It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
Oh.
"Ministers knew about the Indian variant on April 1. The public was told on April 15"
"The discovery of the Indian variant in Britain was not announced to the public by ministers for a fortnight while thousands of potentially infected people were allowed to enter the country.
"Ministers were given the news of the variant’s arrival on April 1 but no official statement was made until April 15. India was not placed on the red list banning travellers from the country for another eight days."
The thread on Twitter makes it clear that there was more than one Indian variant.
The variant identified by April 1st was B.1.167.1, which is not the dangerous 'Delta' strain and has different mutations.
I think the problem has been that the scientists have been advising action only when they have actual data and not on a hunch that 'something bad is happening'.
That's the real argument here I think. It turns out that if we'd done bit more panicking early and panicking often then we'd have done better throughout.
Which is presumably why we didn't drop restrictions yesterday. That lesson has been learnt, but too late.
There has to be an explanation that is more than just Boris wanted a trade deal
It is controversial, as Labour and others see it as a way of gaining political advantage which is fair enough
However, even on here today there has been counter evidence to the narrative about Boris's role in this and I doubt it will be resolved before the public enquiry responds, and that is a long time away
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
Oh.
"Ministers knew about the Indian variant on April 1. The public was told on April 15"
"The discovery of the Indian variant in Britain was not announced to the public by ministers for a fortnight while thousands of potentially infected people were allowed to enter the country.
"Ministers were given the news of the variant’s arrival on April 1 but no official statement was made until April 15. India was not placed on the red list banning travellers from the country for another eight days."
The thread on Twitter makes it clear that there was more than one Indian variant.
The variant identified by April 1st was B.1.167.1, which is not the dangerous 'Delta' strain and has different mutations.
I think the problem has been that the scientists have been advising action only when they have actual data and not on a hunch that 'something bad is happening'.
That's the real argument here I think. It turns out that if we'd done bit more panicking early and panicking often then we'd have done better throughout.
Which is presumably why we didn't drop restrictions yesterday. That lesson has been learnt, but too late.
But if we "panic at every new variant" we'll be in a state of continuous panic!
Yes, the government should have controlled the border better from the start - but there's a lot of hindsight going on - from a lot of the usual suspects.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
In Victorian/Edwardian times, very often the developer would build a street. Hence houses on neighbouring streets looking different. Sometimes they differ by which side of the road they are on - the developers bought one side of the road, each.
Absolutely!
And Victorian/Edwardian houses are considered generally much better than the boxes built by modern developers. The system then worked.
Having entire segments of a town tied up by a single monopolistic developer who bribes the right politicians gets approval is in nobodies interests but the politicians and the developer.
That so many people are so keen to defend a system that is broken instead of having more competition is bizarre.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
If we look at England, use NIMS data and aim for 90% first/second, as of the 10th June release we have
to go, until all adults are done. Which addd up to 8.6 million dosses required for over 40s - for England only. So well over 9 million for the whole country.
True, though it is estimated/alleged that there are 6 million or so doses of AZ in various reservoirs in the vaccination system, so we don't need that much more AZ than we already have.
And there are about 22 million jabs to be done for which current policy is to use not-AZ. And I think current supply for those is about 220k per day, 1.5 million or so a week.
If so, it's a fairly nasty supply-demand mismatch.
The vaccine pipelines are long - months. So when people talk about 6 million doses, do they mean - manufactured, tested, finished...... etc etc, delivered, stored in a freezer? This is what causes the silly stories in Italy etc about vaccine "hoards" - which all turned out to be vaccine in the pipeline.
The 24 million above to actually complete 2 doses for all 18-30 assumes 90% take-up.
Looking at the stats for the "mostly vaccinated" - it seems we are trending towards 90% take-up; it will be interesting to see if there is a tail-off lower down; I had always assumed ~80% factoring in about 5% fruitloopery, and 15% lethargy, so 90% is good.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
Yes, we need to do all we can to encourage self-building, which seems to happen well in most other parts of the world.
With regard to larger developments, the issue is more of land-banking and phased releasing by developers. Perhaps charging council tax on a development a year after planning permission is given, rather than after the building is occupied, might be a way forward - maybe with an escalator for unfinished units.
Agreed. Land banking only makes sense because owning the land with consent is valuable.
If the consent loses its value and the land is taxed then nobody would go near land until they're ready to build on it.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
Or perhaps more simply, get actual competition moving again in the house building market.
Time limited planning permission for example.
There's issues with that (I've learned so much about all the bloody headaches and tricks they try to pull)
- Do you put a time limit for completion? So you remove planning permission from houses that are nearly built? Or half-built? Or with the foundations laid? Or sewerage sorted out? - If you do the above, any re-application will sail through "This location is obviously suitable and acceptable because permission was granted before, all issues resolved, and there's a house already started" - If you make it "on starting the site," there are always ins and outs and loopholes for "making a substantive start." There's a site not for from where I'm sitting where "a substantive start" was made two years ago, and nothing has happened since (the developer is trying to sell the site on with planning permission) - If you are putting a time limit on completion, then there is a role for planning permission, anyway. Do you then ignore whether it's on a flood plain? Or whether there's any access to the development suitable for emergency vehicles? Or whether they're bulldozing an archeological site (Stonehenge could easily take 100 houses)? Or whether there's only one road between two towns that's already overcongested and you're going to double traffic on it?
John Rentoul Retweeted Eran Segal @segal_eran · 2h Israel: As of today, masks are no longer required
There are no remaining Covid-19 restrictions
How far behind are we on vaccines? Is this just because of delta here (and not there?)
Actually, UK is doing very well on vaccines. No countries of close to similar size are above UK in the league table.
Not only that - but we are pretty much "on plan" - the original projections showed that we would be in the tail-end of the programme by September 2021 and it looks like we probably will; in fact, we are probably ~2 months ahead of that original plan.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
This is pretty much the system in France with the Plan Local d’Urbanisme. Everything is zoned and you can build only in residential zones with the owner responsible for the cost of getting services to the site. When I built my house it was about 2 months from buying the land to getting the Permis de Construire so work could start.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So, decisions have to be taken locally, but there needs to be a right of appeal. For a right of appeal to be meaningful, there have to be objective rules about what can and cannot be allowed. These rules are set by local decision makers, following a process set out in law by central government, which takes account of information on how much development is needed. The right of appeal is to the secretary of state, who ultimately has decision making authority. They must provide reasons why something is or is not allowed, and if these are inadequate or irrational then they can be overturned in the courts.
That is the system that already exists. By all means the structure of the system can be changed and it constantly is, and is going to be again in the forthcoming planning bill. But my point is that it is no answer to give absolute power to local decision makers, just as it is no answer to remove all controls on development.
Well indeed.
Rochdale is getting himself tied into knots because he hates the Tories and is wilfully trying to twist everything so that he can end up at his predetermined outcome of "Tories = Bad"
Politicians get involved? How dare you! Tories bad. Politicians get taken out of the equation? How dare you! Tories bad.
I think it is clear at least that it is desirable for politicians to get involved in decisions about what development takes place.
Why?
Because there would be externalities, many of them negative (noise, light, emissions pollution, wear and tear of access roads, amenity utilisation, etc).
A housing development of the type of 50 houses on @moonshine's land would be a private good but utilise public resources. Hence it would require public input, ideally via the neighbourhood plan on upwards.
And in your world if there were no amenities then people would improvise, setting up their own generators, digging latrines, etc so those externalities would multiply.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Here's a simple question, why did the government put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list before India despite them having fewer cases than India?
Yep - thats fair, although they claim it was down to positivity rates, not cases, and this is because every countries testing is different. I don't know if that is correct, but the allegation that it was bound up in the Trade deal/visit etc is just that - an allegation.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
Oh.
"Ministers knew about the Indian variant on April 1. The public was told on April 15"
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
No. It’s boosted executive power in UK, not parliamentary power. That is little net change in terms of democracy.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
This is pretty much the system in France with the Plan Local d’Urbanisme. Everything is zoned and you can build only in residential zones with the owner responsible for the cost of getting services to the site. When I built my house it was about 2 months from buying the land to getting the Permis de Construire so work could start.
Yes.
You and I rarely see eye to eye on many issues but this is precisely it.
When you built your house you built your house I'm assuming and not a development of thousands of houses. Tying up everything into politics and developers is what is causing the issue - just zone appropriately then let individuals and the market decide.
If you want to zone a flood plain as unsuitable then do that. If you want to zone thousands of houses as suitable then do that. No need for one single developer spending millions on bribes to friendly polticians years and years in planning wrangles to get it done.
No, that is OUR mistake - if it is a mistake. We voted for it. The British people. Deal with it and move on
This is a different beast. Everyone in the country was screaming for Boris to close down flights from India. He did not
The same people that voted for Brexit voted for BoZo
On that basis he is "our" mistake
You really need to shut up about Brexit now. Not for us, for you. You're lurching into bathos. It is done, it happened, it is both good and bad, it is done. History
You risk becoming one of those people who adopted a youthful tribal identity - but never let it go, in an embarrassing way. The 60 year old punk rocker on the King's Road last week, the pensionable Hell's Angel too stiff to climb on his rusted Harley, Simon Le Bon.
Worse than that....the 60 year old fat balding wannabe "mods" scooter lot....still believing they are still definitely as cool and sexy as they were in their 20s, hanging around hoping some young blonde thing wants to go for a ride on the back of their 50cc scooter .
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
Believe it or not, I tend to agree with all of that.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)). The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season). There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
But, but that doesn't fit the narrative that its all Johnson's fault cos trade deal...
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
No. It’s boosted executive power in UK, not parliamentary power. That is little net change in terms of democracy.
The decision on whether to agree the deal rests entirely with Parliament, not the executive.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Because we’re going to keep doing this: trade deals don’t do very much for aggregate GDP either positively or negatively. This is b’cos in practice the main benefits still come from tariff reduction (the other stuff is hard to gage), and tariffs are generally quite low....
...That doesn’t mean they are not worth doing. They can still be very useful for some businesses; unlock peripheral opportunities around visas and the like; strengthen relationships between countries and can create political benefits.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
Believe it or not, I tend to agree with all of that.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)). The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season). There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
How quick and easy is it for someone who wants to build a single home in your NDP zone to get approval?
EG Dura_Ace took 2 months in France to go from starting the process to being able to start construction. If someone wants to build a single home in your zone how long would it take them where you are?
Or is it all tied to developers doing large developments?
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
There is no single country in the world where this 'free market' in relation to land and planning exists. It is a recurring fantasy of free marketeers. They believe they have the answer, but then rather than looking seriously at what happens in the real world (including historical experience, experience of other countries including supposedly free market utopias like Singapore and the USA, etc etc) they prefer to escape with their fantasy intact. There is really very little point in arguing over it, it is like arguing about the existence of Jesus with Christian fundamentalists.
If my momory serves me correctly the Lib Dems usually release their "internal" polling/canvassing figures saying they are in the lead, 2 or 3 evenings before the by election day, ie last night or tonight. Therefore if nothing releeased by this evening the Cons are probably home and dry, just thinking.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
But, but that doesn't fit the narrative that its all Johnson's fault cos trade deal...
Don't let facts get in the way of speculation!
The government does bear responsibility for its shambolic handling of the border - but they closed it to India a fortnight before Delta was known to be a threat.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
Firstly I didn’t miss it. I acknowledged step toward democracy. But to lift the same powers from one executive to another is not a huge democratic step.
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
Believe it or not, I tend to agree with all of that.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)). The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season). There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
How quick and easy is it for someone who wants to build a single home in your NDP zone to get approval?
EG Dura_Ace took 2 months in France to go from starting the process to being able to start construction. If someone wants to build a single home in your zone how long would it take them where you are?
Or is it all tied to developers doing large developments?
It takes almost no time at all to get permission (following the consultation process) for building if it's within the Neighbourhood Plan. If it is not within it then planning is usually granted ("there is a presumption in favour of granting permission" - a council leader) but after some back and forth with the locals who have objected.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
There is no single country in the world where this 'free market' in relation to land and planning exists. It is a recurring fantasy of free marketeers. They believe they have the answer, but then rather than looking seriously at what happens in the real world (including historical experience, experience of other countries including supposedly free market utopias like Singapore and the USA, etc etc) they prefer to escape with their fantasy intact. There is really very little point in arguing over it, it is like arguing about the existence of Jesus with Christian fundamentalists.
Actually in most of the world zoning like I described is quite standard.
Indeed as has already been said it is what exists even in France - not exactly a free market utopia!
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
I'm sure you do.
Just as in the 80s some preferred to listen to the miners.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
Believe it or not, I tend to agree with all of that.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)). The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season). There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
How quick and easy is it for someone who wants to build a single home in your NDP zone to get approval?
EG Dura_Ace took 2 months in France to go from starting the process to being able to start construction. If someone wants to build a single home in your zone how long would it take them where you are?
Or is it all tied to developers doing large developments?
It's mainly tied to developers. Single houses outside of the NDP zone can still go through (I helped one resident on this late last year). They were running into problems, because the NPPF actually refused to let them build (it tends to be more suited to developers than individual people) on the argument that it was "outside the built-up area of the village"
I considered that to be crap, and even took to the air to get aerial photos of their plot to show it was within the village bounds. Seeing as it was a sustainable design, they'd got all their neighbours on board, and it was their land (and we need more housing), I considered the planning outcome by following the NPPF to be a pile of crap and the Planning Committee managed to push it through.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
No. It’s boosted executive power in UK, not parliamentary power. That is little net change in terms of democracy.
The decision on whether to agree the deal rests entirely with Parliament, not the executive.
I'd love moaning remainers to sign up to a pledge that Britain's rejoining of the EU must be negotiated by the Parliament as a whole with no role for the executive.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
But, but that doesn't fit the narrative that its all Johnson's fault cos trade deal...
Don't let facts get in the way of speculation!
The government does bear responsibility for its shambolic handling of the border - but they closed it to India a fortnight before Delta was known to be a threat.
The border closure...its an all or nothing....you only know its a problem, when its a problem. There are loads of new variants all the time, and until many weeks / months later does the science tell you if it is actually worse than the one you already have.
We have previously been told about how a whole host of other variants are worse, but they got here and didn't spread, because Cockney Covid went oi you f##k off, I run this manner.
It is why revolving airbridge policy is so flawed.
Worse than that....the 60 year old fat balding wannabe "mods" scooter lot....still believing they are still definitely as cool and sexy as they were in their 20s, hanging around hoping some young blonde thing wants to go for a ride on the back of their 50cc scooter .
I have a Honda Grom with a 300cc engine from a CBR300R in it. It'll do 100mph and wheelie in 3rd gear.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
Believe it or not, I tend to agree with all of that.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)). The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season). There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
How quick and easy is it for someone who wants to build a single home in your NDP zone to get approval?
EG Dura_Ace took 2 months in France to go from starting the process to being able to start construction. If someone wants to build a single home in your zone how long would it take them where you are?
Or is it all tied to developers doing large developments?
It's mainly tied to developers. Single houses outside of the NDP zone can still go through (I helped one resident on this late last year). They were running into problems, because the NPPF actually refused to let them build (it tends to be more suited to developers than individual people) on the argument that it was "outside the built-up area of the village"
I considered that to be crap, and even took to the air to get aerial photos of their plot to show it was within the village bounds. Seeing as it was a sustainable design, they'd got all their neighbours on board, and it was their land (and we need more housing), I considered the planning outcome by following the NPPF to be a pile of crap and the Planning Committee managed to push it through.
So sounds like it may be a step in the right direction but still not ideal by any means.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
No. It’s boosted executive power in UK, not parliamentary power. That is little net change in terms of democracy.
The decision on whether to agree the deal rests entirely with Parliament, not the executive.
I'd love moaning remainers to sign up to a pledge that Britain's rejoining of the EU must be negotiated by the Parliament as a whole with no role for the executive.
Safest guarantee of Brexit we could ever have.
They made a pretty good effort to amend the Brexit deal line by line, and we saw how that ended up!
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
Actually if you read the article, it’s obvious why Australia banned entry from India, namely that regardless of percentages infected, India was already a significant source of infection.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1. Pakistan and Bangladesh were on the red list April 9.
When the red list was published, it was explained that it was based on the “number of variants” coming in from the relevant countries.
1. At the time, passengers inbound from India were already *showing the same levels of infection* as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
2. At the time, for the period Mar 25-Apr 7, PHE identified 50 variants coming in from India, versus 12 for Bangladesh and 6 for Pakistan.
There was considerable speculation in the press at India’s omission. Already by this time there were news reports about India’s overloaded cemeteries.
In the week up to April 19, press openly speculated that the reason was Johnson’s forthcoming summit with Modi.
Johnson finally announced India’s red listing April 19, but gave three day’s notice and this seems to have triggered a burst of tens of thousands of passengers returning from India in that period.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
I'm sorry, but this is naive. The issue is whether we wish to maintain higher legally required standards than Australia, on welfare, health and environmental grounds. If we decide that we're fine with packing animals into feedlots and spraying them indiscriminately with antibiotics in case the overcrowding produces rampant infections, then food will become (somewhat) cheaper, and British beef farmers may or may not survive. Logic would suggest that we should abolish the standards for British farmers too, so they can compete on a level playing field as you imply. Saying "compete, but on conditions that make you uncompetitive" is surely unfair. from the most free-market perspective?
That, however, would contradict the stated Government policy of maintaining our standards. There is therefore a fudge to protect British farmers, but only for 15 years, and a vague and seemingly implausible suggestion that farmer will be helped to find new markets for high-welfare products in Asia.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
Firstly I didn’t miss it. I acknowledged step toward democracy. But to lift the same powers from one executive to another is not a huge democratic step.
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
Firstly yes it is, to go from an unelected executive to an elected one is a massive democratic step.
Secondly yes we do. We elect MPs to Parliament but the MPs campaign at elections about forming a government. People can vote accordingly based upon what form of government they want.
Thirdly: No. Having one set of bureaucrats that answer to our politicians seems more cost-efficient than having a layer of our own bureaucrats interacting with a layer of transcontinental bureaucrats. Especially considering we were net contributers to the EU's bureaucrats that were layered on top of our own. If our own were abolished if we were in the EU your point might be valid, but it never was.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
I'm sorry, but this is naive. The issue is whether we wish to maintain higher legally required standards than Australia, on welfare, health and environmental grounds. If we decide that we're fine with packing animals into feedlots and spraying them indiscriminately with antibiotics in case the overcrowding produces rampant infections, then food will become (somewhat) cheaper, and British beef farmers may or may not survive. Logic would suggest that we should abolish the standards for British farmers too, so they can compete on a level playing field as you imply. Saying "compete, but on conditions that make you uncompetitive" is surely unfair. from the most free-market perspective?
That, however, would contradict the stated Government policy of maintaining our standards. There is therefore a fudge to protect British farmers, but only for 15 years, and a vague and seemingly implausible suggestion that farmer will be helped to find new markets for high-welfare products in Asia.
I would expect there will be plenty of demand for high quality British produce in Australia and beyond
The farmers can get in the long queue to have their arseholes slayed by Johnson's suppurating cock. Behind Arcuri, "business", the fisherpeople, Arcuri again on the couch and the one with the violin.
Yes, it was all going so well – until last week. The week he decided to alienate a large swathe of women in his own party and many thousands outside it.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Having been a town councillor looking at planning proposals and married to a borough councillor doing the same I am well aware of what local planning officers and committees can do. I'd have said "galaxy-sized" egos but I take his point.
Thing is that if planning decisions get made locally then its far easier to have direct accountability than when the council is overruled by the Secretary of State. Yes donations get made even at local level that raise eyebrows but that doesn't change the democratic mandate they have to seek.
It is far far easier to remove councillors of questionable decision-making prowess and/or morality than it is a Secretary of State. We need more power and accountability at local level, not less.
If PB Tories doesn't understand that then more fool them. Not everyone with an interest in politics inhabits the same moral cesspit as Johnson's Tory Party.
So you want all planning decisions to be taken by locally elected councillors, with no right of appeal. What would happen if they never approved any development?
I didn't say no right of appeal. I want a planning system that isn't rigged to the developers and against councils. I keep having to make the same point - the only way to stop developers building houses is to let developers build houses. Unless your local plan has enough houses being built then developers win every appeal by default. And how many houses are being built is up to the developers who sit on planning permission given without always actually building.
Let them appeal against a planning system not built to favour them. And an end to the government that takes significant donations from developers overruling everyone.
So you want allegedly corrupt Councillors being able to make the decisions?
Either you want politicians to make the decisions, in which case there will always be the possibility for alleged corruption.
Or you want decisions made automatically by predetermined standards or by supply and demand or something else, in which case politicians aren't involved and there can't be alleged corruption.
Which is it?
Which is it? I think its Philip strawman number 3,754.
If you want an open market let the developers build in your personal garden then why not go and campaign for it? You won't get elected.
If its my personal garden and I own the land then it would be my choice as to whether they develop or not. What's the issue with that? If I choose to let people build in my land then that's my choice and who should I complain to that I permitted a building and now I'm not happy with that?
If its not land you own, its not your personal garden is it?
For someone that is smart, your thinking can be quite childish about this. I own the field next to my house. If I wanted to, I could buy a few more adjacent quite cheaply. Would it be right to then plonk 50 new households there, on a windy narrow country lane, with no public service amenities within range? Much less that the land is of environmental and archeological value, when there are plenty of locations with none.
The current planning system is far from perfect. But anyone with even a passing interest in the free market understands that it comes with market failures, that sometimes requires state intervention to correct. The balance today might not be the correct one but to pretend that there isn’t a balance to be struck is puerile.
I have said all along that my preferred system is one of zoning. Land that is legitimately unfit for construction due to archeological or environmental reasons is zoned as such and its a non-issue then.
However if there's no legitimate archeological or environmental reasons and 50 households want to move in to that field and you're prepared to sell your field then sure, let that happen. However if there's no public amenities then the households probably won't want to move in, so its moot.
Or deal with amenities in response to what happens. You don't need to be stuck in the past.
The issue wrecking our housing system is consent artificially inflating the value of land depending upon whether it has consent or not. If consent ceases to be valuable then buying land to not build on it becomes utterly uneconomic and what is constructed becomes based upon the value added of construction and not the value added of getting consent and sitting on it.
There is no single country in the world where this 'free market' in relation to land and planning exists. It is a recurring fantasy of free marketeers. They believe they have the answer, but then rather than looking seriously at what happens in the real world (including historical experience, experience of other countries including supposedly free market utopias like Singapore and the USA, etc etc) they prefer to escape with their fantasy intact. There is really very little point in arguing over it, it is like arguing about the existence of Jesus with Christian fundamentalists.
Actually in most of the world zoning like I described is quite standard.
Indeed as has already been said it is what exists even in France - not exactly a free market utopia!
You aren't arguing for zoning though. You are arguing for a free market in land and planning, where all land is developable unless there are constraints that make it impossible to do so.
Zoning is just a procedural tool, it makes no difference. You can zone as much or as little land as you want.
Under the agreement, Brits under the age of 35 will be able to travel and work in Australia more freely, opening exciting opportunities for young people.
Does anyone on the negotiating team have a sprog who fancies a gap year down under without having to work on a farm?
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
Firstly I didn’t miss it. I acknowledged step toward democracy. But to lift the same powers from one executive to another is not a huge democratic step.
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
Firstly yes it is, to go from an unelected executive to an elected one is a massive democratic step.
Secondly yes we do. We elect MPs to Parliament but the MPs campaign at elections about forming a government. People can vote accordingly based upon what form of government they want.
Thirdly: No. Having one set of bureaucrats that answer to our politicians seems more cost-efficient than having a layer of our own bureaucrats interacting with a layer of transcontinental bureaucrats. Especially considering we were net contributers to the EU's bureaucrats that were layered on top of our own. If our own were abolished if we were in the EU your point might be valid, but it never was.
Well no actually, the only honest way to describe Brexit is it is financially more expensive, BUT with huge strides in democracy and freedom - such as to negotiate our own deals with China for our infrastructure investment that we can’t afford ourselves.
You have to quietly retire the cake and eat it Brexit surely - freedoms, democracy, AND more money to spend in our run down area’s, because going forward it will be fundamentally proved to be more expensive, making that part of the equation look like a bit of a fib if you keep calling it?
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
I'm sorry, but this is naive. The issue is whether we wish to maintain higher legally required standards than Australia, on welfare, health and environmental grounds. If we decide that we're fine with packing animals into feedlots and spraying them indiscriminately with antibiotics in case the overcrowding produces rampant infections, then food will become (somewhat) cheaper, and British beef farmers may or may not survive. Logic would suggest that we should abolish the standards for British farmers too, so they can compete on a level playing field as you imply. Saying "compete, but on conditions that make you uncompetitive" is surely unfair. from the most free-market perspective?
If we wanted to make antibiotic use a determining factor in deciding trade policy, from which region would we want to reduce imports?
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
Yes, we need to do all we can to encourage self-building, which seems to happen well in most other parts of the world.
With regard to larger developments, the issue is more of land-banking and phased releasing by developers. Perhaps charging council tax on a development a year after planning permission is given, rather than after the building is occupied, might be a way forward - maybe with an escalator for unfinished units.
Councils like phased, too.
It makes things like changes to schools evolutionary.
From what I see it is very common for many different developers to have smaller areas of a larger development.
>It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis.
I think that the above testifies more to a financialised housing market. Get rid of task breaks on unearned profit, then rebalance Council Tax is a more appropriate manner, and much of this will evolve out.
Plus continue to address supply, of course.
The estate near me that I took through planning 9 years ago has a range of prices from £145k to £240k, for a mix if houses chosen according to the housing need assessment by the local council - which controls the mix.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
Firstly I didn’t miss it. I acknowledged step toward democracy. But to lift the same powers from one executive to another is not a huge democratic step.
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
Firstly yes it is, to go from an unelected executive to an elected one is a massive democratic step.
Secondly yes we do. We elect MPs to Parliament but the MPs campaign at elections about forming a government. People can vote accordingly based upon what form of government they want.
Thirdly: No. Having one set of bureaucrats that answer to our politicians seems more cost-efficient than having a layer of our own bureaucrats interacting with a layer of transcontinental bureaucrats. Especially considering we were net contributers to the EU's bureaucrats that were layered on top of our own. If our own were abolished if we were in the EU your point might be valid, but it never was.
Well no actually, the only honest way to describe Brexit is it is financially more expensive, BUT with huge strides in democracy and freedom - such as to negotiate our own deals with China for our infrastructure investment that we can’t afford ourselves.
You have to quietly retire the cake and eat it Brexit surely - freedoms, democracy, AND more money to spend in our run down area’s, because going forward it will be fundamentally proved to be more expensive, making that part of the equation look like a bit of a fib if you keep calling it?
So far, our democracy has actually degraded. So we can - for now - strike that one off.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
I'm sorry, but this is naive. The issue is whether we wish to maintain higher legally required standards than Australia, on welfare, health and environmental grounds. If we decide that we're fine with packing animals into feedlots and spraying them indiscriminately with antibiotics in case the overcrowding produces rampant infections, then food will become (somewhat) cheaper, and British beef farmers may or may not survive. Logic would suggest that we should abolish the standards for British farmers too, so they can compete on a level playing field as you imply. Saying "compete, but on conditions that make you uncompetitive" is surely unfair. from the most free-market perspective?
That, however, would contradict the stated Government policy of maintaining our standards. There is therefore a fudge to protect British farmers, but only for 15 years, and a vague and seemingly implausible suggestion that farmer will be helped to find new markets for high-welfare products in Asia.
I agree.
Let the consumer decide, if they want to buy Red Tractor meat they can do so.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
There, I agree. It's one reason for our push to get supported-self-build going. Approve an entire area and sort out the archeological, environmental, access, infrastructure issues, and get a list of builders and potential designs and put those who'd like to self-build (from any degree from "pick a house from a list and select the builder" to "design it yourself within these guidelines"
One thing that would, in my opinion, really help against the NIMBY tendency is for infrastructure to lead development rather than lag development. If you're always playing catch-up, then as long as development hasn't actually stalled, you've always got overloaded infrastructure. It's very short-term thinking.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
So if Wales doesn't have a competitive advantage why should the Welsh be doing it rather than Kiwis?
Sage scientist Professor Graham Medley has been setting out the reasons behind the government's decision to delay.
Asked whether the country could have returned to hundreds of Covid deaths a day again had the remaining coronavirus restrictions been ended, Prof Medley he tells BBC Radio 4's Today: "Oh easily. I think we still might at some point."
100s a day....easily....not worst case...easily...where from....if the vaccine is 98/99% against severe illness, where are all these deaths coming from?
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
In Victorian/Edwardian times, very often the developer would build a street. Hence houses on neighbouring streets looking different. Sometimes they differ by which side of the road they are on - the developers bought one side of the road, each.
Absolutely!
And Victorian/Edwardian houses are considered generally much better than the boxes built by modern developers. The system then worked.
Having entire segments of a town tied up by a single monopolistic developer who bribes the right politicians gets approval is in nobodies interests but the politicians and the developer.
That so many people are so keen to defend a system that is broken instead of having more competition is bizarre.
Victorian construction standards are hugely flattered by survivorship bias. But I wouldn't touch a new build put up by any of the major developers.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
There, I agree. It's one reason for our push to get supported-self-build going. Approve an entire area and sort out the archeological, environmental, access, infrastructure issues, and get a list of builders and potential designs and put those who'd like to self-build (from any degree from "pick a house from a list and select the builder" to "design it yourself within these guidelines"
One thing that would, in my opinion, really help against the NIMBY tendency is for infrastructure to lead development rather than lag development. If you're always playing catch-up, then as long as development hasn't actually stalled, you've always got overloaded infrastructure. It's very short-term thinking.
I have long meant to do a thread header on this very subject. Once again turning to look at our neighbours in Europe - and particularly in the Netherlands and Belgium - there are some excellent examples of this working extremely well in practice. Breaking the stranglehold that large developers have on our planning and building process seems to me to be an excellent first move in improving our housing stock and build rates.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
It was known, but not a VOC. You’ve snipped the rest of my timeline which I presume you don’t quarrel with.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta.
The issue is that India should have been on the red list because it was already a comparative source of infection to its neighbours, and more besides a significant source of new variants (whether concerning or not).
Does anyone on the negotiating team have a sprog who fancies a gap year down under without having to work on a farm?
The UK government succeeded in removing the rule that obliges Brits on 12-month working visas in Australia to work for 88 days on farms if they wish to stay another year. A new agriculture visa will be created instead.
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
You what?
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
Firstly I didn’t miss it. I acknowledged step toward democracy. But to lift the same powers from one executive to another is not a huge democratic step.
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
Firstly yes it is, to go from an unelected executive to an elected one is a massive democratic step.
Secondly yes we do. We elect MPs to Parliament but the MPs campaign at elections about forming a government. People can vote accordingly based upon what form of government they want.
Thirdly: No. Having one set of bureaucrats that answer to our politicians seems more cost-efficient than having a layer of our own bureaucrats interacting with a layer of transcontinental bureaucrats. Especially considering we were net contributers to the EU's bureaucrats that were layered on top of our own. If our own were abolished if we were in the EU your point might be valid, but it never was.
Well no actually, the only honest way to describe Brexit is it is financially more expensive, BUT with huge strides in democracy and freedom - such as to negotiate our own deals with China for our infrastructure investment that we can’t afford ourselves.
You have to quietly retire the cake and eat it Brexit surely - freedoms, democracy, AND more money to spend in our run down area’s, because going forward it will be fundamentally proved to be more expensive, making that part of the equation look like a bit of a fib if you keep calling it?
Why would it be more expensive? We were paying billions net into Europe that we weren't getting back.
The Remainers argument against £350mn per week was "no you're wrong, it is only £250mn per week".
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
There, I agree. It's one reason for our push to get supported-self-build going. Approve an entire area and sort out the archeological, environmental, access, infrastructure issues, and get a list of builders and potential designs and put those who'd like to self-build (from any degree from "pick a house from a list and select the builder" to "design it yourself within these guidelines"
One thing that would, in my opinion, really help against the NIMBY tendency is for infrastructure to lead development rather than lag development. If you're always playing catch-up, then as long as development hasn't actually stalled, you've always got overloaded infrastructure. It's very short-term thinking.
I have long meant to do a thread header on this very subject. Once again turning to look at our neighbours in Europe - and particularly in the Netherlands and Belgium - there are some excellent examples of this working extremely well in practice. Breaking the stranglehold that large developers have on our planning and building process seems to me to be an excellent first move in improving our housing stock and build rates.
Please do.
It’s one of the key lags on our economic productivity and we can’t afford such luxuries post Brexit.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
Basically no tarrifs and no quotas (with a 15 year taper for agriculture from our side), lots for services, recognition of qualifications and expansion of visas.
The Scotch whisky industry should be happy (even if the Scottish government will find a way to complain), as should car makers (there’s none in Australia any more), services and technology companies.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
It was known, but not a VOC. You’ve snipped the rest of my timeline which I presume you don’t quarrel with.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta.
The issue is that India should have been on the red list because it was already a comparative source of infection to its neighbours, and more besides a significant source of new variants (whether concerning or not).
This was known by April 9.
The decision was made on April 2 not April 9, but either way that's just not true.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
So if Wales doesn't have a competitive advantage why should the Welsh be doing it rather than Kiwis?
Farmers maintain the countryside at the cost of meat costing a little more.
you really are a person who wants to save a few pennies without understanding the consequences of the decision.
Farming in the UK has as much to do with countryside management as it does with the end products.
The Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
Controversial thought from me - I don't think Covid can be suppressed with Track and Trace because of the long period of spread before symptoms (if any show up). Its almost perfect as a tactic. In diseases where you are only infectious with symptoms, yes tracking cases will work.
Which is where rapid antigen tests ought to have come in. Way back last year.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta. .
That's what's being argued now - a charge led by Captain Hindsight.
Yes, we should have had greater control of borders (I don't advocate abandoning British citizens abroad in COVID hot spots, although some do) via quarantine - as I've argued for over a year - but this "because of Delta" is pure & simple wrong.
The borders were "closed" to India two weeks before we knew Delta was a problem.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
Yes, we need to do all we can to encourage self-building, which seems to happen well in most other parts of the world.
With regard to larger developments, the issue is more of land-banking and phased releasing by developers. Perhaps charging council tax on a development a year after planning permission is given, rather than after the building is occupied, might be a way forward - maybe with an escalator for unfinished units.
That's where LVT can come into its own. Replace council tax by an annual charge on the value of a plot with current permissions. If you've got planning permission, it kicks in immediately. (It wouldn't bankrupt farmers, as the farmland's value as farmland without permissions is orders of magnitude lower than development land with permissions. As the permissions are what catapult the value of the land up, they must be taken into account.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
So if Wales doesn't have a competitive advantage why should the Welsh be doing it rather than Kiwis?
Farmers maintain the countryside at the cost of meat costing a little more.
you really are a person who wants to save a few pennies without understanding the consequences of the decision.
Farming in the UK has as much to do with countryside management as it does with the end products.
Which is a ridiculous waste of land in a highly dense small island.
Besides non agricultural land can be even more environmentally friendly eg more natural, forests etc.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
Being fed up with this kind of miserabilism is one of the reasons I changed my position on Brexit.
The accusation that the government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing doesn't stack up anyway. If that were true, they would give in to pressure to align with EU law rather than placing a higher value on freeing ourselves from the Brussels system.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
Actually if you read the article, it’s obvious why Australia banned entry from India, namely that regardless of percentages infected, India was already a significant source of infection.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1. Pakistan and Bangladesh were on the red list April 9.
When the red list was published, it was explained that it was based on the “number of variants” coming in from the relevant countries.
1. At the time, passengers inbound from India were already *showing the same levels of infection* as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
2. At the time, for the period Mar 25-Apr 7, PHE identified 50 variants coming in from India, versus 12 for Bangladesh and 6 for Pakistan.
There was considerable speculation in the press at India’s omission. Already by this time there were news reports about India’s overloaded cemeteries.
In the week up to April 19, press openly speculated that the reason was Johnson’s forthcoming summit with Modi.
Johnson finally announced India’s red listing April 19, but gave three day’s notice and this seems to have triggered a burst of tens of thousands of passengers returning from India in that period.
Re your last sentence I understand 20,000 returned and of course the vast majority were our fellow Brits
And we need an independent investigation to establish what really happened
At present it is a political football and will continue as such as nobody has seen the evidence of all the sage and other scientists minutes and timeliness over this period
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
So if Wales doesn't have a competitive advantage why should the Welsh be doing it rather than Kiwis?
If you’re argument is that you wish to abolish farming in this country, then that is at least logically coherent.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
One problem that's very frustrating is one that came up recently. We were approving a huge development of several thousand houses - which would sort out a considerable amount of the significant housing need here.
Developer "And we intend to build this site out over the next twenty-five years..."
Me, "Wait, what? Twenty-five years?" (As we need housing ASAP)
Developer: "Yes; that's what our market assessment says to meet our targeted values" (In essence: they don't want to build quickly enough to drive house prices down. Their intent is to ensure they have an income stream and acceptable profit margin for as long as possible. So 25 years of building out on a large site suits them down to the ground. And will not help with house prices, other than either slowing the increase or maybe flattening it out)
The only solution I can see is to get building social housing - which bypasses that limitation (and those developers who have the 25-year massive projects may see the value of these decline, what a pity).
This is fundamentally part of the problem of the British system of having en-bloc planning approval going to one developer alone.
In much of the rest of the world this problem isn't seen because the proposed construction zone is built piecemeal, sometimes house by house, by anyone who wants to build or own a home. Since the value of land with permission isn't dramatically artificially inflated in most countries then a single developer buying the entire land and then not building on it doesn't work economically. If several thousand people want a home then they get it constructed by whoever they want to construct it rather than one fixed developer on the developers timeline and move in, job done.
Why should the entire development go to just one developer? If each individual house, or each individual street, of your several thousand houses could be built one or many at a time by a plethora of developers or self-builders then this couldn't happen.
In Victorian/Edwardian times, very often the developer would build a street. Hence houses on neighbouring streets looking different. Sometimes they differ by which side of the road they are on - the developers bought one side of the road, each.
Absolutely!
And Victorian/Edwardian houses are considered generally much better than the boxes built by modern developers. The system then worked.
Having entire segments of a town tied up by a single monopolistic developer who bribes the right politicians gets approval is in nobodies interests but the politicians and the developer.
That so many people are so keen to defend a system that is broken instead of having more competition is bizarre.
Victorian construction standards are hugely flattered by survivorship bias. But I wouldn't touch a new build put up by any of the major developers.
Well obviously on the construction standards. Foundations are nice.
But the planning concept of laying out roads, sorting out utilities etc and then selling by the plot or by the half street.....
AND THIS: see below. Parliament gets controversial UK-AUS #AustraliaTradeDeal as a fait accompli...which is ironic, as @nvonwestenholz observes, since #brexit was supposed to have "taught us that the public is fed up with important decisions being made by faceless bureaucrats" https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1404717804977336320
LOL, agreements with other countries have always been simple up/down votes, as they can’t be unilaterally amended.
So Brexit was simply a case of moving executive power from Brussels to UK government? It’s a step in direction towards democracy, but hardly a huge stride is it?
It’s a major stride, as the decisions are now taken in the UK Parliament, by politicians that are accountable to - and can be removed by - the electorate.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
In the flat at No.10, actually. As the recent foreign aid cut proved.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
Actually if you read the article, it’s obvious why Australia banned entry from India, namely that regardless of percentages infected, India was already a significant source of infection.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1. Pakistan and Bangladesh were on the red list April 9.
When the red list was published, it was explained that it was based on the “number of variants” coming in from the relevant countries.
1. At the time, passengers inbound from India were already *showing the same levels of infection* as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
2. At the time, for the period Mar 25-Apr 7, PHE identified 50 variants coming in from India, versus 12 for Bangladesh and 6 for Pakistan.
There was considerable speculation in the press at India’s omission. Already by this time there were news reports about India’s overloaded cemeteries.
In the week up to April 19, press openly speculated that the reason was Johnson’s forthcoming summit with Modi.
Johnson finally announced India’s red listing April 19, but gave three day’s notice and this seems to have triggered a burst of tens of thousands of passengers returning from India in that period.
Re your last sentence I understand 20,000 returned and of course the vast majority were our fellow Brits
And we need an independent investigation to establish what really happened
At present it is a political football and will continue as such as nobody has seen the evidence of all the sage and other scientists minutes and timeliness over this period
It’s not really a political football though, is it. It’s pretty much an open and shut case.
Under the agreement, Brits under the age of 35 will be able to travel and work in Australia more freely, opening exciting opportunities for young people.
Does anyone on the negotiating team have a sprog who fancies a gap year down under without having to work on a farm?
Surders' Paradise meter maids will on placement from Essex
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
I'm sorry, but this is naive. The issue is whether we wish to maintain higher legally required standards than Australia, on welfare, health and environmental grounds. If we decide that we're fine with packing animals into feedlots and spraying them indiscriminately with antibiotics in case the overcrowding produces rampant infections, then food will become (somewhat) cheaper, and British beef farmers may or may not survive. Logic would suggest that we should abolish the standards for British farmers too, so they can compete on a level playing field as you imply. Saying "compete, but on conditions that make you uncompetitive" is surely unfair. from the most free-market perspective?
That, however, would contradict the stated Government policy of maintaining our standards. There is therefore a fudge to protect British farmers, but only for 15 years, and a vague and seemingly implausible suggestion that farmer will be helped to find new markets for high-welfare products in Asia.
A genuine question - what are actual animal welfare and farming standards like in eastern EU countries, as opposed to what they are theoretically supposed to be?
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
It was known, but not a VOC. You’ve snipped the rest of my timeline which I presume you don’t quarrel with.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta.
The issue is that India should have been on the red list because it was already a comparative source of infection to its neighbours, and more besides a significant source of new variants (whether concerning or not).
This was known by April 9.
Thats fine, but this is not the line that has been used to attack the government by most.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
There's also a political element to the deal. A good deal of Australian produce has been shut out of UK markets since we joined the EU. And, Australia is currently being hit by sanctions imposed by China, due to its criticism of the regime. So, actually, it helps to bind the two countries more closely.
We had Commonwealth preference prior to 1973 (in fact, it wasn't wholly phased out until 1980) with significant Australian and New Zealand imports.
I don't remember British farming being devastated at the time.
According to the government's own assessment, apparently, the Australian-U.K. trade deal will increase Britain's GDP by a whopping 0.02%.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
Get a nice bottle of Australian wine for your lie down.
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Well that would have the advantage of not making me notice the harm that such a deal will likely do to the countryside around me and my farming neighbours.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
If your farmers are competitive then they'll thrive. If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
On farming issues I prefer to listen to James Rebanks, an actual farmer and one who has lived and worked in Australia, and who knows more about farming, ecology and what it means for the countryside and the people in it than you (or current politicians) will ever know no matter how many posts you make.
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
I haven’t read any Rebanks.
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
So if Wales doesn't have a competitive advantage why should the Welsh be doing it rather than Kiwis?
If you’re argument is that you wish to abolish farming in this country, then that is at least logically coherent.
I couldn't care less if farming in this country failed, any more than mining, but I see no reason it all would.
If you want land to be preserved for the environment then planting trees or other more natural environments can do more for the planet than having pastures for sheep.
It seems obvious in hindsight that the reason for an explosion in cases in India was the delta variant. However my recollection was that many thought it was due to things such as 50,000 at the cricket etc in a largely unvaccinated country. I know people like to blame the government for this one, and it will I am sure be looked at in the inquiry, but I don't think it is quite the slam dunk people think it is.
Good thread on this by someone who was actually doing the work
So rather than being "obvious to anyone watching the relentless exponential growth of Delta during April.", it was actually pretty confusing. I make weekly VOC/VUI monitoring plots, and here's what I saw in three weeks from 19 April (1st time I included B.1.617) to 3 May.
Now, yes, we should have quarantined arrivals sooner/faster - but at the time we did it to Pakistan/Bangladesh arrivals because we were worried about the South African variant there - and India cases/population was still very low - so "we should have stopped Delta by quarantining India arrivals" is pure hindsight.
April 29th - blocking flights from India is racist.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Really? Then why did it take 5 weeks for PHE to declare it a VOC?
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta. .
That's what's being argued now - a charge led by Captain Hindsight.
Yes, we should have had greater control of borders (I don't advocate abandoning British citizens abroad in COVID hot spots, although some do) via quarantine - as I've argued for over a year - but this "because of Delta" is pure & simple wrong.
The borders were "closed" to India two weeks before we knew Delta was a problem.
I don’t know particularly what Keir is saying. But you are being disingenuous here.
The argument WAS, let’s close the border because the risk of a variant.
The argument NOW is, the variant is here, why didn’t we close our borders?
Comments
It is controversial, as Labour and others see it as a way of gaining political advantage which is fair enough
However, even on here today there has been counter evidence to the narrative about Boris's role in this and I doubt it will be resolved before the public enquiry responds, and that is a long time away
Quite a stark shift from the tone last year. Oh well, more joy in heaven over 1 etc.
Yes, the government should have controlled the border better from the start - but there's a lot of hindsight going on - from a lot of the usual suspects.
And Victorian/Edwardian houses are considered generally much better than the boxes built by modern developers. The system then worked.
Having entire segments of a town tied up by a single monopolistic developer who bribes the right politicians gets approval is in nobodies interests but the politicians and the developer.
That so many people are so keen to defend a system that is broken instead of having more competition is bizarre.
If the EU keeps cosying up to China, who were we to vote for to express our feelings? The clowns in that fake parliament didn't have a say.
If the consent loses its value and the land is taxed then nobody would go near land until they're ready to build on it.
We elect the UK government in case you missed that.
The excitement is too much. I need a lie down.
- Do you put a time limit for completion? So you remove planning permission from houses that are nearly built? Or half-built? Or with the foundations laid? Or sewerage sorted out?
- If you do the above, any re-application will sail through "This location is obviously suitable and acceptable because permission was granted before, all issues resolved, and there's a house already started"
- If you make it "on starting the site," there are always ins and outs and loopholes for "making a substantive start." There's a site not for from where I'm sitting where "a substantive start" was made two years ago, and nothing has happened since (the developer is trying to sell the site on with planning permission)
- If you are putting a time limit on completion, then there is a role for planning permission, anyway. Do you then ignore whether it's on a flood plain? Or whether there's any access to the development suitable for emergency vehicles? Or whether they're bulldozing an archeological site (Stonehenge could easily take 100 houses)? Or whether there's only one road between two towns that's already overcongested and you're going to double traffic on it?
It could be even cheaper after the deal.
Meanwhile, the unelected EU bureaucracy is cosying up to Russia and China.
A housing development of the type of 50 houses on @moonshine's land would be a private good but utilise public resources. Hence it would require public input, ideally via the neighbourhood plan on upwards.
And in your world if there were no amenities then people would improvise, setting up their own generators, digging latrines, etc so those externalities would multiply.
But, hey, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is pretty much this government's mission statement. So no change there then.
https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?lineage=B.1.1.7&latitude=53.202097&longitude=-1.475083&zoom=4.86
In the two weeks to May 1 Delta had been 7.5% of variants sequenced.
India had been added to the red list on April 23.
Link to Government release on Aussie trade deal:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-agrees-historic-trade-deal-with-australia
That's the point.
The decisions are taken by faceless bureaucrats in dark rooms.
The UK Parliament only gets to applaud at the end. That's why they are miffed.
You and I rarely see eye to eye on many issues but this is precisely it.
When you built your house you built your house I'm assuming and not a development of thousands of houses. Tying up everything into politics and developers is what is causing the issue - just zone appropriately then let individuals and the market decide.
If you want to zone a flood plain as unsuitable then do that. If you want to zone thousands of houses as suitable then do that. No need for one single developer spending millions on bribes to friendly polticians years and years in planning wrangles to get it done.
The Neighbourhood Development Plans are a decent step: in ours, we zoned three big chunks of land for housing (archeological issues, environmental issues, access issues, even impact on the locals (doing this gets buy-in for future developments - you get people inside the tent)).
The problem comes when they get ignored. Developers can, under the current system, ignore them completely if the 5-year housing supply is breached (and, paradoxically, if developers slow down their application process, they can take you under the 5-year housing supply limit, and then it's open season).
There are some developers that work with us. Others who are, to put it mildly, cowboys. The latter are the ones that swoop in on the out-of-Development-Plans areas, force planning permission on appeal, make a nominal "substantive start," and then tout the location out.
And the locals get pissed off, and those who weren't NIMBYs start to become NIMBYs.
We're trying to give the NDPs real teeth, aim to build above the minimum target limits, and THEN add on a bunch of council-built extra housing on top aimed at social housing and affordable housing (and planning-approved supported self-builds).
It's a challenge, though, and there's real fear that the NDPs, made at great expense by the various parishes, will be ignored, and the various locals will go "Well, they were pointless, development is always bad, vote out anyone who doesn't support NIMBYism."
Don't let facts get in the way of speculation!
If your farmers aren't then why should the nation be tied to them?
New Zealand cut all its subsidies to farmers, tariffs etc - and the farming industry went from strength to strength.
...That doesn’t mean they are not worth doing. They can still be very useful for some businesses; unlock peripheral opportunities around visas and the like; strengthen relationships between countries and can create political benefits.
https://twitter.com/SamuelMarcLowe/status/1404712051113660425?s=20
EG Dura_Ace took 2 months in France to go from starting the process to being able to start construction. If someone wants to build a single home in your zone how long would it take them where you are?
Or is it all tied to developers doing large developments?
Secondly we don’t elect governments, we elect MPs to parliaments. You’ve obviously missed that.
Thirdly, you do concede we were getting value for money pooling the faceless bureaucrats , this way of doing it now is going to cost more money?
And he has explained in depth - in articles, books and interviews - why your superficial statements and the rubbish that comes out of Ministers in this topic are so much nonsense. Rather than repeat them, you'd be wise to learn from him and other experts on this topic.
Indeed as has already been said it is what exists even in France - not exactly a free market utopia!
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1404732072523190275
https://twitter.com/shaungw/status/1404725179016699904?s=20
Just as in the 80s some preferred to listen to the miners.
Great news! 👍
I considered that to be crap, and even took to the air to get aerial photos of their plot to show it was within the village bounds.
Seeing as it was a sustainable design, they'd got all their neighbours on board, and it was their land (and we need more housing), I considered the planning outcome by following the NPPF to be a pile of crap and the Planning Committee managed to push it through.
Safest guarantee of Brexit we could ever have.
We have previously been told about how a whole host of other variants are worse, but they got here and didn't spread, because Cockney Covid went oi you f##k off, I run this manner.
It is why revolving airbridge policy is so flawed.
The tie to developers needs breaking.
The Johnson variant was known about April 1.
Pakistan and Bangladesh were on the red list April 9.
When the red list was published, it was explained that it was based on the “number of variants” coming in from the relevant countries.
1.
At the time, passengers inbound from India were already *showing the same levels of infection* as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
2.
At the time, for the period Mar 25-Apr 7, PHE identified 50 variants coming in from India, versus 12 for Bangladesh and 6 for Pakistan.
There was considerable speculation in the press at India’s omission. Already by this time there were news reports about India’s overloaded cemeteries.
In the week up to April 19, press openly speculated that the reason was Johnson’s forthcoming summit with Modi.
Johnson finally announced India’s red listing April 19, but gave three day’s notice and this seems to have triggered a burst of tens of thousands of passengers returning from India in that period.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/a-new-dawn-australia-and-britain-agree-on-historic-trade-deal-20210615-p5817c.html
That, however, would contradict the stated Government policy of maintaining our standards. There is therefore a fudge to protect British farmers, but only for 15 years, and a vague and seemingly implausible suggestion that farmer will be helped to find new markets for high-welfare products in Asia.
Secondly yes we do. We elect MPs to Parliament but the MPs campaign at elections about forming a government. People can vote accordingly based upon what form of government they want.
Thirdly: No. Having one set of bureaucrats that answer to our politicians seems more cost-efficient than having a layer of our own bureaucrats interacting with a layer of transcontinental bureaucrats. Especially considering we were net contributers to the EU's bureaucrats that were layered on top of our own. If our own were abolished if we were in the EU your point might be valid, but it never was.
Yes, it was all going so well – until last week. The week he decided to alienate a large swathe of women in his own party and many thousands outside it.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/06/14/starmers-disastrous-pride/
Zoning is just a procedural tool, it makes no difference. You can zone as much or as little land as you want.
Under the agreement, Brits under the age of 35 will be able to travel and work in Australia more freely, opening exciting opportunities for young people.
Does anyone on the negotiating team have a sprog who fancies a gap year down under without having to work on a farm?
You have to quietly retire the cake and eat it Brexit surely - freedoms, democracy, AND more money to spend in our run down area’s, because going forward it will be fundamentally proved to be more expensive, making that part of the equation look like a bit of a fib if you keep calling it?
Walkabout's aren't going to be short of staff....
But I know NZ history pretty well.
The thing that pisses me off about the “NZ cut subsidies” line is that NZ had - and still has - a massive trade advantage on dairying especially due to the fact it is basically one large, grassy, temperate paddock, and we have volume production.
The idea that abolishing subsidies to Welsh hill farmers is going to do anything but send said farmers to the wall is nutty beyond belief.
You clearly know more about it than the chap doing the genomic sequencing!
...so why didn’t PHE immediately escalate Delta to a variant of concern in March?".......Well, first of all, the variant reported in late March was *not* Delta / B.1.617.2, but its cousin, B.1.617.1.
https://twitter.com/jcbarret/status/1402168872350986248?s=20
It makes things like changes to schools evolutionary.
From what I see it is very common for many different developers to have smaller areas of a larger development.
>It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis.
I think that the above testifies more to a financialised housing market. Get rid of task breaks on unearned profit, then rebalance Council Tax is a more appropriate manner, and much of this will evolve out.
Plus continue to address supply, of course.
The estate near me that I took through planning 9 years ago has a range of prices from £145k to £240k, for a mix if houses chosen according to the housing need assessment by the local council - which controls the mix.
So we can - for now - strike that one off.
Let the consumer decide, if they want to buy Red Tractor meat they can do so.
It's one reason for our push to get supported-self-build going. Approve an entire area and sort out the archeological, environmental, access, infrastructure issues, and get a list of builders and potential designs and put those who'd like to self-build (from any degree from "pick a house from a list and select the builder" to "design it yourself within these guidelines"
One thing that would, in my opinion, really help against the NIMBY tendency is for infrastructure to lead development rather than lag development. If you're always playing catch-up, then as long as development hasn't actually stalled, you've always got overloaded infrastructure. It's very short-term thinking.
Asked whether the country could have returned to hundreds of Covid deaths a day again had the remaining coronavirus restrictions been ended, Prof Medley he tells BBC Radio 4's Today: "Oh easily. I think we still might at some point."
100s a day....easily....not worst case...easily...where from....if the vaccine is 98/99% against severe illness, where are all these deaths coming from?
You’ve snipped the rest of my timeline which I presume you don’t quarrel with.
The issue is not that we should have closed borders through April because of Delta.
The issue is that India should have been on the red list because it was already a comparative source of infection to its neighbours, and more besides a significant source of new variants (whether concerning or not).
This was known by April 9.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/a-new-dawn-australia-and-britain-agree-on-historic-trade-deal-20210615-p5817c.html
The Remainers argument against £350mn per week was "no you're wrong, it is only £250mn per week".
It’s one of the key lags on our economic productivity and we can’t afford such luxuries post Brexit.
Basically no tarrifs and no quotas (with a 15 year taper for agriculture from our side), lots for services, recognition of qualifications and expansion of visas.
The Scotch whisky industry should be happy (even if the Scottish government will find a way to complain), as should car makers (there’s none in Australia any more), services and technology companies.
Well done Liz Truss and team!
you really are a person who wants to save a few pennies without understanding the consequences of the decision.
Farming in the UK has as much to do with countryside management as it does with the end products.
Way back last year.
Yes, we should have had greater control of borders (I don't advocate abandoning British citizens abroad in COVID hot spots, although some do) via quarantine - as I've argued for over a year - but this "because of Delta" is pure & simple wrong.
The borders were "closed" to India two weeks before we knew Delta was a problem.
Replace council tax by an annual charge on the value of a plot with current permissions.
If you've got planning permission, it kicks in immediately.
(It wouldn't bankrupt farmers, as the farmland's value as farmland without permissions is orders of magnitude lower than development land with permissions. As the permissions are what catapult the value of the land up, they must be taken into account.
Only tax I know of with a negative tax wedge.
Besides non agricultural land can be even more environmentally friendly eg more natural, forests etc.
The accusation that the government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing doesn't stack up anyway. If that were true, they would give in to pressure to align with EU law rather than placing a higher value on freeing ourselves from the Brussels system.
And we need an independent investigation to establish what really happened
At present it is a political football and will continue as such as nobody has seen the evidence of all the sage and other scientists minutes and timeliness over this period
But the planning concept of laying out roads, sorting out utilities etc and then selling by the plot or by the half street.....
As the recent foreign aid cut proved.
It’s pretty much an open and shut case.
I don't remember British farming being devastated at the time.
If you want land to be preserved for the environment then planting trees or other more natural environments can do more for the planet than having pastures for sheep.
But you are being disingenuous here.
The argument WAS, let’s close the border because the risk of a variant.
The argument NOW is, the variant is here, why didn’t we close our borders?
There’s nothing hindsighty about it.