Labour lost in 2010 because it was tired after 13 years in power, was tarnished by the credit crunch and Brown was unpopular.
Labour lost in 2015 because the leader was not seen as a credible PM. The policies were ill defined. It was neither too left, nor too right. It was too wooly. The EdStone did not finish the sentence, I will be better off voting Labour because ...
I do agree that a return to new Labour is not the answer, it worked in 97 but it is not for today.
However, Corbyn's approach is even worse. His ideas have never worked and, rooted in the early 1980s, are an even greater anachronism.
To win, Labour needs to find something genuinely fresh, future looking and relevant as it did in 45, 64, 66, 97 and 01.
You should be asking the questions: why did Labour win, not why did it lose.
Great post.
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- snip
Labour needs to jump on two things, and fast, before May does. And they are linked. One is contributory elements for the benefits system and the second is financial security sufficient to bring up a family.
If we accept that in the modern, technical world of rapid change there are few jobs for life and we will need to re-skill and change several times (and work longer) over a 40 or 50 year span - then people need something more than a very very basic safety net. The Dutch are doing interesting things here with something called 'flexi security' iirc.
Contribute more but have the security of not being plunged into penury because of a redundancy or an industry closing.
Sounds a good idea in principle.
There was a brief mention in one of the Sunday papers about some of May's No.10 brains-trust types looking into contributory stuff, building on the success (or seen to be success) of the opt-out for work-place pension contributions. iirc some guy who was at Legal & General is thinking through some ideas for people to opt to pay more into some kind of electronic system and therefore get more out if needed.
There's a point 4. I think - allow more self-build. This is how 80% of the homes in Austria and 60% in France or Germany are built, but only 10% in the UK. And if a house is self-built at least one person can presumably bear to look at it and live in it, rather than the jerry-built monstrosities that comprise too many new-built estates. If somebody owns land and can build a house according to the building regs, they should be allowed to do so.
The system seems to make it easier in Germany. Rather than selling land to large developers, local authorities generally assign an area of land for development, and then sell plots of land to individuals, who then employ architects and builders to design and build their house.
In this context, does self-build include custom homes?
I'm not sure what you mean. The houses are all custom homes, built by the owner (normally with the help of an architect and builder). They all look different to one another.
Edit: Depending on your money and skills, you might do more or less of the work yourself, though you'd obviously employ professionals for such things as wiring and plumbing.
When I was a kid in the UK, there was a craze for 'self-build' where a small consortium of regular people and people with trades skills would get together and build their own houses. Literally. So that is one possible meaning of 'self-build'.
In the US, if you hire an architect and then hire a bespoke builder, that is called a 'custom home' not 'self-build' which is reserved another situation - for those who act as their own general contractor while not actually doing the building work themselves, rather organizing the series of sub-contractors to dig foundations, pour foundations, frame the house, do the masonry, roof it, etc.. .
PS Thus in the US the market for single-family homes is mainly:
1. self-built where you are the GC 2. custom built, where a builder builds to your design 3. spec, where a builder builds a bespoke house without a buyer 4. production, where a big developer builds rabbit hutches.
Ah, I see. I'm not familiar with US/UK terminology; I was just going by what my German relatives have done when building a house. I think most would be what you'd call custom built, given that most people probably don't have the time and management skills to sort it all from scratch. They buy a plot of land, sit down with an architect to design their house, and then employ a builder to build it. Depending on their skills, they might do some of the work themselves, such as plastering or flooring.
Labour lost in 2010 because it was tired after 13 years in power, was tarnished by the credit crunch and Brown was unpopular.
Labour lost in 2015 because the leader was not seen as a credible PM. The policies were ill defined. It was neither too left, nor too right. It was too wooly. The EdStone did not finish the sentence, I will be better off voting Labour because ...
I do agree that a return to new Labour is not the answer, it worked in 97 but it is not for today.
However, Corbyn's approach is even worse. His ideas have never worked and, rooted in the early 1980s, are an even greater anachronism.
To win, Labour needs to find something genuinely fresh, future looking and relevant as it did in 45, 64, 66, 97 and 01.
You should be asking the questions: why did Labour win, not why did it lose.
Great post.
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
Nice idea TSE but I don't think the analogy really rings true. Churchill was something of a lone voice against conventional wisdom not the epitomie of establishment thinking. We also have a PM who supportd Remain, however feebly and in that sense she can't be cast as a Chamberlain figure either.
I am continually perplexed by the fascination Osborne seems to wield with younger Tories. What is it based on? He failed to mastermind an election victory when up against Gordon Brown and a huge recession and got a bit lucky five years later thanks to Ed Miliband, Scotland and the collapsing Lib Dems. I'm not saying he's without political skills but some great figure the nation will turn to in difficult times? I think not. People don't warm to him and neither does he command Thatcher-like respect. Not a good combination.
I was recently looking at a talk on the economic situation over the last 10 years and struck by just how historically anomylous it all is. Just a chart of interest raes would show that. Lehman Bros changed everything but Osborne never seemed to uunderstand that. He just thought a ballooning budget deficit was an opportunity to shrink the state. For all his claims to being a moderniser he was a man stuck in the 1980s.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
Where, outside a national park or site of special scientific interest, has local opposition prevented a development in recent years? If it has ever happened such cases must be few and far between.
This NIMBYism of which you speak has already been slain, at least down here in the South East. Houses are being thrown up on every patch of land the developers want regardless of whether there is the infrastructure (you know, roads, schools, health care) to support the new population. Land long considered unsuitable for building due to such matters as ancient woodland, propensity to flooding, lack of suitable and adequate road links, inadequate sewage treatment plants is now being built on wholesale, even if the local council objects.
God knows what your idea of liberalised planning rules would entail.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
1 - Correct. 2 - That is a planning problem. Plenty of people with plots that size, but it is a game of poker with a 50-70k table stake to get in front of the Planning Committee, then the local politicians might Nimby it so an Appeal is necessary, which is another 5-25k. Not many families owning a small field can afford to lose that much. 3 - Not sure what that is in aid of. There is nothing stopping bungalows being built at Prescott's fairly modest densities. People who want bigger bungalows can get and afford single plots. Planning permission does not have to follow Prezza densities anyway.
''Irexit is certainly getting a surprising amount of serious thought.''
That is a fascinating article in a number of ways.
First, if Ireland's ''industrial revolution'' was so precious, then why didn;t they ensure their biggest potential free market backer in the EU (Britain) remained? Why didn';t they vote with us sometimes?
We also have the answer in that article. The sly, chippy emnity to the former colonial power.
Ireland's EU policy, like that of all the smaller countries, has been a gargantuan failure. Their overriding priority should have been to ensure the free market balancer and second largest writer of cheques stayed at all costs.
Instead they took Britain for granted. They must live with the consequences.
Lots of EU countries took Britain for granted. That was the trouble. They assumed that the people would do what they were told.
It's an easy mistake to make if you take a "top down" approach to politics.
Incidentally I don't have much sympathy with the US on this. The US has form in claiming extra territorial jurisdiction over all sorts of matters and only fining foreign banks over misbehavior when US banks were equally as guilty. They're just cross that the EU has played them at their own game and targeted a US company.
Negotiating the Chemical Weapons Convention, I had the pleasure of chairing Western Group meetings on legal issues. There were ten members of the group (US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Japan). The US' extraterritorial approach to both domestic and international law was a complicating factor.
As one consequence, we spent well over a year coming to an agreement over what 'jurisdiction and control' meant. And that was before we could take a text to negotiate with the other 30 (non-Western) parties.
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
There must be something intrinsically different about the UK and German systems.
From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed.
Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
"None of this is to suggest that the Yes campaign in Scotland had no right to issue propaganda, even propaganda that had only a tenuous link with reality. But Ms Ghose and the ERS seem to have bought wholesale into the nationalist myth that Scotland 2014 was a vibrant festival of democracy, while the EU referendum in 2016 was a lie-filled, hate-ridden cesspit of angry racists telling foreigners to go home. If only she could have campaigned with me and witnessed the abuse and name-calling (I am, according to some of the more enthusiastic “civic” nationalists of Glasgow, a paedophile, a child murderer and a supporter of apartheid"
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
There must be something intrinsically different about the UK and German systems.
From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed.
Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
From what I have seen over the years, the British have a very particular attachment to their countryside and greenbelts. No other country I have spent time in seems to be as squeamish as we are about ripping up fields to grow houses.
I lost all respect for Wollaston after her EU-turn.
You don't think she was being sincere? Her argument fro switching was (from memory) about the bogus figures regarding the NHS. Nothing wrong with that.
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
There must be something intrinsically different about the UK and German systems. From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed. Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
Small scale is always easier to accept and fit in with the community.
The government could solve a lot of housing grief and make a shedload of money if they: 1. Passed a law arrogating planning permission for all government owned land to themselves not local government 2. Bought suitable brownfield sites at the prevailing rate for property with no planning permission (ie dirt cheap). Possibly via compulsory purchase if derelict. 3. Gave themselves planning permission for housing (preferably of the most needed not most profitable type - bungalows, retirement, starter homes, etc. 4. Sold into the market at a huge mark-up.
The fact of this at even a small scale would speed up applications and grants of planning everywhere.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
There must be something intrinsically different about the UK and German systems.
From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed.
Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
From what I have seen over the years, the British have a very particular attachment to their countryside and greenbelts. No other country I have spent time in seems to be as squeamish as we are about ripping up fields to grow houses.
The weird thing is that most of the greenbelt land that the British are so attached to is actually private land that they aren't allowed to walk on! Perhaps if more land were devoted to communal recreation, we wouldn't feel so bad about building a few more houses on fields.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
McTernan said the other day in FT that housing/planning mess should be handed over to National Infrastructure quango led by Adonis.
There must be something intrinsically different about the UK and German systems.
From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed.
Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
From what I have seen over the years, the British have a very particular attachment to their countryside and greenbelts. No other country I have spent time in seems to be as squeamish as we are about ripping up fields to grow houses.
The weird thing is that most of the greenbelt land that the British are so attached to is actually private land that they aren't allowed to walk on! Perhaps if more land were devoted to communal recreation, we wouldn't feel so bad about building a few more houses on fields.
I'm not sure how being able to walk on the land would make people more likely to want to build houses on said land...
George Osborne is way too talented to hang around on the Tory backbenches until people appreciate his talents. I will be very surprised if he is still an MP in a year's time which makes this proposal deeply unattractive.
That this view is prevalent exposes something very dysfunctional in our political system. Should it really be the case that a talented person has no business in Westminster other than as a Cabinet minister?
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
We had an ideal opportunity to break up the oligopoly of the major British house-builders after the financial crisis but instead have seen all sorts of schemes to prop them up. Outside of large inner-city developments, a fragmented building sector works best.
Labour lost in 2010 because it was tired after 13 years in power, was tarnished by the credit crunch and Brown was unpopular.
Labour lost in 2015 because the leader was not seen as a credible PM. The policies were ill defined. It was neither too left, nor too right. It was too wooly. The EdStone did not finish the sentence, I will be better off voting Labour because ...
I do agree that a return to new Labour is not the answer, it worked in 97 but it is not for today.
However, Corbyn's approach is even worse. His ideas have never worked and, rooted in the early 1980s, are an even greater anachronism.
To win, Labour needs to find something genuinely fresh, future looking and relevant as it did in 45, 64, 66, 97 and 01.
You should be asking the questions: why did Labour win, not why did it lose.
Great post.
Also, ask what are the pressing social and economic questions of the day for which the Tories have no answers.
The elephant in the room for the Tories is the falling rate of home ownership. Just as people like a state run NHS, people want to own their own homes, that has been established. Unfortunately, too many in Labour consider accepting this as an acceptance of Thatcher and all she stood for. The opportunity will be there for Labour, but I don't think they'll take it.
The Govt need to fix the faults in the market to supply more homes. Amongst the items are are:- 1. Too few homes built by small builders and inadequate financing for small builders - so why not some form of Govt backed financing since our banks are not up to the job? 2. Need for smaller packets of land made available to suit small builders such as in plot sizes under 50. 3. Remove Prescott's density rules for outside Greater London to get more bungalows built to enable 60+ year olds to move on and free up other housing.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
Well, that's you banned from the Cobham Residents Association AND the Heritage Society too. Quite an achievement
The government could solve a lot of housing grief and make a shedload of money if they: 1. Passed a law arrogating planning permission for all government owned land to themselves not local government 2. Bought suitable brownfield sites at the prevailing rate for property with no planning permission (ie dirt cheap). Possibly via compulsory purchase if derelict. 3. Gave themselves planning permission for housing (preferably of the most needed not most profitable type - bungalows, retirement, starter homes, etc. 4. Sold into the market at a huge mark-up.
The fact of this at even a small scale would speed up applications and grants of planning everywhere.
Where are these acres of brownfield sites that HMG could buy up for your scheme?
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
I lost all respect for Wollaston after her EU-turn.
One of the most unfortunately-timed political defections in history.
No. She wouldn't have been made a Minister had she stuck with out, being too much of a maverick across the piece. Incidentally, her constituents also voted to Remain.
I lost all respect for Wollaston after her EU-turn.
One of the most unfortunately-timed political defections in history.
No. She wouldn't have been made a Minister had she stuck with out, being too much of a maverick across the piece. Incidentally, her constituents also voted to Remain.
Yes I think South Hams was the only rural authority in the South West to vote Remain. My spreadsheet correctly forecast it would vote that way IIRC.
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
We had an ideal opportunity to break up the oligopoly of the major British house-builders after the financial crisis but instead have seen all sorts of schemes to prop them up. Outside of large inner-city developments, a fragmented building sector works best.
Yes indeed. In Germany and Austria the detached houses are usually custom built on your serviced plot, designed by an architect and not particularly costly.
There's supposed to be a Act requiring land to be made available for this, brought in thanks to Richard Bacon MP, but I expect the Executive will squash it as it threatens the spec. builder fat cats.
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
Continue to fool yourself if you wish. Not all those who want control over immigration are racists, and calling all those who do racists is the lazy way out of truly seeking to identify and address real problems.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
Where, outside a national park or site of special scientific interest, has local opposition prevented a development in recent years? If it has ever happened such cases must be few and far between.
This NIMBYism of which you speak has already been slain, at least down here in the South East. Houses are being thrown up on every patch of land the developers want regardless of whether there is the infrastructure (you know, roads, schools, health care) to support the new population. Land long considered unsuitable for building due to such matters as ancient woodland, propensity to flooding, lack of suitable and adequate road links, inadequate sewage treatment plants is now being built on wholesale, even if the local council objects.
God knows what your idea of liberalised planning rules would entail.
Exactly right. Both Thatcher and Blair tilted the 1948 planning system significantly in favour of developers, including the renowned "presumption in favour of development". It takes a determined campaign with a solid case nowadays to defeat a developer, and even then there are myriad ways in which a developer can game the system to get their proposals through.
The Planning system is simply an easy scapegoat for governments wanting to deflect attention from their own failings and for developers wanting to stop people asking why they are sitting on so many potential sites without progressing any plans.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
Fair go, but what the Referendum also perhaps showed was the contempt of the little people for the chattering classes. I remember well that morning at the polling station seeing people from the council estate, who hadn't voted in donkey's year, if ever, coming in to vote because this time their vote counted.
Maybe that was what has upset some of our chattering classes so much. The little people, whom the professed to care about so much (but seldom met or spoke to), turned out to have their own views. Quelle horreur.
Someone posted a link upthread to an Irish blog entry (by John Mallon) on a similar theme, which I also found very interesting.
I browsed a few more of the articles on that blog & came across this one, which I found particularly thought-provoking, about culture shocks encountered in the Middle East; specifically, how the women's black uniform reduces them to non-persons. http://letsexpress.me/2016/08/the-hidden-arabs/
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
Fair go, but what the Referendum also perhaps showed was the contempt of the little people for the chattering classes. I remember well that morning at the polling station seeing people from the council estate, who hadn't voted in donkey's year, if ever, coming in to vote because this time their vote counted.
Maybe that was what has upset some of our chattering classes so much. The little people, whom the professed to care about so much (but seldom met or spoke to), turned out to have their own views. Quelle horreur.
Well the chattering classes are certainly worthy of contempt, as their subsequent behaviour has confirmed. Again, the good sense of ordinary folk is visible.
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Sometimes, particularly on a glorious autumn afternoon such as this, it's very pleasant to sit back and devour a really scalding polemic even if it fails to morph into Flexit II by the end.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
I lost all respect for Wollaston after her EU-turn.
One of the most unfortunately-timed political defections in history.
No. She wouldn't have been made a Minister had she stuck with out, being too much of a maverick across the piece. Incidentally, her constituents also voted to Remain.
That may have been part of Dr Wollaston's change of heart. She had only very recently had a pro-Leave article published, hasn't she? Perhaps the local response to that made her reconsider.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
Aw! The poor dears didn't know what was going on. so they had a big tantrum in the voting booth.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
FFS. You still don't get it. I doubt you ever will.
I thought we had agreed on PB to ignore what authors have to say on Brexit?
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
So you dislike the chatterati attitudes but nevertheless share them. Nice doublethink there.
7 polls in the swing states look broadly favourable to Clinton and another National poll has her 3 points up.
All we can really say is that overall the race is close. (I am surprised PPP didn't release one on Florida and Iowa, but you can't have them all)
I wouldn't say it was close per se. I would say Clinton has the clear lead with Trump playing catch up. There is definitely tightening, but that margin by Labour day without the Republican convention as a potential way for Trump to gain isn't great for Trump at all.
Also his latest immigration hardening will definitely hurt him with Hispanics, especially as half of his outreach board are expected to quit.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
Aw! The poor dears didn't know what was going on. so they had a big tantrum in the voting booth.
Do you think they knew what was going on?
A report just out (can't recall who) today on the radio, said just about that no one really knew what the truth or lies were on both sides of the debate.
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
I have revised my forecast from April which said that Trump could win the Electoral College even if he was down by 4 points nationally, now he has to be leading by 1 point to win the Electoral College.
And it's all down to a large shift in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire which are now voting to the left of Michigan and Oregon.
As such and with just 3 weeks until voting starts I still give Trump the customary 10% chance for longshots.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
So you dislike the chatterati attitudes but nevertheless share them. Nice doublethink there.
Am I allowed to say that a chunk of the British public didn't understand the issues?
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
The French revolution was simultaneously an explosion of atavistic desires, to kill the rich and take bloody revenge on the church, and also a great leap forward in civilisation, in terms of the rights of man.
Great political ruptures are never entirely good or bad, in their motivation or their outcome. The French Revolution was still a profoundly positive and necessary thing, for mankind.
You could add the English Civil War; wasn't pleasant to live through, but was worth it in the end.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have been present for a long time.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
Aw! The poor dears didn't know what was going on. so they had a big tantrum in the voting booth.
Do you think they knew what was going on?
A report just out (can't recall who) today on the radio, said just about that no one really knew what the truth or lies were on both sides of the debate.
So Remainers didn't know what they were voting for too?
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
The French revolution was simultaneously an explosion of atavistic desires, to kill the rich and take bloody revenge on the church, and also a great leap forward in civilisation, in terms of the rights of man.
Great political ruptures are never entirely good or bad, in their motivation or their outcome. The French Revolution was still a profoundly positive and necessary thing, for mankind.
You could add the English Civil War; wasn't pleasant to live through, but was worth it in the end.
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
No no...Sean is super-entertaining and PB would be a much duller place without him.
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
The only thing that really needs to be sorted is PLANNING. The UK has plenty of suitable land, plenty of capital, plenty of builders and plenty of demand. What it lacks is freedom to build and an insane system that makes 90% of the value of a house the planning permission. Massively liberalise the planning laws and the market will sort the rest out PDQ. Any government that really has any intention of resolving the housing crisis and making ownership possible / affordable has to take on the NIMBY tendency and drive a truck through our planning laws.
Where, outside a national park or site of special scientific interest, has local opposition prevented a development in recent years? If it has ever happened such cases must be few and far between.
This NIMBYism of which you speak has already been slain, at least down here in the South East. Houses are being thrown up on every patch of land the developers want regardless of whether there is the infrastructure (you know, roads, schools, health care) to support the new population. Land long considered unsuitable for building due to such matters as ancient woodland, propensity to flooding, lack of suitable and adequate road links, inadequate sewage treatment plants is now being built on wholesale, even if the local council objects.
God knows what your idea of liberalised planning rules would entail.
Exactly right. Both Thatcher and Blair tilted the 1948 planning system significantly in favour of developers, including the renowned "presumption in favour of development". It takes a determined campaign with a solid case nowadays to defeat a developer, and even then there are myriad ways in which a developer can game the system to get their proposals through.
The Planning system is simply an easy scapegoat for governments wanting to deflect attention from their own failings and for developers wanting to stop people asking why they are sitting on so many potential sites without progressing any plans.
The system is rigged in favour of developers, which is not the same thing as being rigged in favour of development.
"These days, everyone in the chattering classes and among the political elites claims to be on the side of the people, to want to help the people, to want to look after the people. They claim to empathise with us, worry about us, care about us. Rubbish. And if you didn’t know that was rubbish before Brexit, you certainly know it now. The clarity of Brexit has shown us what the elites truly think, and my God it is ugly.
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
In truth these attitudes have.
The plebs have never towed the line, but they have always voted in their own self interest.
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
Aw! The poor dears didn't know what was going on. so they had a big tantrum in the voting booth.
Do you think they knew what was going on?
A report just out (can't recall who) today on the radio, said just about that no one really knew what the truth or lies were on both sides of the debate.
So Remainers didn't know what they were voting for too?
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
The French revolution was simultaneously an explosion of atavistic desires, to kill the rich and take bloody revenge on the church, and also a great leap forward in civilisation, in terms of the rights of man.
Great political ruptures are never entirely good or bad, in their motivation or their outcome. The French Revolution was still a profoundly positive and necessary thing, for mankind.
You could add the English Civil War; wasn't pleasant to live through, but was worth it in the end.
Interestingly, French historians call it the First English Revolution.
George Osborne is way too talented to hang around on the Tory backbenches until people appreciate his talents. I will be very surprised if he is still an MP in a year's time which makes this proposal deeply unattractive.
That this view is prevalent exposes something very dysfunctional in our political system. Should it really be the case that a talented person has no business in Westminster other than as a Cabinet minister?
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
No no...Sean is super-entertaining and PB would be a much duller place without him.
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
Fine, I could accept all of that, but none of it detracts an iota from the points in my post.
Given how wrong the 'experts' were on just about everything, what makes you think they knew what was going on??
Did anybody really know what was 'going on'
very few. But I absolutely don't ascribe to the dismissal of experts. Dear god how idiotic. What next, the Cultural Revolution, sending out professors of European Law at Liverpool University to work on the grain harvest?
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
lol. Given you're such a fan of my remarks you'll know that I was LEAVE from beginning to end of the campaign. I used to give my feelings in percentages. The most REMAIN I got to was about 40% - i.e. 60% LEAVE. So still LEAVE. By the end I was 90% LEAVE, hence my vote for LEAVE
My opinion varied because - like a good citizen - I actually listened to the debates, and the arguments. I was actually prepared to be persuaded by Cameron's "renegotiation", but sadly he produced fuck all, then lied about it.
I do not remember me telling a pollster during the campaign that I was REMAIN, probably because I never did that (unless it was some obvious joke). If you can find it I'll buy you a bottle of bubbles, if you can't you, Sir, are a liar.
The rest of your post: meh
We won. You lost. Suck it all up.
Weren't you polled in the street by a rather lovely pollster?
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
lol. Given you're such a fan of my remarks you'll know that I was LEAVE from beginning to end of the campaign. I used to give my feelings in percentages. The most REMAIN I got to was about 40% - i.e. 60% LEAVE. So still LEAVE. By the end I was 90% LEAVE, hence my vote for LEAVE
My opinion varied because - like a good citizen - I actually listened to the debates, and the arguments. I was actually prepared to be persuaded by Cameron's "renegotiation", but sadly he produced fuck all, then lied about it.
I do not remember me telling a pollster during the campaign that I was REMAIN, probably because I never did that (unless it was some obvious joke). If you can find it I'll buy you a bottle of bubbles, if you can't you, Sir, are a liar.
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
No no...Sean is super-entertaining and PB would be a much duller place without him.
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
Fine, I could accept all of that, but none of it detracts an iota from the points in my post.
It's just harmless rhetoric...I have opinions, if you don't like those-type thing.
I'll rise to the bait. I'm probably the kind of person that Mr O'Neill despises - stressing research and information, knowing the value of everything and the meaning of nothing.
His article makes no sense to me whatever. I can understand people on reflection deciding we're better off out than in, but inflicting pain and misery on the elites isn't something that motivates me. Not least because elites are the least pained and miserable about anything at all. That's why they are the elites. Pain of the non-elites is another matter, but Brexit is hardly going to help them. I really don't come across Brexiteers "walking firmly and cultivating their minds". Nor do I see Brexit as "meaningful" and the EU as "meaningless". The distinction is itself meaningless as far as I am concerned. You either want to be in the EU or out of it. Both are respectable positions to take. It's a a push to claim Leave as the overwhelming weight of public opinion that triumphed over the oligarchy. Leave got the critical 4% more than the other lot and claim the prize but it was a knife-edge result.
But , hey. I am only interested in the consequences of Brexit and am doomed to never understand.
Given how wrong the 'experts' were on just about everything, what makes you think they knew what was going on??
Did anybody really know what was 'going on'
very few. But I absolutely don't ascribe to the dismissal of experts. Dear god how idiotic. What next, the Cultural Revolution, sending out professors of European Law at Liverpool University to work on the grain harvest?
Said it before; the global economy passeth understanding. Nobody knows what will happen, but plenty of people are paid very handsomely to pretend they do.
Most of the folk on here are quite knowledgeable about economics, current affairs and whatever their own specialities might be. But very few (a polite way of saying 'none') of us were truly qualified to vote in any kind of expert capacity, and those that think differently are deluding themselves.
Just because we can spell EFTA, doesn't mean we grok the long term consequences of Brexit, even if we're superior to Ethel Scroggins of Burnley who thinks its a chilblain cream.
George Osborne is way too talented to hang around on the Tory backbenches until people appreciate his talents. I will be very surprised if he is still an MP in a year's time which makes this proposal deeply unattractive.
That this view is prevalent exposes something very dysfunctional in our political system. Should it really be the case that a talented person has no business in Westminster other than as a Cabinet minister?
What are Osborne's talents pls?
Offering Tory backbenchers IOUs for jobs in his post-Remain vote, post-Cameron Govt.
You can take those IOUs to the bank. The Bank of Point and Laugh, that is.
"Brexit is a cry for meaning in a world overrun with research and information. It is a plea for morality in a time when we’re governed by sums and maths. As Charles Leadbeater put it, Brexit was about “restoring a semblance of meaning to people’s lives”; it was a “vote for something more than money — for pride, belonging, community, identity, a sense of ‘home’”."
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
You are easily impressed. It was mainly a plea for fewer "darkies", "Polaks" and "Moooslims".
The French revolution was simultaneously an explosion of atavistic desires, to kill the rich and take bloody revenge on the church, and also a great leap forward in civilisation, in terms of the rights of man.
Great political ruptures are never entirely good or bad, in their motivation or their outcome. The French Revolution was still a profoundly positive and necessary thing, for mankind.
You could add the English Civil War; wasn't pleasant to live through, but was worth it in the end.
Interestingly, French historians call it the First English Revolution.
Hmmm... they call our Glorious Revolution (1688) the "Second English Revolution".
Given how wrong the 'experts' were on just about everything, what makes you think they knew what was going on??
Did anybody really know what was 'going on'
very few. But I absolutely don't ascribe to the dismissal of experts. Dear god how idiotic. What next, the Cultural Revolution, sending out professors of European Law at Liverpool University to work on the grain harvest?
It stuff like this which makes me think Trump has no intention of being president, he just wants a far right tv network for himself
The real question is why isn't Clinton romping home.
She isn't very likeable and a lot of people haven't thought about it yet.
She also spent the last month fundraising, and the proper campaigning with Bill, Obama and Biden starts in Sept.
Trump has said so many terrible things that I would think when people think about it, Clinton will start to romp it home
Which is worse - to say some 'terrible things' like Trump or to be proven over and over again a shameless liar like Hillary?
Hillary maybe a liar but she is winning because Trump has a big shouty mouth.
For example yesterday's immigration speech seems to have pushed back the cause of immigration reform in the USA by a generation simply because Trump delivered it screaming.
I watched a CNN guy saying that merits are a bad thing because america needs to get browner, just as a reaction to Trump.
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
lol. Given you're such a fan of my remarks you'll know that I was LEAVE from beginning to end of the campaign. I used to give my feelings in percentages. The most REMAIN I got to was about 40% - i.e. 60% LEAVE. So still LEAVE. By the end I was 90% LEAVE, hence my vote for LEAVE
My opinion varied because - like a good citizen - I actually listened to the debates, and the arguments. I was even prepared to be persuaded by Cameron's "renegotiation", but sadly he produced fuck all, then lied about it.
Your opinion didn't vary, because you think less? Dunno. You tell me
I do not remember my telling a pollster during the campaign that I was REMAIN, probably because I never did that (unless it was some obvious joke). If you can find that remark I'll buy you a bottle of bubbles, if you can't then you, Sir, are a liar.
The rest of your post: meh
We won. You lost. Suck it all up.
Now, now, Sean. We don't need to rub it in. It's becoming clear that the Remainers are not just on the wrong side of the vote, they're on the wrong side of history, as well.
They won't change. Like old, moustachioed Colonels snorting into their G&Ts, deploring the loss of Empire, they'll continue to insist to anyone who'll listen that it was all a ghastly error.
We need to be understanding, make sure they have a nice warm blanket tucked round their knees, that someone's bringing them their cup of tea. No need to be mean to the poor old dears.
I've just watched Farages Trump speech for the first time.
Apparently it was a short notice thing - he was invited the night before as he was in the area.
I saw comments as to it would not resonate as brexit was not a big issue over there, but he tailored it very effectively to the USA.
Can see why Hilarys lot were on about UKIP and the Kremlin, it was quite a speech to fire up people with the don't trust the establishment, we did it, you can do it message.
Whether it has anything to do with the recent poll tightening is probably mixing causation with correlation though (unless you want to tease a liberal democrat friend who can't abide Fargle )
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
No no...Sean is super-entertaining and PB would be a much duller place without him.
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
Fine, I could accept all of that, but none of it detracts an iota from the points in my post.
But your points are factually wrong. e.g. I never told a pollster I was voting REMAIN. Go on, find it.
FIND IT.
GO ON.
FIND IT.
You told an exit poll lady you were voting remain. Recall that quite clearly
A brilliant non-conformist 'up the revolution, stuff the establishment' rant....but without one single argument as to why Britain's leaving the EU might be a sensible thing to do.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
lol. Given you're such a fan of my remarks you'll know that I was LEAVE from beginning to end of the campaign. I used to give my feelings in percentages. The most REMAIN I got to was about 40% - i.e. 60% LEAVE. So still LEAVE. By the end I was 90% LEAVE, hence my vote for LEAVE
My opinion varied because - like a good citizen - I actually listened to the debates, and the arguments. I was even prepared to be persuaded by Cameron's "renegotiation", but sadly he produced fuck all, then lied about it.
Your opinion didn't vary, because you think less? Dunno. You tell me
I do not remember my telling a pollster during the campaign that I was REMAIN, probably because I never did that (unless it was some obvious joke). If you can find that remark I'll buy you a bottle of bubbles, if you can't then you, Sir, are a liar.
The rest of your post: meh
We won. You lost. Suck it all up.
Now, now, Sean. We don't need to rub it in. It's becoming clear that the Remainers are not just on the wrong side of the vote, they're on the wrong side of history, as well.
They won't change. Like old, moustachioed Colonels snorting into their G&Ts, deploring the loss of Empire, they'll continue to insist to anyone who'll listen that it was all a ghastly error.
We need to be understanding, make sure they have a nice warm blanket tucked round their knees, that someone's bringing them their cup of tea. No need to be mean to the poor old dears.
For someone so supposedly patriotic you pick a curious example of soldiers who will have fought for their country to mock.
Because it is the moral thing to do - to leave this horrible, undemocratic nightmare, designed by and for smug, contemptuous elites - and thereby sets a noble example to the rest of the world.
Not good enough for you?
Sean, it may just be me, but personally I find your attempted re-invention as PB's principal "Mr Brexit" both unconvincing and somewhat distasteful.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
No no...Sean is super-entertaining and PB would be a much duller place without him.
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
Fine, I could accept all of that, but none of it detracts an iota from the points in my post.
But your points are factually wrong. e.g. I never told a pollster I was voting REMAIN. Go on, find it.
FIND IT.
GO ON.
FIND IT.
You told an exit poll lady you were voting remain. Recall that quite clearly
Comments
I am continually perplexed by the fascination Osborne seems to wield with younger Tories. What is it based on? He failed to mastermind an election victory when up against Gordon Brown and a huge recession and got a bit lucky five years later thanks to Ed Miliband, Scotland and the collapsing Lib Dems. I'm not saying he's without political skills but some great figure the nation will turn to in difficult times? I think not. People don't warm to him and neither does he command Thatcher-like respect. Not a good combination.
I was recently looking at a talk on the economic situation over the last 10 years and struck by just how historically anomylous it all is. Just a chart of interest raes would show that. Lehman Bros changed everything but Osborne never seemed to uunderstand that. He just thought a ballooning budget deficit was an opportunity to shrink the state. For all his claims to being a moderniser he was a man stuck in the 1980s.
This NIMBYism of which you speak has already been slain, at least down here in the South East. Houses are being thrown up on every patch of land the developers want regardless of whether there is the infrastructure (you know, roads, schools, health care) to support the new population. Land long considered unsuitable for building due to such matters as ancient woodland, propensity to flooding, lack of suitable and adequate road links, inadequate sewage treatment plants is now being built on wholesale, even if the local council objects.
God knows what your idea of liberalised planning rules would entail.
2 - That is a planning problem. Plenty of people with plots that size, but it is a game of poker with a 50-70k table stake to get in front of the Planning Committee, then the local politicians might Nimby it so an Appeal is necessary, which is another 5-25k. Not many families owning a small field can afford to lose that much.
3 - Not sure what that is in aid of. There is nothing stopping bungalows being built at Prescott's fairly modest densities. People who want bigger bungalows can get and afford single plots. Planning permission does not have to follow Prezza densities anyway.
As one consequence, we spent well over a year coming to an agreement over what 'jurisdiction and control' meant. And that was before we could take a text to negotiate with the other 30 (non-Western) parties.
From my experience in Germany, people tend to broadly welcome new development because they know that it'll bring more money and services to the town. New developments also tend to be on a fairly small scale, so the inhabitants don't feel overwhelmed.
Where I live now in the UK, the local community is opposed tooth and nail to any new development at all. It is seen as a purely negative outcome that must be resisted at all costs. There must be something to learn from the German approach!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/01/voters-dont-need-some-stuck-up-quango-to-tell-them-what-to-think/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
'it profits a (wo)man nothing to give his (her) soul for the whole world... but for f*** all?'
http://order-order.com/2016/09/01/71-economists-wrong-brexit/
1. Passed a law arrogating planning permission for all government owned land to themselves not local government
2. Bought suitable brownfield sites at the prevailing rate for property with no planning permission (ie dirt cheap). Possibly via compulsory purchase if derelict.
3. Gave themselves planning permission for housing (preferably of the most needed not most profitable type - bungalows, retirement, starter homes, etc.
4. Sold into the market at a huge mark-up.
The fact of this at even a small scale would speed up applications and grants of planning everywhere.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37242862
I cannot remember a time in my life when there has been as much open contempt and bile for ordinary people as there was after Brexit. All the PC guff was pushed to one side, and we got to see the disgust of the elites for the public."
All we can really say is that overall the race is close. (I am surprised PPP didn't release one on Florida and Iowa, but you can't have them all)
http://news.sky.com/story/explosion-at-spacex-rocket-launch-site-10561500
E.g. http://pracownia-projekty.dom.pl/
We had an ideal opportunity to break up the oligopoly of the major British house-builders after the financial crisis but instead have seen all sorts of schemes to prop them up. Outside of large inner-city developments, a fragmented building sector works best.
It's just they weren't expressed so vehemently and broadly as long as the plebs were seen to be toeing the line.
Spot on. Although he should have added "and a sense of at least a modicum of control over their own destiny"
And we still do. Just the other day Alistair Meeks said remain was the only moral position.
At least there should be some shiny new Jupiter pics arriving from Juno soon
I am sure they have planned for this.
He still might
There's supposed to be a Act requiring land to be made available for this, brought in thanks to Richard Bacon MP, but I expect the Executive will squash it as it threatens the spec. builder fat cats.
The Planning system is simply an easy scapegoat for governments wanting to deflect attention from their own failings and for developers wanting to stop people asking why they are sitting on so many potential sites without progressing any plans.
In 2012, Obama has 102 field offices in Fla. Romney had 48.
In 2016, Clinton has 51 field offices. Trump has 1.
https://t.co/7pwPcCtzel
Maybe that was what has upset some of our chattering classes so much. The little people, whom the professed to care about so much (but seldom met or spoke to), turned out to have their own views. Quelle horreur.
#Dundee's Penguins at it again. Dressed as Celtic warriors to welcome #ReflectionsOnCelts exhibition @McManusDundee https://t.co/Z6MkyPR572
Someone posted a link upthread to an Irish blog entry (by John Mallon) on a similar theme, which I also found very interesting.
I browsed a few more of the articles on that blog & came across this one, which I found particularly thought-provoking, about culture shocks encountered in the Middle East; specifically, how the women's black uniform reduces them to non-persons.
http://letsexpress.me/2016/08/the-hidden-arabs/
(And good evening, everybody.)
At heart the British people are decent, thoughtful, and generous.
However, no one could accuse them all of being sophisticated enough to understand some of the sophisticated pros and cons of the Brexit debate. They usually look to broad political allegiancies (Lab/Cons/etc) and trust those people to look after their interests. But with Brexit those allegiancies were thrown up into the air and we were presented with a smorgasbord of alliances and cross-party platforms so no wonder people were further confused.
I very much dislike the disdain shown by the chattering classes, daily mash-like, that we have seen post June 23rd.
But there is absolutely no doubt that within the context of any popular vote never being "wrong", in this instance the people voted against their own self-interest, for reasons they didn't wholly understand and no, not because of some greater patriotic vision, but because when you are confused, and irritated, and frustrated, and are given an opportunity to lash out, you lash out. And so they did. And it will be (probably imperceptibly) bad for the country.
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what made it the "wrong" decision.
http://order-order.com/2016/09/01/macshelved-pound-shop-europhile/
Also his latest immigration hardening will definitely hurt him with Hispanics, especially as half of his outreach board are expected to quit.
A report just out (can't recall who) today on the radio, said just about that no one really knew what the truth or lies were on both sides of the debate.
I remember very well that your posts during the campaign were all over the place; indeed you told us that you confirmed to a passing pollster that you were intending to vote Remain.
I remember also the post where you first shared with us your actual Leave vote, which appeared to have been an instinctive decision that you made pretty much on the day.
I also remember your posts during the days after the vote, when the £ was collapsing and Poles were openly being abused in the streets, when you came close to admitting that you may have made a terrible mistake.
Most of us on this site took our positions early on and, right or wrong as we may eventually prove to be, we advanced our case in good faith.
You sat on the fence so long that your arse was sore, and having happened to fall off on the Leave side on the way to the polling station does not now - when the £ is still collapsed and a Pole has just been beaten to death for speaking Polish in public - give you any right to pose as some sort of messiah for the Brexit cause.
I have revised my forecast from April which said that Trump could win the Electoral College even if he was down by 4 points nationally, now he has to be leading by 1 point to win the Electoral College.
And it's all down to a large shift in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire which are now voting to the left of Michigan and Oregon.
As such and with just 3 weeks until voting starts I still give Trump the customary 10% chance for longshots.
Do you think they all did?
She also spent the last month fundraising, and the proper campaigning with Bill, Obama and Biden starts in Sept.
Trump has said so many terrible things that I would think when people think about it, Clinton will start to romp it home
Given how wrong the 'experts' were on just about everything, what makes you think they knew what was going on??
Did anybody really know what was 'going on'
But he is an author, and as he emphatically agreed yesterday, their views on anything much are to be discarded.
But they are certainly fun to read. A bit like him thinking that his taste buds were more refined than other peoples', not getting the fact that the reason he is a great food/hotel critic is because he writes well, not because he has an insight into what makes a good truffle butter.
Despite Trump closing the gap it's still about the same as Romney's at this point in 2012.
And this is the guy that had to cheek to go bombing other countries to try and make them "democracies"!
Labour Gen Sec Iain McNicol has emailed NEC members with examples of people who have been "purged" #LabourPurge2 https://t.co/4jNhVNx1SQ
His article makes no sense to me whatever. I can understand people on reflection deciding we're better off out than in, but inflicting pain and misery on the elites isn't something that motivates me. Not least because elites are the least pained and miserable about anything at all. That's why they are the elites. Pain of the non-elites is another matter, but Brexit is hardly going to help them. I really don't come across Brexiteers "walking firmly and cultivating their minds". Nor do I see Brexit as "meaningful" and the EU as "meaningless". The distinction is itself meaningless as far as I am concerned. You either want to be in the EU or out of it. Both are respectable positions to take. It's a a push to claim Leave as the overwhelming weight of public opinion that triumphed over the oligarchy. Leave got the critical 4% more than the other lot and claim the prize but it was a knife-edge result.
But , hey. I am only interested in the consequences of Brexit and am doomed to never understand.
Most of the folk on here are quite knowledgeable about economics, current affairs and whatever their own specialities might be. But very few (a polite way of saying 'none') of us were truly qualified to vote in any kind of expert capacity, and those that think differently are deluding themselves.
Just because we can spell EFTA, doesn't mean we grok the long term consequences of Brexit, even if we're superior to Ethel Scroggins of Burnley who thinks its a chilblain cream.
You can take those IOUs to the bank. The Bank of Point and Laugh, that is.
For example yesterday's immigration speech seems to have pushed back the cause of immigration reform in the USA by a generation simply because Trump delivered it screaming.
I watched a CNN guy saying that merits are a bad thing because america needs to get browner, just as a reaction to Trump.
They won't change. Like old, moustachioed Colonels snorting into their G&Ts, deploring the loss of Empire, they'll continue to insist to anyone who'll listen that it was all a ghastly error.
We need to be understanding, make sure they have a nice warm blanket tucked round their knees, that someone's bringing them their cup of tea. No need to be mean to the poor old dears.
Apparently it was a short notice thing - he was invited the night before as he was in the area.
I saw comments as to it would not resonate as brexit was not a big issue over there, but he tailored it very effectively to the USA.
Can see why Hilarys lot were on about UKIP and the Kremlin, it was quite a speech to fire up people with the don't trust the establishment, we did it, you can do it message.
Whether it has anything to do with the recent poll tightening is probably mixing causation with correlation though (unless you want to tease a liberal democrat friend who can't abide Fargle )