In London, the piddly sum could be £50k or even more which is £50k more than they had before.
Where ? Put down a deposit to buy a property since they now have the money to do so.
So, they uproot and move their families etc many many miles from all they have ever known to get something considerably cheaper (funnily enough, that doesn't seem to work with the bedroom tax ) and actually get to fully own their own houses?
Terrible, isn't it?
.
Bedroom tax: they still have to pay even when there is no suitable smaller property nearby.
With Labour ahead in the Finchley constituency poll I strongly recommend Labour in Enfield Southgate (5/1 at Betfair).
The demographic change in Southgate will be more pro-Labour than in Finchley and the Conservatives will not get any incumbancy bonus in southgate either.
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
Remember during the energy chat when we were being told how terrible it is when governments interfere in markets by setting prices artificially low in a populist manner?
Remember the thinking span of a right wing Tory. Energy freeze - bad proposed by Labour; interferes with market.
RTB discount - good proposed by Conservative; interferes with market. Gets vote for Tories, though I think the impact this time would be minimal.
I also think that the Tories have brought out all these old "wheezes" unlike 2010 is because they were reasonably sure of winning. This time they are definitely not.
So you are admitting that the energy freeze was a bad idea?
No. I do not consider interfering with markets a bad idea. I know Tories do, unless, of course, their party does it.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
Come the three-party pact that forms the next government, whatever it may be, these manifestos are all marketing and negotiation exercises. The expensive, popular stuff will be ditched and this disappointment will be blamed on the small parties.
It seems the opposite for Labour. When Labour inevitably don't make the cuts they've proposed in the next government, the SNP will get all the credit.
"Laughing gas is a colourless, sweet-smelling gas that makes you all giggly. Its chemical name is Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and it’s ‘supposed’ to be used to relieve pain at the dentist, or to make cake icing come out of icing cans. But then we realised we could take it recreationally to make ourselves laugh. It’s most commonly sold in balloons for you to suck on. The more hardcore users inhale it straight from a canister, but this is pretty risky as you can easily have too much."
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
I would imagine the Government will have the opportunity to shape the rules afresh. Right to buy came with conditions. Such as, if you sold it within a certain period you had to pay back the amount, or if the person died within that timeframe it had to be returned.
Maybe the government will want to keep it simple, dont know, but they could put some interesting conditions on the RTB sale. Such as: - the house will be ineligible for housing benefit applications for a set period. - the house will not have the exemption of capital gains tax if sold within a certain period. - If used as a buy to let within a certain period, the housing association have the right to compulsory purchase at sale price.
I don't remember such conditions last time.
In any case, only houses will be sold. I remember many flat buyers life was destroyed after structural faults were found in high rise blocks after they had bought the flat.
That was an issue with how local authorities managed flats. They had no sinking fund, work was carried out as needed. When people took out the right to buy, the council remained the freeholder and thus the management company. In many cases no mechanism for a sinking fund to cover repairs over the medium to long term was put in places, leaving many with huge unexpected bills. All part of been a home owner.
The one good thing about the moves over the past couple of days, although it's pretty much guaranteed a Tory win, they're essentially promising an end to austerity. So either there really will be an end to austerity (which I'd be fine with even at the cost of the Tories staying in), or if they do U-turn and choose to make yet more cuts, they really will be absolutely hammered by the public, in the same way they were after the 1992 election when they broke their "no tax rises" promise.
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
I would imagine the Government will have the opportunity to shape the rules afresh. Right to buy came with conditions. Such as, if you sold it within a certain period you had to pay back the amount, or if the person died within that timeframe it had to be returned.
Maybe the government will want to keep it simple, dont know, but they could put some interesting conditions on the RTB sale. Such as: - the house will be ineligible for housing benefit applications for a set period. - the house will not have the exemption of capital gains tax if sold within a certain period. - If used as a buy to let within a certain period, the housing association have the right to compulsory purchase at sale price.
I don't remember such conditions last time.
In any case, only houses will be sold. I remember many flat buyers life was destroyed after structural faults were found in high rise blocks after they had bought the flat.
That was an issue with how local authorities managed flats. They had no sinking fund, work was carried out as needed. When people took out the right to buy, the council remained the freeholder and thus the management company. In many cases no mechanism for a sinking fund to cover repairs over the medium to long term was put in places, leaving many with huge unexpected bills. All part of been a home owner.
Really? Isnt this how many management companies budget for and plan maintenance??
Yes, but it is illegal for Local Authority landlords. Possibly because of their size, or because of the mix of tenants and leaseholders across properties and worries about cross-subsidisation or something. Not precisely sure of the reason.
Is it really a foregone conclusion neither party has any hope of winning a majority from here? The betting odds are at the level now you rarely see beaten in elections these days.
What would need to happen in the next few weeks for the Tories to have any chance of securing a majority?
What about Labour? Turning it around in Scotland would be a requirement against all odds. But they need more than even that miracle.
Upsets like 1992 just don't seem to happen anymore with all the technology and polling that goes on. Some of us still hope for it as an election approaches, but when the results are declared they generally fall the in line with polling and betting markets expectations.
But how to you get better education when the system can be loaded against you.
Look, I want the same goal of people being treated equally and fairly. But how do we get there? Hand on heart, do you feel ALL ethnic minorities get a fair crack of the whip? Of course, things are much better now than they were 50 years or even 20 years ago, but there is still a LONG way to go.
Yes, I think everyone gets a fair crack. Grammar schools would help. Closing down dogmatic religious schools would also help. Integration is what we need and kids that go to non-Christian religious schools will always have a lot of catching up to do in the real world. I went to a CoE grammar school, it was the best education someone like me could have received and the school was fairly comfortable with the fact that I wasn't Christian but they did make everyone go to Church regardless. My parents were comfortable with that because it meant I could receive an education usually reserved for middle class children going to fee paying schools.
Good post. However - I went to a state grammar school. Problem now is that they are so popular that middle class parents get their children tutored up to the eyeballs to pass the 11+ and it ends up being disproportionately populated by slightly less than middlingly bright children of rich parents rather than above middlingly bright poorer kids.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
Where precisely does the tenant/owner go with their piddly 15% equity?
There is no feeling in life that you and your partner get when you pick up the keys to the very first home you own. Nothing.
100% Agree,We loved our first property,and our second,and were lucky enough to buy our dream home third move. Buying a property can be like falling in love.
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
Remember during the energy chat when we were being told how terrible it is when governments interfere in markets by setting prices artificially low in a populist manner?
Remember the thinking span of a right wing Tory. Energy freeze - bad proposed by Labour; interferes with market.
RTB discount - good proposed by Conservative; interferes with market. Gets vote for Tories, though I think the impact this time would be minimal.
I also think that the Tories have brought out all these old "wheezes" unlike 2010 is because they were reasonably sure of winning. This time they are definitely not.
So you are admitting that the energy freeze was a bad idea?
No. I do not consider interfering with markets a bad idea. I know Tories do, unless, of course, their party does it.
It's nothing to do with 'interfering with energy markets' or not: it's to do with the fact it was a particularly stupid idea.
It's interesting to see the people who still think it was a wizard wheeze, though ...
Is it really a foregone conclusion neither party has any hope of winning a majority from here? The betting odds are at the level now you rarely see beaten in elections these days.
What would need to happen in the next few weeks for the Tories to have any chance of securing a majority?
What about Labour? Turning it around in Scotland would be a requirement against all odds. But they need more than even that miracle.
Upsets like 1992 just don't seem to happen anymore with all the technology and polling that goes on. Some of us still hope for it as an election approaches, but when the results are declared they generally fall the in line with polling and betting markets expectations.
Isnt that a case of "we never really get it wrong until the next time we get it wrong"?
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
But how to you get better education when the system can be loaded against you.
Look, I want the same goal of people being treated equally and fairly. But how do we get there? Hand on heart, do you feel ALL ethnic minorities get a fair crack of the whip? Of course, things are much better now than they were 50 years or even 20 years ago, but there is still a LONG way to go.
Yes, I think everyone gets a fair crack. Grammar schools would help. Closing down dogmatic religious schools would also help. Integration is what we need and kids that go to non-Christian religious schools will always have a lot of catching up to do in the real world. I went to a CoE grammar school, it was the best education someone like me could have received and the school was fairly comfortable with the fact that I wasn't Christian but they did make everyone go to Church regardless. My parents were comfortable with that because it meant I could receive an education usually reserved for middle class children going to fee paying schools.
Good post. However - I went to a state grammar school. Problem now is that they are so popular that middle class parents get their children tutored up to the eyeballs to pass the 11+ and it ends up being disproportionately populated by slightly less than middlingly bright children of rich parents rather than above middlingly bright poorer kids.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
The problem isn't the presence of grammar schools or not: the problem is the 20% of children who leave school functionally illiterate and/or innumerate.
But how to you get better education when the system can be loaded against you.
Look, I want the same goal of people being treated equally and fairly. But how do we get there? Hand on heart, do you feel ALL ethnic minorities get a fair crack of the whip? Of course, things are much better now than they were 50 years or even 20 years ago, but there is still a LONG way to go.
Yes, I think everyone gets a fair crack. Grammar schools would help. Closing down dogmatic religious schools would also help. Integration is what we need and kids that go to non-Christian religious schools will always have a lot of catching up to do in the real world. I went to a CoE grammar school, it was the best education someone like me could have received and the school was fairly comfortable with the fact that I wasn't Christian but they did make everyone go to Church regardless. My parents were comfortable with that because it meant I could receive an education usually reserved for middle class children going to fee paying schools.
Good post. However - I went to a state grammar school. Problem now is that they are so popular that middle class parents get their children tutored up to the eyeballs to pass the 11+ and it ends up being disproportionately populated by slightly less than middlingly bright children of rich parents rather than above middlingly bright poorer kids.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
The problem isn't the presence of grammar schools or not: the problem is the 20% of children who leave school functionally illiterate and/or innumerate.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
100% Agree,We loved our first property,and our second,and were lucky enough to buy our dream home third move. Buying a property can be like falling in love.
We got our dream home on our second move. A home we would never have been able to afford if it wasnt for an affordable home scheme carried out by my local authority.
We bought our house with a 20% discount in 2004, we sold it in 2013, that 20% discount was passed down to the next purchaser. Low interest rates allowing overpayment and property price increases meant we ended up buying a home that my parents (council tenants), my grand parents who were also council tenants could never have even dreamed of.
I recall the tale, not because i want to brag, but because I want ever scruffy urchin from a council estate, like me, the opportunity to achieve the security and prosperity home ownership has given me.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
Do you really think I don't know that? The point is that they have credibility with the public that they're doing it, and that it will be done.
Bedroom tax: they still have to pay even when there is no suitable smaller property nearby.
Here they are being given £50k they did not have.
Can you spot that difference in your tiny brain ?
Aw, bless.
When you go into a shop and they sell you something on discount do they hand you money? No.
The discount on these sales reflects the fact that the buyer takes on all the responsibilities, costs and liabilities for ownership as part of the trade.
Before that the council/housing association bears all the costs.
There is also a five year tie-in.
The government do these sales knowing that over time they will be income generative and cost reducing though taxation, transferred cost, service charges, ground rent, leaseholder charging for major works.
Meanwhile, they have helped the former tenants of modest means to independence.
Awful that they try to help people of modest means, isn't it?
The one good thing about the moves over the past couple of days, although it's pretty much guaranteed a Tory win, they're essentially promising an end to austerity. So either there really will be an end to austerity (which I'd be fine with even at the cost of the Tories staying in), or if they do U-turn and choose to make yet more cuts, they really will be absolutely hammered by the public, in the same way they were after the 1992 election when they broke their "no tax rises" promise.
Would it be legal for someone reasonably wealthy to enter into a back-to-back contract with a Housing Association tenant who is eligible to buy a 30% discounted property but has no money even to pay a deposit ?
Basically, investor lends sum to buy. Tenant buys property with 30% discount. Sells it to the investor at 15% mark up .
In London that could be a lot of money - easy money. Is there any restriction in this construction ?
I would imagine the Government will have the opportunity to shape the rules afresh. Right to buy came with conditions. Such as, if you sold it within a certain period you had to pay back the amount, or if the person died within that timeframe it had to be returned.
Maybe the government will want to keep it simple, dont know, but they could put some interesting conditions on the RTB sale. Such as: - the house will be ineligible for housing benefit applications for a set period. - the house will not have the exemption of capital gains tax if sold within a certain period. - If used as a buy to let within a certain period, the housing association have the right to compulsory purchase at sale price.
I don't remember such conditions last time.
In any case, only houses will be sold. I remember many flat buyers life was destroyed after structural faults were found in high rise blocks after they had bought the flat.
That was an issue with how local authorities managed flats. They had no sinking fund, work was carried out as needed. When people took out the right to buy, the council remained the freeholder and thus the management company. In many cases no mechanism for a sinking fund to cover repairs over the medium to long term was put in places, leaving many with huge unexpected bills. All part of been a home owner.
What would need to happen in the next few weeks for the Tories to have any chance of securing a majority?
What about Labour? Turning it around in Scotland would be a requirement against all odds. But they need more than even that miracle.
ICM would probably be close to Tory majority territory - perhaps ICM with cold wet day, keeping turnout suppressed.
Not sure about Labour, Scotland makes it so hard for them and I'd be amazed if they were being understated in the polls, particularly the telephone polls where they appear to be behind.
Fieldwork will have been when Labour Manifesto dominating the media agenda, so anything other than a Lab lead will be bad for them.
YouGov hardly ever moves by more than +/- !% from one day to another ..... so I'll be really brave and go for Lab and Con tied at 34% apiece with the LibDems on an improving 9%.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
Fieldwork will have been when Labour Manifesto dominating the media agenda, so anything other than a Lab lead will be bad for them.
YouGov hardly ever moves by more than +/- !% from one day to another ..... so I'll be really brave and go for Lab and Con tied at 34% apiece with the LibDems on an improving 9%.
The early Yougov smoke signals are normally wafted by Newton Dunn.
However, that is almost entirely down to the 7% UKIP score, compared to say the 13% or so with others, and remember ICM did have the Tories winning the Euros
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
Do you really think I don't know that? The point is that they have credibility with the public that they're doing it, and that it will be done.
I don't think they do have credibility.
They have support from some Conservative voters who would support anything the Conservative party said.
And there is wide belief that Labour will always spend more and be even more financially incompetant.
But I've never met anyone who would be happy to let Cameron and Osborne manage their own personal finances.
The one good thing about the moves over the past couple of days, although it's pretty much guaranteed a Tory win, they're essentially promising an end to austerity. So either there really will be an end to austerity (which I'd be fine with even at the cost of the Tories staying in), or if they do U-turn and choose to make yet more cuts, they really will be absolutely hammered by the public, in the same way they were after the 1992 election when they broke their "no tax rises" promise.
Guaranteed a Tory win...Have I missed anything?
No, there's just still some really big pessimists on the left.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010.
The one good thing about the moves over the past couple of days, although it's pretty much guaranteed a Tory win, they're essentially promising an end to austerity. So either there really will be an end to austerity (which I'd be fine with even at the cost of the Tories staying in), or if they do U-turn and choose to make yet more cuts, they really will be absolutely hammered by the public, in the same way they were after the 1992 election when they broke their "no tax rises" promise.
Guaranteed a Tory win...Have I missed anything?
No, there's just still some really big pessimists on the left.
100% Agree,We loved our first property,and our second,and were lucky enough to buy our dream home third move. Buying a property can be like falling in love.
We got our dream home on our second move. A home we would never have been able to afford if it wasnt for an affordable home scheme carried out by my local authority.
We bought our house with a 20% discount in 2004, we sold it in 2013, that 20% discount was passed down to the next purchaser. Low interest rates allowing overpayment and property price increases meant we ended up buying a home that my parents (council tenants), my grand parents who were also council tenants could never have even dreamed of.
I recall the tale, not because i want to brag, but because I want ever scruffy urchin from a council estate, like me, the opportunity to achieve the security and prosperity home ownership has given me.
Yes I also benefited from MIRAS,remember that? And a University grant,and easy job opportunities. But I have since paid huge amounts of income tax,and employed hundreds of people. Politics is a very delicate balance of encouraging people,but not plucking the Golden Goose to death. I think the present round of "Banker bashing",and hitting wealth creators is hugely negative. I am also a reluctant landlord, from inherited property, and my tenant is the happiest person around because of housing benefit.
"Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010."
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
The one good thing about the moves over the past couple of days, although it's pretty much guaranteed a Tory win, they're essentially promising an end to austerity. So either there really will be an end to austerity (which I'd be fine with even at the cost of the Tories staying in), or if they do U-turn and choose to make yet more cuts, they really will be absolutely hammered by the public, in the same way they were after the 1992 election when they broke their "no tax rises" promise.
Guaranteed a Tory win...Have I missed anything?
No, there's just still some really big pessimists on the left.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010.
lol
IMF might have come and imposed such severe spending cuts as part of the bailout that it could be smaller
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
Unfortunately, we're not like Australia and the United States and don't have vast amounts of spare land to build on. This forces us into a difficult trade-off, where we can only achieve two of the following three things:
- Affordable housing - Protection of green land - Large-scale immigration
It seems like politicians would prefer to prioritize the last two. The business community would like to prioritize the first and last ones. I suspect the general public would like to prioritize the first two.
"Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010."
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
Brown=Prudent=LOL. Not in a million years.
All true.
But Cameron and Osborne promised to match Brown's spending plans.
Ultimately very few politicians and no governments ever resist the chance to spend more money.
Spending other people's money on you own pet projects or to buy popularity or to get rid of political problems is irresistible to governments.
But how to you get better education when the system can be loaded against you.
Look, I want the same goal of people being treated equally and fairly. But how do we get there? Hand on heart, do you feel ALL ethnic minorities get a fair crack of the whip? Of course, things are much better now than they were 50 years or even 20 years ago, but there is still a LONG way to go.
Yes, I think everyone gets a fair crack. Grammar schools would help. Closing down dogmatic religious schools would also help. Integration is what we need and kids that go to non-Christian religious schools will always have a lot of catching up to do in the real world. I went to a CoE grammar school, it was the best education someone like me could have received and the school was fairly comfortable with the fact that I wasn't Christian but they did make everyone go to Church regardless. My parents were comfortable with that because it meant I could receive an education usually reserved for middle class children going to fee paying schools.
Good post. However - I went to a state grammar school. Problem now is that they are so popular that middle class parents get their children tutored up to the eyeballs to pass the 11+ and it ends up being disproportionately populated by slightly less than middlingly bright children of rich parents rather than above middlingly bright poorer kids.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
The problem isn't the presence of grammar schools or not: the problem is the 20% of children who leave school functionally illiterate and/or innumerate.
I actually think the problem is in the middle. The very best kids get a great education regardless, and the very worse get money thrown at them to get them across the most basic threshold. The problem is with the big chunk in the middle who never get political attention and could be the skilled workers of the future but never get that far. You can have plenty of Marc Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates, but if they do not have the bright young talent pools to recruit in, they'll never get anywhere.
Noticed the price in tissue shares have rocketed today and you just cannot get hold of a laptop cleaner anywhere. Have the other nights suicidal PB Hodges turned into Cameron nailed on majority PB Hodges today?
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
While that's technically true (Greece's credit rating was cut in December 2009), the contagion to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the like didn't start until August 2010. In fact, Spain and Ireland's bond yields fell in the year to June 2010.
So is the PB consensus that when Labour tried to steal Tory clothes it was a rubbish idea, but when the Tories try to steal Labour clothes it was genius?
I don't know about the pb consensus, but my view is that it is pretty rubbish all round and that neither party has remotely prepared the ground for the ju jitsu move that each is attempting. They will both be widely disbelieved.
Isn't your ideal party manifesto one with nothing in it?
In most cases that would be a good starting point. I'd settle for a short one that read:
"We promise to try not to screw it up too much and not to let the politicians' compulsion to meddle overwhelm us."
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010.
Good lord man! Have you no respect for your sanity!
Brown was a phenomenon. I have no idea how the left will ever apologise for him. We really have moved on though.
I think this is the point where Labour lose the current election.
Pretty much everyone with a braincell knows that the coalition turned the deficit around. The fact that they underestimated it's turning circle is a pretty moot point. Had the profligacy of the Brown era continued, UK plc would have gone bankrupt.
Labour probably lose because they have had 5 years to acknowledge this and all they can say is bankers, world finance crisis, started in America (or something like that). Had they once admitted that they had the wrong fiscal policy to start with and reacted to late to events, I might have considered voting for them (although never under the shadow of being propped up by the SNP)
Which makes me all the more amazed the amount of people who advocate the policies of SNP, Green and PC.
"Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010."
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
Brown=Prudent=LOL. Not in a million years.
All true.
But Cameron and Osborne promised to match Brown's spending plans.
Ultimately very few politicians and no governments ever resist the chance to spend more money.
Spending other people's money on you own pet projects or to buy popularity or to get rid of political problems is irresistible to governments.
Prior to the recession they made a pledge in the same context as Brown promised to match Ken Clarke's plans, with the overarching theme of "sharing the proceeds of growth" between spending and cutting taxes. Now do you seriously think Brown was the same as Ken Clarke?
Its not simply politicians that are addicted to spending other people's money, until the hard times come so are the electorate. Opposition leaders need to pitch their tent to the electorate too.
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Been to "rural" Ireland recently? (Trick question).
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Been to "rural" Ireland recently? (Trick question).
I don't understand the question. I have been to rural Ireland, although not in the last few years.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
While that's technically true (Greece's credit rating was cut in December 2009), the contagion to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the like didn't start until August 2010. In fact, Spain and Ireland's bond yields fell in the year to June 2010.
But it was obvious to anyone who didn't trust the 'official propaganda' that things were worse than they were claimed to be across the Eurozone.
And after the experience of the banks in 2007-2008 anyone who trusted 'offical propaganda' was being willfully naive.
NHS Trident submarines Rail fare subsidies Free volunteering days Inheritance tax cuts Income tax thresholds Housing association homes sales
Are there any others ? Its getting hard to keep track.
And I think we need some new collective nouns. How about 'a vomit of spending commitments' or 'a verbal diarrhea of tax cut promises'.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
While that's technically true (Greece's credit rating was cut in December 2009), the contagion to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the like didn't start until August 2010. In fact, Spain and Ireland's bond yields fell in the year to June 2010.
But it was obvious to anyone who didn't trust the 'official propaganda' that things were worse than they were claimed to be across the Eurozone.
And after the experience of the banks in 2007-2008 anyone who trusted 'offical propaganda' was being willfully naive.
Which is why Osborne changed tone and in 2009 was speaking of the need for austerity.
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Been to "rural" Ireland recently? (Trick question).
I don't understand the question. I have been to rural Ireland, although not in the last few years.
Since they relaxed the planning laws to allow a McMansion in every plot, rural Ireland doesn't effectively exist any more. If you go back you will be horrified.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
YouGov hardly ever moves by more than +/- !% from one day to another ..... so I'll be really brave and go for Lab and Con tied at 34% apiece with the LibDems on an improving 9%.
I am suspicious of the stability of YouGov polls. Their frequent sampling from a large internet panel of which they know enough (gender, age, region, voting history etc) enables them to balance their polls to be representative of the voting population at large. This has enabled them to stabilise the variance, so that trends are more easily revealed. But the sub-population from which they sample is itself almost certainly biased – after all it is self-selected by internet-savvy people with the time and inclination to participate. In which case no matter what the size or frequency of their polling samples, that bias remains in their polls. I'm sure they try to minimise this, but I would guess the extent of the bias is a known unknown as far as they are concerned. In short they have chosen efficiency (minimising the variance) at the expense of accuracy in their design methodology.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
Lord Ashcroft more or less said the same thing today. Mad times.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
That's what having economic credibility allows you to do...
But how to you get better education when the system can be loaded against you.
Look, I want the same goal of people being treated equally and fairly. But how do we get there? Hand on heart, do you feel ALL ethnic minorities get a fair crack of the whip? Of course, things are much better now than they were 50 years or even 20 years ago, but there is still a LONG way to go.
Yes, I think everyone gets a fair crack. Grammar schools would help. Closing down dogmatic religious schools would also help. Integration is what we need and kids that go to non-Christian religious schools will always have a lot of catching up to do in the real world. I went to a CoE grammar school, it was the best education someone like me could have received and the school was fairly comfortable with the fact that I wasn't Christian but they did make everyone go to Church regardless. My parents were comfortable with that because it meant I could receive an education usually reserved for middle class children going to fee paying schools.
Good post. However - I went to a state grammar school. Problem now is that they are so popular that middle class parents get their children tutored up to the eyeballs to pass the 11+ and it ends up being disproportionately populated by slightly less than middlingly bright children of rich parents rather than above middlingly bright poorer kids.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
The problem isn't the presence of grammar schools or not: the problem is the 20% of children who leave school functionally illiterate and/or innumerate.
That is "the" problem?
Are there no others?! :-)
The problem is so large in magnitude that the others fade into insignificance. Anyone who is functionally illiterate will find it very difficult to succeed in life, although one or two do. It is easier to be functionally innumerate, but will still limit what you can do with your life, unless you have compensating skills (e.g. sports).
"Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010."
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
Brown=Prudent=LOL. Not in a million years.
All true.
But Cameron and Osborne promised to match Brown's spending plans.
Ultimately very few politicians and no governments ever resist the chance to spend more money.
Spending other people's money on you own pet projects or to buy popularity or to get rid of political problems is irresistible to governments.
Prior to the recession they made a pledge in the same context as Brown promised to match Ken Clarke's plans, with the overarching theme of "sharing the proceeds of growth" between spending and cutting taxes. Now do you seriously think Brown was the same as Ken Clarke?
Its not simply politicians that are addicted to spending other people's money, until the hard times come so are the electorate. Opposition leaders need to pitch their tent to the electorate too.
That's true.
But where Cameron and Osborne went wrong was that they seemed to genuinely believe that Brown was managing the economy well and all they had to do was make vote winning spending and tax cut promises. They then ended up like rabbits caught in the headlights in autumn 2008.
They should instead have been demolishing Brown's economic credibility as Thatcher and Howe did to Labour in the late 1970s.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
Cons spent 5 years earning trust on economics - hence they can promise some giveaways. Labour wasted 5 years on a blank piece of paper.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
That's what having economic credibility allows you to do...
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
Think the political cross dressing is a Lynton trap and benefits the Tories massively more the Labour.
If you are a tory waverer, are you going to be taken in by the Labour fiscal responsibility guff amongst an agenda more left wing than at any time since 1983.
If you are a labour (or more importantly a UKIP) waverer, I suspect the Childcare / Right to Buy / NHS 8 Billion is more likely to suck you in.
Watch the polls in the next week - see if I am right.
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
Problem goes away if you release more land that the market wants to build on.
Not if there are legitimate reasons for wanting the already permitted land built on and legitimate reasons for not releasing the land they want. Or do you think developers are the best people to decide where houses should be built to best serve the local community?
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Been to "rural" Ireland recently? (Trick question).
I don't understand the question. I have been to rural Ireland, although not in the last few years.
Since they relaxed the planning laws to allow a McMansion in every plot, rural Ireland doesn't effectively exist any more. If you go back you will be horrified.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Well no it didn't. Not if you value heritage and the natural environment. I am not saying that we should not build houses. But pre- 1986 the developers had no requirement to do any sort of study or assessment of the impact of their building on important heritage or the environment prior to starting building. One of the reasons we have lost over 90% of our water meadows and have built huge numbers of estates on flood plains.
There has to be some sort of ability of local government to express the will of their electorate as to how and where houses are built and more importantly what work needs to be done in advance of the building. That is not anti-libertarian. It is part of the setting of the framework within which business and individuals operate. At the moment the balance is way too much in favour of the developer and against the individual or the community. Particularly as the developer's responsibility ends when the project is finished.
And of course the pressures on housing now due to migration and the fracturing of families means we have seen unprecedented demands (in 20th century terms anyway) for new building on greenfield sites.
"Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010."
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
Brown=Prudent=LOL. Not in a million years.
All true.
But Cameron and Osborne promised to match Brown's spending plans.
Ultimately very few politicians and no governments ever resist the chance to spend more money.
Spending other people's money on you own pet projects or to buy popularity or to get rid of political problems is irresistible to governments.
Prior to the recession they made a pledge in the same context as Brown promised to match Ken Clarke's plans, with the overarching theme of "sharing the proceeds of growth" between spending and cutting taxes. Now do you seriously think Brown was the same as Ken Clarke?
Its not simply politicians that are addicted to spending other people's money, until the hard times come so are the electorate. Opposition leaders need to pitch their tent to the electorate too.
That's true.
But where Cameron and Osborne went wrong was that they seemed to genuinely believe that Brown was managing the economy well and all they had to do was make vote winning spending and tax cut promises. They then ended up like rabbits caught in the headlights in autumn 2008.
They should instead have been demolishing Brown's economic credibility as Thatcher and Howe did to Labour in the late 1970s.
I couldn't agree more.
I read on a blog 9 months before it started that Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, HBOS, RBS were all Brian Jones.
At the same time Cameron and Osborne were still cosying up to Brown's management.
They could have absolutely destroyed Labour had they not missed the boat.
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Well no it didn't. Not if you value heritage and the natural environment. I am not saying that we should not build houses. But pre- 1986 the developers had no requirement to do any sort of study or assessment of the impact of their building on important heritage or the environment prior to starting building. One of the reasons we have lost over 90% of our water meadows and have built huge numbers of estates on flood plains.
There has to be some sort of ability of local government to express the will of their electorate as to how and where houses are built and more importantly what work needs to be done in advance of the building. That is not anti-libertarian. It is part of the setting of the framework within which business and individuals operate. At the moment the balance is way too much in favour of the developer and against the individual or the community. Particularly as the developer's responsibility ends when the project is finished.
And of course the pressures on housing now due to migration and the fracturing of families means we have seen unprecedented demands (in 20th century terms anyway) for new building on greenfield sites.
Another excellent post from you this evening.
A friend has shown me a recent estate actually called Water Meadow, with obvious results when it rains a lot ...
p.59 'Allow police forces to retain a greater percentage of the value of assets they seize from criminals'? Sounds...potentially problematic, particular at a time of tight budgets. Seeing that John Oliver bit on Civil Asset Forfeiture has probably prejudiced my view.
I can see that getting abused very quickly.
It is a massive police corruption issue in the USA.
Where? I don't see any argument at all in that article. Quite apart from anything else, she doesn't seem to have noticed that the policy would free up capital.
A poor article. There are arguments and criticisms to be made against the policy but those ones actually rehearse almost verbatim the ones used against the original Thatcher right to buy scheme in the early 80s.
And that did lead to a significant decline in the amount of available social housing.
Labour contributed to 18 years in opposition by opposing right-to-buy. It was absolutely the right policy at the right time. It led to millions of people who wanted to aspire to home ownership, but who were held under the thumb of the local council, having control and freedom over their own lives. It helped create a mass property owning democracy, and I'm proud of it.
However, I think things are more complex now. We just aren't building anywhere near enough homes. That's my only objection.
Half of all right to buy properties have ended up as private rentals.
Yes, but the difference is that the Tories have 5 years of credibility with the public on bringing down the deficit, and balancing the books. There was also quite a bit of extra spending headroom created by Osborne in his last budget, with the projected fiscal surplus for FY18/19 sharply reduced in favour of additional public spending.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
They haven't balanced the books they've borrowed about £90bn last year and are planning on borrowing another IIRC £75bn in the present year.
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
I am sure we will all congratulate your on your foresight for predicting the 2012 Eurozone crisis in 2010 just as soon as you find the posts from back then proving you saw it coming.
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
The Eurozone crisis started before the 2010 general election.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
While that's technically true (Greece's credit rating was cut in December 2009), the contagion to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the like didn't start until August 2010. In fact, Spain and Ireland's bond yields fell in the year to June 2010.
But it was obvious to anyone who didn't trust the 'official propaganda' that things were worse than they were claimed to be across the Eurozone.
And after the experience of the banks in 2007-2008 anyone who trusted 'offical propaganda' was being willfully naive.
Which is why Osborne changed tone and in 2009 was speaking of the need for austerity.
The 'all in it together' line.
Except we've seen that we're not 'all in it together' and that there is always more money for the pet projects, to buy votes and to throw at political problems.
I actually think the problem is in the middle. The very best kids get a great education regardless, and the very worse get money thrown at them to get them across the most basic threshold. The problem is with the big chunk in the middle who never get political attention and could be the skilled workers of the future but never get that far. You can have plenty of Marc Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates, but if they do not have the bright young talent pools to recruit in, they'll never get anywhere.
That's a reasonable reply. But if the very worse get money thrown at them, then how come the innumeracy and illiteracy rate have basically not changed for many decades? If we could by some means roughly halve the rate to an only-slightly-less-disgraceful 10%, it would probably save hundreds of millions (billions?) in benefits and increase our economic prosperity. As much as anything else, most of those children are not incurably thick, but a victim of situation (e.g. poor parenting). It would be harder for them, but the next Zucerkberg or Gates could be one of them, if only they could read and count properly from an early age.
That would be very hard to do, which is why New Labour failed when they just tried the throw-the-money-at-the-problem approach. But that is no reason not to try.
So the Tories have charged left to public spending unaccountability to counter their history of nastiness, and Labour have darted right to fiscal discipline to counter their history of profligacy. The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
Think the political cross dressing is a Lynton trap and benefits the Tories massively more the Labour.
If you are a tory waverer, are you going to be taken in by the Labour fiscal responsibility guff amongst an agenda more left wing than at any time since 1983.
If you are a labour (or more importantly a UKIP) waverer, I suspect the Childcare / Right to Buy / NHS 8 Billion is more likely to suck you in.
Watch the polls in the next week - see if I am right.
I'm trying to work out what is remotely left wing about the Labour party manifesto? The 5% on the top earners. Really is that it. Labour will freeze energy prices, the Tories transport- score draw. But the Tories pumping money into the NHS, childcare and raising the tax threshold. I'm actually more than happy because social democracy is alive and well, and right wing ideology is left at the fringes (in UKIP) where it should be. Like it or lump it Blair and Brown changed the narrative of UK politics. We are all Brownites now irrespective of who wins.
Walking home in Penkridge at 8.30 this evening I passed a group of people staring at a light in the sky. They said it was the international space station, on an unusually low orbit.
Walking home in Penkridge at 8.30 this evening I passed a group of people staring at a light in the sky. They said it was the international space station, on an unusually low orbit.
That will probably be Venus. Low down towards the west.
Noticed the price in tissue shares have rocketed today and you just cannot get hold of a laptop cleaner anywhere. Have the other nights suicidal PB Hodges turned into Cameron nailed on majority PB Hodges today?
That's not very libertarian. Before the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, pretty much anyone could build anything anywhere.
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Well no it didn't. Not if you value heritage and the natural environment. I am not saying that we should not build houses. But pre- 1986 the developers had no requirement to do any sort of study or assessment of the impact of their building on important heritage or the environment prior to starting building. One of the reasons we have lost over 90% of our water meadows and have built huge numbers of estates on flood plains.
There has to be some sort of ability of local government to express the will of their electorate as to how and where houses are built and more importantly what work needs to be done in advance of the building. That is not anti-libertarian. It is part of the setting of the framework within which business and individuals operate. At the moment the balance is way too much in favour of the developer and against the individual or the community. Particularly as the developer's responsibility ends when the project is finished.
And of course the pressures on housing now due to migration and the fracturing of families means we have seen unprecedented demands (in 20th century terms anyway) for new building on greenfield sites.
Another excellent post from you this evening.
A friend has shown me a recent estate actually called Water Meadow, with obvious results when it rains a lot ...
Happened in Waterbeach, just north of Cambridge a few years back. The roads that flooded worst were near the site of the old Waterbeach Abbey, which moved only a few decades after founding due to flooding.
Besides, the clue's in the name. (*) If you want (relative) safety from flooding, then they should live in the neighbouring village. Which is called Landbeach . ;-)
For the historians, the village is also home to a stretch of the Rman Car Dyke canal, which once stretched from Cambridge to Lincoln, using new cuts and canalised rivers.
(*) ISTR the village's name etymology is more complex than that.
Where? I don't see any argument at all in that article. Quite apart from anything else, she doesn't seem to have noticed that the policy would free up capital.
A poor article. There are arguments and criticisms to be made against the policy but those ones actually rehearse almost verbatim the ones used against the original Thatcher right to buy scheme in the early 80s.
And that did lead to a significant decline in the amount of available social housing.
Labour contributed to 18 years in opposition by opposing right-to-buy. It was absolutely the right policy at the right time. It led to millions of people who wanted to aspire to home ownership, but who were held under the thumb of the local council, having control and freedom over their own lives. It helped create a mass property owning democracy, and I'm proud of it.
However, I think things are more complex now. We just aren't building anywhere near enough homes. That's my only objection.
Half of all right to buy properties have ended up as private rentals.
I wonder what the percent of RTB tenants own their own home, whether it was the one they bought off the council, or a one they bought moving up the ladder? 99%?
First-time poster, stumbled across pb. whilst looking up odds. Nick Robinson's certainly doing his bit to counter claims of leftie bias at the beeb. Last night a distinct tinge of , your only 3 weeks away from the peril of Miliband as prime Minister, whereas tonight's piece ended on a more steady as she goes feel regarding Cameron.
Comments
And price the locals in their chosen area out of the housing market, meaning those places become retirement homes and not communities.
Here they are being given £50k they did not have.
Can you spot that difference in your tiny brain ?
Long thread......
The demographic change in Southgate will be more pro-Labour than in Finchley and the Conservatives will not get any incumbancy bonus in southgate either.
A better criticism is: which ones will be frittered away and dumped in coalition negotiations?
"Laughing gas is a colourless, sweet-smelling gas that makes you all giggly.
Its chemical name is Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and it’s ‘supposed’ to be used to relieve pain at the dentist, or to make cake icing come out of icing cans. But then we realised we could take it recreationally to make ourselves laugh.
It’s most commonly sold in balloons for you to suck on. The more hardcore users inhale it straight from a canister, but this is pretty risky as you can easily have too much."
http://www.thesite.org/drink-and-drugs/legal-highs/laughing-gas-9995.html
Has anything fallen off the Tory manifesto yet or is it all ok
Up at Strontian, even one of the bigger hotels comes in well under a mil.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Strontian.html
Either in higher prices or in lower employee earnings.
In the same way that Employers NI is passed on.
What would need to happen in the next few weeks for the Tories to have any chance of securing a majority?
What about Labour? Turning it around in Scotland would be a requirement against all odds. But they need more than even that miracle.
Upsets like 1992 just don't seem to happen anymore with all the technology and polling that goes on. Some of us still hope for it as an election approaches, but when the results are declared they generally fall the in line with polling and betting markets expectations.
Of course if there were grammar schools everywhere and an entry system which took teachers' views into account as well or some such, this could be overcome.
It's interesting to see the people who still think it was a wizard wheeze, though ...
In total they have / will borrow over £200bn more than they forecast in Osborne's 2010 Budget.
Are there no others?! :-)
Oh you didn't? Well nor did Osborne...took rather longer than predicted to get teh economy growing again. We can all choose who we think is to blame for that. Personally think that laying it ALL at the door of no.11 is harsh.
I am pretty sure I made a comment in 2010 about my money being on Osborne only being able to halve the deficit anyway, which was the Darling plan at the time! Can't be arsed to find it though
We bought our house with a 20% discount in 2004, we sold it in 2013, that 20% discount was passed down to the next purchaser. Low interest rates allowing overpayment and property price increases meant we ended up buying a home that my parents (council tenants), my grand parents who were also council tenants could never have even dreamed of.
I recall the tale, not because i want to brag, but because I want ever scruffy urchin from a council estate, like me, the opportunity to achieve the security and prosperity home ownership has given me.
When you go into a shop and they sell you something on discount do they hand you money? No.
The discount on these sales reflects the fact that the buyer takes on all the responsibilities, costs and liabilities for ownership as part of the trade.
Before that the council/housing association bears all the costs.
There is also a five year tie-in.
The government do these sales knowing that over time they will be income generative and cost reducing though taxation, transferred cost, service charges, ground rent, leaseholder charging for major works.
Meanwhile, they have helped the former tenants of modest means to independence.
Awful that they try to help people of modest means, isn't it?
Any predictions?
Fieldwork will have been when Labour Manifesto dominating the media agenda, so anything other than a Lab lead will be bad for them.
Not sure about Labour, Scotland makes it so hard for them and I'd be amazed if they were being understated in the polls, particularly the telephone polls where they appear to be behind.
If Osborne didn't take that into account then he has only himself to blame when his predictions are compared to reality.
I have spent decades seeing developers riding rough shod over local priorities, building 4 and 5 bed houses when the community needs starter homes, building on flood plains and then walking away with no responsibility when the houses flood or when their artificial flood defences cause flooding up or downstream of their developments in areas that never previously flooded. I have seen them use their pet mitigation firms to write reports which make sure they can ignore important archaeological or natural heritage sites and destroy them with the minimum of opposition from the authorities.
Planning laws are there to serve a purpose. To make sure developments serve the needs of the community and not the developers. It was one of the great things that Maggie did in the 80s when she completely rewrote large sections to meet those needs. In my field, PPG16 transformed archaeology and saved huge swathes of our heritage that had previously been destroyed by development Unfortunately governments since then have watered down those planning laws to suit politics or pressure from developers.
We need planning laws that serve the community and society not the developers.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/swing-calculator
However, that is almost entirely down to the 7% UKIP score, compared to say the 13% or so with others, and remember ICM did have the Tories winning the Euros
They have support from some Conservative voters who would support anything the Conservative party said.
And there is wide belief that Labour will always spend more and be even more financially incompetant.
But I've never met anyone who would be happy to let Cameron and Osborne manage their own personal finances.
And a University grant,and easy job opportunities. But I have since paid huge amounts of income tax,and employed hundreds of people. Politics is a very delicate balance of encouraging people,but not plucking the Golden Goose to death.
I think the present round of "Banker bashing",and hitting wealth creators is hugely negative.
I am also a reluctant landlord, from inherited property, and my tenant is the happiest person around because of housing benefit.
LOL. Does anyone seriously think Brown would have cut anything at all had he won? He would have made every excuse in the book as to why we had to go on 5punking money up the wall.
"The economy is worse than expected and because of the Eurozone crisis we have to continue spending".
Brown=Prudent=LOL. Not in a million years.
No big ideas or philosophical debates.
Only grubby vote buying and smearing.
IMF might have come and imposed such severe spending cuts as part of the bailout that it could be smaller
- Affordable housing
- Protection of green land
- Large-scale immigration
It seems like politicians would prefer to prioritize the last two. The business community would like to prioritize the first and last ones. I suspect the general public would like to prioritize the first two.
Brown was a phenomenon. I have no idea how the left will ever apologise for him. We really have moved on though.
But Cameron and Osborne promised to match Brown's spending plans.
Ultimately very few politicians and no governments ever resist the chance to spend more money.
Spending other people's money on you own pet projects or to buy popularity or to get rid of political problems is irresistible to governments.
'Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves is would the deficit be higher now or lower now had Gordon Brown prevailed in 2010.'
Brown would have re-classified most of the deficit as investment or a similar type of scam.
Is this the swingback they kept going on about?
"We promise to try not to screw it up too much and not to let the politicians' compulsion to meddle overwhelm us."
And you know what, it worked out OK.
Pretty much everyone with a braincell knows that the coalition turned the deficit around. The fact that they underestimated it's turning circle is a pretty moot point. Had the profligacy of the Brown era continued, UK plc would have gone bankrupt.
Labour probably lose because they have had 5 years to acknowledge this and all they can say is bankers, world finance crisis, started in America (or something like that). Had they once admitted that they had the wrong fiscal policy to start with and reacted to late to events, I might have considered voting for them (although never under the shadow of being propped up by the SNP)
Which makes me all the more amazed the amount of people who advocate the policies of SNP, Green and PC.
Its not simply politicians that are addicted to spending other people's money, until the hard times come so are the electorate. Opposition leaders need to pitch their tent to the electorate too.
And after the experience of the banks in 2007-2008 anyone who trusted 'offical propaganda' was being willfully naive.
The hedge fund millionaires should have bankrolled Labour, and Unison the Tories.
And they said that this was going to be a traditional election of left versus right. True-it is. Little did anyone know though that the roles would be reversed. Who would have ke-thunked it?
Strange times indeed comrades.
But where Cameron and Osborne went wrong was that they seemed to genuinely believe that Brown was managing the economy well and all they had to do was make vote winning spending and tax cut promises. They then ended up like rabbits caught in the headlights in autumn 2008.
They should instead have been demolishing Brown's economic credibility as Thatcher and Howe did to Labour in the late 1970s.
If you are a tory waverer, are you going to be taken in by the Labour fiscal responsibility guff amongst an agenda more left wing than at any time since 1983.
If you are a labour (or more importantly a UKIP) waverer, I suspect the Childcare / Right to Buy / NHS 8 Billion is more likely to suck you in.
Watch the polls in the next week - see if I am right.
There has to be some sort of ability of local government to express the will of their electorate as to how and where houses are built and more importantly what work needs to be done in advance of the building. That is not anti-libertarian. It is part of the setting of the framework within which business and individuals operate. At the moment the balance is way too much in favour of the developer and against the individual or the community. Particularly as the developer's responsibility ends when the project is finished.
And of course the pressures on housing now due to migration and the fracturing of families means we have seen unprecedented demands (in 20th century terms anyway) for new building on greenfield sites.
I read on a blog 9 months before it started that Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, HBOS, RBS were all Brian Jones.
At the same time Cameron and Osborne were still cosying up to Brown's management.
They could have absolutely destroyed Labour had they not missed the boat.
A friend has shown me a recent estate actually called Water Meadow, with obvious results when it rains a lot ...
Except we've seen that we're not 'all in it together' and that there is always more money for the pet projects, to buy votes and to throw at political problems.
That would be very hard to do, which is why New Labour failed when they just tried the throw-the-money-at-the-problem approach. But that is no reason not to try.
I'm actually more than happy because social democracy is alive and well, and right wing ideology is left at the fringes (in UKIP) where it should be.
Like it or lump it Blair and Brown changed the narrative of UK politics. We are all Brownites now irrespective of who wins.
Besides, the clue's in the name. (*) If you want (relative) safety from flooding, then they should live in the neighbouring village. Which is called Landbeach . ;-)
For the historians, the village is also home to a stretch of the Rman Car Dyke canal, which once stretched from Cambridge to Lincoln, using new cuts and canalised rivers.
(*) ISTR the village's name etymology is more complex than that.
First-time poster, stumbled across pb. whilst looking up odds. Nick Robinson's certainly doing his bit to counter claims of leftie bias at the beeb. Last night a distinct tinge of , your only 3 weeks away from the peril of Miliband as prime Minister, whereas tonight's piece ended on a more steady as she goes feel regarding Cameron.