Can Johnson convince that he’ll keep the Tories in power? – politicalbetting.com

Gardenwalker said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Scott_xP said:

very kind of Downing Street to prove Peter Hennessy’s point within hours of publication https://www.ft.com/content/37a5b18a-77d0-4f17-ae0a-99802396ff36 https://twitter.com/henrymance/status/1528720102895587332/photo/1

Another example would be Boris overruling the Home Secretary and appointments committee to keep Lord Hogan-Howe in the running for NCA chief.

Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.

Lord Hogan-Howe is still being considered for director-general of the NCA even though he failed to make it into the final round of candidates. In a move likely to raise questions of cronyism, No 10 is understood to have knocked back two highly qualified police chiefs interviewed by Priti Patel, the home secretary.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-backs-lord-hogan-howe-to-run-national-crime-agency-pwqjvhjxw (£££)

To be fair to Boris, that’s not a lie per se.
Cronyism, maybe.

LHH is certainly qualified, it’s not like he proposing Dacre.

Gardenwalker said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Scott_xP said:

very kind of Downing Street to prove Peter Hennessy’s point within hours of publication https://www.ft.com/content/37a5b18a-77d0-4f17-ae0a-99802396ff36 https://twitter.com/henrymance/status/1528720102895587332/photo/1

Another example would be Boris overruling the Home Secretary and appointments committee to keep Lord Hogan-Howe in the running for NCA chief.

Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.

Lord Hogan-Howe is still being considered for director-general of the NCA even though he failed to make it into the final round of candidates. In a move likely to raise questions of cronyism, No 10 is understood to have knocked back two highly qualified police chiefs interviewed by Priti Patel, the home secretary.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-backs-lord-hogan-howe-to-run-national-crime-agency-pwqjvhjxw (£££)

To be fair to Boris, that’s not a lie per se.
Cronyism, maybe.

LHH is certainly qualified, it’s not like he proposing Dacre.

Dura_Ace said:

Nigelb said:

.

TOPPING said:

Nigelb said:

TOPPING said:

Pagan2 said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )

In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.

Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.

Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.

I’ve not made a single “anti” @GaryL remark

He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch

I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird


I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good

I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.

Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.

As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.

You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?

Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.

How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?

I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?

A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.

We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.

It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely.
You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.

From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary.
Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.

They have been trying to push back to the 2014 borders since 2014 and failing. That seems a very unlikely prospect. Some semblance of the pre-Feb 2022 borders might be possible but realistically all of the Lugansk oblast and most of Donetsk are gone.

No_Offence_Alan said:

StillWaters said:

RochdalePioneers said:

StillWaters said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Scott_xP said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.

How, exactly?

He told the public what would happen.

They cried "Project fear"

He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement

BartholomewRoberts said:

IshmaelZ said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

TOPPING said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Top political commentator Gary Neville:-

A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant!
https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641

Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?

If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱

Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?

No question, Neville and Linekar.

But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.

Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.

So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased

Not at all.

Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.

That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.

GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.

But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".

Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.

I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits

There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.

The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.

I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits

Yet the vast majority of EU citizens, who were working, were eligible for tax from day 1.

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Gallowgate said:

Oh and better consumer protection and recourse when buying from developers. Caveat emptor works when buying off Joe Bloggs but not when you’re buying off a whopper house builder.

Stuartinromford said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nico679 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Anyway, I am shocked to hear that Number 10 has confessed to have instigated the meeting with Sue Gray. Shocked I tell you.

So they started briefing against Sue Gray and their media arm the DM slagged her off in their front page and now we know they were lying all along .

No 10 is an utter cesspit .

As - also shockingly - is the Heil.

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

StillWaters said:

Dura_Ace said:

Nigelb said:

.

TOPPING said:

Nigelb said:

TOPPING said:

Pagan2 said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )

In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.

Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.

Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.

I’ve not made a single “anti” @GaryL remark

He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch

I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird


I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good

I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.

Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.

As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.

You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?

Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.

How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?

I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?

A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.

We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.

It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely.
You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.

From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary.
Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.

They have been trying to push back to the 2014 borders since 2014 and failing. That seems a very unlikely prospect. Some semblance of the pre-Feb 2022 borders might be possible but realistically all of the Lugansk oblast and most of Donetsk are gone.

The difference is that now they have more support and better offensive weaponry. It may or may not be possible - none of us are in a position to judge - but it is certainly more likely than previously.

Malmesbury said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Why do you need to? If you build enough homes, the prices come down. Including rents.

Incidentally, there are plenty of lenders who will lend on hi-rise. They won't lend on buildings with dodgy construction - but why is that a problem?

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nico679 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Anyway, I am shocked to hear that Number 10 has confessed to have instigated the meeting with Sue Gray. Shocked I tell you.

So they started briefing against Sue Gray and their media arm the DM slagged her off in their front page and now we know they were lying all along .

No 10 is an utter cesspit .

As - also shockingly - is the Heil.

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

I expect it to be "most people would of course resign over it" bad.

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

I’ve been saying something similar for years.
London is exceptionally low-rise.

Paris says hello!

It does.
Paris has less green space than I’d like, but nobody is saying Paris (inside the periphique) is some kind of dystopian hellhole.

There are loads of tower blocks (office and residential) in London.

Not by global standards.

It depends what standards you choose to compare to. If you only want to compare against Manhattan that's going to be very different of course.

If you compare to Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Calgary or Toronto you might get a very different answer in the opposite direction.

Europe and the North East seaboard of the United States are fair comparators for London.

I know you want to concrete over the entire countryside, but basically nobody agrees with you.

I don't want to concrete over the entire countryside.

At present 4% of the UK is urban housing and 70% is farming. Even if the stock of housing increased by 25% so that those figures became 5% and 69% respectively, that's pissing in the ocean as far as concreting over the countryside is concerned.

Even if you eliminated all planning tomorrow, the overwhelming majority of the countryside wouldn't be concreted over as there's frankly next to nobody who wants to live there for the overwhelming majority of it.

Ok, but most housing demand is in the South East. So your figures (which contain large areas of wilderness in Scotland) are essentially meaningless.

Even HYUFD understands this.

Actually in the South East the figures are not world's apart from the UK as a whole (since the South East insists upon excluding London from itself as HYUFD was extremely vocal and adamant about).

For the South East the 2020 figures are 9.4% of land is developed, 90.4% is not developed and 0.2% is vacant.

So that again shows why brownfield talk is bollocks there simply isn't that much vacant land, but nor is there any possibility of a 10-fold increase of development in the South East.

So already almost double the percentage of land in the South East is developed compared to the UK as a whole. Even if you exclude London

GaryL said:

Cookie said:

Somewhere beyond Yekaterinburg, 24 hours ago...
"Agent Gary, this war is going poorly. There is a place in the west codenamed 'politicalbetting.com' where great intellectuals discuss matters of importance. You must infiltrate it and distract them with exciting new approaches to punctuation - sow division and discord about the nature of the ellipsis,,,"

i would hesitate using the term "great intellectuals"

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

I’ve been saying something similar for years.
London is exceptionally low-rise.

Paris says hello!

It does.
Paris has less green space than I’d like, but nobody is saying Paris (inside the periphique) is some kind of dystopian hellhole.

There are loads of tower blocks (office and residential) in London.

Not by global standards.

It depends what standards you choose to compare to. If you only want to compare against Manhattan that's going to be very different of course.

If you compare to Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Calgary or Toronto you might get a very different answer in the opposite direction.

Europe and the North East seaboard of the United States are fair comparators for London.

I know you want to concrete over the entire countryside, but basically nobody agrees with you.

I don't want to concrete over the entire countryside.

At present 4% of the UK is urban housing and 70% is farming. Even if the stock of housing increased by 25% so that those figures became 5% and 69% respectively, that's pissing in the ocean as far as concreting over the countryside is concerned.

Even if you eliminated all planning tomorrow, the overwhelming majority of the countryside wouldn't be concreted over as there's frankly next to nobody who wants to live there for the overwhelming majority of it.

Ok, but most housing demand is in the South East. So your figures (which contain large areas of wilderness in Scotland) are essentially meaningless.

Even HYUFD understands this.

Actually in the South East the figures are not world's apart from the UK as a whole (since the South East insists upon excluding London from itself as HYUFD was extremely vocal and adamant about).

For the South East the 2020 figures are 9.4% of land is developed, 90.4% is not developed and 0.2% is vacant.

So that again shows why brownfield talk is bollocks there simply isn't that much vacant land, but nor is there any possibility of a 10-fold increase of development in the South East.

So already almost double the percentage of land in the South East is developed compared to the UK as a whole. Even if you exclude London

Looking at land use in the SE and excluding London is utterly batshit.

Gallowgate said:

We don’t necessarily need high rise, but we do need 6-8 storey medium density housing to maximise the use of space while keeping the scale human.

Stuartinromford said:

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

Stuartinromford said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nico679 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Anyway, I am shocked to hear that Number 10 has confessed to have instigated the meeting with Sue Gray. Shocked I tell you.

So they started briefing against Sue Gray and their media arm the DM slagged her off in their front page and now we know they were lying all along .

No 10 is an utter cesspit .

As - also shockingly - is the Heil.

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

Leon said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Andy_JS said:

Leon said:

GaryL said:

Leon said:

The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?

This is fun


“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.

One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/05/linguist-gretchen-mcculloch-interview-because-internet-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Oh you are obsessed with me Leon I get it you are falling in love with me a bit Maybe a week together for us in mykonos my good friend

Aha!

Mykonos. THE classic destination for old gay Russians

Are you still in Greece.

Yes, but only a few more days

Thank god!

Surely that depends on where I’m going NEXT

Stark_Dawning said:

Stuartinromford said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nico679 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Anyway, I am shocked to hear that Number 10 has confessed to have instigated the meeting with Sue Gray. Shocked I tell you.

So they started briefing against Sue Gray and their media arm the DM slagged her off in their front page and now we know they were lying all along .

No 10 is an utter cesspit .

As - also shockingly - is the Heil.

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

Boris will brazen it out whatever happens, but I think there's a nervousness in Tory ranks about how it will look if crooked Boris fights the election against an exonerated Sir Keir 'Mr Rules' Starmer. For this reason Boris's people are trying to alter the public psyche into thinking PartyGate never happened - witness the repeated assertions that all Boris did was eat a slice of birthday cake. Painting Sue Gray as some kind of unreliable witness - a lefty show pony overwhelmed by her fifteen minutes of fame - is all part of this.

Cyclefree said:

The first day of the Chelsea Flower Show.

So - https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1528734345032347648?s=21&t=m_Cj7mTjsjU-FC9_RFbQjA

And https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1528736380507017216?s=21&t=m_Cj7mTjsjU-FC9_RFbQjA

And https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1528736676767490048?s=21&t=m_Cj7mTjsjU-FC9_RFbQjA

Flowers, if you were wondering.

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Leon said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Most young Londoners would jump at the chance of owning rather than renting. They wouldn’t give a damn if it’s a flat on floor 23. Just make it a reasonably cool location. East London is the obvious place, especially with the Liz Line

Build a million flats in 10,000 towers. Build so many the price of an E London 2 bed falls to £150,000 and anyone on an average salary can buy one, certainly any young couple

Build them in proper elegant clusters, with one or two super tall central towers, and shorter towers surrounding. Build the infrastructure to go with them, from pubs to shops to gyms. Forget about providing car parking. These are for young urbanites who don’t want to drive

Also relax the insanely cautious height restrictions in London, allow towers up to 1500 feet

I could sort this all out over a brief lunch

Sunil_Prasannan said:

From that Wiki list:

"As of 2020, there are 103 buildings or structures that are at least 100 metres (328 ft) tall in the Greater London metropolitan area, with 22 of these being in the City of London and 25 being in the Canary Wharf / Isle of Dogs district. The Greater London metropolitan area contains the second most skyscrapers of a city in Europe. There are 33 skyscrapers in Greater London that reach a roof height of at least 150 metres (492 ft),[1] with 57 in Moscow, 21 in the Paris Metropolitan Area, 17 in Frankfurt, 16 in Warsaw, 6 in Madrid, 5 each in Milan and Rotterdam, and 4 in Manchester."

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

I’ve been saying something similar for years.
London is exceptionally low-rise.

Paris says hello!

It does.
Paris has less green space than I’d like, but nobody is saying Paris (inside the periphique) is some kind of dystopian hellhole.

There are loads of tower blocks (office and residential) in London.

Not by global standards.

It depends what standards you choose to compare to. If you only want to compare against Manhattan that's going to be very different of course.

If you compare to Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Calgary or Toronto you might get a very different answer in the opposite direction.

Europe and the North East seaboard of the United States are fair comparators for London.

I know you want to concrete over the entire countryside, but basically nobody agrees with you.

I don't want to concrete over the entire countryside.

At present 4% of the UK is urban housing and 70% is farming. Even if the stock of housing increased by 25% so that those figures became 5% and 69% respectively, that's pissing in the ocean as far as concreting over the countryside is concerned.

Even if you eliminated all planning tomorrow, the overwhelming majority of the countryside wouldn't be concreted over as there's frankly next to nobody who wants to live there for the overwhelming majority of it.

Ok, but most housing demand is in the South East. So your figures (which contain large areas of wilderness in Scotland) are essentially meaningless.

Even HYUFD understands this.

Actually in the South East the figures are not world's apart from the UK as a whole (since the South East insists upon excluding London from itself as HYUFD was extremely vocal and adamant about).

For the South East the 2020 figures are 9.4% of land is developed, 90.4% is not developed and 0.2% is vacant.

So that again shows why brownfield talk is bollocks there simply isn't that much vacant land, but nor is there any possibility of a 10-fold increase of development in the South East.

So already almost double the percentage of land in the South East is developed compared to the UK as a whole. Even if you exclude London

Looking at land use in the SE and excluding London is utterly batshit.

It was HYUFD who insisted that London must be excluded, and then you referenced him.

Include London and the South East has awfully low home ownership rates and needs a solution.

Exclude London and the South East is over 90% undeveloped.

You can't cherry pick to include London in one, but exclude it in the other. I'm fine with either, sort it out with HYUFD.

London is not the South East and the South East is not London. It is London which has the lowest home ownership rate of any region in the UK and which needs more high rise in the inner cities and semis in the suburbs.

The South East however has the 3rd highest home ownership level of any UK region and already has enough pressure in its countryside and greenbelt spilling over from underdevelopment in London as it is compared to the rest of the UK

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Leon said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Most young Londoners would jump at the chance of owning rather than renting. They wouldn’t give a damn if it’s a flat on floor 23. Just make it a reasonably cool location. East London is the obvious place, especially with the Liz Line

Build a million flats in 10,000 towers. Build so many the price of an E London 2 bed falls to £150,000 and anyone on an average salary can buy one, certainly any young couple

Build them in proper elegant clusters, with one or two super tall central towers, and shorter towers surrounding. Build the infrastructure to go with them, from pubs to shops to gyms. Forget about providing car parking. These are for young urbanites who don’t want to drive

Also relax the insanely cautious height restrictions in London, allow towers up to 1500 feet

I could sort this all out over a brief lunch

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Gardenwalker said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

I’ve been saying something similar for years.
London is exceptionally low-rise.

Paris says hello!

It does.
Paris has less green space than I’d like, but nobody is saying Paris (inside the periphique) is some kind of dystopian hellhole.

There are loads of tower blocks (office and residential) in London.

Not by global standards.

It depends what standards you choose to compare to. If you only want to compare against Manhattan that's going to be very different of course.

If you compare to Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Calgary or Toronto you might get a very different answer in the opposite direction.

Europe and the North East seaboard of the United States are fair comparators for London.

I know you want to concrete over the entire countryside, but basically nobody agrees with you.

I don't want to concrete over the entire countryside.

At present 4% of the UK is urban housing and 70% is farming. Even if the stock of housing increased by 25% so that those figures became 5% and 69% respectively, that's pissing in the ocean as far as concreting over the countryside is concerned.

Even if you eliminated all planning tomorrow, the overwhelming majority of the countryside wouldn't be concreted over as there's frankly next to nobody who wants to live there for the overwhelming majority of it.

Ok, but most housing demand is in the South East. So your figures (which contain large areas of wilderness in Scotland) are essentially meaningless.

Even HYUFD understands this.

Actually in the South East the figures are not world's apart from the UK as a whole (since the South East insists upon excluding London from itself as HYUFD was extremely vocal and adamant about).

For the South East the 2020 figures are 9.4% of land is developed, 90.4% is not developed and 0.2% is vacant.

So that again shows why brownfield talk is bollocks there simply isn't that much vacant land, but nor is there any possibility of a 10-fold increase of development in the South East.

So already almost double the percentage of land in the South East is developed compared to the UK as a whole. Even if you exclude London

Looking at land use in the SE and excluding London is utterly batshit.

It was HYUFD who insisted that London must be excluded, and then you referenced him.

Include London and the South East has awfully low home ownership rates and needs a solution.

Exclude London and the South East is over 90% undeveloped.

You can't cherry pick to include London in one, but exclude it in the other. I'm fine with either, sort it out with HYUFD.

London is not the South East and the South East is not London. It is London which has the lowest home ownership rate of any region in the UK and which needs more high rise in the inner cities and semis in the suburbs.

The South East however has the 3rd highest home ownership level of any UK region and already has enough pressure in its countryside and greenbelt spilling over from underdevelopment in London as it is compared to the rest of the UK

Okay so if you're adamant that London isn't part f the South East then you must accept you can't include London within your development figures. What's source for the goose ...

Which means 9% of the South East is developed of which some is residential, some is commercial or transport, some is industrial and some is other uses. So not far off UK wide figures actually.

And over 90% of the South East, by your own definition of the South East, is undeveloped.

Stark_Dawning said:

Stuartinromford said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nico679 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Anyway, I am shocked to hear that Number 10 has confessed to have instigated the meeting with Sue Gray. Shocked I tell you.

So they started briefing against Sue Gray and their media arm the DM slagged her off in their front page and now we know they were lying all along .

No 10 is an utter cesspit .

As - also shockingly - is the Heil.

Only one question remains.

Was the pre-emptive briefing against Sue Gray because her report is really bad for Bozza? Or is it just because dishonest studs-first is what he always does?

Boris will brazen it out whatever happens, but I think there's a nervousness in Tory ranks about how it will look if crooked Boris fights the election against an exonerated Sir Keir 'Mr Rules' Starmer. For this reason Boris's people are trying to alter the public psyche into thinking PartyGate never happened - witness the repeated assertions that all Boris did was eat a slice of birthday cake. Painting Sue Gray as some kind of unreliable witness - a lefty show pony overwhelmed by her fifteen minutes of fame - is all part of this.

TOPPING said:

OllyT said:

GaryL said:

This from the mail today Of course Russia is no nuclear threat

Russia will soon have 50 '14-storey high' Satan-2 nukes capable of reducing Western enemies into 'radioactive craters', Putin's space agency chief says in new threat 

By Will Stewart for MailOnline07:55, 23 May 2022 , updated 09:08, 23 May 2022

You do realise that we are all laughing at you. You are about as convincing as your military

Let's suppose he's posting from Moscow. Isn't this a great opportunity to discuss with a Russian about all this. Why the insecurity of having to dismiss him. I mean in this case he is simply quoting the MailOnline. Or did he make that up?

Leon said:

Gardenwalker said:

JosiasJessop said:

Gallowgate said:

We don’t necessarily need high rise, but we do need 6-8 storey medium density housing to maximise the use of space while keeping the scale human.

As an aside, tower blocks may not be very liveable for everyone. In my first year at uni, I lived on the ninth floor of a student tower block in South Woodford. I was on crutches for the last term, and when the lift broke down (frequently, for prolonged periods), I would have to go up and down the stairs on crutches.

Not too bad for an otherwise fit 19-year old, but if you are elderly or infirm you are somewhat reliant on 100% working lifts.

So fix the lift, don’t use this as a reason to build two bed semis across the entire country.

I am surrounded by elderly, infirm Jewish people. It is likely the densest concentration of such outside of Tel Aviv.

They all live in apartments.

The special pleading on here is laughable.

It is ridiculous. “The British won’t live in flats, and what if you break an ankle”

Young families ideally need gardens, for everyone else they are nice-to-have, that is all

And given a choice between a flat on floor 28 with a spectacular view of Shoreditch - a flat that you OWN - compared to perpetually renting a bedsit in south Croydon in a low rise ex council block, then 99% of young people will say LET ME OWN

MaxPB said:

Well it happened! We welcomed Jennifer Rose to the world last night, will be off PB for quite a while, back in a few weeks!

MaxPB said:

Well it happened! We welcomed Jennifer Rose to the world last night, will be off PB for quite a while, back in a few weeks!

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Most young Londoners would jump at the chance of owning rather than renting. They wouldn’t give a damn if it’s a flat on floor 23. Just make it a reasonably cool location. East London is the obvious place, especially with the Liz Line

Build a million flats in 10,000 towers. Build so many the price of an E London 2 bed falls to £150,000 and anyone on an average salary can buy one, certainly any young couple

Build them in proper elegant clusters, with one or two super tall central towers, and shorter towers surrounding. Build the infrastructure to go with them, from pubs to shops to gyms. Forget about providing car parking. These are for young urbanites who don’t want to drive

Also relax the insanely cautious height restrictions in London, allow towers up to 1500 feet

I could sort this all out over a brief lunch

Point of order, most flats are leasehold, therefore you don't own them. You just have a very long lease, coupled with unlimited service charges and unlimited liability when things go wrong (as people caught up in the cladding scandal have found out).

There's a reason why the housing market is booming but leasehold flats aren't selling.

Cookie said:

MaxPB said:

Well it happened! We welcomed Jennifer Rose to the world last night, will be off PB for quite a while, back in a few weeks!

Hooray! Well done!
Advice to a first time Dad - remember to look after yourself over the next few days too. Remember to eat. You are no use to your wife and daughter if you are not properly functioning and you cannot run on empty. It is hard work.
But congratulations. Children (though this may take a little while to become apparent) are the best things in the world.

algarkirk said:

kinabalu said:

algarkirk said:

Nigelb said:

These are some of the guys most forcibly arguing abortion bans. This would seem to indicate their utter disregard for women's interests.

Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says
Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/

There is nothing new about bad people attaching themselves to a cause. Nor are ad hominem points a novelty.

The interesting discussion, as always, is between decent people, who apply rules to themselves as well as others, think there is a case for both sides on tricky questions, don't demonise others as extremists and are prepared to change their minds.

Religious people who support choice and feminists who are anti abortion are more interesting places to look than narcissistic fundamentalists.

The problem with seeking balance here is there isn't any. The situation is inherently unbalanced because one of the extremes (Abortion = Murder so the unhappily pregnant woman must be completely subjugated to the foetus she carries) has become a realistic legislative target in many parts of the US.

The fact that extreme views exist and are promoted shows the importance of the discussion also taking place between non extremes. The denial of the validity of any view apart from one's own is itself an extreme mindset. I think we are agreed about that in all probability. So I don't really see your point, though I share your angst.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

For my fellow Ubergeeks (and @Leon and @Gardenwalker ) :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_London

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gardenwalker said:

Leon said:

Gardenwalker said:

JosiasJessop said:

Gallowgate said:

We don’t necessarily need high rise, but we do need 6-8 storey medium density housing to maximise the use of space while keeping the scale human.

As an aside, tower blocks may not be very liveable for everyone. In my first year at uni, I lived on the ninth floor of a student tower block in South Woodford. I was on crutches for the last term, and when the lift broke down (frequently, for prolonged periods), I would have to go up and down the stairs on crutches.

Not too bad for an otherwise fit 19-year old, but if you are elderly or infirm you are somewhat reliant on 100% working lifts.

So fix the lift, don’t use this as a reason to build two bed semis across the entire country.

I am surrounded by elderly, infirm Jewish people. It is likely the densest concentration of such outside of Tel Aviv.

They all live in apartments.

The special pleading on here is laughable.

It is ridiculous. “The British won’t live in flats, and what if you break an ankle”

Young families ideally need gardens, for everyone else they are nice-to-have, that is all

And given a choice between a flat on floor 28 with a spectacular view of Shoreditch - a flat that you OWN - compared to perpetually renting a bedsit in south Croydon in a low rise ex council block, then 99% of young people will say LET ME OWN

I doubt Jeremiah Jessop has ever been to London.

He's just said he lived in a student flat in South Woodford which is on the right hand side of the Central Line and iirc those flats are for Queen Mary College in Mile End, where the Kray twins shot the elephant man, or some such.

kyf_100 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MightyAlex said:

Leon said:

Fairliered said:

Leon said:

Home ownership is a real issue. But we are a crowded island and countryside is precious. The answer is surely towers in the SE esp London. Build UP, build lots and lots of towers until flats in them are affordable for 20-somethings

Young people really don’t mind living in towers if the location is decent. Towers can be glamorous. Manhattan is glamorous, so is Hong Kong. They just want to own not rent

Then when they move into their 30s and 40s the youngsters will already be on the property ladder and they can shift to something suburban with a garden for the kids

Some older people - childless or empty-nesters - would be quite happy with towers as well. IF the location is right

There. Sorted

Not sorted until you can persuade the banks to offer mortgages on high rise flats.

Set up a national mortgage lender if the private ones won’t do it. This is a massive national issue and a generational problem for the Tories. We need to get home ownership rising again. We need it heading to 80% not sliding to 50%

Let the young buy flats in sexy towers. Problem solved. Now I’m off for a haircut

How do you stop buy to let in your new towers?

Change the law. This isn’t hard. The builders only get planning permission if the flats are sold to owner occupiers. SORTED

Yes this will piss off the class of rentier landlords, but, you know, World’s Tiniest Violin etc

There is at least one nice development in central Manchester which is only available to owner occupiers. I don't know how they police it but it is not without precedent.

Most young Londoners would jump at the chance of owning rather than renting. They wouldn’t give a damn if it’s a flat on floor 23. Just make it a reasonably cool location. East London is the obvious place, especially with the Liz Line

Build a million flats in 10,000 towers. Build so many the price of an E London 2 bed falls to £150,000 and anyone on an average salary can buy one, certainly any young couple

Build them in proper elegant clusters, with one or two super tall central towers, and shorter towers surrounding. Build the infrastructure to go with them, from pubs to shops to gyms. Forget about providing car parking. These are for young urbanites who don’t want to drive

Also relax the insanely cautious height restrictions in London, allow towers up to 1500 feet

I could sort this all out over a brief lunch

Point of order, most flats are leasehold, therefore you don't own them. You just have a very long lease, coupled with unlimited service charges and unlimited liability when things go wrong (as people caught up in the cladding scandal have found out).

There's a reason why the housing market is booming but leasehold flats aren't selling.

Yep. 20+ years ago I balked at the opportunity to buy a flat. "I will only own the front door key" was my thought. And now that we have had Grenfell followed by the outrage of so many buildings being clad in "BurnKwik" cladding which the government is happy to leave in place (having taken bungs from property companies) its hardly a surprise that leasehold isn't selling.

I think we do need to build more higher-density housing and that means more blocks. But surely leased is the way to go.

I bought a leasehold flat in London as, at the time, it was all I could afford. It's been a non-stop nightmare of bills, charges and assorted grifters posing as managing agents ever since. If I could do it all over again, I'd simply rent until I could afford to buy a house. Never again.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

As many of you have probably guessed, the Elizabeth Line has been rushed into opening in time for the Platinum Jubilee without it all functioning as one cohesive service.

So, from tomorrow, the central section east of Paddington (low level) including the branch from Whitechapel to Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood, will not yet be connected to Stratford in the east, and Acton in the west. Bond Street platforms are also not ready. But the connections and Bond Street should be ready "by the autumn". Hmmm,,, we'll see!

Also, if you're into trying to take pics of trains arriving/leaving at the stations from Paddington to Canary Wharf, as well as Woolwich - don't bother! Platform edge doors similar to those on the Jubilee line will prevent you having a clear view of the trains or the tracks!

Best places to see the trains on the section that's opening tomorrow are Custom House and Abbey Wood, which are out in the open. Also, there's a footbridge at Silvertown, near LCY Airport, affording views of the route.

Journey time is 29 minutes from Paddington to Abbey Wood. And the frequency is every 5 minutes. Not bad at all for a "main line" service.

Personally, travelling in from Ilford, I aim to change trains at Liverpool Street, head southeast to Abbey Wood, then visit each station on the way back to Liverpool Street, head west through to Paddington (low level), then visit the remaining two stations in Zone 1 (Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon) on the way back to Liverpool Street, thereby doing the route and all nine stations opening tomorrow.

Also, it's bound to be full of media-people and fucking Youtubers tomorrow, so I'm seriously mulling delaying my expedition until Wednesday when it's bound to be less busy. But then, that's just me!

MaxPB said:

Well it happened! We welcomed Jennifer Rose to the world last night, will be off PB for quite a while, back in a few weeks!

Sandpit said:

Well that’s one way to get 25 likes in 15 minutes! Congratulations @MaxPB, wife and daughter.

Pulpstar said:

MaxPB said:

Well it happened! We welcomed Jennifer Rose to the world last night, will be off PB for quite a while, back in a few weeks!

Nice one, hope your first month is smoother than mine was !