Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Options

Chesham Tory Peter Fleet was on a losing run right from his selection as candidate – politicalbettin

123468

Comments

  • Options
    MalcolmDunnMalcolmDunn Posts: 139
    The Lib Dems fought a thoroughly dishonest campaign. It will be interesting to see how well their new MP does at the next election
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,205

    I'm enjoying this Ukraine v Austria game.

    Not that it matters, but ITV and BBC have put the wrong games on their main channels today. Ukraine v Austria and Denmark v Russia have much riding on them than the other two games
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 28,004
    tlg86 said:

    I'm enjoying this Ukraine v Austria game.

    Not that it matters, but ITV and BBC have put the wrong games on their main channels today. Ukraine v Austria and Denmark v Russia have much riding on them than the other two games
    Indeed. Although this Holland v NM is very watchable thus far.
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,713
    tlg86 said:

    I'm enjoying this Ukraine v Austria game.

    Not that it matters, but ITV and BBC have put the wrong games on their main channels today. Ukraine v Austria and Denmark v Russia have much riding on them than the other two games
    I'm watching the games where I think the two sides are more evenly matched. In theory more entertaining football.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,582
    edited June 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    FF43 said:

    glw said:

    FF43 said:

    Whatever the merits of the policy from an EU perspective (doubtful I suspect), UK production will move from being in quota - maybe relatively watchable compared with other EU in quota production - to competing for limited slots with other out of quota production from America etc that may be more marketable

    What is a limited slot on a streaming service? TV is no longer constrained by broadcasting. Direct broadcast satellites and free-to-air television are technological dead-ends which are going to go into quite rapid declince over this decade. Essentially all TV viewing will be streaming* by the time we reach the 2030s, at which point quotas are going to look damn silly unless you plan on forcing viewers to watch shows.

    * Streaming already is "TV" for most young people.
    On broadcast TV you need to fill each hour with something. Netflix trims its out of quota catalogue in places where they have such things (I think South Africa has a similar policy), so people only get to see the most popular shows.

    Edit Checked the stats. TV revenues in Europe are €100 billion a year. Streaming services €14 billion. The first is still more valuable, albeit not growing much.
    Broadcast TV is going to zero.

    See News, GB.
    The only question, now, is how long until TV broadcasts are shutdown, in order resell the frequencies for mobile comms.

    It will begin to happen within the decade.

    The first stage of dong this was the switch to digital, after all.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,068
    Re the ridiculous EU "oh, you must have a certain proportion of things available to stream being of EU-origin", this will of course have next to no impact in the real world.

    *However*, there is one small company who might benefit. There is a small business called Gaumont in France which owns massive quantities of old French TV and movie content. No-one will actually want to watch any of this stuff, but if Amazon and Netflix paid $2m/year to Gaumont to host their library of content, it would enable them to meet their EU requirements, and would probably increase Gaumont's profits significantly.

  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,068
    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,618
    rcs1000 said:

    Re the ridiculous EU "oh, you must have a certain proportion of things available to stream being of EU-origin", this will of course have next to no impact in the real world.

    *However*, there is one small company who might benefit. There is a small business called Gaumont in France which owns massive quantities of old French TV and movie content. No-one will actually want to watch any of this stuff, but if Amazon and Netflix paid $2m/year to Gaumont to host their library of content, it would enable them to meet their EU requirements, and would probably increase Gaumont's profits significantly.

    Yes, that's the end result. Netflix and others just licence any old shite and tick the box. Doesn't matter that no one will watch it.
  • Options
    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,323
    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
  • Options
    gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    Floater said:

    Latest Westminster voting intention (16-17 June)

    Con: 45% (+1 from 9-10 Jun)
    Lab: 31% (n/c)
    Green: 7% (-2)
    Lib Dem: 6% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (n/c)
    Reform UK: 4% (+2)

    I am slightly surprised the continued restrictions not even nudging the figures
    Wait for the moment Boris says you can’t work from home, get back to work.
  • Options
    CookieCookie Posts: 11,505
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
  • Options
    alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    rcs1000 said:

    FF43 said:

    glw said:

    FF43 said:

    Whatever the merits of the policy from an EU perspective (doubtful I suspect), UK production will move from being in quota - maybe relatively watchable compared with other EU in quota production - to competing for limited slots with other out of quota production from America etc that may be more marketable

    What is a limited slot on a streaming service? TV is no longer constrained by broadcasting. Direct broadcast satellites and free-to-air television are technological dead-ends which are going to go into quite rapid declince over this decade. Essentially all TV viewing will be streaming* by the time we reach the 2030s, at which point quotas are going to look damn silly unless you plan on forcing viewers to watch shows.

    * Streaming already is "TV" for most young people.
    On broadcast TV you need to fill each hour with something. Netflix trims its out of quota catalogue in places where they have such things (I think South Africa has a similar policy), so people only get to see the most popular shows.

    Edit Checked the stats. TV revenues in Europe are €100 billion a year. Streaming services €14 billion. The first is still more valuable, albeit not growing much.
    Broadcast TV is going to zero.

    See News, GB.
    Whilst this may or may not be true I feel that it is typical of the sort of people who comment on this site (and in fact a typical feature of the whole debate around the likes of the BBC in general), that an argument is made through the prism of news programmes/channels - which I think is hardly what the average person would cite as an example of what they consume via their television. Either now or quite possibly ever.
  • Options
    NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    Andy_JS said:

    moonshine said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just caught the start of Politics Live and it's obvious that the pensions triple lock is a massive elephant trap for Labour and they are going to walk straight into it.

    How so?
    Well, I think it's obvious that the Tories will not raise pensions in line with wages (6% or something apparently) but will do so in line with inflation. So pensioners will get a rise. The Labour woman on the show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lewell-Buck) was saying "manifesto pledge, tax billionaires, etc. etc." and I suspect that's what Labour will say.

    I suspect most people will be understanding of the issue and will just see Labour as being incredibly juvenile.
    The state pension is £179.60 a week, almost exactly half the minimum wage, so it is not clear that raising it will be electorally disastrous, though tbh I've never quite worked out why so many hate the triple lock as too generous; iirc it only means £10 or so more anyway.
    1) Old people tend to vote Tory
    2) Therefore all old people are Tories
    3) Therefore they are all evil and rich
    4) Therefore hating old people is good.
    Taken to its conclusion the triple lock will eventually take up the whole uk budget.
    I would support getting rid of the triple lock.
    And I would and as a pensioner I personally benefit from the triple lock
    Ditto
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited June 2021
    alex_ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FF43 said:

    glw said:

    FF43 said:

    Whatever the merits of the policy from an EU perspective (doubtful I suspect), UK production will move from being in quota - maybe relatively watchable compared with other EU in quota production - to competing for limited slots with other out of quota production from America etc that may be more marketable

    What is a limited slot on a streaming service? TV is no longer constrained by broadcasting. Direct broadcast satellites and free-to-air television are technological dead-ends which are going to go into quite rapid declince over this decade. Essentially all TV viewing will be streaming* by the time we reach the 2030s, at which point quotas are going to look damn silly unless you plan on forcing viewers to watch shows.

    * Streaming already is "TV" for most young people.
    On broadcast TV you need to fill each hour with something. Netflix trims its out of quota catalogue in places where they have such things (I think South Africa has a similar policy), so people only get to see the most popular shows.

    Edit Checked the stats. TV revenues in Europe are €100 billion a year. Streaming services €14 billion. The first is still more valuable, albeit not growing much.
    Broadcast TV is going to zero.

    See News, GB.
    Whilst this may or may not be true I feel that it is typical of the sort of people who comment on this site (and in fact a typical feature of the whole debate around the likes of the BBC in general), that an argument is made through the prism of news programmes/channels - which I think is hardly what the average person would cite as an example of what they consume via their television. Either now or quite possibly ever.
    We consume virtually all of our TV (none of which is news programmes outside an ongoing major story like the storming of Congress) via Hulu, Netflix or Prime, regardless of whether it is broadcast or cable.

    Edit: But a fair percentage of it originates from broadcast TV
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    edited June 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Re the ridiculous EU "oh, you must have a certain proportion of things available to stream being of EU-origin", this will of course have next to no impact in the real world.

    *However*, there is one small company who might benefit. There is a small business called Gaumont in France which owns massive quantities of old French TV and movie content. No-one will actually want to watch any of this stuff, but if Amazon and Netflix paid $2m/year to Gaumont to host their library of content, it would enable them to meet their EU requirements, and would probably increase Gaumont's profits significantly.

    Do the French not have an equivalent of Bob Ross? 1000hrs of some bloke called Pierre doing some painting? The UK of course had one, but we aren't allowed to guess if we can see what it is yet anymore.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,442

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,715
    edited June 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    moonshine said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just caught the start of Politics Live and it's obvious that the pensions triple lock is a massive elephant trap for Labour and they are going to walk straight into it.

    How so?
    Well, I think it's obvious that the Tories will not raise pensions in line with wages (6% or something apparently) but will do so in line with inflation. So pensioners will get a rise. The Labour woman on the show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lewell-Buck) was saying "manifesto pledge, tax billionaires, etc. etc." and I suspect that's what Labour will say.

    I suspect most people will be understanding of the issue and will just see Labour as being incredibly juvenile.
    The state pension is £179.60 a week, almost exactly half the minimum wage, so it is not clear that raising it will be electorally disastrous, though tbh I've never quite worked out why so many hate the triple lock as too generous; iirc it only means £10 or so more anyway.
    1) Old people tend to vote Tory
    2) Therefore all old people are Tories
    3) Therefore they are all evil and rich
    4) Therefore hating old people is good.
    Taken to its conclusion the triple lock will eventually take up the whole uk budget.
    I would support getting rid of the triple lock.
    And I would and as a pensioner I personally benefit from the triple lock
    Ditto
    However, you and other PBers perhaps have more income than the State Pension.

    It is not aimed mainly at such, and as pointed out above the State Pension is well under 10k a year.

    Perhaps a higher marginal tax rate for pensions above the national median wage level is a better idea?

    Say an extra 5% of income over that band, and withdraw the Triple Lock when the full state pension reaches say the level of the tax free income tax band?
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    rcs1000 said:

    Re the ridiculous EU "oh, you must have a certain proportion of things available to stream being of EU-origin", this will of course have next to no impact in the real world.

    *However*, there is one small company who might benefit. There is a small business called Gaumont in France which owns massive quantities of old French TV and movie content. No-one will actually want to watch any of this stuff, but if Amazon and Netflix paid $2m/year to Gaumont to host their library of content, it would enable them to meet their EU requirements, and would probably increase Gaumont's profits significantly.

    Do the French not have an equivalent of Bob Ross? 1000hrs of some bloke called Pierre doing some painting? The UK of course had one, but we aren't allowed to show him anymore.
    Public access channels. All local content, no cost, no audience.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
    Why? He got the sack from ITV for a tweet was deemed offensive.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,442
    Netherlands now 3-0 against N. Macedonia.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    In a free market the people who live in the area have the opportunity to buy the land if they want to keep it undeveloped. Why should the people in an area get a say in what other people do with their own land and their money?

    Either way though Nigel, if you are so xenophobic as to think that people coming over to your area is despoiling your area then shouldn't you have thought that through sooner?
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,442

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
    Why? He got the sack from ITV for a tweet was deemed offensive.
    Must say I forgot about that. What did he say?
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
    Why? He got the sack from ITV for a tweet was deemed offensive.
    Must say I forgot about that. What did he say?
    He quoted Shakespeare at somebody and they said it was racist.

    "Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd – His glassy elegance – like an angry ape"
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    edited June 2021
    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,715
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
    Why? He got the sack from ITV for a tweet was deemed offensive.
    Must say I forgot about that. What did he say?
    ITV have been coy about most of it. He addressed one Shakespeare quote to a black man he was disagreeing with on Twitter, including something about an angry ape. No idea if Stewart knew if he was talkng to a POC. And the 'victim' said he should not have had to leave ITV.

    Allegedly there was a lot more of a rant - source Kate Maltby.

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/30/alastair-stewart-itv-departure-regrettable-twitter-row-martin-shapland
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
  • Options
    pingping Posts: 3,732

    Netherlands now 3-0 against N. Macedonia.

    Nearly got a fourth, there
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,373
    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,015
    FPT

    Leon said:

    Talking of planning, or the lack of it, look at this very recent photo of Docklands in London. It looks like a spruced-up version of classic Chicago, or like a western Hong Kong - minus the Chinese tanks. It looks amazing

    I can remember when this was all total dereliction, in the early 80s. Then Thatcher proposed ‘some redevelopment’, letting capitalism do its thing. Everyone chortled in derision. And here we are

    Yes, from that photo the riverside walk looks to be hugely popular with local people.
    I'm sure most architects will agree that people only get in the way of the important things.
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    1h
    Scotland, blue collar heartlands in England, Muslims, graduates, the young, and now renters.

    The history of the Labour party is taking for granted those who already vote for you. We need to build more homes.
    I agree with Bastani.

    I feel dirty.
    You must now go and watch an hour of GB News to bring back some balance to your aura...
    Surprised to see Alastair Stewart (of ex-ITN fame) on there last night.
    Why? He got the sack from ITV for a tweet was deemed offensive.
    Must say I forgot about that. What did he say?
    He quoted Shakespeare at somebody and they said it was racist.

    "Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd – His glassy elegance – like an angry ape"
    It seems that was just the culmination of an ill-advised and ill-tempered twitterspat:

    "Most of the tweets have now been deleted, so people now commentating think it's *just* 'the ape thing'. As I recall, AS went on a rant about Martin's education level, dismissed the possibility he could have a degree, really picked on him by quote-tweeting & encouraging a pile-on."
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,582
    kle4 said:

    FPT

    Leon said:

    Talking of planning, or the lack of it, look at this very recent photo of Docklands in London. It looks like a spruced-up version of classic Chicago, or like a western Hong Kong - minus the Chinese tanks. It looks amazing

    I can remember when this was all total dereliction, in the early 80s. Then Thatcher proposed ‘some redevelopment’, letting capitalism do its thing. Everyone chortled in derision. And here we are

    Yes, from that photo the riverside walk looks to be hugely popular with local people.
    I'm sure most architects will agree that people only get in the way of the important things.
    Normally that bit is full of people. I take it that was either a lockdown photo, or staged without passers by?
  • Options
    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    So who gets to play in Scotlands 3rd match? assume a lot of them have to isolate?
  • Options
    TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,715
    Floater said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    So who gets to play in Scotlands 3rd match? assume a lot of them have to isolate?
    It seems like half of the Scotland squad should as well, but they're going for hasty damage limitation and trying to deny the players ever went anywhere near Gilmour.
  • Options
    RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,978

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,068
    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Actually, I did data on that in a video and compared to earnings, etc.

    Basically, mass EU immigration started in 2004 when Poland, etc. joined the EU.

    At that time house prices to earnings (UK) were higher than they are now. In the decade to 2004, house prices to earnings more than doubled, and have actually come down slightly since.

    But that hides some very different regional variations. In London and the South East, houses have become even more unaffordable. While in the rest of the country, house prices have stagnated, while earnings have grown.

    Which given most EU immigration was into the South East and London, is strongly supportive of immigration being a major factor - albeit far from the only factor.

    You want the craziest thing of all: there is a very clear correlation between places with ever more unaffordable housing and support for Remain. The more unaffordable housing is, the more people support free movement.

    Anyway, I have work to do.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,068
    TimT said:

    alex_ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FF43 said:

    glw said:

    FF43 said:

    Whatever the merits of the policy from an EU perspective (doubtful I suspect), UK production will move from being in quota - maybe relatively watchable compared with other EU in quota production - to competing for limited slots with other out of quota production from America etc that may be more marketable

    What is a limited slot on a streaming service? TV is no longer constrained by broadcasting. Direct broadcast satellites and free-to-air television are technological dead-ends which are going to go into quite rapid declince over this decade. Essentially all TV viewing will be streaming* by the time we reach the 2030s, at which point quotas are going to look damn silly unless you plan on forcing viewers to watch shows.

    * Streaming already is "TV" for most young people.
    On broadcast TV you need to fill each hour with something. Netflix trims its out of quota catalogue in places where they have such things (I think South Africa has a similar policy), so people only get to see the most popular shows.

    Edit Checked the stats. TV revenues in Europe are €100 billion a year. Streaming services €14 billion. The first is still more valuable, albeit not growing much.
    Broadcast TV is going to zero.

    See News, GB.
    Whilst this may or may not be true I feel that it is typical of the sort of people who comment on this site (and in fact a typical feature of the whole debate around the likes of the BBC in general), that an argument is made through the prism of news programmes/channels - which I think is hardly what the average person would cite as an example of what they consume via their television. Either now or quite possibly ever.
    We consume virtually all of our TV (none of which is news programmes outside an ongoing major story like the storming of Congress) via Hulu, Netflix or Prime, regardless of whether it is broadcast or cable.

    Edit: But a fair percentage of it originates from broadcast TV
    We're the same. We haven't had traditional broadcast TV since we had Sky in the UK about seven or eight years ago.
  • Options
    CookieCookie Posts: 11,505
    rcs1000 said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Actually, I did data on that in a video and compared to earnings, etc.

    Basically, mass EU immigration started in 2004 when Poland, etc. joined the EU.

    At that time house prices to earnings (UK) were higher than they are now. In the decade to 2004, house prices to earnings more than doubled, and have actually come down slightly since.

    But that hides some very different regional variations. In London and the South East, houses have become even more unaffordable. While in the rest of the country, house prices have stagnated, while earnings have grown.

    Which given most EU immigration was into the South East and London, is strongly supportive of immigration being a major factor - albeit far from the only factor.

    You want the craziest thing of all: there is a very clear correlation between places with ever more unaffordable housing and support for Remain. The more unaffordable housing is, the more people support free movement.

    Anyway, I have work to do.
    Thanks - I have dug the video out of youtube and will give it a watch.
  • Options
    stodgestodge Posts: 12,894


    In a free market the people who live in the area have the opportunity to buy the land if they want to keep it undeveloped. Why should the people in an area get a say in what other people do with their own land and their money?

    Either way though Nigel, if you are so xenophobic as to think that people coming over to your area is despoiling your area then shouldn't you have thought that through sooner?

    The notion of communities of people getting together to buy land to prevent development is fanciful in many parts of the country though not all.

    The issue we call "housing" or "planning" is multi-faceted and complex. It starts with the supply of land which dictates its value - it also starts with questions about the kind of communities people want to live in and whether the wishes of local people should override national "concerns" about the number, location and type of dwelling.

    Then you have the thorny issues of infrastructure - are you simply building vast estates of dwellings or are you trying to plan communities and if so what kind of communities? Should they reflect what's there or a new demographic? In whose interests does this happen - the housebuilders or the prospective homeowners or those already living in the area?

    In any case, how do you measure the "demand" for housing? Do people want flats or houses - do they want a bit of garden or room for a home office? I understand the political desire among Conservatives for home ownership but is that always desirable? Is there not a place for an active regulated rental sector?

    If the argument for home ownership is it makes people vote Conservative that is a politically-driven argument so there's no point Conservatives attacking other parties who also play the political card in housing and planning policy.

    Then there's the balance between land for building and land for recreation - do we want an endless suburb from Westminster to Brighton or do we accept there is a need for a balance between developed and undeveloped land - that's the planning question. Do we make best use of undeveloped land ?
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,015
    RobD said:

    This seems an odd line for Labour to take given the demographics of their support base:

    https://twitter.com/uklabour/status/1406947513857462276

    image

    The houses have to go somewhere. It's the same that happened with the "dementia tax", poisoning the debate so nothing actually gets done.
    Yes, though in fairness that's not a game only Labour plays, they just happen to be in opposition so it is their turn to do it more often.
  • Options
    contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited June 2021
    TOPPING said:

    Floater said:

    Latest Westminster voting intention (16-17 June)

    Con: 45% (+1 from 9-10 Jun)
    Lab: 31% (n/c)
    Green: 7% (-2)
    Lib Dem: 6% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (n/c)
    Reform UK: 4% (+2)

    I am slightly surprised the continued restrictions not even nudging the figures
    And people wonder why the restrictions continue.
    Yeah but the thing is Topping, I was under the impression from just about everyone on here (Not your good self of course ) that the way to get your freedom back was to turn yourself into an obedient pin cushion.

    Now, it turns out from the PB brains trust, that the way to get your freedom back is to start supporting Reform.

    Well blow me if some of us haven't been doing that for a year only and telling every other f8cker to do the same.

    In fact in recent times we have learned that almost every cherished PB article of faith peddled endlessly on here for f*ck knows how long, has pretty much collapsed.

    Brexit hasn't sunk Britain, lockdowns don't work, SAGE people are far from saints and vaccines don't buy freedom.

    One, the biggest PB shibboleth, remains. The Democrats won fair and square. And even that last one is going to come under severe pressure at some stage. The republicans aren't moving on. They are doubling down.

  • Options
    RobDRobD Posts: 58,990
    kle4 said:

    RobD said:

    This seems an odd line for Labour to take given the demographics of their support base:

    https://twitter.com/uklabour/status/1406947513857462276

    image

    The houses have to go somewhere. It's the same that happened with the "dementia tax", poisoning the debate so nothing actually gets done.
    Yes, though in fairness that's not a game only Labour plays, they just happen to be in opposition so it is their turn to do it more often.
    Very true.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,382

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817
    rcs1000 said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Actually, I did data on that in a video and compared to earnings, etc.

    Basically, mass EU immigration started in 2004 when Poland, etc. joined the EU.

    At that time house prices to earnings (UK) were higher than they are now. In the decade to 2004, house prices to earnings more than doubled, and have actually come down slightly since.

    But that hides some very different regional variations. In London and the South East, houses have become even more unaffordable. While in the rest of the country, house prices have stagnated, while earnings have grown.

    Which given most EU immigration was into the South East and London, is strongly supportive of immigration being a major factor - albeit far from the only factor.

    You want the craziest thing of all: there is a very clear correlation between places with ever more unaffordable housing and support for Remain. The more unaffordable housing is, the more people support free movement.

    Anyway, I have work to do.
    Similarly, areas with declining populations were often for Leave.

    The defining thing is that good economic performance was a predictor of both inward immigration and high house prices, while being in the economic doldrums keeps people voting Leave and house prices down.

    It isn't crazy at all.
  • Options
    algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,613
    Floater said:

    Latest Westminster voting intention (16-17 June)

    Con: 45% (+1 from 9-10 Jun)
    Lab: 31% (n/c)
    Green: 7% (-2)
    Lib Dem: 6% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (n/c)
    Reform UK: 4% (+2)

    I am slightly surprised the continued restrictions not even nudging the figures
    That LD resurgence in C&A that proved Boris was widely hated as yesterday's man and the blue wall was finished didn't last long.

  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817
    DavidL said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
    Chilwell didn't play. Presumably they met up afterwards as team mates.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,373

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    I'm hoping he meant keep out variants of concern from other nations, but I suspect he didn't.

    Backbenchers are going to go absolutely nuts when there is no further unlocking in July. We are already being softened up for autumn lockdowns I think.
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited June 2021
    stodge said:


    In a free market the people who live in the area have the opportunity to buy the land if they want to keep it undeveloped. Why should the people in an area get a say in what other people do with their own land and their money?

    Either way though Nigel, if you are so xenophobic as to think that people coming over to your area is despoiling your area then shouldn't you have thought that through sooner?

    The notion of communities of people getting together to buy land to prevent development is fanciful in many parts of the country though not all.

    The issue we call "housing" or "planning" is multi-faceted and complex. It starts with the supply of land which dictates its value - it also starts with questions about the kind of communities people want to live in and whether the wishes of local people should override national "concerns" about the number, location and type of dwelling.

    Then you have the thorny issues of infrastructure - are you simply building vast estates of dwellings or are you trying to plan communities and if so what kind of communities? Should they reflect what's there or a new demographic? In whose interests does this happen - the housebuilders or the prospective homeowners or those already living in the area?

    In any case, how do you measure the "demand" for housing? Do people want flats or houses - do they want a bit of garden or room for a home office? I understand the political desire among Conservatives for home ownership but is that always desirable? Is there not a place for an active regulated rental sector?

    If the argument for home ownership is it makes people vote Conservative that is a politically-driven argument so there's no point Conservatives attacking other parties who also play the political card in housing and planning policy.

    Then there's the balance between land for building and land for recreation - do we want an endless suburb from Westminster to Brighton or do we accept there is a need for a balance between developed and undeveloped land - that's the planning question. Do we make best use of undeveloped land ?
    Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island does this. There is a 3% tax on every real estate transaction on the island which goes into a fund to buy up land to keep it from development - the Block Island Land Trust.

    https://www.new-shoreham.com/displayboards.cfm?id=14
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,382
    RobD said:

    kle4 said:

    RobD said:

    This seems an odd line for Labour to take given the demographics of their support base:

    https://twitter.com/uklabour/status/1406947513857462276

    image

    The houses have to go somewhere. It's the same that happened with the "dementia tax", poisoning the debate so nothing actually gets done.
    Yes, though in fairness that's not a game only Labour plays, they just happen to be in opposition so it is their turn to do it more often.
    Very true.
    Just maybe they shouldn't have signed up to deals that resulted in an additional 4-5m EU citizens looking for homes then?
  • Options
    contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    When the government accepted the insanity of the four tests, with the last test being the variants of concern, it was the inevitable strategy they took on board at the same time.

    How could it be otherwise?

  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,205
    It will be interesting to see if Ukraine get through. They're already below Switzerland and unless Portugal lose by three or more goals (or Portugal lose by one goal and Germany lose by three goals to Hungary - not sure what happens if it's Fra 1-0 Por and Ger 0-2 Hun!), they'll be below third in Group F too.

    And I think there will be a winner in the Sco v Cro match, which just leaves Groups B and E.
  • Options
    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,323

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,382
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
    Chilwell didn't play. Presumably they met up afterwards as team mates.
    Sorry, lost track. In fairness quite a lot of the English players didn't play, even when they were on the pitch.
  • Options
    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,205
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
    Chilwell didn't play. Presumably they met up afterwards as team mates.
    Which really shouldn't be happening, should it?
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    edited June 2021
    What deems a close contact? Mount giving Gilmour a quick hug / hair ruffle is deemed close contact, but no Scotland player has deemed to have. I failed to believe nobody has been within a close distance of him for a lot longer than 10s Mount was.

    I don't believe footballers are sitting in their rooms alone for days on end, never interacting with one another.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,373

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
    Johnson will be removed from office if he goes down that route.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,382

    What deems a close contact? Mount giving Gilmour a quick hug / hair ruffle is deemed close contact, but no Scotland player has deemed to have. I failed to believe nobody has been within a close distance of him for a lot longer than 10s Mount was.

    I don't believe footballers are sitting in their rooms alone for days on end, never interacting with one another.

    Its not even vaguely credible. Presumably the others have all passed tests confirming that they don't have it but it does make a mockery of the system, such as it is.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
    Johnson will be removed from office if he goes down that route.
    Mrs U will be leading the mob......
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,373
    I see Chris Williamson has turned up in Batley.

    I bet the good folk of the constituency can't wait for this circus to be over.

  • Options
    solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623

    What deems a close contact? Mount giving Gilmour a quick hug / hair ruffle is deemed close contact, but no Scotland player has deemed to have. I failed to believe nobody has been within a close distance of him for a lot longer than 10s Mount was.

    I don't believe footballers are sitting in their rooms alone for days on end, never interacting with one another.

    I thought the standard close contact definition involved something like 15 minutes.

    But I think, as with so much that's happened with covid, that things just get made up on the hoof.
  • Options
    contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
    The trouble is that a vast swathe of the population still support the Johnson position because they have been conditioned to by government propaganda and they have been cushioned by furlough and debt. Or they are very comfortable working from home.

    Its clear that Sunak, May and some others are trying to show voters a fuller picture of what is going on in an attempt to turn opinion. Tax rise details are being leaked. Furlough is slowly ending.


  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
    Far from it. Currently 5.5% of Britain is concreted over for housing. If it goes to 6.5% that's neither here nor there and takes into account the population increase you welcomed. Britain would still have a green and pleasant land.

    There isn't the desire or demand it concrete over the the whole country. It should only be concreted over where people pay to concrete over it, which they'll only do because they're in this country and need somewhere to live!

    Denying people somewhere to live is much more bleak. If you were so xenophobic and hate filled that you thought people coming over despoiled the area why didn't you think that through sooner?
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,382

    I see Chris Williamson has turned up in Batley.

    I bet the good folk of the constituency can't wait for this circus to be over.

    Hmm... Its not quite the blessed Theresa turning up at C&A but it has to be close. Hope he didn't try to canvass any teachers.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817

    I see Chris Williamson has turned up in Batley.

    I bet the good folk of the constituency can't wait for this circus to be over.

    Who is he campaigning for?
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817
    tlg86 said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
    Chilwell didn't play. Presumably they met up afterwards as team mates.
    Which really shouldn't be happening, should it?
    No, and perhaps why the ban!
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited June 2021
    stodge said:


    In a free market the people who live in the area have the opportunity to buy the land if they want to keep it undeveloped. Why should the people in an area get a say in what other people do with their own land and their money?

    Either way though Nigel, if you are so xenophobic as to think that people coming over to your area is despoiling your area then shouldn't you have thought that through sooner?

    The notion of communities of people getting together to buy land to prevent development is fanciful in many parts of the country though not all.

    The issue we call "housing" or "planning" is multi-faceted and complex. It starts with the supply of land which dictates its value - it also starts with questions about the kind of communities people want to live in and whether the wishes of local people should override national "concerns" about the number, location and type of dwelling.

    Then you have the thorny issues of infrastructure - are you simply building vast estates of dwellings or are you trying to plan communities and if so what kind of communities? Should they reflect what's there or a new demographic? In whose interests does this happen - the housebuilders or the prospective homeowners or those already living in the area?

    In any case, how do you measure the "demand" for housing? Do people want flats or houses - do they want a bit of garden or room for a home office? I understand the political desire among Conservatives for home ownership but is that always desirable? Is there not a place for an active regulated rental sector?

    If the argument for home ownership is it makes people vote Conservative that is a politically-driven argument so there's no point Conservatives attacking other parties who also play the political card in housing and planning policy.

    Then there's the balance between land for building and land for recreation - do we want an endless suburb from Westminster to Brighton or do we accept there is a need for a balance between developed and undeveloped land - that's the planning question. Do we make best use of undeveloped land ?
    Why should we decide what is demanded? Why not let people decide for themselves?

    If someone wants a flat, let them get a flat. If they want a large home with space to work from home or bring up a family, let them do that.

    A simplified planning system would break the monopolistic one size fits all planning regime whereby a developer puts up a series of relatively identikit buildings.

    If people could get their own land, then easily get a house constructed to their own specifications, then there'd be no need for large developers, politicians or you and me pre guessing what people need. Let people choose for themselves what they need.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,715
    Foxy said:

    I see Chris Williamson has turned up in Batley.

    I bet the good folk of the constituency can't wait for this circus to be over.

    Who is he campaigning for?
    The Gallywhacker.

    https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1406980645461663749
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,424

    MaxPB said:

    EU prepares to cut amount of British TV and film shown post-Brexit

    Exclusive: number of UK productions seen as ‘disproportionate’ and threat to Europe’s cultural diversity


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/eu-prepares-cut-amount-british-tv-film-shown-brexit

    Are they seriously proposing to legislate what TV channels can show or what people can watch? I don't see how else this can be achieved.
    It can't, it just places extra cost on people like Netflix, to fill their catalogue with shit nobody will watch in order to tick a box, and who will just pass it onto the customer.

    Also there are so many loopholes e.g. you just buy some really old crap show that has loads and loads of episodes e.g. twitch bought the rights to Bob Ross painting for peanuts. I don't know why they did, but they did, and obviously that is 100s of hours of a bloke just standing painting landscapes.

    And weirdly for a couple of months it was big hit.

    But the point is there will be crap like that which you can just pick up the rights to, stick it in the catalogue to meet the arbitrary target.
    Ah, Netflix must have really loved the slow TV craze from Norway. There was one eight hour train journey over the mountains I think.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817

    MaxPB said:

    EU prepares to cut amount of British TV and film shown post-Brexit

    Exclusive: number of UK productions seen as ‘disproportionate’ and threat to Europe’s cultural diversity


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/eu-prepares-cut-amount-british-tv-film-shown-brexit

    Are they seriously proposing to legislate what TV channels can show or what people can watch? I don't see how else this can be achieved.
    It can't, it just places extra cost on people like Netflix, to fill their catalogue with shit nobody will watch in order to tick a box, and who will just pass it onto the customer.

    Also there are so many loopholes e.g. you just buy some really old crap show that has loads and loads of episodes e.g. twitch bought the rights to Bob Ross painting for peanuts. I don't know why they did, but they did, and obviously that is 100s of hours of a bloke just standing painting landscapes.

    And weirdly for a couple of months it was big hit.

    But the point is there will be crap like that which you can just pick up the rights to, stick it in the catalogue to meet the arbitrary target.
    Ah, Netflix must have really loved the slow TV craze from Norway. There was one eight hour train journey over the mountains I think.
    Apparently the Nowegian postal delivery boat is good viewing too.
  • Options
    FishingFishing Posts: 4,561
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
    Far from it. Currently 5.5% of Britain is concreted over for housing. If it goes to 6.5% that's neither here nor there and takes into account the population increase you welcomed. Britain would still have a green and pleasant land.

    There isn't the desire or demand it concrete over the the whole country. It should only be concreted over where people pay to concrete over it, which they'll only do because they're in this country and need somewhere to live!

    Denying people somewhere to live is much more bleak. If you were so xenophobic and hate filled that you thought people coming over despoiled the area why didn't you think that through sooner?
    I think you're overstating the extent to which the country is concreted over because most of the 5.5% will be gardens. The actual proportion of concrete may be 1-2%.

    Another way to look at it is that we need about 400 square miles to house 10 million people in medium density towns including infrastructure. That's compared to about 65,000 square miles that we have for farming. So if you reduce the farming to 64,600 we've solved the housing crisis for a generation.

  • Options
    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,323
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
    Far from it. Currently 5.5% of Britain is concreted over for housing. If it goes to 6.5% that's neither here nor there and takes into account the population increase you welcomed. Britain would still have a green and pleasant land.

    There isn't the desire or demand it concrete over the the whole country. It should only be concreted over where people pay to concrete over it, which they'll only do because they're in this country and need somewhere to live!

    Denying people somewhere to live is much more bleak. If you were so xenophobic and hate filled that you thought people coming over despoiled the area why didn't you think that through sooner?
    Sorry. But I in no way subscribe to your 'immigrants came over 'ere, took our housing' mantra. So I'd be grateful if you didn't proclaim that I did.
  • Options
    stodgestodge Posts: 12,894


    Why should we decide what is demanded? Why not let people decide for themselves?

    If someone wants a flat, let them get a flat. If they want a large home with space to work from home or bring up a family, let them do that.

    A simplified planning system would break the monopolistic one size fits all planning regime whereby a developer puts up a series of relatively identikit buildings.

    If people could get their own land, then easily get a house constructed to their own specifications, then there'd be no need for large developers, politicians or you and me pre guessing what people need. Let people choose for themselves what they need.

    To an extent, people can decide what kind of house they want but this notion it's somehow a "free market" ignores the constraints under which many people exist. There are financial, emotional, geographic and other constraints which tie people to types of housing and particular areas. In most cases, the kind of house they might want to live in may not exist where they want to live.

    Why does a developer build a single type of dwelling instead of a selection of dwellings on a given site? The obvious answer is the value of the land and maximising the profit from that area of land (it's a free market which you support) dictates the type of building. In some areas, it's a lot of flats - in others, it's a small number of big houses.

    I don't see how a "simplified" system solves that unless you do what happens in other countries and individuals buy a plot or section of land and then develop it themselves. Fine but the developers can do it so much cheaper because they own all the sections or plots and in any case said sections tend to be equal so you end up with similar-sized dwellings on the plots.

    I don't know if in your scenario you'd have a five bedroom house next door to a block of flats but that doesn't often happen.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,134

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
    There was a great article in the Economist saying that Aus and NZ have a massive problem incoming: potentially they can’t open up. The fear is so great now of a single case that their populations won’t be able to tolerate it even with vaccines. Not sure it will play out like that, but you can see the risk.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,015

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
    Far from it. Currently 5.5% of Britain is concreted over for housing. If it goes to 6.5% that's neither here nor there and takes into account the population increase you welcomed. Britain would still have a green and pleasant land.

    There isn't the desire or demand it concrete over the the whole country. It should only be concreted over where people pay to concrete over it, which they'll only do because they're in this country and need somewhere to live!

    Denying people somewhere to live is much more bleak. If you were so xenophobic and hate filled that you thought people coming over despoiled the area why didn't you think that through sooner?
    Sorry. But I in no way ascribe to your 'immigrants came over 'ere, took our housing' mantra. So I'd be grateful if you didn't proclaim that I did.
    It's not my mantra. I welcome people coming here to improve their lives and contribute to our country. I welcome them getting a house built to live in.

    You're the one bemoaning people coming over and despoiling the area. That's your language not mine.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    kle4 said:

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/we-didnt-want-it-named-after-a-person-how-residents-of-cecil-rhodes-house-feel-about-its-new-name

    Total minefield....going to just have to name everything A1, A2, A3...
  • Options
    stodgestodge Posts: 12,894


    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.

    There was a great article in the Economist saying that Aus and NZ have a massive problem incoming: potentially they can’t open up. The fear is so great now of a single case that their populations won’t be able to tolerate it even with vaccines. Not sure it will play out like that, but you can see the risk.
    I've not heard that - New Zealand are moving ahead with vaccinations using Pfizer. Mrs Stodge's parents (in their 80s) had their first vaccinations last week and have been advised the second will follow in 3-4 weeks.

    https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data#summary
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    stodge said:


    Why should we decide what is demanded? Why not let people decide for themselves?

    If someone wants a flat, let them get a flat. If they want a large home with space to work from home or bring up a family, let them do that.

    A simplified planning system would break the monopolistic one size fits all planning regime whereby a developer puts up a series of relatively identikit buildings.

    If people could get their own land, then easily get a house constructed to their own specifications, then there'd be no need for large developers, politicians or you and me pre guessing what people need. Let people choose for themselves what they need.

    To an extent, people can decide what kind of house they want but this notion it's somehow a "free market" ignores the constraints under which many people exist. There are financial, emotional, geographic and other constraints which tie people to types of housing and particular areas. In most cases, the kind of house they might want to live in may not exist where they want to live.

    Why does a developer build a single type of dwelling instead of a selection of dwellings on a given site? The obvious answer is the value of the land and maximising the profit from that area of land (it's a free market which you support) dictates the type of building. In some areas, it's a lot of flats - in others, it's a small number of big houses.

    I don't see how a "simplified" system solves that unless you do what happens in other countries and individuals buy a plot or section of land and then develop it themselves. Fine but the developers can do it so much cheaper because they own all the sections or plots and in any case said sections tend to be equal so you end up with similar-sized dwellings on the plots.

    I don't know if in your scenario you'd have a five bedroom house next door to a block of flats but that doesn't often happen.
    The issue in this country is the planning system. Solve that and people will be able to get a plot of land and develop it themselves.

    Land with planning permission can be worth 100x more than land without it.
    Land with planning permission can cost more than the entire cost of building the building on top of the land.

    Hence people don't even bother attempting to get permission on their own for their own home. So developers do it, and if the developers are doing it they have their own interests at heart.

    In France if you want a home you can buy land, put in your plans, and have permission to start building a few weeks later. That's France, not some Atlas Shrugged libertarian free for all utopia.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,134
    stodge said:


    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.

    There was a great article in the Economist saying that Aus and NZ have a massive problem incoming: potentially they can’t open up. The fear is so great now of a single case that their populations won’t be able to tolerate it even with vaccines. Not sure it will play out like that, but you can see the risk.
    I've not heard that - New Zealand are moving ahead with vaccinations using Pfizer. Mrs Stodge's parents (in their 80s) had their first vaccinations last week and have been advised the second will follow in 3-4 weeks.

    https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data#summary
    Indeed they are vaccinating. But this article was suggesting that they are going to be fearful even when vaccinated. As I say, I’m not saying the article is right but it’s an interesting take.

    https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/05/22/australia-and-new-zealand-cannot-hide-from-covid-19-for-ever
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Big rise in multiples was about 95-07

    https://www.schroders.com/en/uk/private-investor/insights/markets/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/
  • Options
    YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    kle4 said:

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/we-didnt-want-it-named-after-a-person-how-residents-of-cecil-rhodes-house-feel-about-its-new-name

    Total minefield....going to just have to name everything A1, A2, A3...
    From the Guardian article, " ......Virginia Woolf, whose writing has been criticised as racist and antisemitic”

    My distinct recollection is that Virginia's husband, Leonard Woolf, was Jewish.

    I suspect the whole of the Bloomsbury Group is going to end up cancelled at this rate
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Andy_JS said:

    moonshine said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just caught the start of Politics Live and it's obvious that the pensions triple lock is a massive elephant trap for Labour and they are going to walk straight into it.

    How so?
    Well, I think it's obvious that the Tories will not raise pensions in line with wages (6% or something apparently) but will do so in line with inflation. So pensioners will get a rise. The Labour woman on the show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lewell-Buck) was saying "manifesto pledge, tax billionaires, etc. etc." and I suspect that's what Labour will say.

    I suspect most people will be understanding of the issue and will just see Labour as being incredibly juvenile.
    The state pension is £179.60 a week, almost exactly half the minimum wage, so it is not clear that raising it will be electorally disastrous, though tbh I've never quite worked out why so many hate the triple lock as too generous; iirc it only means £10 or so more anyway.
    1) Old people tend to vote Tory
    2) Therefore all old people are Tories
    3) Therefore they are all evil and rich
    4) Therefore hating old people is good.
    Taken to its conclusion the triple lock will eventually take up the whole uk budget.
    I would support getting rid of the triple lock.
    And I would and as a pensioner I personally benefit from the triple lock
    Ditto
    2/3 of minimum wage would be better but from that point it should be tied to changes in average earnings

    I would replace it so that each year it goes up by average earnings plus 1 percentage point (ie from 51% of minimum wage to 52%) until it reaches 67%
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,442
    RH1992 said:

    Managed to move forward my second Moderna dose to the 4th of August, a full 3 weeks sooner than the initial booking and 8 weeks to the day from my first dose (9th June). At least the NHS booking system lets you view potential appointments before cancelling now otherwise wouldn't have dared do it.

    I tried moving mine (AZ, first done in late April) last night, but couldn't see an option except for "cancel/rebook".
  • Options
    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,323

    eek said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    It's all part of the grand levelling up plans.

    The only place the young will be able to afford to live is in the Red Wall seats and the jobs will follow once it becomes obvious that the workers no longer exist elsewhere.

    The internal adverts for Treasury North focus on the fact you can have a new 4-5 bedroom detached house for less than a 3 bed semi near London.

    With a commute time in minutes rather than hours.
    Quite right. Why concrete over the rural south with rabbit-warren houses and ring-road DIY stores when there is plenty of cheap accommodation up north. Okay, you probably won't be able to boast at dinner parties about the tripling of your house's value over the last month (which is all these people really care about) but tough... if you want your own place then go where you can afford it; don't despoil everywhere else.
    And you have the audacity to have flag symbolising free movement?

    Millions are welcome to come here, and serve you a coffee but don't they dare despoil your view.
    The EU and EU citizens serving coffee didn't attempt to sweep aside the planning laws and give developers carte blanche. Boris - and it seems most Brexit advocates - are. So what gives? This government is more a threat to my view than free movement ever was.
    In the last decade the UK population has increased from 61 million to 67 million. A 10% increase in population in a decade due to free movement.

    You may be struggling in your limited mind to connect the dots, but those people need somewhere to live. Funny that!

    The developers need carte blanche to fix the mess that regulated housing combined with free movement has disastrously created.
    I don't see 6 million EU immigrants sleeping in cardboard boxes to be honest. But if the EU immigrant, like anyone else, can't afford to live somewhere he should relocate to somewhere he can. (I'm applying a simple, free-market analysis as opposed to your crude, knee-jerk, government-must-act statism.)
    Except they can afford it. The developers are prepared to build, they're prepared to pay and landowners are prepared to sell to developers.

    The state doesn't need to do anything except butt out and mind its own business rather than telling people what they can and can't do with their money and their land.

    You wanted people here, people being here means them building on land. Immigrants are for life and not just for lattes.
    So everyone gets a say except the people who live in the area and have to see their environment and way of life obliterated. You're a Stalinist!
    I've you want a view you need to own the view.

    If you don't want 1000 new houses surrounding your village all you will need to do is bid more than the developers are and you can keep the land the way it is.
    Which will, of course, be utterly impossible given the vast sums involved. But anyway: I've had enough of trying to save the fields and lanes of rural England from the barbarous hoards whose only god is Mammon - far too depressing for me. I shall stride instead to the furthest prong of my vast estate and shoot at the newbuilds across the bypass with a catapult.
    Oh diddums, its impossible given the vast sums involved?

    Oh well, what was it you said? If you "can't afford to live somewhere" maybe you "should relocate to somewhere you can". That was your attitude wasn't it?

    What's sauce for the goose etc
    What an absurd comparison. When they buy up land for housing estates they pay hundreds of millions - many magnitudes beyond what a normal individual could afford as a counter measure. There's no moral equivalence at all to saying that people shouldn't expect the state to rig things to allow them to afford property, especially if that screws over the environment, the rural idyll and already existing communities. Your position is that Britain should be concreted over come what may. I just find that morally bleak.
    Far from it. Currently 5.5% of Britain is concreted over for housing. If it goes to 6.5% that's neither here nor there and takes into account the population increase you welcomed. Britain would still have a green and pleasant land.

    There isn't the desire or demand it concrete over the the whole country. It should only be concreted over where people pay to concrete over it, which they'll only do because they're in this country and need somewhere to live!

    Denying people somewhere to live is much more bleak. If you were so xenophobic and hate filled that you thought people coming over despoiled the area why didn't you think that through sooner?
    Sorry. But I in no way ascribe to your 'immigrants came over 'ere, took our housing' mantra. So I'd be grateful if you didn't proclaim that I did.
    It's not my mantra. I welcome people coming here to improve their lives and contribute to our country. I welcome them getting a house built to live in.

    You're the one bemoaning people coming over and despoiling the area. That's your language not mine.
    Actually immigrants never crossed my mind. You raised the subject when started going on about free movement. I was bemoaning rather the native-born British, who demand a property to own in the south - and call people with environmental concerns NIMBYs - but won't consider living somewhere else in the country more affordable to them. You may think they're entitled to live to absolutely wherever they like; I'm more of the view that people should learn to cut their cloth accordingly.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Big rise in multiples was about 95-07

    https://www.schroders.com/en/uk/private-investor/insights/markets/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/
    When population growth really took off, but before housing construction growth did.

    What a strange coincidence. Or not.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,511
    ‘The aliens might be here. Or at least their probes’

    - Scientific American

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/maybe-the-aliens-really-are-here/
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    edited June 2021

    RH1992 said:

    Managed to move forward my second Moderna dose to the 4th of August, a full 3 weeks sooner than the initial booking and 8 weeks to the day from my first dose (9th June). At least the NHS booking system lets you view potential appointments before cancelling now otherwise wouldn't have dared do it.

    I tried moving mine (AZ, first done in late April) last night, but couldn't see an option except for "cancel/rebook".
    Click that and it will go to a screen showing you availablity, before you confirm you want to cancel / rebook.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817
    Leon said:

    ‘The aliens might be here. Or at least their probes’

    - Scientific American

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/maybe-the-aliens-really-are-here/

    Probes? You must be speaking out of your anus...
  • Options
    alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited June 2021

    Johnson: "the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.'


    Sounds like a zero covid strategy to me.

    That is an absolutely barmy strategy if that is the road we’re going down
    Sounds like New Zealand. The more thoroughly the virus is crushed, the more extreme the reaction to any cases that are left will become. It will end with the Zero Covidians screaming for a hard lockdown each time a single case appears.
    There was a great article in the Economist saying that Aus and NZ have a massive problem incoming: potentially they can’t open up. The fear is so great now of a single case that their populations won’t be able to tolerate it even with vaccines. Not sure it will play out like that, but you can see the risk.
    I think it's definitely the case. New Zealand has had 26 deaths! It's quite possible that more people in New Zealand will die of some complication relating to the vaccines than from Covid itself.

    And of course there is the massive catch-22 that their vaccination levels will quite likely never meet high enough levels given that many people know that if they favour the current situation then the best way to avoid things changing is to not get the vaccine in high enough numbers. It's far harder for a Govt to dismiss the health risks caused by vaccine refuseniks when they form a materially large proportion of the population.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    DavidL said:

    England's Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount have to self-isolate after coming into close contact with Scotland's Billy Gilmour and will miss Tuesday's final Euro 2020 group game against the Czech Republic.

    Presumably when he was taking the ball off them. Happened quite a few times in fairness.
    Maybe that’s the way to win… a COVID laced honey trap…
  • Options
    NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758
    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    ping said:

    That labour poster is depressing.

    Will we ever build enough homes so that our young people can grow up and have, like, families?

    The country is committing a slow suicide.

    F£&k the nimbys.

    In my local area a huge amount of housebuilding has been taking place recently, and yet house prices still continue to rise. This is what happens when the population of the country increases by 10 million in 20 years, whereas in the 1970s and 80s it hardly increased at all. That's why people could afford to buy homes at that time.
    That being said, house prices rose a lot more in the 80s and 90s than they have done in the 2000s. So immigration clearly can't be the only (or even the dominant) factor.
    But inflation was much bigger back then. So, I think, price rises relative to earnings have been bigger this century.
    I don't have the data and am happy to be contradicted.
    Big rise in multiples was about 95-07

    https://www.schroders.com/en/uk/private-investor/insights/markets/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/
    I think the move to mortgages based on large multiples of joint salaries for couples rather than the older system of a much smaller multiple for the second salary (usually the woman's) provided a never to be repeated ratchet effect.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,292
    I think we are in for some cracking knock out games in the Euros. Holland looked good again, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, all playing good football.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,817

    kle4 said:

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/we-didnt-want-it-named-after-a-person-how-residents-of-cecil-rhodes-house-feel-about-its-new-name

    Total minefield....going to just have to name everything A1, A2, A3...
    From the Guardian article, " ......Virginia Woolf, whose writing has been criticised as racist and antisemitic”

    My distinct recollection is that Virginia's husband, Leonard Woolf, was Jewish.

    I suspect the whole of the Bloomsbury Group is going to end up cancelled at this rate
    Pretty much all pre-war writers were racist and anti-semitic, from Capt WE Johns upwards. It is reasonable to note this and continue to study them as works of literature.



  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,715
    edited June 2021

    kle4 said:

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/we-didnt-want-it-named-after-a-person-how-residents-of-cecil-rhodes-house-feel-about-its-new-name

    Total minefield....going to just have to name everything A1, A2, A3...
    From the Guardian article, " ......Virginia Woolf, whose writing has been criticised as racist and antisemitic”

    My distinct recollection is that Virginia's husband, Leonard Woolf, was Jewish.

    I suspect the whole of the Bloomsbury Group is going to end up cancelled at this rate
    If they want to, they can get Virginia Woolf (and many of the socialist pioneers) for Eugenic views. For such campaigns, context means nothing.

    (1915)
    “we met & had to pass a long line of imbeciles. the first was a very tall young man, just queer enough to look at twice, but no more; the second shuffled, & looked aside; and then one realised that everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective shuffling idiotic creature, with no forehead, or no chin, & an imbecile grin, or a wild suspicious stare. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed.”

    https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9iNred5Ctn4C&pg=PA440&dq=virginia+woolf+diary+"everyone+in+that+long+line+was+a+miserable+ineffective"&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iMy6VM3TJY_4yQSpq4CIBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=virginia woolf diary "everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective"&f=false
  • Options
    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Foxy said:

    I see Chris Williamson has turned up in Batley.

    I bet the good folk of the constituency can't wait for this circus to be over.

    Who is he campaigning for?
    Fair question :smiley:

    Look, vote Labour, we share your views............................
  • Options
    alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    RH1992 said:

    Managed to move forward my second Moderna dose to the 4th of August, a full 3 weeks sooner than the initial booking and 8 weeks to the day from my first dose (9th June). At least the NHS booking system lets you view potential appointments before cancelling now otherwise wouldn't have dared do it.

    I tried moving mine (AZ, first done in late April) last night, but couldn't see an option except for "cancel/rebook".
    Someone said that you have to click the "cancel/rebook" option, and that is when you get to see the appointments available before confirming. Don't quote me on that though!
  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,380
    MattW said:

    kle4 said:

    Oxford Student Union is planning to hire 'sensitivity readers' to stop student newspapers including historic campus sheet Cherwell publishing 'problematic' articles that are 'implicitly racist or sexist'.

    Officials at the student body are planning to set up a 'Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers' who would be elected and paid to check articles across various newspapers for signs of supposed insensitivity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9707701/Oxford-students-employ-sensitivity-readers-CUT-problematic-articles-newspaper.html

    I feel like wanting to be sensitive is technically a reasonable aim, but you don't want it to be your starting point, as you are likely to overdo it and be far too oversensitive.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/we-didnt-want-it-named-after-a-person-how-residents-of-cecil-rhodes-house-feel-about-its-new-name

    Total minefield....going to just have to name everything A1, A2, A3...
    From the Guardian article, " ......Virginia Woolf, whose writing has been criticised as racist and antisemitic”

    My distinct recollection is that Virginia's husband, Leonard Woolf, was Jewish.

    I suspect the whole of the Bloomsbury Group is going to end up cancelled at this rate
    If they want to, they can get Virginia Woolf (and many of the socialist pioneers) for Eugenic views:

    “we met & had to pass a long line of imbeciles. the first was a very tall young man, just queer enough to look at twice, but no more; the second shuffled, & looked aside; and then one realised that everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective shuffling idiotic creature, with no forehead, or no chin, & an imbecile grin, or a wild suspicious stare. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed.”

    https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9iNred5Ctn4C&pg=PA440&dq=virginia+woolf+diary+"everyone+in+that+long+line+was+a+miserable+ineffective"&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iMy6VM3TJY_4yQSpq4CIBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=virginia woolf diary "everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective"&f=false
    Cancel the Huxleys.

    And that bugger Darwin can feck off. Lysenko was clearly right about him.
This discussion has been closed.