Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
The days of large scale new build public construction projects are over. The Council would need to enter a deal with the house builder to ensure some form of lease back for each property.
The truth is no one wants to build houses for nothing and the only body which could (theoretically) is the Government which would absorb the costs. You won’t get Redrow and Berkeley and Persimmon to build houses and then give them away but that’s the problem. New houses are unaffordable for most because they cost money to build and everyone wants either to be paid or make a profit so one bedroom flats in East Ham either get snapped up by private landlords or sit empty while those who really need a home continue to be shut out of the process.
The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:
Service charges.
They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.
It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care. . I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.
I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.
In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
Any result which does not have Welsh Labour first is a very good result for Wales and possibly a very good result for Welsh Labour given how tired and inept they have become.
If Labour lose control in Wales they may be out of power for a generation. The lobbying organisations will cosy up to whoever wins and Labour will find that they have less influence in the media and with NGOs. In Scotland, Labour’s only remaining area of influence is in the still overwhelmingly pro union media. I don’t know what the Welsh media position is; can anyone advise? Also, voters will realise that other parties are actually capable of running an administration, although it will be up to the winning parties to prove they are capable and not partisan or divisive. The SNP did this from 2007 to 2014, before deteriorating. Can Plaid or Reform do the same?
On your other point, it will depend on what sort of government the winning party, whoever it is, can cobble together. Plaid I think possibly could, by judicious use of the right mix of cabinet members and contacts. Whether they would is another question - my instinct is Rhun ap Iorwerth would at least try, and be able to sell it to his activists as governing for Wales and the Welsh people as a whole. Reform wouldn't be able to, or want to. The only party that might talk to them is the Tories and they wouldn't touch them with a forty foot pole if they didn't want to suffer a Cleggasm Mark II.
One of the big mistakes of Labour is that in the last fifteen years they've been increasingly overt about governing only for the benefit of themselves and their supporters. It's one reason they need booting out (that, and the level of talent in the party being somewhat lower than that of the average MTG fan group).
A Plaid-Liberal Democrat coalition willing to negotiate with the Tories on key points would probably be best for Wales. Would it happen? Who knows. If there's one thing I've learned from watching Welsh politics is that parties other than Labour usually flatter to deceive.
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
Good news for those of us stuck in traffic caused by low density housing sprawl with no public transport provision - looking at you Midlothian Council, bunch of freeloading carbrain numpties.
Will our developers go for this? Entirely against the ethos of maximising their land values by building as inefficiently as possible. We might have to make building sprawl harder.
High density and no (more) public transport on the other hand raises the question of where to park cars.
Aren't these developments meant to be within walking distance of the station?
Yes but who goes shopping by train? There are lots of new flats round here with more on the way, but we have great bus and tube links. From other parts of the country, one hears horror stories of one bus every two days. I've been in favour (on pb) of building near railways for longer than it has been government policy, but it needs to be part of a package and in the medium to long term, we need new towns to revive the regions.
This is the theory behind 15-minute cities. If you build density around that train station, you generate the economic critical mass required for a High Street to develop around it.
That means that you can get 100,000 people (or more) who don't need to jump in a car to grab some food. It's also much cheaper to provide public services like schools and GP practices. Public transport requires density to work too - that's why we gave buses every 10 minutes in Edinburgh but not in Midlothian.
This isn't a crazy idea. This is how the economically productive parts of the UK operate already. Economies of scale were described by Adam Smith, and the Romans and Greeks probably had a good understanding of it too.
Unfortunately it's not in the private interests of developers, so you end up with these enormous estates miles away from anything.
Down here in the South, there are a lot of homes being built but not the facilities like schools and doctors to go with it. There seems to be some sort of belief "if you build it, they will come" - or the s106 monies are being redirected to something else.
Given youre having no kids theres no need to worry about the schools. Retirement homes is more your worry.
That's not true about kids. Often I'll see 80 year olds out with their mothers.
Auditors have identified a catalogue of financial reporting errors at the public body run by England’s only Conservative metro mayor, the latest setback to Lord Ben Houchen and his Tees Valley Combined Authority.
EY confirmed that it would be unable to sign off on the 2024-25 accounts at TVCA as a result, saying the errors included “material misstatements” that were evident simply from reading the document.
Loans made by TVCA without proper accounting include to Teesside Airport whose financing is do opaque no-one knows what's going on. Meanwhile certain developers are doing well out of the heavily indebted Authority.
In terms of actually running things, is Benny H the most powerful Conservative politician left? I guess some of the shire counties are bigger, but they are basically social care delivery mechanisms, so I'm not sure they count.
Worth adding that Labour ran an appalling campaign at the last mayoral election because no-one wanted to clean up a mess where only a tiny part of the scale is visible.
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
I enjoyed your post. Gordon Brown made many mistakes and devolution was one of his biggest. How to do devolution well remains a challenge. As you say, devolved governments can escape accountability, and it's all too easy for parties to thrive at the polls by always blaming the centre. We should have looked at Spain, where these same issues have happened, and devolved governments have wasted money on white elephants. This led to the formation of Ciudadanos (Citizens) in Spain with an anti-federalism position, although in today's modern political environment of constantly unhappy electorates, they came, they saw, they conquered a bit, and then they crashed and have largely vanished again.
Are there examples of where the decentralisation of power has worked better? The German Länder or Swiss cantons maybe?
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
That's the Will Of The People for you.
The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.
Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.
(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)
But what good does it do anybody to have a planning system that allows local people to force extra expense and delay (which we all end up paying for via taxes) before it comes to the same decision anyway?
The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:
Service charges.
They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.
It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care. . I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.
I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.
In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
They are. My son has just moved into one of them in Tottenham Hale. He is renting. No idea what he is paying. I was quite impressed with it, but then it is brand new. Overlooks the canal and spitting distance to the station. His girlfriend is a fellow at Cambridge and he has just left Cambridge to work in London. Both their commutes are easy.
One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
Good news for those of us stuck in traffic caused by low density housing sprawl with no public transport provision - looking at you Midlothian Council, bunch of freeloading carbrain numpties.
Will our developers go for this? Entirely against the ethos of maximising their land values by building as inefficiently as possible. We might have to make building sprawl harder.
High density and no (more) public transport on the other hand raises the question of where to park cars.
Aren't these developments meant to be within walking distance of the station?
Yes but who goes shopping by train? There are lots of new flats round here with more on the way, but we have great bus and tube links. From other parts of the country, one hears horror stories of one bus every two days. I've been in favour (on pb) of building near railways for longer than it has been government policy, but it needs to be part of a package and in the medium to long term, we need new towns to revive the regions.
This is the theory behind 15-minute cities. If you build density around that train station, you generate the economic critical mass required for a High Street to develop around it.
That means that you can get 100,000 people (or more) who don't need to jump in a car to grab some food. It's also much cheaper to provide public services like schools and GP practices. Public transport requires density to work too - that's why we gave buses every 10 minutes in Edinburgh but not in Midlothian.
This isn't a crazy idea. This is how the economically productive parts of the UK operate already. Economies of scale were described by Adam Smith, and the Romans and Greeks probably had a good understanding of it too.
Unfortunately it's not in the private interests of developers, so you end up with these enormous estates miles away from anything.
100 years ago, the Metropolitan and Southern Railways built stations before the local housing was constructed. An example is Albany Park. We should do it again.
There is a plan for that at Tempsford i.e. where the new East West line from Oxford to Cambridge crosses the ECML - how far it gets not a clue but it should be the town of at least 100,000...
Any result which does not have Welsh Labour first is a very good result for Wales and possibly a very good result for Welsh Labour given how tired and inept they have become.
If Labour lose control in Wales they may be out of power for a generation. The lobbying organisations will cosy up to whoever wins and Labour will find that they have less influence in the media and with NGOs. In Scotland, Labour’s only remaining area of influence is in the still overwhelmingly pro union media. I don’t know what the Welsh media position is; can anyone advise? Also, voters will realise that other parties are actually capable of running an administration, although it will be up to the winning parties to prove they are capable and not partisan or divisive. The SNP did this from 2007 to 2014, before deteriorating. Can Plaid or Reform do the same?
On your other point, it will depend on what sort of government the winning party, whoever it is, can cobble together. Plaid I think possibly could, by judicious use of the right mix of cabinet members and contacts. Whether they would is another question - my instinct is Rhun ap Iorwerth would at least try, and be able to sell it to his activists as governing for Wales and the Welsh people as a whole. Reform wouldn't be able to, or want to. The only party that might talk to them is the Tories and they wouldn't touch them with a forty foot pole if they didn't want to suffer a Cleggasm Mark II.
One of the big mistakes of Labour is that in the last fifteen years they've been increasingly overt about governing only for the benefit of themselves and their supporters. It's one reason they need booting out (that, and the level of talent in the party being somewhat lower than that of the average MTG fan group).
A Plaid-Liberal Democrat coalition willing to negotiate with the Tories on key points would probably be best for Wales. Would it happen? Who knows. If there's one thing I've learned from watching Welsh politics is that parties other than Labour usually flatter to deceive.
The best option for Wales would be for the Greens and Lib Dems to win enough seats to support Plaid without them needing Labour or Conservative support.
Auditors have identified a catalogue of financial reporting errors at the public body run by England’s only Conservative metro mayor, the latest setback to Lord Ben Houchen and his Tees Valley Combined Authority.
EY confirmed that it would be unable to sign off on the 2024-25 accounts at TVCA as a result, saying the errors included “material misstatements” that were evident simply from reading the document.
Loans made by TVCA without proper accounting include to Teesside Airport whose financing is so opaque no-one knows what's going on. Meanwhile certain developers are doing well out of the heavily indebted Authority.
If this is the same Teesworks stuff Private Eye has been covering for years then expect people to start caring shortly after the ITV drama (Post Office) or Netflix drama (Adolescence).
There is a free-to-read FT link in the Bluesky post btw.
The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:
Service charges.
They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.
It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care. . I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.
I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.
In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
My son has just moved into one of them in Tottenham Hale. He is renting. No idea what he is paying. I was quite impressed with it, but then it is brand new. Overlooks the canal and spitting distance to the station. His girlfriend is a fellow at Cambridge and he has just left Cambridge to work in London. Both their commutes are easy.
One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.
They’ve definitely made them look as best as they can. And they’re perfectly situated. Aesthetics are fine.
I just worry about what happens in 10-15 years when lifts start to age and structural maintenance becomes more a thing.
Auditors have identified a catalogue of financial reporting errors at the public body run by England’s only Conservative metro mayor, the latest setback to Lord Ben Houchen and his Tees Valley Combined Authority.
EY confirmed that it would be unable to sign off on the 2024-25 accounts at TVCA as a result, saying the errors included “material misstatements” that were evident simply from reading the document.
Loans made by TVCA without proper accounting include to Teesside Airport whose financing is so opaque no-one knows what's going on. Meanwhile certain developers are doing well out of the heavily indebted Authority.
If this is the same Teesworks stuff Private Eye has been covering for years then expect people to start caring shortly after the ITV drama (Post Office) or Netflix drama (Adolescence).
There is a free-to-read FT link in the Bluesky post btw.
It is the same stuff. The Tories covered it up. But there’s no longer any scope to do that.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.
Yes, Trump is the fault of his critics, or the fault of the Democrats for standing Kamala Harris, or the fault of people being too woke. It's never the fault of the people who supported Trump.
The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:
Service charges.
They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.
It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care. . I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.
I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.
In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
They are. My son has just moved into one of them in Tottenham Hale. He is renting. No idea what he is paying. I was quite impressed with it, but then it is brand new. Overlooks the canal and spitting distance to the station. His girlfriend is a fellow at Cambridge and he has just left Cambridge to work in London. Both their commutes are easy.
One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.
Yes, although sod the locals, or rather the old locals.
One other new factor is people working in London now want to live in London. Long commutes from the Home Counties or even the suburbs are falling out of fashion. In this way, London is becoming more like the rest of the country, and not in a good way.
WHICH BIT OF THE NO DISCUSSION OF THE GROOMING STORY DO PBers NOT UNDERSTAND?
THE SPAM TRAP HAS BEEN UPDATED, DON’T MOAN IF YOU FIND YOURSELVES BANNED.
Hi TSE, I have no wish to be banned but as a long standing female poster on this site from the early days who was once a young lassie who has spent her whole life trying to make sure I was safe in the work place and elsewhere and who has recently found the hill I am prepared to die on that crosses political lines when it comes to defending women only safe spaces, why can't we talk about something that has had such a huge and traumatic impact on so young women in so many communities and is currently just about one of the the biggest political stories right across the UK?! Are we saying on this site we simple ignore this huge scandal and the current implications for political parties and how they all deal with it?!
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
I enjoyed your post. Gordon Brown made many mistakes and devolution was one of his biggest. How to do devolution well remains a challenge. As you say, devolved governments can escape accountability, and it's all too easy for parties to thrive at the polls by always blaming the centre. We should have looked at Spain, where these same issues have happened, and devolved governments have wasted money on white elephants. This led to the formation of Ciudadanos (Citizens) in Spain with an anti-federalism position, although in today's modern political environment of constantly unhappy electorates, they came, they saw, they conquered a bit, and then they crashed and have largely vanished again.
Are there examples of where the decentralisation of power has worked better? The German Länder or Swiss cantons maybe?
To work, it needs each level to be willing to relinquish some of their power, Westminster to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont, the devolved and national governments to local councils. It also needs the supporting civil servants to relinquish power as well. That may be even harder. Germany and Switzerland have a longer history of devolution.
WHICH BIT OF THE NO DISCUSSION OF THE GROOMING STORY DO PBers NOT UNDERSTAND?
THE SPAM TRAP HAS BEEN UPDATED, DON’T MOAN IF YOU FIND YOURSELVES BANNED.
Hi TSE, I have no wish to be banned but as a long standing female poster on this site from the early days who was once a young lassie who has spent her whole life trying to make sure I was safe in the work place and elsewhere and who has recently found the hill I am prepared to die on that crosses political lines when it comes to defending women only safe spaces, why can't we talk about something that has had such a huge and traumatic impact on so young women in so many communities and is currently just about one of the the biggest political stories right across the UK?! Are we saying on this site we simple ignore this huge scandal and the current implications for political parties and how they all deal with it?!
Because of the online safety act and possible consequences for those that run the site, including OGH. If you want to discuss it do it on X, then its on Musk...
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.
I'm grateful for your infatuation, Alan.
Well its always the same Trump Trump Trump. I get bored shi6tless with Trump nonsense what about the rest of the world or even the UK ?
Why don't you restore balance with some of your fascinating and diverse commentary shot through with insight and wisdom?
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
That's the Will Of The People for you.
The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.
Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.
(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)
That’s the will of a well funded lobby group/special interest group for you.
Our railway station has plenty of homes within a 15 minute walk of it, cannot imagine where else they could build by it round here apart from a few small pieces of derilict land.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
That was this company's claim. I think they'd supplied more condoms than there were athletes
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
That's the Will Of The People for you.
The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.
Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.
(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)
That’s the will of a well funded lobby group/special interest group for you.
Our railway station has plenty of homes within a 15 minute walk of it, cannot imagine where else they could build by it round here apart from a few small pieces of derilict land.
Er, buy up the homes with gardens, or just the gardens, and knock them down? Seriously, that would be the implication of an incautious implementation of a local free for all.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
That was this company's claim. I think they'd supplied more condoms than there were athletes
You are at the peak of human physical performance. You are surrounded by others at the peak of human physical performance. Whatcha gonna do?
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
Any result which does not have Welsh Labour first is a very good result for Wales and possibly a very good result for Welsh Labour given how tired and inept they have become.
If Labour lose control in Wales they may be out of power for a generation. The lobbying organisations will cosy up to whoever wins and Labour will find that they have less influence in the media and with NGOs. In Scotland, Labour’s only remaining area of influence is in the still overwhelmingly pro union media. I don’t know what the Welsh media position is; can anyone advise? Also, voters will realise that other parties are actually capable of running an administration, although it will be up to the winning parties to prove they are capable and not partisan or divisive. The SNP did this from 2007 to 2014, before deteriorating. Can Plaid or Reform do the same?
On your other point, it will depend on what sort of government the winning party, whoever it is, can cobble together. Plaid I think possibly could, by judicious use of the right mix of cabinet members and contacts. Whether they would is another question - my instinct is Rhun ap Iorwerth would at least try, and be able to sell it to his activists as governing for Wales and the Welsh people as a whole. Reform wouldn't be able to, or want to. The only party that might talk to them is the Tories and they wouldn't touch them with a forty foot pole if they didn't want to suffer a Cleggasm Mark II.
One of the big mistakes of Labour is that in the last fifteen years they've been increasingly overt about governing only for the benefit of themselves and their supporters. It's one reason they need booting out (that, and the level of talent in the party being somewhat lower than that of the average MTG fan group).
A Plaid-Liberal Democrat coalition willing to negotiate with the Tories on key points would probably be best for Wales. Would it happen? Who knows. If there's one thing I've learned from watching Welsh politics is that parties other than Labour usually flatter to deceive.
The best option for Wales would be for the Greens and Lib Dems to win enough seats to support Plaid without them needing Labour or Conservative support.
I'm not sure I agree. Most of the Welsh Greens I know who are not off the wall are already associated with Plaid directly or indirectly. Meanwhile the Tories while some off them are pretty off the wall too offer a centre-right point of balance.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
The Olympics runs on McDonald's (protein and carbs with no fear of food poisoning) and condoms.
WHICH BIT OF THE NO DISCUSSION OF THE GROOMING STORY DO PBers NOT UNDERSTAND?
THE SPAM TRAP HAS BEEN UPDATED, DON’T MOAN IF YOU FIND YOURSELVES BANNED.
Hi TSE, I have no wish to be banned but as a long standing female poster on this site from the early days who was once a young lassie who has spent her whole life trying to make sure I was safe in the work place and elsewhere and who has recently found the hill I am prepared to die on that crosses political lines when it comes to defending women only safe spaces, why can't we talk about something that has had such a huge and traumatic impact on so young women in so many communities and is currently just about one of the the biggest political stories right across the UK?! Are we saying on this site we simple ignore this huge scandal and the current implications for political parties and how they all deal with it?!
Because of the online safety act and possible consequences for those that run the site, including OGH. If you want to discuss it do it on X, then its on Musk...
Any yet I can read about this issue in every paper in the media every day and watch indepth discussions on our 24/7 news channels everyday?! So I ask again, and I say this as someone who has been posting on this site for 20 years now and who would never post anything that would ever put this site at risk because I have too much respect for OGH and the amazing cross party site he created, but I have got to say as a female poster I am left feeling deeply uncomfortable that we cannot discuss a serious issue that affected young very vulnerable women at a time when we women are literally fighting to defend our hard fought for equality rights and the need to have safe women only spaces. I find it so hard to see this site literally trying to shut this discussion down despite the huge political implications right now. Just leaving this point out there, and if TSE bans me so be it..
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
That's the Will Of The People for you.
The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.
Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.
(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)
That’s the will of a well funded lobby group/special interest group for you.
Our railway station has plenty of homes within a 15 minute walk of it, cannot imagine where else they could build by it round here apart from a few small pieces of derilict land.
Er, buy up the homes with gardens, or just the gardens, and knock them down? Seriously, that would be the implication of an incautious implementation of a local free for all.
In the case of the homes rejected in Barnet they had already been approved by the council planning dept.
We shouldn’t have a free for all but we shouldn’t let a vocal NIMBY minority stop developments.
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
Point taken. I often used to buy the West Highland Free Press and watch Eòrpa to get at least something of a different perspective.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.
I'm grateful for your infatuation, Alan.
Well its always the same Trump Trump Trump. I get bored shi6tless with Trump nonsense what about the rest of the world or even the UK ?
......and not a word about the Ludlow Tractor Challenge. Will Massey Ferguson beat JCB to make it three in a row?
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
"Building near train stations will mean busier train"
I always find arguments like this a little bizarre.
There may be some truth for some individual stations, but aggregate demand for infrastructure, whether trains or roads, is driven by the size of the population. Not whether or not young people need to move back in with their parents (current position for many) or if they can afford to rent or buy somewhere of their own.
Increasing housing supply doesn't increase the net demand for infrastructure, it just improves the likelihood that more people can afford their own place to rent or preferably buy.
Building up near railway stations is a no-brainer. In London and the south east (at least) you'll find easy demand for such properties.
Yet only in the last week we have had a development on a car bark at Barnet station rejected because NIMbYs. It was recommended for approval to the council.
Just so I’m clear. You would agree any application irrespective of whether it contravened the guidelines on density and height laid out in the Local Plan of which any developer would be fully aware.
Let’s also drive a stake through the heart of the “we have to build” argument. Most of these no doubt well appointed little boxes will be far out of the reach of the people who need housing - those on housing waiting lists, families in one room, those people. If you want to solve the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families, build new houses and flats and sell them to local councils for £1 per unit and then let the council allocate them to the people who need them.
In this case yes as it was recommended for approval by the planning authorities at the council.
The one development being on an old car park adjacent to the station.
So who is going to build houses and sell them to the council for a nominal amount to transfer the title ?
People needing homes in Barnet won’t be helped by this rejection.
You can do both. Increase council and private provision
That's the Will Of The People for you.
The councillors who turned down these schemes were almost certainly accurately representing what their voters think. What probably happens now is that either Sadiq calls in the application and approves it, or (more likely) it goes to appeal and gets approved by unelected judges.
Some more delay, some more cost, but everyone's concience is clear.
(I imagine that the 800 m/ten minute walk rule will open up a lot of development land in Havering- we've got the District line, the Lizzie Line and a green belt that was frozen in place decades ago. I also imagine that the current residents really aren't going to be happy about that.)
That’s the will of a well funded lobby group/special interest group for you.
Our railway station has plenty of homes within a 15 minute walk of it, cannot imagine where else they could build by it round here apart from a few small pieces of derilict land.
Er, buy up the homes with gardens, or just the gardens, and knock them down? Seriously, that would be the implication of an incautious implementation of a local free for all.
In the case of the homes rejected in Barnet they had already been approved by the council planning dept.
We shouldn’t have a free for all but we shouldn’t let a vocal NIMBY minority stop developments.
The latter wouldn't apply in the new situation. I was more trying to look ahead. I've seen 1930s bungalows on Edinburgh radials demolished and replaced with blocks of flats sometimes in very cramped spaces. Anyone who has been through Burdiehouse will know what I mean. Doing in a jeerybuilt bungalow on a big garden is one thing but doing it to houses in good condition is another.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
I was once asked to shoot a series of ads for an Italian agency whose client were supplying condoms for the Olympic games. They involved various sporting things mounting each other like a pair of trainers or two vaulting horses. They were great with just a simple headline.
A friend volunteers at the Olympics, often in the health centre. So many condoms and morning after pills handed out!
Condoms are no use the morning after..
I’m sure Olympic athletes have the stamina for one more round.
TL:DR: the progressive left wing vote in Wales is decamping en-masse to Plaid, the hard-bastard left wing vote is going to Reform, everybody else is floundering, except for the LDs whose dogs are still not barking and a small uptick by the Greens
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
TL:DR: the progressive left wing vote in Wales is decamping en-masse to Plaid, the hard-bastard left wing vote is going to Reform, everybody else is floundering, except for the LDs whose dogs are still not barking and a small uptick by the Greens
Would that progressive v hard bastard split on the left in Wales map closely to remainers v leavers? I bet it would.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
Russia is going to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by hybrid and diplomatic means.
The USA helped to tip the balance in both world wars after entering mid-way through. It’s now demonstrating that the opposite also works, by exiting mid-way through.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
Russia is going to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by hybrid and diplomatic means.
The USA helped to tip the balance in both world wars after entering mid-way through. It’s now demonstrating that the opposite also works, by exiting mid-way through.
Didn’t the US Senate just approve another $800m for Ukraine?
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
Point taken. I often used to buy the West Highland Free Press and watch Eòrpa to get at least something of a different perspective.
Istr that the Courier and P&J being extolled by various Unionists here. On checking they’re the two best performing locals on the UK mainland by a distance.
While Unionist in tenor they are capable of spasms of proper newshoundism and protecting local interests, eg the Courier broke the racist Nurse Peggie stuff and the P&J had the ‘traitors’ front page which if the National had done it would have had the lads with burning torches and pitchforks round.
My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.
This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.
I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
They are all like comics nowadays and as yopu say just mouthpieces for London
Are there examples of where the decentralisation of power has worked better? The German Länder or Swiss cantons maybe?
To work, it needs each level to be willing to relinquish some of their power, Westminster to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont, the devolved and national governments to local councils. It also needs the supporting civil servants to relinquish power as well. That may be even harder. Germany and Switzerland have a longer history of devolution.
The Swiss system works quite well and is surprisingly uncontroversial. I lived in Basel Stadt, which nearly always votes to the left of the rest of the country in referenda, but in 18 years I never heard anyone complaining. Obviously they could get local initiatives through, and that took the edge off the conservative instincts of the national public.
Civil servants go where the power is - predominantly local authorities. The problem, I guess, would be that in a larger country there is an expectation of national policy leading much of the world, whereas in Switzerland it looked reasonable to try to get something through the local authority. Whether Britain really acts as an example for others I'm not sure - maybe in the quality of the civil service?
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
All news is central belt orietated after they get beyond eth London orientation. We get 25 minutes about London and England and then 5 minutes on Scotland if quiet day down south and most of that is very central belt.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.
I'm grateful for your infatuation, Alan.
Well its always the same Trump Trump Trump. I get bored shi6tless with Trump nonsense what about the rest of the world or even the UK ?
Why don't you restore balance with some of your fascinating and diverse commentary shot through with insight and wisdom?
We miss it terribly.
Actually, leaving the snark aside, AlanB has written some pretty good headers in the past, I think ?
WHICH BIT OF THE NO DISCUSSION OF THE GROOMING STORY DO PBers NOT UNDERSTAND?
THE SPAM TRAP HAS BEEN UPDATED, DON’T MOAN IF YOU FIND YOURSELVES BANNED.
Hi TSE, I have no wish to be banned but as a long standing female poster on this site from the early days who was once a young lassie who has spent her whole life trying to make sure I was safe in the work place and elsewhere and who has recently found the hill I am prepared to die on that crosses political lines when it comes to defending women only safe spaces, why can't we talk about something that has had such a huge and traumatic impact on so young women in so many communities and is currently just about one of the the biggest political stories right across the UK?! Are we saying on this site we simple ignore this huge scandal and the current implications for political parties and how they all deal with it?!
Because of the online safety act and possible consequences for those that run the site, including OGH. If you want to discuss it do it on X, then its on Musk...
Any yet I can read about this issue in every paper in the media every day and watch indepth discussions on our 24/7 news channels everyday?! So I ask again, and I say this as someone who has been posting on this site for 20 years now and who would never post anything that would ever put this site at risk because I have too much respect for OGH and the amazing cross party site he created, but I have got to say as a female poster I am left feeling deeply uncomfortable that we cannot discuss a serious issue that affected young very vulnerable women at a time when we women are literally fighting to defend our hard fought for equality rights and the need to have safe women only spaces. I find it so hard to see this site literally trying to shut this discussion down despite the huge political implications right now. Just leaving this point out there, and if TSE bans me so be it..
The bit in bold applies to many of us and to a large extent I agree. Sadly there are some who cannot be trusted not to jeopardise things, and so safety first has been applied.
WHICH BIT OF THE NO DISCUSSION OF THE GROOMING STORY DO PBers NOT UNDERSTAND?
THE SPAM TRAP HAS BEEN UPDATED, DON’T MOAN IF YOU FIND YOURSELVES BANNED.
Hi TSE, I have no wish to be banned but as a long standing female poster on this site from the early days who was once a young lassie who has spent her whole life trying to make sure I was safe in the work place and elsewhere and who has recently found the hill I am prepared to die on that crosses political lines when it comes to defending women only safe spaces, why can't we talk about something that has had such a huge and traumatic impact on so young women in so many communities and is currently just about one of the the biggest political stories right across the UK?! Are we saying on this site we simple ignore this huge scandal and the current implications for political parties and how they all deal with it?!
Because of the online safety act and possible consequences for those that run the site, including OGH. If you want to discuss it do it on X, then its on Musk...
Any yet I can read about this issue in every paper in the media every day and watch indepth discussions on our 24/7 news channels everyday?! So I ask again, and I say this as someone who has been posting on this site for 20 years now and who would never post anything that would ever put this site at risk because I have too much respect for OGH and the amazing cross party site he created, but I have got to say as a female poster I am left feeling deeply uncomfortable that we cannot discuss a serious issue that affected young very vulnerable women at a time when we women are literally fighting to defend our hard fought for equality rights and the need to have safe women only spaces. I find it so hard to see this site literally trying to shut this discussion down despite the huge political implications right now. Just leaving this point out there, and if TSE bans me so be it..
Every time the ban has been relaxed, discussion has escalated in a manner which required its reinstatement. It's highly unfortunate, but that is the simple explanation.
My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.
This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.
I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.
Presumably you saw the planning application etc? From what I can see it wouldn’t be ideal for the extra storey to have a balcony which directly overlooks your garden? You might be fine with this - I probably wouldn’t (not that I have a garden!). Moving somewhere already overlooked is one thing. Becoming overlooked later-on is something else.
As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
It’s not a hard decision.
Maybe they will just give them a swill and reuse them ?
It's painful to see men do that.
Did really not one person get just how awesome and subtle this pun was?
The problem with high density schemes, which in an urban environment necessitates apartment blocks is this:
Service charges.
They can in themselves be a small mortgage payment each month.
It’s all very well having huge apartment blocks as they have been building around Tottenham Hale station for a few years now, but 30 storey buildings will need quite a bit of maintenance and care. . I’m not against this proposal but without reform of leasehold tenures and associated governance of management companies there may end up being alot of buyer remorse.
I think most of us think the classic Victorian tenement works quite well for most of the UK. 8-12 flats. England needs to bin it's leasehold system though, no doubt.
In London where this will have the most effect (due to the sheer number of stations and demand) no developer will ever propose (or local authority approve ) 8-12 flats on a parcel of land.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
They are. My son has just moved into one of them in Tottenham Hale. He is renting. No idea what he is paying. I was quite impressed with it, but then it is brand new. Overlooks the canal and spitting distance to the station. His girlfriend is a fellow at Cambridge and he has just left Cambridge to work in London. Both their commutes are easy.
One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.
I lived for many years in this block in outer Copenhagen, a few doors down from the place being sold:
The block of maybe 200 flats on 9 floors was on one side near a railway station and a town, and on the other side a village and green spaces. The flat was a duplex with a balcony on each side, and wonderful views. Two lifts and a full-time porter completed the package, which was in those days (40 yers ago) about £200/month, which was pretty moderate even then. It's currently £5,500/sq metre for sale - not sure how that compares with the UK? It influenced me to a lifelong affection for sensibly-designed tower blocks, which in Britain you only see approved in metropolitan areas - we seem to prefer sprawling over the Green Belt with two-storey semis and maintaining long waiting lists.
My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.
This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.
I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.
Presumably you saw the planning application etc? From what I can see it wouldn’t be ideal for the extra storey to have a balcony which directly overlooks your garden? You might be fine with this - I probably wouldn’t (not that I have a garden!). Moving somewhere already overlooked is one thing. Becoming overlooked later-on is something else.
As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.
Its tricky isn't it? Aside of @BartholomewRoberts most people accept that housing and planning permission needs to be a balance. For instance we built an extension last year that overlooks a paddock. All rather nice, aside of the ugly broken down horse transporter. But if the land was to become housing our nice windows and balcony will not have the same view. Now I don't own the view, but I would prefer it not to be a housing estate.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
SPotY tonight btw so if you want to check your betting books and how to vote...
I do hope Gary Lineker won't be presenting
Probably the inappropriately named Claire Balding.
She has a fine head of hair.
Everyone knows the greatest sportsman ever to have lived is Steve Davis. He should do it.
His coverage would be really Interesting.
Ah he’s ok. When he does exhibitions he always puts on a bit of cockney banter for the crowd. Oddly the most miserable (and objectionable) live was Jimmy White. In my opinion. Allegedly.
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
Point taken. I often used to buy the West Highland Free Press and watch Eòrpa to get at least something of a different perspective.
Istr that the Courier and P&J being extolled by various Unionists here. On checking they’re the two best performing locals on the UK mainland by a distance.
While Unionist in tenor they are capable of spasms of proper newshoundism and protecting local interests, eg the Courier broke the racist Nurse Peggie stuff and the P&J had the ‘traitors’ front page which if the National had done it would have had the lads with burning torches and pitchforks round.
"The Norwich-based Eastern Daily Press now stands alone as England’s sole regional title with a circulation above 10,000 – one of only four across the whole of the UK."
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
Yes Trump's a narcissist and its people like you with your non-stop infatuation of posting everything he does that gives him all the attention he so craves. You might as well just vote for him and be done with it.
I'm grateful for your infatuation, Alan.
Well its always the same Trump Trump Trump. I get bored shi6tless with Trump nonsense what about the rest of the world or even the UK ?
Why don't you restore balance with some of your fascinating and diverse commentary shot through with insight and wisdom?
We miss it terribly.
Actually, leaving the snark aside, AlanB has written some pretty good headers in the past, I think ?
Sure. I remember some. He can be interesting and has good knowledge in certain areas. But he's not around much these days and dropping in to moan about too much Trump commentary on here seems a bit odd.
Course I'd love it if the media stopped covering his every utterance. It's feeding the troll really.
SPotY tonight btw so if you want to check your betting books and how to vote...
I do hope Gary Lineker won't be presenting
Probably the inappropriately named Claire Balding.
She has a fine head of hair.
Everyone knows the greatest sportsman ever to have lived is Steve Davis. He should do it.
His coverage would be really Interesting.
Ah he’s ok. When he does exhibitions he always puts on a bit of cockney banter for the crowd. Oddly the most miserable (and objectionable) live was Jimmy White. In my opinion. Allegedly.
You’re not familiar with the spitting image character Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis?
I agree with you actually that he’s a good presenter, but you can’t expect me to miss a chance for a pun.
SPotY tonight btw so if you want to check your betting books and how to vote...
I do hope Gary Lineker won't be presenting
Probably the inappropriately named Claire Balding.
She has a fine head of hair.
Everyone knows the greatest sportsman ever to have lived is Steve Davis. He should do it.
His coverage would be really Interesting.
Ah he’s ok. When he does exhibitions he always puts on a bit of cockney banter for the crowd. Oddly the most miserable (and objectionable) live was Jimmy White. In my opinion. Allegedly.
You’re not familiar with the spitting image character Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis?
I agree with you actually that he’s a good presenter, but you can’t expect me to miss a chance for a pun.
Absolutely. I do remember the spitting image character (just!). Also the John Major puppet with his peas. 😂
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
All news is central belt orientated after they get beyond eth London orientation. We get 25 minutes about London and England and then 5 minutes on Scotland if quiet day down south and most of that is very central belt.
The other point is the way in which the local prsesenters etc are displaced by the London big names when the programming is the UK stuff from BBC HQ (etc). Sometimes they don't really know enough about Scotland to avoid some pretty bad errors. Though sometimes one gets better reports that way.
MInd, that happens to the pols themselves too, like when Mr Corbyn, then head of the Labour Party, came up here and demanded that water be renationalised in Scotland and that got reported ...
SPotY tonight btw so if you want to check your betting books and how to vote...
I do hope Gary Lineker won't be presenting
Probably the inappropriately named Claire Balding.
She has a fine head of hair.
Everyone knows the greatest sportsman ever to have lived is Steve Davis. He should do it.
His coverage would be really Interesting.
Ah he’s ok. When he does exhibitions he always puts on a bit of cockney banter for the crowd. Oddly the most miserable (and objectionable) live was Jimmy White. In my opinion. Allegedly.
You’re not familiar with the spitting image character Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis?
I agree with you actually that he’s a good presenter, but you can’t expect me to miss a chance for a pun.
‘We had Turkey for Christmas, what did you have ?’
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
People should want the EU to succeed. If it doesn't, nothing else will.
SPotY tonight btw so if you want to check your betting books and how to vote...
I do hope Gary Lineker won't be presenting
Probably the inappropriately named Claire Balding.
She has a fine head of hair.
Everyone knows the greatest sportsman ever to have lived is Steve Davis. He should do it.
His coverage would be really Interesting.
Ah he’s ok. When he does exhibitions he always puts on a bit of cockney banter for the crowd. Oddly the most miserable (and objectionable) live was Jimmy White. In my opinion. Allegedly.
You’re not familiar with the spitting image character Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis?
I agree with you actually that he’s a good presenter, but you can’t expect me to miss a chance for a pun.
‘We had Turkey for Christmas, what did you have ?’
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
Russia is going to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by hybrid and diplomatic means.
The USA helped to tip the balance in both world wars after entering mid-way through. It’s now demonstrating that the opposite also works, by exiting mid-way through.
Didn’t the US Senate just approve another $800m for Ukraine?
They used to weigh the Scottish Labour vote in Scotland 28 years ago too, its why Gordon Brown pushed for devolution in Scotland and Wales, he hoped to create two Labour fiefdoms what ever the political party was in Government at Westminster. Sadly they created in fact three devolved Parliaments that were never fit for purpose or ever going to have a governing administration that was ever going to be anywhere near as accountable as the the Government at Westminster with a Parliament and second chamber and a Speaker of the House of Commons that had the powers to hold them to account. Holyrood right now is a complete joke and not fit for purporse after 18 years with the SNP in charge.
But that is down to the last Labour Government in charge at Westminster who originally delivered devolution. The sad thing is that I may not have voted for it, but I really wanted it to work and I still do. But when you create a devolved Parliament where the governing party and their FM and their Cabinet Ministers behaviour are totally unaccountable and untouchable no matter how badly they behave, you turn that administration into a banana republic. And the London political journalists should take a good long hard look at what they have ignored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland while they threw genuine and well deserved indepth scrutiny at the governments at Westminster in the last 28 years. Talk about two tier journalistic reporting!!
There is absolutely no genuine safe guards in our devolved governments and that includes the very ineffectual local media and TV news. Up here in Scotland if there is a big Westminster government scandal it gets wall to wall coverage, but when it comes to Holyrood, tumble weed or no coverage at all.....
surely it should be up to the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast placed journalists to be scrutinising the devolved parliaments, rather than crying about folk in London
Quite. They do, so I can't understand what this is all about.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
Problem I found with the Scotsman/Herald is they were more central belt orientated papers rather than covering the whole of Scotland
Point taken. I often used to buy the West Highland Free Press and watch Eòrpa to get at least something of a different perspective.
Istr that the Courier and P&J being extolled by various Unionists here. On checking they’re the two best performing locals on the UK mainland by a distance.
While Unionist in tenor they are capable of spasms of proper newshoundism and protecting local interests, eg the Courier broke the racist Nurse Peggie stuff and the P&J had the ‘traitors’ front page which if the National had done it would have had the lads with burning torches and pitchforks round.
Of course the stats could be weighted for percentage of population actually taking it ... I wonder how the Shetland Times would score?
I haven't followed the Southern Reporter [eastern Borders for those hwo don't know] as a newspaper in terms of its coverage of current affairs,, but think it's more of a local one - and a weekly. But I was very impressed with it a few years ago when I had to write an obit for a friend who came from that airt. I was given vast space for it by modern standards (so long as I filled it with good, interesting stuff, which I did). He wasn't even a toon bailie or big businessman or aristo or anything like that.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
Russia is going to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by hybrid and diplomatic means.
The USA helped to tip the balance in both world wars after entering mid-way through. It’s now demonstrating that the opposite also works, by exiting mid-way through.
Didn’t the US Senate just approve another $800m for Ukraine?
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
There are pros and cons to single currency areas. As for whether the EU will come through for Ukraine you might be correct (that they won't) but let's see. I'm not that optimistic myself. It does not, however, follow that if the EU didn't exist then 'Europe' as a more atomised collection of individual countries would be more likely to provide an effective defence of Ukraine against Russia. Quite the opposite, I'd have thought.
Odds on Kylie Minogue getting her first UK christmas number 1 ave come way in since yesterday, now around 1/2 on after being 13/8 and 3/1 earlier in the week. Main challenger is Wham, going for their 3rd Christmas number 1 in a row with the same song. Kylie's song X-M-A-S is through Amazon and was on strictly come dancing at the weekend
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
People should want the EU to succeed. If it doesn't, nothing else will.
Exactly. Fishing is just grafting an illogical partisan leaver slant onto the situation.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
There are pros and cons to single currency areas. As for whether the EU will come through for Ukraine you might be correct (that they won't) but let's see. I'm not that optimistic myself. It does not, however, follow that if the EU didn't exist then 'Europe' as a more atomised collection of individual countries would be more likely to provide an effective defence of Ukraine against Russia. Quite the opposite, I'd have thought.
My reading is that the EU is struggling to act because it contains the likes of Hungary, which is led by a man who is on the opposite side. (And also because it is institutionally inert.) As individual nations, it might be rather easier to forge a coalition of the willing.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
A great example of how Gavin Newsom is as unsuitable as Kamala Harris was as a presidential candidate. He’s not going to out-Trump the president, no matter how hard he tries.
“Make America California Again” has little support in California any more, especially when there’s been precisely no houses rebuilt from January’s fires.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me..
A great example of how Gavin Newsom is as unsuitable as Kamala Harris was as a presidential candidate. He’s not going to out-Trump the president, no matter how hard he tries.
“Make America California Again” has little support in California any more, especially when there’s been precisely no houses rebuilt from January’s fires.
Like the rest of those you evidently follow on X, you don't get Newsom's game.
He's not trying to "out-Trump" Trump; he's just mocking him. A tactic which has put him at or near the top of the polling for the nomination.
I don't pay for Netflix so I couldn't give a monkeys what he gets paid. I wonder if his following has dropped since he left the BBC?
His following of enraged righties seems as substantial as ever.
I’m just happy that upwards of half that £14m will be paid in taxes to HMRC. Being a man of principle I’m sure he’ll ensure he pays the maximum tax required with no recourse to avoidance schemes. Then due to these overriding principles donate half of the net to a worthy cause.
My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.
This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.
I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.
Presumably you saw the planning application etc? From what I can see it wouldn’t be ideal for the extra storey to have a balcony which directly overlooks your garden? You might be fine with this - I probably wouldn’t (not that I have a garden!). Moving somewhere already overlooked is one thing. Becoming overlooked later-on is something else.
As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.
I really don’t understand the overlooked thing in dense urban settings. I’m already overlooked in the garden by all my neighbours, and overlooked at the front by the houses opposite: we’re on a terraced street. The density is part of what makes it a friendly place. Why is being overlooked from the opposite direction a problem?
Interesting article on the Labour new housing policy. My guess is that it gets well and truly crippled, but if it were actually delivered to its potential, it could be transformative. The excerpt points out the necessity for accompanying transport investment.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing ..To be clear, this isn’t a policy for sprawl. New developments must exceed minimum density standards of 40dph (dwelling per hectare) for all stations and 50dph for the best connected stations. There is an expectation that in urban areas even higher densities will be reached.
It is hard to overstate how big this is. The Government could easily exceed its 1.5 million home target for the Parliament just by building near stations in London and the South East. And that doesn’t even adjust for the higher densities sought in urban areas. If it survives consultation, and you best believe there will be an almighty fight, it will be the single most powerful pro-supply move in post-war Britain.
This is radical by British standards, but there is precedent. New Zealand’s most expensive cities have built at a clip since successive governments brought in measures to create a similar ‘default yes’ to densification near city centres and busy transport corridors. One study suggested that over six years the policy cut Auckland’s rents by nearly a third. If the same happened in the capital, the average Londoner would save £9,000 each year.
California, one of the few places with a housing crisis as bad as our own, is trying something similar. They have just passed SB79, a major reform that will permit up to nine-storey development near bus, tube, and train stations.
There will be challenges. Building near train stations will mean busier trains. ..
This is the sort of planning for building that will make a difference, not allowing people to cram existing density into places where facilities are already creaking
"China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its birthrate and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993."
Can you imagine the conversations between couples? Condoms increased in price by a few pennies per condom, better go ahead and have more children who will cost many thousands...
@turbotubbs , I have added you to the discussion regarding my latest article. Your role is discussant - a rather lovely old format where experts in a field are invited to respond to a lecture on a subject. Please read the latest (seventh!) draft of my article and write a response saying whether it's good/bad/awful and add any other points you see fit.
Four discussants were originally chosen: two for the pro-trans side, two for the gender-critical side. But of the GC two, one is hors de combat due to real-life circs and the other (@DavidL) has not been able to get a response to me. May I ask you to act as substitute to @DavidL in case he can't contribute?
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
I gather it's proving difficult to get EU consensus on the frozen assets. This seems like an acid test to me. If Europe fails to come through on using that £££ to support Ukraine it doesn't bode well for its resolve to prevent further Russian advances.
That's what comes of thinking there is such a place as "Europe", and that it somehow equates to the EU. Northern Europe, the Netherlands and Poland have done just fine, France, Germany and Italy have a chequered record, to be as polite as possible, Ireland and Austria are neutral, Spain doesn't care, Cyprus and Malta basically just want to launder Russian money in peace and the less said about Hungary the better.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
There are pros and cons to single currency areas. As for whether the EU will come through for Ukraine you might be correct (that they won't) but let's see. I'm not that optimistic myself. It does not, however, follow that if the EU didn't exist then 'Europe' as a more atomised collection of individual countries would be more likely to provide an effective defence of Ukraine against Russia. Quite the opposite, I'd have thought.
My reading is that the EU is struggling to act because it contains the likes of Hungary, which is led by a man who is on the opposite side. (And also because it is institutionally inert.) As individual nations, it might be rather easier to forge a coalition of the willing.
Why do you think it would be easier to forge a coalition of the willing outside of an organisation whose literal job is to do just that?
The issue here is that Belgium, where most of the Russian money is, doesn't want to play ball. What leverage would any other individual country including the UK have over Belgium in that case?
I don't pay for Netflix so I couldn't give a monkeys what he gets paid. I wonder if his following has dropped since he left the BBC?
Given that Lineker now happily retweets Tucker Carlson, as well as his previous 'overlooking' of the rat emoji (in what he appeared to see as an otherwise uncontroversial social media post), I'm not sure he quite understands this 'Germany in the 1930s' thing, or that it was a bad idea. But this is unlikely to make him any poorer or less popular in today's environment.
Comments
The truth is no one wants to build houses for nothing and the only body which could (theoretically) is the Government which would absorb the costs. You won’t get Redrow and Berkeley and Persimmon to build houses and then give them away but that’s the problem. New houses are unaffordable for most because they cost money to build and everyone wants either to be paid or make a profit so one bedroom flats in East Ham either get snapped up by private landlords or sit empty while those who really need a home continue to be shut out of the process.
A perfect example of this policy is Tottenham Hale. And not to mention Meridian Water further up the line. Take a look one day, or someone else on here can confirm. The apartment buildings are monsters. 500 apartments in one skyscraper maybe?
One of the big mistakes of Labour is that in the last fifteen years they've been increasingly overt about governing only for the benefit of themselves and their supporters. It's one reason they need booting out (that, and the level of talent in the party being somewhat lower than that of the average MTG fan group).
A Plaid-Liberal Democrat coalition willing to negotiate with the Tories on key points would probably be best for Wales. Would it happen? Who knows. If there's one thing I've learned from watching Welsh politics is that parties other than Labour usually flatter to deceive.
Are there examples of where the decentralisation of power has worked better? The German Länder or Swiss cantons maybe?
One thing I have noted (against Leon's pronouncements on London) is how really rough areas in the past are now quite nice. A friend's son has just moved into Leytonstone. It used to be very rough. Now it is really nice.
There is a free-to-read FT link in the Bluesky post btw.
I just worry about what happens in 10-15 years when lifts start to age and structural maintenance becomes more a thing.
One other new factor is people working in London now want to live in London. Long commutes from the Home Counties or even the suburbs are falling out of fashion. In this way, London is becoming more like the rest of the country, and not in a good way.
It doesn't help however that the quality of the media has deteriorated generally and that the newspapers are all so Unionist that any balance gets lost - the National being the exception; by the nature of such things, it often makes good points not covered by the other media, but again it's no substitute for the old Scotsman and Herald which were far more balanced and which I would much rather have than the current setup.
We miss it terribly.
Our railway station has plenty of homes within a 15 minute walk of it, cannot imagine where else they could build by it round here apart from a few small pieces of derilict land.
Now it looks like the 50,000 Russian dead since the beginning of October is being confirmed, and it could actually be up to 5,000 higher. These staggering losses are creating significant problems for the Russian strategic position: now it seems that the Russians are even facing a significant push back from both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. The Kremlin demand for advances whatever the cost is creating an unsustainable body count. Even if Russia makes tiny progress the losses are so large that they cannot be sustainable.
We shouldn’t have a free for all but we shouldn’t let a vocal NIMBY minority stop developments.
https://x.com/WalesGovernance/status/2001181075742023857
https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wales/consolidation-not-conversion-understanding-waless-ongoing-realignment/
https://x.com/CavendishCymru/status/2001219597886787908
TL:DR: the progressive left wing vote in Wales is decamping en-masse to Plaid, the hard-bastard left wing vote is going to Reform, everybody else is floundering, except for the LDs whose dogs are still not barking and a small uptick by the Greens
The USA helped to tip the balance in both world wars after entering mid-way through. It’s now demonstrating that the opposite also works, by exiting mid-way through.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-congress-passes-massive-defense-bill-that-includes-support-ukraine-europe-2025-12-17/
https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2025/news/only-one-english-daily-tops-10k-circulation-in-latest-regional-abcs/
While Unionist in tenor they are capable of spasms of proper newshoundism and protecting local interests, eg the Courier broke the racist Nurse Peggie stuff and the P&J had the ‘traitors’ front page which if the National had done it would have had the lads with burning torches and pitchforks round.
Gary Lineker to earn whopping £14million from Netflix deal for 2026 World Cup – TEN TIMES his old BBC salary
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/37655980/gary-lineker-netflix-world-cup-deal-podcast/
This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.
I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.
Civil servants go where the power is - predominantly local authorities. The problem, I guess, would be that in a larger country there is an expectation of national policy leading much of the world, whereas in Switzerland it looked reasonable to try to get something through the local authority. Whether Britain really acts as an example for others I'm not sure - maybe in the quality of the civil service?
It's highly unfortunate, but that is the simple explanation.
As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.
She has a fine head of hair.
https://www.boligsiden.dk/adresse/lehwaldsvej-3-9-d-2800-kongens-lyngby-01730505___3__9___d .
The block of maybe 200 flats on 9 floors was on one side near a railway station and a town, and on the other side a village and green spaces. The flat was a duplex with a balcony on each side, and wonderful views. Two lifts and a full-time porter completed the package, which was in those days (40 yers ago) about £200/month, which was pretty moderate even then. It's currently £5,500/sq metre for sale - not sure how that compares with the UK? It influenced me to a lifelong affection for sensibly-designed tower blocks, which in Britain you only see approved in metropolitan areas - we seem to prefer sprawling over the Green Belt with two-storey semis and maintaining long waiting lists.
It's just like the lie about the euro - one monetary policy was never going to be right for a couple of dozen countries, any more than one foreign policy is. Just as a convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member, you'll inevitably get lowest denominator policies that get the worst of both worlds.
In fact, given the constraints on the EU, we should perhaps be surprised that they've got as far as they have.
Must be the Alan Partridge effect
Course I'd love it if the media stopped covering his every utterance. It's feeding the troll really.
I agree with you actually that he’s a good presenter, but you can’t expect me to miss a chance for a pun.
MInd, that happens to the pols themselves too, like when Mr Corbyn, then head of the Labour Party, came up here and demanded that water be renationalised in Scotland and that got reported ...
https://youtu.be/o6Sr-PkZsqc?si=gKK9-BCZZ0WCUrgi
The significance of the vote is its attempt to freeze the full scale US retreat from Europe.
I'm glad and not surprised he's doing well away from the BBC
I haven't followed the Southern Reporter [eastern Borders for those hwo don't know] as a newspaper in terms of its coverage of current affairs,, but think it's more of a local one - and a weekly. But I was very impressed with it a few years ago when I had to write an obit for a friend who came from that airt. I was given vast space for it by modern standards (so long as I filled it with good, interesting stuff, which I did). He wasn't even a toon bailie or big businessman or aristo or anything like that.
Odds on Kylie Minogue getting her first UK christmas number 1 ave come way in since yesterday, now around 1/2 on after being 13/8 and 3/1 earlier in the week. Main challenger is Wham, going for their 3rd Christmas number 1 in a row with the same song. Kylie's song X-M-A-S is through Amazon and was on strictly come dancing at the weekend
Probably no value in the market now ...
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/2001605459103424676
I wonder if his following has dropped since he left the BBC?
“Make America California Again” has little support in California any more, especially when there’s been precisely no houses rebuilt from January’s fires.
https://x.com/i/status/2001599135913218174
He's not trying to "out-Trump" Trump; he's just mocking him. A tactic which has put him at or near the top of the polling for the nomination.
Terror arrests surge by 660% due to Palestine Action ban
A case study in "Don't do something just because you can".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action-ban-arrests-terrorism-act-b2886879.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Bluesky#Echobox=1766051875
Four discussants were originally chosen: two for the pro-trans side, two for the gender-critical side. But of the GC two, one is hors de combat due to real-life circs and the other (@DavidL) has not been able to get a response to me. May I ask you to act as substitute to @DavidL in case he can't contribute?
The issue here is that Belgium, where most of the Russian money is, doesn't want to play ball. What leverage would any other individual country including the UK have over Belgium in that case?