Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
SOP to have a representative from the state broadcaster and a hack from a right wing, bellicose tabloid on a warship engaged on some performative confrontation.
Only it’s usually a ship of the Военно-морской флот.
Does all that Военно-морской флот just mean Navy? Or is Google translate letting me down?
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
Also, what evidence do we have for believing Galloway is "pond life"?
I have not heard him make outright racist/anti-Semitic statements. He is pro-Palestinian, that is fair enough. He is a friend of Islam. That is obviously defensible. He has been sacked for questioning the rape charges against Assange, who hasn't wondered about them?
He's eccentric and narcissistic, with a colourful, quirky private life. So what. He's also a fine orator and a British unionist. Good! He publicly chastised the Americans over Iraq. Excellent work
Why is he regarded as a pariah? This is such an accepted opinion I never questioned it until now, but on scrutiny I am not sure it holds up
It holds up. The man is a despicable sectarian, telling blatant lies about opponents to stir up hatred.
Like what?
"Despicable sectarian" is pretty strong language. But I am willing to be persuaded by evidence
Suggest you look at the details of how he campaigned against Oonagh King in Bethnal Green. Despicably sectarian, anti-Semitic and misogynist accurately describes it.
Or you could cite evidence, rather than bald assertions? I’m not doubting you, but so far I’ve not seen much factual corroboration, just opinion
Oona King’s diaries make quite extraordinary reading:
The software entrepreneur John McAfee, 75, has been found dead in his jail cell in Spain from an apparent suicide by hanging, hours after the country’s highest court approved his extradition to the United States on tax-related criminal charges. McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus suite, was arrested last October at Barcelona’s international airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul. The creator of one of the most-used virus protection brands worldwide was a controversial figure, cryptocurrency promoter, tax opponent and fugitive who twice made long-shot runs for the US presidency.
Lots of inconvenient people committing suicide in prisons recently
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
"Maintaining the right of innocent passage" they are saying on the news this morning.
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
SOP to have a representative from the state broadcaster and a hack from a right wing, bellicose tabloid on a warship engaged on some performative confrontation.
Only it’s usually a ship of the Военно-морской флот.
Does all that Военно-морской флот just mean Navy? Or is Google translate letting me down?
Military Maritime Force according to Wiki. I guess it’s synonymous with Russian Navy the way that Royal Navy is with British Navy.
Though rumours that the RN is to be renamed OBONN are yet to be confirmed.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
SOP to have a representative from the state broadcaster and a hack from a right wing, bellicose tabloid on a warship engaged on some performative confrontation.
Only it’s usually a ship of the Военно-морской флот.
Does all that Военно-морской флот just mean Navy? Or is Google translate letting me down?
Yes - war-sea fleet, literally. Although usually given as -ский in the nominative. The Black Sea Fleet is the Черноморский Флот.
Singapore looks to the future - life with COVID, authors Ministers of Trade, Finance & Health:
The new norm can perhaps look like this:
First, an infected person can recover at home, because with vaccination the symptoms will be mostly mild. With others around the infected person also vaccinated, the risk of transmission will be low. We will worry less about the healthcare system being overwhelmed.
Second, there may not be a need to conduct massive contact tracing and quarantining of people each time we discover an infection. People can get themselves tested regularly using a variety of fast and easy tests. If positive, they can confirm with a PCR test and then isolate themselves.
Third, instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes: how many fall very sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen, and so on. This is like how we now monitor influenza.
Fourth, we can progressively ease our safe management rules and resume large gatherings as well at major events, like the National Day Parade or New Year Countdown. Businesses will have certainty that their operations will not be disrupted.
Fifth, we will be able to travel again, at least to countries that have also controlled the virus and turned it into an endemic norm. We will recognise each other's vaccination certificates. Travellers, especially those vaccinated, can get themselves tested before departure and be exempted from quarantine with a negative test upon arrival.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
That would be incredibly tin eared. Local people object to something so central government double down to punish them. Johnson would lose his own seat.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
Chesham Bois would be a perfect place to start…
Incidentally, how you pronounce the ‘Bois’ part of that wooded area’s name is a good indication of how well you know Amersham.
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
SOP to have a representative from the state broadcaster and a hack from a right wing, bellicose tabloid on a warship engaged on some performative confrontation.
Only it’s usually a ship of the Военно-морской флот.
Does all that Военно-морской флот just mean Navy? Or is Google translate letting me down?
Yes - war-sea fleet, literally. Although usually given as -ский in the nominative. The Black Sea Fleet is the Черноморский Флот.
Oops, I'm wrong about - ской, it's one of those adjectives that's stressed at the end, like большой.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
We need to direct building to more deprived, less economically active regions, not continue to overheat London and the South-East, including Chesham and Amersham.
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
SOP to have a representative from the state broadcaster and a hack from a right wing, bellicose tabloid on a warship engaged on some performative confrontation.
Only it’s usually a ship of the Военно-морской флот.
Does all that Военно-морской флот just mean Navy? Or is Google translate letting me down?
Yes - war-sea fleet, literally. Although usually given as -ский in the nominative. The Black Sea Fleet is the Черноморский Флот.
Oops, I'm wrong about - ской, it's one of those adjectives that's stressed at the end, like большой.
As in the ballet, or is my very rusty scrap of Russian letting me down?
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes. This is not just poll tax returning, it is more difficult. Poll tax could be reversed.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
If it was a straight contest between a supporter of Palestinian rights and an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu there would be no contest. Labour are expected to sleep with the angels particularly in opposition. Something Starmer hasn't grasped. It wasn't a loathing of nasty right wing governments that lost Corbyn the election but that he was hopeless and likely to bankrupt the country.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
If it was a straight contest between a supporter of Palestinian rights and an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu there would be no contest. Labour are expected to sleep with the angels particularly in opposition. Something Starmer hasn't grasped. It wasn't a loathing of nasty right wing governments that lost Corbyn the election but that he was hopeless and likely to bankrupt the country.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
The one thing that Labour and Westminster don't have enough of: banging on about Palestine.
If it was a straight contest between a supporter of Palestinian rights and an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu there would be no contest. Labour are expected to sleep with the angels particularly in opposition. Something Starmer hasn't grasped. It wasn't a loathing of nasty right wing governments that lost Corbyn the election but that he was hopeless and likely to bankrupt the country.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
"...it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament..."
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
Not materially
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
Not materially
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes. This is not just poll tax returning, it is more difficult. Poll tax could be reversed.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
" The Tories may be riding high in the polls today, but they will soon have to grapple with some nightmarish challenges."
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
Jenrick is finished. Someone will have to take the blame when the screeching u-turn is implemented.
From some of the toughest border control in the CTA - now no control (testing, quarantine) for the fully vaccinated from the CTA - "COVID will get in, but we'll cope, and we have to learn to live with it". There are ZERO internal NPIs.....
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Is George W Bush the greatest American President? I doubt it. He did, however, face 9/11 at the beginning of his term, and the Global Financial Crisis at the end.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Is George W Bush the greatest American President? I doubt it. He did, however, face 9/11 at the beginning of his term, and the Global Financial Crisis at the end.
Moving the goalposts… I just said that Boris has done some meaningful things in his time in office…
But to be fair to GW: 9/11 has not been repeated on American soil and the system didn’t go bankrupt in the financial crisis
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
Not materially
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
Come to think of it, if the first quarter relates to the financial rather than calendar year, then Harry and Clarence House might be in agreement. The impression to an American audience, which for some reason starts its years in January, would be different. Either way, there is not much in it. As you suggest, it is all about spin, and I would not mind being a pound behind Harry even after he was allegedly cut off.
If Boris can't stand up to a bunch of UEFA bureaucrats what chance has he when it comes to Vladimir Putin?
The exemptions for members of international organizations have existed since the travel restrictions were first introduced.
This isn’t about the UEFA members as such, more about the journalists, sponsors, their guests and other associated hangers-on.
The plan seems to be that they come in on dedicated flights, go straight to the stadium or dedicated hotels, then straight back to the airport after the match.
Not an easy call to make though, especially with a belligerent UEFA threating to take their ball elsewhere
If it was a straight contest between a supporter of Palestinian rights and an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu there would be no contest. Labour are expected to sleep with the angels particularly in opposition. Something Starmer hasn't grasped. It wasn't a loathing of nasty right wing governments that lost Corbyn the election but that he was hopeless and likely to bankrupt the country.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
I know you like to find new opposition parties, but Galloway is something else. Derek Hatton without the business skills. And a nice side order of sectarianism included with the package.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
Hence part of the problem. The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices; https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere. The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
How big an issue is Palestine really in Batley and Spen? Obviously it matters to some people but it needs quantifying.
Galloway knows what makes the muslim vote tick.
Is George Galloway a Muslim himself?
Looks it up. Why he is so funny about not just saying if has converted or not? Its like Jezza and his unwillingness to just say if he has been vaccinated.
It's an example of Schrödinger's catsuit,
Yes he plays a bizarre game on this - in one election, he claimed that his Muslim opponent had been seen eating pork. While pointing out that he, Galloway, didn't drink or eat pork. Wink, Wink, Nudge.....
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
"Maintaining the right of innocent passage" they are saying on the news this morning.
Also, what evidence do we have for believing Galloway is "pond life"?
I have not heard him make outright racist/anti-Semitic statements. He is pro-Palestinian, that is fair enough. He is a friend of Islam. That is obviously defensible. He has been sacked for questioning the rape charges against Assange, who hasn't wondered about them?
He's eccentric and narcissistic, with a colourful, quirky private life. So what. He's also a fine orator and a British unionist. Good! He publicly chastised the Americans over Iraq. Excellent work
Why is he regarded as a pariah? This is such an accepted opinion I never questioned it until now, but on scrutiny I am not sure it holds up
Iirc he skimmed the charitable donations he solicited for Palestine
These days it's a bit safer to go after Galloway with accurate reporting, as he used to have quite the line in winning defamation actions, but has rather lost his touch.
More recently he has made multiple threats of legal action which he did not appear to follow through.
If it was a straight contest between a supporter of Palestinian rights and an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu there would be no contest. Labour are expected to sleep with the angels particularly in opposition. Something Starmer hasn't grasped. It wasn't a loathing of nasty right wing governments that lost Corbyn the election but that he was hopeless and likely to bankrupt the country.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
I know Galloway quite well, and a key fact about him as a politicians is that he has zero interest in his constituents - he's about himself. Nor is he really interested in Palestine. I was a co-founder of Labour Friends of Palestine while he was a Labour MP and he never bothered to join - not because he said he disagreed with anything we were doing, but he just didn't show any interest.
I remember when I was chair of a medical all-party group I had a letter from one of his constituents who had written asking for advice about what she could ask for under the NHS to address her rare disease. He replied: "Dear ..., Thank you for your support. I appreciate it." Many colleagues had similar experiences, and the MP in the next constituency built up a long list of his constituents who came to the neighbour in desperation as Galloway simply didn't respond meaningfully.
You know my soft spot for left-wingers. Galloway isn't one. He's just an egocentric chancer, and currently he's objectively a useful idiot for the Tories.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
Hence part of the problem. The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices; https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere. The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
No, I can't see it happening.
It's exactly this. Our housing market has turned a large portion of the population into investors. We react to any move to change this in the same way the markets respond to federal reserve threats to taper QE or raise interest rates. I am one of them - once you have your long term family home, it is 100% in your interest for house prices to rise for the rest of your life. So most people over, say, 35-40 have a vested interest for the remaining 40 years of their lives.
The only plausible solution to this if you're committed to do something about supply, is wage and general goods inflation, probably coupled with currency devaluation. Enables younger people to get on to the ladder, brings UK property more in line internationally, but continues to give house owners headline price rises and erosion of the real value of their mortgages while real terms housing values decline.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Losing the American colonies was a pretty big legacy for Lord North.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Altogether now. KUMBAYA!
STRONG BORIS! GREAT NATION! 🇬🇧 STRONG BORIS! GREAT NATION! 🇬🇧
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
Not materially
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
Come to think of it, if the first quarter relates to the financial rather than calendar year, then Harry and Clarence House might be in agreement. The impression to an American audience, which for some reason starts its years in January, would be different. Either way, there is not much in it. As you suggest, it is all about spin, and I would not mind being a pound behind Harry even after he was allegedly cut off.
Never take anything anyone says about finances unless and until they disclose audited accounts and tax returns. As in tricky cases this is Never Never Ever the discussion is futile.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
Jenrick is finished. Someone will have to take the blame when the screeching u-turn is implemented.
If Jenrick is finished and there is a screeching u-turn on doing the right thing then that will be the biggest domestic mistake since Tony Blair told Frank Field to think the unthinkable, then sacked him for thinking the unthinkable.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
Presumably in case we can't end restrictions on 19 July?
Or possibly as lessons learnt for the next pandemic as an alternative to a full lockdown.
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
"Maintaining the right of innocent passage" they are saying on the news this morning.
How big an issue is Palestine really in Batley and Spen? Obviously it matters to some people but it needs quantifying.
Galloway knows what makes the muslim vote tick.
Is George Galloway a Muslim himself?
Looks it up. Why he is so funny about not just saying if has converted or not? Its like Jezza and his unwillingness to just say if he has been vaccinated.
It's an example of Schrödinger's catsuit,
Yes he plays a bizarre game on this - in one election, he claimed that his Muslim opponent had been seen eating pork. While pointing out that he, Galloway, didn't drink or eat pork. Wink, Wink, Nudge.....
Followed by a couple of people talking about having pints with him in the relevant time period iirc.
How big an issue is Palestine really in Batley and Spen? Obviously it matters to some people but it needs quantifying.
Galloway knows what makes the muslim vote tick.
Is George Galloway a Muslim himself?
Looks it up. Why he is so funny about not just saying if has converted or not? Its like Jezza and his unwillingness to just say if he has been vaccinated.
It's an example of Schrödinger's catsuit,
Yes he plays a bizarre game on this - in one election, he claimed that his Muslim opponent had been seen eating pork. While pointing out that he, Galloway, didn't drink or eat pork. Wink, Wink, Nudge.....
Followed by a couple of people talking about having pints with him in the relevant time period iirc.
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
Yes - two things.
Everyone is supposed to have tested negative before they go; and so what if we're about to move to "no restrictions"?
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
Presumably in case we can't end restrictions on 19 July?
Or possibly as lessons learnt for the next pandemic as an alternative to a full lockdown.
Yep that is my thinking - are we really ending this as in "no restrictions" (domestically) on 19 July?
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
Yes - two things.
Everyone is supposed to have tested negative before they go; and so what if we're about to move to "no restrictions"?
Because the more knowledge we have the better we can deal with this, if we need to deal with it, either in the future if this goes wrong - or potentially for a future pandemic.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Why would you not want to have more knowledge? What is lost by gaining knowledge, even if its not required?
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
Yes - two things.
Everyone is supposed to have tested negative before they go; and so what if we're about to move to "no restrictions"?
Because the more knowledge we have the better we can deal with this, if we need to deal with it, either in the future if this goes wrong - or potentially for a future pandemic.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Why would you not want to have more knowledge? What is lost by gaining knowledge, even if its not required?
Yep let's get as much knowledge as possible. Doesn't sound hugely like we're ending all restrictions on 19th July, though.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
Jenrick is finished. Someone will have to take the blame when the screeching u-turn is implemented.
If Jenrick is finished and there is a screeching u-turn on doing the right thing then that will be the biggest domestic mistake since Tony Blair told Frank Field to think the unthinkable, then sacked him for thinking the unthinkable.
My favourite political joke of the modern era was William Hague's "They told him to think the unthinkable. So he thought it. And they said 'that's unthinkable!'"
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The nature of an emergency is that you do lots of things, many of which turn out to be useless, because you don't know which things will be helpful at the beginning, and you don't want to waste time trying to decide that before starting to do things.
I think when we started to do test events, last summer, it was before we had the positive news about the vaccines, so there would have been a point to them then. They probably retain some value as an academic exercise in terms of how well screening tests and other countermeasures can deal with controlling an airborne virus at mass events. This might be useful information for the next pandemic.
But there will be lots of things like this that we started doing because we didn't know what would work, and now we have to decide to stop doing, because we can rely on the vaccines, because we know that they work.
Just as many organisations will have been slow to adjust to being in an emergency, and doing things differently to normal, it will take a while to adjust to not being in an emergency, and changing again. The PM is finding it hard to make this adjustment. Most people will.
Thanks Dr F for the HurstLama reference yesterday. I'm not on Twitter; can't, TBH, be bothered.
Cracking finish to the World Test Championship yesterday. And a good result against Sri Lanka.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
"Maintaining the right of innocent passage" they are saying on the news this morning.
Bollocks.
Why? Nearly every country with a navy does that. Sweden regularly does so....
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
So de Pfeffel wants to collapse house prices. Very brave.
If Boris can't stand up to a bunch of UEFA bureaucrats what chance has he when it comes to Vladimir Putin?
The exemptions for members of international organizations have existed since the travel restrictions were first introduced.
This isn’t about the UEFA members as such, more about the journalists, sponsors, their guests and other associated hangers-on.
The plan seems to be that they come in on dedicated flights, go straight to the stadium or dedicated hotels, then straight back to the airport after the match.
Not an easy call to make though, especially with a belligerent UEFA threating to take their ball elsewhere
The paps are going to have fun looking for breaches
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
Good.
Millions of people can’t afford to buy their own home at the moment, and the population has increased by 10m people in two decades. The UK needs millions more houses built, yesterday.
What on earth was our Navy doing off the coast of Crimea yesterday? That war finished 165 years ago. And, looking at the BBC last night and the headline in the Mail, how many journalists were on the ship, and why?
Babcock have just signed a big deal to modernise the Ukranian Navy including building two Barza FACs at Southampton. This was apparently achieved despite the crippling handicap of not having a 'National Flagship' to seal the deal. So Defender is in the Black Sea so show Ukraine that the UK is a staunch ally (as long as they keep buying ships).
It's all a bit of theatrical bollocks as there is no military action in the Black Sea that doesn't end with the loss of Defender. There are Oniks anit ship missile batteries at Sevastapol (the famous 'Object 100' complex) and Apan in Krasnador Krai plus multiple mobile Bastion-P batteries.
I think when we started to do test events, last summer, it was before we had the positive news about the vaccines, so there would have been a point to them then. They probably retain some value as an academic exercise in terms of how well screening tests and other countermeasures can deal with controlling an airborne virus at mass events. This might be useful information for the next pandemic.
Men gathering indoors to watch Euro 2020 have been blamed for a surging Covid-19 gender gap after case numbers reached record levels.
Figures released yesterday showed 2,969 cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, eclipsing the 2,649 cases recorded during the peak of the winter second wave.
In recent days about two thirds of cases among people aged 15 to 44 have been men. The unprecedented spike has coincided with the Euros football tournament, with Glasgow hosting matches as well as an outdoor fanzone for up to 6,000 supporters a day.
How many more superspreader test events does BoZo need?
OT former British and Commonwealth Heavyweight Champion boxer Brian London died yesterday.
Which is an excuse to look at the Brawl in Porthcawl, which kicked off after he thumped one of his opponent's entourage at the end of the bout, and both camps waded into each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCr519cSQvw
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
They said the same about Blair’s independence for the BoE and Scottish devolution. Neither seem like “legacies” the current Labour leadership feel particularly proud of… or benefit from.
The software entrepreneur John McAfee, 75, has been found dead in his jail cell in Spain from an apparent suicide by hanging, hours after the country’s highest court approved his extradition to the United States on tax-related criminal charges. McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus suite, was arrested last October at Barcelona’s international airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul. The creator of one of the most-used virus protection brands worldwide was a controversial figure, cryptocurrency promoter, tax opponent and fugitive who twice made long-shot runs for the US presidency.
Lots of inconvenient people committing suicide in prisons recently
John McAfee seems to have been mentally unhinged as well as being the kind of person I would leave town to avoid, but I did like the way he called the McAfee antivirus package (albeit only after it was owned by Intel) the "worst software on the planet".
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
I feel like they are things running in parallel to find the way ahead. If you can’t use mass vaccination as the single tool, big gatherings could be made safer by using testing in advance to limit the number of cases that are caused. Think like pre WW2. Lots of fighter and bomber planes were produced, with varying results. In the end the spitfire (early years), the Lancaster and the mosquito won the contest. In our situation it looks like mass vaccination will win, but it has been useful to have other approaches. Plus, for all talk of super spreading events, I suspect very little observational work has ever been done, but a lot of modelling. Some of the events have been very well observed.
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So the question is whether it was the first or the second quarter (aka "until the summer"). Does a few weeks here or there make any material difference?
Not materially
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
He’s nearly 40 years old, he should be able to stand by now on his own two feet.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
Yep - basically once your area is designated for growth, it'd be a free for all. Driving a coach and horses through our existing planning system.
Jenrick is finished. Someone will have to take the blame when the screeching u-turn is implemented.
If Jenrick is finished and there is a screeching u-turn on doing the right thing then that will be the biggest domestic mistake since Tony Blair told Frank Field to think the unthinkable, then sacked him for thinking the unthinkable.
My favourite political joke of the modern era was William Hague's "They told him to think the unthinkable. So he thought it. And they said 'that's unthinkable!'"
Hague was much funnier than Johnson and yet the latter is known for his humour.
I think when we started to do test events, last summer, it was before we had the positive news about the vaccines, so there would have been a point to them then. They probably retain some value as an academic exercise in terms of how well screening tests and other countermeasures can deal with controlling an airborne virus at mass events. This might be useful information for the next pandemic.
Men gathering indoors to watch Euro 2020 have been blamed for a surging Covid-19 gender gap after case numbers reached record levels.
Figures released yesterday showed 2,969 cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, eclipsing the 2,649 cases recorded during the peak of the winter second wave.
In recent days about two thirds of cases among people aged 15 to 44 have been men. The unprecedented spike has coincided with the Euros football tournament, with Glasgow hosting matches as well as an outdoor fanzone for up to 6,000 supporters a day.
How many more superspreader test events does BoZo need?
It might take a few more before he realises that it only leads to modest increases in hospitalization, because the vaccines work, and so the emergency is over and we can lift restrictions.
I think when we started to do test events, last summer, it was before we had the positive news about the vaccines, so there would have been a point to them then. They probably retain some value as an academic exercise in terms of how well screening tests and other countermeasures can deal with controlling an airborne virus at mass events. This might be useful information for the next pandemic.
Men gathering indoors to watch Euro 2020 have been blamed for a surging Covid-19 gender gap after case numbers reached record levels.
Figures released yesterday showed 2,969 cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, eclipsing the 2,649 cases recorded during the peak of the winter second wave.
In recent days about two thirds of cases among people aged 15 to 44 have been men. The unprecedented spike has coincided with the Euros football tournament, with Glasgow hosting matches as well as an outdoor fanzone for up to 6,000 supporters a day.
How many more superspreader test events does BoZo need?
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
So de Pfeffel wants to collapse house prices. Very brave.
Do you think high house prices are a good thing?
An increase in supply won't itself lead to a collapse in house prices, I wouldn't have thought, because it will happen gradually. All other things being equal (which they won't be), an increase in supply would lead to a gradual real terms reduction in house prices. Which would be a good thing.
I think we can generally agree that high house prices are bad but that house price collapses are bad. The only solution I see to this is gradual real terms reductions.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
Hence part of the problem. The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices; https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere. The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
No, I can't see it happening.
It's exactly this. Our housing market has turned a large portion of the population into investors. We react to any move to change this in the same way the markets respond to federal reserve threats to taper QE or raise interest rates. I am one of them - once you have your long term family home, it is 100% in your interest for house prices to rise for the rest of your life. So most people over, say, 35-40 have a vested interest for the remaining 40 years of their lives.
The only plausible solution to this if you're committed to do something about supply, is wage and general goods inflation, probably coupled with currency devaluation. Enables younger people to get on to the ladder, brings UK property more in line internationally, but continues to give house owners headline price rises and erosion of the real value of their mortgages while real terms housing values decline.
The issue isn’t rising house prices, it’s rising house prices as a multiple of average wages. That’s largely a factor of low interest rates and an inability of the government to use their commercial weight in housing benefit to push down rents
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Losing the American colonies was a pretty big legacy for Lord North.
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
The reality is generally that definitive results are reported well after policy debates have moved on.
In that vein, this just published paper...
Assessing the Association Between Social Gatherings and COVID-19 Risk Using Birthdays https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2781306 This cross-sectional study used administrative health care data on 2.9 million households from the first 45 weeks of 2020 and found that, among households in the top decile of county COVID-19 prevalence, those with birthdays had 8.6 more diagnoses per 10 000 individuals compared with households without a birthday, a relative increase of 31% of county-level prevalence, an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 15.8 per 10 000 persons after a child birthday, and an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 5.8 per 10 000 among households with an adult birthday....
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
Hence part of the problem. The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices; https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere. The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
No, I can't see it happening.
It's exactly this. Our housing market has turned a large portion of the population into investors. We react to any move to change this in the same way the markets respond to federal reserve threats to taper QE or raise interest rates. I am one of them - once you have your long term family home, it is 100% in your interest for house prices to rise for the rest of your life. So most people over, say, 35-40 have a vested interest for the remaining 40 years of their lives.
The only plausible solution to this if you're committed to do something about supply, is wage and general goods inflation, probably coupled with currency devaluation. Enables younger people to get on to the ladder, brings UK property more in line internationally, but continues to give house owners headline price rises and erosion of the real value of their mortgages while real terms housing values decline.
The issue isn’t rising house prices, it’s rising house prices as a multiple of average wages. That’s largely a factor of low interest rates and an inability of the government to use their commercial weight in housing benefit to push down rents
Its got absolutely nothing to do with low interest rates and is entirely to do with massive demand outstripping supply.
Increase supply and constrain demand and price ratios will fall down naturally. Though probably without a price collapse, since it will be gradual.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
They said the same about Blair’s independence for the BoE and Scottish devolution. Neither seem like “legacies” the current Labour leadership feel particularly proud of… or benefit from.
Sure. I was being deliberately non-judgemental about Boris’s legacies - just pointing out it’s unfair to criticise him for not grappling with big issues
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
This is the Palace fightback that was mentioned last week. They’re breaking the no-comment habit of a lifetime to deal with the Californian problem.
Not quite - they published their annual report & accounts and then answered questions. Purely in the name of transparency. Purely. 😉
I’m waiting for their ‘foundation’ to really get going, and quite looking forward to the lack of understanding of the differences between US and UK charity law when it comes to expenses. They will have done nothing illegal under US law, but to a British audience they’ll be totally taking the piss.
George Osborne, I swear, is Schrödinger's immigrant personified.
George Osborne @George_Osborne I’m hugely thrilled & honoured to be the next Chair of the British Museum, elected by the Trustees. All my life I’ve loved the BM. To my mind, it’s the greatest museum in the world - a place that tells the common story of humanity. That’s something to be proud of and celebrate
The BM have certainly done an extraordinary job of 'collecting' stuff made by humanity to tell that common story.
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
To govern is to choose. To win elections is to avoid choosing when all choices are sub optimal.
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
No truly great Prime Minister has become so by shirking the big choices.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
TBF getting through COVID, albeit somewhat inelegantly at times, and Brexit are two pretty big legacies for a PM
Losing the American colonies was a pretty big legacy for Lord North.
Yes, and no one remembers anything else he did.
Yet nobody thinks bitterly about David Lloyd George for "losing" Ireland.
Its not so much losing the colonies which is toxic for Lord North, its him gambling everything on keeping them from the Intolerable Acts through to the War and losing anyway.
A bit like Black Wednesday. Leaving the ERM wasn't bad, gambling everything on trying to stay in and failing to do so was bad.
So what's with these domestic events, then? They are supposed to be for "research" ie how/does the virus transmit at such places (although no one who has the virus is supposed to be there).
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
The theory is that they are monitored and tested experiments in the effects of having mass gatherings. Not so much tests of how the virus transmits, but tests on the efficacy of the various measures in preventing such mass meetings being seeding events.
Yes - two things.
Everyone is supposed to have tested negative before they go; and so what if we're about to move to "no restrictions"?
Because the more knowledge we have the better we can deal with this, if we need to deal with it, either in the future if this goes wrong - or potentially for a future pandemic.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Why would you not want to have more knowledge? What is lost by gaining knowledge, even if its not required?
Yep let's get as much knowledge as possible. Doesn't sound hugely like we're ending all restrictions on 19th July, though.
There's so much rubbish and self-contradiction, from the "expert" on Radio 4 this morning using the word "immunisation" to mean "two-times vaccination against Covid-19" to the idea that it's advisable and may even be obligatory for British residents to be double-vaccinated if they want to go on holiday to certain countries and not be quarantined on their return but fine if they take unvaccinated children with them who similarly won't be quarantined. I am not a zerocovidian but I do baulk at being encouraged by the authorities to "hold two completely contradictory thoughts simultaneously while believing both of them to be true".
The centre piece of forthcoming [planning] bill is still very much in place. The idea is to gut the existing planning system and replace it with American-style “zoning”. Local authorities would be forced to divide up their communities between three types of zone: “protected”, “renewal” and “growth”. In the growth zones, outline planning permission would be granted automatically to qualifying developments and the rights of local people to object drastically curtailed.
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
The alternative approach being to pick on a few places and force them to become cities against their will, rather than spreading new building everywhere?
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
I didn't realise it was based on American-style “zoning”.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
UK house prices £366 ($511) per sq ft US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
Hence part of the problem. The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices; https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere. The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
No, I can't see it happening.
It's exactly this. Our housing market has turned a large portion of the population into investors. We react to any move to change this in the same way the markets respond to federal reserve threats to taper QE or raise interest rates. I am one of them - once you have your long term family home, it is 100% in your interest for house prices to rise for the rest of your life. So most people over, say, 35-40 have a vested interest for the remaining 40 years of their lives.
The only plausible solution to this if you're committed to do something about supply, is wage and general goods inflation, probably coupled with currency devaluation. Enables younger people to get on to the ladder, brings UK property more in line internationally, but continues to give house owners headline price rises and erosion of the real value of their mortgages while real terms housing values decline.
The issue isn’t rising house prices, it’s rising house prices as a multiple of average wages. That’s largely a factor of low interest rates and an inability of the government to use their commercial weight in housing benefit to push down rents
Its got absolutely nothing to do with low interest rates and is entirely to do with massive demand outstripping supply.
Increase supply and constrain demand and price ratios will fall down naturally. Though probably without a price collapse, since it will be gradual.
Banks are hugely focused on ability to repay. This is dependent on prevailing interest rates. If interest rates rise, affordability decreases, lending falls and prices fall.
Typically supply/demand results in a 10% swing around the base price.
Comments
It’s pure political poison. Every “growth zone” in the country would be seen as a building site in waiting — and every one of them surrounded by angry, disenfranchised residents. So all the ingredients are in place for a major backbench rebellion: dozens of anxious MPs; a choice of high profile potential leaders — including Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt; an opportunistic opposition; a pitifully weak Secretary of State (Robert Jenrick); and, worst of all, a truly terrible set of policies that deserve to be torn to shreds anyway.
William Hague has argued that planning reform could be Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax. It’s a lot worse than that. The Poll Tax was an unforced error. And once Margaret Thatcher was out of the way, it was easy to reverse ferret. On planning reform, however, Boris Johnson is in a much tighter spot.
An article that goes on to float an alternative approach:
https://unherd.com/2021/06/a-cunning-plan-to-save-the-blue-wall/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=69096e2143&mc_eid=836634e34b
I can't seem to find one online. Saw it on the BBC TV last night but can only see it text "winner 6 v winner 5" etc now.
Though rumours that the RN is to be renamed OBONN are yet to be confirmed.
Its an interesting approach. Start with Chesham and Amersham pour encourager les autres?
The new norm can perhaps look like this:
First, an infected person can recover at home, because with vaccination the symptoms will be mostly mild. With others around the infected person also vaccinated, the risk of transmission will be low. We will worry less about the healthcare system being overwhelmed.
Second, there may not be a need to conduct massive contact tracing and quarantining of people each time we discover an infection. People can get themselves tested regularly using a variety of fast and easy tests. If positive, they can confirm with a PCR test and then isolate themselves.
Third, instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes: how many fall very sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen, and so on. This is like how we now monitor influenza.
Fourth, we can progressively ease our safe management rules and resume large gatherings as well at major events, like the National Day Parade or New Year Countdown. Businesses will have certainty that their operations will not be disrupted.
Fifth, we will be able to travel again, at least to countries that have also controlled the virus and turned it into an endemic norm. We will recognise each other's vaccination certificates. Travellers, especially those vaccinated, can get themselves tested before departure and be exempted from quarantine with a negative test upon arrival.
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/living-normally-with-covid-19
We need to start at looking at COVID as more than just a "health" issue.....
Incidentally, how you pronounce the ‘Bois’ part of that wooded area’s name is a good indication of how well you know Amersham.
https://twitter.com/bbcgaryr/status/1407941973777031177?s=21
I note @KatySClark seems to have put her title, Baroness Clark of Kilwinning, entirely behind her.
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/prime-minister-scott-morrison-warns-reopening-australias-borders-could-lead-to-5000-cases-a-day/news-story/2832e904c76766a10aa94dc4356b7ca2
So no problem with scaring everyone off the vaccines
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/latest-tga-report-cites-possible-link-between-heart-condition-and-pfizer/news-story/76225419b46130b830e050cf0a922ab8
The Prince of Wales continued to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a "substantial sum" in the months after they stood down as senior royals, Clarence House has said.
Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey his family "cut me off financially" in the first quarter of 2020.
A Clarence House spokesman said Prince Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until that summer - but they were now financially independent.
The Sussexes have yet to comment.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57589216
https://twitter.com/agoodfireburns/status/1407950485672374274?s=21
Governing and winning elections have never been entirely compatible occupations, something which means that some sort of authoritarianism is always an option, however slight.
The poll tax was a decent example of a car crash choice which was an unforced error - everyone knew there was lots wrong with rates but election didn't turn on it.
Boris has succeeded in everything he has had ambition to try - never lost an important election, became PM against high odds, won London, did Brexit etc.
He doesn't have a track record of a comeback after disaster on his watch - the sort of disaster reflected in consistent polling.
Planning, social care, the post furlough world, unmanageable finances are four areas where this happen, and where choices probably can't be avoided, and where there are only sub optimal (somewhere between very bad and cataclysmic) outcomes. This is not just poll tax returning, it is more difficult. Poll tax could be reversed.
The playing out of this scene will be worth watching.
Wow.
Anyone who has been to the US can tell you what a mess the outskirts of their cities are.
This is Johnson's poll tax. And so early in his administration. I guess he will just go off and make money when he is ousted as Cummings noted.
F1: current forecast is for rain tomorrow. Probably light but may be worth 10p bets on long shots topping qualifying.
Edited extra bit: hmm, long shots only 151. Surprised at that. Not backing anyway, likely to be dry at the start.
Galloway could surprise us all next Thursday. It would be no bad thing either. it's time the beleaguered Palestinians had a voice in the UK Parliament from someone who hasn't been cowed into silence.
Thatcher was a truly great Prime Minister not simply because she was right wing but because she did what she considered was right and carried the country with her, even when it wasn't superficially popular. Everyone remembers the poll tax which was a reform too far, many of the then controversial decisions made before that have stayed with the country through to today.
Blair on the other hand was a mediocre Prime Minister. He had some reforms in mind that got done in 1997 in a big burst of action but then did bugger all besides spend more money and invade Iraq after that.
Boris can choose to take on the issues that need grappling and be a great PM, or he can merely be the PM who muddled us through Covid and have Brexit as his only other legacy.
🤦♂️
LOL
US house prices $155 (£111) per sq ft
But Harry’s phrase was “literally cut me off financially” which doesn’t seem consistent with a generous settlement payment
The conclusion is that he is willing to bend the truth to generate a favourable impression
Allister Heath in Telegraph
Guernsey holds its nerve:
https://guernseypress.com/news/2021/06/24/opening-up/
From some of the toughest border control in the CTA - now no control (testing, quarantine) for the fully vaccinated from the CTA - "COVID will get in, but we'll cope, and we have to learn to live with it". There are ZERO internal NPIs.....
But to be fair to GW: 9/11 has not been repeated on American soil and the system didn’t go bankrupt in the financial crisis
The plan seems to be that they come in on dedicated flights, go straight to the stadium or dedicated hotels, then straight back to the airport after the match.
Not an easy call to make though, especially with a belligerent UEFA threating to take their ball elsewhere
The two electorally triumphant PMs of my lifetime are Thatcher and Blair. They each presided over a rough doubling of real-terms house prices;
https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/
One one hand everyone knows, deep down, that those huge profits have come from somewhere.
The absurd house prices in the UK distort the economy and create massive unfairness between the generations. But rising house prices wins elections.
The Unherd article linked to earlier is worth reading and had some good ideas. But it also misses the point in quite a revealing way. One of the solutions is to pass a law stopping speculators buying houses. That skims over the awkward reality that, if we have a mortgage we are the speculators. There have been too many years where I have made more by having a mortgage than being really good at my job.
And deflating that is going to need technical genius and a willingness to be unpopular.
No, I can't see it happening.
More recently he has made multiple threats of legal action which he did not appear to follow through.
A Google search on "galloway threatens legal action" is quite funny.
https://www.google.com/search?q=galloway+threatens+legal+action&oq=galloway+threatens+legal+action&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160.25805j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Does anyone know if he has actually done any, or is he now in blown-up-rubber-glove-pretending-to-be-a-cockerel territory?
I remember when I was chair of a medical all-party group I had a letter from one of his constituents who had written asking for advice about what she could ask for under the NHS to address her rare disease. He replied: "Dear ..., Thank you for your support. I appreciate it." Many colleagues had similar experiences, and the MP in the next constituency built up a long list of his constituents who came to the neighbour in desperation as Galloway simply didn't respond meaningfully.
You know my soft spot for left-wingers. Galloway isn't one. He's just an egocentric chancer, and currently he's objectively a useful idiot for the Tories.
The only plausible solution to this if you're committed to do something about supply, is wage and general goods inflation, probably coupled with currency devaluation. Enables younger people to get on to the ladder, brings UK property more in line internationally, but continues to give house owners headline price rises and erosion of the real value of their mortgages while real terms housing values decline.
But what's the point of them? Of the "research"? If restrictions end on Jul 19th and we have a quarantine system for incoming travellers and we are not looking to reimpose lockdown...what's the point?
STRONG BORIS! GREAT NATION! 🇬🇧
Or possibly as lessons learnt for the next pandemic as an alternative to a full lockdown.
They were going I think to Georgia.
Everyone is supposed to have tested negative before they go; and so what if we're about to move to "no restrictions"?
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Why would you not want to have more knowledge? What is lost by gaining knowledge, even if its not required?
I think when we started to do test events, last summer, it was before we had the positive news about the vaccines, so there would have been a point to them then. They probably retain some value as an academic exercise in terms of how well screening tests and other countermeasures can deal with controlling an airborne virus at mass events. This might be useful information for the next pandemic.
But there will be lots of things like this that we started doing because we didn't know what would work, and now we have to decide to stop doing, because we can rely on the vaccines, because we know that they work.
Just as many organisations will have been slow to adjust to being in an emergency, and doing things differently to normal, it will take a while to adjust to not being in an emergency, and changing again. The PM is finding it hard to make this adjustment. Most people will.
Read more here: http://ow.ly/rw2d30rLFx4 (1/2) https://twitter.com/britishmuseum/status/1407972580447985667/photo/1
Millions of people can’t afford to buy their own home at the moment, and the population has increased by 10m people in two decades. The UK needs millions more houses built, yesterday.
It's all a bit of theatrical bollocks as there is no military action in the Black Sea that doesn't end with the loss of Defender. There are Oniks anit ship missile batteries at Sevastapol (the famous 'Object 100' complex) and Apan in Krasnador Krai plus multiple mobile Bastion-P batteries.
Men gathering indoors to watch Euro 2020 have been blamed for a surging Covid-19 gender gap after case numbers reached record levels.
Figures released yesterday showed 2,969 cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, eclipsing the 2,649 cases recorded during the peak of the winter second wave.
In recent days about two thirds of cases among people aged 15 to 44 have been men. The unprecedented spike has coincided with the Euros football tournament, with Glasgow hosting matches as well as an outdoor fanzone for up to 6,000 supporters a day.
How many more
superspreadertest events does BoZo need?Which is an excuse to look at the Brawl in Porthcawl, which kicked off after he thumped one of his opponent's entourage at the end of the bout, and both camps waded into each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCr519cSQvw
Plus, for all talk of super spreading events, I suspect very little observational work has ever been done, but a lot of modelling. Some of the events have been very well observed.
An increase in supply won't itself lead to a collapse in house prices, I wouldn't have thought, because it will happen gradually. All other things being equal (which they won't be), an increase in supply would lead to a gradual real terms reduction in house prices. Which would be a good thing.
I think we can generally agree that high house prices are bad but that house price collapses are bad. The only solution I see to this is gradual real terms reductions.
George Osborne, I swear, is Schrödinger's immigrant personified.
In that vein, this just published paper...
Assessing the Association Between Social Gatherings and COVID-19 Risk Using Birthdays
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2781306
This cross-sectional study used administrative health care data on 2.9 million households from the first 45 weeks of 2020 and found that, among households in the top decile of county COVID-19 prevalence, those with birthdays had 8.6 more diagnoses per 10 000 individuals compared with households without a birthday, a relative increase of 31% of county-level prevalence, an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 15.8 per 10 000 persons after a child birthday, and an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses of 5.8 per 10 000 among households with an adult birthday....
Increase supply and constrain demand and price ratios will fall down naturally. Though probably without a price collapse, since it will be gradual.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2021/06/brexit-not-dead-issue-left-needs-answer-europe-question
@George_Osborne
I’m hugely thrilled & honoured to be the next Chair of the British Museum, elected by the Trustees. All my life I’ve loved the BM. To my mind, it’s the greatest museum in the world - a place that tells the common story of humanity. That’s something to be proud of and celebrate
The BM have certainly done an extraordinary job of 'collecting' stuff made by humanity to tell that common story.
Its not so much losing the colonies which is toxic for Lord North, its him gambling everything on keeping them from the Intolerable Acts through to the War and losing anyway.
A bit like Black Wednesday. Leaving the ERM wasn't bad, gambling everything on trying to stay in and failing to do so was bad.
He hasn't grappled with them. He has done everything in his power to defer actually dealing with them to a later date.
EDIT: With one exception. He did grapple covid. Literally. Shook hands with everyone and got infected. Numpty.
Typically supply/demand results in a 10% swing around the base price.