We are an independent state that should set our own policy.
We are (or were) a trading Nation that must comply with International standards
Sure. Doesn’t mean we have dynamic alignment.
But we HAVE dynamic alignment. Our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. Whats more the government insist our standards will only ever increase and not decrease. So we will stay dynamically aligned.
A smart government with a brain would recognise the practicalities and engage in realpolitik. Take all the headlines and plaudits, have a smooth Brexit that works straight out the box for even more plaudits, Brexit becomes a settled issue, move on.
At some point down the line we would have to deal with an alignment issue but that becomes someone else's problem. Instead we literally demanded 3rd country status for the UK and then immediately start screaming about how unfair the 3rd party rules are.
There is a huge difference
Dynamic alignment means the EU introduces a rule saying “all pigs must be inspected by EU market state based veterinarian before they can be sold anywhere in the world” and we have to impose that regulation in the UK, thereby destroying our domestic industry in one fell swoop.
Alignment means that we could - if we choose - introduce a rule that substitutes “UK based veterinarian”
I don’t understand how (a) you don’t see the difference and (b) you seem to assume that the EU wouldn’t use their dynamic alignment power in their interest and at our cost
Charles you are a smart chap with real world experience so you know that what you are positing is pretty poor.
We have dynamic alignment right now. Our standards are their standards. We could reverse our demand to be a 3rd country and hey presto we have alignment.
Lets take your hypothetical. Remember that the EU is not the player here, the EEA is. Your hypothetical collapses the EEA as suddenly all the non-EU members have major problems in doing their trade as they do now. Its a literal straw man nonsense argument.
What absolutely could happen is that some proposed change is put forward and we agree to offer an equivalent that they they accept. You seem to be insisting that we HAVE to be able to massively diverge now even though we have no intention of doing so.
Lets work the problem and drop the rhetoric and the frankly sad point scoring. We need to trade. They need to trade. We knew the rules to the trade area before we left it, so being asked to comply is hardly a shock.
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
1) Cases more than doubled between 17th May and 2nd June 2) We are not seeing a matching take off in hospitalisations.
The problem we have is that if this delta variant is that infectious, then lifting restrictions on the 21st is going to turbo charge it, everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated / previously infected with Covid is going to get infected & then infections from the younger populiation (who mostly don’t end up in hospital) will spread into the corners of the older population who for whatever reasons have not been vaccinated.
Enormous pain to model these risks though. Hospitalisations could stay low for a while, we open up & then three weeks later: boom.
Get those jabs done people!
Where do you expect the boom in hospitalisations to come from?
The young? The antivaxxers?
The currently un-vaccinated older cohort who will pick it up from the mass-infections of the young. You’d have to do the detailed modelling based on current vaccination rates though.
(But the higher hospitalisation rates for Delta might mean more younger patients too - PHE is saying that we’re not seeing that here yet, which is good, but also surprisingly at odds with reports from elsewhere. I wonder what’s driving the difference?)
"the currently un-vaccinated older cohort"
AKA antivaxxers?
It would be quite something if it were the action/inaction of the anti vaxxers, who I presume to be anti lockdown, that led to us not being allowed the freedom we were promised. In other words, their policy of wanting to take responsibility for their own health rather than the nanny state interfere, has led to the state’s refusal to open up.
Bit like hard line Brexiteers refusing to vote for Mays deal. Can’t imagine the anti vaxxers will win though
The number of anti-vaxxers is smaller than their friends hope.
Unless they are all under 49, or something.....
Age Band First Second Under 30 21.64% 11.96% 30-34 47.06% 16.91% 35-39 60.23% 20.20% 40-44 71.50% 26.61% 45-49 78.66% 36.04% 50-54 84.73% 62.87% 55-59 87.60% 69.82% 60-64 89.80% 81.57% 65-69 91.93% 88.28% 70-74 94.25% 92.21% 75-79 95.26% 93.38% 80 plus 95.00% 92.26%
I wonder who is more in danger of bad outcomes from catching Covid now, the average pensioner or the average 40 year old?
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
As the UK doesn't even pretend to meet its treaty obligations, we have to assume the EU would win any arbitration exercise. The problem with nuclear options however is that they tend to cause a lot of fallout and I think the UK government is factoring in EU not retaliating
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Considering that the EU was firmly saying only a few days ago they would, it seems to me the EU have already lost the sausage PR war.
Well done Boris. Time for all sides now to come up with a workable compromise that results in no border between GB and NI, and no border between NI and Eire, and leaves GB out of the EU's regulatory orbit. Compromise was only ever going to be the logcal endgame.
Seems to be the case. (Admittedly I only read English-language sources).
Biden is said also to have assured Boris that achieving a compromise with the EU will not prevent a trade deal with the US which could be ex-agriculture.
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
The entire urban planning profession disagrees with you.
Fine.
Far too much of the planning profession either profit from the current restrictions or has been taken over philosophically by extremists who think the car is a bad thing.
Shaking up a system is rarely popular with insiders.
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Doesn't American law put a very tight monetary restriction on gifts? I recall something like that from the West Wing. It means that the American President isn't allowed to accept expensive gifts and if they're given they end up in storage.
A framed photo print of an anti-slavery mural is probably something the President can actually accept and appreciate.
If it's really a $6k bike I think Boris won't be able to keep it either unless he buys it.
There was a very good Yes Minister once that turned on this point.
It’ll be worth more than $6k if he later sells it, so he’d be smart to buy it.
Borrow the money to buy it you mean. Are Wonga still on the go?
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
1) Cases more than doubled between 17th May and 2nd June 2) We are not seeing a matching take off in hospitalisations.
The problem we have is that if this delta variant is that infectious, then lifting restrictions on the 21st is going to turbo charge it, everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated / previously infected with Covid is going to get infected & then infections from the younger populiation (who mostly don’t end up in hospital) will spread into the corners of the older population who for whatever reasons have not been vaccinated.
Enormous pain to model these risks though. Hospitalisations could stay low for a while, we open up & then three weeks later: boom.
Get those jabs done people!
Where do you expect the boom in hospitalisations to come from?
The young? The antivaxxers?
The currently un-vaccinated older cohort who will pick it up from the mass-infections of the young. You’d have to do the detailed modelling based on current vaccination rates though.
(But the higher hospitalisation rates for Delta might mean more younger patients too - PHE is saying that we’re not seeing that here yet, which is good, but also surprisingly at odds with reports from elsewhere. I wonder what’s driving the difference?)
"the currently un-vaccinated older cohort"
AKA antivaxxers?
It would be quite something if it were the action/inaction of the anti vaxxers, who I presume to be anti lockdown, that led to us not being allowed the freedom we were promised. In other words, their policy of wanting to take responsibility for their own health rather than the nanny state interfere, has led to the state’s refusal to open up.
Bit like hard line Brexiteers refusing to vote for Mays deal. Can’t imagine the anti vaxxers will win though
The number of anti-vaxxers is smaller than their friends hope.
Unless they are all under 49, or something.....
Age Band First Second Under 30 21.64% 11.96% 30-34 47.06% 16.91% 35-39 60.23% 20.20% 40-44 71.50% 26.61% 45-49 78.66% 36.04% 50-54 84.73% 62.87% 55-59 87.60% 69.82% 60-64 89.80% 81.57% 65-69 91.93% 88.28% 70-74 94.25% 92.21% 75-79 95.26% 93.38% 80 plus 95.00% 92.26%
I wonder who is more in danger of bad outcomes from catching Covid now, the average pensioner or the average 40 year old?
Well, we do have this -
Would be nice if they did 40-64, but thanks
I asked the dashboard team at PHE for the breakout by 5 year intervals - which they now can do for deaths and cases. Apparently the hospital admissions data isn't available in that form and would require some vast effort in the depths of the NHS to achieve....
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
We are an independent state that should set our own policy.
We are (or were) a trading Nation that must comply with International standards
Sure. Doesn’t mean we have dynamic alignment.
But we HAVE dynamic alignment. Our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. Whats more the government insist our standards will only ever increase and not decrease. So we will stay dynamically aligned.
A smart government with a brain would recognise the practicalities and engage in realpolitik. Take all the headlines and plaudits, have a smooth Brexit that works straight out the box for even more plaudits, Brexit becomes a settled issue, move on.
At some point down the line we would have to deal with an alignment issue but that becomes someone else's problem. Instead we literally demanded 3rd country status for the UK and then immediately start screaming about how unfair the 3rd party rules are.
There is a huge difference
Dynamic alignment means the EU introduces a rule saying “all pigs must be inspected by EU market state based veterinarian before they can be sold anywhere in the world” and we have to impose that regulation in the UK, thereby destroying our domestic industry in one fell swoop.
Alignment means that we could - if we choose - introduce a rule that substitutes “UK based veterinarian”
I don’t understand how (a) you don’t see the difference and (b) you seem to assume that the EU wouldn’t use their dynamic alignment power in their interest and at our cost
That’s precisely why they want dynamic alignment - so they can introduce petty and vindictive rules aimed at punishing the UK for leaving the EU. They’re livid right now, that Brexit has not been a total disaster.
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Considering that the EU was firmly saying only a few days ago they would, it seems to me the EU have already lost the sausage PR war.
Well done Boris. Time for all sides now to come up with a workable compromise that results in no border between GB and NI, and no border between NI and Eire, and leaves GB out of the EU's regulatory orbit. Compromise was only ever going to be the logcal endgame.
Seems to be the case. (Admittedly I only read English-language sources).
Biden is said also to have assured Boris that achieving a compromise with the EU will not prevent a trade deal with the US which could be ex-agriculture.
Biden can say that, doesn't mean that the Senators from Iowa will agree with him.
One reason why an agreement with the USA isn't very likely either way any time soon.
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Really? Given the issue of princelings in mega cars in London, I am astonished that someone hasn't managed to write off his Veyron*, his mates Veyron, and a bunch of innocent passersby......
EDIT - Talking of idiots, a local fool has stuck an L badge on his Tesla P100D and is teaching his children to drive in it. Given that he also has one of those tiny Fiats, is this insane? Or is that just me?
We are an independent state that should set our own policy.
We are (or were) a trading Nation that must comply with International standards
Sure. Doesn’t mean we have dynamic alignment.
But we HAVE dynamic alignment. Our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. Whats more the government insist our standards will only ever increase and not decrease. So we will stay dynamically aligned.
A smart government with a brain would recognise the practicalities and engage in realpolitik. Take all the headlines and plaudits, have a smooth Brexit that works straight out the box for even more plaudits, Brexit becomes a settled issue, move on.
At some point down the line we would have to deal with an alignment issue but that becomes someone else's problem. Instead we literally demanded 3rd country status for the UK and then immediately start screaming about how unfair the 3rd party rules are.
There is a huge difference
Dynamic alignment means the EU introduces a rule saying “all pigs must be inspected by EU market state based veterinarian before they can be sold anywhere in the world” and we have to impose that regulation in the UK, thereby destroying our domestic industry in one fell swoop.
Alignment means that we could - if we choose - introduce a rule that substitutes “UK based veterinarian”
I don’t understand how (a) you don’t see the difference and (b) you seem to assume that the EU wouldn’t use their dynamic alignment power in their interest and at our cost
Charles you are a smart chap with real world experience so you know that what you are positing is pretty poor.
We have dynamic alignment right now. Our standards are their standards. We could reverse our demand to be a 3rd country and hey presto we have alignment.
Lets take your hypothetical. Remember that the EU is not the player here, the EEA is. Your hypothetical collapses the EEA as suddenly all the non-EU members have major problems in doing their trade as they do now. Its a literal straw man nonsense argument.
What absolutely could happen is that some proposed change is put forward and we agree to offer an equivalent that they they accept. You seem to be insisting that we HAVE to be able to massively diverge now even though we have no intention of doing so.
Lets work the problem and drop the rhetoric and the frankly sad point scoring. We need to trade. They need to trade. We knew the rules to the trade area before we left it, so being asked to comply is hardly a shock.
Since we're aligned now why can't the EU recognise that and tell the Joint Committee to recognise that, without any commitment to future alignment?
That they're not doing so is politics, nothing else. We have no reason to play into their politics.
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Considering that the EU was firmly saying only a few days ago they would, it seems to me the EU have already lost the sausage PR war.
Well done Boris. Time for all sides now to come up with a workable compromise that results in no border between GB and NI, and no border between NI and Eire, and leaves GB out of the EU's regulatory orbit. Compromise was only ever going to be the logcal endgame.
Wishful thinking, they are going to stick it to fatso.
At the risk of giving more grist to the Brexiters, while total goods trade with EU is down (compared with RoW) since Brexit, the % damage is far more on the import side.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Considering that the EU was firmly saying only a few days ago they would, it seems to me the EU have already lost the sausage PR war.
Well done Boris. Time for all sides now to come up with a workable compromise that results in no border between GB and NI, and no border between NI and Eire, and leaves GB out of the EU's regulatory orbit. Compromise was only ever going to be the logcal endgame.
Wishful thinking, they are going to stick it to fatso.
About as much chance of that as there is of Alex Salmond becoming First Minister.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Do we know whether children testing positive for COVID are presenting at hospital FOR COVID symptoms, or turning up at hospital with something else (eg broken bones) and being found to be positive on arrival testing? Humzah Useless got into a pickle the other day when he said "10 children in Scotland are in hospital because of COVID' - turned out none of them were in hospital because of COVID, but because of something else, and just happened to be COVID positive.
At the risk of giving more grist to the Brexiters, while total goods trade with EU is down (compared with RoW) since Brexit, the % damage is far more on the import side.
At the risk of giving more grist to the Brexiters, while total goods trade with EU is down (compared with RoW) since Brexit, the % damage is far more on the import side.
ie they are feeling the hit more than we are.
So far.
It will all get lost within covid impacts.
Yes, but the comparison with RoW should cancel that out (from an analytic perspective).
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
Deepti is even worse than Pagel in terms of having an agenda. She is best ignored.
Scientists have an agenda now Anabo? really? wow.
I wish someone had told me, because I have spent the last year believing every conclusion they have come to, without question. Except the horrible ones discredited by the experts on twitter, of course.
Oh wait. No, that's all of you, isn't it....? It's the other way around.
2/ At a day to day level the problems can really be summarised as follows: Firstly, not enough land is released for development. Central government pass the responsibility on to local auhtorities in a complicated and poorly understood local plan process, all of which is subject to challenge through judicial review etc; and many local authorities take 5-10 years to get a local plan in place, costing millions of pounds. When the land is finally released through a local plan, it can still take 10-20 years to get planning permission because people use it as a tool to revisit the principle of development and the same time consuming process of appeal and judicial review is used. It is easy to brush these objectors with the Nimby term but in many cases you would do exactly the same thing if it was your house that was going to be harmed. People understandably just used the tools that are available to them to influence the process.
The best way to solve the problem, in my view, is for the government to act more decisively and take difficult political decisions about growth. We had a big new towns programme in the 1960's and 1970's, largely facillitiated by central government, and as a result housebuilding was much higher. We can do something again, which would ease a lot of pressure on house prices and affordability.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Do we know whether children testing positive for COVID are presenting at hospital FOR COVID symptoms, or turning up at hospital with something else (eg broken bones) and being found to be positive on arrival testing? Humzah Useless got into a pickle the other day when he said "10 children in Scotland are in hospital because of COVID' - turned out none of them were in hospital because of COVID, but because of something else, and just happened to be COVID positive.
That absolute donkey is as good at health as he was at justice it seems. Amazing what brown nosing can do for political careers, the clown could not run a bath.
It sounds like the Commission is afraid of losing the sausage PR war:
@tconnellyRTE The UK is widely expected to unilaterally extend a grace period, agreed with the EU in December, which delays the ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from GB, and which expires on July 1.
However, it’s understood the EU’s main interlocutor @MarosSefcovic has advised member states the EU should avoid immediately responding with hard-hitting legal action, or even to retaliate by introducing tariffs or other measures through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Considering that the EU was firmly saying only a few days ago they would, it seems to me the EU have already lost the sausage PR war.
Well done Boris. Time for all sides now to come up with a workable compromise that results in no border between GB and NI, and no border between NI and Eire, and leaves GB out of the EU's regulatory orbit. Compromise was only ever going to be the logcal endgame.
Wishful thinking, they are going to stick it to fatso.
About as much chance of that as there is of Alex Salmond becoming First Minister.
We shall see. PS: You should know that he was FM so good to see you agree with me.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Do we know whether children testing positive for COVID are presenting at hospital FOR COVID symptoms, or turning up at hospital with something else (eg broken bones) and being found to be positive on arrival testing? Humzah Useless got into a pickle the other day when he said "10 children in Scotland are in hospital because of COVID' - turned out none of them were in hospital because of COVID, but because of something else, and just happened to be COVID positive.
What you are describing is happening throughout the NHS. All patients get regulalrly tested for Covid and if they test positive for Covid during their stay in hospital they are counted as Covid patients. As an example last week at Winchester hospital they had two Covid patients. Neither were in hospital for Covid and had no symptoms but both tested positive so were counted as Covid patients.
At the risk of giving more grist to the Brexiters, while total goods trade with EU is down (compared with RoW) since Brexit, the % damage is far more on the import side.
ie they are feeling the hit more than we are.
So far.
It will all get lost within covid impacts.
Yes, but the comparison with RoW should cancel that out (from an analytic perspective).
Only if there are no differences in the covid restrictions in EU v RoW and no differences in travel costs/delays/etc between them. In the short term at least I am fairly sure both sides will easily find plausible numbers to show Brexit is both an economic success and disaster. Fans will pick the ones on their side.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Do we know whether children testing positive for COVID are presenting at hospital FOR COVID symptoms, or turning up at hospital with something else (eg broken bones) and being found to be positive on arrival testing? Humzah Useless got into a pickle the other day when he said "10 children in Scotland are in hospital because of COVID' - turned out none of them were in hospital because of COVID, but because of something else, and just happened to be COVID positive.
What you are describing is happening throughout the NHS. All patients get regulalrly tested for Covid and if they test positive for Covid during their stay in hospital they are counted as Covid patients. As an example last week at Winchester hospital they had two Covid patients. Neither were in hospital for Covid and had no symptoms but both tested positive so were counted as Covid patients.
They should be included for cases and excluded for admissions. It's still useful to track as it gives an idea of hospital spread.
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Yep, was a proper write-off, but because they’ve gone up so much in value it was worth having McLaren replace 90% of it! He sold it for about £8m, they go for a lot more than that now.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Do we know whether children testing positive for COVID are presenting at hospital FOR COVID symptoms, or turning up at hospital with something else (eg broken bones) and being found to be positive on arrival testing? Humzah Useless got into a pickle the other day when he said "10 children in Scotland are in hospital because of COVID' - turned out none of them were in hospital because of COVID, but because of something else, and just happened to be COVID positive.
What you are describing is happening throughout the NHS. All patients get regulalrly tested for Covid and if they test positive for Covid during their stay in hospital they are counted as Covid patients. As an example last week at Winchester hospital they had two Covid patients. Neither were in hospital for Covid and had no symptoms but both tested positive so were counted as Covid patients.
iirc they only announced yesterday that they would be counting people in hospital directly with covid from those who just test + but are in for example a road accident.
At the risk of giving more grist to the Brexiters, while total goods trade with EU is down (compared with RoW) since Brexit, the % damage is far more on the import side.
ie they are feeling the hit more than we are.
So far.
I wonder what will happen when we (finally) implement the border checks & customs controls on their exports that have been in place on our exports since January 1?
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Really? Given the issue of princelings in mega cars in London, I am astonished that someone hasn't managed to write off his Veyron*, his mates Veyron, and a bunch of innocent passersby......
EDIT - Talking of idiots, a local fool has stuck an L badge on his Tesla P100D and is teaching his children to drive in it. Given that he also has one of those tiny Fiats, is this insane? Or is that just me?
The last time a McLaren F1 came up for auction was 2019 and it went for $25m...
This is absolutely the last thing the tories want. They are going to be fighting the next GE on a Labour Will Betray Brexit platform so they cannot let it recede in the national consciousness.
It's with a certain resigned sadness that I have to agree. The government has no incentive to reach pragmatic solutions with the EU on anything. Far better for them to foster an adversarial relationship. Eg this current nonsense of pretending they didn't realize the impact of the NI protocol. What a load of utterly palpable shit. But it's only obvious to geeks like us who follow things in detail. Most people don't and Johnson & Co know this. They also know that as the row develops they can rely on a rousing "Boris battles for the British banger" narrative from our godawful press. A narrative which will be lapped up by the folks who delivered his landslide and who, as long as they stay firm, will make him incredibly hard to shift.
Really hate writing posts like this. I want to be jaunty. I want to see the sun not the clouds.
Yes Minister, and the Great British Sausage, has much to answer for.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
Quite liked ‘Ship got real’. Be interesting to see who they get to play Aubrey & Maturin. Crowe and Bettany pretty much pulled it off and M&C is a very decent film even on its own terms.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
The death stat is deliberately misleading, it is tiny numbers / sample size.
Yup. Also 5-14 the cases are stable/dropping a bit. It's quite interesting, since all the other age groups are going up (or not going up) in proportion to the vaccination level in that group.
Half term holiday is probably the cause.
Yes, but failing to mention that is indicative of the bullshit/lying with stats.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
If the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped, then any number that happens is the right answer.
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
The entire urban planning profession disagrees with you.
Fine.
Far too much of the planning profession either profit from the current restrictions or has been taken over philosophically by extremists who think the car is a bad thing.
Shaking up a system is rarely popular with insiders.
To be fair mr Walker and living in an urban area where urban planners have been playing the last thing I would think of them as is either experts or professionals. The more likely phrase to pass my lips would be "What stupid idiot thought that was going to be a good idea"
Agree with your outline and your definition of ills.
I tend to think the simplest answer is that local authorities are mandated to maintain local plans which effectively prescribe types or characteristics of development which then become “pre-approved”.
The objective should be to take the risk (and hence the cost) out of the planning system.
Additionally a proactive social housing development programme is necessary as it appears that without it, market failure will inherently under-build.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
It's grossly irresponsible for anyone who claims to be a scientist to present numbers in such as way as to imply that vaccines don't work.
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
The entire urban planning profession disagrees with you.
Anyone follow @wrathofgnon on twatter? Very interesting things to say regarding housing density
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
But this is the main thing this government does. You are like a Zionist in the Hitler Youth, berating non-members for anti Semitism. There is of course a case for prioritising decent housing over landscape preservation. You make it as badly as possible, from the worst possible platform.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR If you want a delay to June 21st, This Covid way of life is suiting you right now. You have zero understanding of the businesses, operators and industries being affected.
“ It’s not just drinking at a bar” like the most arrogant of all arrogant journos will tweet.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
And the interesting thing is, the evidence from last September/October is that I actually think the public and media are both up for quite high levels.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
It's grossly irresponsible for anyone who claims to be a scientist to present numbers in such as way as to imply that vaccines don't work.
Wow. Scientists manipulate data now? astonishing.
But Gurdusani is a SENIOR LECTURER in epidemiology!!
These people only believe in the science. I read it from poster after poster after poster on here.
Experts only want your safety, they do not want lockdowns a minute longer than necessary. Repeatedly. On here.
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
But this is the main thing this government does. You are like a Zionist in the Hitler Youth, berating non-members for anti Semitism. There is of course a case for prioritising decent housing over landscape preservation. You make it as badly as possible, from the worst possible platform.
What a ridiculous Godwin. If there was a more economically liberal party than the Tories I'd be attracted to vote for them, unfortunately there is not.
How is a free market libertarian advocating a free market the worst possible platform? 🤔
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
If the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped, then any number that happens is the right answer.
Parliament needs a proper debate. Can't be left to Gove and Hancock to decide on their own. More balanced approach and a wider debate needed or we will never get out of this.
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
It's grossly irresponsible for anyone who claims to be a scientist to present numbers in such as way as to imply that vaccines don't work.
The antivaxxers and the zerocovidians are increasingly merging into one. Zerocovid is, as you imply, a credo that is necessarily sceptical of vaccines.
Both extremes are ugly stains on the national debate.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Completely agreed, albeit even if we stop population growth today that still won't reverse the housing crisis we have today.
We need either very rapid population decline to reverse the past decades of population growth, or your other two solutions.
If the Good Friday Agreement is at its root about giving equal legitimacy to unionist and nationalist positions, while accepting the status quo where Northern Ireland is part of the UK, then is it not the case that the problem is the EU's maximalist interpretation of the protocol and not the UK's minimalist interpretation?
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
If the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped, then any number that happens is the right answer.
Parliament needs a proper debate. Can't be left to Gove and Hancock to decide on their own. More balanced approach and a wider debate needed or we will never get out of this.
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
As I understand it restrictions will expire by law on 30 June so there will have to be a vote if they want to extend?
May's intervention overnight suggests a big rebellion is brewing...?? A rebellion she fancies being at the head of?
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Completely agreed, albeit even if we stop population growth today that still won't reverse the housing crisis we have today.
We need either very rapid population decline to reverse the past decades of population growth, or your other two solutions.
Quite liked ‘Ship got real’. Be interesting to see who they get to play Aubrey & Maturin. Crowe and Bettany pretty much pulled it off and M&C is a very decent film even on its own terms.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
But this is the main thing this government does. You are like a Zionist in the Hitler Youth, berating non-members for anti Semitism. There is of course a case for prioritising decent housing over landscape preservation. You make it as badly as possible, from the worst possible platform.
What a ridiculous Godwin. If there was a more economically liberal party than the Tories I'd be attracted to vote for them, unfortunately there is not.
How is a free market libertarian advocating a free market the worst possible platform? 🤔
It is quite possible that the LDs are now more pro-market than the current govt.
Philip T says he is a liberal but he is in fact a Tory-supporting libertarian.
Restriction on green belt building is simply about avoiding a “tragedy of the commons” which threatens to spoil the countryside for everyone.
There’s nothing inherently illiberal about it.
Maybe the greenbelt that was originally introduced, though it should have been shrunk with our increasing population since then.
Instead the greenbelt was expanded dramatically in the decades that followed and it has nothing to do with protecting the countryside and is everything to do with inflating house prices instead.
Perhaps...it both protects the countryside *and* inflates house prices? There is certainly a cost, but you ignore the benefit, ie the raison d’etre.
Because I don't believe its the raison d'etre. I believe it is an excuse peddled to protect house prices because people believe inflating house prices is a good thing for themselves. There is a reason when the green belt was originally introduced to protect the countryside it was a fraction of its current size.
The green belt has been abused in a way that is unjustifiable. Its no different in its economic illiberalism to trade unions in the seventies and other issues in the past. Start off with a decent concept, find out you can profit from it, then abuse it.
If you believe as I do in liberal market economics then the green belt should solely serve the purpose of protecting the countryside, not house prices. I would protect forests and areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, etc, etc - but developed farmland etc should be no different to brownfield sites.
As someone said above, you are a price of everything, value of nothing “economist”.
There might be technocratic arguments about how well the green belt works etc, but you aren’t interested.
That there are some (but not me!) who profit materially from its maintenance does not actually invalidate it.
Except that's not true. As I've said for legitimate AONB, forests etc, etc, etc I support maintaining protection over them.
The green belt as a tool to be exploited for nefarious other reasons though is not justified.
What is wrong with that?
Well you are just reduced to logical redundancies here. Nobody is going to agree with “nefarious reasons” whatever those are.
As to your concrete proposals, they don’t actually protect the outskirts of metros (ie prevent urban sprawl). So it’s not a green belt at all.
It’s fine, just say you are in favour of urban sprawl (which has environmental as well as aesthetic costs) but don’t pretend the whole thing is a rort.
I literally said I am in favour of urban sprawl already. Sprawl is better than cramming ever more people into impoverished slums.
There aren't environmental costs. The solution to the environment is net zero technologies, not getting decision makers living in high price, low density housing telling others to live in high density slums.
The whole thing is a rort if the reason behind it is to inflate house prices - and if the reason is to inflate house prices then that is nefarious plain and simple.
You support this government who delight in various schemes expressly designed to inflate house prices.
Urban sprawl has almost no supporters, because it imposes collective costs - environmental, congestion, and likely psychological - on everyone.
As for high density slums, are Notting Hill or South Ken slums? They are both high density, certainly for this country.
I don't support everything this government does. Where I disagree with it, I say so.
Urban sprawl works and it lowers congestion. Congestion is worse by cramming too many people into too limited a space.
But this is the main thing this government does. You are like a Zionist in the Hitler Youth, berating non-members for anti Semitism. There is of course a case for prioritising decent housing over landscape preservation. You make it as badly as possible, from the worst possible platform.
What a ridiculous Godwin. If there was a more economically liberal party than the Tories I'd be attracted to vote for them, unfortunately there is not.
How is a free market libertarian advocating a free market the worst possible platform? 🤔
It is quite possible that the LDs are now more pro-market than the current govt.
Any evidence of that?
Especially with respect to housing, which we're talking about? I'd love to see some free market liberalism from the Liberal Democrats there.
We are an independent state that should set our own policy.
We are (or were) a trading Nation that must comply with International standards
Sure. Doesn’t mean we have dynamic alignment.
But we HAVE dynamic alignment. Our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. Whats more the government insist our standards will only ever increase and not decrease. So we will stay dynamically aligned.
A smart government with a brain would recognise the practicalities and engage in realpolitik. Take all the headlines and plaudits, have a smooth Brexit that works straight out the box for even more plaudits, Brexit becomes a settled issue, move on.
At some point down the line we would have to deal with an alignment issue but that becomes someone else's problem. Instead we literally demanded 3rd country status for the UK and then immediately start screaming about how unfair the 3rd party rules are.
There is a huge difference
Dynamic alignment means the EU introduces a rule saying “all pigs must be inspected by EU market state based veterinarian before they can be sold anywhere in the world” and we have to impose that regulation in the UK, thereby destroying our domestic industry in one fell swoop.
Alignment means that we could - if we choose - introduce a rule that substitutes “UK based veterinarian”
I don’t understand how (a) you don’t see the difference and (b) you seem to assume that the EU wouldn’t use their dynamic alignment power in their interest and at our cost
Charles you are a smart chap with real world experience so you know that what you are positing is pretty poor.
We have dynamic alignment right now. Our standards are their standards. We could reverse our demand to be a 3rd country and hey presto we have alignment.
Lets take your hypothetical. Remember that the EU is not the player here, the EEA is. Your hypothetical collapses the EEA as suddenly all the non-EU members have major problems in doing their trade as they do now. Its a literal straw man nonsense argument.
What absolutely could happen is that some proposed change is put forward and we agree to offer an equivalent that they they accept. You seem to be insisting that we HAVE to be able to massively diverge now even though we have no intention of doing so.
Lets work the problem and drop the rhetoric and the frankly sad point scoring. We need to trade. They need to trade. We knew the rules to the trade area before we left it, so being asked to comply is hardly a shock.
Since we're aligned now why can't the EU recognise that and tell the Joint Committee to recognise that, without any commitment to future alignment?
That they're not doing so is politics, nothing else. We have no reason to play into their politics.
Both sides need to take a breath and calm down. We are saying we won't stick to our deal and they are responding and then we are responding to them responding and so on.
Someone (Biden?) needs to sit both sides down and look at what we are already agreed and aligned on whilst insisting that we are not. We want 3rd country status for a headline not to actually be treated like a 3rd country. They want to protect the single market without being forced to expel RoI from it.
As we largely wrote their standards and are pledged to remain at least at these standards until we improve them there is an obvious deal to be done. Drop all the terminology we're dying in ditches to defend and agree the practicalities.
If nothing else the Norniron situation will force this whether we want to or not. The not part of the UK status we signed onto for them is not remotely workable on any level. As both the GFA and the single market need to be protected then a classic grey fudge needs to be confected. Nobody needs to be concerned about the great british sausage infiltrating the EEA next month as their standards are our standards. Accept that, agree that neither side will arbitrarily massively diverge without telling the other and move on.
Yes that restricts us from not massively reducing our standards. Which we're pledged to not do. So our petulance towards the issue is arguing about our right to have babies when we can't have babies. Defending to the nth degree our right to do something we have no interest in doing is just stupid.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
I thought of that post when I saw your earlier %s one
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Must be a bunch of idiots paying top dollar to live in apartments close to me, then.
The “Nelson Mandela” tag suggests that your real objection is to 1970s brutalism and/or social housing.
If Boris really did not care about the Good Friday Agreement he would have gone to No Deal Brexit with the EU and imposed a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic patrolled by the armed forces and police with watch towers and border posts and customs checks. He would also then have shut down Stormont and imposed direct rule from Westminster.
The above might have been a DUP wet dream but would have been a disaster for the peace process
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Go move into a high rise yourself and then say that you raging hypocrite.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
If the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped, then any number that happens is the right answer.
Parliament needs a proper debate. Can't be left to Gove and Hancock to decide on their own. More balanced approach and a wider debate needed or we will never get out of this.
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
As I understand it restrictions will expire by law on 30 June so there will have to be a vote if they want to extend?
May's intervention overnight suggests a big rebellion is brewing...?? A rebellion she fancies being at the head of?
Indeed. Also, Lucy Powell didn't sound at all keen on QT on extending restrictions – maybe a straw in the wind. Maybe.
Agree with your outline and your definition of ills.
I tend to think the simplest answer is that local authorities are mandated to maintain local plans which effectively prescribe types or characteristics of development which then become “pre-approved”.
The objective should be to take the risk (and hence the cost) out of the planning system.
Additionally a proactive social housing development programme is necessary as it appears that without it, market failure will inherently under-build.
Yes - certainly when you look at housebuilding statistics, it seems that housebuilders will only build so much, the best way to increase it in purely numerical terms is by Councils (or some other social housing providers) taking up the slack; although for many years this was a politically toxic idea.
I think that in urban areas some kind of discretionary approval process is needed given the amount of issues that need to be given consideration in planning terms; I think there are limits to what being 'pre approved' can really mean. In many ways infill brownfield development can gets more complicated than building a housing estate on a field, it is really the latter that developers need more certainty over so housing delivery can be speeded up.
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Or - radical solution - redistribute the population. There are vast areas of the UK with a very light population density. As we can't practically keep cramming people into the densely populated areas we need to encourage the relocation of jobs into the places where we can accommodate more people.
The takeaway is surely this: get the AZ jabs out of the frigging warehouse and into young people TODAY. I am stupefied this is not happening
Remember it isn't even going against JCVI advice.
We will probably wait a couple more weeks, then do it...when if we had started a couple of weeks ago, by the time the 21st came, everybody would have had at least one shot + nearly everybody had the 3 week grace period.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
The population is growing. There are more people in the UK. The source of population is another issue.
There is a limit to how much you can build in London - up included. There is also the issue of quality of life. Cramming people in to smaller and smaller spaces has a noticeable effect.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Plenty of people would be happy to have an apartment in a Manhattan, Hong Kong or Singapore style skyscraper however, particularly younger people where demand for new housing is highest.
For a top global city London still has relatively few high-rise buildings
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
On maneuvers in Catterick. Look at the fucking size of him. The British public will not vote for a Borrower as PM. This has profound betting implications.
The takeaway is surely this: get the AZ jabs out of the frigging warehouse and into young people TODAY. I am stupefied this is not happening
What got me about AZ is that all evidence pointed out it was an issue for women not men. I know there are logistical reasons why you probably want 1 vaccine per age group but if supply is restricted it makes sense to use AZ on males where the risk doesn't exist.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Must be a bunch of idiots paying top dollar to live in apartments close to me, then.
The “Nelson Mandela” tag suggests that your real objection is to 1970s brutalism and/or social housing.
Well it was actually a reference to only fools and horses but take it as you will. I and most of my friends have at some point lived in flats and not particularly high rise ones. Mostly 7 floors or less. Myself being the exception as lived in hong kong for a couple of years as well. I don't know a single one however that would do so by choice if they can have a proper house
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
You just need to allocate more land for housing as part of a co-ordinated growth strategy. The solution is better planning.
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Or - radical solution - redistribute the population. There are vast areas of the UK with a very light population density. As we can't practically keep cramming people into the densely populated areas we need to encourage the relocation of jobs into the places where we can accommodate more people.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
It's grossly irresponsible for anyone who claims to be a scientist to present numbers in such as way as to imply that vaccines don't work.
The antivaxxers and the zerocovidians are increasingly merging into one. Zerocovid is, as you imply, a credo that is necessarily sceptical of vaccines.
Both extremes are ugly stains on the national debate.
It reminds me of the hardline Brexiteers and the Remainers who wouldn’t vote for Mays deal. Both wrong for different reasons
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
It is a diametric incorrectness to say that population isn't growing. Births per mother is only one factor.
In 2011 the UK population was roughly 63.2 m. In 2019 it was roughly 66.8 m.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
If the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped, then any number that happens is the right answer.
Parliament needs a proper debate. Can't be left to Gove and Hancock to decide on their own. More balanced approach and a wider debate needed or we will never get out of this.
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
As I understand it restrictions will expire by law on 30 June so there will have to be a vote if they want to extend?
May's intervention overnight suggests a big rebellion is brewing...?? A rebellion she fancies being at the head of?
Indeed. Also, Lucy Powell didn't sound at all keen on QT on extending restrictions – maybe a straw in the wind. Maybe.
The government was, in hindsight, unbelievably stupid to accept the fourth 'government by scary variant' condition for opening up.
It was clearly inserted by someone with an agenda who knew it meant control for ever.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Plenty of people would be happy to have an apartment in a Manhattan or Singapore style skyscraper however
Sure - and they are being built on every available piece of land. The thing is that they are not for everyone.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
The population is growing. There are more people in the UK. The source of population is another issue.
There is a limit to how much you can build in London - up included. There is also the issue of quality of life. Cramming people in to smaller and smaller spaces has a noticeable effect.
The relevant distinction is between population growth and household formation.
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
1) Cases more than doubled between 17th May and 2nd June 2) We are not seeing a matching take off in hospitalisations.
The problem we have is that if this delta variant is that infectious, then lifting restrictions on the 21st is going to turbo charge it, everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated / previously infected with Covid is going to get infected & then infections from the younger populiation (who mostly don’t end up in hospital) will spread into the corners of the older population who for whatever reasons have not been vaccinated.
Enormous pain to model these risks though. Hospitalisations could stay low for a while, we open up & then three weeks later: boom.
Get those jabs done people!
I am mightily pissed off to read the data (and I am struggling with my emotions in doing so) but I am forced to agree - extremely reluctantly. We need all 18+ year olds first dosed + 3 weeks.
We cannot under any circumstances go back into another lockdown.
Leading indie SAGE view on new PHE data - thread just in.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 3m PHE report on variants just out. Highlights: ->90% of cases across England now delta -delta ~66% more transmissible -Most cases are in school age children -30% deaths were among fully vaccinated and 17% in partly vaccinated -cases of delta sublineage with K417N mutation
"30% deaths were among fully vaccinated" given the age skew of vaccination that's amazing.
30% of a tiny number is a tiny number. That's wilfully misleading.
30% of 7 deaths (Yesterday's figure) = 2 deaths
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
It's grossly irresponsible for anyone who claims to be a scientist to present numbers in such as way as to imply that vaccines don't work.
The antivaxxers and the zerocovidians are increasingly merging into one. Zerocovid is, as you imply, a credo that is necessarily sceptical of vaccines.
Both extremes are ugly stains on the national debate.
It reminds me of the hardline Brexiteers and the Remainers who wouldn’t vote for Mays deal. Both wrong for different reasons
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Must be a bunch of idiots paying top dollar to live in apartments close to me, then.
The “Nelson Mandela” tag suggests that your real objection is to 1970s brutalism and/or social housing.
Well it was actually a reference to only fools and horses but take it as you will. I and most of my friends have at some point lived in flats and not particularly high rise ones. Mostly 7 floors or less. Myself being the exception as lived in hong kong for a couple of years as well. I don't know a single one however that would do so by choice if they can have a proper house
Precisely.
Anyone who from a detached home wishes to deny others the basic right to build and live in a detached home is every bit as much of a pulling the drawbridge up hypocrite as eg Diane Abbott having a go at the evils of private schooling, only to send her own children to a private school herself.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Go move into a high rise yourself and then say that you raging hypocrite.
If I was still in my 20s or early 30s I would be very happy to live in a London high rise apartment, I now live surrounded by greenbelt and want to protect it
Comments
We have dynamic alignment right now. Our standards are their standards. We could reverse our demand to be a 3rd country and hey presto we have alignment.
Lets take your hypothetical. Remember that the EU is not the player here, the EEA is. Your hypothetical collapses the EEA as suddenly all the non-EU members have major problems in doing their trade as they do now. Its a literal straw man nonsense argument.
What absolutely could happen is that some proposed change is put forward and we agree to offer an equivalent that they they accept. You seem to be insisting that we HAVE to be able to massively diverge now even though we have no intention of doing so.
Lets work the problem and drop the rhetoric and the frankly sad point scoring. We need to trade. They need to trade. We knew the rules to the trade area before we left it, so being asked to comply is hardly a shock.
(Admittedly I only read English-language sources).
Biden is said also to have assured Boris that achieving a compromise with the EU will not prevent a trade deal with the US which could be ex-agriculture.
Far too much of the planning profession either profit from the current restrictions or has been taken over philosophically by extremists who think the car is a bad thing.
Shaking up a system is rarely popular with insiders.
Are Wonga still on the go?
One reason why an agreement with the USA isn't very likely either way any time soon.
EDIT - Talking of idiots, a local fool has stuck an L badge on his Tesla P100D and is teaching his children to drive in it. Given that he also has one of those tiny Fiats, is this insane? Or is that just me?
That they're not doing so is politics, nothing else. We have no reason to play into their politics.
ie they are feeling the hit more than we are.
So far.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
I wish someone had told me, because I have spent the last year believing every conclusion they have come to, without question. Except the horrible ones discredited by the experts on twitter, of course.
Oh wait. No, that's all of you, isn't it....? It's the other way around.
At a day to day level the problems can really be summarised as follows: Firstly, not enough land is released for development. Central government pass the responsibility on to local auhtorities in a complicated and poorly understood local plan process, all of which is subject to challenge through judicial review etc; and many local authorities take 5-10 years to get a local plan in place, costing millions of pounds. When the land is finally released through a local plan, it can still take 10-20 years to get planning permission because people use it as a tool to revisit the principle of development and the same time consuming process of appeal and judicial review is used. It is easy to brush these objectors with the Nimby term but in many cases you would do exactly the same thing if it was your house that was going to be harmed. People understandably just used the tools that are available to them to influence the process.
The best way to solve the problem, in my view, is for the government to act more decisively and take difficult political decisions about growth. We had a big new towns programme in the 1960's and 1970's, largely facillitiated by central government, and as a result housebuilding was much higher. We can do something again, which would ease a lot of pressure on house prices and affordability.
PS: You should know that he was FM so good to see you agree with me.
An earlier working of mine
Covid is tested for by people of all ages, there's no particular age skew. The UK's crude (normal) death rate is around 9 people per 1000 in a year ( 90 per 10,000). There are 13 28 day blocks in a year which means around 7 deaths per 10,000 cases would die within a 28 day period anyway. Yesterday's "7" which probably arose from around 3,000 cases likely had perhaps 2 deaths that would have happened anyway.
From yesterday
Only taken 18 months to get that right.
A touch disappointing given the first session yesterday, but could have been much worse.
Advantage New Zealand I think though after the first innings.
After all American President use the Resolute Desk every day, when at home...
@andrew_lilico
I feel like we are still nowhere on debating the question: "How many hospitalisations per week, at peak, is acceptable for an Exit Wave if the NHS is not at any threat of being swamped?" That is *the* key qstn re whether we should proceed with Step 4 now.
Be interesting to see who they get to play Aubrey & Maturin. Crowe and Bettany pretty much pulled it off and M&C is a very decent film even on its own terms.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jun/08/avast-and-furious-will-it-be-a-triumphant-return-for-master-and-commander?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR33P8Qr2iuUatdjViuGXOElt0OavaXN0UZUmfW2_XY1wFMHAFH2vvMSDTE#Echobox=1623157895
Agree with your outline and your definition of ills.
I tend to think the simplest answer is that local authorities are mandated to maintain local plans which effectively prescribe types or characteristics of development which then become “pre-approved”.
The objective should be to take the risk (and hence the cost) out of the planning system.
Additionally a proactive social housing development programme is necessary as it appears that without it, market failure will inherently under-build.
Welcome to President of France @EmmanuelMacron, who has arrived in Cornwall ahead of the G7 Summit.
https://twitter.com/G7/status/1403300400934146048?s=20
And neatly illustrates BoZo's problem...
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing
- Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year
- Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
Adam Brooks
@EssexPR
If you want a delay to June 21st, This Covid way of life is suiting you right now.
You have zero understanding of the businesses, operators and industries being affected.
“ It’s not just drinking at a bar” like the most arrogant of all arrogant journos will tweet.
THINK
But Gurdusani is a SENIOR LECTURER in epidemiology!!
These people only believe in the science. I read it from poster after poster after poster on here.
Experts only want your safety, they do not want lockdowns a minute longer than necessary. Repeatedly. On here.
How is a free market libertarian advocating a free market the worst possible platform? 🤔
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
Both extremes are ugly stains on the national debate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
We need either very rapid population decline to reverse the past decades of population growth, or your other two solutions.
That's not a threat, it's just a scientific fact
I might put it on a placard and march around the North West
May's intervention overnight suggests a big rebellion is brewing...?? A rebellion she fancies being at the head of?
But we were all so excited about the Hundred....
Especially with respect to housing, which we're talking about? I'd love to see some free market liberalism from the Liberal Democrats there.
Someone (Biden?) needs to sit both sides down and look at what we are already agreed and aligned on whilst insisting that we are not. We want 3rd country status for a headline not to actually be treated like a 3rd country. They want to protect the single market without being forced to expel RoI from it.
As we largely wrote their standards and are pledged to remain at least at these standards until we improve them there is an obvious deal to be done. Drop all the terminology we're dying in ditches to defend and agree the practicalities.
If nothing else the Norniron situation will force this whether we want to or not. The not part of the UK status we signed onto for them is not remotely workable on any level. As both the GFA and the single market need to be protected then a classic grey fudge needs to be confected. Nobody needs to be concerned about the great british sausage infiltrating the EEA next month as their standards are our standards. Accept that, agree that neither side will arbitrarily massively diverge without telling the other and move on.
Yes that restricts us from not massively reducing our standards. Which we're pledged to not do. So our petulance towards the issue is arguing about our right to have babies when we can't have babies. Defending to the nth degree our right to do something we have no interest in doing is just stupid.
https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1403299554448007173?s=20
The takeaway is surely this: get the AZ jabs out of the frigging warehouse and into young people TODAY. I am stupefied this is not happening
The “Nelson Mandela” tag suggests that your real objection is to 1970s brutalism and/or social housing.
The above might have been a DUP wet dream but would have been a disaster for the peace process
https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/10/fda-accuses-company-of-distributing-unapproved-covid-test-using-falsified-data/
I think that in urban areas some kind of discretionary approval process is needed given the amount of issues that need to be given consideration in planning terms; I think there are limits to what being 'pre approved' can really mean. In many ways infill brownfield development can gets more complicated than building a housing estate on a field, it is really the latter that developers need more certainty over so housing delivery can be speeded up.
We will probably wait a couple more weeks, then do it...when if we had started a couple of weeks ago, by the time the 21st came, everybody would have had at least one shot + nearly everybody had the 3 week grace period.
There is a limit to how much you can build in London - up included. There is also the issue of quality of life. Cramming people in to smaller and smaller spaces has a noticeable effect.
For a top global city London still has relatively few high-rise buildings
On maneuvers in Catterick. Look at the fucking size of him. The British public will not vote for a Borrower as PM. This has profound betting implications.
In 2011 the UK population was roughly 63.2 m. In 2019 it was roughly 66.8 m.
It was clearly inserted by someone with an agenda who knew it meant control for ever.
We cannot under any circumstances go back into another lockdown.
Anyone who from a detached home wishes to deny others the basic right to build and live in a detached home is every bit as much of a pulling the drawbridge up hypocrite as eg Diane Abbott having a go at the evils of private schooling, only to send her own children to a private school herself.