Fairliered said:

eek said:

HarryFreeman said:

Sandpit said:

What did Craig Murray actually do?

He crossed the Junta in Bute house.

He's lucky it's not 20 years on Benbecula breaking rocks.

Nope - he named names of "victims" in a sexual allegation case. That was f***ing stupid and the actual sentence is appropriate in the circumstances.

Actually, he didn’t. In order to work out who the accusers were, you would also have needed some journalists’ reports. Strangely, though, none of the journalists who provided more useful clues, such as Dani Garavelli (whose husband holds a senior position in the Crown Office) were even cautioned, let alone charged. Craig Murray’s most heinous crime was in fact that of crossing the junta in Bute House.

Selebian said:

TOPPING said:

Gardenwalker said:

Andy Burnham is bringing bike hire to Manchester.

About time.
It’s amazing that these schemes - ubiquitous in Europe and increasingly in all Western metros - are almost absent from the U.K (save London).

They have been in several I believe but the abuse of the system lead them to cancel them.

We generally prefer the simpler system of just nicking a nearby bike if you need one. Credit cards/drop-off stations, bit of a faff, innit?

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

The more we sprawl out the more natural space becomes available within walking distance. By having a spread out sprawl we can have green spaces, parks etc between people - but trying to cram as many people into as tiny a space as we can fit them, the less space that people have within walking distance.

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

Barnesian said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

On voter ID, whenever we receive our form from our LA to register we have to sign it, and it clearly states the signature will be checked against the voter return

At the last General Election I had my postal vote rejected because I accidentally put the wrong year of my birth. I was out by one. I put my wife's. I got the letter rejecting it after the election so I couldn't rectify it. I gave myself a slap on the wrist. It could have made a difference but didn't TG.

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

At £350,000 each just about the only person round here who could get a mortgage for one is me.

There needs to be a whole lot of housing that targets a £150,000 or so price range that isn't a flat.

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

We don't have a housing crisis we have an affordability crisis. Ponder the median income and average house prices and you begin to understand the issue.

IanB2 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

MarqueeMark said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

LibDems: Luddite and Proud!

Ironic that the LibDems are for a very open door immigration policy. You just don't want to build houses for them to live in once they get here....

First line of the LibDem policy paper on planning - "We have a chronic shortage of housing across the country, and especially the type of homes people with lower or even middle incomes can afford."

You will be shocked to find out that the LibDem approach is to give more power back to local communities and take it away from developers who build the wrong kind of houses in the wrong locations.

"Wrong kind of houses in the wrong locations"; translation: houses near me. 🙄

What's the right kind of house in the right location? Please don't say brownfield.

Wrong kind of houses in the wrong locations means great that you are building on that massive brownfield site, stupid that all the houses are 4-5 bed "executive" homes and there's a massive local shortage of starter homes.

Developers should be invited to tender to develop housing developments that fit the needs of the community. Not buy the land, refuse to build for just long enough to overrule the council the councillors the community and the MP, then build whatever the fuck you like for the maximum possible profit.

The real problem is that small flats marketed at BTL and foreign investors are generally most profitable yet least in need

RochdalePioneers said:

Fishing said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Dura_Ace said:

Time_to_Leave said:

So, do we think there will be unbriefed surprise to capture the press? Something definitive and infrastructure related? Leeds/Manchester rail?

Return of capital punishment.

It'll play well in Hartlepool. Which is apparently the alpha and omega of policy development in this belle epoque.

Crime is a massive issue for voters in places like Hartlepool. As a town the Tory police cuts have absolutely screwed them - a total lack of resources means Cleveland PD have no overnight accommodation which means anyone lifted in town at night needs to get vanned into Boro which takes the few officers they have off the streets.

"We will hire 20,000 police officers" is a brilliant and popular Tory policy. The true genius is that is has been completely disconnected from who cut more coppers than that in the first place - the Tories. Listening to vox pops from Pools, WWC voters think Labour cut the police.

Of course, the truth is that it was Labour's economic incompetence that meant there was "no money left" (in their own words) and caused the Conservatives to cut the police.

If there was no money left how come there is plenty of money left? We have literally hosed money at people during Covid. The police didn't need a hosepipe of cash, just not malicious cuts aimed at Labour areas.

Dura_Ace said:

I was so bored in that voter ID discussion I bought a bike in another browser tab.

Stuartinromford said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

At £350,000 each just about the only person round here who could get a mortgage for one is me.

There needs to be a whole lot of housing that targets a £150,000 or so price range that isn't a flat.

And how do you reset that- building houses that people want to live in that sell for £150k- without undermining the tier of the market just above where people are currently paying a lot more? You need a heck of a lot of general inflation and/or wage growth with zero house price inflation to get things back into synch.

Any politician- even BoJo- who threads that needle will deserve to stay in office as long as they damn well please.

CursingStone said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

We don't have a housing crisis we have an affordability crisis. Ponder the median income and average house prices and you begin to understand the issue.

If it was an affordability crisis the houses wouldnt be getting occupied. In my area every house gets sold off plan as soon as they are released. The estates have ShowHomes... But they exist to upsell purchasers to buy upgraded fixtures and fittings, the sale of the house isnt a problem.

(we dont have a population boom)

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Fishing said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Dura_Ace said:

Time_to_Leave said:

So, do we think there will be unbriefed surprise to capture the press? Something definitive and infrastructure related? Leeds/Manchester rail?

Return of capital punishment.

It'll play well in Hartlepool. Which is apparently the alpha and omega of policy development in this belle epoque.

Crime is a massive issue for voters in places like Hartlepool. As a town the Tory police cuts have absolutely screwed them - a total lack of resources means Cleveland PD have no overnight accommodation which means anyone lifted in town at night needs to get vanned into Boro which takes the few officers they have off the streets.

"We will hire 20,000 police officers" is a brilliant and popular Tory policy. The true genius is that is has been completely disconnected from who cut more coppers than that in the first place - the Tories. Listening to vox pops from Pools, WWC voters think Labour cut the police.

Of course, the truth is that it was Labour's economic incompetence that meant there was "no money left" (in their own words) and caused the Conservatives to cut the police.

If there was no money left how come there is plenty of money left? We have literally hosed money at people during Covid. The police didn't need a hosepipe of cash, just not malicious cuts aimed at Labour areas.

Because in the decade before Covid the government fixed the roof while the sun was shining.

Brown didn't.

They really didn't. What happened was the Tories spent 10 years arguing that Modern Monetary Theory wasn't valid and then Covid arrived and it was the only option in town,

We should now see a decent infrastructure boom ala the US for similar reasons (albeit from a far better starting point).

Philip_Thompson said:

Stuartinromford said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

At £350,000 each just about the only person round here who could get a mortgage for one is me.

There needs to be a whole lot of housing that targets a £150,000 or so price range that isn't a flat.

And how do you reset that- building houses that people want to live in that sell for £150k- without undermining the tier of the market just above where people are currently paying a lot more? You need a heck of a lot of general inflation and/or wage growth with zero house price inflation to get things back into synch.

Any politician- even BoJo- who threads that needle will deserve to stay in office as long as they damn well please.

Build, build, build. That's how.



Housing price ratios vary dramatically depending upon where construction has been happening and where it hasn't. The Red Wall towns which have been expanding into the countryside with construction has the lowest price ratio of all - isn't that what we should want across the entire country? It works.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1392065441040842755?s=19

IanB2 said:

Barnesian said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

On voter ID, whenever we receive our form from our LA to register we have to sign it, and it clearly states the signature will be checked against the voter return

At the last General Election I had my postal vote rejected because I accidentally put the wrong year of my birth. I was out by one. I put my wife's. I got the letter rejecting it after the election so I couldn't rectify it. I gave myself a slap on the wrist. It could have made a difference but didn't TG.

If only Casino were right and there were "virtually no checks"!

Time_to_Leave said:

Not sure the opposition attack line of “where’s the social care plan” is a very good one. I think it implicitly accepts that the Tories hold all the answers.

Stocky said:

NerysHughes said:

AlistairM said:

contrarian said:

One of the problems with housebuilding right now is building materials prices, which are reported to be rocketing. Copper, for example, is at a record.

Inflationary pressures, higher interest rates and higher taxes threaten to blow Johnson seriously off course in the coming months

No wonder he and Hancock are starting to talk about 'personal responsibility'. It isn't the red wall that is going to concern them from here to the next election. It is the blue one. The reports from the heartlands after May 06 must not be that good.

Anecdotally I have heard that getting cement is proving tricky at the moment. Apparently HS2 is using so much it is causing a shortage. Plus of course lots of people with Covid doing building/garden work. I will need some next month to extend my patio.

As I have been saying for months the Building Industry in the UK is absolutely booming and wages are increasing rapidly.

As an example an Agency contacted me this morning as they have a Mechanical Estimator who wants to change employers. The pre covid rate for such a position in Hampshire was £45-50K. He wants £75K and he will get it.

Inflation is going to rear it's head again isn't it.

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

CursingStone said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

El_Capitano said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

ClippP said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

That makes sense though, since the Conserative Party has become the concrete-over-everything party and to hell with the original inhabitants party.

Good!

What "original inhabitants"? Nobody is having their own private land they inhabit being concreted over do they?

If you mean that selfish hatefilled NIMBY scum aren't able to tell people that land they do not inhabit shouldn't be built on then that is a good thing. Living near some green land doesn't mean you inhabit it.

Do you currently live in the countryside, Philip ?

No I live in a town that has been expanding into the surrounding countryside - and needs to do so because of rising population.

Do you like the accessibility of the countryside from where you are now ?

The countryside will remain accessible, the entire country is accessible with a short drive.

What isn't always accessible is good houses. That's far more important to people's lives.

That's true, but there's plenty of space to build on hoarded brownfield. Many people don't have a car, and even for those that do what often makes a difference to their psychological health and communities is natural space within walking distance, not by car.

That's why we should be encouraging as many homes as possible to be built with 2 dedicated parking spaces per house, to make it easier for people to have a car.

...ran the thinking in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 2021, there's this thing called the climate emergency.

Oh cut the bullshit! Meanwhile in 2021 there's this thing call zero emission vehicles. Meanwhile by 2030 the Internal Combusion Engine is going to be made illegal to retail in new vehicles.

There is no excuse to be anti-car nowadays.

Question - where /how do you charge up your electric car if you live in a place without off road parking.

And how do you put 50 charging options in a car park with 50 narrow parking spaces for 50 flats?

That's precisely the point I was making. That's precisely why I support building more houses with off-road driveways and fewer flats.

A house with two reserved parking spots and charging should be the norm in 2021 not the exception for construction.

No profit in houses compared to 4-5 bed executive homes or flats.

And if the 4 bed "executive" homes round here are typical (and I suspect the none local builder ones are) the houses are little bigger than my 1930's unextended house except they've filled the loft with a large bedroom and an en-suite.

So what's the problem? That sounds great. You have 4 bedrooms in the space of what would have previously been 3, so we're making maximum use of the land. Great value.

Build 400,000 4-bedroom homes per year across the country and the housing crisis would be over rapidly.

We don't have a housing crisis we have an affordability crisis. Ponder the median income and average house prices and you begin to understand the issue.

If it was an affordability crisis the houses wouldnt be getting occupied. In my area every house gets sold off plan as soon as they are released. The estates have ShowHomes... But they exist to upsell purchasers to buy upgraded fixtures and fittings, the sale of the house isnt a problem.

(we dont have a population boom)

rottenborough said:

Time_to_Leave said:

Not sure the opposition attack line of “where’s the social care plan” is a very good one. I think it implicitly accepts that the Tories hold all the answers.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
23m
And you know who is the one politician who has talked seriously and consistently about confronting social-care. Andy Burnham. Which Keir Starmer will be delighted about...

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

williamglenn said:

Philip_Thompson said:

So weird seeing a socially distanced Queen's Speech procession. No awkward smalltalk between Keir and Boris.

"I'm thinking of going for vinyl wallpaper when I move in. Easy to clean. How many rolls did you need again?"

Gardenwalker said:

MarqueeMark said:

MrEd said:

HYUFD said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TimS said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

Hancock on R4 waffled around the social care question: "why aren't you delivering? Johnson said he had a plan etc"

Ended with rather a good speech about how in general "this government delivers" but we are still none the wiser as to when social care will have a plan.

Notable from the discussion was the way he tried to present the Johnson government as completely different from the Tory years before that. As if a new party had been elected frankly.

To be fair, I gather some people in the shires are beginning to think that!

I think this is right. They are a different party with a few old Tory hangers on, in the same way that at least until around 2006 New labour were a different party from Labour.

Step back and look at the current conservative policy suite, and it's a mixture of soft focus populism (let's face it we're not imprisoning dissidents or banning newspapers yet) and super-Keynesian crisis economics. It feels pretty different from what came before.

Exactly. The Conservatives haven't won places like Hartlepool. Johnson's Blue Labour has won them. The old Tories used to be run out of town.

The Tories also lost control of Tunbridge Wells and Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils last week and lost seats in Surrey, areas which contain parliamentary seats they won even in 1997 and 2001, mainly due to gains by the LDs.

The current Tory party is more working class than it has ever been and has made big gains from Labour in the North and Midlands but that has come at the cost of losing some upper middle class voters in the South to the LDs

I don't know about Tunbridge Wells and Surry but I do know from friends in Oxfordshire who would normally be Tory that there is a lot of anger about fields being turned into ugly housing estates. Certainly around the Didcot / Abingdon areas, that seems to be the case.

And the LibDems are the NIMBY party. Look at their election literature......

NIMBYism is entirely appropriate in the countryside.

We are, even where I am currently sitting in London Zone 2, a low-rise country.

To paraphrase Yazz, “the only way is up (in brownfield sites)”.

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

This is why its such a big issue on the doorstep. Places like Stockton have built north of 10,000 homes all across the borough over the last decade or so, yet is told by the government they are not building enough houses.

You do not have a local plan unless you build your government-imposed quota. You cannot shape what developers build and where they build them without a local plan. But the developers sit on the planning permission you give so that despite you having greenlit enough homes to hit the quota you can't hit it as the developers refuse, they can then overrule you and do what the fuck they like.

I have no objection to new houses being built, only to the anarchic way its is done at the moment. Let the community plan housing development zones - building where it makes sense, where the roads can cope, where there are school places. Building the homes needed for that community. Give planning permission. Then tender construction out to the developers.

10,000 homes is a great start. And what is the house price to income ratio in Stockton?

Ideally there should be no quota, just a complete free for all so that planning permission can never be refused, its not even needed to be asked for.

If we're going to have a planning permission system then refusal should only be permitted if house price to earnings ratios are ~3x income, no higher than that. So yes, Stockton should keep building, everywhere should.

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

On levelling up. Laura Trott, MP for Sevenoaks, refusing to admit her constituency is wealthier than Hartlepool. And that money will need to flow from her constituents to elsewhere.
It's not about money she reckons.

The Tories won Hartlepool in the by election last week but lost the Sevenoaks Town county council seat to the LDs, Trott has obviously taken note.

She does not want to see the Tories gain voters in Hartlepool only to lose her voters to the LDs in Sevenoaks

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

This is why its such a big issue on the doorstep. Places like Stockton have built north of 10,000 homes all across the borough over the last decade or so, yet is told by the government they are not building enough houses.

You do not have a local plan unless you build your government-imposed quota. You cannot shape what developers build and where they build them without a local plan. But the developers sit on the planning permission you give so that despite you having greenlit enough homes to hit the quota you can't hit it as the developers refuse, they can then overrule you and do what the fuck they like.

I have no objection to new houses being built, only to the anarchic way its is done at the moment. Let the community plan housing development zones - building where it makes sense, where the roads can cope, where there are school places. Building the homes needed for that community. Give planning permission. Then tender construction out to the developers.

10,000 homes is a great start. And what is the house price to income ratio in Stockton?

Ideally there should be no quota, just a complete free for all so that planning permission can never be refused, its not even needed to be asked for.

If we're going to have a planning permission system then refusal should only be permitted if house price to earnings ratios are ~3x income, no higher than that. So yes, Stockton should keep building, everywhere should.

As Rochdale correcly pointed out it is not planning permission that is the problem, planning permission has already been given by most councils through local plans in suitable areas with the infrastructure to cope.

It is developers land banking and not developing in areas where they already have planning permission that is the issue and where they need to be taken to task and fined if they do not follow through and develop there

That's a load of bollocks, a lie to justify NIMBYism, developments take time. There will always be a pipeline of homes where consent has been granted and hasn't yet happened - its not possible to grant consent and have it built the very next day.

If you want more houses built then widen the pipeline and approve more homes.

If you were to look at developments approved eg five years ago (giving time for construction to be done), then barring times where developers have gone out of business, how many homes are there that have consent from five years ago but haven't yet been built yet?

sarissa said:

One last story from the Scottish Parliament election.

"Independent Green Voice was a tiny (list) party whose five candidates included two former British National Party activists and a man accused of Holocaust denial (he denies the allegation). But did all Scottish voters know this? There are plenty of signs that they didn’t.

While far-Right candidates such as Britain First leader Jayda Fransen won just 46 votes in Glasgow, the anti-immigrant, anti-EU Independent Green Voice won thousands of votes. How come? How many of these voters thought they were voting for the Scottish Greens?

These voters mattered. In Glasgow, for example, where Independent Green Voice took 2,210 votes, the Green Party fell 914 votes short of a second seat on the regional list. In South of Scotland, the Greens were just 115 votes short of taking a seat. Independent Green Voice won 1,690."

I thought the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 (following the 'Literal Democrats' case in 1994 was supposed to stop this tactic?

Stuartinromford said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

This is why its such a big issue on the doorstep. Places like Stockton have built north of 10,000 homes all across the borough over the last decade or so, yet is told by the government they are not building enough houses.

You do not have a local plan unless you build your government-imposed quota. You cannot shape what developers build and where they build them without a local plan. But the developers sit on the planning permission you give so that despite you having greenlit enough homes to hit the quota you can't hit it as the developers refuse, they can then overrule you and do what the fuck they like.

I have no objection to new houses being built, only to the anarchic way its is done at the moment. Let the community plan housing development zones - building where it makes sense, where the roads can cope, where there are school places. Building the homes needed for that community. Give planning permission. Then tender construction out to the developers.

10,000 homes is a great start. And what is the house price to income ratio in Stockton?

Ideally there should be no quota, just a complete free for all so that planning permission can never be refused, its not even needed to be asked for.

If we're going to have a planning permission system then refusal should only be permitted if house price to earnings ratios are ~3x income, no higher than that. So yes, Stockton should keep building, everywhere should.

As Rochdale correcly pointed out it is not planning permission that is the problem, planning permission has already been given by most councils through local plans in suitable areas with the infrastructure to cope.

It is developers land banking and not developing in areas where they already have planning permission that is the issue and where they need to be taken to task and fined if they do not follow through and develop there

And whilst a house price = 3 x earnings rough principle may well be a desirable thing, that ship sailed long ago in many places. I'm in Romford, Zone 6 edge of London. The cheapest 3 bedroom house I can quickly find on the internet is ex-council house, on a big estate with no train or tube access.

£280 000.

That bubble isn't deflating without hurting a lot of people.

Alistair said:

sarissa said:

One last story from the Scottish Parliament election.

"Independent Green Voice was a tiny (list) party whose five candidates included two former British National Party activists and a man accused of Holocaust denial (he denies the allegation). But did all Scottish voters know this? There are plenty of signs that they didn’t.

While far-Right candidates such as Britain First leader Jayda Fransen won just 46 votes in Glasgow, the anti-immigrant, anti-EU Independent Green Voice won thousands of votes. How come? How many of these voters thought they were voting for the Scottish Greens?

These voters mattered. In Glasgow, for example, where Independent Green Voice took 2,210 votes, the Green Party fell 914 votes short of a second seat on the regional list. In South of Scotland, the Greens were just 115 votes short of taking a seat. Independent Green Voice won 1,690."

I thought the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 (following the 'Literal Democrats' case in 1994 was supposed to stop this tactic?

The logog change was the key thing for me. Their new logo had the word Green in massively bigger font than Independent and Voice.

It ended up being a larger Green text logo than the genuine Scottish Green party logo.

Undoubtedly cost the Greens 1 seat and almost certainly 2.

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

This is why its such a big issue on the doorstep. Places like Stockton have built north of 10,000 homes all across the borough over the last decade or so, yet is told by the government they are not building enough houses.

You do not have a local plan unless you build your government-imposed quota. You cannot shape what developers build and where they build them without a local plan. But the developers sit on the planning permission you give so that despite you having greenlit enough homes to hit the quota you can't hit it as the developers refuse, they can then overrule you and do what the fuck they like.

I have no objection to new houses being built, only to the anarchic way its is done at the moment. Let the community plan housing development zones - building where it makes sense, where the roads can cope, where there are school places. Building the homes needed for that community. Give planning permission. Then tender construction out to the developers.

10,000 homes is a great start. And what is the house price to income ratio in Stockton?

Ideally there should be no quota, just a complete free for all so that planning permission can never be refused, its not even needed to be asked for.

If we're going to have a planning permission system then refusal should only be permitted if house price to earnings ratios are ~3x income, no higher than that. So yes, Stockton should keep building, everywhere should.

As Rochdale correcly pointed out it is not planning permission that is the problem, planning permission has already been given by most councils through local plans in suitable areas with the infrastructure to cope.

It is developers land banking and not developing in areas where they already have planning permission that is the issue and where they need to be taken to task and fined if they do not follow through and develop there

And whilst a house price = 3 x earnings rough principle may well be a desirable thing, that ship sailed long ago in many places. I'm in Romford, Zone 6 edge of London. The cheapest 3 bedroom house I can quickly find on the internet is ex-council house, on a big estate with no train or tube access.

£280 000.

That bubble isn't deflating without hurting a lot of people.

We need a period of significant wage inflation - but I'm not sure that can be pulled off.

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

It is very weird, this concept, that “my village/town has taken more than its share”, with all of these plans presumably imposed from on high.

We essentially have a Soviet-style planning system, comprising tractor-style production targets, runaway unaffordability, and acres of Barrett shite.

However, sprawl is not the answer for all the obvious reasons (obvious to all except @Philip_Thompson).

This is why its such a big issue on the doorstep. Places like Stockton have built north of 10,000 homes all across the borough over the last decade or so, yet is told by the government they are not building enough houses.

You do not have a local plan unless you build your government-imposed quota. You cannot shape what developers build and where they build them without a local plan. But the developers sit on the planning permission you give so that despite you having greenlit enough homes to hit the quota you can't hit it as the developers refuse, they can then overrule you and do what the fuck they like.

I have no objection to new houses being built, only to the anarchic way its is done at the moment. Let the community plan housing development zones - building where it makes sense, where the roads can cope, where there are school places. Building the homes needed for that community. Give planning permission. Then tender construction out to the developers.

10,000 homes is a great start. And what is the house price to income ratio in Stockton?

Ideally there should be no quota, just a complete free for all so that planning permission can never be refused, its not even needed to be asked for.

If we're going to have a planning permission system then refusal should only be permitted if house price to earnings ratios are ~3x income, no higher than that. So yes, Stockton should keep building, everywhere should.

As Rochdale correcly pointed out it is not planning permission that is the problem, planning permission has already been given by most councils through local plans in suitable areas with the infrastructure to cope.

It is developers land banking and not developing in areas where they already have planning permission that is the issue and where they need to be taken to task and fined if they do not follow through and develop there

And whilst a house price = 3 x earnings rough principle may well be a desirable thing, that ship sailed long ago in many places. I'm in Romford, Zone 6 edge of London. The cheapest 3 bedroom house I can quickly find on the internet is ex-council house, on a big estate with no train or tube access.

£280 000.

That bubble isn't deflating without hurting a lot of people.

We need a period of significant wage inflation - but I'm not sure that can be pulled off.

Philip_Thompson said:

Without massive construction that will just feed into house price inflation and not reduce the ratio.

If we have inflation plus construction then we can see real house prices go down, but without negative equity.