. Cleverly (Rwanda Leaver) 5 Tugendhat (Leave the ECHR Rwanda) 6. Stride (A big softie in the wrong Party)
Four leavers in your list.
You need to give Roge some room for artistic licence.
Th Hartlipudlians choice (in order) 3 Remainers 3 Leavers
1. Patel (Bring back hanging-Leaver) 2. Jenrick (Rwanda paint over kiddies cartoons ) 3. Badenoch (Leaver Rwanda bring back the birch (probably) Hanging (unconfirmed) 4. Cleverly (Rwanda Leaver) 5 Tugendhat (Leave the ECHR Rwanda) 6. Stride (A big softie in the wrong Party)
Four leavers in your list.
You need to give Roge some room for artistic licence.
Gave me a great opportunity to show I could count to four.
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, if the Tories are going to rebuild it doesn’t harm them to protect their right flank from Reform in the first instance. And therefore choosing a candidate of the right is not the worst tactical move they could make.
I personally would be exceptionally unlikely to support or vote for them, but let’s not pretend that the Tories are going to snap back into competent centrism any time soon. There’s no candidate who can convincingly offer that.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
they also have to look like an alternative government, when Labour start to lose their way. nothing I've seen of the candidates lead me to believe that they can pull that off.
Also at the moment the pool of 'talent' isn't very big for the other top jobs in the shadow cabinet. you can't put together something that looks like an alternative government when your front bench is as contaminated as the leader.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
1/ The thing about Trump's disastrous trash fire appearance at @NABJ yesterday that seems missing in the overt racism, pandering to his alt-white base, and typical mendacity is how utterly lost, weak, pissy, and small he is outside the MAGA media ecosystem.
and pondering how Tory politicians will fare without a rabid press echoing their bullshit
The DM and DT won't exist?
MInd, the DM website is now either payment or personalised ads cookies "and similar technologies" whatever that means.
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, if the Tories are going to rebuild it doesn’t harm them to protect their right flank from Reform in the first instance. And therefore choosing a candidate of the right is not the worst tactical move they could make.
I personally would be exceptionally unlikely to support or vote for them, but let’s not pretend that the Tories are going to snap back into competent centrism any time soon. There’s no candidate who can convincingly offer that.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
they also have to look like an alternative government, when Labour start to lose their way. nothing I've seen of the candidates lead me to believe that they can pull that off.
Also at the moment the pool of 'talent' isn't very big for the other top jobs in the shadow cabinet. you can't put together something that looks like an alternative government when your front bench is as contaminated as the leader.
FFS the government has David Lammy in a major office of state. You set your standards too high
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
The value of land in the south east can increase up to tenfold if planning permission for residential development is granted and a number of local councils are and have sold town centre headquarters buildings in order to gain the capital receipt available from having a site with potential for resi redevelopment.
Elsewhere, developers buy up land and only release it slowly to maintain the supply and demand balance in their favour. The reason we don't go down the @BartholomewRoberts route (rightly or wrongly) is too many groups have a vested interest in maintaining the current situation. A limited supply of new homes works for the developers, the builders, the local authorities, existing homeowners, the banks and building societies, land owners, specialist trades, the constuction industry and the Government all of whom benefit from high house prices driven by limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand.
Some may want to take on all these vested interests but no one ever has not even Margaret Thatcher at her zenith. As to how we have got to this position, that's another story.
Land Value Taxation, an idea whose time has finally come, could be a way forward twinned with easing of planning restrictions. If land which could be developed and isn't is punitively taxed there'll be an incentive for it to be developed - there's an analogy here with empty homes. An empty home is wasteful - so is empty land if it could be developed but isn't being developed.
No politician (Labour, Conservative, LD, Reform or even Green) will crash the housing market to build more houses - external events may reduce house price values but that's different. For too many people, the house they own is their only signifcant asset and effectively their pension pot releasing equlity when it is sold. Whether you like that or not it's a reality - again, how we got to this point is another story.
It is more dramatic than that. Land can easily increase in value 100-fold.
Consider just 12 building plots on an acre, costing 400-500k each.
Plots at £1,500 per m2? Are they in Sandbanks?
It entirely depends where it is. Sandbanks would be considerably more eg £3.5 million. Not a huge plot, but area not specified. PP for a 500 sqm house so 7k per sqm of house before you have started building it. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143012111#/
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
Most of us would also I think like houses and housing not to be almost unaffordable for us or our children or people in general. I'm not convinced that Bart's policy suggestions will work, but the status quo has failed so badly and obviously over the last couple of decades that I'm willing to give a lot of slack to radical proposals to take the brakes off housebuilding.
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
We're not that small a country and we have people living in this country who need a home.
Unless you want to deport millions of people, we need the development so that those who currently live with their parents can get a house of their own etc
No "over" development will happen - once development reaches a requisite amount, there's no incentive to develop any further as people won't pay for it.
I know it is gauche to keep on telling people you are right, but I WAS RIGHT about this!
You were! And I was righter at 14s! 🕺🙂
I think @rottenborough is going to the poorhouse if Jenrick wins.
Oh well I don't like to hear that. I'm going to lay back soon so I can join all good and decent people in rooting against him.
Yeah I am waiting for price to shorten more so I can lay him, resting order in at 2.52 and will add much more if he goes below for any reasonable period of time. I want my satisfaction at his failure to be total.
It's not as though Russia haas a shortage of assassins, and it costs us to house the specimens.
Indications of an imminent exchange of Russian spies & assassins for Western hostages held in Russia. Parties: US, Germany, Russia, Belarus. Candidates: Evan Gershkovich (US), Paul Whelan (US), Rico Krieger (Germany) Vladimir Kara-Murza (UK), others. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1818727950826836178
Potential big win for Biden to pardon Edward Snowden if the Russians will let him leave.
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
We're not that small a country and we have people living in this country who need a home.
Unless you want to deport millions of people, we need the development so that those who currently live with their parents can get a house of their own etc
No "over" development will happen - once development reaches a requisite amount, there's no incentive to develop any further as people won't pay for it.
Indeed. We have tons of empty fields but we insist on building taller and taller square boxes that dirty fast. We need to stop building Basingstokes and start building Poundburys
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
We're not that small a country and we have people living in this country who need a home.
Unless you want to deport millions of people, we need the development so that those who currently live with their parents can get a house of their own etc
No "over" development will happen - once development reaches a requisite amount, there's no incentive to develop any further as people won't pay for it.
Indeed. We have tons of empty fields but we insist on building taller and taller square boxes that dirty fast. We need to stop building Basingstokes and start building Poundburys
I don't prejudge whether we need Basingstoke or Poundbury or anything else. Take the brakes off and let people decide freely.
But the oligopoly of Barratt Homes etc only exists because of our current planning regime meaning they're the ones who can play it and get permission. Breaking their oligopoly should be a high priority for reform.
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
The value of land in the south east can increase up to tenfold if planning permission for residential development is granted and a number of local councils are and have sold town centre headquarters buildings in order to gain the capital receipt available from having a site with potential for resi redevelopment.
Elsewhere, developers buy up land and only release it slowly to maintain the supply and demand balance in their favour. The reason we don't go down the @BartholomewRoberts route (rightly or wrongly) is too many groups have a vested interest in maintaining the current situation. A limited supply of new homes works for the developers, the builders, the local authorities, existing homeowners, the banks and building societies, land owners, specialist trades, the constuction industry and the Government all of whom benefit from high house prices driven by limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand.
Some may want to take on all these vested interests but no one ever has not even Margaret Thatcher at her zenith. As to how we have got to this position, that's another story.
Land Value Taxation, an idea whose time has finally come, could be a way forward twinned with easing of planning restrictions. If land which could be developed and isn't is punitively taxed there'll be an incentive for it to be developed - there's an analogy here with empty homes. An empty home is wasteful - so is empty land if it could be developed but isn't being developed.
No politician (Labour, Conservative, LD, Reform or even Green) will crash the housing market to build more houses - external events may reduce house price values but that's different. For too many people, the house they own is their only signifcant asset and effectively their pension pot releasing equlity when it is sold. Whether you like that or not it's a reality - again, how we got to this point is another story.
It is more dramatic than that. Land can easily increase in value 100-fold.
Consider just 12 building plots on an acre, costing 400-500k each.
Plots at £1,500 per m2? Are they in Sandbanks?
It entirely depends where it is. Sandbanks would be considerably more eg £3.5 million. Not a huge plot, but area not specified. PP for a 500 sqm house so 7k per sqm of house before you have started building it. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143012111#/
Cul-de-sac self-build development somewhere nice and central in an attractive town commutable to London, and almost anything is possible.
You'd want to be careful not to penalise density. The land my tenement is built on is worth more than £10k per sqm based on that calculation (though the tax would be shared between lots of households).
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
"One of our own" gets very different treatment from the BBC to Cliff Richard.
So the BBC kept paying, and indeed raised the salary of an admitted child pornographer and didn't report on his charging. but for completely innocent, never charged Cliff Richard they flew a helicopter over his house as the police raided looking for things that weren't there?
I have issues with a lot of what the BBC does, but the hypocrisy here is staggering. I don't know, but would suspect that at some point Hugh Edwards was the newsreader for stories about Cliff Richard.
You've rescinded all claim to credibility for that post. You are banging on about how bad this Government is after just three weeks, but yet you still fanboi for Boris Johnson.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
1/ The thing about Trump's disastrous trash fire appearance at @NABJ yesterday that seems missing in the overt racism, pandering to his alt-white base, and typical mendacity is how utterly lost, weak, pissy, and small he is outside the MAGA media ecosystem.
and pondering how Tory politicians will fare without a rabid press echoing their bullshit
The DM and DT won't exist?
MInd, the DM website is now either payment or personalised ads cookies "and similar technologies" whatever that means.
They are a struggling already without briefings of Government announcements in advance.
I don't read either paper but I am aware of the work of Laura K on the BBC. Now, I don't buy into the hate for her, I think she does a decent job, but she made her name in 2010 because she had an inside line into the discussions that formed the Coalition. That sort of client journalism, drop your favourite some meat to report, has done huge damage to political journalism that is supposed to hold the government to account not report its feuds as celeb tittle tattle.
You've rescinded all claim to credibility for that post. You are banging on about how bad this Government is after just three weeks, but yet you still fanboi for Boris Johnson.
I fear you confuse winning an election with being able to run a government.
BoJo would be a much better campaigner than Sunak or Starmer.
And since your english is so bad I'll try monosyllables.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
I assume this has been done in a previous thread, but if not - the 17yr-old in the Southport case bas been named after the judge lifted restrictions. Keir is giving a press conference at ~4pm after meeting with the police.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
Im afraid yore letting your hatred of BoJo blind you to a simple statement.
And the Conservatives are going to struggle for as long as their leader had anything to do with the government that ended last month. "Yesterday's (wo)men- they failed before" is a heavy weight to be shackled to.
1/ The thing about Trump's disastrous trash fire appearance at @NABJ yesterday that seems missing in the overt racism, pandering to his alt-white base, and typical mendacity is how utterly lost, weak, pissy, and small he is outside the MAGA media ecosystem.
and pondering how Tory politicians will fare without a rabid press echoing their bullshit
The DM and DT won't exist?
MInd, the DM website is now either payment or personalised ads cookies "and similar technologies" whatever that means.
They are a struggling already without briefings of Government announcements in advance.
I don't read either paper but I am aware of the work of Laura K on the BBC. Now, I don't buy into the hate for her, I think she does a decent job, but she made her name in 2010 because she had an inside line into the discussions that formed the Coalition. That sort of client journalism, drop your favourite some meat to report, has done huge damage to political journalism that is supposed to hold the government to account not report its feuds as celeb tittle tattle.
Great comment. I'd add that a smart journalist ought to be able to intuit at least 90% of what's going on, without resorting to such client journalism. - which is as likely to obscure the truth as it is to reveal it.
A major part of the explanation for why the tories lost power was they fucked up the criminal justice system in a period of profound technological and social change.
It needed investment and radical reform.
Instead we got libertarian nonsense and austerity until 2019, followed by four and a half years of proto-fascist right wing bullshit.
Yes, Jenrick looks the candidate to beat and will likely win the MPs and membership votes (the first candidate to do so since Boris, the only other one to do so being Cameron so at least we should get some party unity).
Whether he is another William Hague or Ed Miliband or actually has a chance of power depends on how the Labour government performs on the economy and immigration
Yes, Jenrick looks the candidate to beat and will likely win the MPs and membership votes (the first candidate to do so since Boris, the only other one to do so being Cameron so at least we should get some party unity).
Whether he is another William Hague or Ed Miliband or actually has a chance of power depends on how the Labour government performs on the economy and immigration
If the MPs vote for him, they are bastards.
If the members vote for him, then they are either bastards or ignorant. Or the opponent is Priti Patel.
If they think Jenrick is the answer then god help the party.
I'll retire to Bedlam.
He could surprise on the upside.
I am not a Tory, never voted Tory in a GE, only once in a local election, therefore I hold no torch for them and have little knowledge of Jenrick apart from his rather hapless time as a Minister.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
Im afraid yore letting your hatred of BoJo blind you to a simple statement.
Hi Pot,
Yes, Boris had some great talents: vision, an ability to connect with people, political cunning. Unfortunately, he had some massive vices, which were known about in 2019. In particular, rampant dishonesty and a belief that he was too big for rules to apply to him. Whatever his positives, his negatives should have ruled him out. Because it was always going to end the way it did.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
He wasn't kicked out for lying - if politicians were kicked out for lying there would be nobody in political leadership. Starmer thinks nothing of expedient untruth, witness him waxing lyrical about how sharp and on the ball Biden was. He was kicked out because a small group within the PCP convinced a larger group that he had become an electoral liability. That group wanted the party to get 'ReadyForRishi' and reap the electoral rewards...
Yes, Jenrick looks the candidate to beat and will likely win the MPs and membership votes (the first candidate to do so since Boris, the only other one to do so being Cameron so at least we should get some party unity).
Whether he is another William Hague or Ed Miliband or actually has a chance of power depends on how the Labour government performs on the economy and immigration
Do you have any strong feelings on him either way HYUFD ? Do you have any expectation from a Jenrick leadership ?
If they think Jenrick is the answer then god help the party.
I'll retire to Bedlam.
He could surprise on the upside.
I am not a Tory, never voted Tory in a GE, only once in a local election, therefore I hold no torch for them and have little knowledge of Jenrick apart from his rather hapless time as a Minister.
Well, it just goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover.
I had you pegged as a diehard Conservative.
If you're one of the "I don't like any of them" brigade. fine, but what would you support or for what would you vote positively rather than negatively?
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
He wasn't kicked out for lying - if politicians were kicked out for lying there would be nobody in political leadership. Starmer thinks nothing of expedient untruth, witness him waxing lyrical about how sharp and on the ball Biden was. He was kicked out because a small group within the PCP convinced a larger group that he had become an electoral liability. That group wanted the party to get 'ReadyForRishi' and reap the electoral rewards...
And why did he become an electoral liability? Because he broke his own lock down rules, and then claimed he didn't.
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
Im afraid yore letting your hatred of BoJo blind you to a simple statement.
Hi Pot,
Yes, Boris had some great talents: vision, an ability to connect with people, political cunning. Unfortunately, he had some massive vices, which were known about in 2019. In particular, rampant dishonesty and a belief that he was too big for rules to apply to him. Whatever his positives, his negatives should have ruled him out. Because it was always going to end the way it did.
Yours, Kettle
Boris political values - big state, london centric, spend spend spend are much closer to yours than to mine. I didnt vote Boris because he's not a conservative, it seems to me your only fault with him was he wore the wrong colour rosette. His values and yours have a fair degree of overlap.
And if your worried about integrity Ms Reeves has more than a touch of the Boris bout her,
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
He wasn't kicked out for lying - if politicians were kicked out for lying there would be nobody in political leadership. Starmer thinks nothing of expedient untruth, witness him waxing lyrical about how sharp and on the ball Biden was. He was kicked out because a small group within the PCP convinced a larger group that he had become an electoral liability. That group wanted the party to get 'ReadyForRishi' and reap the electoral rewards...
And why did he become an electoral liability? Because he broke his own lock down rules, and then claimed he didn't.
He didn't become one. He was polling at 5 points behind Labour when he was defenstrated. That's the point. Those who backstabbed him ended up polling at 20 points behind.
If they think Jenrick is the answer then god help the party.
I'll retire to Bedlam.
He could surprise on the upside.
I am not a Tory, never voted Tory in a GE, only once in a local election, therefore I hold no torch for them and have little knowledge of Jenrick apart from his rather hapless time as a Minister.
Well, it just goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover.
I had you pegged as a diehard Conservative.
If you're one of the "I don't like any of them" brigade. fine, but what would you support or for what would you vote positively rather than negatively?
"pegged" !!!!!
Why would you have me down as a Tory, just as a matter of interest ?
I did post here that I was not going to vote, but in the end, and I said I would, I voted for Luke Akehurst our Labour candidate. I do not loathe Reform supporters like some people on this board, I live among many of them, but I didn't want to risk a Reform MP here and their economic policies were crackers. I'm socially liberal and fiscally more conservative so I like Rachel Reeves and the cut of her jib. I also don't think she has done anything wrong so far. I like the likes our Haigh, Cooper, Phillipson and Streeting too.
The Tories were just to utterly incompetent at the end. They needed putting out of their misery. SKS and co deserve a chance. Another 5 years of the preceding 5 years would be unbearable.
The only time I ever voted Tory was for a local councillor who was excellent and did alot for the ward. I saw that more as an endorsement of him personally than his party.
Donald Trump recently said that Gershkovich will only be released if he wins the election: “Vladimir Putin…Will do that for me, and I don't believe he'll do it for anyone else” https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1818985650915357155
Donald Trump recently said that Gershkovich will only be released if he wins the election: “Vladimir Putin…Will do that for me, and I don't believe he'll do it for anyone else” https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1818985650915357155
He's on a par with Rogerdamus and Leondamus there !!!
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Which Johnson?
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
He wasn't kicked out for lying - if politicians were kicked out for lying there would be nobody in political leadership. Starmer thinks nothing of expedient untruth, witness him waxing lyrical about how sharp and on the ball Biden was. He was kicked out because a small group within the PCP convinced a larger group that he had become an electoral liability. That group wanted the party to get 'ReadyForRishi' and reap the electoral rewards...
And why did he become an electoral liability? Because he broke his own lock down rules, and then claimed he didn't.
Having earlier sacked others for the same thing, and feigning outrage in the Commons.
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
Just been reading about the museum Georgian garden at Royal Circus, Bath. The Circus was done like that - as was the New Town of Edinburgh. But both with strict planning policies applied.
East Cambridgeshire ranks 16th by starts and 21st by completions according to my calculations out of 309 council areas, so it's one of the few pulling it's weight on housing.
May I ask where South Cambridgeshire is on that list? I'd expect it to be high, as it includes both us and Northstowe.
12th for both starts and completions. (0.65 & 0.66%) - data is 2018 -> 2023.
The target to hit Labour's target is 0.51%
Thanks. There will be more, as the Bourn airfield development for 3,500 homes has got the go-ahead.
That means we have 4,350 homes in Cambourne; 2,350 in Cambourne West (some already built); and now 3,500 homes in Bourn Airfield. All of which are contiguous along the A428. That's a total of a little over 10,000 homes, which would make us a little smaller than St Neots (though that is also expanding). There's also continuing scuttlebutt of the land north of the A428 being built on.
I have no problem with this; we knew about proposals for these new developments when we purchased our house 12 years ago.
What I do have a problem with is the facilities. F-all public facilities aside from schools are being built in Cambourne West; they are going to be served by Cambourne's. And I've seen very little evidence they'll provide new library or GP services, as two examples (just a 'financial contribution' for a library, for instance - the same priority level as 'public art').
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
The value of land in the south east can increase up to tenfold if planning permission for residential development is granted and a number of local councils are and have sold town centre headquarters buildings in order to gain the capital receipt available from having a site with potential for resi redevelopment.
Elsewhere, developers buy up land and only release it slowly to maintain the supply and demand balance in their favour. The reason we don't go down the @BartholomewRoberts route (rightly or wrongly) is too many groups have a vested interest in maintaining the current situation. A limited supply of new homes works for the developers, the builders, the local authorities, existing homeowners, the banks and building societies, land owners, specialist trades, the constuction industry and the Government all of whom benefit from high house prices driven by limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand.
Some may want to take on all these vested interests but no one ever has not even Margaret Thatcher at her zenith. As to how we have got to this position, that's another story.
Land Value Taxation, an idea whose time has finally come, could be a way forward twinned with easing of planning restrictions. If land which could be developed and isn't is punitively taxed there'll be an incentive for it to be developed - there's an analogy here with empty homes. An empty home is wasteful - so is empty land if it could be developed but isn't being developed.
No politician (Labour, Conservative, LD, Reform or even Green) will crash the housing market to build more houses - external events may reduce house price values but that's different. For too many people, the house they own is their only signifcant asset and effectively their pension pot releasing equlity when it is sold. Whether you like that or not it's a reality - again, how we got to this point is another story.
It is more dramatic than that. Land can easily increase in value 100-fold.
Consider just 12 building plots on an acre, costing 400-500k each.
Plots at £1,500 per m2? Are they in Sandbanks?
I was looking at agricultural land in Marden, Kent. Very nice area, reasonable commute to London. £2,500 an acre. A house round there, of the kind you'd build on an acre, could easily get to a million. Hell you could probably scrimp and built on half an acre....
Im still not entirely sure why we haven’t had crossover yet. Based on present polling, Harris should be favourite.
Always a bit of inertia in the POTUS markets. You could probably do something momentum trading to make bank. I'm ~ -140 Trump/+1500 Harris for the main event so just holding that for now. Moved profit to Harris at 1.64. My Biden position was amazing but you win some and lose some.
If anyone is interested in a risky form of arbitrage, the Polymarket market on Venezuela is currently providing a 25% return on Maduro having won last week's election.
DYOR and read market rules very carefully - I am hesitating myself. But it may be of interest to others. Remember the fun betting on 2020 US election in Jan 2021?
If anyone is interested in a risky form of arbitrage, the Polymarket market on Venezuela is currently providing a 25% return on Maduro having won last week's election.
DYOR and read market rules very carefully - I am hesitating myself. But it may be of interest to others. Remember the fun betting on 2020 US election in Jan 2021?
A taster of what happens when the US election comes down to a hundred votes in Georgia and Wisconsin.
If anyone is interested in a risky form of arbitrage, the Polymarket market on Venezuela is currently providing a 25% return on Maduro having won last week's election.
DYOR and read market rules very carefully - I am hesitating myself. But it may be of interest to others. Remember the fun betting on 2020 US election in Jan 2021?
Who the hell is betting actual money on the Venezuelan election?
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
Abolish the planning permission requirement and the value of land in house prices could fall back to the 2-3% of the cost of land as it was pre-1948 rather than the 1/3rd or more of house prices it is today.
That might be appropriate for the Rocky Mountains, or Australia, or South Africa, or whever it is you come from.
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
We're not that small a country and we have people living in this country who need a home.
Unless you want to deport millions of people, we need the development so that those who currently live with their parents can get a house of their own etc
No "over" development will happen - once development reaches a requisite amount, there's no incentive to develop any further as people won't pay for it.
I think quite a few on PB could opt for "deport millions of people".
I still don't understand why Rishi didn't wait until November. We're about to get another 0.6% growth in Q2, Q3 has started very positively and we'd have had another rate cut by then. If it was a late November election we could have been at 4.75% interest rates and 1.7% YTD growth and another year of above inflation wage rises.
The July election has got to be one of the biggest missteps in the history of the Tory party.
Oliver Dowden showed Sunak the numbers coming off fixed term mortgages between now and November.
That made going in July logical.
Without knowing the context of the age profile that seems like a huge leap of logic. People coming off shorter fixed rate mortgages are going to be younger and have a lower propensity to vote Tory anyway. It seems like poor reasoning to me anyway. The upsides to waiting were much larger.
As I've been pointing out all week the only rational reason I have seen for pulling the election forward is the public sector pay awards which firstly removed any chance of more tax cuts and secondly may have triggered an issue when it becomes obvious that the figures no longer added up.
Not really, the government could have just ignored it on the grounds of affordability or something. 5.5% is high, 3.5% higher than inflation. Limit it to those earning less than £35k or something and everyone else gets 2.1% or whatever CPI is.
At a time of mass vacancies and full employment?
If you don't want to pay the required wage then abolish the job and save all the money not some of it, but if the job needs doing it needs paying for.
Then let them leave for the private sector.
But enough of them are leaving for it to be a problem. Or they're not signing up in the first place.
You're smart. You've had enough people point this out to you. You supposedly know how money works.
Apart from not liking the obvious consequence, why do you find this so hard to accept?
Because the state is too large and does too much. We need to cut the size of the state and having people leave voluntarily is probably the best way to achieve it.
Again - what does it do that can be outsourced to the private sector efficiently. And remember the maxim for the past 14 years has been to drive costs down anyway you can..
Planning.
Abolish every busybody trying to second-guess and authorise what anyone builds on their land and have a free for all where anyone who wants to build anything on their own damned land can.
There we go - jobs abolished.
You know my wife is a town planner? Every post you make tells me you haven't got a clue what they actually do...
Far too much that they shouldn't is what they do. And I'd have no objection if your wife were made redundant.
No planner should have any input into whether or not a house is built, that should be upto the would-be homeowner and the private market.
If you want to plan new town or improved functions that the town intends to build on the town's own land, then that's something a town planner can and should be doing, but no need to review other people's plans of what they intend to be doing on their land.
Are you suggesting that local authorities should compulsory purchase (very cheaply of course) all land that could be developed?
I need to double check this but I'm 100% sure that is exactly what happens in some countries - the land is bought, roads and utilities are put in and the land then sold plot by plot to developers of all sizes..
An interesting point is the potential profit for local authorities in doing this.
Currently, development gets the local authorities very little.
If they could buy land, lay it out with services and roads and then sell the plots - big profits are possible.
Suddenly councils discover the joys of an expanding local population....
After all, the value of a piece of land depends on the right to build on it (ie planning permission) and the installation of services. Both of these benefits come from the community, in one way or another. The landowner, who builds a house, has very little to do with the increase in value of the land.
The value of land in the south east can increase up to tenfold if planning permission for residential development is granted and a number of local councils are and have sold town centre headquarters buildings in order to gain the capital receipt available from having a site with potential for resi redevelopment.
Elsewhere, developers buy up land and only release it slowly to maintain the supply and demand balance in their favour. The reason we don't go down the @BartholomewRoberts route (rightly or wrongly) is too many groups have a vested interest in maintaining the current situation. A limited supply of new homes works for the developers, the builders, the local authorities, existing homeowners, the banks and building societies, land owners, specialist trades, the constuction industry and the Government all of whom benefit from high house prices driven by limited supply and seemingly unlimited demand.
Some may want to take on all these vested interests but no one ever has not even Margaret Thatcher at her zenith. As to how we have got to this position, that's another story.
Land Value Taxation, an idea whose time has finally come, could be a way forward twinned with easing of planning restrictions. If land which could be developed and isn't is punitively taxed there'll be an incentive for it to be developed - there's an analogy here with empty homes. An empty home is wasteful - so is empty land if it could be developed but isn't being developed.
No politician (Labour, Conservative, LD, Reform or even Green) will crash the housing market to build more houses - external events may reduce house price values but that's different. For too many people, the house they own is their only signifcant asset and effectively their pension pot releasing equlity when it is sold. Whether you like that or not it's a reality - again, how we got to this point is another story.
It is more dramatic than that. Land can easily increase in value 100-fold.
Consider just 12 building plots on an acre, costing 400-500k each.
Plots at £1,500 per m2? Are they in Sandbanks?
I was looking at agricultural land in Marden, Kent. Very nice area, reasonable commute to London. £2,500 an acre. A house round there, of the kind you'd build on an acre, could easily get to a million. Hell you could probably scrimp and built on half an acre....
Seriously? Boris Johnson was, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn, the most ludicrous and inappropriate candidate to present themselves as a PM. He is fully responsible for the mess the Tories are in now.
Yes seriously.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
Can you give polling evidence to the last statement? I seem to recall that polls indicated they would have been even worse. Bozo had, by that point, been revealed to be exactly what I said about him all along; dishonest, stupid and incompetent. The appeal that he had for gullible types like HYUFD who are obsessed with people with "charisma" had even waned with the most gullible ( HYUFD being exception). My own best guess is that he would have performed even worse than Sunak.
I'll be voting for Tom T, hope he manages to pull it out of the bag. Jenrick will be worse than Hague was IMO, speaks to the core voter but no one else.
That's unfair - to Hague.
Jenrick would be worse than Iain Duncan Smith.
Hague and IDS faced Blair at his peak, the most charismatic and centrist leader Labour have ever had who was elected with 43% of the vote in 1997.
Jenrick would only have to face Starmer, one of the dullest leaders Labour have ever had, who only managed 33% of the vote even this year.
Indeed even Hague would probably have beaten Brown in 2010 had Howard been elected leader not him in 1997 and he replaced Howard after the 2001 defeat and stayed on after gains in 2005
If anyone is interested in a risky form of arbitrage, the Polymarket market on Venezuela is currently providing a 25% return on Maduro having won last week's election.
DYOR and read market rules very carefully - I am hesitating myself. But it may be of interest to others. Remember the fun betting on 2020 US election in Jan 2021?
Who the hell is betting actual money on the Venezuelan election?
Welcome to Polymarket. Some of the markets are.... interesting.
(Important note for UK based folk - this is not betting for tax purposes)
Im still not entirely sure why we haven’t had crossover yet. Based on present polling, Harris should be favourite.
I thought it would just be inertia, and the weight of money bet on the exchange. But Ladbrokes, on checking, also had her around 13/10.
Thanks for the reminder, as I'd forgotten I had some GE winnings there, so have topped up my Harris bets.
The polling put her slightly ahead in votes. Because of the way the EC works, this means it is pretty much 50/50 on who will win from here.
Polling always has a bit of a rear view mirror effect baked in though. I think Trump has further damaged himself this week, and Harris didn't even take the bait.
No anger - didn't even bother to rebut - just said with a smile: "The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts."
Jenrick was utterly ineffectual as housing minister, doing absolutely sod all for leaseholders affected by the cladding scandal (pretty much anyone living in a building more than 5 storeys high). Described as "no help at all" by 90% of leaseholders in a survey by the leasehold knowledge partnership.
He was involved in a highly controversial planning decision involving Richard Desmond, who made a subsatantial donation to the Conservatives two weeks after planning was approved.
He charged the taxpayer £100,000 in rent and council tax for his THIRD home. That's right. Third home. To quote the Times, "Travel expenses suggest that Jenrick rarely spends an entire weekend at the property..." ..."A government minister said last night: “It’s a bit odd to make the taxpayer fund your constituency home when you’ve got all that money. It doesn’t look good.”
He broke lockdown rules twice, travelling 150 miles to his his second home. Considering it was rule breaking that did for Boris, is Jenrick really a suitable candidate for leader?
Oh, and the thing he's most famous for? Having a mural of Mickey Mouse and Baloo from Jungle Book in a children's asylum centre painted over. Regardless for the reason (e.g. copyright), the man is mostly known by the general public for comic-book, cartoon-villain levels of cruelty. That is when they remember him at all.
So I put it to you. If Robert Jenrick is the answer, then what on earth is the question?
Jenrick does not have the high negatives with the public Patel and Braverman do, is more intelligent than Cleverly and less partisan and shrill than Badenoch and is rightwing enough for the membership over Tugendhat or Stride?
I'll be voting for Tom T, hope he manages to pull it out of the bag. Jenrick will be worse than Hague was IMO, speaks to the core voter but no one else.
That's unfair - to Hague.
Jenrick would be worse than Iain Duncan Smith.
Hague and IDS faced Blair at his peak, the most charismatic and centrist leader Labour have ever had who was elected with 43% of the vote in 1997.
Jenrick would only have to face Starmer, one of the dullest leaders Labour have ever had, who only managed 33% of the vote even this year.
Indeed even Hague would probably have beaten Brown in 2010 had Howard been elected leader not him in 1997 and he replaced Howard after the 2001 defeat and stayed on after gains in 2005
So when Jenrick leads them to fourth party status he really has no excuse?
You've rescinded all claim to credibility for that post. You are banging on about how bad this Government is after just three weeks, but yet you still fanboi for Boris Johnson.
I fear you confuse winning an election with being able to run a government.
BoJo would be a much better campaigner than Sunak or Starmer.
And since your english is so bad I'll try monosyllables.
I did not vote Bo Jo
me no like him
When you learn to use capital letters at the start of a proper noun like "English", you are welcome to school me for my linguistic shortcomings.
Jenrick was utterly ineffectual as housing minister, doing absolutely sod all for leaseholders affected by the cladding scandal (pretty much anyone living in a building more than 5 storeys high). Described as "no help at all" by 90% of leaseholders in a survey by the leasehold knowledge partnership.
He was involved in a highly controversial planning decision involving Richard Desmond, who made a subsatantial donation to the Conservatives two weeks after planning was approved.
He charged the taxpayer £100,000 in rent and council tax for his THIRD home. That's right. Third home. To quote the Times, "Travel expenses suggest that Jenrick rarely spends an entire weekend at the property..." ..."A government minister said last night: “It’s a bit odd to make the taxpayer fund your constituency home when you’ve got all that money. It doesn’t look good.”
He broke lockdown rules twice, travelling 150 miles to his his second home. Considering it was rule breaking that did for Boris, is Jenrick really a suitable candidate for leader?
Oh, and the thing he's most famous for? Having a mural of Mickey Mouse and Baloo from Jungle Book in a children's asylum centre painted over. Regardless for the reason (e.g. copyright), the man is mostly known by the general public for comic-book, cartoon-villain levels of cruelty. That is when they remember him at all.
So I put it to you. If Robert Jenrick is the answer, then what on earth is the question?
Jenrick does not have the high negatives with the public Patel and Braverman do, is more intelligent than Cleverly and less partisan and shrill than Badenoch and is rightwing enough for the membership over Tugendhat or Stride?
I think the problem with Jenrick is, other than us nerds, nobody has heard of him. The dude is a nobody who failed in the small roles he was given and made questionable decisions at best. When you actually look into his record, nothing there appeals, and his choices speak of deeply questionable judgement.
Which is why I would rather literally any of the other candidates for Conservative leader. The more one sees of Jenrick, the less one likes. And the general public haven't really seen him yet.
Jenrick was utterly ineffectual as housing minister, doing absolutely sod all for leaseholders affected by the cladding scandal (pretty much anyone living in a building more than 5 storeys high). Described as "no help at all" by 90% of leaseholders in a survey by the leasehold knowledge partnership.
He was involved in a highly controversial planning decision involving Richard Desmond, who made a subsatantial donation to the Conservatives two weeks after planning was approved.
He charged the taxpayer £100,000 in rent and council tax for his THIRD home. That's right. Third home. To quote the Times, "Travel expenses suggest that Jenrick rarely spends an entire weekend at the property..." ..."A government minister said last night: “It’s a bit odd to make the taxpayer fund your constituency home when you’ve got all that money. It doesn’t look good.”
He broke lockdown rules twice, travelling 150 miles to his his second home. Considering it was rule breaking that did for Boris, is Jenrick really a suitable candidate for leader?
Oh, and the thing he's most famous for? Having a mural of Mickey Mouse and Baloo from Jungle Book in a children's asylum centre painted over. Regardless for the reason (e.g. copyright), the man is mostly known by the general public for comic-book, cartoon-villain levels of cruelty. That is when they remember him at all.
So I put it to you. If Robert Jenrick is the answer, then what on earth is the question?
Jenrick does not have the high negatives with the public Patel and Braverman do, is more intelligent than Cleverly and less partisan and shrill than Badenoch and is rightwing enough for the membership over Tugendhat or Stride?
Bold bit is only because the public don't know who he is.
If they think Jenrick is the answer then god help the party.
I'll retire to Bedlam.
He could surprise on the upside.
I am not a Tory, never voted Tory in a GE, only once in a local election, therefore I hold no torch for them and have little knowledge of Jenrick apart from his rather hapless time as a Minister.
Well, it just goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover.
I had you pegged as a diehard Conservative.
If you're one of the "I don't like any of them" brigade. fine, but what would you support or for what would you vote positively rather than negatively?
"pegged" !!!!!
Why would you have me down as a Tory, just as a matter of interest ?
I did post here that I was not going to vote, but in the end, and I said I would, I voted for Luke Akehurst our Labour candidate. I do not loathe Reform supporters like some people on this board, I live among many of them, but I didn't want to risk a Reform MP here and their economic policies were crackers. I'm socially liberal and fiscally more conservative so I like Rachel Reeves and the cut of her jib. I also don't think she has done anything wrong so far. I like the likes our Haigh, Cooper, Phillipson and Streeting too.
The Tories were just to utterly incompetent at the end. They needed putting out of their misery. SKS and co deserve a chance. Another 5 years of the preceding 5 years would be unbearable.
The only time I ever voted Tory was for a local councillor who was excellent and did alot for the ward. I saw that more as an endorsement of him personally than his party.
Pegged - as in a square one going into a round hole it would seem.
You've posted about as often as I have but as I drop in and out on here I don't read every post. I just had the sense you were often defending the Conservatives and being critical of Labour so I made the assumption which I shouldn't have done.
In truth, you aren't a million miles away from me and I'm happy to give the new Government a fair crack of the whip for all some on here seem to think the IMF will be here in four years. I'd only disagree the Conservatives didn't need putting out of their misery, they needed putting out of our misery.
I find Reform a paradox as I've said on here before - the anti-immigration line is all that holds them together. Farage and Tice are unreconstructed Thatcherites who want tax cuts especially for the wealthy while the Reform membership and voters are more nuanced - some still cling to the Johnsonian levelling up agenda, others simply want more spending and investment in WWC areas.
You've rescinded all claim to credibility for that post. You are banging on about how bad this Government is after just three weeks, but yet you still fanboi for Boris Johnson.
I fear you confuse winning an election with being able to run a government.
BoJo would be a much better campaigner than Sunak or Starmer.
And since your english is so bad I'll try monosyllables.
I did not vote Bo Jo
me no like him
When you learn to use capital letters at the start of a proper noun like "English", you are welcome to school me for my linguistic shortcomings.
An observer notes that Alan proposed 'kafir' as a monosyllable during a previous discussion.
I don't think the Clinton/Obama prices have been based on reality for a long old time. Newsom probably was - although overdone I think. I spoke on a Star Spangled Gamblers (The US equivalent of here basically) twitter space where I put the chance of Biden dropping out at 25% but made the prediction that if he dropped out it would definitely be Harris. That was immediately post debate.
Im still not entirely sure why we haven’t had crossover yet. Based on present polling, Harris should be favourite.
I thought it would just be inertia, and the weight of money bet on the exchange. But Ladbrokes, on checking, also had her around 13/10.
Thanks for the reminder, as I'd forgotten I had some GE winnings there, so have topped up my Harris bets.
The polling put her slightly ahead in votes. Because of the way the EC works, this means it is pretty much 50/50 on who will win from here.
Polling always has a bit of a rear view mirror effect baked in though. I think Trump has further damaged himself this week, and Harris didn't even take the bait.
No anger - didn't even bother to rebut - just said with a smile: "The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts."
Let's see how polling looks next week.
The Harris campaign understands how to deal with Trump.
Jenrick was utterly ineffectual as housing minister, doing absolutely sod all for leaseholders affected by the cladding scandal (pretty much anyone living in a building more than 5 storeys high). Described as "no help at all" by 90% of leaseholders in a survey by the leasehold knowledge partnership.
He was involved in a highly controversial planning decision involving Richard Desmond, who made a subsatantial donation to the Conservatives two weeks after planning was approved.
He charged the taxpayer £100,000 in rent and council tax for his THIRD home. That's right. Third home. To quote the Times, "Travel expenses suggest that Jenrick rarely spends an entire weekend at the property..." ..."A government minister said last night: “It’s a bit odd to make the taxpayer fund your constituency home when you’ve got all that money. It doesn’t look good.”
He broke lockdown rules twice, travelling 150 miles to his his second home. Considering it was rule breaking that did for Boris, is Jenrick really a suitable candidate for leader?
Oh, and the thing he's most famous for? Having a mural of Mickey Mouse and Baloo from Jungle Book in a children's asylum centre painted over. Regardless for the reason (e.g. copyright), the man is mostly known by the general public for comic-book, cartoon-villain levels of cruelty. That is when they remember him at all.
So I put it to you. If Robert Jenrick is the answer, then what on earth is the question?
Jenrick does not have the high negatives with the public Patel and Braverman do, is more intelligent than Cleverly and less partisan and shrill than Badenoch and is rightwing enough for the membership over Tugendhat or Stride?
He demonstrates a level of performative cruelty surpassed only by Cruella.
Im still not entirely sure why we haven’t had crossover yet. Based on present polling, Harris should be favourite.
There was a poll yesterday with Trump ahead by 4% in Pennsylvania. That's probably why.
There seems to be a huge amount of polling going on in the US and given our recent polling performance perhaps a little bit of caution would be no bad thing.
Those who know more about US politics than I say ignore all polls until after Labor Day (September 2nd). I'd go further and ignore all polls until a fortnight before the vote.
Comments
The target to hit Labour's target is 0.51%
But this is a small country, and most of us, I think, want to keep our countryside and open spaces, without over development. After all, we have Taken Back Countol, haven't we?
@TheRickWilson
1/ The thing about Trump's disastrous trash fire appearance at @NABJ yesterday that seems missing in the overt racism, pandering to his alt-white base, and typical mendacity is how utterly lost, weak, pissy, and small he is outside the MAGA media ecosystem.
and pondering how Tory politicians will fare without a rabid press echoing their bullshit
Also at the moment the pool of 'talent' isn't very big for the other top jobs in the shadow cabinet. you can't put together something that looks like an alternative government when your front bench is as contaminated as the leader.
MInd, the DM website is now either payment or personalised ads cookies "and similar technologies" whatever that means.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143012111#/
£400k for a small derelict bungalow near Henley that still needs work to deal with the agricultural tie, and then the bungalow to be demolished.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/142834400#/
Cul-de-sac self-build development somewhere nice and central in an attractive town commutable to London, and almost anything is possible.
Unless you want to deport millions of people, we need the development so that those who currently live with their parents can get a house of their own etc
No "over" development will happen - once development reaches a requisite amount, there's no incentive to develop any further as people won't pay for it.
He backed Remain which makes him a top bloke in my book.
But the oligopoly of Barratt Homes etc only exists because of our current planning regime meaning they're the ones who can play it and get permission. Breaking their oligopoly should be a high priority for reform.
He was the third of the musketeers (with Sunak and Dowden) to say "only Boris can save us" in 2019...
https://www.thetimes.com/article/1c7fc2bc-86e6-11e9-80a7-7034275c0a1b
In the privacy of the voting booth?
Tom’s uncle was the Vice President of the EU Commission so he must be a top bloke too.
She was born in Liverpool but moved to Birkenhead when she was two.
So the BBC kept paying, and indeed raised the salary of an admitted child pornographer and didn't report on his charging. but for completely innocent, never charged Cliff Richard they flew a helicopter over his house as the police raided looking for things that weren't there?
https://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44871799
I have issues with a lot of what the BBC does, but the hypocrisy here is staggering. I don't know, but would suspect that at some point Hugh Edwards was the newsreader for stories about Cliff Richard.
I didnt vote for him as why would I want another Cameron ?
But he was able to connect with people better and would have had more nouse than to call the election when Sunak did. Starmer would have struggled against him.
I don't read either paper but I am aware of the work of Laura K on the BBC. Now, I don't buy into the hate for her, I think she does a decent job, but she made her name in 2010 because she had an inside line into the discussions that formed the Coalition. That sort of client journalism, drop your favourite some meat to report, has done huge damage to political journalism that is supposed to hold the government to account not report its feuds as celeb tittle tattle.
BoJo would be a much better campaigner than Sunak or Starmer.
And since your english is so bad I'll try monosyllables.
I did not vote Bo Jo
me no like him
A fantasy Johnson who wasn't kicked out in disgrace for lying (again), or the actual Boris Johnson, who was?
I'd add that a smart journalist ought to be able to intuit at least 90% of what's going on, without resorting to such client journalism.
- which is as likely to obscure the truth as it is to reveal it.
A major part of the explanation for why the tories lost power was they fucked up the criminal justice system in a period of profound technological and social change.
It needed investment and radical reform.
Instead we got libertarian nonsense and austerity until 2019, followed by four and a half years of proto-fascist right wing bullshit.
Whether he is another William Hague or Ed Miliband or actually has a chance of power depends on how the Labour government performs on the economy and immigration
Reality Labs, the Meta-owned VR headset manufacturer, posted second-quarter revenues of $353m, but an operating loss of $4,480m.
Four and a half billion dollars, in one quarter. The company now has cumulative losses of $50bn since 2020.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/31/metas-reality-labs-posts-4point5-billion-loss-in-second-quarter.html
A meeting with the university’s ethics committee and the cancellation of your grant.
If the members vote for him, then they are either bastards or ignorant. Or the opponent is Priti Patel.
I am not a Tory, never voted Tory in a GE, only once in a local election, therefore I hold no torch for them and have little knowledge of Jenrick apart from his rather hapless time as a Minister.
Yes, Boris had some great talents: vision, an ability to connect with people, political cunning. Unfortunately, he had some massive vices, which were known about in 2019. In particular, rampant dishonesty and a belief that he was too big for rules to apply to him. Whatever his positives, his negatives should have ruled him out. Because it was always going to end the way it did.
Yours, Kettle
I had you pegged as a diehard Conservative.
If you're one of the "I don't like any of them" brigade. fine, but what would you support or for what would you vote positively rather than negatively?
Harris 2.28
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.176878927
And if your worried about integrity Ms Reeves has more than a touch of the Boris bout her,
She’s the lady Olympic boxer with a broken nose.
Why would you have me down as a Tory, just as a matter of interest ?
I did post here that I was not going to vote, but in the end, and I said I would, I voted for Luke Akehurst our Labour candidate. I do not loathe Reform supporters like some people on this board, I live among many of them, but I didn't want to risk a Reform MP here and their economic policies were crackers. I'm socially liberal and fiscally more conservative so I like Rachel Reeves and the cut of her jib. I also don't think she has done anything wrong so far. I like the likes our Haigh, Cooper, Phillipson and Streeting too.
The Tories were just to utterly incompetent at the end. They needed putting out of their misery. SKS and co deserve a chance. Another 5 years of the preceding 5 years would be unbearable.
The only time I ever voted Tory was for a local councillor who was excellent and did alot for the ward. I saw that more as an endorsement of him personally than his party.
Donald Trump recently said that Gershkovich will only be released if he wins the election: “Vladimir Putin…Will do that for me, and I don't believe he'll do it for anyone else”
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1818985650915357155
https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/plans-for-3-500-homes-at-bourn-airfield-given-green-light-af-9376972/
That means we have 4,350 homes in Cambourne; 2,350 in Cambourne West (some already built); and now 3,500 homes in Bourn Airfield. All of which are contiguous along the A428. That's a total of a little over 10,000 homes, which would make us a little smaller than St Neots (though that is also expanding). There's also continuing scuttlebutt of the land north of the A428 being built on.
I have no problem with this; we knew about proposals for these new developments when we purchased our house 12 years ago.
What I do have a problem with is the facilities. F-all public facilities aside from schools are being built in Cambourne West; they are going to be served by Cambourne's. And I've seen very little evidence they'll provide new library or GP services, as two examples (just a 'financial contribution' for a library, for instance - the same priority level as 'public art').
Incidentally, the number of documents developed by the planning process is quite large:
https://applications.greatercambridgeplanning.org/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=ZZZY1JOITV550
And the masterplan even includes a golf course!
https://applications.greatercambridgeplanning.org/online-applications/files/6072E0086B53ECA47770666D8526004B/pdf/S_3440_18_OL-ILLUSTRATIVE_MASTERPLAN-4761444.pdf
(We haven't got outs yet, 28 years after building started...)
But Ladbrokes, on checking, also had her around 13/10.
Thanks for the reminder, as I'd forgotten I had some GE winnings there, so have topped up my Harris bets.
My Biden position was amazing but you win some and lose some.
DYOR and read market rules very carefully - I am hesitating myself. But it may be of interest to others. Remember the fun betting on 2020 US election in Jan 2021?
Jenrick would only have to face Starmer, one of the dullest leaders Labour have ever had, who only managed 33% of the vote even this year.
Indeed even Hague would probably have beaten Brown in 2010 had Howard been elected leader not him in 1997 and he replaced Howard after the 2001 defeat and stayed on after gains in 2005
(Important note for UK based folk - this is not betting for tax purposes)
No anger - didn't even bother to rebut - just said with a smile:
"The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts."
Let's see how polling looks next week.
(Because allegedly no other candidate was given access to the list of delegates!)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dnc-virtual-roll-call-2024-how-it-works/
Sky News - Courts"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAAW8SuG1A
Which is why I would rather literally any of the other candidates for Conservative leader. The more one sees of Jenrick, the less one likes. And the general public haven't really seen him yet.
Once they do, they will detest him.
You've posted about as often as I have but as I drop in and out on here I don't read every post. I just had the sense you were often defending the Conservatives and being critical of Labour so I made the assumption which I shouldn't have done.
In truth, you aren't a million miles away from me and I'm happy to give the new Government a fair crack of the whip for all some on here seem to think the IMF will be here in four years. I'd only disagree the Conservatives didn't need putting out of their misery, they needed putting out of our misery.
I find Reform a paradox as I've said on here before - the anti-immigration line is all that holds them together. Farage and Tice are unreconstructed Thatcherites who want tax cuts especially for the wealthy while the Reform membership and voters are more nuanced - some still cling to the Johnsonian levelling up agenda, others simply want more spending and investment in WWC areas.
Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge* of a politician who cannot defend his own plans.
https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1818990555436597591
*And also the first refuge, in Trump's case.
Those who know more about US politics than I say ignore all polls until after Labor Day (September 2nd). I'd go further and ignore all polls until a fortnight before the vote.