"The war for Labour’s soul goes on. As the old leftists liked to say, the struggle takes many forms. The one that counts at the moment is at the grassroots. Rather against expectations, the moderates are prevailing."
Yep - any vote which involves people turning up to meetings is a vote that is won by the moderate part of the party, the people that have been Labour members for years and who voted for Owen Smith in September.
Except that Rawnsley is rather lazily relying heavily upon London constituency examples to prop up his argument. Whereas, whilst Labour is remains strong in London - a mix of its demographic profile (younger and more ethnic) and the impact of its housing market - London has always been an area of relative Momentum weakness (edit/voting much less strongly for Corbyn, despite his London credentials). And someone as popular and effective as Stella Creasy was never under any realistic threat (and if she ever one day is, it will not be because she isn't left wing, but because an ethnic area and membership decides to demand an ethnic minority representative).
Burnham on Sky - seems like he might actually be listening to Labour voters in the north of England.
Unlike the party leadership.
If only he'd put himself up for Leader....
Oh.
He's not speaking to the Party. He's lost interest in that. He's speaking to the voters of Manchester, who he needs to elect him as mayor.
But Manchester = Labour. One of their few remaining one-party states they possess after the fall of Scotland (well, apart from Manchester's single LibDem councillor!).
This is Mayor of Greater Manchester, not just Manchester and their 95 out of 96 councillors.
Paul Nuttall likely to stand in Leigh when Burnham resigns.
Can you just imagine if UKIP took Andy Burnham's seat
"The war for Labour’s soul goes on. As the old leftists liked to say, the struggle takes many forms. The one that counts at the moment is at the grassroots. Rather against expectations, the moderates are prevailing."
Yep - any vote which involves people turning up to meetings is a vote that is won by the moderate part of the party, the people that have been Labour members for years and who voted for Owen Smith in September.
Except that Rawnsley is rather lazily relying heavily upon London constituency examples to prop up his argument. Whereas, whilst Labour is remains strong in London - a mix of its demographic profile (younger and more ethnic) and the impact of its housing market - London has always been an area of relative Momentum weakness (edit/voting much less strongly for Corbyn, despite his London credentials). And someone as popular and effective as Stella Creasy was never under any realistic threat (and if she ever one day is, it will not be because she isn't left wing, but because an ethnic area and membership decides to demand an ethnic minority representative).
Burnham on Sky - seems like he might actually be listening to Labour voters in the north of England.
Unlike the party leadership.
If only he'd put himself up for Leader....
Oh.
He's not speaking to the Party. He's lost interest in that. He's speaking to the voters of Manchester, who he needs to elect him as mayor.
Indeed, his one potential weakness (other than coming from Liverpool) is that he is seen as a political insider and puppet of the national party. He'll be stressing his independence from now on, like Sadiq.
I am sure he will win - although mayoral contests don't always go along normal political lines; Bedford has had a LibDem mayor elected and re-elected, despite never having that much strength in the area.
Some more background on the Manchester mayoral contest would be useful from someone here in the know. Mr Eagles?
How big is the 'Greater Manchester' area and which outlying towns does it cover? How close to Warrington, Sheffield, Blackburn, Macclesfield etc does it come?
Who are the candidates? We know Mr Burnham has a good chance, but are there any well known local independents who might stand? Betfair's relatively illiquid market has Burnham layable at 1.25, is his chance really as tight as 1/4?
If Burnham stands and wins, and as expected Paul Nuttall stands in the Leigh by-election, will it be time for the return of Ed Balls to save the seat for Labour?
Burnham on Sky - seems like he might actually be listening to Labour voters in the north of England.
Unlike the party leadership.
If only he'd put himself up for Leader....
Oh.
He's not speaking to the Party. He's lost interest in that. He's speaking to the voters of Manchester, who he needs to elect him as mayor.
But Manchester = Labour. One of their few remaining one-party states they possess after the fall of Scotland (well, apart from Manchester's single LibDem councillor!).
This is Mayor of Greater Manchester, not just Manchester and their 95 out of 96 councillors.
Paul Nuttall likely to stand in Leigh when Burnham resigns.
Can you just imagine if UKIP took Andy Burnham's seat
Like they took Sleaford with a minus 2.5% swing? Although it should be more winnable as it's Labour and with a much smaller majority.
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
Getting rid of Corbyn resolves little, however. Perhaps it loses the youthful enthusiasm whilst not replacing it with anything worthwhile? However hard I try I can't imagine that in the parallel universe where Owen Smith is now leader of the opposition, he is setting the news agenda, uniting the party behind one position on Brexit (Trident, LHR3, austerity....), or reconciling the Waitrose shopping remainers with Harris's mates from Barking & Stoke?
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
.......In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Just a note of caution: whilst I agree with the consensus on Abbott's comment, remember just how wild 2016 was politically. Forecasts can frequently be wrong.
Next year's going to be a totally wild ride for some folk.
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
I definitely don't think the Tories should assume they will be facing Corbyn at next GE, unless they go to country in 2017 on some trumped up issue about Brexit.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
And it makes May look like a complete idiot for contemplating IDS. The kind of move I'd expect from Mandy or George.
Gratuitously going out of her way to make an enemy of George was the first thing that made me wonder if she was up to being PM. It was stupid, self-indulgent and petty. And I suspect she will come to regret it if she doesn't already.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
I definitely don't think the Tories should assume they will be facing Corbyn at next GE, unless they go to country in 2017 on some trumped up issue about Brexit.
I agree. He is becoming more shambolic with every passing day and it is clearly being noticed.
I closed my eyes, put my beige shirt on, and my old jacket, never wear the new Far far away, the PLP was weeping, but the workers were sleeping Socialists are too few...
I wore my coat, with the red lining, bright hammer shining, wonderful and old And in the East, Putin was bombing, and Aleppo shaking, people left in the cold
A crash of votes, a flash of polls, the party's hope flew out of sight, Momentum faded into darkness, I was left alone
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014). Most are secondary, but there are 100's that are primary heads.
Many it is because of head of a troubled school and / or multiple schools.
Burnham on Sky - seems like he might actually be listening to Labour voters in the north of England.
Unlike the party leadership.
If only he'd put himself up for Leader....
Oh.
He's not speaking to the Party. He's lost interest in that. He's speaking to the voters of Manchester, who he needs to elect him as mayor.
Indeed, his one potential weakness (other than coming from Liverpool) is that he is seen as a political insider and puppet of the national party. He'll be stressing his independence from now on, like Sadiq.
I am sure he will win - although mayoral contests don't always go along normal political lines; Bedford has had a LibDem mayor elected and re-elected, despite never having that much strength in the area.
Some more background on the Manchester mayoral contest would be useful from someone here in the know. Mr Eagles?
How big is the 'Greater Manchester' area and which outlying towns does it cover? How close to Warrington, Sheffield, Blackburn, Macclesfield etc does it come?
Who are the candidates? We know Mr Burnham has a good chance, but are there any well known local independents who might stand? Betfair's relatively illiquid market has Burnham layable at 1.25, is his chance really as tight as 1/4?
If Burnham stands and wins, and as expected Paul Nuttall stands in the Leigh by-election, will it be time for the return of Ed Balls to save the seat for Labour?
Rochdale’s about as far N as it goes; don’t think Stockport’s part of it. Salford and Eccles are, though.
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
Getting rid of Corbyn resolves little, however. Perhaps it loses the youthful enthusiasm whilst not replacing it with anything worthwhile? However hard I try I can't imagine that in the parallel universe where Owen Smith is now leader of the opposition, he is setting the news agenda, uniting the party behind one position on Brexit (Trident, LHR3, austerity....), or reconciling the Waitrose shopping remainers with Harris's mates from Barking & Stoke?
Soft Brexit is clearly the reconcilable position. A recognition that we must leave the EU, but that it must be done in a way that does the least possible damage to living standards and the future of the economy. A credible leader gets a hearing in a way that Corbyn never will and also spells the end of other toxic performers such as Dianne Abbott, Richard Burgon and John McDonnell. It won't win Labour the next election, but it may be enough to prevent the Tories getting an overall majority. Right now they have an entirely free run, when the fact is that they are horribly divided over how to proceed.
I am puzzled the Remainers have not turned any of their ire on the EU itself. After all, Cameron needed a deal he could sell. He didn't get one. A slightly better deal may have made all the difference in a close referendum. I don't in all honesty think the UK was asking for anything very unreasonable. But, still Junker and Tusk and Co, despite having misjudged the situation as much (maybe more) than Cameron, are still in post. And not a fleck of criticism has been directed at them by the Remainers.
Excellent points. The Remainers are not even trying to get the EU to reform itself. Instead the talk is abour "more EU" not a "new EU". All of which points to why we are more likely to head for a WTO type of Brexit because the EU is fundamentally incapable of taking sound rational decisions. It is simply unreformable.
I had sort of hoped, for its sake and ours, that our exit might spur them into genuinely addressing their problems, as a major flaw was when things got tough they occasionally acknowledged there were issues, then dropped it immediately and started blaming populism again when trouble died down. Any pronouncements they know the EU needs reform, from the EU, are false, as their actions show, the bureaucrats and supporting governments don't really believe it, they just feel they need to say it now and then. I had hoped our leaving might for their benefit lead to believing their own words on the need to address problems, but time will tell.
My guess is that the EU is hoping that Brexit will show how important the EU is. The case for reform will only become unanswerable if the UK leaves and prospers.
Michel Barnier, the negotiator for the EU side has been giving interviews this week and saying something quite interesting. I interpret and paraphrase a bit. The EU, in Mr Barnier's view, should not grind Britain's face into the dust simply because it can. Punishing Britain is counterproductive to the project of European unity that he passionately believes in. This implies he sees a role for Britain in the project in the future even if it's not a member of the EU and also that Britain's negotiating position is so weak, the EU will have to exercise restraint if it's not to take advantage of it.
Hubris, delusion and posturing, or is there something in what he says?
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
I definitely don't think the Tories should assume they will be facing Corbyn at next GE, unless they go to country in 2017 on some trumped up issue about Brexit.
I agree. He is becoming more shambolic with every passing day and it is clearly being noticed.
Yesterday was one of his lowest points yet. Actually asking, with a mic on, his shadow foreign sec when they had condemned the Russian bombings.
How long before the hard Left realise that their once in a lifetime opportunity to implement policies and be in government is being wrecked by a leader who is clearly not up to the basics of the job?
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Being better than Jeremy Corbyn does not make you any good. It just makes you a more attractive option than the worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
And it makes May look like a complete idiot for contemplating IDS. The kind of move I'd expect from Mandy or George.
Gratuitously going out of her way to make an enemy of George was the first thing that made me wonder if she was up to being PM. It was stupid, self-indulgent and petty. And I suspect she will come to regret it if she doesn't already.
So what did she do? Called the bloke in sacked him and allowed him to leave discreetly via the backdoor rather than face the press out the front. Crikey, lots of people get sacked and with far less consideration.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
It's very good. They filmed an episode in my back yard yesterday, apparently. Will air in a couple of weeks, they annoyingly did it with no publicity so I had no chance to get in the audience. One imagines they weren't making jokes about what the locals get up to with the camels though.
I closed my eyes, put my beige shirt on, and my old jacket, never wear the new Far far away, the PLP was weeping, but the workers were sleeping Socialists are too few...
I wore my coat, with the red lining, bright hammer shining, wonderful and old And in the East, Putin was bombing, and Aleppo shaking, people left in the cold
A crash of votes, a flash of polls, the party's hope flew out of sight, Momentum faded into darkness, I was left alone
Mr Dancer, I seem to have mislaid my list of wonderful book purchases at this season of giving. I keep doing this.
Perhaps you could regularly post a recommendation? Eventually I will get round to purchasing something off the list. As, I'm sure, will other posters here.
as predicted by many of us on PB, the Corbyn surge clicktivists just don't turn up to the meetings when crucial posts are elected.
And therein lies Labour's very faint hope. The vast majority of the Cobynista clickers are not actually that engaged in the political process. Their interest can wane just as quickly as it waxed. It will be interesting to see, for example, what membership renewal figures are like over the coming year or so given that Jeremy has not proved to be the messiah so many were led to expect. When the unions finally get round to deciding that Corbyn should go (2018), the leadership election rules can be changed to ensure that clickers have far less influence over the result.
I definitely don't think the Tories should assume they will be facing Corbyn at next GE, unless they go to country in 2017 on some trumped up issue about Brexit.
I agree. He is becoming more shambolic with every passing day and it is clearly being noticed.
Yesterday was one of his lowest points yet. Actually asking, with a mic on, his shadow foreign sec when they had condemned the Russian bombings.
How long before the hard Left realise that their once in a lifetime opportunity to implement policies and be in government is being wrecked by a leader who is clearly not up to the basics of the job?
The hard left is the hard left and is never going to change. It's the Owen Jones left that needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Slowly, painfully, laboriously it is clearly happening.
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
It was a big loss of talent for the BBC but I believe they had no choice but to part ways. In any workplace especially a private sector one assaulting another employee would have resulted in losing your job. Plus what sort of message would it have sent out that you can physically assault someone and still keep your job? Or would that only have applied to the highest paid most popular people at the BBC, they would have their own set of rules and standards to be held at?
No I think the BBC did the right thing, If I was at the BBC I would have made the same call. It's one that has cost them no doubt in terms of revenue but morally it was the right thing to do.
Burnham on Sky - seems like he might actually be listening to Labour voters in the north of England.
Unlike the party leadership.
If only he'd put himself up for Leader....
Oh.
He's not speaking to the Party. He's lost interest in that. He's speaking to the voters of Manchester, who he needs to elect him as mayor.
But Manchester = Labour. One of their few remaining one-party states they possess after the fall of Scotland (well, apart from Manchester's single LibDem councillor!).
It is to be mayor of Greater Manchester.
Osborne's idea was to recreate the metropolitan counties abolished by the Thatcher government to the satisfaction of the people who lived there if not to the Labour fatcats who controlled them.
More levels of Labour controlled government being the route to prosperity in Osborne's view it seems.
Naturally the people in these monstrosities are not allowed to have a say in their recreation as they would be overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Being better than Jeremy Corbyn does not make you any good. It just makes you a more attractive option than the worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two.
You are, I think, a Labour Party member. The problem on your analysis, is yours - get rid of, "The worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two". Except you cannot, can you?
So do not be surprised if people prefer a more competent candidate for the top job. TM has her faults but she does seem to be appealing to the part of the electorate that matters.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
No, my political hero is Dennis Healey.
A worthy hero, if only for being a Beachmaster at the Normandy landings.
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
It was a big loss of talent for the BBC but I believe they had no choice but to part ways. In any workplace especially a private sector one assaulting another employee would have resulted in losing your job. Plus what sort of message would it have sent out that you can physically assault someone and still keep your job? Or would that only have applied to the highest paid most popular people at the BBC, they would have their own set of rules and standards to be held at?
No I think the BBC did the right thing, If I was at the BBC I would have made the same call. It's one that has cost them no doubt in terms of revenue but morally it was the right thing to do.
By all accounts at the time of the incident, his life was a mess...and Top Gear wasn't much good either. Might have been the best thing for him and the show. Obviously, the big loser is the BBC out of it.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Being better than Jeremy Corbyn does not make you any good. It just makes you a more attractive option than the worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two.
You are, I think, a Labour Party member. The problem on your analysis, is yours - get rid of, "The worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two". Except you cannot, can you?
So do not be surprised if people prefer a more competent candidate for the top job. TM has her faults but she does seem to be appealing to the part of the electorate that matters.
I am not surprised. I prefer May to Corbyn. But, as I say, that does not make her any good.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Being better than Jeremy Corbyn does not make you any good. It just makes you a more attractive option than the worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two.
You are, I think, a Labour Party member. The problem on your analysis, is yours - get rid of, "The worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two". Except you cannot, can you?
So do not be surprised if people prefer a more competent candidate for the top job. TM has her faults but she does seem to be appealing to the part of the electorate that matters.
I am not surprised. I prefer May to Corbyn. But, as I say, that does not make her any good.
I prefer Starbucks to Costa.....both make shit coffee.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
No, my political hero is Dennis Healey.
A worthy hero, if only for being a Beachmaster at the Normandy landings.
Squeezing the rich til the pips squeak? Less so.
His daughter was my teacher in my final year at primary school.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
No, my political hero is Dennis Healey.
A grammar school boy who supported sound defence and sound finances.
He wouldn't have much future in the modern Labour party.
For that matter he wouldn't have much future in modern politics.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
No, my political hero is Dennis Healey.
A worthy hero, if only for being a Beachmaster at the Normandy landings.
Squeezing the rich til the pips squeak? Less so.
His daughter was my teacher in my final year at primary school.
Did he ever play Santa at your school? Although, I guess those eyebrows would have been a dead giveaway!
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Being better than Jeremy Corbyn does not make you any good. It just makes you a more attractive option than the worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two.
You are, I think, a Labour Party member. The problem on your analysis, is yours - get rid of, "The worst leader of any mainstream political party in this country since World War Two". Except you cannot, can you?
So do not be surprised if people prefer a more competent candidate for the top job. TM has her faults but she does seem to be appealing to the part of the electorate that matters.
I am not surprised. I prefer May to Corbyn. But, as I say, that does not make her any good.
The mass resignations and leadership challenge were deeply foolish. Attempting to overturn Corbyn's huge mandate after only one year made the PLP look anti-democratic and sore losers. I agree that the hard left must be allowed to fail on its own terms. For that it must be given the time and the room to do so.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
Certainly a more healthy distribution of demand across the country would be better than forever trying to chase our tail trying to concentrate it all in one place. The UK remains unusual in not having a batch of flourishing second tier large cities like most of our larger EU neighbours - the thought that I suspect Osborne had in mind with his new 'Greater X' mayoralities.
I closed my eyes, put my beige shirt on, and my old jacket, never wear the new Far far away, the PLP was weeping, but the workers were sleeping Socialists are too few...
I wore my coat, with the red lining, bright hammer shining, wonderful and old And in the East, Putin was bombing, and Aleppo shaking, people left in the cold
A crash of votes, a flash of polls, the party's hope flew out of sight, Momentum faded into darkness, I was left alone
Mr Dancer, I seem to have mislaid my list of wonderful book purchases at this season of giving. I keep doing this.
Perhaps you could regularly post a recommendation? Eventually I will get round to purchasing something off the list. As, I'm sure, will other posters here.
Mr. Mark, I think it very simple. Google, "Books by Thadeus White". Some are available in print, some only in electronic format. For each of your nearest and dearest purchase one book in the appropriate format for them. Christmas shopping is therefore done very quickly and without fuss. Not only that your N & D will have spiffing Christmas Presents.
As a guide, the lighter-hearted members of your family, particularly teenagers (of all ages), should receive one of the Sir Edric books, everyone else should receive Kingdom Asunder, assuming they have the gizmo to read it on - if not buy them the gizmo and the book.
And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: "AA Gill was one of the last great stylists of modern journalism and one of the very few who could write a column so full of gags and original similes that it was actually worth reading twice."
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
It was a big loss of talent for the BBC but I believe they had no choice but to part ways. In any workplace especially a private sector one assaulting another employee would have resulted in losing your job. Plus what sort of message would it have sent out that you can physically assault someone and still keep your job? Or would that only have applied to the highest paid most popular people at the BBC, they would have their own set of rules and standards to be held at?
No I think the BBC did the right thing, If I was at the BBC I would have made the same call. It's one that has cost them no doubt in terms of revenue but morally it was the right thing to do.
By all accounts at the time of the incident, his life was a mess...and Top Gear wasn't much good either. Might have been the best thing for him and the show. Obviously, the big loser is the BBC out of it.
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
It was a big loss of talent for the BBC but I believe they had no choice but to part ways. In any workplace especially a private sector one assaulting another employee would have resulted in losing your job. Plus what sort of message would it have sent out that you can physically assault someone and still keep your job? Or would that only have applied to the highest paid most popular people at the BBC, they would have their own set of rules and standards to be held at?
No I think the BBC did the right thing, If I was at the BBC I would have made the same call. It's one that has cost them no doubt in terms of revenue but morally it was the right thing to do.
By all accounts at the time of the incident, his life was a mess...and Top Gear wasn't much good either. Might have been the best thing for him and the show. Obviously, the big loser is the BBC out of it.
I would agree. The BBC were in a no win situation really, they were always going to come out of it in a bad way.
For Clarkson it probably was the best thing for him, from what I've heard the whole incident and sacking did make him reassess his life a bit. He seems to be enjoying his new project.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
And it makes May look like a complete idiot for contemplating IDS. The kind of move I'd expect from Mandy or George.
Gratuitously going out of her way to make an enemy of George was the first thing that made me wonder if she was up to being PM. It was stupid, self-indulgent and petty. And I suspect she will come to regret it if she doesn't already.
That's make the assumption that May made an enemy out of Osborne and that Osborne wasn't her enemy already.
Judging by the deep dislike that PB's Continuity Osbornes have for May its a big assumption.
"A grammar school boy who supported sound defence and sound finances."
Sorry this is Dennis Healey we are talking about, isn't it? I don't normally mind a bit of rose tinted spectacles but to construe Healey as sound of defence or on money is to attempt to re-write history. He emasculated the RN and precipitated a crisis in the nation's finances.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
Certainly a more healthy distribution of demand across the country would be better than forever trying to chase our tail trying to concentrate it all in one place. The UK remains unusual in not having a batch of flourishing second tier large cities like most of our larger EU neighbours - the thought that I suspect Osborne had in mind with his new 'Greater X' mayoralities.
I agree. The other day there was much fanfare and fuss when Google announced its major new data centre and office next to St Pancras. Why on earth weren't they persuaded to put this outside the capital? The last thing central London needs is another x thousand young graduates looking for rentable housing.
I closed my eyes, put my beige shirt on, and my old jacket, never wear the new Far far away, the PLP was weeping, but the workers were sleeping Socialists are too few...
I wore my coat, with the red lining, bright hammer shining, wonderful and old And in the East, Putin was bombing, and Aleppo shaking, people left in the cold
A crash of votes, a flash of polls, the party's hope flew out of sight, Momentum faded into darkness, I was left alone
Mr Dancer, I seem to have mislaid my list of wonderful book purchases at this season of giving. I keep doing this.
Perhaps you could regularly post a recommendation? Eventually I will get round to purchasing something off the list. As, I'm sure, will other posters here.
Mr. Mark, I think it very simple. Google, "Books by Thadeus White". Some are available in print, some only in electronic format. For each of your nearest and dearest purchase one book in the appropriate format for them. Christmas shopping is therefore done very quickly and without fuss. Not only that your N & D will have spiffing Christmas Presents.
As a guide, the lighter-hearted members of your family, particularly teenagers (of all ages), should receive one of the Sir Edric books, everyone else should receive Kingdom Asunder, assuming they have the gizmo to read it on - if not buy them the gizmo and the book.
I don't suggest that anyone should draw any political conclusions from it. But at a human level it's a good explanation of the delicate position the kids find themselves in, and maybe some of you will want to send the Children's Society a few quid.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
They ARE building up, up, up. There are dozens of resi towers in the pipeline. Trouble is most of them are unaffordable luxe in pricey areas.
They should build like they do in Hong Kong, along the Thames corridor, from Docklands east. Stack em high and sell em cheap.
The more new build luxe there is, the fewer people with money there are chasing the older housing stock in substandard areas. It all contributes to improving affordability, even if the new homes themselves are unaffordable.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
They ARE building up, up, up. There are dozens of resi towers in the pipeline. Trouble is most of them are unaffordable luxe in pricey areas.
They should build like they do in Hong Kong, along the Thames corridor, from Docklands east. Stack em high and sell em cheap.
The problem is they get sold cheap to overseas investors.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
They ARE building up, up, up. There are dozens of resi towers in the pipeline. Trouble is most of them are unaffordable luxe in pricey areas.
They should build like they do in Hong Kong, along the Thames corridor, from Docklands east. Stack em high and sell em cheap.
Stack em high and sell em cheap and turn em into shitholes.
Unless you have strict rules about who can live there you'll just encourage 'undesirables'.
"On the JAM’s there was a thought-provoking piece in the Guardian yesterday from Patrick Collinson."
His father earned £1300 pa in 1963? Very much a well-off middle class person then. The average wage then was between £8 and £10 a week. His salary was the equivalent of £25,000 now? Not the 10,000 pa equivalent most people would have lived on
But in the real world, foreign holidays were unknown, people rode bikes not cars, and kids' clothes were hand-me-downs not designer labels, no one had a phone and the Four Yorkshiremen sketch hadn't been written.
But this was the golden generation supposedly?
It's intriguing to note as well that if I plug those numbers into Measuring Worth (which is a fantastic website I use a lot for teaching) I come up with a real wage equivalent of £54k, not 25.
In other words, his point is somewhat undermined by the fact that while prices have rocketed, real wages have halved.
Surely that is his point?
I may have misunderstood but I thought his point was to compare his father's lifestyle with his daighter's, on the mistaken assumption they were earning equivalent wages. I was pointing out that he was wrong although it depends on exactly what measure you use.
However, as Pagan was pointing out on the last thread, £54k still ain't necessarily enough to live well in London. Although as others have discussed, that's an issue in the SE. Round here, it gets you a very nice lifestyle (because everyone else is flat broke).
A lot depends on how you compare wages. Inflation is not uniform. His father could afford more houses but his daughter can afford a television in every room. Wandering slightly further off-topic, the Prime Minister was paid £10,000 before the war, which would be around half a million today, so a lot of the headlines that X earns more than the prime minister are due to the PM's salary having dropped markedly. The Cabinet got half that, so even by that measure, today's PM is underpaid.
Cabinet members are actually paid much the same as the PM!
"A grammar school boy who supported sound defence and sound finances."
Sorry this is Dennis Healey we are talking about, isn't it? I don't normally mind a bit of rose tinted spectacles but to construe Healey as sound of defence or on money is to attempt to re-write history. He emasculated the RN and precipitated a crisis in the nation's finances.
I dare say - but the alternatives to him were worse.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
They ARE building up, up, up. There are dozens of resi towers in the pipeline. Trouble is most of them are unaffordable luxe in pricey areas.
They should build like they do in Hong Kong, along the Thames corridor, from Docklands east. Stack em high and sell em cheap.
Stack em high and sell em cheap and turn em into shitholes.
Unless you have strict rules about who can live there you'll just encourage 'undesirables'.
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
Google data science centre could have been centred in Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick or Edinburgh with ease. Plenty of expertise in the universities, spin-off science parks, sexy young students.
It would attract the same hip young people. It doesn't have to be in London.
Edit: And who are the "hip young people who work for .. the Guardian". Every second article in the Guardian seems to be a young journo complaining about London property prices and how they have to live in a shithole in Deptford.
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
Certainly a more healthy distribution of demand across the country would be better than forever trying to chase our tail trying to concentrate it all in one place. The UK remains unusual in not having a batch of flourishing second tier large cities like most of our larger EU neighbours - the thought that I suspect Osborne had in mind with his new 'Greater X' mayoralities.
I agree. The other day there was much fanfare and fuss when Google announced its major new data centre and office next to St Pancras. Why on earth weren't they persuaded to put this outside the capital? The last thing central London needs is another x thousand young graduates looking for rentable housing.
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
What proportion of London's population is actually living the cosmometro posh restaurants and trendy bars lifestyle ?
And what proportion are putting in all hours working and commuting whilst living in squalor ?
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
And it makes May look like a complete idiot for contemplating IDS. The kind of move I'd expect from Mandy or George.
Gratuitously going out of her way to make an enemy of George was the first thing that made me wonder if she was up to being PM. It was stupid, self-indulgent and petty. And I suspect she will come to regret it if she doesn't already.
That's make the assumption that May made an enemy out of Osborne and that Osborne wasn't her enemy already.
Judging by the deep dislike that PB's Continuity Osbornes have for May its a big assumption.
Some people do not think through and take a chance. Some think a lot and arrive at a bad decision. May is the latter. She is a control-freak and incompetent.
Late contender for understatement of the year, beating the previous contender which suggested that Corbyn wasn't very good.
I do wonder whether Boris' team have briefed this out. No other explanation!
You could be on to something there. Suggesting the alternative is IDS makes anyone look good. Even Boris.
It makes May look even worse then she is.
So how is the PM doing in the opinion polls then, Mr Observer? What sort of lead has her party got? How does she stand personally in relation to Corbyn? You think she is doing badly?
Southam's political hero was ... David Miliband.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
No, my political hero is Dennis Healey.
A worthy hero, if only for being a Beachmaster at the Normandy landings.
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
And then those hip young people meet, get married, want to start a family, then end up living in a first-floor flat in Thamesmead or Slough, with her trying to get a pram down the stairs, him with a 60 minute commute that costs Jesus Christ how much, and both asking their parents for about £50k for a house deposit pretty please that they will pay back one day honest.
Pagan's post last night was indicative. London is fantastic if you're young, single and like renting. But those things are not permanent.
I've been watching The Grand Tour (belatedly). It's good, sometimes great, and VERY funny.
Simply because Clarkson was, is and remains a comic genius with ineffable timing. The BBC Sacked The Talent.
Dumb.
I'm half convinced that was down to Clarkson's words beforehand - he was the one who publicly said he'd been told any more incidents and he'd be fired, or words to that effect. Had he not revealed that, I'm not convinced they'd have sacked him even though he punched that producer, for all apparently some people there didn't like him he was a money spinner and it makes no sense to sack him, they'd probably have suspended him or something. But having announced to the world he'd be sacked if he did something like that and then doing it, what option was there?
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
Google data science centre could have been centred in Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick or Edinburgh with ease. Plenty of expertise in the universities, spin-off science parks, sexy young students.
It would attract the same hip young people. It doesn't have to be in London.
You must be joking ! London is the capital of the universe. That is why our Council Tax is so high. And we don't have those floods many of you have every year.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
Certainly a more healthy distribution of demand across the country would be better than forever trying to chase our tail trying to concentrate it all in one place. The UK remains unusual in not having a batch of flourishing second tier large cities like most of our larger EU neighbours - the thought that I suspect Osborne had in mind with his new 'Greater X' mayoralities.
I have suggesedt it before, the government should find a way of incentivising companies to allow staff to work from home
1) staff can suit where they live to their wage 2) It relieves pressure on roads and trains 3) It spreads money about the country as wages are spent in communities 4) It gives staff an immediate increase in disposable income further boosting the economy 5) It relieves pressure on the south east 6) Boost employment prospects around the country as staff living "out" need services like barbers
maybe a corporation tax cut for those companies that have over a certain percentage of staff hours worked from home.
Home also doesnt need to mean the employees home, I am sure a company would make money out of setting up communal offices in every town for those that preferred to actually work with others
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
You don't need "balanced investment" balanced by somebody deciding where people should live, they're certain to bollocks it up. Just let people live where they like, and let people build the kind of housing they want to live in. If the British would stop trying to plan housing all the time they wouldn't keep running out of houses.
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
And then those hip young people meet, get married, want to start a family, then end up living in a first-floor flat in Thamesmead or Slough, with her trying to get a pram down the stairs, him with a 60 minute commute that costs Jesus Christ how much, and both asking their parents for about £50k for a house deposit pretty please that they will pay back one day honest.
Pagan's post last night was indicative. London is fantastic if you're young, single and like renting. But those things are not permanent.
It also can be fantastic for the extremely rich.
And its the extremely rich who make the decisions on where HQs are located.
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
Doesn’t mean, of course, that either of us are wrong! “Averages” are what they say they are. However, I’d be surprised if ‘100’s” of primary heads are on £100k or more. A few, maybe.
It not only that young people want to live in London, it is getting on the graduate scheme and finding you got another city is viewed as if you weren't the best of the best. Saying I work for a big firm in London (however lowly the position) has more street cred than the same or even better role in (insert Northern City).
The final sentence of this bit seems somewhat familiar:
Rightwingers are living in a dream world. Parochial and insular, like May, as uninterested in foreign cultures as she is, as convinced that they can dismiss opposition as brutally as she does, they forget that other countries have their politics too. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard them play variations on the theme of “German car manufacturers will never allow the EU to restrict their exports to Britain”.
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
Doesn’t mean, of course, that either of us are wrong! “Averages” are what they say the are. However, I’d be surprised if ‘100’s” of primary heads are on £100k or more. A few, maybe.
Of the 739 academy teachers paid more than £100,000, 675 run secondary schools and 64 were in charge of primaries. In local authority-run schools there were 235 secondary heads and 146 primary head teachers.
The final sentence of this bit seems somewhat familiar:
Rightwingers are living in a dream world. Parochial and insular, like May, as uninterested in foreign cultures as she is, as convinced that they can dismiss opposition as brutally as she does, they forget that other countries have their politics too. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard them play variations on the theme of “German car manufacturers will never allow the EU to restrict their exports to Britain”.
Why ? What choice of British car buyers got ? Instead of a BMW, what will they buy, a Mercedes ?
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
Doesn’t mean, of course, that either of us are wrong! “Averages” are what they say they are. However, I’d be surprised if ‘100’s” of primary heads are on £100k or more. A few, maybe.
Shouldn't the Prime Minister be on £500k ? MPs £200k ?
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
And then those hip young people meet, get married, want to start a family, then end up living in a first-floor flat in Thamesmead or Slough, with her trying to get a pram down the stairs, him with a 60 minute commute that costs Jesus Christ how much, and both asking their parents for about £50k for a house deposit pretty please that they will pay back one day honest.
Pagan's post last night was indicative. London is fantastic if you're young, single and like renting. But those things are not permanent.
Isn’t Facebooks main UK office in Somerset somewhere?
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
You don't need "balanced investment" balanced by somebody deciding where people should live, they're certain to bollocks it up. Just let people live where they like, and let people build the kind of housing they want to live in. If the British would stop trying to plan housing all the time they wouldn't keep running out of houses.
The Japanese don't plan very much - or they didn't - and some of their cities are now positively dystopian in their sprawl. They go on and on and run one into the other, grey and depressing
I love Japan but the urban mess is exactly that.
Small packed countries have to plan. I agree with NickP, going tall seems the best bet in London, but they should do it out East where no one minds about skylines.
It's not depressing to live in, especially compared to paying silly money to live somewhere shit. The government shouldn't be interfering with people's ability to make lives for themselves to optimize for visitors looking out of train windows.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
You don't need "balanced investment" balanced by somebody deciding where people should live, they're certain to bollocks it up. Just let people live where they like, and let people build the kind of housing they want to live in. If the British would stop trying to plan housing all the time they wouldn't keep running out of houses.
There are many issues with that, one of the more important being that houses are just one part of the equation. You also need everything that builds a community, not just houses: shops, facilities, business premises, etc, etc. These are not cheap to build and need planning if they are to be effective. Then there are the other things such as roads, transport links etc.
Because hip young people who work for Google want to work in the centre of the global supercity, in super trendy Kings X right next to the hip young people who work for Facebook, and the Guardian, and the Crick Institute, and the sexy students at St Martin's, where they can all hang out together in glossy vinotecas and sleek new gyms.
These people don't want to work in Bracknell, and they simply won't work in Bradford.
And then those hip young people meet, get married, want to start a family, then end up living in a first-floor flat in Thamesmead or Slough, with her trying to get a pram down the stairs, him with a 60 minute commute that costs Jesus Christ how much, and both asking their parents for about £50k for a house deposit pretty please that they will pay back one day honest.
Pagan's post last night was indicative. London is fantastic if you're young, single and like renting. But those things are not permanent.
Isn’t Facebooks main UK office in Somerset somewhere?
I think that is just the R&D for the drone project.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
You don't need "balanced investment" balanced by somebody deciding where people should live, they're certain to bollocks it up. Just let people live where they like, and let people build the kind of housing they want to live in. If the British would stop trying to plan housing all the time they wouldn't keep running out of houses.
There are many issues with that, one of the more important being that houses are just one part of the equation. You also need everything that builds a community, not just houses: shops, facilities, business premises, etc, etc. These are not cheap to build and need planning if they are to be effective. Then there are the other things such as roads, transport links etc.
It needs planning.
No, they don't need planning. Build the train line, people want to live near stations so they want to buy houses so people build them, shops want customers so they open them where people live, it works out fine. The reason these things appear hard is because you're used to the government planning them, which is the only way you can manage to get stupid outcomes like houses without shops.
So Palmyra back under ISIS control. Maybe the Russians could take a time out from bombing aid convoys, bhospitals and markets to do something about that?
So Palmyra back under ISIS control. Maybe the Russians could take a time out from bombing aid convoys, bhospitals and markets to do something about that?
Wrong, Sky news said this morning Russian bombing had forced ISIS back from the City according to observers
I don't have any time for Banks, but I guess you could argue that the Soviet Union was a different thing altogether from today's Russians. I don't think I would argue that, but you could...
You need to compare like with like. Afghanistan was invaded in 1979 by the Soviet Union, an association of states including Russia. Iraq was invaded in 1991 by the coalition, an association of states including USA, UK, France and many other countries. Afghanistan was invaded in 2001 by the US and UK and joined a few months later by a coalition of many other countries. Iraq was invaded in 2003 by another coalition, an association of states including USA, UK, Poland and many other countries.
If you absolve the Russian Federation (which still existed in the USSR days) from guilt for Afghanistan 1979, then on the same grounds you must absolve the USA from guilt for Iraq 1991, Afghanistan 2001, and Iraq 2003. In both cases they were the leader and largest member of a group of states.
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
They ARE building up, up, up. There are dozens of resi towers in the pipeline. Trouble is most of them are unaffordable luxe in pricey areas.
They should build like they do in Hong Kong, along the Thames corridor, from Docklands east. Stack em high and sell em cheap.
Agreed. I should know but I don't - how far can councils refuse planning permission if the proposal does not meet their requirements as to affordability? Naturally if you let a developer build on X square feet in London without restriction, he'll build luxury pads. The standard seems to be to require 25% to be "affordable" (i.e. at or just below the market rate for the area). But if a developer was offered X suare feet in London and told that 50% had to be "affordable" and the rest had to be 25% cheaper than affordable, I reckon they'd still find builders. Can councils do that? Why don't they?
"... teachers almost always automatically improve as time goes on because like all skills you get better with practice. ..."
That is not actually true. It requires people to learn from their experiences; the good old experiential learning cycle and all that good stuff. Some people have twenty years of experience others have one year's experience repeated twenty times.
Leave aside the effects of costs of living in different parts of the country, Teachers in this country are very badly paid given what we expect from them and the importance of their work. They are also subject to far too much bureaucracy and enforced record keeping.
I was once told by someone who should know that the head of a primary school where I used to live was on over 90k and her deputy was on circa 65k.
I think most people would say they are decent sums of money.
I want to say so much more about those two, but I am trying to move on from the stress and anger those arseholes caused.
I’d be very surprised at that.
The last figure I saw was that there are 1,230 teachers were paid more than £100,000 (for 2014).
Doesn’t mean, of course, that either of us are wrong! “Averages” are what they say the are. However, I’d be surprised if ‘100’s” of primary heads are on £100k or more. A few, maybe.
Of the 739 academy teachers paid more than £100,000, 675 run secondary schools and 64 were in charge of primaries. In local authority-run schools there were 235 secondary heads and 146 primary head teachers.
By my maths that is 200+ and was 2 years ago. I have seen more recent figures that show an increase, but can't find the link.
Really! Does suggest, of course, that there are some primary heads on very low levels. And I’m genuinely surprised at the fact that LA’s have more primary heads on higher salaries than acadamies. If, of course, one cen believe the Mail!!
Housing is actually quite affordable across most of Britain, the problem is lack of high paying work there. Leicester has quite affordable decent quality housing, yet people here have the fourth lowest disposeable income in the UK. Blackburn, Hull and Nottingham are lower. This is where the JAMS are:
That's right. When I was working full time in London, I rent a one-bedroom flat above a shop on the noisy Holloway Road and paid £1300/month. Nice place as far as it went, but unaffordable when I left my job because of family commitments. So I've moved to a pleasant residential close in North Nottingham and rent a 3-room place with a garage for £500/month. On reflection, I was working 8 hours a day to afford to live worse.
In London, personally I think they should stuff the skyline and build, build, build, up, up, up. It's nice to get a good view when you glance out now and then. But being able to afford to live is critical.
Stuffing London's skylines for more buildings will exacerbate the extent to which London dominates the rest of the country. What we need is more balanced investment in the provinces (and Wales). And it might not even help the locals if flats are snapped up for BTL or by foreign investors.
You don't need "balanced investment" balanced by somebody deciding where people should live, they're certain to bollocks it up. Just let people live where they like, and let people build the kind of housing they want to live in. If the British would stop trying to plan housing all the time they wouldn't keep running out of houses.
Build a car factory in Up North New Town and people will follow. Conversely, give away houses there and incomers will provide a small economic stimulus just by needing shops and refuse collectors. It is not just about housing but leaving it entirely to the market has clearly not worked for much of the country. We do not want Soviet-style central planning but the government can put its thumb on the scales when investment decisions are weighed up.
There are many issues with that, one of the more important being that houses are just one part of the equation. You also need everything that builds a community, not just houses: shops, facilities, business premises, etc, etc. These are not cheap to build and need planning if they are to be effective. Then there are the other things such as roads, transport links etc.
It needs planning.
No, they don't need planning. Build the train line, people want to live near stations so they want to buy houses so people build them, shops want customers so they open them where people live, it works out fine. The reason these things appear hard is because you're used to the government planning them, which is the only way you can manage to get stupid outcomes like houses without shops.
LOL. No.
That's been tried many times and it rarely, if ever, works. The landowners (and then developers) make more money from housing, so they cram as many houses on as possible. And yes, that'll happen even under your proposed changes.
You end up with houses with no green areas nearby; shops that are either too big or too small for the clientele, and therefore fail. A road network that makes no sense and immediately does not cope with the planned traffic. No zoning, and no sensible structure.
S106 exists because councils need to apply the thumbscrews to get developers to even consider building these things. In old villages these things develop over the decades and centuries (sometimes poorly); in new developments they need to be planned.
I daresay we've got one or two experts on this topic on here ...
So Palmyra back under ISIS control. Maybe the Russians could take a time out from bombing aid convoys, bhospitals and markets to do something about that?
Wrong, Sky news said this morning Russian bombing had forced ISIS back from the City according to observers
No, the very latest news is that ISIS have indeed retaken Palmyra.
I'm not sure we should be too depressed by it tho, on analysis (unless you're a poor Palmyran - and God help them)
They've been able to do it because Assad is concentrating on Aleppo, with Russian help, the Yanks are all about retaking Mosul, and the eventual focus is on destroying ISIS in Raqqa, the battle for which is just beginning.
Palmyra looks like an opportunistic strike-back by a force in longterm strategic retreat. But I am not a general.
The latest according to the BBC is that the Russian bombing forced ISIS from the centre, they are still in the north of the City and government forces in the south of the City. Syrian army forces are also being sent south which ironically may give the rebels a bit of breathing space in Aleppo
"On the JAM’s there was a thought-provoking piece in the Guardian yesterday from Patrick Collinson."
His father earned £1300 pa in 1963? Very much a well-off middle class person then. The average wage then was between £8 and £10 a week. His salary was the equivalent of £25,000 now? Not the 10,000 pa equivalent most people would have lived on
But in the real world, foreign holidays were unknown, people rode bikes not cars, and kids' clothes were hand-me-downs not designer labels, no one had a phone and the Four Yorkshiremen sketch hadn't been written.
But this was the golden generation supposedly?
It's intriguing to note as well that if I plug those numbers into Measuring Worth (which is a fantastic website I use a lot for teaching) I come up with a real wage equivalent of £54k, not 25.
In other words, his point is somewhat undermined by the fact that while prices have rocketed, real wages have halved.
Surely that is his point?
I may have misunderstood but I thought his point was to compare his father's lifestyle with his daighter's, on the mistaken assumption they were earning equivalent wages. I was pointing out that he was wrong although it depends on exactly what measure you use.
However, as Pagan was pointing out on the last thread, £54k still ain't necessarily enough to live well in London. Although as others have discussed, that's an issue in the SE. Round here, it gets you a very nice lifestyle (because everyone else is flat broke).
A lot depends on how you compare wages. Inflation is not uniform. His father could afford more houses but his daughter can afford a television in every room. Wandering slightly further off-topic, the Prime Minister was paid £10,000 before the war, which would be around half a million today, so a lot of the headlines that X earns more than the prime minister are due to the PM's salary having dropped markedly. The Cabinet got half that, so even by that measure, today's PM is underpaid.
Cabinet members are actually paid much the same as the PM!
Sorry, yes they are now but it used to be £5,000 to the PM's £10,000 (and backbenchers weren't paid at all). I should have been clearer.
It not only that young people want to live in London, it is getting on the graduate scheme and finding you got another city is viewed as if you weren't the best of the best. Saying I work for a big firm in London (however lowly the position) has more street cred than the same or even better role in (insert Northern City).
Comments
Can you just imagine if UKIP took Andy Burnham's seat
How big is the 'Greater Manchester' area and which outlying towns does it cover? How close to Warrington, Sheffield, Blackburn, Macclesfield etc does it come?
Who are the candidates? We know Mr Burnham has a good chance, but are there any well known local independents who might stand? Betfair's relatively illiquid market has Burnham layable at 1.25, is his chance really as tight as 1/4?
If Burnham stands and wins, and as expected Paul Nuttall stands in the Leigh by-election, will it be time for the return of Ed Balls to save the seat for Labour?
Although it should be more winnable as it's Labour and with a much smaller majority.
https://twitter.com/MrMcEnaney/status/807919391778148353
Far far away, the PLP was weeping, but the workers were sleeping
Socialists are too few...
I wore my coat, with the red lining, bright hammer shining, wonderful and old
And in the East, Putin was bombing, and Aleppo shaking, people left in the cold
A crash of votes, a flash of polls, the party's hope flew out of sight, Momentum faded into darkness, I was left alone
Many it is because of head of a troubled school and / or multiple schools.
Hubris, delusion and posturing, or is there something in what he says?
How long before the hard Left realise that their once in a lifetime opportunity to implement policies and be in government is being wrecked by a leader who is clearly not up to the basics of the job?
https://twitter.com/AngrySalmond/status/807924762471235584
I am sure not if the show format as is is going to last the full 3 seasons. The faux killing a celeb every week is old hat already.
Now its true that we live in an era of crap politicians but David Miliband is someone who didn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel but underneath it.
Perhaps you could regularly post a recommendation? Eventually I will get round to purchasing something off the list. As, I'm sure, will other posters here.
No I think the BBC did the right thing, If I was at the BBC I would have made the same call. It's one that has cost them no doubt in terms of revenue but morally it was the right thing to do.
Osborne's idea was to recreate the metropolitan counties abolished by the Thatcher government to the satisfaction of the people who lived there if not to the Labour fatcats who controlled them.
More levels of Labour controlled government being the route to prosperity in Osborne's view it seems.
Naturally the people in these monstrosities are not allowed to have a say in their recreation as they would be overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum.
So do not be surprised if people prefer a more competent candidate for the top job. TM has her faults but she does seem to be appealing to the part of the electorate that matters.
Squeezing the rich til the pips squeak? Less so.
He wouldn't have much future in the modern Labour party.
For that matter he wouldn't have much future in modern politics.
As a guide, the lighter-hearted members of your family, particularly teenagers (of all ages), should receive one of the Sir Edric books, everyone else should receive Kingdom Asunder, assuming they have the gizmo to read it on - if not buy them the gizmo and the book.
Amazon, as always, is your friend.
This is not the view of No 10 however.
For Clarkson it probably was the best thing for him, from what I've heard the whole incident and sacking did make him reassess his life a bit. He seems to be enjoying his new project.
Judging by the deep dislike that PB's Continuity Osbornes have for May its a big assumption.
Sorry this is Dennis Healey we are talking about, isn't it? I don't normally mind a bit of rose tinted spectacles but to construe Healey as sound of defence or on money is to attempt to re-write history. He emasculated the RN and precipitated a crisis in the nation's finances.
Thanks.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/11/childrens-society-observer-guardian-christmas-charity-appeal
I don't suggest that anyone should draw any political conclusions from it. But at a human level it's a good explanation of the delicate position the kids find themselves in, and maybe some of you will want to send the Children's Society a few quid.
Unless you have strict rules about who can live there you'll just encourage 'undesirables'.
It would attract the same hip young people. It doesn't have to be in London.
Edit: And who are the "hip young people who work for .. the Guardian". Every second article in the Guardian seems to be a young journo complaining about London property prices and how they have to live in a shithole in Deptford.
And what proportion are putting in all hours working and commuting whilst living in squalor ?
Pagan's post last night was indicative. London is fantastic if you're young, single and like renting. But those things are not permanent.
1) staff can suit where they live to their wage
2) It relieves pressure on roads and trains
3) It spreads money about the country as wages are spent in communities
4) It gives staff an immediate increase in disposable income further boosting the economy
5) It relieves pressure on the south east
6) Boost employment prospects around the country as staff living "out" need services like barbers
maybe a corporation tax cut for those companies that have over a certain percentage of staff hours worked from home.
Home also doesnt need to mean the employees home, I am sure a company would make money out of setting up communal offices in every town for those that preferred to actually work with others
And its the extremely rich who make the decisions on where HQs are located.
Today, from http://schoolsweek.co.uk/headteachers-salaries-up-as-schools-become-academies/
Doesn’t mean, of course, that either of us are wrong! “Averages” are what they say they are. However, I’d be surprised if ‘100’s” of primary heads are on £100k or more. A few, maybe.
Rightwingers are living in a dream world. Parochial and insular, like May, as uninterested in foreign cultures as she is, as convinced that they can dismiss opposition as brutally as she does, they forget that other countries have their politics too. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard them play variations on the theme of “German car manufacturers will never allow the EU to restrict their exports to Britain”.
Get your free Advent Calendar: Owen Jones edition. Guaranteed laugh behind every door. #mart https://t.co/yxse00F5x9
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240693/March-teachers-taking-home-salaries-100k-Record-number-earn-six-figure-salaries-rise-academy-schools-brings-bumper-pay-packages.html
By my maths that is 200+ and was 2 years ago. I have seen more recent figures that show an increase, but can't find the link.
It needs planning.
If you absolve the Russian Federation (which still existed in the USSR days) from guilt for Afghanistan 1979, then on the same grounds you must absolve the USA from guilt for Iraq 1991, Afghanistan 2001, and Iraq 2003. In both cases they were the leader and largest member of a group of states.
If, of course, one cen believe the Mail!!
That's been tried many times and it rarely, if ever, works. The landowners (and then developers) make more money from housing, so they cram as many houses on as possible. And yes, that'll happen even under your proposed changes.
You end up with houses with no green areas nearby; shops that are either too big or too small for the clientele, and therefore fail. A road network that makes no sense and immediately does not cope with the planned traffic. No zoning, and no sensible structure.
S106 exists because councils need to apply the thumbscrews to get developers to even consider building these things. In old villages these things develop over the decades and centuries (sometimes poorly); in new developments they need to be planned.
I daresay we've got one or two experts on this topic on here ...