An LD victory in C&A would be very welcome in that I can’t see anything else shaking this government out of its complacency, but unfortunately I really can’t see it happening.
The only opposition party able to hold this government to account, doesn't even stand in England.
The only opposition party not suffering an existential crisis is in Scotland...
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
The fact they're fellow Brits is irrelevant. They shouldn't have made the trip in the first place in the middle of the worst pandemic for 50 years.
On that basis, the Indian government bears a considerable responsibility. Trying to get back to Australia is difficult, even for an Australian.
The problem with Australia is there aren’t enough hotels in the quarantine scheme, so the airlines have been given very small quotas like 100 pax/plane. The airlines can’t make the maths work, so are mostly selling Biz and 1st tickets. The Mid East airlines stopped flying to Oz completely at one point, and managed to get the quotas increased, but the planes are still not allowed to be close to full. There’s Aussies camped out with friends all over the world at the moment, many of whom have lost jobs and can’t afford to go home until the quarantine requirement is dropped.
Here in the UAE, they are now offering vaccines to visa overstayers, will likely be opened to tourists shortly (at which point half of Russia and Africa will turn up).
Drink more than a dozen bottles of shiraz in a year and you've beaten that already just on one product alone.
Is "Up to my arse" a standard unit of measure used by the WTO? I haven't heard of it before. "The UK/Australia trade deal will deliver a very small UMA compared to the UMA lost by Brexit"
Warwick model only out on deaths by a factor of 23 so far...
Yet they continue to make forecasts as if their model is fine.
Some of us have called out the obvious flaws in their models for ages...there os clearly something erong as it pumps out high ends that are just impossible.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
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.
Yes. Innova is, I believe, simply a rebadged Chineses test, supplied by a US importer. It's not useless, but I've no idea why we adopted this particular test. Or more pertinently why we left the development of a rapid testing strategy so late.
As an aside, it's completely incorrect to call PCR 'the gold standard" if you're discussing infection control rather than clinical diagnosis. For the former purpose it simply isn't.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such models are GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
No such model ever actually measures what really happens and really just demonstrates whatever assumptions the modeller has used. If you assume A, then B, but if you assume Z then Y.
In particular if you assume people don't react to changing circumstances, your model will always be garbage.
This is completely voodoo. Liz Truss' outfit has the ability to make a better economic case for her deal, if she can.
Actually why not be honest? We like the Australians better than the French, Germans, Spanish etc, so we will give them what they want and get nothing in return? At least people know where things stand ....
Considering we already have a zero tariff, zero quota deal with the French, Germans, Spanish etc - and we're not years of transition where tariffs apply in the interim with that, what are we giving to the Aussies that we're not to the French?
Nothing and we have no reason to fear giving concessions to the Australians that we give the French. I am guessing the Australians are happy with the deal that might be worth more than 0.02% to their economy.
I suggest however that the important question to us, is what the Australians and French offer in return. The UK does a ton of regulated trade with the EU, much less than before (another sore point), but still dwarfing what Australia offers.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Insulation keeps out heat and keeps in the cool. And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls. The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
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.
For one thing, fresh Welsh milk and butter can be delivered inside 12 hours within the UK single market without any trade friction costs and with very low food miles. So, I don't think that's true.
On the meat, I suspect consumers will be very discerning of environmental standards and quality in years to come - NZ expands choice, but it doesn't "finish" Wales and it's hyperbole to suggest it will.
When we have lamb it is and always will be Welsh
I was in NZ a few years ago and the lamb was bloody expensive. Don’t know if that was local taxation? The price of ciggies was a nightmare too.
I have been to NZ several times but always stayed with my son and his partner and we did not dine out too much so I was not price conscious re their lamb
Only been a couple of times, and one of them was a conference, but when we toured I got the impression that meals were quite expensive but that the quality was high and the portions were large.
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.
For one thing, fresh Welsh milk and butter can be delivered inside 12 hours within the UK single market without any trade friction costs and with very low food miles. So, I don't think that's true.
On the meat, I suspect consumers will be very discerning of environmental standards and quality in years to come - NZ expands choice, but it doesn't "finish" Wales and it's hyperbole to suggest it will.
When we have lamb it is and always will be Welsh
I was in NZ a few years ago and the lamb was bloody expensive. Don’t know if that was local taxation? The price of ciggies was a nightmare too.
Food is quite expensive in NZ.
British people have enjoyed some of the lowest food prices on earth, in part due to EU subsidy, but more to do with incredible competitiveness in the food retail sector.
Staggeringly beautiful country though. Some family live close to Christchurch
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
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.
Cyclefree's anger at the world is pretty much limitless and the root of that anger is the existence of Boris Johnson so until Boris disappears poor old Cyclefree's inchoate rage at the universe, where everything would obviously be better if she made all the decisions, should be allowed to run it's course - in fact these days it seems to be PBs main function, lots of people raging about how awful it all is all the time - one reason to bow out again until the next UK General Election...
To be fair to Ms @Cyclefree, her business as a consultant has been pretty much closed for 18 months as a result of the pandemic, and her daughter’s pub/restaurant has been severely affected. She’s very much entitled to be upset with the situation.
And it's at least fairly likely that everything would indeed be better, if she made all the decisions...
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Insulation keeps out heat and keeps in the cool. And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls. The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
So - and apologies for partially hijacking the thread to discuss my construction issues - an overly hot upstairs is a sign of poor roof insulation? That's great news because it means my problem is solvable.
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.
In 1992 the Tories registered their 12th highest share of the vote in Chesham & Amersham.
Drink more than a dozen bottles of shiraz in a year and you've beaten that already just on one product alone.
Is "Up to my arse" a standard unit of measure used by the WTO? I haven't heard of it before. "The UK/Australia trade deal will deliver a very small UMA compared to the UMA lost by Brexit"
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement to Holyrood 7th Nov 2020 16th Feb 9th Mar 25th May 1st Jun 8th Jun etc
He is the other cheek of Carlotta's arse, they make a fine pair of cheeks
You're a fan of Nippie now?
Are you sure you haven't fallen down a wormhole and aren't posting from 2017 like that story you mentioned earlier?
No, I think she is possibly the wrong gender. He prefers to throw his support behind a man described by his own QC as a bully and sex pest. Interesting choice of idol. I mean, I think people idolising any politician is a bit weird, but Salmond? Now we know what we know? Very, very wierd.
I’m gonna try to read the detail on the U.K.-Aus deal before passing any comment.
In principles, deals are good. We need as many as possible.
In practice, there was an obvious divide inside Cabinet between Eustace/Gove vs Truss/Johnson based largely on the resultant prospects for the UK’s own (and importantly Scottish, Welsh, Irish) producers.
Will be interesting to see who “won”.
Farmers mostly voted for Brexit, if there is sucking up to do, then they will have to do it I’m afraid.
Susanna Reid forensically skewers Michael Gove over India going on the red list
We found out about the Indian variant on April 1st & they didn't go onto the red list until April the 23rd.. we didn't shut the border until it was too late
He used the same cliche with Dan Walker this morning. Walker really seemed to get under his skin. Dan Walker comes across as a Young Mr Nice Guy, but actually is a pretty good interviewer.
Bit rich for the party of the Bus to accuse anyone of myth making.
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 3h If three left-wing candidates stand to be Unite general secretary and split the vote, allowing the right-wing candidate to win, that will be because of a campaign run on Twitter.
Which will mean that Twitter has finally blown apart the British left.
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.
Agreed. Either standards should be relaxed for all UK consumption, or you insist on foreign competitors meeting your existing standards in a trade deal. It makes no sense to selectively lower standards for your competitors while keeping higher ones for domestic producers, just to get a trade deal. Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
I seem to recall that Australia has just had a fairly serious trade spat with China, as a result of which they are anxious to find new markets for their wine.
An issue where I am prepared, in the interests of Commonwealth solidarity, to do my bit.
How many thousand tonnes of coal do you propose to buy, then ?
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 3h If three left-wing candidates stand to be Unite general secretary and split the vote, allowing the right-wing candidate to win, that will be because of a campaign run on Twitter.
Which will mean that Twitter has finally blown apart the British left.
Who is this right wing union candidate...or does he mean the one candidate who isnt so far left falling off the end of the world.
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.
In your mind but not others
Well, I’m excepting cretins, lunatics and the senile of course.
And those who do not need to insult mental health and the elderly to argue a point
You do not have a monopoly on opinion, and thankfully many on here argue with each other but do not descend into insulting many thousands of those less fortunate than ourselves
Did you not suggest yesterday the elderly should be rounded up and put in camps
You really have a very nasty streak
I’m afraid, Big G, you are a humourless scold.
I have no humour when it comes to mental health and the wellbeing of the elderly being used as pawns in an argument
Come on, the phrase cretin is not very PC, nor lunatic, but I dont think there was any reference to genuine mental health. Would you be in favour of the banning of the Official Monster Raving Looney Party?
Interestingly, the word cretin was a very early example of PC language. It was coined by well-meaning French speakers in the nineteenth century as a polite euphemism for the educationally challenged - literally 'Christian' to remind their fellow francophone that the stupid were God's children too. As so often happens, we didn't lose a vaguely insulting term, we gained one.
Interestingly #2 - many of the terms we use for stupidity - imbecile, etc. - used to have very precise and neutral meanings for exactly how stupid one is, in the same way 'obese' has a very precise meaning for how overweight one is.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
TPP is the big prize here. It will take time, but will be the biggest trade deal in history when it comes into effect. Every smaller trade deal among TPP member states, makes the big one easier.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Insulation keeps out heat and keeps in the cool. And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls. The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
So - and apologies for partially hijacking the thread to discuss my construction issues - an overly hot upstairs is a sign of poor roof insulation? That's great news because it means my problem is solvable.
"The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has confirmed it is investigating Apple and Google over their dominant position in the mobile phone market.
It is "taking a closer look" at the effective duopoly the two firms have.
That includes the operating systems Android and iOS, both app stores, and Safari and Chrome web browsers.
Officials are examining whether the pair are "stifling competition across a range of digital markets"."
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.
Yes. Innova is, I believe, simply a rebadged Chineses test, supplied by a US importer. It's not useless, but I've no idea why we adopted this particular test. Or more pertinently why we left the development of a rapid testing strategy so late.
As an aside, it's completely incorrect to call PCR 'the gold standard" if you're discussing infection control rather than clinical diagnosis. For the former purpose it simply isn't.
But what I'm unclear on is why an Oxford university analysis (insert joke here) found that they were okay... but then Innova falsified data for the FDA? Does FDA have higher standards? Generally I would think anyone falsifying data definitely has something to hide.
Corbyn still refuses to disclose his vaccine status. He told Iain Dale on LBC that:
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...its such a bullshit excuse, it isn't like asking about if you have dementia...it is a simple yes i have, tweet picture as a PSA, done...
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
One of the things there is to buy the Northern half of an East-West oriented pair of semis.
I do that to insure myself against future rental regulation on the 'overheating' issue. Yes, they would and yes, they are stupid enough to try.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Insulation keeps out heat and keeps in the cool. And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls. The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
So - and apologies for partially hijacking the thread to discuss my construction issues - an overly hot upstairs is a sign of poor roof insulation? That's great news because it means my problem is solvable.
I’m gonna try to read the detail on the U.K.-Aus deal before passing any comment.
In principles, deals are good. We need as many as possible.
In practice, there was an obvious divide inside Cabinet between Eustace/Gove vs Truss/Johnson based largely on the resultant prospects for the UK’s own (and importantly Scottish, Welsh, Irish) producers.
Will be interesting to see who “won”.
Farmers mostly voted for Brexit, if there is sucking up to do, then they will have to do it I’m afraid.
The genuine evidence on whether farmers "mostly" voted for Brexit is unclear. It depends on what survey/poll you want to believe, but it is a myth that they were "mostly" Brexity, largely driven by a poll done by Farmers Weekly that was self selecting and therefore voodoo. This is a good article on the subject:
Corbyn still refuses to disclose his vaccine status. He told Iain Dale on LBC that:
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...
Nope !
I reckon there's a few bods out there that have had it though - but they don't want to tell anyone for fear of destroying their brand - the canadian behaviour profressor chap got loads of flack on twitter when he said he had had it.
Corbyn still refuses to disclose his vaccine status. He told Iain Dale on LBC that:
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...its such a bullshit excuse, it isn't like asking about if you have dementia...it is a simple yes i have, tweet picture as a PSA, done...
Well we all know about Corbyn's "health between (his) ears" and it has nothing to do with the aging process. He, like many nutty lefties thinks that the pharma sector is the devil's work so perhaps that is why. I would like to see him volunteer for Sputnik.
Corbyn still refuses to disclose his vaccine status. He told Iain Dale on LBC that:
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...its such a bullshit excuse, it isn't like asking about if you have dementia...it is a simple yes i have, tweet picture as a PSA, done...
Well we all know about Corbyn's "health between (his) ears" and it has nothing to do with the aging process. He, like many nutty lefties thinks that the pharma sector is the devil's work so perhaps that is why. I would like to see him volunteer for Sputnik.
Well it is also widely thought he previously had covid, in fact may well have spread it to the government, as he went to a meeting with them with all the symptoms. And i can imagine he is the sort of person that on top of being anti big pharma now thinks I've had so i am protected.
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.
In 1992 the Tories registered their 12th highest share of the vote in Chesham & Amersham.
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.
Yes. Innova is, I believe, simply a rebadged Chineses test, supplied by a US importer. It's not useless, but I've no idea why we adopted this particular test. Or more pertinently why we left the development of a rapid testing strategy so late.
As an aside, it's completely incorrect to call PCR 'the gold standard" if you're discussing infection control rather than clinical diagnosis. For the former purpose it simply isn't.
But what I'm unclear on is why an Oxford university analysis (insert joke here) found that they were okay... but then Innova falsified data for the FDA? Does FDA have higher standards? Generally I would think anyone falsifying data definitely has something to hide.
Hard to say, but I suspect part of the FDA's scratchiness is owing to their marketing the test without authorisation.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Insulation keeps out heat and keeps in the cool. And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls. The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
So - and apologies for partially hijacking the thread to discuss my construction issues - an overly hot upstairs is a sign of poor roof insulation? That's great news because it means my problem is solvable.
You should be well insulated as a matter of course - if it is a normal loft then talk to the Energy Saving Trust. In most places there are bodies doing it for free (I think - though I have not had one for a bit). They require you to currently have less than 100mm, so once you have checked they do the service, remove any there before they visit.
Other strategies - through ventilation (windows open both sides of the house) the night before or early until it warms up. Then close them so you keep the coolth in.
Or arrange stack airflow - something open downstairs, and something open upstairs - classically a window on the shady side and a rooflight.
Beyond that there are things like trickle ventilation fans, and single unit aircon. Or a split aircon unit that puts the outside unit inside and has 2 holes in the wall. Very power efficient for what you get.
Or very efficient stick on solar films that reduce heat transmission by 50% or more.
Tricks used by intelligent self-builders include easily available two way ASHP units that cool as well as heat by running in both directions, and the ability to run your ufh system with no heat to level out hot spots around the slab.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
TPP is the big prize here. It will take time, but will be the biggest trade deal in history when it comes into effect. Every smaller trade deal among TPP member states, makes the big one easier.
You'd have thought a focus on the Pacific would make more sense for countries in the vicinity of the Pacific.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
TPP is the big prize here. It will take time, but will be the biggest trade deal in history when it comes into effect. Every smaller trade deal among TPP member states, makes the big one easier.
You'd have thought a focus on the Pacific would make more sense for countries in the vicinity of the Pacific.
Remember this is a Government that doesn't want to set any precedent where being found to be incompetent / a bully / a crook results in you being forced to resign.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The family had critisised the Home Office for delaying the publication of the report by a month, as they wanted to have the lawyers check for anything that might be required to be redacted on security grounds. The report is today published unabridged.
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.
Yes. Innova is, I believe, simply a rebadged Chineses test, supplied by a US importer. It's not useless, but I've no idea why we adopted this particular test. Or more pertinently why we left the development of a rapid testing strategy so late.
As an aside, it's completely incorrect to call PCR 'the gold standard" if you're discussing infection control rather than clinical diagnosis. For the former purpose it simply isn't.
But what I'm unclear on is why an Oxford university analysis (insert joke here) found that they were okay... but then Innova falsified data for the FDA? Does FDA have higher standards? Generally I would think anyone falsifying data definitely has something to hide.
Hard to say, but I suspect part of the FDA's scratchiness is owing to their marketing the test without authorisation.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
It depends on a lot of things .
One is that insulation does lots of things - it keeps heat in, but it also makes it slower for the heat pulse to get through. eg if the sun comes out at 7am, some places will oveheat by 11am, others by 3pm in the same conditions.
One of the more difficult problems with very insulated houses is they can overheat and be really difficult to get cool again - if it is designed to prevent rapid heatflows out in winter to keep it warm, that is always a potential problem in summer.
One way is to get a "decrement delay" of around a day, so that you don't feel the heat until the end of the day, then it has overnight to cool back down.
One counterintuitive thing is that a major problem for high-spec houses is often in spring / autumn when the low sun penetrates deeper into the house.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
TPP is the big prize here. It will take time, but will be the biggest trade deal in history when it comes into effect. Every smaller trade deal among TPP member states, makes the big one easier.
You'd have thought a focus on the Pacific would make more sense for countries in the vicinity of the Pacific.
Corbyn still refuses to disclose his vaccine status. He told Iain Dale on LBC that:
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...its such a bullshit excuse, it isn't like asking about if you have dementia...it is a simple yes i have, tweet picture as a PSA, done...
Well we all know about Corbyn's "health between (his) ears" and it has nothing to do with the aging process. He, like many nutty lefties thinks that the pharma sector is the devil's work so perhaps that is why. I would like to see him volunteer for Sputnik.
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.
A lot of Victorian builders were every bit as dodgy as their modern counterparts. Materials were comparatively expensive, and labour comparatively cheap; some of the stuff they put up was built out of absolute crap.
Yes. A lot of the worst stuff is gone now, hence my point about survivorship bias. Imagining all Victorian housing was as good as what remains is like imagining everyone in the Medieval period lived in a castle. Even the relatively good stuff has problems. Our Victorian terraced house has almost no foundations, despite being built on a steep hill. As a result there are no horizontal lines at all. It's expensive to heat, too.
Mine is as hot as hell on the upper floors, at least it becomes so by late afternoon in this weather.
Is this not true of all housing?
This is an issue I am very interested in currently: I live in a 1930s dormer bungalow, in which it is uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer, and cold upstairs in the winter. From the upstairs, I can also hear the M60 from quarter of a mile away (although it's been strangely quiet these last few days). It needs a new roof, and I've been vaguely assured by builders that with a new roof all of these problems will be solved. But it seems to good to be true. Surely hot air just rises? Is anyone's house not uncomfortably hot upstairs in the summer?
I have an early 50's bungalow where the attic was, long before my time, used as a workshop for a budding electronics firm. When we bought the place it hadn't been used as such for some considerable time, so we cleared out the residual debris and converted it into an office, as I was still working and needed some dedicated space. Now it still houses my computer and is a place where I can hide away, chat on Pb and do the odd planning and correspondence for the organisations to which I belong. And Mr C, it is indeed uncomfortably hot in late afternoons in summer. No-one has suggested a new roof, although I do, every so often have offers for replacement loft insulation.
Thanks King. To be honest, inasmuch as I understand this, I think the issue is that my current roof is poorly insulated and that if I get a new one then the insulation etc will be redone too. I think it is possible to solve the problem without replacing the roof through insulation. Or something. It seems counter-intuitive to me - surely better insulation would make it hotter? But maybe insulation keeps the heat out too.
Shocking report of institutional corruption in the MET Police over the Daniel Morgan case
Look as if Priti Patel could be in trouble as she is condemned in the report over her efforts to delay its publication
The Channel 4 documentary series on the Daniel Morgan murder, uninspiringly titled Murder in the Carpark, was very good on soft police corruption via Morgan's detective agency. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/murder-in-the-car-park
My understanding why NZ Lamb is expensive in NZ is because of foreign demand, they can get loads from markets like the Middle East. And why most, if not all NZ lamb is halal.
We prefer (and pretty much only eat) New Zealand lamb, not because it is halal but is unlikely to have been violated by a human, which is the risk with Welsh lamb.
The family had critisised the Home Office for delaying the publication of the report by a month, as they wanted to have the lawyers check for anything that might be required to be redacted on security grounds. The report is today published unabridged.
I have stopped using “retard” under advisement (but I note it is still used by @Leon and @rcs1000) but I think cretin etc has an antique charm.
Surprisingly Scots terms seem to be considered not too acerbic and therefore acceptable in the wider UK discourse - numpty, dafty, glaikit, eejit (though the last is maybe more Irish)
Roaster, rocket, diddy, tube and walloper have still to break through.
Particularly for one with Australia that has no economic value whatever.
Australia more than anywhere shows the limits of gravity trade models. It became the richest country in the world per capita in the 19th century based on trade with a place that couldn't have been further away.
The uplift for Australia trade claimed by the government for this arrangement is 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. Even that apparently depends on assumptions that never transpire in practice. This deal is of negligible value
All such estimates are based on everything else remaining equal which it never does. Things will happen that economists are incapable of predicting.
Australia traded with the UK before the deal and will trade with it after. The 0.02% uplift of UK GDP in 15 years is what Liz Truss and her lot are claiming for this deal. And even that depends on dodgy assumptions.
I am sorry ...
To be honest I do not think it is the trade deal that is important to HMG, is all the others that follow and of course each and every trade deal drives us further from the EU and results in those pro EU to agitate
I am sure there's an element of that. Not something to be proud of in my view. It damages UK livelihoods.
It is the process of creating a new relationship with others, and reports this morning that it enhances the UK application to join the TPP
TPP is the big prize here. It will take time, but will be the biggest trade deal in history when it comes into effect. Every smaller trade deal among TPP member states, makes the big one easier.
You'd have thought a focus on the Pacific would make more sense for countries in the vicinity of the Pacific.
Only if you didn't realise trade is global. Most of our trade is with the rest of the world not Europe, despite our EU membership and despite all the 'gravity models' in the world.
Comments
Here in the UAE, they are now offering vaccines to visa overstayers, will likely be opened to tourists shortly (at which point half of Russia and Africa will turn up).
Drink more than a baker's dozen bottle of shiraz in a year and you've beaten that already just on one product alone.
But the thing is that this really isn't about goods its to do with services.
Innova is, I believe, simply a rebadged Chineses test, supplied by a US importer. It's not useless, but I've no idea why we adopted this particular test. Or more pertinently why we left the development of a rapid testing strategy so late.
As an aside, it's completely incorrect to call PCR 'the gold standard" if you're discussing infection control rather than clinical diagnosis. For the former purpose it simply isn't.
I suggest however that the important question to us, is what the Australians and French offer in return. The UK does a ton of regulated trade with the EU, much less than before (another sore point), but still dwarfing what Australia offers.
And vice versa in winter.
See also, thick brick walls.
The Georgian terrace I used to live in was great for this.
Scallops, crab claws, barbecued sirloin and lobster with scorched leeks have been selected to showcase the best of British produce.
But more political factors were behind the choice of accompanying wine at this week’s G7: Australian shiraz.
https://twitter.com/BevanShields/status/1402894350573527041?s=20
Are you sure you haven't fallen down a wormhole and aren't posting from 2017 like that story you mentioned earlier?
Shocking report of institutional corruption in the MET Police over the Daniel Morgan case
Look as if Priti Patel could be in trouble as she is condemned in the report over her efforts to delay its publication
Full list:
1. Huntingdon: 66.2%
2. Esher: 65.4%
3. Sutton Coldfield: 65.2%
4. Chelsea: 65.1%
5. Hampshire East: 64.2%
6. Beaconsfield: 64.0%
7. Surrey NW: 63.8%
8. Croydon South: 63.7%
9. Christchurch: 63.5%
10. Ravensbourne: 63.4%
11. Ruislip-Northwood: 63.3%
12. Chesham & Amersham: 63.3%
In principles, deals are good.
We need as many as possible.
In practice, there was an obvious divide inside Cabinet between Eustace/Gove vs Truss/Johnson based largely on the resultant prospects for the UK’s own (and importantly Scottish, Welsh, Irish) producers.
Will be interesting to see who “won”.
Farmers mostly voted for Brexit, if there is sucking up to do, then they will have to do it I’m afraid.
@OwenJones84
·
3h
If three left-wing candidates stand to be Unite general secretary and split the vote, allowing the right-wing candidate to win, that will be because of a campaign run on Twitter.
Which will mean that Twitter has finally blown apart the British left.
https://www.danielmorganpanel.independent.gov.uk/the-report/
Down here in London my wealthier neighbours are actually installing air conditioning to make those few weeks a year more bearable.
Imports are about 300 million bottles per year, and there are 60 million adults. So 5 bottles each.
(https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/uk-wine-imports-top-countries-384745/)
So that's about a third to a half of the savings to UK families.
(Of course, the really interesting thing is to see when the Australia-EU trade deal emerges from the works, and what terms it has...)
It is "taking a closer look" at the effective duopoly the two firms have.
That includes the operating systems Android and iOS, both app stores, and Safari and Chrome web browsers.
Officials are examining whether the pair are "stifling competition across a range of digital markets"."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57484720
She should have resigned a looooong time ago.
Probably after she accidentally killed that Brazilian bloke.
“Some years ago I was asked some extremely unpleasant questions about my health. In other words, the health between my ears. They were extremely rude and extremely intrusive questions and they were nasty and they were wrong so I took a vow at that point, that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody"
He still hasn't had it, has he...its such a bullshit excuse, it isn't like asking about if you have dementia...it is a simple yes i have, tweet picture as a PSA, done...
I do that to insure myself against future rental regulation on the 'overheating' issue. Yes, they would and yes, they are stupid enough to try.
https://westcountrybylines.co.uk/challenging-the-myth-that-farmers-voted-for-brexit-and-therefore-deserve-whats-coming-to-them/
Not before time to be honest
I reckon there's a few bods out there that have had it though - but they don't want to tell anyone for fear of destroying their brand - the canadian behaviour profressor chap got loads of flack on twitter when he said he had had it.
Brexit also made a few of those seats like Esher now marginal
And after their recent approval of the Alzheimer's drug (which saw three advisers resign in protest), the FDA isn't entirely gold standard, either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/health/aduhelm-fda-resign-alzheimers.html
Cristiano Ronaldo ditches Coca-Cola for water at Euro 2020 press conference - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/57484319
Who is to blame for the delay
The public 28%
HMG 23%
Both 38%
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1404760038577672196?s=19
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-57482258
Finally the end for Cressida Dick?
Yes, it's fixable.
You should be well insulated as a matter of course - if it is a normal loft then talk to the Energy Saving Trust. In most places there are bodies doing it for free (I think - though I have not had one for a bit). They require you to currently have less than 100mm, so once you have checked they do the service, remove any there before they visit.
Other strategies - through ventilation (windows open both sides of the house) the night before or early until it warms up. Then close them so you keep the coolth in.
Or arrange stack airflow - something open downstairs, and something open upstairs - classically a window on the shady side and a rooflight.
Beyond that there are things like trickle ventilation fans, and single unit aircon. Or a split aircon unit that puts the outside unit inside and has 2 holes in the wall. Very power efficient for what you get.
Or very efficient stick on solar films that reduce heat transmission by 50% or more.
Or internal/external blinds, or awnings.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d3pQBX6rWc0c8inlgs22ZN1uJL2yNSXi/view
https://www.orionairsales.co.uk/unico-easy-sf-fixed-air-conditioning-unit-cooling-only-no-outdoor-unit-2kw--7000btu-a-240v50hz-5376-p.asp
Tricks used by intelligent self-builders include easily available two way ASHP units that cool as well as heat by running in both directions, and the ability to run your ufh system with no heat to level out hot spots around the slab.
https://www.danielmorganpanel.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CCS0220047602-001_Daniel_Morgan_Inquiry_Web_Accessible.pdf
Remember this is a Government that doesn't want to set any precedent where being found to be incompetent / a bully / a crook results in you being forced to resign.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1404735314229350405
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Preference
One is that insulation does lots of things - it keeps heat in, but it also makes it slower for the heat pulse to get through. eg if the sun comes out at 7am, some places will oveheat by 11am, others by 3pm in the same conditions.
One of the more difficult problems with very insulated houses is they can overheat and be really difficult to get cool again - if it is designed to prevent rapid heatflows out in winter to keep it warm, that is always a potential problem in summer.
One way is to get a "decrement delay" of around a day, so that you don't feel the heat until the end of the day, then it has overnight to cool back down.
One counterintuitive thing is that a major problem for high-spec houses is often in spring / autumn when the low sun penetrates deeper into the house.
I'd favour the satellite.
From the Telegraph
Only another 47.8% and who needs the EU
The Kangaroo piss is on me!
Yet that is where our comparative advantage lies.
We are the world’s second largest exporter.
We ought really be attempting to improve service access if we are letting in more goods.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/murder-in-the-car-park
Plus, NZ lamber tastes nicer as well.
Which has amused my Scottish friends and colleagues.
On the downside, I have been accused of wearing 'schemie' shoes.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/a-new-dawn-australia-and-britain-agree-on-historic-trade-deal-20210615-p5817c.html
Mutual recognition of qualifications, opening up of Oz market to financial firms and mutually relaxed visa requirements for young temporary workers.