My 85 year old cousin voted Lib Dem in Chesham. She's a blue Tory as you could find but very surprised this morning. She says she was heartened by the young people turning up at her door and energetic LD campaign. She liked the candidate. She loves to chat and is lonely. So all sorts of contradictions there about the young, NIMBYs, and housing, but also shows you'll struggle to find one main cause for the LD win. Voters are individuals and vote one way or another for all sorts of different reasons. Campaigns & personalities also seem to matter. So suspect the pundits know nothing unless they've talked to lots of voters in the constituency.
It's funny, there's a type of Tory that Boris Johnson puts off like no other.
Take PB, David Herdson and myself are lifelong Tories, we've spent most of our adult lives campaigning for the Tory party, helping lots of councillors and MPs get elected, yet we fled the Tory party when BJ became PM, we knew this is what would happen.
Boris Johnson does many deeply unConservative things.
Mrs Thatcher would be spinning in her grave at his electoral and fuck business policies for example.
I'm not going back to the Tory party for a while.
Not voting for anyone else mind.
I can understand normal people not voting because they aren't that fussed... but for political obsessives... especially someone like you who is clearly unhappy about how things are going... how can you not want to vote for someone else?
Lib Dem/Lab/Green/UKIP whoever... there's a wide range of choice out there.
I can’t vote Labour, I’m opposed to socialism.
The Lib Dems have Vera Hobhouse on their front bench. She’s a conspiracy theorist.
Although 1 dose does significantly reduce your protection against catching Indian variant COVID, it is basically still the same high level of protection against serious illness / hospitalization, and 2nd doses basically no difference...still upto 98% reduction against getting really ill.
That is really positive news. Get everybody double dosed and basically the only people we should be seeing in hospital are morons and the unfortunate very old / very frail.
Tell that to the PB Zerocovidiantivaxxers, who gleefully celebrated a bad day of numbers yesterday by trashing the vaccines.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Thankfully for the Tories, the solution is pretty straightforward. Replace Boris with almost anyone else and they would be much better placed in home-county-type fights.
Compare that with Labour's troubles, which currently feels like move left and lose votes, move right and lose votes.
Thankfully for the Tories, the solution is pretty straightforward. Replace Boris with almost anyone else and they would be much better placed in home-county-type fights.
Compare that with Labour's troubles, which currently feels like move left and lose votes, move right and lose votes.
I generally don't mind Lib Dems winning things, as I consider them to generally be a decent bunch, but if they are winning things by appealing to the NIMBYs who are against building almost anything, never mind such vital things as transport infrastructure and homes, that is depressing. This country is held back by appealing to the selfish already well-off, one thing Boris has got right is "levelling up", and the Lib Dems should be supporting such an agenda not appealing to the opponents of it.
As a Labour supporter I hope these last two results cause Keir Starmer to have a rethink on his silence towards Brexit. Red Wall voters may be largely lost, but there are clearly swathes of non Brexit voters out there waiting to be wooed back into the Labour fold. Well done Libs in Amersham.
Agreed. I posted this on the previous thread in rely to HYUFD but it fell down the New Thread hole:
Starmer needs the plums to say, unequivocally, that Labour, as a party, believes Brexit is a catastrophic error. If that leads to losing more red wall seats (including my own, and I don't particularly want to have a Tory MP) then, sadly, that is a symptom of politics shifting to a Leave/Remain divide.
Because Labour are trying to ignore Brexit, and pleasing no-one. They're not Brexity enough for Leavers, everyone knows there's no conviction, and they're repelling Remainers for not being anti-Brexit enough.
The Tories have screwed Labour good and proper. Their austerity pissed the Red Wall off, they blamed a lot of it on forrins (so many people up here think they can't get a doctor's appointment for weeks because we're swamped with immigrants, esp Muslim immigrants), the two Leave campaigns promised everything to everyone. It's shameless, opportunistic. mendacious and brilliant.
And yes, the Remain campaign was shite. But, ultimately, it was headed by Tories. So it couldn't say stuff like, for example, 'Don't vote Leave 'cos the Tories will, given half a chance, take an axe to worker's rights the EU protects' or 'Don't vote Leave cos, given half a chance, the Tories will go for Thatcherism on steroids and happily lay waste to things like the fishing industry', because it was ultimately headed by... Tories.
Not convinced by that, Brexit is done, yet the Tories want it front and centre of the next election, perhaps via its proxy, the culture war.
There will be some localised seats where Labour can point to issues caused by Brexit and play on that.
But nationally Labour needs to return to being about the balance between labour and capital. Not in the old fashioned divisive trade union ways, but simply about restoring hopes and dreams to the opportunities of ordinary working people, which means supporting education, businesses and investment, not class war.
Brexit as an act, a break, a rupture, is done. Brexit's after effects still have to manifest themselves properly.
But I broadly agree with your final paragraph. But that's all overshadowed currently by the B-word.
If you’re just tuning in to british politics now, at the point in time referred to in the below, Mr Cummings was actively working to get the clueless gaffe machine elected. Later, in his own words, thousands of people would die needlessly. https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1405830058720247808
And what a weird quote about the Chilterns. "The [Chiltern] district council failed to make a local plan, leaving the area extra vulnerable to a developers free for all in the green belt."
I'm not from the area, but I would have thought a logical solution to that would be to make a local plan. That makes the not having a local plan problem go away surely?
It's funny, there's a type of Tory that Boris Johnson puts off like no other.
Take PB, David Herdson and myself are lifelong Tories, we've spent most of our adult lives campaigning for the Tory party, helping lots of councillors and MPs get elected, yet we fled the Tory party when BJ became PM, we knew this is what would happen.
Boris Johnson does many deeply unConservative things.
Mrs Thatcher would be spinning in her grave at his electoral and fuck business policies for example.
I'm not going back to the Tory party for a while.
Not voting for anyone else mind.
How does it feel to be traded for the Red Wall?
Well I work in the Banking & Financial Services sector, we were traded for fish by this PM and Government during the Brexit deal, so on a par with that.
They traded your sole.
And the fisherman aren’t even happy, not as happy as the Brexit government, who now have British fish swimming in British waters.
The Green Party(ies) applaud your commitment to recycling PB puns.
My 85 year old cousin voted Lib Dem in Chesham. She's a blue Tory as you could find but very surprised this morning. She says she was heartened by the young people turning up at her door and energetic LD campaign. She liked the candidate. She loves to chat and is lonely. So all sorts of contradictions there about the young, NIMBYs, and housing, but also shows you'll struggle to find one main cause for the LD win. Voters are individuals and vote one way or another for all sorts of different reasons. Campaigns & personalities also seem to matter. So suspect the pundits know nothing unless they've talked to lots of voters in the constituency.
I think that backs up what I was saying. A lot of lib dem voters are small 'c' conservatives, which is a bit of a difference from the 'coalition of progressive left' which the left seem to think the lib dem support is a part off.
It's also an issue if PR came in, I expect, if parties began to break up, the new parties which would likely take power would be much more centrist than what the left would like. Certainly less right wing yes, be not left in the way we think of it now.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
As a Labour supporter I hope these last two results cause Keir Starmer to have a rethink on his silence towards Brexit. Red Wall voters may be largely lost, but there are clearly swathes of non Brexit voters out there waiting to be wooed back into the Labour fold. Well done Libs in Amersham.
Agreed. I posted this on the previous thread in rely to HYUFD but it fell down the New Thread hole:
Starmer needs the plums to say, unequivocally, that Labour, as a party, believes Brexit is a catastrophic error. If that leads to losing more red wall seats (including my own, and I don't particularly want to have a Tory MP) then, sadly, that is a symptom of politics shifting to a Leave/Remain divide.
Because Labour are trying to ignore Brexit, and pleasing no-one. They're not Brexity enough for Leavers, everyone knows there's no conviction, and they're repelling Remainers for not being anti-Brexit enough.
The Tories have screwed Labour good and proper. Their austerity pissed the Red Wall off, they blamed a lot of it on forrins (so many people up here think they can't get a doctor's appointment for weeks because we're swamped with immigrants, esp Muslim immigrants), the two Leave campaigns promised everything to everyone. It's shameless, opportunistic. mendacious and brilliant.
And yes, the Remain campaign was shite. But, ultimately, it was headed by Tories. So it couldn't say stuff like, for example, 'Don't vote Leave 'cos the Tories will, given half a chance, take an axe to worker's rights the EU protects' or 'Don't vote Leave cos, given half a chance, the Tories will go for Thatcherism on steroids and happily lay waste to things like the fishing industry', because it was ultimately headed by... Tories.
Not convinced by that, Brexit is done, yet the Tories want it front and centre of the next election, perhaps via its proxy, the culture war.
There will be some localised seats where Labour can point to issues caused by Brexit and play on that.
But nationally Labour needs to return to being about the balance between labour and capital. Not in the old fashioned divisive trade union ways, but simply about restoring hopes and dreams to the opportunities of ordinary working people, which means supporting education, businesses and investment, not class war.
It's not Brexit that is the problem, it's the wokeness. If you are a northern white working class stereotype voter why would you vote for a party that gives every impression they despise you and your values, thinks you are racist plus privileged for the mere fact of being white even though your life might be sh1t, and (at best) has mixed views on Brexit?
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
They are a classic protest/plague-on-both-your-houses party. Everybody knows what they're against, nobody knows what they're for.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
British food and drink exports to the EU fell by £2bn in the first three months of 2021, with sales of dairy products plummeting by 90%, according to an analysis of HMRC data.
Brexit checks, stockpiling and Covid have been blamed for much of the downturn, but the sector has said the figures show structural rather than teething problems with the UK’s departure from the EU.
“The loss of £2bn of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer-term due to new trade barriers with the EU,” said Dominic Goudie, the head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF).
He called on the government to “stop prevaricating” over proposals to help exporters “shut out of trading with the EU”.
Though, admittedly:
The decline in exports to the EU meant sales to the rest of the world, which have stabilised, now account for more than 50% of all British exports of food and drink.
The easing of Covid restrictions drove “strong growth” in exports to pre-pandemic levels in China, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Exports to China were up by a quarter, driven by growth in the sale of pork, whisky and vegetable oils, said the FDF’s Trade Snapshot report.
There is also fresh hope of a boom in whisky exports to the US after Washington and London agreed to suspend retaliatory tariffs.
My 85 year old cousin voted Lib Dem in Chesham. She's a blue Tory as you could find but very surprised this morning. She says she was heartened by the young people turning up at her door and energetic LD campaign. She liked the candidate. She loves to chat and is lonely. So all sorts of contradictions there about the young, NIMBYs, and housing, but also shows you'll struggle to find one main cause for the LD win. Voters are individuals and vote one way or another for all sorts of different reasons. Campaigns & personalities also seem to matter. So suspect the pundits know nothing unless they've talked to lots of voters in the constituency.
I think that backs up what I was saying. A lot of lib dem voters are small 'c' conservatives, which is a bit of a difference from the 'coalition of progressive left' which the left seem to think the lib dem support is a part off.
It's also an issue if PR came in, I expect, if parties began to break up, the new parties which would likely take power would be much more centrist than what the left would like. Certainly less right wing yes, be not left in the way we think of it now.
Yes, agree. She's also a very devout Catholic, so suspect none too impressed with Boris and his personal life.... as you say, there's definitely a small 'c' conservative element here especially on social values against the current CON leadership.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
It's funny, there's a type of Tory that Boris Johnson puts off like no other.
Take PB, David Herdson and myself are lifelong Tories, we've spent most of our adult lives campaigning for the Tory party, helping lots of councillors and MPs get elected, yet we fled the Tory party when BJ became PM, we knew this is what would happen.
Boris Johnson does many deeply unConservative things.
Mrs Thatcher would be spinning in her grave at his electoral and fuck business policies for example.
I'm not going back to the Tory party for a while.
Not voting for anyone else mind.
He does the most Conservative thing of all. He wins.
And the second most Conservative thing of all, loses in Scotland.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
Same here. In the euros? But yes if he says no it's no.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
On topic, I think Boris is safe for now. Mrs Thatcher was indeed gone after the large swing against the Conservatives in Eastbourne, but all the other circumstances are different:
- the Conservatives are about 10 points ahead in the national polls, whereas in 1990 they were 20 points behind - they have just had a sensational by-election win of their own in Hartlepool - Margaret had been in power for 10 years, whereas Boris has only been there for two - the local elections were very positive - Margaret was opposed to the mainstream of the Parliamentary party on Europe, while Boris has its support = there's no equivalent of the Poll Tax. - there's no leader who would obviously be more popular than Boris - there's three years before the Conservatives need to face the voters rather than two
So, overall, my guess is that Boris will still be there in a year's time, given what I know now. And if the Conservatives manage to win Batley, he's definitely safe, or as definite as these things ever are.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
I have no dog in a Cummings vs Hodges fight, they're both parasitic wasters high on their own self-importance. In their own distinct ways they embody much that's wrong with our politics.
Is this what they meant by Singapore-on-the-Thames?
But go to love Brits who go overseas and break local laws.
A British man was arrested and now faces up to six months in prison in Singapore after he was filmed on a train without a mask.
Father-of-two Benjamin Glynn, 39, claims his passport has been confiscated and he has unable to return to the UK with his family whilst he awaits trial.
Mr Glynn, who says he believes masks are pointless and fail to protect people from contracting Covid, wasn't wearing a face-covering he took a train home from work in the South East Asian citystate last month, where they are mandatory.
Unbeknown to him, he was secretly filmed by a fellow commuter who then put the clip on social media.
That led to officers arresting him just hours later.
After 28 hours in a cell, Benjamin, from Helmsley, North Yorkshire, was charged with a public nuisance offence.
Benjamin's passport was confiscated, meaning he couldn't return to the UK as planned with his partner and two children - aged five and two.
He also lost a new job he was due to start in the UK and fears he could have to spend as much as 12 months on bail before his trial.
It is not funny at all - a father of two who may not see his kids for a while - whoever is to blame it is not funny . A lot of negative spiteful people around these days including yourself it seems
Great stuff! So I think we can now say we have Peak Johnson in the rear view mirror. Thank christ for that. Next step, get the man himself in the rear view mirror. Preferably having mown him down.
Like Hartlepool it's the margin that's the big shock, but a pleasant one this time. Congrats to site owner Mike for a terrific betting steer. I closed out too early and won only a fraction of what I would have done but, hey, let's not get too down about that. First world problem.
Also well done to the one or two other posters who tipped this. @AndyJS being one I noticed calling it in some detail and without caveat.
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
As a Labour supporter I hope these last two results cause Keir Starmer to have a rethink on his silence towards Brexit. Red Wall voters may be largely lost, but there are clearly swathes of non Brexit voters out there waiting to be wooed back into the Labour fold. Well done Libs in Amersham.
Agreed. I posted this on the previous thread in rely to HYUFD but it fell down the New Thread hole:
Starmer needs the plums to say, unequivocally, that Labour, as a party, believes Brexit is a catastrophic error. If that leads to losing more red wall seats (including my own, and I don't particularly want to have a Tory MP) then, sadly, that is a symptom of politics shifting to a Leave/Remain divide.
Because Labour are trying to ignore Brexit, and pleasing no-one. They're not Brexity enough for Leavers, everyone knows there's no conviction, and they're repelling Remainers for not being anti-Brexit enough.
The Tories have screwed Labour good and proper. Their austerity pissed the Red Wall off, they blamed a lot of it on forrins (so many people up here think they can't get a doctor's appointment for weeks because we're swamped with immigrants, esp Muslim immigrants), the two Leave campaigns promised everything to everyone. It's shameless, opportunistic. mendacious and brilliant.
And yes, the Remain campaign was shite. But, ultimately, it was headed by Tories. So it couldn't say stuff like, for example, 'Don't vote Leave 'cos the Tories will, given half a chance, take an axe to worker's rights the EU protects' or 'Don't vote Leave cos, given half a chance, the Tories will go for Thatcherism on steroids and happily lay waste to things like the fishing industry', because it was ultimately headed by... Tories.
I agree with KS when he says Brexit is done. Unfortunately I cannot see anyway the British public would accept the Euro and the many other opt outs that we negotiated as a member, if we wanted to rejoin. On the other hand, his silence on the many problems Brexit is throwing up is not doing him any favours among the constituency I mentioned. KS needs to grow some balls over Brexit and tell it for what it really is......a disaster.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
They are a classic protest/plague-on-both-your-houses party. Everybody knows what they're against, nobody knows what they're for.
On a good day they're the grit in the Oyster. Our major parties are smug and complacent enough without there being any grit to spoil their self regard. Its a useful, if somewhat incoherent, function.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
People who were prepared to vote Brexit/UKIP enabled the EU referendum.
It was the popular will. PT should be applauding DC's decision.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
I'm sorry but the cities need commuter dormitories. That's how many of these towns have grown for decades anyway, but the population of this country has grown by 20% in the past generation without housing growing accordingly. What is wrong with Grantham or Newark growing if that is where people want to live?
If not there, then where else do you propose people live? Or should they be deported? And please don't say brownfield, there isn't the brownfield land available.
A 20% increase in population inevitably means we need an increase in green land needed for housing, unless we deport millions of people. Its just realistic to say that and it is dishonest to say there are alternative solutions that don't involve some construction - but that doesn't mean concreting over the entire nation.
Is this what they meant by Singapore-on-the-Thames?
But go to love Brits who go overseas and break local laws.
A British man was arrested and now faces up to six months in prison in Singapore after he was filmed on a train without a mask.
Father-of-two Benjamin Glynn, 39, claims his passport has been confiscated and he has unable to return to the UK with his family whilst he awaits trial.
Mr Glynn, who says he believes masks are pointless and fail to protect people from contracting Covid, wasn't wearing a face-covering he took a train home from work in the South East Asian citystate last month, where they are mandatory.
Unbeknown to him, he was secretly filmed by a fellow commuter who then put the clip on social media.
That led to officers arresting him just hours later.
After 28 hours in a cell, Benjamin, from Helmsley, North Yorkshire, was charged with a public nuisance offence.
Benjamin's passport was confiscated, meaning he couldn't return to the UK as planned with his partner and two children - aged five and two.
He also lost a new job he was due to start in the UK and fears he could have to spend as much as 12 months on bail before his trial.
It is not funny at all - a father of two who may not see his kids for a while - whoever is to blame it is not funny . A lot of negative spiteful people around these days including yourself it seems
Actions have consequences.
Think of the kids who may not see their parents for a while/or never if he spread COVID-19.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
The counterpoint to this would be 'where do you expect the houses to go?'
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
On topic, I think Boris is safe for now. Mrs Thatcher was indeed gone after the large swing against the Conservatives in Eastbourne, but all the other circumstances are different:
- the Conservatives are about 10 points ahead in the national polls, whereas in 1990 they were 20 points behind - they have just had a sensational by-election win of their own in Hartlepool - Margaret had been in power for 10 years, whereas Boris has only been there for two - the local elections were very positive - Margaret was opposed to the mainstream of the Parliamentary party on Europe, while Boris has its support = there's no equivalent of the Poll Tax. - there's no leader who would obviously be more popular than Boris - there's three years before the Conservatives need to face the voters rather than two
So, overall, my guess is that Boris will still be there in a year's time, given what I know now. And if the Conservatives manage to win Batley, he's definitely safe, or as definite as these things ever are.
I think any extension of the 19th July date would be Boris' poll tax moment. The party would have to get rid of him.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
Not really. In 2019 I was voting for there to be no MEPs and to oust a failed Prime Minister. I was voting for Farage's mob NOT to be MEPs.
Remind me is Farage an MEP today? Is Claire Fox an MEP today? Is Theresa May PM today?
Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Though I'm disgusted Fox got ennobled.
Although 1 dose does significantly reduce your protection against catching Indian variant COVID, it is basically still the same high level of protection against serious illness / hospitalization, and 2nd doses basically no difference...still upto 98% reduction against getting really ill.
That is really positive news. Get everybody double dosed and basically the only people we should be seeing in hospital are morons and the unfortunate very old / very frail.
Tell that to the PB Zerocovidiantivaxxers, who gleefully celebrated a bad day of numbers yesterday by trashing the vaccines.
In fact, the PHE report seems very positive. Hospitalisations among those catching the Delta variant run at 40% the level among those catching the Alpha variant, since 1st February. Deaths are running at 9% of the rate.
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I was out with an ultra covid-dovish lady last night. When I heard her utter the words “what then was the point of the vaccine?” I started to wonder whether the tide was indeed turning at last.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
The counterpoint to this would be 'where do you expect the houses to go?'
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
Not really. In 2019 I was voting for there to be no MEPs and to oust a failed Prime Minister. I was voting for Farage's mob NOT to be MEPs.
Remind me is Farage an MEP today? Is Claire Fox an MEP today? Is Theresa May PM today?
Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Though I'm disgusted Fox got ennobled.
Thanks to your vote and the PM Claire Fox is an unelected ruler I won’t be rid of.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
People who were prepared to vote Brexit/UKIP enabled the EU referendum.
It was the popular will. PT should be applauding DC's decision.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
Not really. In 2019 I was voting for there to be no MEPs and to oust a failed Prime Minister. I was voting for Farage's mob NOT to be MEPs.
Remind me is Farage an MEP today? Is Claire Fox an MEP today? Is Theresa May PM today?
Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Though I'm disgusted Fox got ennobled.
Thanks to your vote and the PM Claire Fox is an unelected ruler I be rid of.
My vote had nothing to do with that whatsoever.
And Lords are not rulers of anyone. The Commons set the laws not the Lords. The Lords can be ignored, the Commons can't.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Not really. Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Which election did you vote ukip Philip?
Never.
Ah sorry I thought you had.
I thought he said previously that he had. Can I be bothered to check? Nope.
He voted for Farage’s mob in the 2019 Euros.
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
To be fair to PT, that was Brexit Party not UKIP.
Two cheeks of the same arse.
And involving the same arsehole (Nige not Philip I hasten to add!).
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I was out with an ultra covid-dovish lady last night. When I heard her utter the words “what then was the point of the vaccine?” I started to wonder whether the tide was indeed turning at last.
Surely the vaccine was to keep her 'safe' and others around her 'safe?'
The government never explicitly linked vaccination to freedom (certainly not in raw numbers anyway).
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
On topic, I think Boris is safe for now. Mrs Thatcher was indeed gone after the large swing against the Conservatives in Eastbourne, but all the other circumstances are different:
- the Conservatives are about 10 points ahead in the national polls, whereas in 1990 they were 20 points behind - they have just had a sensational by-election win of their own in Hartlepool - Margaret had been in power for 10 years, whereas Boris has only been there for two - the local elections were very positive - Margaret was opposed to the mainstream of the Parliamentary party on Europe, while Boris has its support = there's no equivalent of the Poll Tax. - there's no leader who would obviously be more popular than Boris - there's three years before the Conservatives need to face the voters rather than two
So, overall, my guess is that Boris will still be there in a year's time, given what I know now. And if the Conservatives manage to win Batley, he's definitely safe, or as definite as these things ever are.
I think any extension of the 19th July date would be Boris' poll tax moment. The party would have to get rid of him.
I want to agree with you, but I'm afraid I don't, because rather too many people have got used to, or even enjoy, the restrictions, and those who object - young party animals - don't vote Conservative anyway. They are certainly nothing like the electoral disaster that was the Community Charge.
OK, OK, this is Dom C going off on one, but a) he was right about this question, wasn't he? b) why did he work so hard to get "a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government" a huge majority?
7/ Pundits: not doing ANeil 'a huge campaign blunder' Me: why the fu*k wd be put a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government up to be grilled for ages, upside=0 for what?! This is not a hard decision... Pundits don't understand comms, power or management. Tune out!
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
The counterpoint to this would be 'where do you expect the houses to go?'
You put it simpler than I did.
Brevity is good sometimes.
This is why you need to have functioning and efficient planning system, to deliver housing in a way that builds communities; so close to jobs, services, infrastructure etc. That definetely won't be achieved by random sporadic development over the countryside. You need to co-ordinate a lot of stuff to really make that happen. In the end it can only happen if politicians at all levels are willing to make difficult decisions.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Not really. Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
Well you have a point.
I remember the massive cheer in the dealing room I was working in when Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I was out with an ultra covid-dovish lady last night. When I heard her utter the words “what then was the point of the vaccine?” I started to wonder whether the tide was indeed turning at last.
Surely the vaccine was to keep her 'safe' and others around her 'safe?'
The government never explicitly linked vaccination to freedom (certainly not in raw numbers anyway).
At an individual and family level it protects you and loved ones. This argument still holds and is more than sufficient in my view to take the vaccine which I still would I not have had it already. I would take up the offer of a booster if and when offered for this same reason.
At a population level, politically, it is implicitly linked to unlocking. That is starting to fray and will snap completely if July 19th is not adhered to.
At a population level epidemiologically it is linked to the concept of herd immunity (We're not there yet) which isn't affected regardless of unlock status.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Which would be great if the system had worked, but it hasn't. Our population has grown by over ten million in a generation and the housing market didn't keep up with that.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
Why are all antivaxxers arguments are just a series of non sequiturs and shifting goalposts ?
I remember all that gubbins about false positives or the fact we achieved herd immunity back in April 2020.
That doesn’t get mentioned as much now.
Gupta is still arguing we did reach herd immunity, its just the level required changed with changing season / variants...head in hands.
Although, new data from the US seems to show they gave herd immunity a bloody good go. Even before the vaccines, it seems a massive percentage of people have had it...with an IFR of 0.4%...now my guess is that this is another study where the antibody levels found in the sample population might be higher than reality and thus IFR is a bit lower, but still.
Gupta and co claimed IFR was 0.01% (or some such nonsense). Initial was thought might be 0.1%, looks like it is definitely higher than that.
It's not Brexit that is the problem, it's the wokeness. If you are a northern white working class stereotype voter why would you vote for a party that gives every impression they despise you and your values, thinks you are racist plus privileged for the mere fact of being white even though your life might be sh1t, and (at best) has mixed views on Brexit?
I think that your northern white working class stereotype voter doesn't (or didn't) pay enough attention to politics generally to know or care about Labour's 'wokeness'. I think it was weaponised successfully by Cummings et all, eg 'metropolitan elite', to win the referendum and has been enthusiastically boosted by Johnson's government and those of the right. The virus is now running rampant in the body politic.
The culture war, and it's seemingly simple answers to complex issues, has allowed the Tories to win in areas previously unreachable, because the intoxication of the culture wars has stopped people from voting along economic/class-based lines, other than 'getting rid of all the foreigners will make us richer'.
The corollary of this we see today in the result of the by election.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Sounds like the UK during WWII.
It'll be very familiar to all those leavers who were on the home front during WW2, nostalgic for them
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Trouble is your claims are utterly misleading and dishonest.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
The counterpoint to this would be 'where do you expect the houses to go?'
You put it simpler than I did.
Brevity is good sometimes.
This is why you need to have functioning and efficient planning system, to deliver housing in a way that builds communities; so close to jobs, services, infrastructure etc. That definetely won't be achieved by random sporadic development over the countryside. You need to co-ordinate a lot of stuff to really make that happen. In the end it can only happen if politicians at all levels are willing to make difficult decisions.
No you don't need "co-ordination". The state is terrible at co-ordinating things.
Let people act freely and react in response to that. If there's demand for private amenities then people will innovate and offer those in response to the demand. Let the state deal with the public demands as required and leave the co-ordination to people choosing by themselves how to live their own lives.
And what a weird quote about the Chilterns. "The [Chiltern] district council failed to make a local plan, leaving the area extra vulnerable to a developers free for all in the green belt."
I'm not from the area, but I would have thought a logical solution to that would be to make a local plan. That makes the not having a local plan problem go away surely?
Not sure I understand your point on the local plan.
Councils are responsible for producing local plans to supplement national planning legislation. Chiltern District Council was Tory controlled (merged into Buckinghamshire Council since 2020, which is Tory controlled).
So the argument is that the Conservative Council failed to produce a local plan which moderated the excesses of the Conservative Government's planning shake up.
That's a totally fair argument to make. You can argue against it if you like (e.g. by saying the Government planning shake up isn't so bad - although Mrs May disagrees - or that the Council wasn't such a disaster) but it's a totally reasonable case for the Lib Dems to try to land, and they appear to have done so very successfully.
You also can't make the problem "go away" with a local plan. You can moderate aspects of the national planning framework, but can't just re-write/override it as a legal point.
And what a weird quote about the Chilterns. "The [Chiltern] district council failed to make a local plan, leaving the area extra vulnerable to a developers free for all in the green belt."
I'm not from the area, but I would have thought a logical solution to that would be to make a local plan. That makes the not having a local plan problem go away surely?
Not sure I understand your point on the local plan.
Councils are responsible for producing local plans to supplement national planning legislation. Chiltern District Council was Tory controlled (merged into Buckinghamshire Council since 2020, which is Tory controlled).
So the argument is that the Conservative Council failed to produce a local plan which moderated the excesses of the Conservative Government's planning shake up.
That's a totally fair argument to make. You can argue against it if you like (e.g. by saying the Government planning shake up isn't so bad - although Mrs May disagrees - or that the Council wasn't such a disaster) but it's a totally reasonable case for the Lib Dems to try to land, and they appear to have done so very successfully.
Yes I know Mrs May disagrees and not for the first time I don't agree with Mrs May.
If the Council not providing a local plan is a problem, the solution is for the Council to provide a local plan. Not to oppose planning going ahead while simultaneously calling for more immigration while opposing all construction.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Not really. Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
Well you have a point.
I remember the massive cheer in the dealing room I was working in when Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
And that was 1988. Not 1980.
Lawson has got more than a tad unreliable as he has got older but in my view he was the best Chancellor in my life time. His book, the View from No 11, is still one of the best books on politics around.
What made him so spectacular is that he saw beyond the noise and used economic policy to shape the sort of society the Conservatives wanted. So, the increase in property ownership through council house sales, the tell Sid army of small shareholders, the significant reduction in marginal rates of tax making earning more attractive, the removal of restrictive practices and the opening up of our economy to international opportunities. It wasn't just him but there was a clear vision that went well beyond bringing the deficit down. They had a purpose and a vision beyond day to day management. I see very little of that today.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Which would be great if the system had worked, but it hasn't. Our population has grown by over ten million in a generation and the housing market didn't keep up with that.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
One thing I like about you is your ability to paint such an inspiring vision of the future. YOU TOO could live next to a mostly vacant new build slum. Hill Dale in the Biff Tannon timeline but with a Home Counties accent. Sounds fucking lush mate.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Which would be great if the system had worked, but it hasn't. Our population has grown by over ten million in a generation and the housing market didn't keep up with that.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
The point being that the planning system has had bugger all to do with the failure to build more houses. Yes the population has grown but the failure to build houses to accommodate them has been due to strategic failures by government combined with a developer controlled system that allows them to land bank to maintain and increase the value of their assets. Given the ability of local councils to approve huge numbers of new houses in secret during that same period it can hardly be claimed that the planning system was preventing developments going ahead.
All the planning reforms do is remove the responsibility of developers to act in a manner we would all expect and should demand. And those large expensive homes are the very future slums I am talking about. They are poorly built with no amenities and no regard for existing local facilities. You are defending the indefensible and I assume this is due to complete ignorance of the subject.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Not really. Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
Well you have a point.
I remember the massive cheer in the dealing room I was working in when Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
And that was 1988. Not 1980.
Lawson has got more than a tad unreliable as he has got older but in my view he was the best Chancellor in my life time. His book, the View from No 11, is still one of the best books on politics around.
What made him so spectacular is that he saw beyond the noise and used economic policy to shape the sort of society the Conservatives wanted. So, the increase in property ownership through council house sales, the tell Sid army of small shareholders, the significant reduction in marginal rates of tax making earning more attractive, the removal of restrictive practices and the opening up of our economy to international opportunities. It wasn't just him but there was a clear vision that went well beyond bringing the deficit down. They had a purpose and a vision beyond day to day management. I see very little of that today.
He was outstanding on microeconomics. On macro, he was pretty mediocre, especially when he supported ERM membership, which went on to jeopardise so much of what he and Mrs Thatcher achieved.
OK, OK, this is Dom C going off on one, but a) he was right about this question, wasn't he? b) why did he work so hard to get "a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government" a huge majority?
7/ Pundits: not doing ANeil 'a huge campaign blunder' Me: why the fu*k wd be put a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government up to be grilled for ages, upside=0 for what?! This is not a hard decision... Pundits don't understand comms, power or management. Tune out!
I think the answer to question 2 might be that he thought he could control said gaffe machine. He obviously thought himself as a kind of Prime Minister to the Prime Minister, a sort of Cardinal Richelieu of the modern age. He didn't reckon the on the fact that Boris Johnson is always led by his Johnson, so Dom was replaced by Carrie . He is now at war with Carrie via media.
They might make a series of films about it. They will be known as the CarrieDom films.
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I made a similar point a week or two ago about the hairdresser that my wife frequents with the customers and staff saying, in effect, “what’s the point”.
Isn’t this just a case of posh Remain seat going to a Remain party? As Hartlepool was a case of poor working class leave seat going to the Leave party. It’s not a secret that Brexit might cause a realignment of the voters, and it seems to be happening
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Which would be great if the system had worked, but it hasn't. Our population has grown by over ten million in a generation and the housing market didn't keep up with that.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
One thing I like about you is your ability to paint such an inspiring vision of the future. YOU TOO could live next to a mostly vacant new build slum. Hill Dale in the Biff Tannon timeline but with a Home Counties accent. Sounds fucking lush mate.
I don’t agree with a planning free for all unlike PT. I am in favour of councils being able to enforce good quality and in keeping properties. What I am not in favour of is local people pulling the ladder up behind them to maintain their property values.
I also am in favour of policies to encourage self builds rather than a housing policy led by Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey etc.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Not really. Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
Well you have a point.
I remember the massive cheer in the dealing room I was working in when Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
And that was 1988. Not 1980.
Lawson has got more than a tad unreliable as he has got older but in my view he was the best Chancellor in my life time. His book, the View from No 11, is still one of the best books on politics around.
What made him so spectacular is that he saw beyond the noise and used economic policy to shape the sort of society the Conservatives wanted. So, the increase in property ownership through council house sales, the tell Sid army of small shareholders, the significant reduction in marginal rates of tax making earning more attractive, the removal of restrictive practices and the opening up of our economy to international opportunities. It wasn't just him but there was a clear vision that went well beyond bringing the deficit down. They had a purpose and a vision beyond day to day management. I see very little of that today.
I have seen very little of it since he and Thatcher left office.
Those of us who were lucky enough to live as adults on board with the program through the Thatcher revolution were spoiled. Every day of that tenure, I felt the government had my back.
I have never felt like that since. Probably won't again.
Isn’t this just a case of posh Remain seat going to a Remain party? As Hartlepool was a case of poor working class leave seat going to the Leave party. It’s not a secret that Brexit might cause a realignment of the voters, and it seems to be happening
Seems to be a realignment ol' Starmer can't take advantage of mind.
It's funny, there's a type of Tory that Boris Johnson puts off like no other.
Take PB, David Herdson and myself are lifelong Tories, we've spent most of our adult lives campaigning for the Tory party, helping lots of councillors and MPs get elected, yet we fled the Tory party when BJ became PM, we knew this is what would happen.
Boris Johnson does many deeply unConservative things.
Mrs Thatcher would be spinning in her grave at his electoral and fuck business policies for example.
I'm not going back to the Tory party for a while.
Not voting for anyone else mind.
I can understand normal people not voting because they aren't that fussed... but for political obsessives... especially someone like you who is clearly unhappy about how things are going... how can you not want to vote for someone else?
Lib Dem/Lab/Green/UKIP whoever... there's a wide range of choice out there.
I can’t vote Labour, I’m opposed to socialism.
The Lib Dems have Vera Hobhouse on their front bench. She’s a conspiracy theorist.
Can’t vote for the Greens as they are watermelons.
Can’t vote for UKIP or any Farage type party.
I live in a Lab/LD marginal so it doesn’t really matter to the Tories who wins this seat.
For the foreseeable future I shall be spoiling my ballot paper in increasingly amusing ways.
Hmm... it's obviously none of my business -> but your reason for not voting Lib Dem seems weak.
You don't like 1 of their people on the front bench... you surely have voted Tory whilst not liking at least 1 person on their front bench... if you are opposed to socialism, why not vote against it?
I guess I just feel people are very quick to take voting for granted and say-> they're all the same, doesn't matter who I vote for... when it's patently obviously politicians/parties are not all the same, there are some really awful ones out there!
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I was out with an ultra covid-dovish lady last night. When I heard her utter the words “what then was the point of the vaccine?” I started to wonder whether the tide was indeed turning at last.
Surely the vaccine was to keep her 'safe' and others around her 'safe?'
The government never explicitly linked vaccination to freedom (certainly not in raw numbers anyway).
Bollocks. We were repeatedly told vaccines were the way out of this.
Obviously there are a myriad of reasons why the Tory vote collapsed last night, and I'm sure planning laws and HS2 were significant. However, I suspect the Covid restrictions debate was not.
I also have a hypothesis that the Tories are losing some votes because of the cronyism, whiff of corruption, disregard for accountability, disregard for Parliamentary convention and the constitution, and propensity to tell straightforward lies that permeate this government. These matters are compounded by some of the more reactionary rhetoric - for example, the unseemly attacks on asylum seekers and their (illegal) treatment in the Dover barracks - that 'decent' Tories find beyond the pale. There's a certain type of educated, middle-class voter, who is Tory but not tribal Tory, who I suspect is pretty disgusted with the shenanigans of Boris and his mates. Heck, I even wonder if Theresa May could bring herself to vote for Boris's Tories in a secret ballot.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
We support rail (but not here!) We support house building (but not here!)
Not sure how you build a national platform off that....
It's nuts. How the hell can the Lib Dems be against public transport and building homes?
Pure NIMBYism at its very worst. Gosh these grapes are sour, almost bitter.
What are the Boris's idiots offering southern constituency tories in exchange for their goodwill on planning restrictions?
The highest taxes ever The biggest debts ever Ongoing restrictions on liberty. No travel overseas either holiday or business. The end of gas central heating. No more nice fuel injected BMWs. Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
The Tories are underestimating the opposition to the lifting of planning restrictions. This is a big factor which is going to play out in large parts of the country. They need to review their policy on this fast.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Well. The planning bill hasn't yet been published, so you are ahead of the entire industry with this analysis.
Your comments just about make sense if they are a criticism of planning reform since 2012 (ie the NPPF and permitted development rights) which did replace the previous system of PPG's and PPS's. What really changed at this point though was the political removal of regional government and regional planning through which a lot of strategic large scale development was being driven.
Southern Conservatives are very very worried this morning about planning reform and troubles for the next election. The Lib Dems will likely become the new Nimby party.
As I suggested earlier: Jenrick gone in next reshuffle and some kind of 'review' of planning changes.
And yet the LDs were in Parliament yesterday calling for more immigration for low skilled low wage jobs. Because supporting that while opposing planning will do the housing market wonders. 🤦♂️
Some people act as if planning changes will mean the whole country would turn into concrete, that's not what it means, its not what it could ever mean. 5% of land is housing now, even if we added 3 million extra homes not 300k at the same density, all on greenfield farming land, it would mean 5.5% of the country being housing and 69.5% of the country being agriculture.
People who abjectly fear construction, or who use such fear to protect their house prices, are the real ones who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I would suggest that the planning changes are not going to change very much. We don't know yet what they are but they look like procedural changes as to how land gets allocated for development through the local plan process, to try and speed it all up. Green Belt, AONB's etc will in all likelihood remain as they are and will in all reality probably be even more protected. The biggest problem as I see it is that they are trying to restructure the system too quickly, to try and get it all done in one parliament for political reasons.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Actually they are going to change a great deal and not for the better.
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
Which would be great if the system had worked, but it hasn't. Our population has grown by over ten million in a generation and the housing market didn't keep up with that.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
The point being that the planning system has had bugger all to do with the failure to build more houses. Yes the population has grown but the failure to build houses to accommodate them has been due to strategic failures by government combined with a developer controlled system that allows them to land bank to maintain and increase the value of their assets. Given the ability of local councils to approve huge numbers of new houses in secret during that same period it can hardly be claimed that the planning system was preventing developments going ahead.
All the planning reforms do is remove the responsibility of developers to act in a manner we would all expect and should demand. And those large expensive homes are the very future slums I am talking about. They are poorly built with no amenities and no regard for existing local facilities. You are defending the indefensible and I assume this is due to complete ignorance of the subject.
I have long thought that the failure of planning policy is related to one principle obsession of the British middle class: house prices. Successive governments are terrified of doing what is necessary because if they overheat supply there will be a resultant collapse in the house price bubble, leading to negative equity and very pissed off voters. Therefore better to have high demand and low supply so the bubble remains inflated. Young people therefore get stuffed unless the Bank of Mum and Dad coughs up.
It does feel like it, even from unpolitical people I've been hearing a lot of "what's the point of the vaccines" type of comments. People who were supportive of the lockdown are now wondering whether we'll ever be allowed out.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
I was out with an ultra covid-dovish lady last night. When I heard her utter the words “what then was the point of the vaccine?” I started to wonder whether the tide was indeed turning at last.
Surely the vaccine was to keep her 'safe' and others around her 'safe?'
The government never explicitly linked vaccination to freedom (certainly not in raw numbers anyway).
Bollocks. We were repeatedly told vaccines were the way out of this.
Well then it is manifestly clear by now you were repeatedly lied to.
Seems to me that saying that it's all about NIMBYism in the South is just as condescending as saying it is all about being racist in the North, people are much smarter than people give them credit for, as Grieve said. This electorate does not like being run by a liar and a charlatan and they feel the Tory Party no longer represents them.
Comments
Compare that with Labour's troubles, which currently feels like move left and lose votes, move right and lose votes.
Now who is going to tackle that one?
But I broadly agree with your final paragraph. But that's all overshadowed currently by the B-word.
And what a weird quote about the Chilterns. "The [Chiltern] district council failed to make a local plan, leaving the area extra vulnerable to a developers free for all in the green belt."
I'm not from the area, but I would have thought a logical solution to that would be to make a local plan. That makes the not having a local plan problem go away surely?
Cummings lays into Hodges
It's also an issue if PR came in, I expect, if parties began to break up, the new parties which would likely take power would be much more centrist than what the left would like. Certainly less right wing yes, be not left in the way we think of it now.
Go and look at where houses are being built and how those decisions are being made. Across large swathes of England they are being done by tacking on huge new dormitory estates to the margins of existing towns. Through the Growth Point system they are increasing the size of many towns in the shires by up to 50%. They are doing this with no regard for jobs in those towns and purely with the aim of them being used as commuter dormitories for the cities. Overwhelmingly this development is across southern and Central England and, particularly with the planning revisions, pays no heed to local infrastructure, jobs or amenities.
Newark was a case in point when, in secret, in 2007 the local council negotiated to have it assigned as a Growth Point. This meant the town would have 14,000 new houses built in 15 years - doubling the size of the population. There was no opportunity to object or overturn the decision as it was signed off before being made public "for commercial reasons".
Same goes for Grantham and dozens of other market towns across central England.
The idea that this is just putting up houses on unneeded farmland is a myth - and a dishonest one at that given it is perpetuated by people who should know better.
Brexit checks, stockpiling and Covid have been blamed for much of the downturn, but the sector has said the figures show structural rather than teething problems with the UK’s departure from the EU.
“The loss of £2bn of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer-term due to new trade barriers with the EU,” said Dominic Goudie, the head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF).
He called on the government to “stop prevaricating” over proposals to help exporters “shut out of trading with the EU”.
Though, admittedly:
The decline in exports to the EU meant sales to the rest of the world, which have stabilised, now account for more than 50% of all British exports of food and drink.
The easing of Covid restrictions drove “strong growth” in exports to pre-pandemic levels in China, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Exports to China were up by a quarter, driven by growth in the sale of pork, whisky and vegetable oils, said the FDF’s Trade Snapshot report.
There is also fresh hope of a boom in whisky exports to the US after Washington and London agreed to suspend retaliatory tariffs.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/18/british-food-and-drink-exports-to-eu-fall-by-2bn-in-first-quarter-of-2021
Will the latter be enough to ameliorate the damage of the former?
His vote helped make Claire Fox an MEP.
Unless it's a @Philip_Thompson no.
- the Conservatives are about 10 points ahead in the national polls, whereas in 1990 they were 20 points behind
- they have just had a sensational by-election win of their own in Hartlepool
- Margaret had been in power for 10 years, whereas Boris has only been there for two
- the local elections were very positive
- Margaret was opposed to the mainstream of the Parliamentary party on Europe, while Boris has its support
= there's no equivalent of the Poll Tax.
- there's no leader who would obviously be more popular than Boris
- there's three years before the Conservatives need to face the voters rather than two
So, overall, my guess is that Boris will still be there in a year's time, given what I know now. And if the Conservatives manage to win Batley, he's definitely safe, or as definite as these things ever are.
The problem is that people who have plundered in to this, including Dominic Cummings, failed to see the difficulties. Cummings was sent to look at planning in his later days as an advisor, possibly they just wanted to direct his energy in to an intractable problem with no solutions so he exhausted himself.
Like Hartlepool it's the margin that's the big shock, but a pleasant one this time. Congrats to site owner Mike for a terrific betting steer. I closed out too early and won only a fraction of what I would have done but, hey, let's not get too down about that. First world problem.
Also well done to the one or two other posters who tipped this. @AndyJS being one I noticed calling it in some detail and without caveat.
I think the framing of the extension based on saving lives has been much less well received than they anticipated as people have put two and two together and realised that this extension is to save the lives of people aged 50+ that refused the vaccine.
On the other hand, his silence on the many problems Brexit is throwing up is not doing him any favours among the constituency I mentioned.
KS needs to grow some balls over Brexit and tell it for what it really is......a disaster.
It was the popular will. PT should be applauding DC's decision.
If not there, then where else do you propose people live? Or should they be deported? And please don't say brownfield, there isn't the brownfield land available.
A 20% increase in population inevitably means we need an increase in green land needed for housing, unless we deport millions of people. Its just realistic to say that and it is dishonest to say there are alternative solutions that don't involve some construction - but that doesn't mean concreting over the entire nation.
Think of the kids who may not see their parents for a while/or never if he spread COVID-19.
The highest taxes ever
The biggest debts ever
Ongoing restrictions on liberty.
No travel overseas either holiday or business.
The end of gas central heating.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs.
Ongoing lecturing and hectoring from a mob of common purpose aparatchiks.
In short, a f8cking political gulag. Now and stretching into the future.
Remind me is Farage an MEP today? Is Claire Fox an MEP today? Is Theresa May PM today?
Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Though I'm disgusted Fox got ennobled.
Brevity is good sometimes.
And Lords are not rulers of anyone. The Commons set the laws not the Lords. The Lords can be ignored, the Commons can't.
That doesn’t get mentioned as much now.
Highest taxes? I remember when the top rate of tax was over 85% and before my time it was even higher.
Biggest debts? Certainly not as a share of GDP, nowhere near where we were after WW2.
Ongoing restrictions on liberty. Well, for a short time. This was almost certainly a factor in Tories not turning out.
No travel overseas. See above. The government has provided vaccines which should facilitate this shortly.
The end of gas central heating. Somewhat overstated but I agree that the green drive of the government is not enthusing many of their traditional supporters.
No more nice fuel injected BMWs. They will have electric one's instead so they can still drive like dicks.
Ongoing lecturing etc. Not from Boris. Or Patel.
There is NIMBYism, NOTA, irritation about freedom day and some uncertainty about where we are going. Given a free hit like a by election its easy to be self indulgent. Faced with SKS and the threat of far more of all of these irritants, not so much.
The government never explicitly linked vaccination to freedom (certainly not in raw numbers anyway).
The changes are not primarily designed to make it easier to get planning permissions or get more houses built. That is another myth. What they do is sweep away the Thatcherite planning reforms of the 1980s and 90s which ensured that planning included environmental and other controls so that development is not as damaging as it once was.
So the PPG system that Thatcher created did not stop anyone building houses, nor did it make it easier for NIMBYs to prevent development. It ensured that when houses were built there was proper environmental and archaeological mitigation, proper investigation and preserving - either in situ or by recording - of historical features, alternative locations for sensitive environmental concerns. It also ensured there were proper transport and telecommunications links, that there was mitigation against noise, against pollution and against flooding and that there were the open spaces and amenities to make communities rather than dormitories. It basically made sure that the houses that were built were not created at an excessive cost to the existing environment in all its forms and that they were fit to live in (beyond just the basic structural elements) for those buying them.
Much of that has been swept away with the planning revisions. These are not aimed at making it easier to get permissions, they are aimed at making it cheaper for developers to build poorer houses with fewer controls and far more impact on the environment. We are building the slums of tomorrow.
a) he was right about this question, wasn't he?
b) why did he work so hard to get "a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government" a huge majority?
7/ Pundits: not doing ANeil 'a huge campaign blunder'
Me: why the fu*k wd be put a gaffe machine clueless about policy & government up to be grilled for ages, upside=0 for what?! This is not a hard decision...
Pundits don't understand comms, power or management. Tune out!
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1405827979029237762?s=20
I remember the massive cheer in the dealing room I was working in when Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60 to 40.
And that was 1988. Not 1980.
At a population level, politically, it is implicitly linked to unlocking. That is starting to fray and will snap completely if July 19th is not adhered to.
At a population level epidemiologically it is linked to the concept of herd immunity (We're not there yet) which isn't affected regardless of unlock status.
As for "slums" its ironic that I see some people here complaining that developers are only building small, boxy "slums", while others here complain that developers are only building large expensive homes that can't be afforded (while ignoring the fact that people who buy a large home, sell their smaller one they move out of).
As Thatcher showed herself, the more there is a free market, the more competition there is, the more standards need to rise. Those who build slums will find their slums unsellable if they can be competed against by people building good homes.
Although, new data from the US seems to show they gave herd immunity a bloody good go. Even before the vaccines, it seems a massive percentage of people have had it...with an IFR of 0.4%...now my guess is that this is another study where the antibody levels found in the sample population might be higher than reality and thus IFR is a bit lower, but still.
Gupta and co claimed IFR was 0.01% (or some such nonsense). Initial was thought might be 0.1%, looks like it is definitely higher than that.
The culture war, and it's seemingly simple answers to complex issues, has allowed the Tories to win in areas previously unreachable, because the intoxication of the culture wars has stopped people from voting along economic/class-based lines, other than 'getting rid of all the foreigners will make us richer'.
The corollary of this we see today in the result of the by election.
Let people act freely and react in response to that. If there's demand for private amenities then people will innovate and offer those in response to the demand. Let the state deal with the public demands as required and leave the co-ordination to people choosing by themselves how to live their own lives.
Councils are responsible for producing local plans to supplement national planning legislation. Chiltern District Council was Tory controlled (merged into Buckinghamshire Council since 2020, which is Tory controlled).
So the argument is that the Conservative Council failed to produce a local plan which moderated the excesses of the Conservative Government's planning shake up.
That's a totally fair argument to make. You can argue against it if you like (e.g. by saying the Government planning shake up isn't so bad - although Mrs May disagrees - or that the Council wasn't such a disaster) but it's a totally reasonable case for the Lib Dems to try to land, and they appear to have done so very successfully.
You also can't make the problem "go away" with a local plan. You can moderate aspects of the national planning framework, but can't just re-write/override it as a legal point.
If the Council not providing a local plan is a problem, the solution is for the Council to provide a local plan. Not to oppose planning going ahead while simultaneously calling for more immigration while opposing all construction.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1405834551079968769?s=19
What made him so spectacular is that he saw beyond the noise and used economic policy to shape the sort of society the Conservatives wanted. So, the increase in property ownership through council house sales, the tell Sid army of small shareholders, the significant reduction in marginal rates of tax making earning more attractive, the removal of restrictive practices and the opening up of our economy to international opportunities. It wasn't just him but there was a clear vision that went well beyond bringing the deficit down. They had a purpose and a vision beyond day to day management. I see very little of that today.
CON: 34.9% (+3.4)
GRN: 27.1% (+8.3)
SNP: 27.1% (-0.2)
LDEM: 7.9% (-10.7)
LAB: 3.1% (-0.8)
Council seat change:
Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrat
Felbridge (Tandridge) result:
IND (Moore): 45.4% (+45.4)
IND (Taylor): 27.4% (+27.4)
CON: 22.0% (-43.0)
LAB: 3.1% (+3.1)
LDEM: 2.1% (+2.1)
Independent GAIN from Conservative
Sewell (Norwich) result:
GRN: 46.1% (+29.3)
LAB: 39.7% (-12.8)
CON: 12.6% (-0.8)
LDEM: 1.6% (-5.1)
Green GAIN from Labour
Upper Culm (Mid Devon) result:
CON: 44.5% (+8.1)
LDEM: 42.6% (-7.2)
GRN: 9.1% (+9.1)
LAB: 3.8% (-10.0)
Conservative HOLD.
All the planning reforms do is remove the responsibility of developers to act in a manner we would all expect and should demand. And those large expensive homes are the very future slums I am talking about. They are poorly built with no amenities and no regard for existing local facilities. You are defending the indefensible and I assume this is due to complete ignorance of the subject.
They might make a series of films about it. They will be known as the CarrieDom films.
If your were a tinfoil hatter you would say its all very convenient timing, just a few days after the big delay.
I also am in favour of policies to encourage self builds rather than a housing policy led by Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey etc.
Those of us who were lucky enough to live as adults on board with the program through the Thatcher revolution were spoiled. Every day of that tenure, I felt the government had my back.
I have never felt like that since. Probably won't again.
You don't like 1 of their people on the front bench... you surely have voted Tory whilst not liking at least 1 person on their front bench... if you are opposed to socialism, why not vote against it?
I guess I just feel people are very quick to take voting for granted and say-> they're all the same, doesn't matter who I vote for... when it's patently obviously politicians/parties are not all the same, there are some really awful ones out there!
I also have a hypothesis that the Tories are losing some votes because of the cronyism, whiff of corruption, disregard for accountability, disregard for Parliamentary convention and the constitution, and propensity to tell straightforward lies that permeate this government. These matters are compounded by some of the more reactionary rhetoric - for example, the unseemly attacks on asylum seekers and their (illegal) treatment in the Dover barracks - that 'decent' Tories find beyond the pale. There's a certain type of educated, middle-class voter, who is Tory but not tribal Tory, who I suspect is pretty disgusted with the shenanigans of Boris and his mates. Heck, I even wonder if Theresa May could bring herself to vote for Boris's Tories in a secret ballot.
Your comments just about make sense if they are a criticism of planning reform since 2012 (ie the NPPF and permitted development rights) which did replace the previous system of PPG's and PPS's. What really changed at this point though was the political removal of regional government and regional planning through which a lot of strategic large scale development was being driven.