Voting was dead. I was the sole voter in my corner of Hackney.
There were pencils.
I staged my own “mini act of defiance” by voting maskless.
The actual story is that I scooped up what I thought was a face mask as I left the house. But as I approached the polling station, I pulled out what was - on close inspection - one of my wife’s socks...
I was once very embarrassed at the start of a lake district walk when my walking socks turned out to be a pair of gloves... Luckily a colleague had a spare pair...
Having worked from home for years I have an abundance of slippers; not so much shoes.
I turned up to a skiing chalet with a matching pair of two left feet slippers. Apparently nobody else has multiple pairs of identical slippers. It appears I am considered weird.
There's Hartlepool, but that's about 4am I think which if that's the only thing doesn't seem worth staying up for.
Harlow, Chelmsford, Uttlesford, Derby, Dudley, Rochdale, Oldham, Wolverhampton, Northumberland, Nuneaton, Southend, Thurrock and Wolverhampton and a handful of other councils are counting tonight, the vast majority though are only verifying tonight and counting tomorrow.
Question. Is it legal to park a car literally plastered in party logos directly outside the door of the polling station?
Yes , so long as it is outside the precinct
There is a statuary distance of, from memory, 50 yards, unless it's on private property. You need to talk to the Presiding Officer or the RO or their Deputy.
I dont think there's statutory limit. 100 m is sometimes mentioned , but this is just RO guidance to local political parties.
From years of doing this I've had it drilled into me that you don't take party materials anywhere near a polling station. I always removed a rosette even though I knew that was allowed.
Alex Salmond cames across as an arrogant bastard. I am parking here and who are you to ask me if it's ok. I was polite!
Within the precinct - being the grounds - of the polling station, rules are very strict. You shouldn’t really display the party or candidate name, and I have come across some areas where ROs still insist and therefore a blank coloured rosette was all you were allowed. The electoral commission guidance nowadays is a little more relaxed and simply requires that any such material be unobtrusive.
Beyond the polling station there is no jurisdiction to enforce any such rules, which is why the guidelines sometimes issued to the parties are just that - guidance.
There is an electoral commission rule prohibiting party logos and materials in the immediate vicinity of the polling centre which I posted earlier. At best they can be asked to move on - and he did. Having said that the law (these rules) don't apply to candidates.
BTW we're talking a narrow pavement between his car and the entrance door. Coming from one side you'd need to siddle past him to gain entry.
The rules all apply “in the polling station”, which includes its precinct.
And outside, where Tellers (and other party agents) "must not wear, carry or display any headwear, footwear or other apparel that carries any writing, picture or sign relating to any candidate or party apart from a rosette". As tellers (and other party agents) have to remain outside the "precinct" as you keep putting it, that means that the Rosette Mr Salmond was wearing was OK, his branded car Mr Salmond had parked and got out of was not ok.
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
There's Hartlepool, but that's about 4am I think which if that's the only thing doesn't seem worth staying up for.
Harlow, Chelmsford, Uttlesford, Derby, Dudley, Rochdale, Oldham, Wolverhampton, Northumberland, Nuneaton, Southend, Thurrock and Wolverhampton and a handful of other councils are counting tonight, the vast majority though are only verifying tonight and counting tomorrow.
Question. Is it legal to park a car literally plastered in party logos directly outside the door of the polling station?
Yes , so long as it is outside the precinct
There is a statuary distance of, from memory, 50 yards, unless it's on private property. You need to talk to the Presiding Officer or the RO or their Deputy.
I dont think there's statutory limit. 100 m is sometimes mentioned , but this is just RO guidance to local political parties.
From years of doing this I've had it drilled into me that you don't take party materials anywhere near a polling station. I always removed a rosette even though I knew that was allowed.
Alex Salmond cames across as an arrogant bastard. I am parking here and who are you to ask me if it's ok. I was polite!
Within the precinct - being the grounds - of the polling station, rules are very strict. You shouldn’t really display the party or candidate name, and I have come across some areas where ROs still insist and therefore a blank coloured rosette was all you were allowed. The electoral commission guidance nowadays is a little more relaxed and simply requires that any such material be unobtrusive.
Beyond the polling station there is no jurisdiction to enforce any such rules, which is why the guidelines sometimes issued to the parties are just that - guidance.
There is an electoral commission rule prohibiting party logos and materials in the immediate vicinity of the polling centre which I posted earlier. At best they can be asked to move on - and he did. Having said that the law (these rules) don't apply to candidates.
BTW we're talking a narrow pavement between his car and the entrance door. Coming from one side you'd need to siddle past him to gain entry.
The rules all apply “in the polling station”, which includes its precinct.
And outside, where Tellers (and other party agents) "must not wear, carry or display any headwear, footwear or other apparel that carries any writing, picture or sign relating to any candidate or party apart from a rosette". As tellers (and other party agents) have to remain outside the "precinct" as you keep putting it, that means that the Rosette Mr Salmond was wearing was OK, his branded car Mr Salmond had parked and got out of was not ok.
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
Puzzled by this. I've seen advertising type stand-up-by-themselves boards with party posters (various parties) many a time on the public pavement outside my polling station (but can't report as to today as I voted by post).
Hard Times - Politico.com - Giuliani cuts down his entourage It's the latest sign that the former New York mayor's legal woes are taking their toll on his lifestyle.
Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for ex-president Donald Trump, has reduced the size of his personal entourage, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Giuliani laid off several staffers and independent contractors in the last few weeks, according to one of the people, who said the ousted employees had been told that the former New York mayor was seeking to cut costs.
Giuliani has enlisted a part-time driver, Eric Ryan, the son of his friend Maria Ryan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But he no longer moves around Manhattan with the full complement of as many as five people he has kept around him in recent years. (Ryan didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
The news of Giuliani’s shrinking entourage comes after years of stories suggesting he might be having financial difficulties — or is at least seeking creative ways to make money as he manages his growing legal woes.
The Trump confidant, recently raided by the FBI as he faces an intensifying criminal probe, has reportedly faced a cash crunch before, with multiple divorces said to be taking a toll on his balance sheet. In October 2019, the Washington Post reported that Giuliani was giving his ex-wife Judith $42,000 a month in alimony; a sum amounting to more than half a million dollars a year. The Post also reported that Giuliani had made between $7 and $9 million in both 2016 and 2017.
That same month, Giuliani accidentally left a voicemail for a reporter in which he said, “The problem is we need some money.”
The remark, while cryptic, nonetheless reinforced the idea that the high-flying Giuliani — a frequent habitué of pricey outlets like the Trump International Hotel in D.C., where room rates can run in the high hundreds of dollars a night and a spoonful of wine can cost up to $140, and the Grand Havana Room, a members-only cigar bar in New York — was in need of cash. A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.
Since leaving public office, Giuliani’s sources of income have been somewhat opaque. . . .
There's Hartlepool, but that's about 4am I think which if that's the only thing doesn't seem worth staying up for.
Harlow, Chelmsford, Uttlesford, Derby, Dudley, Rochdale, Oldham, Wolverhampton, Northumberland, Nuneaton, Southend, Thurrock and Wolverhampton and a handful of other councils are counting tonight, the vast majority though are only verifying tonight and counting tomorrow.
Really disappointed in Boris Johnson that he didn't name the naval task force 'Operation Mers-el-Kébir.'
Should have called it "Operation Gain Hartlepool".
'Operation hang the monkey'
Spank the monkey more like..
So, big night and (I'm guessing) a nervous one. Per the betting it's on a knife edge whether the SNP can get an overall majority on their own.
Aye, pretty much 50-50 on a maj I think. General reports from all sides of comparatively busy turnout which is 'supposed' to suit indy side, but who knows.. Applied for a postal vote this time since things were so uncertain 4 months ago, but delivered it to the polling station by hand. Again, reasonably busy for a rainy afternoon.
Well good luck. It'd be a shame to fall short. Might let "Boris" off the hook and no-one wants to see that.
Hard Times - Politico.com - Giuliani cuts down his entourage It's the latest sign that the former New York mayor's legal woes are taking their toll on his lifestyle.
Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for ex-president Donald Trump, has reduced the size of his personal entourage, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Giuliani laid off several staffers and independent contractors in the last few weeks, according to one of the people, who said the ousted employees had been told that the former New York mayor was seeking to cut costs.
Giuliani has enlisted a part-time driver, Eric Ryan, the son of his friend Maria Ryan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But he no longer moves around Manhattan with the full complement of as many as five people he has kept around him in recent years. (Ryan didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
The news of Giuliani’s shrinking entourage comes after years of stories suggesting he might be having financial difficulties — or is at least seeking creative ways to make money as he manages his growing legal woes.
The Trump confidant, recently raided by the FBI as he faces an intensifying criminal probe, has reportedly faced a cash crunch before, with multiple divorces said to be taking a toll on his balance sheet. In October 2019, the Washington Post reported that Giuliani was giving his ex-wife Judith $42,000 a month in alimony; a sum amounting to more than half a million dollars a year. The Post also reported that Giuliani had made between $7 and $9 million in both 2016 and 2017.
That same month, Giuliani accidentally left a voicemail for a reporter in which he said, “The problem is we need some money.”
The remark, while cryptic, nonetheless reinforced the idea that the high-flying Giuliani — a frequent habitué of pricey outlets like the Trump International Hotel in D.C., where room rates can run in the high hundreds of dollars a night and a spoonful of wine can cost up to $140, and the Grand Havana Room, a members-only cigar bar in New York — was in need of cash. A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.
Since leaving public office, Giuliani’s sources of income have been somewhat opaque. . . .
Maybe my imagination but there seems to be an uptick of cars going aboot with loudspeakers punting parties’ respective messages. A consequence of Covid restricting other forms of campaigning?
Slightly and disturbingly reminiscent of one of the early CoD games that had loudspeakers telling the combatants in Stalingrad that they’d be treated well if they surrendered.
Can someone other than Leon summarise the UK/France fish war of 2021? I haven't really paid any attention to it.
The previous treaty (which took 11 years to negotiate between Jersey & France) had a requirement that annually French authorities would submit to Jersey details of their catch. In 20 years they never did.
The current treaty - negotiated between the UK & EU (neither France nor Jersey directly involved) requires that French fishermen can go on catching the same amount of fish as they have historically. Because the treaty was agreed so late there has been a 4 month grace period free for all where the French have caught as much as they like - two years worth of scollops in 4 months for example. They also stopped Jersey fishermen landing their catches in France. To get a licence to carry on fishing, French fishermen have to submit details of their historical catches - which many of them have not, either because they didn't understand the requirement, or because they simply never kept the record, or deliberately low-balled their claimed catch. So when the licences were issued on Friday - reflecting their reported historical catches - many of them were completely snookered.
In the French Parliament a minister observed that as France supplies power to Jersey they have some leverage, to which one Whitehall source remarked "at least the Nazi's kept the lights on". Jersey can keep its own lights on in any case. Macron professed "surprise" which suggests either he or his officials didn't understand what the EU had signed on their behalf.
French fishermen announced a blockade of St Helier - so Boris offered to send two boats to keep an eye on things, which Jersey gratefully accepted.
About 80 boats arrived off St Helier this morning - some sailed in, then sailed out again, delaying a departure, but not stopping it. The RN hung back by about a mile. Two French Navy boats stayed just outside territorial waters. The French fishermen are returning to port, having had their demo.
Looking ahead - if they haven't kept records of what they've caught - or have lied about how much they did catch they are still in trouble.
This is classic "Brexit Red Tape" - just the boot is on the other foot and they don't like it.
OMG! Foreigners are such bastards, aren't they?
What in that detailed, well-informed and balanced account of the issues invites that response?
The way the Conservatives have hung leaseholders out to dry over the cladding scandal is a national disgrace.
There are people who bought 25% of a flat under a shared ownership scheme with deposits as little as 35k who are now expected to pony up twice that to fix defects they weren't responsible for while the developers who caused them get off scot free. For a flat they "own" quarter of yet are responsible for 100% of the bills.
1.3 million flats in the UK are currently unmortgageable, people's lives are on hold, and MPs have voted five times now not to protect leaseholders from costs that will likely bankrupt them.
While I'm not directly affected by any of this I know people who are and I was close to buying a property that is affected by all of this - so it's a bit of a "there but for the grace of god go I" thing for me.
In the shared ownership case you quote, who owns the other 75% and why do they not share the liability if the owner is to be liable?
Is it a matter of a questionable categorisation as "maintenance" and the person who lives there signed up to pay maintenance?
Thanks
When you sign up to a leasehold you sign up to 100% of the costs of maintaining that building, even if you only own a percentage of the building.
But the truth is you never actually own _any_ of the building. You merely lease it from the freeholder for a set amount of time - effectively you are a long term tenant with the ability to sell your lease on to someone else.
The freeholder owns the building. This is where it gets complicated. The original developer of the building often sells off the freehold to an investor, who may not be based in the Uk and ownership can be obscured through a series of shell companies. Making it difficult if not outright impossible to force the freeholder to pay the costs of rectifying the defects. Hence the reason why the government is so keen to pass costs on to leaseholders.
Remember, leaseholders own nothing other than a scrap of paper that entitles them to rent a property for a set number of years.
Even without the cladding scandal, you are beholden to the freeholder for how much repairs, service charges etc cost - mismanagement and corruption are rife and leaseholders have little option but to accept all costs the freeholder chooses to pass on to them.
The advice is obviously to never buy leasehold, however for people who can only own a flat (or who live in London, where freeholds are rare and prohibitively expensive), there isn't much choice if you wan to "own" property rather than rent on an assured shorthold tenancy.
We've discussed the cladding scandal at length in this thread, but it's worth pointing out that leasehold as a system exists in England only and the rest of the world thinks it's bonkers.
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
Can someone other than Leon summarise the UK/France fish war of 2021? I haven't really paid any attention to it.
The previous treaty (which took 11 years to negotiate between Jersey & France) had a requirement that annually French authorities would submit to Jersey details of their catch. In 20 years they never did.
The current treaty - negotiated between the UK & EU (neither France nor Jersey directly involved) requires that French fishermen can go on catching the same amount of fish as they have historically. Because the treaty was agreed so late there has been a 4 month grace period free for all where the French have caught as much as they like - two years worth of scollops in 4 months for example. They also stopped Jersey fishermen landing their catches in France. To get a licence to carry on fishing, French fishermen have to submit details of their historical catches - which many of them have not, either because they didn't understand the requirement, or because they simply never kept the record, or deliberately low-balled their claimed catch. So when the licences were issued on Friday - reflecting their reported historical catches - many of them were completely snookered.
In the French Parliament a minister observed that as France supplies power to Jersey they have some leverage, to which one Whitehall source remarked "at least the Nazi's kept the lights on". Jersey can keep its own lights on in any case. Macron professed "surprise" which suggests either he or his officials didn't understand what the EU had signed on their behalf.
French fishermen announced a blockade of St Helier - so Boris offered to send two boats to keep an eye on things, which Jersey gratefully accepted.
About 80 boats arrived off St Helier this morning - some sailed in, then sailed out again, delaying a departure, but not stopping it. The RN hung back by about a mile. Two French Navy boats stayed just outside territorial waters. The French fishermen are returning to port, having had their demo.
Looking ahead - if they haven't kept records of what they've caught - or have lied about how much they did catch they are still in trouble.
This is classic "Brexit Red Tape" - just the boot is on the other foot and they don't like it.
OMG! Foreigners are such bastards, aren't they?
What in that detailed, well-informed and balanced account of the issues invites that response?
You are forgetting that @Chris is the smartest person he knows. Probably even smarter than @kinabalu if they both sat down and thought about it. Chris doesn't need to go through the detail or even read most of the posts he responds to because he is too smart for that.
He has a point to make and, after he has told you how smart he is and how not smart you are, he will make it.
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
New York Court of Appeals Agrees to Hear Landmark Elephant Rights Case https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/appeal-granted-in-landmark-elephant-rights-case/ Today, the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the United States—agreed to hear the habeas corpus case of our elephant client Happy, an autonomous and cognitively complex nonhuman animal who has been imprisoned at the Bronx Zoo for over four decades. This marks the first time in history that the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being....
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
So govt. should get into the housing business and provide them with some competition.
Question. Is it legal to park a car literally plastered in party logos directly outside the door of the polling station?
Yes , so long as it is outside the precinct
There is a statuary distance of, from memory, 50 yards, unless it's on private property. You need to talk to the Presiding Officer or the RO or their Deputy.
I dont think there's statutory limit. 100 m is sometimes mentioned , but this is just RO guidance to local political parties.
From years of doing this I've had it drilled into me that you don't take party materials anywhere near a polling station. I always removed a rosette even though I knew that was allowed.
Alex Salmond cames across as an arrogant bastard. I am parking here and who are you to ask me if it's ok. I was polite!
Within the precinct - being the grounds - of the polling station, rules are very strict. You shouldn’t really display the party or candidate name, and I have come across some areas where ROs still insist and therefore a blank coloured rosette was all you were allowed. The electoral commission guidance nowadays is a little more relaxed and simply requires that any such material be unobtrusive.
Beyond the polling station there is no jurisdiction to enforce any such rules, which is why the guidelines sometimes issued to the parties are just that - guidance.
There is an electoral commission rule prohibiting party logos and materials in the immediate vicinity of the polling centre which I posted earlier. At best they can be asked to move on - and he did. Having said that the law (these rules) don't apply to candidates.
BTW we're talking a narrow pavement between his car and the entrance door. Coming from one side you'd need to siddle past him to gain entry.
The rules all apply “in the polling station”, which includes its precinct.
And outside, where Tellers (and other party agents) "must not wear, carry or display any headwear, footwear or other apparel that carries any writing, picture or sign relating to any candidate or party apart from a rosette". As tellers (and other party agents) have to remain outside the "precinct" as you keep putting it, that means that the Rosette Mr Salmond was wearing was OK, his branded car Mr Salmond had parked and got out of was not ok.
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
Puzzled by this. I've seen advertising type stand-up-by-themselves boards with party posters (various parties) many a time on the public pavement outside my polling station (but can't report as to today as I voted by post).
From the Electoral Commission's Guidance for Candidates and Agents:
Spot the vehicle with both a PA on the roof and heavily branded with campaign material (which as the EC points out with regards to a polling station is anything more than a rosette). The grey door is the open door to the polling station - they stepped back towards the door as we raised the phone from their previous position filling the narrow pavement
I am *totally* making an undue fuss about this because Alex Salmond is the party leader and has been in politics for a long time. Had he said "good morning" or "I'm moving on" then I wouldn't have bothered. Its that he had driven round the village bellowing through the PA and then parked where you see the car outside the polling station STILL bellowing. The polling station official inside the entrance on the door came out to ask him to be quiet - which he did. All of a minute later as we walked up and asked if he was allowed to park his campaign car directly outside his response was "the law doesn't apply, I am the candidate".
Bugger that. What an arrogant prick Alex Salmond is.
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Agreed. Quite a few of us have advocated for some time for the state to get into the housebuilding business.
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
So govt. should get into the housing business and provide them with some competition.
Simpler - time limited planning permission.
Start building within x, complete within y or forfeit not just the planning permission. But the land as well - for the price of the land without planning permission.
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
So govt. should get into the housing business and provide them with some competition.
No we should encourage self-build much more and provide them with much more competition, as in most European countries.
Maybe my imagination but there seems to be an uptick of cars going aboot with loudspeakers punting parties’ respective messages. A consequence of Covid restricting other forms of campaigning?
Slightly and disturbingly reminiscent of one of the early CoD games that had loudspeakers telling the combatants in Stalingrad that they’d be treated well if they surrendered.
Possibly this sort of stuff is easier to take off the election spend books ?
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Agreed. Quite a few of us have advocated for some time for the state to get into the housebuilding business.
Are you thinking of something as ambitious as a Haussmannian scheme, or just state-funded cheapo housing?
Woman of the People - Politico.com - ‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
I've been thinking of packing up my aircraft hangar, too.
I got rid of my aircraft hanger. A nice South African chap is doing a line in personal rocket ships complete with underground storage. Promotional video here -
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Agreed. Quite a few of us have advocated for some time for the state to get into the housebuilding business.
Are you thinking of something as ambitious as a Haussmannian scheme, or just state-funded cheapo housing?
Definitely not just the latter (although there is obviously a role for that too). The state, at present, has quite clear ideas about the sorts of communities it would like to deliver, how these should look, what quality these should be, and the volumes it wants to provide. Why not enable it to deliver these, rather than hoping that the private sector deliver something which vaguely approximates it? Answer - because the state doesn't have a good track record in architecture or urban design. But surely enough time has passed and enough lessons have been learned from the modernist era that we might at least try again?
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
Back from voting. Two of my votes were for Conservative candidates. I did so quite explicitly as a one-off 'thank you' to Boris for his Government's vaccine rollout. They are saving lives, it's brilliant and I wanted to express my gratitude.
They have no guarantee that I would vote for them again.
Do you think that Johnson needs any encouragement to take unto himself ever-greater dictatorial powers?
Every vote for the Conservatives takes us closer to the moment when people revolt - and I am not in favour of revolutions.
Can you tell us the last time power changed hands in England through violence?
Can someone other than Leon summarise the UK/France fish war of 2021? I haven't really paid any attention to it.
The previous treaty (which took 11 years to negotiate between Jersey & France) had a requirement that annually French authorities would submit to Jersey details of their catch. In 20 years they never did.
The current treaty - negotiated between the UK & EU (neither France nor Jersey directly involved) requires that French fishermen can go on catching the same amount of fish as they have historically. Because the treaty was agreed so late there has been a 4 month grace period free for all where the French have caught as much as they like - two years worth of scollops in 4 months for example. They also stopped Jersey fishermen landing their catches in France. To get a licence to carry on fishing, French fishermen have to submit details of their historical catches - which many of them have not, either because they didn't understand the requirement, or because they simply never kept the record, or deliberately low-balled their claimed catch. So when the licences were issued on Friday - reflecting their reported historical catches - many of them were completely snookered.
In the French Parliament a minister observed that as France supplies power to Jersey they have some leverage, to which one Whitehall source remarked "at least the Nazi's kept the lights on". Jersey can keep its own lights on in any case. Macron professed "surprise" which suggests either he or his officials didn't understand what the EU had signed on their behalf.
French fishermen announced a blockade of St Helier - so Boris offered to send two boats to keep an eye on things, which Jersey gratefully accepted.
About 80 boats arrived off St Helier this morning - some sailed in, then sailed out again, delaying a departure, but not stopping it. The RN hung back by about a mile. Two French Navy boats stayed just outside territorial waters. The French fishermen are returning to port, having had their demo.
Looking ahead - if they haven't kept records of what they've caught - or have lied about how much they did catch they are still in trouble.
This is classic "Brexit Red Tape" - just the boot is on the other foot and they don't like it.
OMG! Foreigners are such bastards, aren't they?
What in that detailed, well-informed and balanced account of the issues invites that response?
You are forgetting that @Chris is the smartest person he knows. Probably even smarter than @kinabalu if they both sat down and thought about it. Chris doesn't need to go through the detail or even read most of the posts he responds to because he is too smart for that.
He has a point to make and, after he has told you how smart he is and how not smart you are, he will make it.
What is interesting is that the French fisherman in question were promised by French politicians that they would "win" Brexit, that they would get all the fish etc etc
One wonders if they were also promised that 350 million euro a week would be found to spend on the French health service...
Back from voting. Two of my votes were for Conservative candidates. I did so quite explicitly as a one-off 'thank you' to Boris for his Government's vaccine rollout. They are saving lives, it's brilliant and I wanted to express my gratitude.
They have no guarantee that I would vote for them again.
Do you think that Johnson needs any encouragement to take unto himself ever-greater dictatorial powers?
Every vote for the Conservatives takes us closer to the moment when people revolt - and I am not in favour of revolutions.
Can you tell us the last time power changed hands in England through violence?
Last i can think of was January 1649.
The revolt doesn't have to be successful to be a revolt.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
'avoid accidentally showing images of the Prophet to muslims by simply not carrying images of the Prophet around with you, and/or not having them in the school.
UK reports 13 more coronavirus deaths and 2,613 new cases
I wonder if ~2000 cases a day is the floor until we have vaccinated the plague spreaders otherwise known as children.
My other half hasn't been offered it yet, she is 34 - neither has Max of this parish or his other half I believe. So there's a large number of 20s and 30s still unvaxxed.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
Question. Is it legal to park a car literally plastered in party logos directly outside the door of the polling station?
Yes , so long as it is outside the precinct
There is a statuary distance of, from memory, 50 yards, unless it's on private property. You need to talk to the Presiding Officer or the RO or their Deputy.
I dont think there's statutory limit. 100 m is sometimes mentioned , but this is just RO guidance to local political parties.
From years of doing this I've had it drilled into me that you don't take party materials anywhere near a polling station. I always removed a rosette even though I knew that was allowed.
Alex Salmond cames across as an arrogant bastard. I am parking here and who are you to ask me if it's ok. I was polite!
Within the precinct - being the grounds - of the polling station, rules are very strict. You shouldn’t really display the party or candidate name, and I have come across some areas where ROs still insist and therefore a blank coloured rosette was all you were allowed. The electoral commission guidance nowadays is a little more relaxed and simply requires that any such material be unobtrusive.
Beyond the polling station there is no jurisdiction to enforce any such rules, which is why the guidelines sometimes issued to the parties are just that - guidance.
There is an electoral commission rule prohibiting party logos and materials in the immediate vicinity of the polling centre which I posted earlier. At best they can be asked to move on - and he did. Having said that the law (these rules) don't apply to candidates.
BTW we're talking a narrow pavement between his car and the entrance door. Coming from one side you'd need to siddle past him to gain entry.
The rules all apply “in the polling station”, which includes its precinct.
And outside, where Tellers (and other party agents) "must not wear, carry or display any headwear, footwear or other apparel that carries any writing, picture or sign relating to any candidate or party apart from a rosette". As tellers (and other party agents) have to remain outside the "precinct" as you keep putting it, that means that the Rosette Mr Salmond was wearing was OK, his branded car Mr Salmond had parked and got out of was not ok.
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
Puzzled by this. I've seen advertising type stand-up-by-themselves boards with party posters (various parties) many a time on the public pavement outside my polling station (but can't report as to today as I voted by post).
From the Electoral Commission's Guidance for Candidates and Agents:
Spot the vehicle with both a PA on the roof and heavily branded with campaign material (which as the EC points out with regards to a polling station is anything more than a rosette). The grey door is the open door to the polling station - they stepped back towards the door as we raised the phone from their previous position filling the narrow pavement
I am *totally* making an undue fuss about this because Alex Salmond is the party leader and has been in politics for a long time. Had he said "good morning" or "I'm moving on" then I wouldn't have bothered. Its that he had driven round the village bellowing through the PA and then parked where you see the car outside the polling station STILL bellowing. The polling station official inside the entrance on the door came out to ask him to be quiet - which he did. All of a minute later as we walked up and asked if he was allowed to park his campaign car directly outside his response was "the law doesn't apply, I am the candidate".
Bugger that. What an arrogant prick Alex Salmond is.
We used to have a councillor in Broxtowe who had a megaphone that he owned personally. On election day he would drive around bellowing to get out and vote Labour. He meant well and we were too polite to tell him that, quite apart from the question of whether this actually gets out more supporters than opponents, his Scots accent was so strong that nobody could understand what he was saying.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
That's our conclusion as well. We're looking at any and all options for providing affordable housing ourselves (we've got some ideas for supported self-build, as well as a Council Housing Company). The way we figure it is that if we can ramp up supply ourselves, they'll be incentivised to build out faster (because whoever gets completions done first will "beat" any reduction in prices, and tough luck to the slowest)
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
Without getting into the issue, its tiresome that the Mail makes a cause celebre out of one father taking any particular view about his child's school. Parents have a right to move their children if they want to, sometimes reasonably and sometimes not. It is no big deal. Leon was telling us yesterday that he was moving his child for a similar sort of reason (disapproval of wokeness) - are the Mail headlining Leon? Nah, because he's not a Muslim, so the Mail wouldn't care..
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
What possible use to anybody is a non-satirical plain depiction of the prophet Mohammed?
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
We used to have a councillor in Broxtowe who had a megaphone that he owned personally. On election day he would drive around bellowing to get out and vote Labour. He meant well and we were too polite to tell him that, quite apart from the question of whether this actually gets out more supporters than opponents, his Scots accent was so strong that nobody could understand what he was saying.
I don't see the point in megaphones. The car has to be going at walking pace to be understood and the message has to be SHORT. Handy Alex was going on and on, and 5 minutes ago we had a drive-by from the SNP which I only understood was them cos it was Sturgeon's voice.
Or perhaps my all-time best use of a megaphone. His Eminence the Mayor for life of Thornaby (ex Labour now Independent) doing a drive-by verbal shooting. We were knocking doors a few days before polling day in 2019 for the locals with council candidates and Paul Williams. His Eminence spots us. Parks blocking the road shouting LIARS AND CHEATS. We wave at him and ignore him. Residents come out of their house and start shouting back, his eminence shouts abuse at them via his megaphone.
Then drives off, goes round the block and comes back. We'd reached the end of the street and went round the corner, past the local funeral home who were forming up vehicles complete with coffin in the back. Yep. Parks and blocks them and shouts more abuse.
So you need to be stopped and not shouting in incoherent rage to be understood.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Yes, I agree. I'm still enough of a Marxist not to feel that the answer to systemic problems is to blame individual companies - sure, they want to make money, that's what companies do. If we perceive - as we do - that developers don't see it in their interest to build on land banks, then if there's a housing shortage (and there is) we have only two options: 1. Make it worth their while 2. Do it as a Government. We should do some of each.
Anyway, will sign off and go and smile at some voters...
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
What possible use to anybody is a non-satirical plain depiction of the prophet Mohammed?
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
A relative of mine has one - he bought in one of the shops I mention, in Tehran, many, many years ago. 80s, I *think*.
It's mildly interesting - looks rather like Byzantine iconography to me, gold leaf halo round the head, painted on wood etc.
What I find interesting is the blanket statement that all Muslims would find it offensive. This kind of denial of the existence of other branches of the faith reminds me rather of the attitude of the Catholic church to Protestants some little while ago - they weren't another brand of Christian, they were HERETICS!
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Yes, I agree. I'm still enough of a Marxist not to feel that the answer to systemic problems is to blame individual companies - sure, they want to make money, that's what companies do. If we perceive - as we do - that developers don't see it in their interest to build on land banks, then if there's a housing shortage (and there is) we have only two options: 1. Make it worth their while 2. Do it as a Government. We should do some of each.
Anyway, will sign off and go and smile at some voters...
@NickPalmer I know someone who was responsible for such a land bank and I would describe him as moderately left wing. When I asked him about land banks he said it was all well saying housebuilders sit on them, but as it can take an indeterminate amount of time linked to unfathomable local politics for planning to get granted then what else are they supposed to do. Land is a raw material for them. You wouldn't blame KFC for holding enough stock of chicken to operate
Obese men are at a greater risk of severe Covid-19 and death than obese women, research has suggested.
The data found that obese men with a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or more had a "significant association with higher in-hospital mortality" - while for women, those with that link had a BMI of 40 or more.
Researchers also found that obesity may be a stronger risk factor for severe Covid pneumonia and the need for a ventilator in men than in women.
---
The government messaging on this has all but disappeared.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Yes, I agree. I'm still enough of a Marxist not to feel that the answer to systemic problems is to blame individual companies - sure, they want to make money, that's what companies do. If we perceive - as we do - that developers don't see it in their interest to build on land banks, then if there's a housing shortage (and there is) we have only two options: 1. Make it worth their while 2. Do it as a Government. We should do some of each.
Anyway, will sign off and go and smile at some voters...
@NickPalmer I know someone who was responsible for such a land bank and I would describe him as moderately left wing. When I asked him about land banks he said it was all well saying housebuilders sit on them, but as it can take an indeterminate amount of time linked to unfathomable local politics for planning to get granted then what else are they supposed to do. Land is a raw material for them. You wouldn't blame KFC for holding enough stock of chicken to operate
One question to be asked - are the land banks growing, shrinking or staying the same?
That is, are they simply a store of raw material, something like the oil refinery stocks that people used to get upset about (see stock profits)?
Or are they about preventing an increase in house building?
If the former, the amount of property held would be fairly stable, if the latter, then as planning approval increase, the stock would increase.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
What possible use to anybody is a non-satirical plain depiction of the prophet Mohammed?
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
A relative of mine has one - he bought in one of the shops I mention, in Tehran, many, many years ago. 80s, I *think*.
It's mildly interesting - looks rather like Byzantine iconography to me, gold leaf halo round the head, painted on wood etc.
What I find interesting is the blanket statement that all Muslims would find it offensive. This kind of denial of the existence of other branches of the faith reminds me rather of the attitude of the Catholic church to Protestants some little while ago - they weren't another brand of Christian, they were HERETICS!
That it is not 'pull kids out of school/make threats' offensive to all branches is itself a reason to have one from those branches that do not find it offensive, in my view. A rare(ish) piece of art, very cultural. Anyone expecting other people to treat them with kid gloves because of a religion the other person does not share is being a big crybaby, no other way about it - you can get into arguments about being gratuitously offensive, or appropriate ways of educating in a classroom setting, giving a chance for those who are going to be offended etc, but there's no getting away from the basic snowflakiness of it.
UK reports 13 more coronavirus deaths and 2,613 new cases
I wonder if ~2000 cases a day is the floor until we have vaccinated the plague spreaders otherwise known as children.
My other half hasn't been offered it yet, she is 34 - neither has Max of this parish or his other half I believe. So there's a large number of 20s and 30s still unvaxxed.
UK reports 13 more coronavirus deaths and 2,613 new cases
I wonder if ~2000 cases a day is the floor until we have vaccinated the plague spreaders otherwise known as children.
It’s never been clear to me why positive tests matter, if people aren’t getting ill from it.
It looks like a bit of a bank holiday effect to me with people getting tested on the 4th; the last few days have been underrepresentaions (slightly)
The importance of the positive tests has declined - but it is important to understand that there is sufficient COVID circulating to attack the unprotected and vulnerable positions of the population.
A few weeks after the 21st of June, look for some anguished headlines (and bad numbers, in a very small way) in some newspapers.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
What possible use to anybody is a non-satirical plain depiction of the prophet Mohammed?
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
A relative of mine has one - he bought in one of the shops I mention, in Tehran, many, many years ago. 80s, I *think*.
It's mildly interesting - looks rather like Byzantine iconography to me, gold leaf halo round the head, painted on wood etc.
What I find interesting is the blanket statement that all Muslims would find it offensive. This kind of denial of the existence of other branches of the faith reminds me rather of the attitude of the Catholic church to Protestants some little while ago - they weren't another brand of Christian, they were HERETICS!
Question. Is it legal to park a car literally plastered in party logos directly outside the door of the polling station?
Yes , so long as it is outside the precinct
There is a statuary distance of, from memory, 50 yards, unless it's on private property. You need to talk to the Presiding Officer or the RO or their Deputy.
I dont think there's statutory limit. 100 m is sometimes mentioned , but this is just RO guidance to local political parties.
From years of doing this I've had it drilled into me that you don't take party materials anywhere near a polling station. I always removed a rosette even though I knew that was allowed.
Alex Salmond cames across as an arrogant bastard. I am parking here and who are you to ask me if it's ok. I was polite!
Within the precinct - being the grounds - of the polling station, rules are very strict. You shouldn’t really display the party or candidate name, and I have come across some areas where ROs still insist and therefore a blank coloured rosette was all you were allowed. The electoral commission guidance nowadays is a little more relaxed and simply requires that any such material be unobtrusive.
Beyond the polling station there is no jurisdiction to enforce any such rules, which is why the guidelines sometimes issued to the parties are just that - guidance.
There is an electoral commission rule prohibiting party logos and materials in the immediate vicinity of the polling centre which I posted earlier. At best they can be asked to move on - and he did. Having said that the law (these rules) don't apply to candidates.
BTW we're talking a narrow pavement between his car and the entrance door. Coming from one side you'd need to siddle past him to gain entry.
The rules all apply “in the polling station”, which includes its precinct.
And outside, where Tellers (and other party agents) "must not wear, carry or display any headwear, footwear or other apparel that carries any writing, picture or sign relating to any candidate or party apart from a rosette". As tellers (and other party agents) have to remain outside the "precinct" as you keep putting it, that means that the Rosette Mr Salmond was wearing was OK, his branded car Mr Salmond had parked and got out of was not ok.
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
Puzzled by this. I've seen advertising type stand-up-by-themselves boards with party posters (various parties) many a time on the public pavement outside my polling station (but can't report as to today as I voted by post).
From the Electoral Commission's Guidance for Candidates and Agents:
Spot the vehicle with both a PA on the roof and heavily branded with campaign material (which as the EC points out with regards to a polling station is anything more than a rosette). The grey door is the open door to the polling station - they stepped back towards the door as we raised the phone from their previous position filling the narrow pavement
I am *totally* making an undue fuss about this because Alex Salmond is the party leader and has been in politics for a long time. Had he said "good morning" or "I'm moving on" then I wouldn't have bothered. Its that he had driven round the village bellowing through the PA and then parked where you see the car outside the polling station STILL bellowing. The polling station official inside the entrance on the door came out to ask him to be quiet - which he did. All of a minute later as we walked up and asked if he was allowed to park his campaign car directly outside his response was "the law doesn't apply, I am the candidate".
Bugger that. What an arrogant prick Alex Salmond is.
He’s always been an arrogant prick. It’s just recently that most people have now realised it. Hence, his vanity project polling at c.2%
As someone fairly close to the coal face on this thread, there's a LOT going on to get first time buyers in to new homes. First of all wherever I drive around our local towns and villages, there are housing estates galore going up, Tring, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and thousands on the new M1 junction behind Houghton Regis for example.
Then there's the LISA and HTB ISA, the rebirth of 95% LTV mortgages (and lots of 90%) plus new initiatives like Nationwide's Helping Hand criteria just launched where income multiples of circa 5.5x are now possible for long term fixes for FTBs. I've client's children who've not been able to get on the ladder due to affordability constraints but having mustered a bit of a deposit but who now can with these things happening. It's very exciting for them (and for me!) to have good news now.
Only a small snippet but that's my perspective.
So much life wished away to buy a new build clone. This obsession with getting on the market no matter the cost will stagnate the young. You can't have a dynamic economy if your peoples lives are dedicated to propping up Taylor Wimpey's balance sheet. 5.5x multiples, fucking madness. What next signing up your unborn for another 25 years of servitude to Barratt. The fuckers in government have already been floating the use of what limited DC pensions we have to prop up the sick economy we will inherit.
If Barratt and Taylor Wimpey didn't exist we'd be looking at 10x multiples not 5.5x ones.
Really good trolling. The house builders have helped keep prices down, fucking brilliant. Coming up next Persimmon have a vested interest in building affordable housing.
let 10x multiples happen, make housing truly unaffordable to the majority. We'll just be skipping another 15 years of conservative policy to end up with it anyway. And maybe a few suckers will have avoided the ponzi scheme.
Its time investing in productive assets was made government policy. We could all fund a chip industry at least it will fucking make something and we will be less beholden to the house builders.
No trolling. Absolutely 100% yes the house builders have helped keep prices down, and absolutely 100% yes Persimmon do have a vested interest in building affordable housing. If their homes are unaffordable, they won't get sold, they won't make a profit.
The sole issue is that population has risen much faster than housing - and that the amount of land dripped out to be able to be built in is in many areas insufficient to keep up with population demands. That's not the house builders fault.
If any and all land could be built on, outside of very tightly defined protected areas, then we could have much greater housing capacity, more houses built and more affordable ones too. Trying to constrain land supply is the issue.
Assuming we are entirely supply constrained the house builders will benefit no? They can set the prices at the very limit to which the market is able to support. See the 3-4 bedroom 'executive clones' popping up all over Yorkshire.
Do you not accept that the largest home builders have the UK over a barrel. Yes they will build and drip feed homes into an area. But if you earn anything near an average income your gonna have to tale the most leverage you can afford and whatever inducement the government is offering at the time.
No of course I don't accept that, don't be silly.
Land is drip fed by the Councils, not the builders. If the Councils released huge swathes of land to be built on then if the large home builders didn't build on it then new companies could easily be created that would do so. But they can't, because the land hasn't got permission.
From the LGA: House builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build.
The LGA is working on an online map showing where these are. The full report is balanced and examines a variety of relevant issues:
"Planning is not a barrier to building. Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications and in 2017 they worked with developers to grant planning permission to over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high. In fact house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build. This is a positive base reflecting improving economic conditions following the recession"
"Councils are approving nine in 10 planning applications" is another one of those ridiculous meaningless statements to distract. People don't put in applications they know will be refused.
By only allowing a small amount of land to be built on, the applications go in for that land - but all the other land that could have been built on if permission weren't denied never gets applications in the first place!
I think you're ignoring
'house builders currently have 423,000 homes with permission that they are still to build'
Seems like they're doing well enough at the planning stage but suffering when it come to throwing down the concrete.
No I'm not because its completely meaningless gibberish. It takes time to get things built, you can't just snap your fingers and have it done overnight. There will always be a pipeline of houses due to be built. That includes houses where developers have received permission for an entire project but it will take years to build all of them, in phases, even though construction has already begun. It also includes houses where permission has been granted in principle, but construction can't occur yet pending other steps that haven't happened.
Its not like you can grant permission then click your fingers and as if by magic every single house in an entire development is 100% built and ready the day after permission was granted.
There will always be houses in the pipeline, either next to be built, or being built, or stalled for other reasons. But widening the pipeline would allow more houses to be built each year. Saying "build those with permission first" is as much an excuse as those who want everything to be brownfield.
Its never going to be possible to have 0 homes with permission that are still to be built, unless you invent a way to magically build every house in a plan on the very day permission is granted. Is that your solution?
Quite importantly, though, the developers have zero incentive to build enough that the prices drop. I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Agreed. Quite a few of us have advocated for some time for the state to get into the housebuilding business.
Are you thinking of something as ambitious as a Haussmannian scheme, or just state-funded cheapo housing?
That's the thing about state funded building - you get a public debate over the options. I'd be inclined to be ambitious. If the state can take a fifty year view on HS2 (which could be obsolete in a decade), they ought to take a similarly long view of building stuff people will live in for the next half century.
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
I'm genuinely curious - what would happen if the image in question was one purchased from the various shops around the big mosques in Tehran? Yes, not all branches of Islam have the same view of such representations.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
What possible use to anybody is a non-satirical plain depiction of the prophet Mohammed?
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
A relative of mine has one - he bought in one of the shops I mention, in Tehran, many, many years ago. 80s, I *think*.
It's mildly interesting - looks rather like Byzantine iconography to me, gold leaf halo round the head, painted on wood etc.
What I find interesting is the blanket statement that all Muslims would find it offensive. This kind of denial of the existence of other branches of the faith reminds me rather of the attitude of the Catholic church to Protestants some little while ago - they weren't another brand of Christian, they were HERETICS!
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
Which to me, seems not unreasonable behaviour on the part of the developers, who are after all there to maximise shareholder value rather than to deliver a common good (and indeed it should be noted are delivering a common good with affordable housing requirements). Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
Yes, I agree. I'm still enough of a Marxist not to feel that the answer to systemic problems is to blame individual companies - sure, they want to make money, that's what companies do. If we perceive - as we do - that developers don't see it in their interest to build on land banks, then if there's a housing shortage (and there is) we have only two options: 1. Make it worth their while 2. Do it as a Government. We should do some of each.
Anyway, will sign off and go and smile at some voters...
@NickPalmer I know someone who was responsible for such a land bank and I would describe him as moderately left wing. When I asked him about land banks he said it was all well saying housebuilders sit on them, but as it can take an indeterminate amount of time linked to unfathomable local politics for planning to get granted then what else are they supposed to do. Land is a raw material for them. You wouldn't blame KFC for holding enough stock of chicken to operate
I'll do a Holyrood prediction then. The last few polls have been strong for the SNP in the constituency vote, and they only need a small swing against the Tories to win an overall majority on constituency seats alone, while Labour need a strong swing in their Gaynor to make any progress.
SNP overall majority, with 65 constituency seats. Labour (23 seats) and Tories (24) both lose seats on the lists to the Greens (12). The Lib Dems (5) will probably hold on, just about. Alba? Who are they?
Australian players, coaches and commentators have left the Indian Premier League and flown to the Maldives after the Twenty20 tournament was suspended.
Can someone other than Leon summarise the UK/France fish war of 2021? I haven't really paid any attention to it.
The previous treaty (which took 11 years to negotiate between Jersey & France) had a requirement that annually French authorities would submit to Jersey details of their catch. In 20 years they never did.
The current treaty - negotiated between the UK & EU (neither France nor Jersey directly involved) requires that French fishermen can go on catching the same amount of fish as they have historically. Because the treaty was agreed so late there has been a 4 month grace period free for all where the French have caught as much as they like - two years worth of scollops in 4 months for example. They also stopped Jersey fishermen landing their catches in France. To get a licence to carry on fishing, French fishermen have to submit details of their historical catches - which many of them have not, either because they didn't understand the requirement, or because they simply never kept the record, or deliberately low-balled their claimed catch. So when the licences were issued on Friday - reflecting their reported historical catches - many of them were completely snookered.
In the French Parliament a minister observed that as France supplies power to Jersey they have some leverage, to which one Whitehall source remarked "at least the Nazi's kept the lights on". Jersey can keep its own lights on in any case. Macron professed "surprise" which suggests either he or his officials didn't understand what the EU had signed on their behalf.
French fishermen announced a blockade of St Helier - so Boris offered to send two boats to keep an eye on things, which Jersey gratefully accepted.
About 80 boats arrived off St Helier this morning - some sailed in, then sailed out again, delaying a departure, but not stopping it. The RN hung back by about a mile. Two French Navy boats stayed just outside territorial waters. The French fishermen are returning to port, having had their demo.
Looking ahead - if they haven't kept records of what they've caught - or have lied about how much they did catch they are still in trouble.
This is classic "Brexit Red Tape" - just the boot is on the other foot and they don't like it.
OMG! Foreigners are such bastards, aren't they?
What in that detailed, well-informed and balanced account of the issues invites that response?
You are forgetting that @Chris is the smartest person he knows.
Wow. You really didn't have a happy experience at school, did you? Maybe you should get some kind of therapy. It's horrible to think of that kind of thing making people unhappy all through their lives.
Comments
I turned up to a skiing chalet with a matching pair of two left feet slippers. Apparently nobody else has multiple pairs of identical slippers. It appears I am considered weird.
SNP 64
SGP 9
Alba 1
SCon 28
Slab 22
SLibDem 5
I've had the police move branded up cars parked outside polling stations before. Not allowed. Unless you are Alex Salmond when "that law doesn't apply to candidates" in his own words.
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/update/2019-05-03/shock-turnaround-in-chelmsford-as-lib-dems-take-power/
It's the latest sign that the former New York mayor's legal woes are taking their toll on his lifestyle.
Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for ex-president Donald Trump, has reduced the size of his personal entourage, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Giuliani laid off several staffers and independent contractors in the last few weeks, according to one of the people, who said the ousted employees had been told that the former New York mayor was seeking to cut costs.
Giuliani has enlisted a part-time driver, Eric Ryan, the son of his friend Maria Ryan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But he no longer moves around Manhattan with the full complement of as many as five people he has kept around him in recent years. (Ryan didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
The news of Giuliani’s shrinking entourage comes after years of stories suggesting he might be having financial difficulties — or is at least seeking creative ways to make money as he manages his growing legal woes.
The Trump confidant, recently raided by the FBI as he faces an intensifying criminal probe, has reportedly faced a cash crunch before, with multiple divorces said to be taking a toll on his balance sheet. In October 2019, the Washington Post reported that Giuliani was giving his ex-wife Judith $42,000 a month in alimony; a sum amounting to more than half a million dollars a year. The Post also reported that Giuliani had made between $7 and $9 million in both 2016 and 2017.
That same month, Giuliani accidentally left a voicemail for a reporter in which he said, “The problem is we need some money.”
The remark, while cryptic, nonetheless reinforced the idea that the high-flying Giuliani — a frequent habitué of pricey outlets like the Trump International Hotel in D.C., where room rates can run in the high hundreds of dollars a night and a spoonful of wine can cost up to $140, and the Grand Havana Room, a members-only cigar bar in New York — was in need of cash. A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.
Since leaving public office, Giuliani’s sources of income have been somewhat opaque. . . .
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/giuliani-cuts-down-his-entourage-485504
Slightly and disturbingly reminiscent of one of the early CoD games that had loudspeakers telling the combatants in Stalingrad that they’d be treated well if they surrendered.
https://www.housing.org.uk/our-work/shared-ownership/shared-ownership-campaign-faqs/why-are-shared-ownership-customers-responsible-for-paying-for-major-structural-works-within-their-home/#:~:text=The lease makes the shared,is stipulated in the lease.
IANAL but I find it absurd that it's legally enforceable.
The remarks were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to the Republican’s developing gubernatorial campaign.
Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.
The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.
“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”
The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic. . . .
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/caitlyn-jenner-governor-california-wealthy-homeless-485521
He has a point to make and, after he has told you how smart he is and how not smart you are, he will make it.
I thought as you did until joining a Planning Committee. We approve loads of stuff more than ever gets built, and in a recent one, I asked why they were planning on taking twenty years to build out a large development.
The answer was "market issues." Or, to put another way, if they built it out faster, they would be in danger of having prices drop, or at least not go up. And that hits their bottom line.
Their incentive is to keep prices as high as possible whilst still selling houses. That, around here, is the £300k+ level, minimum.
We've tried swamping the market with approvals, but if developers don't want the prices to fall, they don't have to build rapidly enough to let them.
New York Court of Appeals Agrees to Hear Landmark Elephant Rights Case
https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/appeal-granted-in-landmark-elephant-rights-case/
Today, the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the United States—agreed to hear the habeas corpus case of our elephant client Happy, an autonomous and cognitively complex nonhuman animal who has been imprisoned at the Bronx Zoo for over four decades. This marks the first time in history that the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being....
Like: Makes me a bad person?
Flag: Gets me banned?
I think I'll just pretend I was working and didn't see it.
Which brings me on to something I often muse on: should the state have a role in developing market housing? My view is that it should. Not only would this get houses built in response to a political demand for them, rather than a market demand, but it would also enable the state to control what the buildings look like. We have discussed previously, I think, that the owner of a house doesn't fully bear the cost of its externalities - principally whether it creates an attractive streetscape. If the state had a role as a developer of market, rather than just affordable, houses, it would be in a much better position to deliver the sort of communities it sees as desirable, and to deliver at the volume it wanted.
https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/gavi-signs-agreement-novavax-secure-doses-behalf-covax-facility
You must not:
Campaign near polling stations in a way that could be seen by voters as aggressive or intimidating (for example, large groups of supporters carrying banners, or vehicles with loudspeakers or heavily branded with campaign material)
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-03/SP Part 4 - The campaign_0.pdf
Spot the vehicle with both a PA on the roof and heavily branded with campaign material (which as the EC points out with regards to a polling station is anything more than a rosette). The grey door is the open door to the polling station - they stepped back towards the door as we raised the phone from their previous position filling the narrow pavement
https://twitter.com/ianincyaak/status/1390273190652522506
I am *totally* making an undue fuss about this because Alex Salmond is the party leader and has been in politics for a long time. Had he said "good morning" or "I'm moving on" then I wouldn't have bothered. Its that he had driven round the village bellowing through the PA and then parked where you see the car outside the polling station STILL bellowing. The polling station official inside the entrance on the door came out to ask him to be quiet - which he did. All of a minute later as we walked up and asked if he was allowed to park his campaign car directly outside his response was "the law doesn't apply, I am the candidate".
Bugger that. What an arrogant prick Alex Salmond is.
Start building within x, complete within y or forfeit not just the planning permission. But the land as well - for the price of the land without planning permission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnaorqo6krg
The state, at present, has quite clear ideas about the sorts of communities it would like to deliver, how these should look, what quality these should be, and the volumes it wants to provide. Why not enable it to deliver these, rather than hoping that the private sector deliver something which vaguely approximates it?
Answer - because the state doesn't have a good track record in architecture or urban design. But surely enough time has passed and enough lessons have been learned from the modernist era that we might at least try again?
Angry father calls for Muslim parents to pull their children out of primary school after teacher mistakenly displayed image of Prophet Muhammad in assembly
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9549883/Father-wants-pull-children-school-image-Prophet-mistakenly-shown-assembly.html
Last i can think of was January 1649.
One wonders if they were also promised that 350 million euro a week would be found to spend on the French health service...
'avoid accidentally showing images of the Prophet to muslims by simply not carrying images of the Prophet around with you, and/or not having them in the school.
Mind you, there is the issue that some branches of Islam deny the existence of other branches....
So who gets to decide?
Bozo was of course happy to send two naval vessels and channel his inner Thatcher !
We're looking at any and all options for providing affordable housing ourselves (we've got some ideas for supported self-build, as well as a Council Housing Company). The way we figure it is that if we can ramp up supply ourselves, they'll be incentivised to build out faster (because whoever gets completions done first will "beat" any reduction in prices, and tough luck to the slowest)
To many muslims, it is very offensive.
Nobody else gives a monkeys. Quite why anybody would have one, or want one, is a mystery to me. Except maybe to antagonise people.
Forgot to bring my own pencil ✏️ too
Or perhaps my all-time best use of a megaphone. His Eminence the Mayor for life of Thornaby (ex Labour now Independent) doing a drive-by verbal shooting. We were knocking doors a few days before polling day in 2019 for the locals with council candidates and Paul Williams. His Eminence spots us. Parks blocking the road shouting LIARS AND CHEATS. We wave at him and ignore him. Residents come out of their house and start shouting back, his eminence shouts abuse at them via his megaphone.
Then drives off, goes round the block and comes back. We'd reached the end of the street and went round the corner, past the local funeral home who were forming up vehicles complete with coffin in the back. Yep. Parks and blocks them and shouts more abuse.
So you need to be stopped and not shouting in incoherent rage to be understood.
Anyway, will sign off and go and smile at some voters...
Are there going to be any counts tonight? I notice the BBC don't have an election night programe?
It's mildly interesting - looks rather like Byzantine iconography to me, gold leaf halo round the head, painted on wood etc.
What I find interesting is the blanket statement that all Muslims would find it offensive. This kind of denial of the existence of other branches of the faith reminds me rather of the attitude of the Catholic church to Protestants some little while ago - they weren't another brand of Christian, they were HERETICS!
The data found that obese men with a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or more had a "significant association with higher in-hospital mortality" - while for women, those with that link had a BMI of 40 or more.
Researchers also found that obesity may be a stronger risk factor for severe Covid pneumonia and the need for a ventilator in men than in women.
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The government messaging on this has all but disappeared.
That is, are they simply a store of raw material, something like the oil refinery stocks that people used to get upset about (see stock profits)?
Or are they about preventing an increase in house building?
If the former, the amount of property held would be fairly stable, if the latter, then as planning approval increase, the stock would increase.
A few weeks after the 21st of June, look for some anguished headlines (and bad numbers, in a very small way) in some newspapers.
With the UK so far down the vaccination path this position changes, but that is the basic concern.
I'd be inclined to be ambitious. If the state can take a fifty year view on HS2 (which could be obsolete in a decade), they ought to take a similarly long view of building stuff people will live in for the next half century.
SNP overall majority, with 65 constituency seats.
Labour (23 seats) and Tories (24) both lose seats on the lists to the Greens (12).
The Lib Dems (5) will probably hold on, just about.
Alba? Who are they?
Australian players, coaches and commentators have left the Indian Premier League and flown to the Maldives after the Twenty20 tournament was suspended.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/56991595
Note a slow, steady decline in cases by specimen date.