You want a sign that the negotiations between Russia and Syria for continued control of their bases fell apart (besides the fact that Russia is packing up shop)?
All thise conservatives who spent six years obsessing about a Hunter Biden story which went nowhere, are blissfully unconcerned that their next President is quite openly in hock to the Saudis.
Chris Murphy: "There's no doubt that this administration's policy toward the Middle East is going to be compromised by the fact that they're making money off the very people they're sitting across the table from and supposedly having a conversation about the interests of the US" https://x.com/atrupar/status/1867394433651454035
To answer another of @Andy_Cooke 's queries about local politics.
What happens here is that Local Councillors, when they see a potential new housing estate that is opposed locally, or for which they can generate opposition, may lead a campaign against it - which is "find a mob and stand in front of it" politics.
This may include councillors on the Planning Committee. So they vote against it, and will refuse even over a recommendation to approve, and they get the upside of opposing it approved of by local voters, and the approval may go through on Appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
So the "local champions" benefit both ways, and the Council has to pay the cost of losing an Appeal - which is deemed acceptable.
Ashfield Independents control about 32 from 35 Council sears, so also control the Planning Committee.
It's an Ashfield Independent speciality, which they also .used to do when they were still Lib Dems. I term it "local populism".
The technique is also used to drive wedge issues between District and County (controlled by Conservatives), and maintains a local 'fortress'. Here is an example of when they used it to oppose active travel infrastructure funded by dedicated national Active Travel funding done by the Highways Authority, who are the County Council.
The project was to improve walking, wheeling and cycling to a town centre, employment area, leisure facilities and the local hospital, to minimum national standards. Yet they campaigned around wanting a "more modest" scheme, and the money spent on potholes - neither of which was possible. Here is a link to a front page report in the local paper.
Their desire would have left wheelchair users on the road, or on a 3-4ft wide, bumpy pavement with cars often parked on it.
(The green and trees stuff is overplayed, and they are simultaneously removing green spaces like this elsewhere nearby for parking.)
He also replies to those who accuse him of claiming £200k (or whatever) in expenses.
On that he is right - the drones going on about expenses as personal benefit (which is often the rhetoric) undermine their own case.
Text of that tweet:
‘What they don't realise is £200,000 is six members of staff's wages, rent on an office in Ashfield. Heating, phone bills, internet, printing cartridges, all that stuff comes out!’ @LeeAndersonMP_ responds to ‘idiots’ who accuse him of claiming too much on MP’s expenses.
The expenses system is not fit for purpose. The main costs are for running an office and staff, and a second home. It would be better if these were paid from separate allowances, or perhaps centrally in the case of staff and office costs.
This would leave far smaller sums to be claimed as expenses, and frankly it would be easier and cheaper just to give MPs an extra allowance to cover these.
In normal employment, allowances are common, and no-one checks to see what, for instance, London weighting allowances are actually spent on.
I think they are effectively paid from separate allowances, or at least can be easily told apart, and it's a shit decision by our shit media to stir up shit deliberately.
An allowance system would mean no receipts to be trawled through. (And we could save money on IPSA.)
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
Its nut absolutely confirmed that Russia is being kicked out of the bases. But they're reportedly airlifting out the air defence systems, which strongly suggests they're not going to stay.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
Its nut absolutely confirmed that Russia is being kicked out of the bases. But they're reportedly airlifting out the air defence systems, which strongly suggests they're not going to stay.
Syria will have no air defences and it makes it easier for Israel to fly to Iran.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
I now think Russia descending into a quasi civil war is more likely than Putin's defenestration. Putin is the new Tsar, and far too many people owe him fealty. It may go the way of Syria in 2011, with regions breaking away, leaving a decaying rump Muscovy.
But more likely is Trump removing, or reducing by the back door, sanctions. That would be a massive betrayal of Ukraine.
Russia is in deep trouble, militarily (*) and financially. Now is the time to increase the pressure, not reduce it.
(*) There are stories that Russian artillery usage is now at par with, or below, Ukraine's. Perhaps a result of the missile attacks on ammo dumps a few months back.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
Putin is looking a bit shakier than before get the Saudis pumping oil and he cant afford to fund a war.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
Its nut absolutely confirmed that Russia is being kicked out of the bases. But they're reportedly airlifting out the air defence systems, which strongly suggests they're not going to stay.
I was about to post 'there are rumours that Russia has stopped providing the new regime with grain, which is not a sign that relations are good'.
Then I realised you posted it below. What can I say, it's early in the morning...
A sport as rich as F1 going to one of the world's poorest countries to enrich the elite is the sort of sickening thing I'd expect to see from the current FIA president. Sorry, I mistitled him.
Looks like Yoon is toast...PPP members will vote "according to their conscience and beliefs rather than following partisan interests".
"The general meeting of the ruling People Power Party has ended after about six hours.
Park Chan-dae, the party's floor leader, tells reporters that the party will participate in the impeachment vote now. This represents an about-face from last Saturday, when the party boycotted the first impeachment vote .
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
I now think Russia descending into a quasi civil war is more likely than Putin's defenestration. Putin is the new Tsar, and far too many people owe him fealty. It may go the way of Syria in 2011, with regions breaking away, leaving a decaying rump Muscovy.
But more likely is Trump removing, or reducing by the back door, sanctions. That would be a massive betrayal of Ukraine.
Russia is in deep trouble, militarily (*) and financially. Now is the time to increase the pressure, not reduce it.
(*) There are stories that Russian artillery usage is now at par with, or below, Ukraine's. Perhaps a result of the missile attacks on ammo dumps a few months back.
Daily losses of Russian artillery this week have been way down. 24 lost yesterday, but before that, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3. Less shells being fired by the Russians, so less counter-battery fire from the Ukrainians.
The UK does not have enough construction workers to build the 1.5 million homes the government keeps promising, industry leaders have warned.
Tens of thousands of new recruits across bricklaying, groundworks and carpentry are needed to get anywhere near the target, they told the BBC. The Home Builders Federation (HBF), along with the UK's largest housebuilder Barratt Redrow said skills shortages, ageing workers and Brexit were some of the factors behind the shrinking workforce.
But for every 10,000 new homes to be built, the sector needs about 30,000 new recruits across 12 trades, according to the HBF, the trade body for the house building industry in England and Wales.
The Labour % of the cost of a house build is around 1/3 to 1/2. 3x skilled FTE will be 3 x ~70k,with some higher, some lower.
I don't think it adds up when you use the build cost rather than retail price, never mind when you take out the other labour costs in the organisation.
As ever, it's a productivity question.
(I haven't looked up current cost numbers in SPONS, but I don't believe these claims - they are trying to shore up against the pressure on them by planning changes, at least in part.)
No, it’s an availability and capacity issue. What skilled trades do you need and when do you need them in any given project or programme? You need skills such as bricklayers, electricians and carpenters but you need them at different times in different places.
Sorry - I just don't buy it. Starting with "we can't improve productivity" is from the wrong end.
Around housebuilding it is linked to our use of wet trades, a hire and fire subcontracting culture, and other things.
It's not as if the proposed increase in building is enormous - according to the numbers we have been doing around 220k house per annum, and the proposed increases are over several years. Plus imagine how much of their "manipulating the planning system" investment the construction sector may be able to save.
If you like refer back to the Latham Report (1994?) or the Egan Report "Rethinking Construction" (1998). The latter kicked off the Construction Best Practice Programme, which I was involved in in some measure. *
The construction companies know they are about to be under pressure to improve, and - regardless of other questions - they are getting their excuses in first. They need to shape up.
Poor productivity has been a core problem in UK construction for the last 3 to 4 decades and has gone backwards compared to other countries in Europe in recent years. Our best is excellent, but there is a very long tail.
Back to planning for a moment. A Local Plan goes through many levels of consultation - as an example, in the two tier set up, the District or Borough Council has to consult with a range of stakeholders including the County Council. The latter will advise on its service requirement set against population changes - are new schools needed, what about enhanced fire cover, what about additional facilities for care for the elderly, what about new roads.
All these questions come out of how you provide accommodation for an increasing population and where you build new dwellings, what kind you need to build, the density.
It’s a complex and multi-faceted activity which usually arrives at a Plan which pleases almost no one but displeases almost everyone equally.
A gratuitous use of my image allowance! (I thought this more interesting than Leon's pictures of his dinner). I'm currently in sole charge of not one, but two steam locomotives in steam. I've been here since the small hours, lighting up and getting them in steam ready for a day hauling Satan Santa and a load of small kids round - the crews for both should be relieving me in around an hour. Long live king coal...!
A gratuitous use of my image allowance! (I thought this more interesting than Leon's pictures of his dinner). I'm currently in sole charge of not one, but two steam locomotives in steam. I've been here since the small hours, lighting up and getting them in steam ready for a day hauling Satan Santa and a load of small kids round - the crews for both should be relieving me in around an hour. Long live king coal...!
He also replies to those who accuse him of claiming £200k (or whatever) in expenses.
On that he is right - the drones going on about expenses as personal benefit (which is often the rhetoric) undermine their own case.
Text of that tweet:
‘What they don't realise is £200,000 is six members of staff's wages, rent on an office in Ashfield. Heating, phone bills, internet, printing cartridges, all that stuff comes out!’ @LeeAndersonMP_ responds to ‘idiots’ who accuse him of claiming too much on MP’s expenses.
The expenses system is not fit for purpose. The main costs are for running an office and staff, and a second home. It would be better if these were paid from separate allowances, or perhaps centrally in the case of staff and office costs.
This would leave far smaller sums to be claimed as expenses, and frankly it would be easier and cheaper just to give MPs an extra allowance to cover these.
In normal employment, allowances are common, and no-one checks to see what, for instance, London weighting allowances are actually spent on.
I think they are effectively paid from separate allowances, or at least can be easily told apart, and it's a shit decision by our shit media to stir up shit deliberately.
An allowance system would mean no receipts to be trawled through. (And we could save money on IPSA.)
The second home provisions are where all the scams and fiddling goes on, less so now than in the old days, but still. It would be more sensible to buy up a west London mansion block and give all MPs with seats beyond reasonable commuting distance a serviced flat in there. Rather than having MPs playing the London property market at our expense.
On travel expenses, all the evidence is that a receipted system is more economic and less subject to fraud than the old system of allowances, and in both the private and public sector most companies now base their policies on receipts, which also avoids any suggestion of profit, which would become taxable. In the very old days, the Foreign Office used to produce a manual of fixed allowance rates for business travel to the entire world, based on an analysis of hotel and restaurant costs (I remember that for Mongolia there was one rate for Ulaan Baatar and another for “rest of Mongolia”, indicating the level of granularity); whether they still do this, I don’t know?
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
Some strategic autonomy from the US would obviously be a good development, however the government are not being remotely honest or realistic about how much time and money this is going to take. This program has now been running for 10 years and the fucking thing was supposed to be flying in 2025 which is about three weeks away.
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
A gratuitous use of my image allowance! (I thought this more interesting than Leon's pictures of his dinner). I'm currently in sole charge of not one, but two steam locomotives in steam. I've been here since the small hours, lighting up and getting them in steam ready for a day hauling Satan Santa and a load of small kids round - the crews for both should be relieving me in around an hour. Long live king coal...!
You may feel like it's doxxing, so don't feel like answering if you don't want, but which railway is that?
Standard gauge by the looks of it; 0-4-0 at the back, presumably an 0-4-0 at the front?
The single best decision Labour could make is getting David M as an MP and having him take over in 2028.
David Miliband is a less interesting Rishi Sunak. A perfectly competent mid-level technocrat who has neither the energy nor the imagination to succeed at the top.
Peter Mandelson commented once that 'David doesn't have the lead in his pencil to be PM.' Much though I dislike Mandelson, he's a shrewd judge and I've never seen anything to make me think he was wrong in that assessment.
A few people going round and round in pointless circles at vast expense with the odd car crash along the way before we arrive at a pre-ordained conclusion and hardly anyone is happy sounds like a good metaphor for the Rwanda scheme.
Looking at the Middle East. it's a much changed place over the start of the year. Hamas ground down, Hezbollah neutered, Syria no longer functional. Iran is looking shaky after all of this and Israel better placed. Yahya Sinwar wont be getting a statue in Tehran.
We just need the loss of Syrian bases to result in Putin being defenestrated and his successor bringing the troops home from Ukraine in return for the liftng of sanctions and it will have been truly momentous.
I now think Russia descending into a quasi civil war is more likely than Putin's defenestration. Putin is the new Tsar, and far too many people owe him fealty. It may go the way of Syria in 2011, with regions breaking away, leaving a decaying rump Muscovy.
But more likely is Trump removing, or reducing by the back door, sanctions. That would be a massive betrayal of Ukraine.
Russia is in deep trouble, militarily (*) and financially. Now is the time to increase the pressure, not reduce it.
(*) There are stories that Russian artillery usage is now at par with, or below, Ukraine's. Perhaps a result of the missile attacks on ammo dumps a few months back.
Daily losses of Russian artillery this week have been way down. 24 lost yesterday, but before that, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3. Less shells being fired by the Russians, so less counter-battery fire from the Ukrainians.
A gratuitous use of my image allowance! (I thought this more interesting than Leon's pictures of his dinner). I'm currently in sole charge of not one, but two steam locomotives in steam. I've been here since the small hours, lighting up and getting them in steam ready for a day hauling Satan Santa and a load of small kids round - the crews for both should be relieving me in around an hour. Long live king coal...!
You may feel like it's doxxing, so don't feel like answering if you don't want, but which railway is that?
Standard gauge by the looks of it; 0-4-0 at the back, presumably an 0-4-0 at the front?
Rather stupid of me, I fear; the one at the back is probably an Austerity 0-6-0.
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
Some strategic autonomy from the US would obviously be a good development, however the government are not being remotely honest or realistic about how much time and money this is going to take. This program has now been running for 10 years and the fucking thing was supposed to be flying in 2025 which is about three weeks away.
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
Have the usual suspects shown any sign of imposing some kind of risk/cost/requirements control? As opposed to “keep the money river flowing and eventually you will get a shiny”?
The other day @Andy_Cooke replied to my comment that the "presumption in favour of sustainable development where a local plan did not exist" was being weakened, that he could not see any change in the new National Planning Policy Framework.
To translate that into English (ish), what my quoted bit means is that if a local planning authority (LPA - ie Council, National Park etc) does not have a Local Plan in place to guide development, it devolves into a setup where housing need is met in order of Planning Applications being brought forward (ie set by a Planning Permission race amongst developers) with a presumption to approve, rather than as identified by the Local Plan in order of sustainability as evaluated by the LPA. "Sustainability" means "how suitable is this site for development" and would be based on closeness to bus routes, road capacity, inside community boundary, is access available and the other 57 relevant criteria), then in my Council all the potential sites are sorted by order and they work down from the top as to how many are needed for the Housing Requirement, and tag these are the sites they would like to have done in the Local Plan period.
In practice this means that on Appeal the sustainability will be evaluated by the Planning Inspector, according to established principles of law, national planning policy, and precedent. And the Local Authority Planning Committee is marginalised from the process. This enables developers to bring forward sites the LPA would prefer not to have developed.
I said that I reckoned this was now tipped back the other way, and Andy asked "how?".
It's politics and timing.
Labour identified that they would overhaul it all in Government, and Planning Applications slowed down in anticipation (the Shadow Minister was having a go about that in the debate). Then they said "we will be bring changes forward quickly" (which TBF they have). Now we have a changed regime coming in very quickly - the new NPPF is active immediately, and Councils are being pushed to get Local Plans through in months, and in the meantime Applications which some forward on the type of sites which Councils try to protect (eg Green Belt or Green Field) are subject to a +15% Affordable Housing requirement, which makes it more difficult for developers financially, disincentivising such applications.
Those timings mean that there is not time for developers to put forward these edgy applications, as it takes 1-2 years overall and the new setup is already part here, and completing rapidly.
Plus developers don't know what "Grey Belt" means as the new definition is coming in after Christmas.
So rather than try and exploit the "presumption" battering ram with all the money that costs, they are better off waiting briefly to find out what the new process is. Because the new process is appearing as if it may be more orderly than the current wild-west situation.
That's how I read the circumstances, anyway.
@MattW - haven't got time to respond at the moment, but as per my responses yesterday in the previous thread, Grey Belt is defined in the Annex to this NPPF:
"For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.."
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
Some strategic autonomy from the US would obviously be a good development, however the government are not being remotely honest or realistic about how much time and money this is going to take. This program has now been running for 10 years and the fucking thing was supposed to be flying in 2025 which is about three weeks away.
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
Have the usual suspects shown any sign of imposing some kind of risk/cost/requirements control? As opposed to “keep the money river flowing and eventually you will get a shiny”?
It's all agile-this, AI-that and it'll-all-be-different-this-time.
(PS - I'm very much unimpressed with the Ashfield Independents if they operate like that. The LA must be in a total mess with that sort of attitude dominating it)
The other day @Andy_Cooke replied to my comment that the "presumption in favour of sustainable development where a local plan did not exist" was being weakened, that he could not see any change in the new National Planning Policy Framework.
To translate that into English (ish), what my quoted bit means is that if a local planning authority (LPA - ie Council, National Park etc) does not have a Local Plan in place to guide development, it devolves into a setup where housing need is met in order of Planning Applications being brought forward (ie set by a Planning Permission race amongst developers) with a presumption to approve, rather than as identified by the Local Plan in order of sustainability as evaluated by the LPA. "Sustainability" means "how suitable is this site for development" and would be based on closeness to bus routes, road capacity, inside community boundary, is access available and the other 57 relevant criteria), then in my Council all the potential sites are sorted by order and they work down from the top as to how many are needed for the Housing Requirement, and tag these are the sites they would like to have done in the Local Plan period.
In practice this means that on Appeal the sustainability will be evaluated by the Planning Inspector, according to established principles of law, national planning policy, and precedent. And the Local Authority Planning Committee is marginalised from the process. This enables developers to bring forward sites the LPA would prefer not to have developed.
I said that I reckoned this was now tipped back the other way, and Andy asked "how?".
It's politics and timing.
Labour identified that they would overhaul it all in Government, and Planning Applications slowed down in anticipation (the Shadow Minister was having a go about that in the debate). Then they said "we will be bring changes forward quickly" (which TBF they have). Now we have a changed regime coming in very quickly - the new NPPF is active immediately, and Councils are being pushed to get Local Plans through in months, and in the meantime Applications which some forward on the type of sites which Councils try to protect (eg Green Belt or Green Field) are subject to a +15% Affordable Housing requirement, which makes it more difficult for developers financially, disincentivising such applications.
Those timings mean that there is not time for developers to put forward these edgy applications, as it takes 1-2 years overall and the new setup is already part here, and completing rapidly.
Plus developers don't know what "Grey Belt" means as the new definition is coming in after Christmas.
So rather than try and exploit the "presumption" battering ram with all the money that costs, they are better off waiting briefly to find out what the new process is. Because the new process is appearing as if it may be more orderly than the current wild-west situation.
That's how I read the circumstances, anyway.
@MattW - haven't got time to respond at the moment, but as per my responses yesterday in the previous thread, Grey Belt is defined in the Annex to this NPPF:
"For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.."
Is this an example of simplifying by complicating, and speeding up by slowing down?
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Assad reportedly has £55m in a London HSBC account.
Is there no limit of the depravity of the man? Not just the tortures, murders, chemical weapons etc but actually has a large account with HSBC?
I love the way HSBC rolls out the red carpet for all sorts of dodgy folk, I try and buy a few nice bottles of wine for Christmas the other day and I got flagged for fraudulent activity....
Seems like a pile on is starting about reporting the speaker to her university (MIT) for being a racist due to one very unwise slide that shared an anecdote.
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
Some strategic autonomy from the US would obviously be a good development, however the government are not being remotely honest or realistic about how much time and money this is going to take. This program has now been running for 10 years and the fucking thing was supposed to be flying in 2025 which is about three weeks away.
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
The idea of more strategic autonomy from the US is nice but not that practical at the moment. Surely it would be better for Britain to just buy the sodding things off the shelf from the US?
They make good planes that are bought by most of our allies so we have easier interoperability off we make sure we have the same kit.
We don’t need better planes than our allies, we aren’t going to be in dogfights with the Belgians or the Poles but we might be sharing airbases and ground crew.
We just need to have better or, at least the same, standards of aircraft than Russia, China, Iran at the moment.
So buy the range of US planes and be done with it, try and get licences to make some parts for those planes in the UK - if necessary dangle some made up title for Donald Trump as junior king of Perthshire or something.
The other day @Andy_Cooke replied to my comment that the "presumption in favour of sustainable development where a local plan did not exist" was being weakened, that he could not see any change in the new National Planning Policy Framework.
To translate that into English (ish), what my quoted bit means is that if a local planning authority (LPA - ie Council, National Park etc) does not have a Local Plan in place to guide development, it devolves into a setup where housing need is met in order of Planning Applications being brought forward (ie set by a Planning Permission race amongst developers) with a presumption to approve, rather than as identified by the Local Plan in order of sustainability as evaluated by the LPA. "Sustainability" means "how suitable is this site for development" and would be based on closeness to bus routes, road capacity, inside community boundary, is access available and the other 57 relevant criteria), then in my Council all the potential sites are sorted by order and they work down from the top as to how many are needed for the Housing Requirement, and tag these are the sites they would like to have done in the Local Plan period.
In practice this means that on Appeal the sustainability will be evaluated by the Planning Inspector, according to established principles of law, national planning policy, and precedent. And the Local Authority Planning Committee is marginalised from the process. This enables developers to bring forward sites the LPA would prefer not to have developed.
I said that I reckoned this was now tipped back the other way, and Andy asked "how?".
It's politics and timing.
Labour identified that they would overhaul it all in Government, and Planning Applications slowed down in anticipation (the Shadow Minister was having a go about that in the debate). Then they said "we will be bring changes forward quickly" (which TBF they have). Now we have a changed regime coming in very quickly - the new NPPF is active immediately, and Councils are being pushed to get Local Plans through in months, and in the meantime Applications which some forward on the type of sites which Councils try to protect (eg Green Belt or Green Field) are subject to a +15% Affordable Housing requirement, which makes it more difficult for developers financially, disincentivising such applications.
Those timings mean that there is not time for developers to put forward these edgy applications, as it takes 1-2 years overall and the new setup is already part here, and completing rapidly.
Plus developers don't know what "Grey Belt" means as the new definition is coming in after Christmas.
So rather than try and exploit the "presumption" battering ram with all the money that costs, they are better off waiting briefly to find out what the new process is. Because the new process is appearing as if it may be more orderly than the current wild-west situation.
That's how I read the circumstances, anyway.
@MattW - haven't got time to respond at the moment, but as per my responses yesterday in the previous thread, Grey Belt is defined in the Annex to this NPPF:
"For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.."
Is this an example of simplifying by complicating, and speeding up by slowing down?
To be fair, it's possibly the most constructive (pun intended) of the tweaks made.
Para 143 defines the purpose of the Green Belt: Green Belt serves five purposes: a) to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; b) to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; c) to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; d) to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and e) to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land
This means that to reject applications in the Green Belt (on the grounds of Green Belt-ism), there would have to be a case made that the site must be kept clear to check unrestricted sprawl, prevent merger, or preserve the setting and special character of historic towns (only).
Given the width of many Green Belts, you just need to be a couple of fields away from the edge of the existing built zone to make that case rather unsupportable (given the precedents on the ribbon development elements already in existence in the NPPF).
My instinct is that (NPPF-wise), the key focus is here (it's why my original read through focused so much on it; it's where the main changes are. I suspect paras 153 and 155 will be the most cited and important ones. (Which leads me to reiterate my disappointment that they didn't do a "drains-up" rewrite. They could have done the work in advance prior to the election.
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
Some strategic autonomy from the US would obviously be a good development, however the government are not being remotely honest or realistic about how much time and money this is going to take. This program has now been running for 10 years and the fucking thing was supposed to be flying in 2025 which is about three weeks away.
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
Is that the case? They're likely about to scrap Tranche 1 (which can't be upgraded) which leaves them only around 100 airframes. The UK F35, for now can't provide the long range shooting ability of the Typhoon, I believe (cant fit the bigger missiles). Another few would make some sort of sense.
Musk and his MAGA followers are now rooting to scrap the F35, because they know that it's overpriced and underperforms (neither is really true). So there's a genuine risk the program ends.
The Saudis might cough up some funds...
Against that, making a knockoff a decade and a half after the first doesn't seem too smart, though it does keep us in the game, sort of.
Then there's the S Koreans, who are developing their own know how. The trio of partners should have a chat with them.
The other day @Andy_Cooke replied to my comment that the "presumption in favour of sustainable development where a local plan did not exist" was being weakened, that he could not see any change in the new National Planning Policy Framework.
To translate that into English (ish), what my quoted bit means is that if a local planning authority (LPA - ie Council, National Park etc) does not have a Local Plan in place to guide development, it devolves into a setup where housing need is met in order of Planning Applications being brought forward (ie set by a Planning Permission race amongst developers) with a presumption to approve, rather than as identified by the Local Plan in order of sustainability as evaluated by the LPA. "Sustainability" means "how suitable is this site for development" and would be based on closeness to bus routes, road capacity, inside community boundary, is access available and the other 57 relevant criteria), then in my Council all the potential sites are sorted by order and they work down from the top as to how many are needed for the Housing Requirement, and tag these are the sites they would like to have done in the Local Plan period.
In practice this means that on Appeal the sustainability will be evaluated by the Planning Inspector, according to established principles of law, national planning policy, and precedent. And the Local Authority Planning Committee is marginalised from the process. This enables developers to bring forward sites the LPA would prefer not to have developed.
I said that I reckoned this was now tipped back the other way, and Andy asked "how?".
It's politics and timing.
Labour identified that they would overhaul it all in Government, and Planning Applications slowed down in anticipation (the Shadow Minister was having a go about that in the debate). Then they said "we will be bring changes forward quickly" (which TBF they have). Now we have a changed regime coming in very quickly - the new NPPF is active immediately, and Councils are being pushed to get Local Plans through in months, and in the meantime Applications which some forward on the type of sites which Councils try to protect (eg Green Belt or Green Field) are subject to a +15% Affordable Housing requirement, which makes it more difficult for developers financially, disincentivising such applications.
Those timings mean that there is not time for developers to put forward these edgy applications, as it takes 1-2 years overall and the new setup is already part here, and completing rapidly.
Plus developers don't know what "Grey Belt" means as the new definition is coming in after Christmas.
So rather than try and exploit the "presumption" battering ram with all the money that costs, they are better off waiting briefly to find out what the new process is. Because the new process is appearing as if it may be more orderly than the current wild-west situation.
That's how I read the circumstances, anyway.
@MattW - haven't got time to respond at the moment, but as per my responses yesterday in the previous thread, Grey Belt is defined in the Annex to this NPPF:
"For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.."
Is this an example of simplifying by complicating, and speeding up by slowing down?
To be fair, it's possibly the most constructive (pun intended) of the tweaks made.
Para 143 defines the purpose of the Green Belt: Green Belt serves five purposes: a) to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; b) to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; c) to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; d) to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and e) to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land
This means that to reject applications in the Green Belt (on the grounds of Green Belt-ism), there would have to be a case made that the site must be kept clear to check unrestricted sprawl, prevent merger, or preserve the setting and special character of historic towns (only).
Given the width of many Green Belts, you just need to be a couple of fields away from the edge of the existing built zone to make that case rather unsupportable (given the precedents on the ribbon development elements already in existence in the NPPF).
My instinct is that (NPPF-wise), the key focus is here (it's why my original read through focused so much on it; it's where the main changes are. I suspect paras 153 and 155 will be the most cited and important ones. (Which leads me to reiterate my disappointment that they didn't do a "drains-up" rewrite. They could have done the work in advance prior to the election.
That would have been the ideal. But in any event, thus lends itself very nicely to the suggested developments which can take advantage of existing or planned infrastructure, and can therefore build fully functioning new towns.
Brexit won't last. It is a zombie. It is already dead It just doesn't know it yet. Labour's efforts to hold on to red lines look totally outdated... the electorate know it. Even the brexit voters don't want brexit anymore 🤷♂️
Also I suspect labour will get it's voters back when labour leadership understands there is zero taste for red lines anymore.... that is old hat
Comments
This is it.
https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1867607124664365510
RUSSIAN WHEAT SUPPLIES TO SYRIA SUSPENDED DUE TO GOVERNMENT UNCERTAINTY, PAYMENT ISSUES - RUSSIAN AND SYRIAN SOURCES
https://x.com/TommyLundn/status/1867580511193116895
The possibility of Ukraine stepping in is strategically interesting.
Chris Murphy: "There's no doubt that this administration's policy toward the Middle East is going to be compromised by the fact that they're making money off the very people they're sitting across the table from and supposedly having a conversation about the interests of the US"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1867394433651454035
Over 1 million expected to attend candlelight rally for impeachment vote
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=388421
What happens here is that Local Councillors, when they see a potential new housing estate that is opposed locally, or for which they can generate opposition, may lead a campaign against it - which is "find a mob and stand in front of it" politics.
This may include councillors on the Planning Committee. So they vote against it, and will refuse even over a recommendation to approve, and they get the upside of opposing it approved of by local voters, and the approval may go through on Appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
So the "local champions" benefit both ways, and the Council has to pay the cost of losing an Appeal - which is deemed acceptable.
Ashfield Independents control about 32 from 35 Council sears, so also control the Planning Committee.
It's an Ashfield Independent speciality, which they also .used to do when they were still Lib Dems. I term it "local populism".
The technique is also used to drive wedge issues between District and County (controlled by Conservatives), and maintains a local 'fortress'. Here is an example of when they used it to oppose active travel infrastructure funded by dedicated national Active Travel funding done by the Highways Authority, who are the County Council.
The project was to improve walking, wheeling and cycling to a town centre, employment area, leisure facilities and the local hospital, to minimum national standards. Yet they campaigned around wanting a "more modest" scheme, and the money spent on potholes - neither of which was possible. Here is a link to a front page report in the local paper.
Their desire would have left wheelchair users on the road, or on a 3-4ft wide, bumpy pavement with cars often parked on it.
(The green and trees stuff is overplayed, and they are simultaneously removing green spaces like this elsewhere nearby for parking.)
https://archive.is/wip/9PrTZ
This is one reason why my local active travel activism is focused on things I can enforce in Court, since the politics is poisonous.
The NYPD did not have a choir. Until now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFC2V4o2k_Q
Thanks to Matt, Andy and others who have been updating us with info on the planning changes.
But I still fear one thing: this is all about chucking up houses; there's very little about actually building liveable communities.
We'll see.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/12/13/TELEMMGLPICT000405250546_17341088893900_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=1280&imdensity=2
UK joins Italy and Japan to develop British fighter jet to rival America’s F-35
Joint-venture hailed as a ‘pivotal moment’ for the international aerospace and defence industry
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/13/uk-joins-italy-and-japan-to-develop-british-fighter-jet-to-rival-americas-f-35
It's a consequential decision, and would suck up quite a lot of the defence budget.
It sounds as though Starmer is looking for Saudi cash before he commits the government to it.
But they're reportedly airlifting out the air defence systems, which strongly suggests they're not going to stay.
But more likely is Trump removing, or reducing by the back door, sanctions. That would be a massive betrayal of Ukraine.
Russia is in deep trouble, militarily (*) and financially. Now is the time to increase the pressure, not reduce it.
(*) There are stories that Russian artillery usage is now at par with, or below, Ukraine's. Perhaps a result of the missile attacks on ammo dumps a few months back.
F1: as rumoured earlier, Rwanda want an F1 race:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cdd6e1jep42o
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/12/13/nancy-pelosi-in-hospital-with-injury-luxembourg/
Then I realised you posted it below. What can I say, it's early in the morning...
FIA Tsar.
That would probably be about a week's spending for her.
"The general meeting of the ruling People Power Party has ended after about six hours.
Park Chan-dae, the party's floor leader, tells reporters that the party will participate in the impeachment vote now. This represents an about-face from last Saturday, when the party boycotted the first impeachment vote .
My favourite was watching 8 (or was it more?) builders manhandle a huge piece of glass on a London building site. Stupid and dangerous.
Back to planning for a moment. A Local Plan goes through many levels of consultation - as an example, in the two tier set up, the District or Borough Council has to consult with a range of stakeholders including the County Council. The latter will advise on its service requirement set against population changes - are new schools needed, what about enhanced fire cover, what about additional facilities for care for the elderly, what about new roads.
All these questions come out of how you provide accommodation for an increasing population and where you build new dwellings, what kind you need to build, the density.
It’s a complex and multi-faceted activity which usually arrives at a Plan which pleases almost no one but displeases almost everyone equally.
I've been here since the small hours, lighting up and getting them in steam ready for a day hauling Satan Santa and a load of small kids round - the crews for both should be relieving me in around an hour. Long live king coal...!
On travel expenses, all the evidence is that a receipted system is more economic and less subject to fraud than the old system of allowances, and in both the private and public sector most companies now base their policies on receipts, which also avoids any suggestion of profit, which would become taxable. In the very old days, the Foreign Office used to produce a manual of fixed allowance rates for business travel to the entire world, based on an analysis of hotel and restaurant costs (I remember that for Mongolia there was one rate for Ulaan Baatar and another for “rest of Mongolia”, indicating the level of granularity); whether they still do this, I don’t know?
It's smart-ish politics from SKS. He isn't going to be PM when this all unravels so he might as well have a pull on the Global Britain crack pipe and be the big man on defence.
His pressing issue is that the Typhoon FAL at Wharton is now idle because the Qatari order is finished. Unless the Turkey or Saudi deals materialise very quickly then BAE and the unions will pressure him into a Tranche 4 order of Typhoon that the RAF neither needs nor wants. And every quid spent on more Typhoon is a quid less for Tempest.
Italy are very savvy at defence procurement so they are probably the weak link in all this. They won't hesitate to pull out if it looks like a money pit. The Japanese will pull out if Trump tells them to (or offers them NGAD or F/A-XX) but fuck knows how likely or unlikely that is.
Standard gauge by the looks of it; 0-4-0 at the back, presumably an 0-4-0 at the front?
Peter Mandelson commented once that 'David doesn't have the lead in his pencil to be PM.' Much though I dislike Mandelson, he's a shrewd judge and I've never seen anything to make me think he was wrong in that assessment.
I was never a loco guy really.
(South Korean one).
"For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.."
(Do they draw a cock and balls in South Korea?)
(PS - I'm very much unimpressed with the Ashfield Independents if they operate like that. The LA must be in a total mess with that sort of attitude dominating it)
https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2024/july/stellantis-invests-additional-55-million-in-archer-following-recent-flight-test-milestone
If only all banks were so fixated on customer service.
https://x.com/sunjiao123sun_/status/1867744557200470422
Seems like a pile on is starting about reporting the speaker to her university (MIT) for being a racist due to one very unwise slide that shared an anecdote.
They make good planes that are bought by most of our allies so we have easier interoperability off we make sure we have the same kit.
We don’t need better planes than our allies, we aren’t going to be in dogfights with the Belgians or the Poles but we might be sharing airbases and ground crew.
We just need to have better or, at least the same, standards of aircraft than Russia, China, Iran at the moment.
So buy the range of US planes and be done with it, try and get licences to make some parts for those planes in the UK - if necessary dangle some made up title for Donald Trump as junior king of Perthshire or something.
Para 143 defines the purpose of the Green Belt:
Green Belt serves five purposes:
a) to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;
b) to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another;
c) to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment;
d) to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and
e) to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other
urban land
This means that to reject applications in the Green Belt (on the grounds of Green Belt-ism), there would have to be a case made that the site must be kept clear to check unrestricted sprawl, prevent merger, or preserve the setting and special character of historic towns (only).
Given the width of many Green Belts, you just need to be a couple of fields away from the edge of the existing built zone to make that case rather unsupportable (given the precedents on the ribbon development elements already in existence in the NPPF).
My instinct is that (NPPF-wise), the key focus is here (it's why my original read through focused so much on it; it's where the main changes are. I suspect paras 153 and 155 will be the most cited and important ones.
(Which leads me to reiterate my disappointment that they didn't do a "drains-up" rewrite. They could have done the work in advance prior to the election.
NEW THREAD
They're likely about to scrap Tranche 1 (which can't be upgraded) which leaves them only around 100 airframes.
The UK F35, for now can't provide the long range shooting ability of the Typhoon, I believe (cant fit the bigger missiles). Another few would make some sort of sense.
Musk and his MAGA followers are now rooting to scrap the F35, because they know that it's overpriced and underperforms (neither is really true). So there's a genuine risk the program ends.
The Saudis might cough up some funds...
Against that, making a knockoff a decade and a half after the first doesn't seem too smart, though it does keep us in the game, sort of.
Then there's the S Koreans, who are developing their own know how. The trio of partners should have a chat with them.
https://conservativepost.co.uk/ed-miliband-faces-calls-to-refer-himself-for-ministerial-code-breach-over-4-million-donation-links/
Starmer must want shot so he can ditch the CCS and the more rabid part of the Milli agenda, but this is definitely not how you'd want it to happen.
Kudos to the handful of conservatives who did the right thing.
But in any event, thus lends itself very nicely to the suggested developments which can take advantage of existing or planned infrastructure, and can therefore build fully functioning new towns.
Or even PB for goodness sake.